ABORTIION
Abortion is likely the most controversial issue in contemporary society. It entails many complex questions in regards to moral, ethical medical, legal, religious as well as philosophical issues which are associated with the deliberate termination of pregnancy before normal childbirth. Indeed, public sentiments are polarized. People have resilient feelings for and for this issue of abortion. Recent years have shown how the reproductive real intimidate to become a state of progenitive argument. The state is changing in the face of reasonably dramatic transformation in reproductive as well as familial customs. Sex is no anymore inevitably based on procreation, nor reproduction tied to marriage. Relationships are not perseverance any more but a matter of choices and opportunities as divorce rates. A lot of arguments in support of abortion are based on respect for mothers’ reproductive rights. Therefore, these people argue that a woman is an individual with her own rights but not just a fetus carrier.
Moreover, there is an argument that governmental or religious powers should not be used to restrict a woman’s right to be in charge of her own body. Also, it is impossible to regard the fetus as a separate entity since it cannot exist separately outside a woman’s body. Contrastingly, the opponents of abortion talk of respect for all forms of life, thus a fetus has a right to life.[1] Consequently, they contend that it is truly the kill of an innocent human being. As a result, this paper is going to look into arguments of both sides and try to determine if abortion is morally wrong or if it should be lawfully accepted or rendered illegal.
People feel especially strongly about the procedure because there is no means of obtaining any view from the fetus, which in this case, is a potential victim regarding the issue of abortion and because it can easily be seen as an entirely acquitted ad defenceless being.[2] Arguably, the risk of conducting abortion materializes in the context of legal issues to the requirements of the Human Fertilization and Embryology Act 1990.[3] In the contentious case of Evans v. Amicus Healthcare Ltd and Others, the courts were challenged with arguments over stored embryos developed from gamete of Mr Johnston and Ms Evans coupe, who had split up before implantation. In this, case Mr Johnston who had initially consented that his sperm can be used for this particular reason, however, later Mr Johnston withdrew his approval and sent a letter to the clinic requesting them to destroy the embryos. On the other hand, Ms Evans, who had given her consent to the fertilization of her eggs and formation of embryos using Mr Evans, had accepted with the sole purpose of retaining the ability to have a child after that.
The issue escalated, and the couple’s agreement had followed the distressing news that both ovaries of Ms Evans would need to detach owing to the presence of severe pre-cancerous growth. Ms. Evans decided to challenge the issue in court challenging some provisions of the 1990 Act, which obliged the destruction of the embryos if one of the involved parties withdraws his agreement from the procedure. Ms Evans’s challenge demanded inter alia, an affirmation of incompatibility according to Article 8, which provides for the right to respect for private as well as family life. Article 12 advocates for the right to marry and get a family also article 14, which provides for freedom from discrimination, and she argued that the embryos had a right to protection in relation to articles 1&8 of the European Convention on Human Rights. The plea of Ms. Evans failed in all the courts, high court, the court of appeal as well as in the European Court of Human Rights.
Unsafe abortion is one of the primary causes of maternal morbidity and maternal mortality owing to the fact that its abortion services are usually not available to the public, even when they are lawful for various reasons, nearly in all countries.[4] Global, regional as well as state human rights systems and courts progressively applaud decriminalization of abortion hence the formation of abortion care as a way of protecting a woman’s life, her health, and in instances of rape according to the complaints provided by women.
Additional obstacles that might or might not be confided in law always hamper women from getting the services for which they are qualified for hence lead to unsafe abortion. Some of these obstacles include but not limited to inaccessibility to useful information, limiting the type of health care institution as well as providers who can offer legal abortion services, requiring third-party authorization and failure to warrant confidentiality and privacy.[5]
However, some countries have repealed previous restraints on access to medical abortion, for instance, overly inflexible regulations on who can conduct medical abortion services, including unnecessary procedural obstructions. For instance, the Federal District Court of the United States removed a law barring advanced practice physicians from offering first-trimester abortion services.[6]
The Abortion Act (1967) is applicable in England, Scotland, Wales, but not in Northern Ireland.[7] Indeed, it points out an exception whereby criminal offences, according to abortion law, will not be committed as long aS pregnancy is concluded under qualified medical control. There are instances in life that the Act expressly allows for abortion. Precisely, the abortion must be conducted on licensed or NHS premises by a qualified and a registered medical expert and following a good faith view that it may be justified and acknowledged under several grounds set out in the Act. The protraction of the pregnancy would entail a risk to the life of the pregnant mother greater than the pregnancy was ended the cessation is necessary to avoid serious permanent damage to the physical or mental health of the pregnant woman according to (s 1(1) (b)). Thirdly, the pregnancy has not surpassed its 24th week, and the continuation of the pregnancy would entail risk, bigger than in case the pregnancy were ended, of injury to the physical or mental well-being of the pregnant woman in relation to section 1(1)(a)) which is socially easily content.
