The situation is today reversed; abortion under modern hospital conditions is safer than childbirth. Nor is there any evidence that abortion involves psychological health hazards. A poll of the American Psychiatric Association in the mids revealed overwhelming support for more easily available abortions and a conviction that adverse psychological sequelae from abortion are negligible both on an absolute standard and as compared with such sequelae from childbirth and unwanted children.
Though the population experts have not yet aligned themselves on the side of abortion-law reform, something is beginning to happen.
Seven states—Arkansas, California, Colorado, Georgia, Maryland, New Mexico, and North Carolina—have amended their laws to permit abortion not only to save life but also to protect the health, mental and physical, of the mother, in cases of rape and incest, and to avert the birth of defective offspring Governor Reagan forced the omission of this ground in the California law.
Many other states have been and are now considering abortion reform or repeal bills but usually without the support of the powerful groups who are backing other forms of population control. The old laws are also beginning to face challenges in the courts and are being attacked on a variety of constitutional grounds. The ratio of in-hospital abortions to live births in New York City was approximately one to for private patients and something like one to 10, in municipal hospitals.
At the same time the women whose deaths were associated with abortion in New York City in a typical year were 56 percent black, 23 percent Puerto Rican, and 21 percent white. The to 10, in-hospital abortions contrast, of course, with the estimated one million performed outside hospitals annually.
Generally speaking, the laws do not distinguish in their prohibitions of abortions between doctors and nondoctors. Moreover, the out-of-hospital abortions performed by doctors are obtained by the same group which accounts for the bulk of the in-hospital abortions: the middle- and upper-income white woman who can afford the hundreds or thousands charged for expert medical service outside the law.
But most of the old laws on abortion remain unchanged on the statute books. In a few states, like Connecticut or Missouri, the law says that the abortion may be performed to save the life of the child as well as that of the mother, although no one is sure what this means.
As a matter of fact, no one knows what the laws which permit abortion to save the life of the mother mean. Is it enough that the pregnancy if it comes to term will seriously damage the mother's health? Or will result in the birth of defective offspring? Clearly, a number of doctors think the answer to these questions is yes, since abortions, especially on white women with good incomes, are routinely and openly performed in some hospitals in most states and the prosecuting authorities do nothing about it.
So why do the abortion laws stay on the books? One reason is the apparent inability or unwillingness of those who advocate population limitation to see the connection.
This does not apply to Planned Parenthood-World Population, which in November, , passed resolutions calling for repeal of the abortion laws in support of its declared policy of voluntary parenthood. By , almost all the major religious groups in the United States except the Roman Catholic Church were on record in favor of abortion-law reform or repeal. A doctor who provides safe abortion care to a woman who requests it without the approval of his or her colleague could be sent to prison for 12 years.
If we do not believe these people should be imprisoned we should not accept a law which stipulates that they should. The Act was also developed in a context where public opinion was far more ambivalent about abortion than it is today. There are around , abortions a year. One in three women will have an abortion in their lifetime. It is bizarre that it should be governed by criminal law rather than regulated in the same way as any other healthcare procedure.
The fact that unlike any other medical procedure and for no clinical reason whatsoever 2 doctors must authorise every request for an abortion inevitably causes needless delays. Women undergoing miscarriage treatment are able to take the pills they need to pass an early pregnancy in the comfort of their own home. The law prevents women undergoing early abortion from doing this.
Abortion procedures today are safe and straightforward, and do not need to be performed by doctors. However the law currently denies nurses and midwives a larger role in the provision of care.
One of the aims of the Abortion Act was to protect doctors from prosecution when performing legal abortions. Other jurisdictions, in Australia and Canada, have successfully removed abortion from the criminal statute, in order to regulate it with laws more appropriate to a mainstream healthcare procedure.
This has not caused an increase in the rates of abortion, or the proportion which take place at later gestations, and has provided a more constructive platform to consider how abortion can best be provided in the 21st Century. Home Contact Us. Book an appointment Call Find a clinic. Book appointment. Toggle main menu. Touch to call us on 30 40 Toggle main menu Abortion care Abortion care Considering abortion?
Pregnancy options discussion Advice and counselling What is abortion? Abortion treatments The abortion pill Surgical abortion. Where the change in law added enumerated grounds for abortion, these are reflected through lettered icons.
The right to safe and legal abortion is a fundamental human right protected under numerous international and regional human rights treaties and national-level constitutions around the world. These instruments ground safe abortion in a constellation of rights, including the rights to life; liberty; privacy; equality and non-discrimination and freedom from cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment.
Human rights bodies have repeatedly condemned restrictive abortion laws as being incompatible with human rights norms. While a majority of women live in countries where they can exercise their right to abortion, 41 percent of women live under restrictive laws. The inability to access safe and legal abortion care impacts million women of reproductive age. According to the World Health Organization, 23, women die of unsafe abortion each year and tens of thousands more experience significant health complications.
Legal restrictions on abortion do not result in fewer abortions, instead they compel women to risk their lives and health by seeking out unsafe abortion care. The legal status of abortion indicates more than just where women and girls are legally permitted to decide whether to a pregnancy term or not.
In short, tracking the legal status of abortion shows us where women and girls are treated with equality and are afforded the opportunity to direct the course of their own lives. Our Abortion Law and Policy Guide showcases international and regional human rights norms, global medical standards, and comparative laws and policies on the following topics:. The Center for Reproductive Rights tracks the most recent developments in abortion law and policy. The laws of countries in this category permit abortion on the basis of health or therapeutic grounds.
The most common gestational limit for countries in this category is 12 weeks. Gestational limits are calculated from the first day of the last menstrual period, which is considered to occur two weeks prior to conception. Where laws specify that gestational age limits are calculated from the date of conception, these limits have been extended by two weeks. The World's Abortion Laws. View by category Prohibited Altogether i.
0コメント