Life is a gift and not a choice. This statement has been the predominant moral argument that pro-life supporters convey in their crusade against the modern-world perception of life and abortion. The proliferation of abortion has been deemed acceptable for most non-religious affiliated groups and modernists, aimed towards disproving the moral and ethical implications of abortions (Scotland 7). However, more than what is moral and ethical, are the scientific implications of it on a woman’s health which are mostly overlooked by these pro-choice supporters.
This paper argues that the main proponents of pro-life contentions, more than the dominant moral and ethical arguments, are the medical and scientific evidence that abortion is indeed harmful to ones health, bringing damage not just to the unborn life but also to the one carrying it. Abortion, throughout the course of women’s history, has involved high emotions and mental health considerations in the part of the woman who are opting to do it.
There have been significant amount of women who decided on partaking in illegal abortion procedures due to the high emotions taking toll on them out of unaccepted pregnancy. According to Roe Wade in an essay in New York Times, almost any implement we can imagine had been and was used to start an abortion — darning needles, crochet hooks, cut-glass salt shakers, soda bottles, sometimes intact, sometimes with the top broken off. These, by itself, would include high risks in the part of the one who opted to go through these harmful abortion decisions.
Furthermore, Roe describes the worst cases that he has encountered, in hopes that he never will, were highly severe cases of malpractices. One of which that stands out are the fractures that abortion has done to the human body. In one of his experiences on these abortion malpractices, he encountered cases of women being admitted with what seemed to be a partly delivered umbilical cord. “Yet as soon as we examined her, we realized that what we thought was the cord was in fact part of her intestine, which had been hooked and torn by whatever implement had been used in the abortion.
It took six hours of surgery to remove the infected uterus and ovaries and repair the part of the bowel that was still functional” Roe said. Yet another health risk of abortion is the high risks of breast cancer. Dr. James Howenstine disputes that the fact that breast cancer can indeed be caused by abortion has been primarily suppressed by the media because of the moral issues behind it. He further supports this with a claim that more than 30 studies have verified the existing correlation between going under abortion and the development of breast cancer.
Adding up to the growing causes of breast cancer in the United States where every woman has statistically reported to be at risk of developing breast cancer at a 10% to 12% chance. Furthermore, long term physical complications are predicted to surface due to abortion, For instance, overzealous curettage may cause damages to the lining of the uterus which can ultimately lead to lasting barrenness (Levin 54). Woman who commit to such also increase the risk of entopic pregnancy.
All these can ultimately lead to increase in risks of infertility and miscarriages in future pregnancies. In conclusion, all these scientific and medical accounts add up to the major proponents of why abortion should not be accepted. Life is highly sacred and thus needs to be valued; if the unborn child is not to be considered life by itself then the life of the one carrying it should be reason enough not to go under this procedure. Works Cited Fielding, Waldo. “Repairing the Damage, Before Roe.
” New York Times Views (3 June 2008) 15 April 2009. <http://www. nytimes. com/2008/06/03/health/views/03essa. html? _r=1> Howenstine, James. “Abortion Causes Breast Cancer. ” (26 December 2003). 15 April 2009. <http://www. newswithviews. com/Howenstine/james3. htm> Stotland, Nada. “Abortion: facts and feelings : a handbook for women and the people who care about them” American Psychiatric Pub. (1998) Levin, A. “Ectopic Pregnancy and Prior Induced Abortion,” American Journal of Public Health, Vol. 72, No. 3 (March 1982),