In the case of Paton v Trustees of the British Pregnancy Advisory Service (1979), sir George Baker argued that ” The Abortion Act provides no right to a father to be turned to rather consulted in respect of cessation of pregnancy.[8] Unsatisfied Mr. Paton pursued the injunction by claiming that his opinion and effort to protect his infant and unborn baby’s right to life was provided for in the right to respect for his private as well as family life. Predictably the European Commission defined his argument as noticeably ill-based and dismissed his claim, discovering that his separated wife’s right to respect for her private as well as family life triumphed. However, In C v S (1988) in which Robert Caver claimed an injunctive respite to confine his ex-girlfriend from ending the pregnancy on the fact that the fetus was indeed a child proficient of being given birth to alive with regards to s1(1) of the Infant Life enacted in 1929. The claim was ultimately rejected.
Global, regional as well as human rights institutions including courts progressively suggest legalization of abortion as well as provision of abortion care as a way of protecting a woman’s life and health during instances of rape and ensuring that regulations, even when restraining are informative and implemented to enhance and protect a woman’s life is imperative. Additional obstacles that might or might not be confide in the law, usually impede women from the attainment of services for which they are eligible hence give rise to unsafe abortion.[9] Besides, these impediments include lack of access to data in time.
In R v Catt (2012), a woman who aborted her own baby in the final phase of her pregnancy has been jailed for eight years. Sarah L. Louise who was 35 year and native of Sherborn in Elmet, North Yorkshire.[10] Made a personal decision and ingested a drug when was full term at her 39th week of pregnancy to initiate an early delivery. Sarah Louise claimed that the child, a boy was indeed stillborn; as a result, she buried his body. Nonetheless, there was no proof that the child was ever found. For that matter, Catt made a purposeful verdict to terminate her pregnancy. Thus, Catt, who with her husband had already had two children went for a scan at 30 weeks confirming her pregnancy at a specific hospital in Leeds.[11]
The court was informed that the husband to the wife was not informed of the pregnancy at the same time was not consulted in making a decision to have the abortion. Sarah Catt argued that she underwent a legitimate abortion procedure in a clinic in Manchester. Conversely, forensic examination of her computer showed that she had bought the online drug which had the capability of inducing labour. The drugs were from a Mumbai based company. Eventually, the respondent pleaded guilty that she administered a poison with an aim to secure a miscarriage.[12] Indeed, she informed a psychiatric that she had ingested the drugs with no knowledge of her husband, who was away after which she delivered the child alone while at home. Sentencing, the judge informed Catt plainly thought the man with whom she was involved with was the father hence she thus she demonstrated no remorse. Accordingly, Mr. Justice Cook argued that Catt had taken away rather robbed the young baby his life that he was about to have and claimed that the significance of the crime lay between murder and manslaughter.
The legal method to abortion is included in criminal prohibition with regards to accommodation as life protective and health-conserving option, especially in the light of information about maternal mortality as well as morbidity.[13] Contemporary momentum for liberalization originates from global adoption of the fact of reproductive health as well a broad acknowledgement that the recourse and dignified healthcare is a key human right. For that reason, respect for women’s reproductive sovereignty legitimizes abortion as a choice in case family planning services has become futile, been inaccessible or unfortunately denied by Act of rape. More still, acknowledgement of women’s rights as an equal citizen with their fellow men call for their choices for independence be lawfully respected, but not criminalized.
