Sam Beezley 10FT

November 2004

Abortion And Soul

        Introduction

The issue of abortion

Abortion is an important issue in today’s society. As technology improves, it becomes easier to save premature babies, however it also becomes easier to get an abortion. There are so many different opinions on this subject, but ultimately each individual has to make their own mind up as to whether or not abortion is acceptable.

        The problem of abortion is not just restricted to the UK, the US, and other rich and powerful countries that have the technology to perform this practise. It is a worldwide problem. For example, in Ireland, abortion is strictly illegal so many Irish women find themselves coming to the UK just to have one. If not, they end up going to a back street abortion clinic where the equipment may be dirty or unsafe. Many countries don’t even have this technology to safely abort a pregnancy, and some countries are very religious and so will only do what their Holy Book tells them.

        

What are the statistics?

Globally, around 46 million women have an abortion every year. 78 per cent of these live in developing countries, and 22 per cent live in developed countries. Around 20 million people have abortions in countries where abortion is illegal and possibly unsafe.

        By March 31, 1997, nearly 4.7 million abortions had been performed in England and Wales since the 1967 Abortion Act was passed. Single women make up the largest group of people having abortions- by 1999 they accounted for 70 per cent of abortions in the UK.

Source: Contemporary Moral Issues, by Joe Jenkins

        I will be writing about abortion from as many different angles as possible. I will explain what abortion is, reasons for why abortions are carried out, what the Law says, various opinions on this particular issue, stating both sides of the argument, and also what different religions say about the subject.

What is abortion?

Abortion is the deliberate expulsion of a foetus from its mother’s womb. This means that the pregnancy is terminated deliberately and the baby dies.

        

Why do people abort?

There are various reasons for this. Sometimes the mother and father do not have the ability to support the baby financially and so terminate the pregnancy. Sometimes rape leads to pregnancy. A girl would hate to have to bring up a child with a rapist for a father. She has to go through the trauma of dealing with the rape itself; the last thing she would want is a daily reminder of what happened to her. In some cases the parents are very young, possibly still children themselves, and do not want to take on the responsibility of a baby, maybe because they are afraid of the responsibility or even because they are not mature enough to be able to take the responsibility. Another reason is that the baby could have severe abnormalities, either physically or mentally and the parents just wouldn’t want to have to bring up a child who possibly needed round the clock care for their whole lives. Pregnancy could be the result of an incestuous relationship. Babies born from these have an increased risk of abnormalities because of the gene pool being so small. Incest is an illegal and immoral act in the UK. It is seen as shameful so the mother of the baby would want to get rid of the baby before anybody found out about the relationship. Even if she wasn’t willing to take part, she will still be seen to have brought shame upon her family. Maybe the parents of the unborn child already have many other children and so feel that they cannot cope with another one. Sometimes the family of the mother is put under deliberate pressure to terminate the pregnancy, possibly because the father is from a different culture and so she has brought shame upon her family. Sometimes a mother has to take her religion into consideration. A lot of religions do not believe in sex before marriage and so if she becomes pregnant when she is not married she has obviously broken a rule of her religion. How would she be pregnant if she hadn’t had sex? Often it is just a case of not wanting the baby. The pregnancy was a mistake, either because it was the result of a one-night stand, or if the chosen method of contraception failed. In some cases the baby is suspected to have HIV, the virus leads to the fatal disease AIDS in almost every case. A small cough could prove fatal for the baby and so he/she probably wouldn’t live that long, so it might just be kinder to terminate the pregnancy.

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What does the Law say about abortion?

The Abortion Act was passed in the UK in 1967. It states that two doctors have to sign a certificate giving approval for the abortion to take place. It also state that the grounds for having an abortion are:

  1. If the mother’s life is at risk.
  2. If there is a physical or mental health risk to the woman.
  3. If there is a risk that another child could be a risk to the mental or physical health of existing children.
  4. If there is a risk that the child could be ...

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