Consequences of abortion

NAME PROFESSOR LITERATURE AND LANGUAGE DATE Consequences of Abortion. Children are a blessing, or so we thought before we got ourselves into the business of ‘flushing` out unwanted pregnancies. Unwanted simply because they came at a time when they weren`t planned for or at some point during the pregnancy one, felt that they were not ready. The task of bringing a child into this world and raising it is not easy. Therefore, this isn`t a task that should be left to any woman or man (after all, they too play a major role!) Abortion is simply the termination of a pregnancy before its term. One may choose to have an abortion for several reasons. These reasons can either be supported or dismissed giving rise to two schools of thought: the pro-life and pro-abortion (pro-choice). 1 Pro-choice. This school of thought advocates for abortion for several reasons. One of them is that one may have gotten pregnancy through rape. Rape victims suffer a lot of trauma after the incident and may take time to heal. Having a baby to show for the act is like adding salt to injury. The baby would serve as a reminder of the heinous act. You can rest assured that unless the mother learns to separate the baby from the rape, that child will pay for their father`s mistake. Why raise a child under such harsh conditions? To make matters worse, the child lives without the identity of the father. Secondly, if one is too young to take care of the baby, why not allow them abort. For instance, a thirteen year old girl is too young to raise a child since she herself is still a child. Subjecting this child to carry the pregnancy to term let alone raise it is eternal torture to her. This is robbing the child their innocence and childhood. Hence, abortion is permissible in this case. A mother may also be allowed to have an abortion for medical reasons. A mother may develop complications during the pregnancy, which if not handled properly may result in their death. Circumstances may force a couple to choose between the mother and the child for which the life of the mother will be saved. It is argued that the couple could always get other children in the future. In addition to this, it is the mother`s decision on whether to keep the pregnancy or not. Thus, a woman should not be coaxed into having a baby because she is the one carrying it and has the right to choose whether to keep it or terminate it. So the decisions lie on her. Under all these circumstances, pro-choicer say that abortion allows one to continue with their lives without the burden of raising a child. Abortion allows one to achieve their dreams since they are not deterred from their goals. 2 Pro-life. Life is sacred. No one could argue about that. For this reason, they that take the pro-life stand do not see the reason as to why one would ever want to abort a child. For them, under no circumstances should one consider abortion. Life begins at conception, as they would suggest. Consequently, one cannot claim that they can abort at the early stages of pregnancy since it is a mass of cells or fetus. According Gissler et al, to pregnancy and abortion deaths carried out in Finland showed that women who abort stand a greater risk of death compared to those that carry their pregnancy to term (651-657). This proves how women who choose to abort put their lives in danger. One may consider them crumbling walls that they may fall apart any time. Apart from this, those of the pro-life stand do not rebuke the mother for choosing to terminate the pregnancy but also considers the mother`s state. Abortions have been performed since time immemorial and experience shows that one is at risk of death while on the surgical table. Besides this, many people that opt for abortion is as a result of reckless behavior. Some live promiscuously. Upon realization that they are pregnant, they go for the easier option: abor...