In the case of St. George s Healthcare Trust V S, R v Collins and other, the English Court of Appeal evaluated the health care issue of legal as well as moral complexity.[14] Indeed, at the core of the case was the value patient autonomy; more precisely, the right of a pregnant mother to agree to or decline medical procedure which could, in turn, jeopardize the life of her fetus. Thus, this particular principle as well underpins the clarification of relevant provision of the mental health Care Act of 1983. Nonetheless, the court acknowledged that a fetus is human, thus is given the legal protection in accordance with various ways. But that a mother rather a woman’s right to self-determination truly and legally is not reduced merely as a result of the decision to enjoy it, such could seem ethically offensive. As a result, a mother’s right to self-sufficiency is given supremacy over that of her infant or her unborn child’s right to life. in a nutshell, the court cautioned against any form of attrition of this provision.
In Africa, the Maputo Protocol identifies a woman’s right to reproductive, including access to medical abortion especially under certain situation, particularly when the life of the mother is in danger following cases of incest, rape or fetal deficiency.[15] The African commission’s General Comment number two further explain that state which belongs to Maputo Protocol has to ensure that the lawful outline in charge facilitate which advocate access lawful and medical abortion in case of risk of pregnancy is met.
According to UN Treaty Monitoring Bodies, the right to life is a basic human right, dominant to the enjoyment of any other human rights.[16] Indeed, global human rights law acknowledges this fundamental right as ensuing at birth, and international as well as regional human rights organizations have evidently shown that any prenatal protections has to adhere to the consistency of women’s human rights. Such is one of the emerging trends to prolong a right to life before birth.
Bibliography
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James E M, ‘Abortion and the Right to not be Pregnant’ (2016) Philosophy and Political Engagement. Palgrave Macmillan, London, 57.
Judith J T, ‘A defense of abortion’ (1976) Biomedical ethics and the law Springer, Boston, MA, 39.
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[1] Mahon, James Edwin. ‘Abortion and the Right to not be Pregnant’ (2016) Philosophy and Political Engagement. Palgrave Macmillan, London, 57.
[2] Mahon, James Edwin. ‘Abortion and the Right to not be Pregnant’ (2016) Philosophy and Political Engagement. Palgrave Macmillan, London, 57.
[3] Eades, Leah. Social realities, biological realities: The 24-week foetus in contemporary English abortion activism (Women’s Studies International Forum 2019).
[4] Scott, Rosamund. ‘Risks, Reasons and Rights: The European Convention on Human Rights and English Abortion Law’ (2016) 24 Medical law review 1.
[5] Mahon, James Edwin. ‘Abortion and the Right to not be Pregnant’ (2016) Philosophy and Political Engagement. Palgrave Macmillan, London, 57.
[6] Foster, Charles. ‘Does the English Law on Abortion Affront Human Dignity?’(2016) 22 The New Bioethics 162.
[7] Foster, Charles. ‘Does the English Law on Abortion Affront Human Dignity?’(2016) 22 The New Bioethics 162.
[8] Thomson, Judith Jarvis, ‘A defence of abortion’ (1976) Biomedical ethics and the law Springer, Boston, MA, 39.
[9] Foster, Charles. ‘Does the English Law on Abortion Affront Human Dignity?’(2016) 22 The New Bioethics 162.
[10] Courts of Justice Strand London ‘Regina V Sarah Louise Catt’ (2013) Royal WC2A 2LL.
[11] Ibid., 1
[12] Papworth, Vicky, ‘Abortion services: the need to include men in care provision’ (2011) 25 40 Nursing Standard.
[13] Ibid., 2.
[14] St George’s Healthcare, N. H. S, ‘Trust v. R v Collins and others, ex parte S [1998] ‘3 (1998).
[15] Gerntholtz, Liesl, Andrew Gibbs, and Samantha Willan, ‘The African women’s protocol: bringing attention to reproductive rights and the MDGs’ (2011) 8 4 PLoS medicine.
[16] Sylva, Douglas, and Susan Yoshihara, ‘Rights by Stealth: The Role of UN Human Rights Treaty Bodies in the Campaign for an International Right to Abortion’ (2007) 7 1The National Catholic Bioethics Quarterly 97.