Fatima Elashry
English 21003
10/21/2020
professor: Joseph Boisvere
Scientific Controversy
Abstract:
Abortion is a medical procedure to end pregnancy. It involves removing the fetus or embryo from the uterus. Abortion usually happens to women around 45 years old because their age bring disabled and abnormal babies. Researcher has shown that about 1 in 4 U.S. women will have an abortion by age 45. There is a debate on whether abortion is safe or unsafe? Data and studies has shown us that Abortion is safe in most cases and it is usually rare to have high risks. There is two types of abortion medical and surgical abortion. Having an abortion is not always your choice on whether to have medical or surgical abortion. It usually depends on how far and long the women have been pregnant and it is also different from country to country because every country has its own rules and laws. There is two types of Medical abortion that involves a pill taken orally or inserted into the cervix. Statistics has shown that more than 95 in 100 people who have a medication abortion need no further treatment. The surgical abortion is another type of abortion and it is different than the medical abortion. It is a procedure to remove the pregnancy. It should be done at a clinic or hospital with a licensed healthcare professional. The abortion will be unsafe if it is made by a person lacking skills. It can be unsafe if the environment is not developed enough to provide the needs for the abortion. Therefore, abortion can be safe or unsafe depends on the woman and her baby situation and place.
Abortion
Abortion is a topic that people have a debate about whether it is safe or unsafe? Abortion has been an issue since Roe vs. Wade court case that affirmed a constitutional right to abortion. People have different perspective on whether abortion should be legal or illegal and that depends on different cultures and religions. Abortion is a medical procedure to end pregnancy. It involves removing the fetus or embryo from the uterus. Sometimes it is called termination of pregnancy because it ends the pregnancy of a woman before she gives birth to the child. The medical termination is when a woman takes medicine to end pregnancy. The surgical termination is when a procedure is done to remove the pregnancy. Abortion is made for different reason and it is usually personal reasons that differ from one woman to another but the procedure can not be done without a licensed healthcare professional because it is not a simple procedure to do and it can be unsafe depends on the situation of the child and woman at the same time. While there is existing debate regarding whether abortion is safe or unsafe, statistics show that legal abortion is safe in most cases whereas illegal abortion is always unsafe.
There is a lot of reasons why couples and women have medical abortion. Abortion usually happens to women around 45 years old because their age bring disabled and abnormal babies. As Anna Druet mentioned, Science writer and researcher, About 1 in 4 U.S. women will have an abortion by age 45. (Druet 2020). Abortion also happens when one of the partners are not ready to raise a child and built a family. In cases like this, the partners were not ready for pregnancy and some of them take the decision to have abortion. Another case that abortion happens is when a woman get rapped and cases like this happens and causes unwanted child. Abortion had change over time from just surgery to a pills a woman take during the early pregnancy’s so she can end the pregnancy in an easier way.
Is abortion safe to do? How does it affect women’s bodies and life over time? Abortion is a common surgery that is done a lot by couples and women now days for several reasons. Abortion is safe in most cases and it is usually rare to have high risks. It all depends on the woman’s body and her child. As Druet said, Legal abortion is a safe and effective way to end a pregnancy. (Druet 2020) Having an abortion is not always your choice on whether to have medical or surgical abortion. It usually depends on how far and long the women have been pregnant and it is also different from country to country because every country has its own rules and laws. There is two types of Medical abortion that involves a pill taken orally or inserted into the cervix. The Medicine type of abortion sometimes called medical termination is when a women take two pills and end pregnancy. It can’t be done to a woman toward her last weeks of pregnancy. This abortion is usually available to woman from 2 month to 3 month pregnant. As mentioned by Druet, “This type of abortion can be done as soon as a pregnancy begins, and is usually available until week 10-12 of pregnancy.” (Druet 2020) It is two pills taken by the women after that the uterus cramp and bleeds and it will end the pregnancy in just a few hours. The first pill is taken the first day usually in a clinic or hospital. The second pill can be taken in whatever place the woman wants. Sometimes the level of cramping and bleeding is intense but it all depends on how long the woman has been pregnant because if towards the third month the uterus will cramp and bleed more than a woman that is pregnant in her first weeks pregnancy. The medical procedure is safe most of the time. As Druet mentioned, “More than 95 in 100 people who have a medication abortion need no further treatment.” (Druet 2020) It is rare where a serious complication happens in a medical termination because it works with most of the people. In a medication abortion you have the option to chose whether you want to stay at home, clinic or whatever place that meets you need. The pregnancy ends after the second pill because it has more control and it usually feels more natural unlike the surgical procedure. The disadvantages of the medical abortion is that it takes two days to be done. Also, the bleeding and cramps are heavy and painful.
The surgical abortion is another type of abortion and it is different than the medical abortion. It is a procedure to remove the pregnancy. It should be done at a clinic or hospital with a licensed healthcare professional. To get the procedure done at first they give the woman medication two hour before the procedure. Then a type of anesthetic is given to the woman’s body in order to sleep and block any pain that she might feel during the procedure. Then the doctor inserts an instrument like the needle into the vagina and passes through the cervix in order to reach the uterus. The procedure takes around 5 to 10 minutes but after the procedure you need to rest like an hour before you leave the clinic in order to make sure you are fine and leaving the hospital with no health problems. The surgical procedure abortion take about 5 to 10 minutes while medical abortion takes at least two days to end the pregnancy (Druet,2018).The surgical abortion is more effective and less bleeding than the medical abortion. As Raquel Irene Drovetta, National Scientific and Technical Research Council, mentioned in her article, “in the developed world…. Only 6% of abortions are unsafe.” That means that most abortion that happen is safe only if it is legal because it will be made under trained and and healthcare professional that will review the woman’s case very carefully depends on her pregnancy.
