ABORTION SHOULD BE LEGALLY AVAILABLE FOR WOMEN IN NIGERIA
Mar 8th, 2010 | By Olufunke Fayemi | Category: Health, News Across Nigeria
Abortion is one of today’s most intense, polarizing and ethical issues.
It could be said that since the beginning of humanity, people have tried to terminate unwanted pregnancies by using either the external or internal methods.
External methods included punching, abdominal massage, etc. Internal methods included use of herbal concoctions, use of sharpened tools such as syringes and needles. However, the legality, prevalence and cultural views on abortion vary across the world. The main controversy has always been centred around the ethical and legal issues of abortion.
Two types of abortion exists: The induced and spontaneous abortion.
The spontaneous abortion popularly known as miscarriage is an unintentional termination of pregnancy before the fetus is capable of independent life. It occurs naturally sometimes because a fetus does not develop normally or because the mother has an injury that prevents her from carrying the baby till the stipulated time.
Induced abortion, the focus of this write up is the intentional termination of a pregnancy either because the pregnancy is unwanted or presents a risk to a woman’s health, or because the fetus is likely to have severe physical or mental health problems.
People have different views as regards the issue of abortion. Many religions, groups, individuals and organisations have passionately held conflicting views about the act with most of them viewing abortion as a form of murder. They are of the opinion that it is better to let the woman and fetus die rather than save the woman’s life by terminating the pregnancy.
The reasons for induced abortion vary. It has been estimated that approximately 46 million abortions are performed worldwide every year. Of these, 26 million are said to occur in places where abortion is legal, the other 20 million happen where the procedure is illegal.
There are instances where it is imperative that abortion be performed either to save the life of a pregnant woman, avoid the birth of a child with congenital disorder that would be fatal or preserve the woman’s physical and mental health.
If a woman gets pregnant from a rape case, what is the best option for her and the potential newborn that she is carrying? Is it to have the baby (a bastard) and raise it herself? To give birth to the child and give him up for adoption? Or to have an abortion and get rid of the pregnancy? What about the case of incest pregnancy, where framily relations impregnate eachother , what should be the best option?
Many are of the belief that abortion could result in infertility, fibroid and so on. From available information, abortion itself rarely causes any of these, it is the infection that might develop after the abortion that most often make these problems surface. Unfortunately, the victims of these infections are those who visit quack doctors to perform abortion. These backstreet abortionists use dangerous techniques and unsterilized equipments in performing abortion. There are cases where the abortion results in complications which eventually leads to death. Even when the abortion s are carried out successfully, scarring tissues are still left, which usually leads to fibroid. The more reason why abortion should be made legally available.
Methods of unsafe induced abortion by quack doctors include misuse of a prostagladin kind of drug, that causes contractions of the uterus, the organ in which the fetus develops. The uterine contractions expel the fetus, and gets rid of the pregnancy. Some quacks go as far as inserting cloth hangers, knitting needles into the woman’s uterus in order to abort the fetus at all cost, which usually results in serious bleeding. This could simply be avoided if abortion is made legal and available because women would have no reason to visit quacks in the first place.
The question about what stage it is appropriate to get a pregnancy terminated usually arises whenever talks about abortion are brought up.
Personally, what matters to me is what stage the fetus has the moral status of a human being? When it can feel pain, because that is one of the most brute kind of awareness there could be. Interestingly, these only happens around the time of viability(when the child can survive outside the uterus without artificial support). It certainly does not happen with an embryo.
Biologically, Neurological activity in the cerebral cortex begins as early as the 22nd week of pregnancy, which means abortion could still be requested and made freely available up o the 20th week of pregnancy.
It is time abortion is declared legal in Nigeria. Other countries which have taken this bold step have less cases of deaths resulting from abortion.
If it is made legal, Ladies who have unwanted pregnancy can have access to abortion if they choose to, without having their future jeopardized. Youths dont have to keep dying in the hands of unqualified abortionists.
Abortion should not be looked at from a narrow perspective, it is about the reproductive health of an individual. The simple truth is whether abortion is made legal or not, people who wants to abort will abort, and those who will not, will also not do it. So why not make it legal so as to curb maternal mortality among Nigerian women.
Remember, this issue affects just a particular gender, while two genders are involved in the sexual intercourse. The woman should not be left to suffer emotional distress, health and physical instability, doing so is disrespect and disregard for womanhood. Abortion should be made legal in Nigeria!
Abortion should be legalized
Abortion should be legalised in nigeria,due 2 most reasons that we are al aware of.