The main purpose of the current paper is to define corresponding tendencies related to different social changes influenced by the religious beliefs and the supporters of a particular religion. Despite the fact that almost every religion is based upon the respective concepts of supernatural and sacred presuming themselves to have nothing in common with objective reality, representatives of particular religious groups not only tend to follow their own code of ethics and way of life but are also willing to spread their ideas to the masses imposing their own values on the social masses that are not necessarily belong to any of the religious groups at all. In other words, not only the religion offers the way of spiritual enrichment for any individual, but also strictly recommends following particular rules for each of the confessions. Otherwise, an individual will not be considered a representative of a particular religion.
What is more important in this regard, massively popular religious confessions, including those of Christianity and Islam tend to significantly affect the social consciousness of their followers; moreover, the deeper the religious groups are spreading within a particular social system, the stronger religious impact on this system will be. History knows a variety of examples, when the religious followers have been significantly changing the lives of millions of people through both peaceful and violent ways regardless the virtuous intentions of the followers of a particular religion. Moreover, history also knows a variety of examples, when the non-followers of a particular religions have been defined as hostiles to the religion and its main threat. This particular trend has been inspiring the radical terrorist groups of all ages and nations to justify their crimes.
However, not all the social changes inspired and stimulated by the religious groups are necessarily violent and involve massive casualties. Through many years of religious agitation, certainly peaceful, various societies have been changing their perceptions towards different issues according to the perceptions of the religious groups. For example, such sensitive theme of abortion, which is definitely appears to be a matter of personal choice, remains one of the most disputed among the different representatives of social groups, including the religious ones.
Furthermore, this particular theme of abortion is mostly being manipulated by the religious groups in accordance with their norms of ethics and values concerning life, sexual relationships and family. Regardless of the specific attitude of a particular individual, religion has its own views concerning abortion and related questions, which it tries to impose on the social masses nevertheless. Therefore, the following paragraphs will exhaustively and profoundly discuss the issues of abortion from both social and religious perspectives figuring out what exact impact on social perceptions of abortion do the modern religious confessions have.
Despite the fact that the issue of abortion has reached is highest recognition during the 21st century, when the technical progress in medicine allowed this procedure to become less painful and dangerous for the health of a woman, the very concept of fertility control is not a novelty as it has always been a concern for social systems since ancient times. For example, the history know ancient Egyptian practices of herbal medication and surgical ovaries removal serving as methods of contraception and birth control. Ancient Hebrews designed one of the oldest methods of contraception – “coitus interruptus” in around 500 A.D.; in addition, during those times, the Hebrew scholars and philosophers were the first one to define the rights of the fetus. In particular, they defined fetus a corresponding part of a female organism; therefore, it was the woman’s choice whether she wanted the fetus to be killed or developed and born as a child. Logically, once the child is born, he/she receives the rights equal to any other human (McFarlane and Meier).
However, in medieval Europe, where the influence of Catholic Church on masses was the highest possible, the prohibition of contraception was more than beneficial for it. In fact, the vast period of plague killed thousands of people and Church needed more workers on the land that mostly belonged to Church, as well (McFarlane and Meier). Therefore, it is worth assuming that from the religious perspective abortion is rather defined as killing more God’s worshippers that the rational choice of each particular individual.
The oppositional approach is the Pro-Choice supporting abortion. Despite the fact that both Pro-Life and Pro-Choice approaches define fetus as Homo Sapiens, the followers of the last approach insist on the fact that unborn does not have any awareness and adequate perception of reason compared to a born human (Beckwith). Still, it is also worth reminding that such argument is not necessarily applicable to the objective reality, where a great number of born people either inherit or develop various traits of retardation, which result in the same lack of adequate awareness. Correspondingly, these people do not deserve to be killed just because of their mental peculiarities. This particular trend results in another dispute – the argument about the assisted suicide, whether it’s good, bad, needed or not. The approaches of Pro-Life and Pro-Choice remain applicable even there. Still, the difference between unborn and alive person remains and thus the corresponding dispute between the followers of both approaches continues.
As for the exact views of Church concerning abortion, its philosophy has significantly changed since then and nowadays the representatives of Church define any forms of life as sacred and are willing to protect them. Nevertheless, the medieval prohibition of contraception has been abolished by the Church and is no more imposed on the masses since then (Lopez).
Corresponding studies have been conducting researches figuring out exact influence of religious beliefs of women on their attitude towards abortion and different ways of contraception, including oral (OC), injectable (IC), usage of intrauterine devices (IUD) and emergency hormonal contraception (EC). The research has questioned 7,635 women in the U.S. about the issues related to these issues. Mean age of the women was 29.5 with the mean parity of 1.24 children. 51% of them were cohabiting, 46% were never married and 40% were in marriage. 80% of the respondents were Christians, including almost 30% of Catholics. Less than 15% of them never followed any religious confession. The results have shown that more than 73% of them used OC, 17.4% used IC, 4.6% used EC and approximately 25% of the respondents had had an abortion. Thus, from the statistical perspective it is worth stating that each forth woman in the United States had an abortion regardless of her religious beliefs (Fehring and Ohlendorf).
The study has also found out that “when compared to those who reported religion as not very important, those women who reported religion as very important were 41% less likely to have had an abortion in the last twelve months” (Fehring and Ohlendorf). The same comparison considering the church attendance of the respondents resulted in 64% of women frequently attending church less likely to have abortion in the last 12 month compared to the women rarely attending church or not attending it at all. The changes in using different ways of contraception have not been that significant in comparison with abortion-related questions.
Summarizing everything that has been stated above, it is worth concluding that from the statistical perspective women appear to be significantly influenced by their religious beliefs when it comes to the questions of abortion and contraception. For those who attend the Church frequently and follow the Catholic tradition precisely, the matter of abortion appears to be equal as killing a form of life that a woman cannot perform. Still, the same researches tend to prove that even the most religious women are willing to use contraceptives of suitable form when they need to.
Works Cited
Beckwith, Francis. Defending Life. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2007. Print.
Fehring, Richard J. and Jennifer Ohlendorf. "The Influence Of Religiosity On Contraceptive Use And Abortion In The United States". Lifeissues.net. N.p., 2002. Web. 29 Apr. 2016.
Lopez, Raquel. "Perspectives On Abortion: Pro-Choice, Pro-Life, And What Lies In Between". European Journal of Social Sciences 27.4 (2012): n. pag. Web. 29 Apr. 2016.
McFarlane, Deborah R and Kenneth J Meier. The Politics Of Fertility Control. New York: Chatham House Publishers, 2001. Print.
