The term abortion refers to a medical process of terminating a pregnancy so that it does not result in the birth of a baby. Depending on how many weeks the individual has been pregnant, the pregnancy is terminated either by taking medication known as an Abortion pill or by having a surgical procedure. One of the main factors, why a woman may decide to have an abortion, is due to unreadiness of a child or another child, especially amongst younger women. The other primary factor is due to financial difficulties for effective and efficient child care. In this paper, the primary objective is to uncover the legal and moral issues regarding abortion.
From a moral standpoint, anti-choice activists believe that the fetus is a human being and needs to be protected as stated in the universal human rights. Abortion equals to an illegality that breaches the ‘do not kill' clause in this instance. Also from another perspective, the woman is a human being as well and may experience anatomy problems concerning the abortion. Ethically, the execution of pregnancy is unethical despite the measures put forward to refrain the act.
However, as much as we grant that fetuses have a fundamental right to life, the mother's rights override the fetus' rights in three main dimensions. First, decisions that pertain to pregnancies that result from rape have to be dealt with by the mother, whether she is prepared or not. In this case, the woman would be justified in having an abortion. The second instance pertains to situations where the woman's life is at risk. This example mostly relates to financial and health risks. However innocent the infant might be, the mother does not have to wait passively while the child crushes her to death. The third thought process results from pregnancies involving contraception failure. Contraception measures fail and sometimes, women fail to use them properly. Since the women try their level best to avoid unwanted pregnancies or sometimes underestimate their fertility, they should be given the benefit of the doubt and therefore be granted the power on whether or not to abort.
From a legal standpoint, women can have abortions as they please as long as it does not interfere with their state government laws. Secondly, the constitution includes a right to privacy which extends to women's control over their bodies. For example, it is legal to have an abortion in Uganda when done to preserve the life, mental or physical health of the pregnant woman, which includes cases of sexual violence. However, many women turn to unsafe abortion measures with devastating consequences, seeing as 26% of physical deaths in Uganda are connected to unsafe abortion.
Also, fetuses do not have legal statuses as persons since they are not yet viable. The status of a fetus only gets to be significant when it becomes feasible at the beginning of the third trimester. The fetus is only deemed to have a meaningful life outside the womb of the mother. For instance, North Dakota signed a law in March that banned abortion as soon as five weeks after a woman has had her last menstrual period. When a fetal heartbeat can first be deduced by the use of a transvaginal probe, a woman is not allowed to abort. In conclusion, deciding on whether or not to undergo an abortion practice is not an easy decision to make and part of this medical decision should rest with the physician.
