ABORTION

ABORTION

Approximately 205 million pregnancies occur each year worldwide. Over a third are unintended birth and about a fifth end in induced abortion. Most abortions result from unintended pregnancies. A pregnancy can be intentionally aborted in several ways. What is abortion? The word abortion comes from the latin, abortio which means to abort, miscarry, deliver prematurely. The Latin word abortus means miscarriage, premature, untimely birth. In medicine, abortion means ending a pregnancy prematurely. Besides that, abortion can also define as the expulsion of foetus from the uterus before it has reached the stage of viability (in human being usually about the 20th week of gestation ) . An abortion can happen spontaneously as a result of complications during a pregnancy or it can be induced. There are different meaning between abortion and miscarriage. The word abortion generally used to mean an induced termination of pregnancy ( termination intentional ). Meanwhile, miscarriage is generally used to mean a spontaneous termination of pregnancy ( termination not intentional ).

Methods of abortion can be divided into two category. Firstly medical abortion and secondly is other methods. Medical abortion  can be done depends on the stage of pregnancy . Suction inspiration is the most common method of abortion during the first 12 weeks of pregnancy. General or local anaesthesia is given to the mother and her cervix is quickly dilated. A suction curette (hollow tube with a knife-edged tip) is inserted into the womb. This instrument is then connected to a vacuum machine by a transparent tube. The vacuum suction, 29 times more powerful than a household vacuum cleaner, tears the fetus and placenta into small pieces which are sucked through the tube into a bottle and discarded. Besides that, Dilation and Curettage (D&C) also used in abortion. This method is similar to the suction method with the added insertion of a hook shaped knife (curette) which cuts the baby into pieces. The pieces are scraped out through the cervix and discarded . Dilation and Evacuation (D&E) is used up to 18 weeks' gestation. Instead of the loop-shaped knife used in D&C abortions, a pair of forceps is inserted into the womb to grasp part of the fetus. The teeth of the forceps twist and tear the bones of the unborn child. This process is repeated until the fetus is totally dismembered and removed. Usually the spine must be snapped and the skull crushed in order to remove them. Other than that, Salt Poisoning ( saline injection ) Used after 16 weeks (four months) when enough fluid has accumulated. A long needle injects a strong salt solution through the mother's abdomen into the baby's sac. The baby swallows this fluid and is poisoned by it. It also acts as a corrosive, burning off the outer layer of skin. It normally takes somewhat over an hour for the baby to die from this. Within 24 hours, labor will usually set in and the mother will give birth to a dead or dying baby. (There have been many cases of these babies being born alive. They are usually left unattended to die. There are five steps for partial birth abortion. First, guided by ultrasound, the abortionist grabs the baby's legs with forceps. Then, the baby's leg is pulled out into the birth canal. Next, the abortionist delivers the baby's entire body, except for the head. Later ,the abortionist jams scissors into the baby's skull. The scissors are then opened to enlarge the skull. Lastly, the scissors are removed and a suction catheter is inserted. The child's brains are sucked out, causing the skull to collapse. The dead baby is then removed. 

Other method in abortion is the use of herbs in such a manner can cause serious and side effects, such as multiple organ failure, and is not recommended by physicians. Abortion is sometimes attempted by causing trauma to the abdomen. The degree of force, if severe, can cause serious internal injuries without necessarily succeeding in inducing miscarriage  In Southeast Asia, there is an ancient tradition of attempting abortion through forceful abdominal massage. One of the bas reliefs decorating the temple of Angkor Wat in Cambodia depicts a demon performing such an abortion upon a woman who has been sent to the underworld. Reported methods of unsafe, self-induced abortion include misuse of misoprostol, and insertion of non-surgical implements such as knitting needles and clothes hangers into the uterus. These methods are rarely seen in developed countries where surgical abortion is legal and available.

The reasons for abortion may vary for each person. However, there are several reasons that popular among the women which make their decision to abort their pregnancy. Abortions sometime occur because of the racism. The parents do not want their children being suppressed by others and when the mother gets pregnant, they will choose to abort their baby. Besides that, people in China are forced to have only one child  for every parents. The government of china had make a policy that every parents only can have one child. The people in China had been oppressed by the government to abort their children. Many people think that abortion is good to avoid negative impacts of mother’s life.  Maybe these reasons sound selfish. But a pregnancy that occur unexpectly may give women a long impact. For example for the college students who become pregnant they might be choose to do the abortion because pregnancy will burden her to study. Some other cases, the pregnancy resulting from rape and incest. The victim will choose to abort the baby because if the baby born, he will embrassed the mother. Moreover, some people will choose abortion because of their financial instability. The cost for having and raising a child nowadays is very high. they do not want their child live in poor and having difficulties to have education. So the best way to prevent the pregnancy is abortion. These mentality ussually happen in every country in the world.

