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Essay on Is Abortion a Crime?
The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that about 25% of all pregnancies worldwide end in an induced abortion, approximately 50 million each year. Of these, 20 million abortions are being performed under dangerous conditions, either by untrained providers or using unsafe procedures, or both. No right is more basic than the right to live. And the untimely death of a young child is among life's most awful tragedies. To cause such a death is a great wrong.
And if infanticide is wrong, is the destruction of a fetus at eight months of gestation, or at five, any different? Nothing is more devastating than a life without liberty. A life in which one can be forced into parenthood is just such a life. Rape is among the most profound denials of liberty, and compelling a woman to bear a rapist's child is an assault on her humanity. How different is it to force her to remain pregnant and become a mother just because efforts at birth control accidentally failed? From her point of view, the pregnancy is also unsought. From the perspective of the fetus, how the pregnancy began surely makes no difference.
If forcing a woman to continue a pregnancy that will almost certainly kill her is impermissible, how different is it to compel her to continue a pregnancy that will probably shorten her life? Or a pregnancy that will leave her life a shambles?Most women use contraception - and abortion when necessary - because they want to be good mothers to the children they already have (Petchesky & Judd 1998). Some are simply not ready or able at a given moment to have children and a small but growing number, whose position deserves respect, do not wish to have children at all .....
