THE MAGNIFIED

CONSENSUS ON
MINIMIZING
ABORTION
WITHOUT
LEGISLATION
Pros and Cons
INTRODUCTION

Abortion refers to the termination of a pregnancy by removing or expelling the fetus or

embryo from the uterus before it is ready for birth. Today, abortion was considered as a

controversial issue having no grounds of agreement among two polar aspects between the battle

of ‘pro-life’ and ‘pro-choice’ decisions. It is known to be a crucial topic due to the fact that it

vitally affects the development of a society.

For over a century, abortion has been criminalized in the Philippines. The criminal

provisions on abortion do not contain any exceptions allowing abortion, including to save the life

of the pregnant woman or to protect her health. Abortion was criminalized through the Penal

Code of 1870 under Spanish colonial rule, and the criminal provisions were incorporated into the

Revised Penal Code passed in 1930 under U.S. occupation of the Philippines. The

criminalization of abortion has not prevented abortion, but instead has made the procedure

unsafe and potentially deadly for the over half a million women each year who try to terminate

their pregnancies. In 2008 alone, the Philippines’ criminal abortion ban was estimated to result in

the deaths of at least 1,000 women and complications for 90,000 more.

Argument:

Can we reduce abortion without outlawing it?

Justification:

Many researchers have identified that criminalizing abortion does little to reduce the

practice and in many developing countries, abortion is completely illegal, however, the average

annual abortion rate stands at thirty-seven per a thousand women who are aged between the ages

of fifteen to forty-four years.

 Criminalizing abortion is one of the options that many developing countries have put in

place to try and curb the vice, however, it has been found that rather than preventing the vice it

further drives women to seek illegal ways to doing so. One of the more evident reasons to why

abortion rates are rampant in these anti-abortion countries is because many of the contraception

methods or use of medicines, sex education, and other family-planning services are not easy to

obtain and there seems to lack education about sex which is considered a taboo in many

developing countries. It is evident that with little contraception, there are more unplanned

pregnancies hence the more abortions that take place. Many women often practice most of these

unsafe illegal abortions rather than bearing their unwanted pregnancies thus bearing a higher risk

of maternal mortality which condemns them to a poverty-driven cycle with which many cannot

afford.

In developed countries, the continued fall in abortion rates is largely contributed by the

increase using of contraception which allows women to have greater control over the number of

children they want and control over the timing of their pregnancies. The same, however, cannot

be said about developing countries where, although, there exist family planning methods, there

are many unintended pregnancies due to the high need for modern contraception that has not yet

been realized thus the increment number of abortions and unwanted pregnancies.

They say necessity is the mother of invention and thus making abortion illegal will increase the

number of cases hence making certain people profiting from this illegal practice. It may end up

worse for some women who might end up searching for different ways of supporting their

abortions which is not safe and easier and the safest method of doing so. There are about 22

million unsafe abortions practiced by unqualified people and women that lack the necessary

skills to safely performing the procedure. Data from the World Health Organizations states that
47,000 girls and women die each year whilst another 5 million passes because of some of the

injuries that are sustained due to the practice of unsafe abortion.

Removing some of these legislations is a way to reducing abortion and thus the need to

educate young girls and women on the effects of early pregnancies and what is in for them is the

next step to reducing the number of cases experienced by the practice of this vice. It may seem

like a simple act to do but with the type of strict laws that are being passed on by the various

governments will continue seeing women doing abortions and will not have access to safe

abortion and so countries that are looking at reducing the abortion rates and the chances of

unwanted pregnancies need to put more of their emphasis on reducing the rates of unwanted

pregnancy. Doing that is safe since there is technology that backs them and needs to be offered

by different vendors which will make it accessible to every lady nearer.

With the continued practice and implementation of these changes then there will be higher

chances of these cases reducing.