The Immorality of Abortion
Since the Supreme Court overturned section 287 of the Criminal Code in 1988, making abortion legal with few restrictions, abortion has remained a hot topic for lawmakers and the public (Duhaime ¶ 12-13). There are two groups of people on opposing sides concerning abortion, and both possess strong feelings about the issue. On one side, people who support abortion believe that it is a woman’s right to choose what happens to her body. On the other side, people opposing abortion often believe that the procedure ends the life of a human being who has a right to life. The murder of a human being is immoral, and there is other evidence concerning the fetus and the physical and psychological effects on women that show why abortion should be illegal.
Proponents of abortion argue that it does not end the life of a person, because a baby is not a person until birth, or at least until it can survive on its own outside the womb. This is not the case, because the fetus does feel the pain of abortion. Unborn babies react to light, sound, touch, and sharp objects when surgeons perform procedures on them within the womb (“Unborn Babies Can Feel Pain” ¶ 1). Dr. Robert J. White, a professor of neurosurgery at Case Western University says that a fetus at 20 weeks gestation, “is fully capable of experiencing pain. . . . Without question, [abortion] is a dreadfully painful experience for any infant subjected to such a surgical procedure” (“Unborn Babies” ¶ 5).
In fact, the evidence of a fetus’s ability to feel pain is so well known that when surgeons perform procedures on the unborn, anesthesia is administered to the child (“Unborn Babies” ¶ 7). The proponents of abortion wish to deny that a child in her mother’s womb is a person, but the fact the fetus feels and reacts to pain shows that even in the early stages of development a feeling person already exists. Nevertheless, abortion methods such as Partial-birth abortion, Dilation and Evacuation, and Saline abortion are still performed on fetuses that feel terrible pain when the procedure occurs. If more people realized the pain a baby endures when abortion happens, more would realize that such procedures are immoral and should not be legal.
In addition to the excruciating pain a baby feels during an abortion procedure, abortions also cause negative side effects on mothers. Proponents of abortion wish to deny that it will cause any problems for a woman’s mental state. However, there are many psychological effects that can negatively affect a woman who has an abortion. A 2006 study of women in New Zealand found that “in all comparisons, those becoming pregnant and seeking abortions had significantly higher rates of disorder than the not pregnant group and, with the exception of anxiety disorder, significantly higher rates of disorder than the pregnant no abortion group” (“Psychological Effects of Abortion ¶ 1). Another study done by the Ontario College of Physicians in 2003 found that women who had abortions “had a five times higher rate of admission to hospital for psychiatric reasons in the following three months” (“Psychological Effects ¶ 2). Psychological problems following abortion such as anxiety, depression, drug abuse, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, sexual dysfunction, sleep difficulty, and suicidal thoughts are not minor problems for a woman to endure. A woman who has an abortion may have to deal with one or even several of these side effects; this can lead to an immense disruption in her life. For example, although some people may consider anxiety and depression to be minor problems, they are not. If the woman has a job, she may have great difficulty performing it if she is burdened with anxiety and depression, and may even lose her job. If the woman already has children, she may have difficulty or even find herself completely unable to care for them if she develops any of the possible psychological effects from abortion. Lawmakers and the public should not let themselves be persuaded by the proponents of abortion who say there are no psychological effects of abortion. They must be fully informed so they can understand the detrimental effects that abortion poses to society in general.
Besides the negative psychological effects that follow abortion, women who opt to terminate their pregnancies are also at great risk for harmful physical effects. The list of physical risks of abortion is even longer than the list of psychological risks and includes both short-term and long-term effects. It is important to understand the details of these risks. The short-term risks include Acute Hematometra, which is when the uterus fills with blood and clots, retained products of conception, which can lead to hemorrhage or a septic infection, Endometritis, which is an infection of the uterine lining that can lead to fatal toxic shock syndrome, and uterine perforation and lacerations, which can lead to life-threatening hemorrhage or having a section of the bowel sucked into the uterus (“Physical Health Effects” ¶ 2-5). More short-term risks include Disseminated Intravascular Coagulation, which causes widespread blood clots throughout the body leading to an overall massive hemorrhage, cervical lacerations and injury, which can lead to injuries to the uterine artery and hemorrhage or an incompetent cervix causing greater risk of pre-term birth in future pregnancies, and convulsion, which can be caused by an epileptic seizure or a reaction to anesthetics (“Physical Health Effects” ¶ 7-8, 10). Women are also at risk for saline poisoning, which is toxic for the brain, uterine rupture, which can force surgeons to perform a hysterectomy, Embolism, which is the blocking of an artery by a clots of foreign materials, anesthetic reactions, which can result in death, and Pelvic Inflammatory Disease, which is a common side effect resulting in long-term problems of chronic pelvic pain, painful intercourse, reduced fertility, and ectopic pregnancy (“Physical Health Effects” ¶ 11-15). A final short-term problem is death; the reported number is small, but a study in Finland from 1997 discovered that “The maternal death rate in the 12 months following an abortion is four times greater than the rate of death among women following completed pregnancies” (“Physical Health Effects” ¶ 16). Long term health-risks include breast cancer and infertility (“The Research”). Unfortunately, most people do not understand the details and severity of physical problems resulting from abortion for women.
Considering the pain a fetus feels during an abortion as well as the great number of physical and psychological problems a woman terminating a pregnancy is at risk for, it is difficult to understand how law or society can condone such a procedure or that the medical establishment can label abortion as safe. Taking the life of any human being and putting the lives of individuals at risk is immoral. Lawmakers and the public need to be fully informed about all of these issues so that the right choice can be made, to make abortion illegal.
References
Duhaime, Lloyd. (20 Oct 2006). Abortion Law in Canada. Duhaime.org. Retrieved 11 June 2012 from http://www.duhaime.org/LegalResources/FamilyLaw/LawArticle-27/Abortion-Law-in-Canada.aspx
Physical Health Effects. (n.d.). Abortion in Canada. Retrieved from http://www.abortionincanada.ca/health/physical_effects.html
Psychological Effects of Abortion. (n.d.). Abortion in Canada. Retrieved from http://www.abortionincanada.ca/health/psycological_effects.html
The Research. (n.d.). AbortionBreastCancer.ca. Retrieved Retrieved 11 June 2012 from http://www.abortionbreastcancer.ca/theresearch.htm
Unborn Babies Can Feel Pain. (n.d). Minnesota Citizens Concerned for Life. Retrieved from http://www.mccl.org/Page.aspx?pid=298
