Operation Free Women

This blog post will attempt to cite different sources for a discussion of the social and religious implications of abortion, to try and provide more information on the topic and whether it should be allowed legally or not. We will look at “A research on abortion: ethics, legislation and socio-medical outcomes.”, a case study made in Romania, by Andreea Mihaela Niţă1 and Cristina Ilie Goga1. Andreea is part of the Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Craiova, Romania. Cristina is also apart of the same faculty.

According to the authors, abortion and “the decision to interrupt the pregnancy involves a multitude of aspects of medical, ethical, moral, religious, social, economic, and legal order”. Sometimes it is decided to be done due to immune system, genetic factors, or to prevent the risk of miscarriage as is experience by many mothers.

The topic of abortion is characterized by two beliefs, “the opinion that the priority element is represented by fetus and his entitlement to life and the second opinion, which focuses around women’s rights”. These are considered the “pro-life” and “pro-choice” arguments.

The authors state that “Safe abortions carry few health risks, but « every year, close to 20 million women risk their lives and health by undergoing unsafe abortions » and 25% will face a complication with permanent consequences”. This is very important to understand, because whether or not abortion is allowed, if abortion is illegal, there will always be the risk of unsafe abortions being conducted without standard and accepted medical procedures. The authors classify this view as the “medical point of view”. This view also constitutes part of the support for the “Pro-Choice” argument.

The authors do also note that from “the religious point of view, abortion is unacceptable for all religions and a small number of abortions can be seen in deeply religious societies and families. Christianity considers the beginning of human life from conception, and abortion is considered to be a form of homicide”. This would be considered the “Pro-Life” argument”. Basically, this is when proponents of the “pro-life” point of view consider the act of abortion similar to ending a life. They also state many other religious faiths are against the act of conducting an abortion.

One unique statement of this academic research article is that the authors state that having legalized abortions also prevents per capita crime rates. They make the statement, “From the socio-economic point of view, the decision to carry out an abortion is many times determined by the relations within the social, family or financial frame. Moreover, studies have been conducted, which have linked the legalization of abortions and the decrease of the crime rate: ‘legalized abortion may lead to reduced crime either through reductions in cohort sizes or through lower per capita offending rates for affected cohorts’”

The authors also categorize the different laws in Europe into four distinct classifications. Each region of Europe has laws on abortion in one of these categories:

(i) “Prohibitive legislations, ones that do not allow abortion, most often outlining exceptions in abortion in cases where the pregnant woman’s life is endangered. In some countries, there is a prohibition of abortion in all circumstances, however, resorting to an abortion in the case of an imminent threat to the mother’s life. Same regulation is also found in some countries where abortion is allowed in cases like rape, incest, fetal problems, etc. In this category are 66 states, with 25.5% of world population.”

This type of law only allows abortions in the circumstance where the mother’s life is in danger or the pregnancy is due to a crime such as rape.

(ii) “Restrictive legislation that allow abortion in cases of health preservation. Loosely, the term ‘health’ should be interpreted according to the World Health Organization (WHO) definition as: ‘health is a state of complete physical, mental and social wellbeing and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity’ This type of legislation is adopted in 59 states populated by 13.8% of the world population.”

This type of legislation only allows abortion on a case-by-case basis to preserve health. To clarify they also define what is health.

(iii) “Legislation allowing abortion on a socio-economic motivation. This category includes items such as the woman’s age or ability to care for a child, fetal problems, cases of rape or incest, etc. In this category are 13 countries, where we have 21.3% of the world population.”

This type of legislation allows for abortion in cases of crime (rape, incest) or lack of the ability to care for a child by the mother.

(iv) “Legislation which do not impose restrictions on abortion. In the case of this legislation, abortion is permitted for any reason up to 12 weeks of pregnancy, with some exceptions (Romania – 14 weeks, Slovenia – 10 weeks, Sweden – 18 weeks), the interruption of pregnancy after this period has some restrictions. This type of legislation is adopted in 61 countries with 39.5% of the world population.”

The last type of legislation is what the US had for a majority of the 20th century leading on to the most recent legislation which ended the right for a woman to carry out an abortion. It basically allowed the right, up to a certain trimester of the pregnancy.

What is important to note with these different categories of the authors’ classifications is that there are many reasons for women to carry out abortions. It is not necessarily 100% the case that it is because of an unwanted child due to irresponsible sexual behavior. Sometimes it can be due to a crime, sometimes it can be due to a sexual offense, and sometimes it can be due to a history of medical problems faced by the mother. Not every pregnancy is the same.

Further into the article, the authors describe what occurs when there is no ability to have an abortion legally: the “illegal abortions may also be resulting in an increased risk of woman’s health and life considering that most of the times inappropriate techniques are being used, the hygienic conditions are precarious and the medical treatments are incorrectly administered [25]. Although abortions done according to medical guidelines carry very low risk of complications, 1–3 unsafe abortions contribute substantially to maternal morbidity and death worldwide [26].”

What that means is that there will most likely take place illegally conducted abortions, with unsafe medical practice, that results in fatality and mortality. As has been studied for many years and proven with statistics, there will be situations where proper hygiene and safe medical practice will not exist when these illegal abortions take place. Which in fact will reduce in higher mortality than when abortion is allowed by law.

The rest of the academic research goes into the sample analysis, hypotheses, and conclusion. One point to note is that in their conclusion, which analyzes the opinion of the public in Romania. “After analyzing the results of the sociological research regarding abortion undertaken at national level, we see that 76% of the Romanian women accept abortion, indicating that the majority accepts only certain circumstances (a certain period after conception, for medical reasons, etc.). A percentage of 64% of the respondents indicated that they accept the idea of abortion after 14 weeks of pregnancy (for solid reasons or regardless the reason). This study shows that over 50% of Romanian women see abortion as a right of women but also a woman’s crime and believe that in the moment of interruption of a pregnancy, a fetus is aborted. Mostly, the association of abortion with crime and with the idea that a child is aborted is frequently found within very religious people.”

Although this may summarize multiple points of view, the main conclusion is that although most of the population of Romania believes in a woman’s right to have an abortion; it is the case that the people who do not believe in this right are of the more religious or faith-oriented people (“very religious people”). With that said, should it be the right of the US government to impose the beliefs of multiple faiths and beliefs upon those who do not prescribe to the same beliefs? Should their belief be imposed upon others in this regard? Should not there be a separation of Church and State?

Works Cited

Niţă, Andreea Mihaela, and Cristina Ilie Goga. “A research on abortion: ethics, legislation and socio-medical outcomes. Case study: Romania.” Romanian journal of morphology and embryology = Revue roumaine de morphologie et embryologie vol. 61,1 (2020): 283-294. doi:10.47162/RJME.61.1.357.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7728127/

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