Abortion is not easy decision to make some people will be relieved and happy after abortion and others will be sad and stressful for some time. We are all different and go through different journeys with different stories. As Druet said in her article, “A large study in the United States found that 3 in 4 people felt positive emotions, such as relief, in the week after an abortion, while 1 in 4 felt predominantly difficult emotions during that time.”(Druet 2020) A woman’s mental and physical health is important when she makes hard decisions like having an abortion. The people who feel positive after the abortion are usually the women or couple that was not ready for a child. Also, women who get rapped fell positive after the abortion because there will be nothing to remind them of what happened to get them pregnant. Couples or women that feel sad after abortion is usually couples that wanted a child but the situation does not give them the opportunity to have one. As Zeina Fathallah, a Lecturer at the American University of Beirut, Lebanon, mentioned, “finding that the highest percentage of positive attitude toward abortion (90.5%) relates to abortion following pregnancies resulting from rape, while the lowest percentage (20%) relates to abortion sought by pregnant married women without their husbands’ knowledge.” 90.5% is a big number of women getting abortion because of rapping and unwanted child. Therefore, most abortion made by women makes them happy. Women that get rapped and pregnant are usually the women that get relieved after abortion because they had unwanted pregnancy that might cause them trauma. Trauma will affect women mentally because she will keep remembering the day she got raped that will affect the woman’s mental health.
There is many cases where abortion can be unsafe when it done illegal and against the law. Some women when they have unwanted pregnancy they can not access the safe abortion. Therefore, they do the unsafe abortion and it is unsafe because it is illegal and against law. As Fathallah mentioned in her article, “in the Middle East and North Africa region where restrictive laws lead to unsafe abortions.” In some regions where there is restrictive laws that make abortion illegal in all the cases even if the women got rapped .When women seeking emergency medical care as a result of illegal abortion it puts women’s lives at risk. The abortion will be unsafe if it is made by a person lacking skills. It can be unsafe if the environment is not developed enough to provide the needs for the abortion. If the country does not have a high medical standards it causes unsafe abortion to happen. The unsafe abortion have a high risks that lead to death or complications which will affect the women’s physical and mental health. Unsafe abortion can occur if the procedure is done incorrectly by unskilled doctor or it can be an insertion of an object or substance that is being misused. The high risk of complications usually increases in the last weeks of pregnancy an abortion is carried out. The high risk is rare and when a serious complication that is not treated before abortion. After safe abortion there is no risk to your future pregnancies like birth defects, ectopic pregnancy, miscarriage or low birth weight and to the women’s overall health. Abortion also doesn’t increase women risk of breast cancer or affect your fertility in any way. Therefore, legal abortion that is made by a healthcare professional and skilled doctors are safe but illegal abortions are always made in sneaky way against the law and in the hand of unprofessional and unskilled people. Therefore, there is a high risk of using incorrect substances or tools during the procedure or the wrong pills are taken by the pregnant woman that cause death and other health problems.
Abortions are generally very safe and most women will not experience any problems during the medical or the surgical abortion. On the other hand, like any medical treatment or surgery there might be a small risk that something will go wrong whether during the procedure or during the medical abortion. There is legal and illegal abortion that depends on the country’s laws and differ from region to region. Illegal abortion are made by women seeking healthcare help. Therefore, the surgical abortion or the medical abortion are usually made with mistakes and it might cause death. Safe abortion are made in professional healthcare hands and it is usually safe in the countries that high medical standards. Therefore, all the tools and medicines needed for abortion is available with good quality to have the surgical abortion or the pills taken safe by women.
Fig.1-shows that 55% of abortion each year is safe and 45% of the abortion made every year is unsafe.
Fig.2-shows the percentage of safe and unsafe abortion made in each continents.
Work cited:
Conaboy, Chelsea.The abortion debate doesn’t change, but the science of abortion does The Boston Globe. (2018, August 31).Retrieved from https://www.bostonglobe.com/ideas/2018/08/31/the-abortion-debate-doesn-change-but-science-abortion-does/smHRPvw5XDkTXzMUrADawK/story.html
Druet, Anna. (2020, April 03). Abortion: What to expect. Retrieved from https://helloclue.com/articles/cycle-a-z/what-to-expect-before-during-and-after-an-abortion
Drovetta, Raquel. (2015). Safe abortion information hotlines: An effective strategy for increasing women’s access to safe abortions in Latin America. Reproductive Health Matters, 23(45), 47-57. doi:10.1016/j.rhm.2015.06.004
Fathallah,Zeina. “Moral Work and the Construction of Abortion Networks: Women’s Access to Safe Abortion in Lebanon.” Health and Human rights, Vol.21,No.2, December 2019.pp.21-32.https://www-jstor-org.ccny-proxy1.libr.ccny.cuny.edu/stable/26915373?sid=primo&seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents. Accessed 23 october 2020.
Abortion. (n.d.). Retrieved October 24, 2020, from https://www.who.int/health-topics/abortion Preventing unsafe abortion. (n.d.). Retrieved October 24, 2020, from https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/preventing-unsafe-abortion
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