Free essay sample on abortions

essay on abortion

One of the disadvantages of scraping or suction is that it cannot be done early in the pregnancy. Usually the patient must be pregnant at least sixteen weeks or longer. Earlier than that time, it is difficult to puncture the uterus for proper injection. These injections are not without hazard. Serious infections have been reported following use of sugar solutions, since bacteria thrive in this type of environment. A few deaths have been reported from brain damage following use of salt solution. In these latter cases, the salt solution may have been injected directly into the blood stream, rather than into the fluid sac. Lastly, these injection procedures are not universally successful and reinjection is often necessary. If these fail, surgical opening of the uterus and direct removal of the pregnancy is the only alternative remaining.

essay on abortions

One obvious solution to the abortion problem would seem to lie in the universal availability and use of contraceptives so that unwanted pregnancies could not occur. Even here we are far from this ideal in many ways. It is discouraging to realize that in Japan and eastern Europe, where abortion is easily obtained, many women use this as their sole method of birth control. Under these conditions, women may have three or four abortions a year rather than use the safer and simpler methods of contraception. In the United States, it would be desirable for abortion to be removed from the legal and political arena and placed where it belongs, as a confidential, individualized decision between patient and physician.

essays on abortion

Liberal use of hospital abortion would prevent many of the tragedies associated with back-alley amateur operators. However, abortion can never be treated lightly. Even when undertaken as a hospital procedure, there are risks involved, as we have seen. What are the long-term effects of abortion on the woman's psychological attitudes? There are studies which suggest that most women have no regrets or mental suffering following abortion. A few women do have persistent guilt feelings. On the other hand, some recent work suggests that children born after their mothers were refused legal abortions tended to suffer from a higher incidence of psychiatric disease and maladjustment than did children whose mothers were not desirous of abortion.

free essays on abortion

The most controversial area in the diagnosis and treatment of habitual abortion concerns the existence of maternal hormonal deficiencies. It is customary practice in many medical communities to treat bleeding in early pregnancy with progestins or progesterone. This treatment has been extended to include the early pregnancies of women who have a history of abortion but who are not yet bleeding. Attempts to put this therapy on a more scientific basis by measuring hormones in pregnancy urine, studying hormone effects on the vaginal cells or endometrium of women who have histories of repetitive abortion, have not produced a strong case for the use of hormones as an abortion preventative.

free research papers on abortion

An X ray of the uterus may reveal an anatomical abnormality which can cause faulty implantation and subsequent abortion. Rare types of infections in the cervix with bacteria called listeria and mycoplasm may cause abortion. Toxoplasmosis, a parasitic infection, may cause abortion or may damage the brain and eye structures of the baby. Genetic studies of the parents' blood and of the aborted material may reveal genetic abnormalities which are repetitive, rather than isolated occurrences. It must be emphasized that these instances of repetitive genetic problems are rare. Lastly, severe maternal illness may cause repeated miscarriage.

against abortion essay

However, it is common practice to use progestin in the first few months of pregnancy if the woman has a history of having had three consecutive abortions. Perhaps some physical benefit accrues from this medication, but its most useful aspect may be the psychological reassurance it provides the woman that something positive is being done. In the face of these uncertain gains, attention must be focused on possible drawbacks of this treatment. One drawback to progestin therapy is that if another early abortion occurs, the hormone may prevent the uterus from expelling the dead pregnancy. It may be retained for a few months as a missed abortion.

against abortion essays

The evaluation of possible psychiatric indications for abortion poses some extremely perplexing problems. A hospital that wishes to abide by the letter of the law--in a necessary-to-save-the-mother's life state--may grant an abortion on psychiatric grounds only in cases in which the woman presents a very convincing threat of suicide. Needless to say, there is no completely or even highly reliable way of determining which of the women threatening suicide would really executive their expressed intent. Furthermore, frequently--if no typically--a woman desperately seeking an abortion will claim life is no longer worth living, even if she has no strong self-destructive intentions or tendencies.

anti abortion essay

Because pregnancy is a period of both physiological and psychological reorientation, the possibility of serious depression is always present. Such a reaction may well be exacerbated when inadequate financial means or other pressing socioeconomic difficulties cause the woman to seek an abortion. Usually a mere state of depression will not be accepted as sufficient grounds for abortion. Yet, as some psychiatrists stress, the hospital's refusal to grant an abortion doesn't mean that the woman will then decide to have the child after all. Frequently the psychiatrist will encounter a woman whose psychopathological symptoms, as such, appear minor but whose determination to have an abortion is strong.

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The general decline in hospital abortions is largely the result of medical advances in the treatment of conditions that once constituted major threats to pregnancy. Women with heart disease, hypertensive renal disease, tuberculosis, and other serious conditions are increasingly allowed to fulfill the term of pregnancy. Severe vomiting was once considered an indication for abortion; today this is rarely the case. Of course, a very serious medical condition may still call for abortion. Yet increased medical knowledge and improved techniques have meant that abortion is now seldom "necessary to save the life of the mother"--if such necessity is construed in narrow terms.

essays about abortion

Most hospitals will not take somedetermination into account in considering an application for abortion. To do so, it is felt, would amount to stretching the psychiatric indications to permit abortion on request. Yet it can be argued that the determination to abort at all costs, at least where evident to the psychiatrist at the time of consultation, might well be considered a relevant factor in the assessment of such cases. On the other hand, as one psychiatrist who has emphasized this point notes, there are some patients who are--through superficial supportive psychotherapy--readily enabled to carry the child to term.