The shift of priorities towards humanistic values in contemporary society can be viewed as an important achievement today. It guarantees that the life of an individual should be protected by all means, and he/she should benefit from the positive environment. However, along the moral of humanism can also precondition the emergence of multiple disputable questions, such as the acceptability of abortions. The opponents of the given procedure consider it murder and insist on the complete prohibition of this practice. At the same time, they disregard a set of other factors that can be used to refute their statements. These might include the threat to the health of a mother, the high risk of inappropriate development of a fetus, growing rates of neglected children. For this reason, adoption is a morally justifiable practice that should be provided to mothers on their demand to improve the quality of life and guarantee the further evolution of society.
As stated above, the growing number of neglected children and children who have to spend their lives in asylums is one of the factors justifying the need for adoptions. Statistics show that in the majority of cases, mothers who do not want or are not ready to have children prefer to give up for adoption at birth or leave them because of their inability to terminate a pregnancy due to various barriers (Sanger 655). These might include complicated access to care, moral issues, or the lack of education about sexual life and pregnancy (Sanger 656). Moreover, if undesired children live with their mothers, they suffer from different forms of abuse, including psychological, physical, and sexual forms (Sanger 655). From this perspective, abortion should be viewed as a way to save a child from a life of suffering and guarantee a high quality of life to all people.
Another factor that can help to solve the moral dilemma is the emergence of fetal pathologies that will cause serious damage to the health of a child and precondition the development of severe disabilities. The modern diagnostic tools help to discover abnormalities at early stages and predict their impact on a child, including all adverse effects. Additionally, some diseases during pregnancy, such as the Zika Virus or rubella, can precondition brain damage, deafness, intellectual disabilities, and reduce lifespan (Counotte). For this reason, health workers and therapists recommend abortion to protect a child from these severe illnesses and avoid suffering and living in pain. In such situations, termination of pregnancy becomes morally justifiable regarding the humanistic values and the need to guarantee the high quality of life to all children.
Analyzing the issue from another angle, pregnancy is a complex state that characterized by the existence of multiple risks to a mother. In some cases, it might precondition the development of extremely dangerous conditions and the death of a woman. That is why specialists recommend abortions for mothers with such health issues as heart disease, cancer, or a certain form of diabetes as they can die on later terms (Dawson et al.). Under these conditions, abortion serves as a tool to protect the life of an individual and guarantee that a woman will not die. Moreover, her state can be improved, and she might have another attempt to have a child, which evidences the need for abortion in complex cases.
Finally, another aspect proving the need for abortions is the responsibility of parents to raise a healthy child and guarantee that he/she will have an opportunity to live a long and healthy life without suffering. From this perspective, termination of pregnancy is a tool that helps mothers to ensure that children will not have in-born disabilities or diseases that cannot be treated and reduce the lifespan of a person. Additionally, the ability to make decisions about their bodies is one of the fundamental human rights, and the prohibition of abortions can be viewed as their rude violation (Ekelin and Larsson 131). It means that any woman should have an opportunity to terminate her pregnancy if she thinks it would be better for her, her health, or a child. Moreover, the prohibition of this practice might give rise to a new wave of debates as unsafe abortions made in inappropriate conditions cause multiple deaths every year (Watt and McCarthy 151). For this reason, the complicated access to appropriate care might pose numerous threats to women.
Altogether, there is a body of evidence proving that abortions are morally justifiable and should be available to all women. It can serve as a family planning tool, reduce rates of child abuse and the number of children in asylums, and guarantee the high quality of life to all newborns. Termination of pregnancy can also be recommended to women with severe diseases who can die in labor or during pregnancy. In such a way, it is impossible to prohibit abortions in the contemporary society; on the contrary, women should be provided with the access to care to avoid complications caused by unsafe abortions made in inappropriate conditions.
References
Counotte, Michel Jacques. “Zika Virus Infection as a Cause of Congenital Brain Abnormalities and Guillain-Barré Syndrome: A Living Systematic Review.” F1000 Research, vol. 8, 2019, Web.
Dawson, Angela, et al. “Towards Comprehensive Early Abortion Service Delivery in High Income Countries: Insights for Improving Universal Access to Abortion in Australia.” BMC Health Services Research, vol. 16, 2016, Web.
Ekelin, Maria, and Anna-Karin Larsson. “Expectant Parents’ Attitudes to Termination of Pregnancy in General and in Cases of Fetal Abnormality.” Nordic Journal of Nursing Research, vol. 36, no. 3, 2016, pp. 128–135, Web.
Sanger, Carol. “Talking About Abortion.” Social & Legal Studies, vol. 25, no. 6, 2016, pp. 651–666, Web.
Watt, Helen, and Anthony McCarthy. “Targeting the Fetal Body and/or Mother–Child Connection: Vital Conflicts and Abortion.” The Linacre Quarterly, vol. 87, no. 2, 2020, pp. 147–160, Web.