Abortion also have many advantages. Many a times, abortion helps to safeguard women's health. There are many women, who suffer from various hazardous medical conditions such as heart disease, kidney disease, severe hypertension, sickle-cell anemia, severe diabetes, etc. As these diseases can be life-threatening, an abortion often helps to avoid serious medical complications from childbirth. But abortion should be carried out after proper medical advice as it can lead to potential miscarriages in the future. Besides that, abortion also helps in keeping a check on the size of the family. Each family can decide how much children that they can afford to raise them. Moreover, in cases where women are raped, getting pregnant with such a child is yet another brutality they would be forced to bear. Thus, the option of abortion is the best for them. Moreover, it is the best choice for a women to have abortion if they really do not want the baby to prevent the baby being neglected in his life. Here is the case study about advantages of being abortion. Fergusson and his colleagues looked at three mutually exclusive groups-women who had an abortion before age 21, those who had a pregnancy but not an abortion and those who had never become pregnant-and a number of outcomes at ages 21-25, including education, income, welfare dependence and domestic violence. After adjusting for family, social and educational characteristics that were present before the pregnancy, the study finds that abortion allowed women to pursue their educational goals. However, similar advantages did not extend to income, welfare dependence or partnership outcomes. The authors suggest that further research is needed to determine more clearly the risks and benefits associated with abortion so that women can make fully informed decisions about whether to terminate early pregnancies . 

Although abortions have the advantages, it still have the disadvantages. Firstly,an abortion can be considered a brutality as it does not give the child in the womb, a chance at life. In effect, it is highly condemned by a lot of religions as well. Abortion also promotes an irresponsible behaviour amongst people, as they do not want to take responsibility of their own actions. It gives them the freedom of committing careless activities and then getting rid of them easily. Abortion lessens the chances of having other children in future, though no certainty. If it happens it leaves the woman childless through out her life. Abortion is a brutality that denies the child in the womb a chance to live. Though it may be used as a method of birth control, it encourages and promotes infidelity in families in that women can have other outside sexual relationships and eventually end up in abortion to cover up. In addition, all the other methods of birth control are available to all sorts of people. It also promotes irresponsible behaviors by offering people opportunities to commit careless activities to get rid of their problems and fail to face the sure consequences of their actions. Abortion can lead to medical complications which may vary with the type of abortion carried out. A medical abortion have a life long of 21 days to come to a complete end and calls for several visits to ensure safety. Even though it has a more than 10 percent risk margin and it has some side effects. The medical complications range from unsuccessful or incomplete abortion to side effects of drugs used in the procedure such as hot flashes, fever, headache, and abdominal cramping among others. The commonly known problems include reculent miscarriages, sepsis and infections.

There are many views when we talk about abortion. For example, in western perspective there are two big organisation that always debate about this issue. One of them is called Pro-life Organization. The ultimate pro-life goal is quite direct and very simple. Pro-lifers want amendment of law to give equal protection under the law, to all living humans from the time their biologic life begins at conception until natural death. Here's a look at abortion from Pro-Life side. Firstly, since life begins at conception, abortion is akin to murder as it is the act of taking human life. Secondly, there are no civilised society permits one human to intentionally harm or take the life of another human without punishment. Besides that, an abortion can result in medical complications later in life such as the risk of ectopic pregnancies doubles, the chance of a miscarriage and pelvic inflammatory disease also increase. However, some of pregnant woman that want abort their baby because they had been rape or incest. For in this situation the Pro-life Organisation said a proper medical care can ensure that a woman will not get pregnant. Abortion punishes the unborn child who committed no crime. Instead, it is the perpetrator who should be punished. Abortion also should not be used as another form of contraception. Furthermore, those who choose abortion are often young women with insufficient experience to understand fully what they are doing. Many have lifelong regrets afterwards. Abortion also frequently causes intense psychological pain and stress. The Pro-life organisation had make many activities to educate an prevent people for doing abortion. Some of the activities are demonstrations and protest, counselling and campaigns. 

