Abortion: A Sad State of Affairs

The majority of countries in the world do not allow abortions on demand. Only 32% have laws that permit abortion if the woman wants it. The United States is one of the 63 countries where this is legal.

The majority of countries do not allow abortions on socio/economic grounds. They force women to bear children that they cannot support or that for some other ‘socio/economic’ reason they do not want.

Only half of the world’s countries allow abortions in case of rape or incest.

A little under half of all the world’s countries do not allow abortion when it endangers the mental or physical health of the woman. Although childbirth mortality rates were higher in the past, women in many parts of the world die during pregnancy and childbirth.

It is only when the woman’s life is in danger that abortion is legal in 96% of the world’s countries. Still, some countries don’t even allow it in those cases.

Approximately 25% of the world's population lives in countries with highly restrictive abortion laws, which either completely ban abortion, or allow it only to save the mother's life. That means that hundreds of millions of women on earth are denied control over their own bodies.

This category of countries includes most countries in Latin America, most countries of the Middle East, approximately half of the countries of Africa, seven countries in the Asia-Pacific region, and two countries (Malta and Ireland) in Europe.

Latin America is considered the world region with the most restrictive abortion laws. Fewer than 3% of the women in this region live in countries with liberal abortion laws — that is, where abortion is permitted either without restriction as to reason or on socioeconomic grounds.

THE UNITED STATES

Since 1973, abortion has been legal in the US. It was modified in 1992 to prevent states from placing legal restrictions on the law. This law is still in effect today. Although this legal framework established by the Supreme Court is very liberal, in practice the effective availability of abortion varies significantly from state to state, as many counties have no abortion providers. This creates a paradox in the US, where the abortion law of the United States is one of the most liberal in the world, but de facto access to abortion services is quite poor in many parts of the country.

We can now expect the Supreme Court to be stacked with conservatives.  There is a high chance that Roe v. Wade will be overturned. In that case, abortion in the US will exist on a state-by-state basis.  The fall-back position will be to fight like the devil to guarantee that as many states as possible continue to provide legal abortion.

These will, obviously, be liberal states such as California, New York and Massachusetts.

In time, abortion will once again be the law of the land. But for the next few years, we are likely to move further to the right than we have ever been in our lifetime.

Conclusion:

If you believe that all people are created equal with certain unalienable rights, the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, then you believe in a woman’s right to choose.

In a free society, abortion should be legal, simply because it is a choice, and what grows inside a woman’s body is hers. Of course, there are more effective ways to prevent pregnancy than abortion, but what woman in her right mind would choose abortion as a means of birth control? It is only in cases where other methods haven’t worked that abortion is necessary. It is time that we hold this truth to be self-evident.