Abortion and Women’s Freedom to Choose

In our modern-day society, abortion is one of the contentious issues women may need to face if confronted with pregnancy. Terminating am embryo for the best or raising a child in a horrible situation? Is the question thousands of women ask themselves daily. An abortion is when a pregnancy is ended early, without the natural birth of the child and before it is ready to survive outside of the uterus. Rape/sexual abuse, not having the facilities to raise a child, and overpopulation are three main reasons women consider having an abortion.

An organisation in the US states: ‘one in five women will be raped at some time in their lives and nearly one in ten of them will be intimate relationships.’ Why should women feel obliged to continue the pregnancy for a baby she never intended on having, and with a man who sexually assaulted her? It is extremely unlikely for the rapist to be present in the mother and child’s life for the future, and growing up without a dad just wouldn’t be fair on the child. I often ask myself this question: Why do some believe that aborting the baby is wrong in these circumstances? If this doesn’t convince you, imagine knowing that your mother never actually wanted you no matter how much she loves you now. You would feel horrible and the mother would constantly feel a sense of guilt. So why do we let this happen? Women should have the freedom to choose, especially when it was never the intention.

The problem of not being emotionally, physically and socially able to raise a child is arising in our society. This problem occurs in many ways specifically; having alarming genetics and age. For both parents to have bad genetics, it is almost certain that the child will obtain the same characteristics. For example, if both the mother and the father have Tourette’s, then most likely so will the child. Some women will look at that and realise the struggles the child will have to face and choose not to put the child through this. Some will argue that she shouldn’t have decided to have a baby in the first place, but I believe we must consider that everyone makes mistakes and things happen. Forcing her to give birth would be taking it out on the child and this is far from fair. Something that is less common but still occurs is teen pregnancy. This is when underage teen girls make silly, impulsive decisions and end up pregnant. I think it is truly unacceptable to force a young adult to give birth. At this age, teens are studying and simply enjoying being a teenager. Imagine the heavy workload as well are raising a child. An article by ‘peertechz’ states; ‘Teenage parents are more likely to be unemployed, live in poverty, and to give birth to low birth-weight babies, who as toddlers are likely to be at increased risk of childhood accidents’. This lowers teen's chances of being successful and getting a good job, which is needed to support a child. Don’t forget teens know barely anything on how to care for a child and to put someone through all that stress and pressure is not ok. It should be completely up to them whether they choose to give birth to a child at such a young age.

Another issue faced in the world today is overpopulation. We have seen this begin to occur in Asian counties such as China and Japan. This is because back in 1980 China implemented the ‘one child only policy’ to slow down the rapid population growth. This was officially ended in 2016. This policy may need to be applied again in other parts of the world to stop overpopulation, which will most probably lead to abortion. So why do we ignore this now? Consider the future. Birth control has always been an important factor, so why is it suddenly so harmful? If allowance and encouragement that abortion is okay are left too late, then the world will be overpopulated with too many people and not enough jobs. Don’t ignore the fact that this will lead to many worse problems. Protect women and the future of our world.

The topic of abortion is a huge issue in our modern-day society. Women are faced with the decision of having a child or getting rid of for the better or the worse. They receive a strong amount of hate if they choose to abort, which is not ok. I strongly believe that women should speak for themselves and decide, as it’s their body and they should have every right to choose what happens to it.