Abortion Coursework science in the news

Should abortion be allowed at 24 weeks?

In this report I am going to display facts on abortion time limits, whether it should stay at 24 weeks be reduced or increased. By doing this not only have I gained further knowledge but I have come to a decision on this topic and what I feel is right. In today’s generation Abortion has reached above boundary and has increased over the past few years rapidly, however do you think Mothers going through pain and killing another life form is right or wrong? Or do you believe that that terminating pregnancy in the given time limit is correct as the baby has not really developed and is not a human yet?

Many believe that abortion time limits should be reduced as it is stated at about 24 weeks the foetus is perfectly developed and moves. Professor sunny Anand from the university of Arkansas said that a foetus aborted at 20 weeks can feel “excruciating pain” (Mail online by Nigel Morris) which many people say is unfair as the child who has no say and as it is, is already being removed from this world, know also has to suffer deep pain. Additionally Former conservative minister who demanded for a 12 week limit in abortion told fellow MP’s “we believe an unborn child of 12 weeks has undeniable human characteristics her organs, her muscles, her nerves have begun to function. She has fingernails and toenails she needs nothing more than a few months to stay in the safety of her mothers womb for her to become a child” Conservative minister wishes to reduce the time to about 12 weeks but many think it is too much and would think about 20 weeks would be sufficient as you may see in the table below. (Wikipedia)

Even so Many people suggest that abortion should be kept at a 24 week limit there are many explanations to this and to keep my report reasonable from both aspects here are a few: ( Tory MP changed in own words)

Women should not be pushed in to having an abortion before they make there decision. A reduction in time may force women who are stuck between whether to keep there pregnancy or making a choice to definitely terminate it before even thinking it through clearly.
Many women may fail to realise ...

This is a preview of the whole essay

Women should not be pushed in to having an abortion before they make there decision. A reduction in time may force women who are stuck between whether to keep there pregnancy or making a choice to definitely terminate it before even thinking it through clearly.
Many women may fail to realise that they are pregnant until it is at an advanced stage, as they think they hardly have any chances of being pregnant and don’t take notice of any the symptoms. Why should these women be penalised?
There is no evidence that the foetus feels pain before 24 weeks the STC’S review shows that although the foetus has a reaction towards stimuli it still doesn’t prove that pain is consciously felt particularly under 24 weeks.
Also women’s life is at more risk while pregnant rather than having an abortion.
Although access to abortion has increased rapidly over the past few years it still takes time to arrange the whole thing because the abortion may require more resources. As it already is a women seeking abortion at 21 weeks may be given a date which passes the 24 week limit and reducing the time may cause a lot of problem.

However abortion has increased over the past few years so swiftly like I mentioned before, and perhaps if there is a reduction in time limit there will be fewer abortions.

In the following graph (From BBC news site) you can see the increase in abortion over the past few years, however through the graph it has also been identified that more abortion takes place under 9 week and only a very modest amount take place 20 weeks and above so if there even was a reduction in abortion time limit it wouldn’t make much of a difference as many people already manage to make a decision on aborting before the 24 week limit.

Many cases which have shown that a baby has been born before 24 weeks perfectly demonstrate that the baby is alive and in fact is a baby and not a foetus. I will now present such an example below. (Provided in class; daily mail issue written by Geoffrey Lean) “Doctor said he’d die in ten minutes now his ten years old” this story showed that a mother, whose son was born at 22 weeks, was considered to die in ten minutes but survived and is now a healthy 10 year old. If this shows a 22 weeks child can live and has pulled through this long then abortion at 24 weeks is completely wrong and it’s similar to killing an entirely healthy baby, without any reason what so ever.

Not only this vacuum aspiration methods of abortion happen between seven to thirteen weeks and takes place in 10 minutes is safe and requires no pain. Where as in the medical abortion which happens between 20 to 24 week, the mother has to stay over night. Furthermore it requires two stages which entail’s stopping the heart of the foetus, again which verifies that it is killing the baby which is absolutely wrong. (Also provided in class)

Ethically and in all other way’s I believe that abortion is wrong and that the time limit should be reduced. However everyone has different situations and this causes them to make different choices even if they are wrong in other people’s eyes. Nevertheless putting both traits in view from my report, I think it is devastatingly wrong for the mother to go in pain plus the baby within her and that the time limit should be reduced even a few weeks of reduction would do as babies at 24 weeks have an immense chance of survival.

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Peer Reviews

Here's what a star student thought of this essay

skatealexia

15th of Sep 2012

Quality of writing

Minor grammatical errors in places, and some of their sentences are very awkwardly worded. Spelling, punctuation, and grammar otherwise fine. Format is clear and easy to read.

Level of analysis

The introduction is set out well and studies the ethical questions which surround this debate. They first outline well the different arguments for the differences in week numbers well, providing statistics on the UK response to such questions which supports their data. Their arguments for the 24 week line are well done, although some of their arguments require more support for them to be better understood and valid. They provide good arguments as to why the time should be reduced to 20 weeks old. Their conclusion is adequate but they need to make it more rounded to consider the aspects of 24 weeks a little more, before formulating their own strong moral opinions.

Response to question

Response to the question is done well. The candidate considers both sides of the argument and provides evidence of quite a bit of research. To improve they should develop their viewpoints and conclusions and research the data a bit more in depth with the scientific theories.

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