The Pro-choice movements supports and works towards preventing unwanted pregnancies, promoting contraception, educating women and youth and ensuring families have the necessary resources to raise healthy and happy children. The pro-choice organisation believe that the concept of personhood is different from the concept of human life. Human life occurs at conception, but fertilized eggs used for in vitro fertilization are also human lives and those not implanted are routinely thrown away. Is this murder and if not, then how is abortion murder? Secondly, they said that abortion is a safe medical procedure. Medical abortions have less than 0.5% risk of serious complications and do not affect a women's health or future ability to become pregnant or give birth. In the case of rape or incest, forcing a woman made pregnant by this violent act would cause further psychological harm to the victim. Often a woman is too afraid to speak up or is unaware she is pregnant, thus the morning after pill is ineffective in these situations. Besides that, the American Psychological Association found that stress was greatest prior to an abortion, and that there was no evidence of post-abortion syndrome. Due to that, the Pro-choice is supporting the abortion. Pro-abortion people commonly say that it is. "Maternal mortality" is listed as deaths of women per 100,000 pregnancies. This figure has been commonly listed as eleven, compared to deaths from induced abortion, which are listed as one or two. Therefore, they say abortion is seven times safer. Not so! Maternal mortality, in recent years, has dropped to seven, not eleven. But more important is the fact that, included in maternal mortality, are all deaths from induced abortions and ectopic pregnancies. Included also in maternal mortality are all women who die while pregnant from almost any cause that is in any way related to pregnancy. Different states require longer or shorter lengths of post-partum time, but, typically, maternal mortality also includes any related death within one year after delivery. Maternal mortality also includes deaths from caesarean section. To compare comparable risks, one would have to compare the risk of being pregnant in the first three months with the risk of having an abortion within the first three months. When compared in this fashion, abortion is many times more dangerous. Actually, it is probable that induced abortion is more dangerous than carrying a baby to term .

However, islam has its own teaching on abortion. Muslim regard abortion as wrong and haram ( forbidden ), but many accept that it maybe permitted in certain cases. All schools of muslim law accept that abortion is permitted if continuing the pregnancy would put the mother's life in real danger. That is the only reason accepted for abortion after 120 days of the pregnancy. Different schools of muslim law hold different views on whether any other reasons for abortion are permitted and what stage of pregnancy if so. Some schools of muslim law permit abortion in the first 16 weeks of pregnancy, while others only permit it in the first 7 weeks. However, even those scholars who would permit early abortion in certain cases still regard abortion as wrong but do not regard it as punishable wrong. Islam forbids the termination of a pregnancy of a pregnancy after soul is given to the foetus. The Qur'an does not explicitly refer to abortion but offers guidance on related matters. Scholars accept that this guidance can properly be applied to abortion. 

The Islamic view is based on the very high priority the faith gives to the sanctity of life. The Qur'an states : “whosoever has spared the life of a soul, it is as though he has spared the life of a people. Whosoever has killed a soul, it is as though he has murdered all of mankind” 5:32. Most muslim scholars would say that a foetus in the womb is recognised and protected by Islam as human life. The Qur'an makes it clear that a foetus must not be aborted because the family fear that they will not be able to provide for it – they should trust Allah to look after things : “kill not your offspring for fear of poverty ; it is We who provide for them and for you. Surely, killing them is great sin ( 17:32 ). this ayah, make it clear that a child should not be killed because the parent fear that they could not be able to provide and support him or her. Actually, the new born child brings the family more happiness. 

Islam allows abortion to save the life of the mother because it sees this as the 'lesser of two evils' and there is a general principle in Sharia (Muslim law) of choosing the lesser of two evils. If the pregnancy can bring mother into death, abortion is allowed. Besides that, if it is confirmed in the early period of pregnancy that a foetus suffers from a defect that can't be treated and that will cause great suffering to the child, a number of scholars would say that it is permissible to abort, provided that the pregnancy is less than 120 days old. Some scholars state that abortion where the mother is the victim of a rape or of incest is permissible in the first 120 days of the pregnancy.Others say abortion for such reasons is never permitted. It is reported that Bosnian women raped by the Serbian army were issued a fatwa allowing them to abort, but were urged to complete the abortion before the 120 day mark. A similar fatwa was issued in Algeria.This demonstrates that Islamic law has the flexibility to be compassionate in appropriate circumstances. In Egypt (where abortion is illegal) in June 2004, Muhammad Sayed Tantawi, the Grand Sheikh of Al Azhar, approved a draft law allowing women to abort a pregnancy that is the result of rape. The law would also make it legal for women to undergo an abortion more than four months after conception.His decision caused controversy among other Muslim scholars: The mufti of Egypt, Ali Gomaa, said Tantawi's decision was wrong and violated the Qur'an's injunction that "forbids killing innocent souls." He said, "It is haram [forbidden] to abort the foetus after life is breathed into it, in other words after 120 days." However, he added that a woman could terminate a pregnancy if she was in immediate danger. Islam does not permit abortion where an unwanted pregnancy is the result of unforced adultery.

As a conclusion, I would say that as a muslim we should have to avoid the abortion because clearly stated in al-Quran that : “whosoever has spared the life of a soul, it is as though he has spared the life of a people. Whosoever has killed a soul, it is as though he has murdered all of mankind” 5:32. Most muslim scholars would say that a foetus in the womb is recognised and protected by Islam as human life. The Qur'an makes it clear that a foetus must not be aborted because the family fear that they will not be able to provide for it – they should trust Allah to look after things : “kill not your offspring for fear of poverty ; it is We who provide for them and for you. Surely, killing them is great sin ( 17:32 ). this ayah, make it clear that a child should not be killed because the parent fear that they could not be able to provide and support him or her. Actually, the new born child brings the family more happiness.