Abortion

Should abortion be legal? This question has caused a huge controversy and raised countless debates. Issues dealing with moral and health aspects of abortion have been discussed for years. Some say women have freedom over what happens to them and their bodies. Others go in the opposite direction and say it’s murder. Abortion causes health problems. Abortion prevents neglect. These are some of the arguments used when defending different sides of the debate. I believe abortion should be illegal for both moral and health reasons, with the possible exception of certain special cases.
Perhaps one of the best arguments for making abortion legal is that women should have freedom of choice. It’s their body, and they should be able to decide what happens to it. However, abortion is not only about what happens to the mother, it’s also about what happens to the baby. The fetus is to some degree separate from the mother. It’s an individual. Pregnant women are carrying another life inside their bodies, though some fail to take notice of this. The would-be mother should at least consider the other life inside of her and spare it.
Some scientists state that a fetus is not technically a human until premature signs of development occur. According to some religious parties such as Mormons or Fundamentalists, however, “personhood” begins at conception. As soon as the fetus is formed, it is considered to be a living thing. And from that small fetus a baby develops, which is undoubtedly a human.
Many women get abortions because of unplanned pregnancies. This shows irresponsibility, and should not be a legitimate reason for aborting a fetus. You conceived it, now you should take care of it. There are those who say that unwanted babies will be neglected during childhood and become scarred because of that. However, every child should have a chance. There are many loving families who are willing to adopt unwanted children. In addition, there are countless women in the world, unable to bear children, who would love the opportunity to have a baby. Yet others are willing to abort a child because they don’t want to, or can’t, take care of it.
From a health point of view, abortions are dangerous. Medical studies show that women who have abortions may get a uterus infection and become unable to bear children in the future, and it can affect their health in other ways. For instance, medical abortions can cause bleeding for 13-15 days or more; the tools used during an abortion can puncture and damage other organs, which also causes extensive bleeding. Also, twenty one worldwide studies have linked abortions to breast cancer. In the worst case scenario, abortion can result in death of the mother, especially if done during the first three mothers of pregnancy. However, this is rare. Abortion also affects the mental health of the parents. Following an abortion, some men and women experience sadness, guilt, suicidal thoughts, increased drug and alcohol use, and difficulty maintaining relationships. Clearly, there are many health risks associated with abortion. Is it worth compromising a person’s health to end the life another?
It is true that there are cases when abortion could be considered the better of two choices concerning the health of the mother or the unborn child. If the mother’s health or the baby’s health is at risk, many believe abortion is acceptable. In the case of complications with multiple pregnancies, removing one or more or the fetuses is sometimes considered necessary. However, cases like these are not extremely common.
In fact, a study conducted in 1998 in 27 countries on the reasons women seek to terminate pregnancies concluded that common factors which influenced the abortion decision were: “desire to delay or end childbearing concern over the interruption or work or education, issues of financial or relation stability, and perceived immaturity.” An American study conducted in 2002 showed that 54% of women getting an abortion were getting a form of contraception at the time of becoming pregnant while 46% were not. Obviously, irresponsibly seem to be a much bigger influence on abortion than anything health-related.
Abortion on account of rape and incest is also a big issue. Many women want to abort the child because having it around would be a constant reminder of the incident that conceived it. Guilt causes them to abort. However, as rape is usually not provoked, guilt should not be a reason to abort a child, either. Again, there are orphanages that can take in children who are not wanted by their parents, and there are families that would adopt them. Furthermore, pregnancies caused by rape and incest are not very usual. In fact, a 2004 study in America, in which women at clinics answered a questionnaire, showed the cause of pregnancies resulting in abortion. About 1% of women in the survey became pregnant as a result of rape and 0.5% as a result of incest. Clearly, this is not a strong argument in favor of legalizing abortion.

Aborting in any case, with the possible exception of compromised health, is to a certain degree selfish. Just because the woman was irresponsible does not mean the child should suffer. Women more concerned about their career or reputation should think of that before engaging in activities that could result in unplanned pregnancies. The child should not feel unloved purely on account of the feelings of the mother. In addition, cases of women who do not want to accept the consequences of their actions should not justify making abortion legal. Because abortion has been legalized in so many countries, countless unborn babies never see the light of day. Children who are given a chance to be born may become important figures. A baby that is allowed to live may grow up to be a doctor that will save someone’s life or an astronaut that will go to Mars. Why should the baby take the blame for the mother’s actions?

The House

Next to my apartment building, there is an old ruined two floor house. I can see it very clearly from where I sit in the windowsill, in my bedroom, when I’m bored. At first, I thought no one could live in a building like it, but I realized that not everybody has a house which is “livable” according to western standards.
The house I’m talking about looks forsaken, but smoke rises from its chimney which is one of the few signs that someone is living there. The roof, which is no longer completely covered with snow, is made of thin rusty metal plates. The plates, which are no longer whole plates, have lots of holes in them and the mud and dirt which is used as insulation is visible. There are some unnecessary looking metal poles sticking up from the inside where the power wires and a whole bunch of other cables and wires are attached. They all look like spaghetti which has been boiled a little too long. Long pointy icicles hang down from the edge of the roof and scare the people who walk by them.
The walls are made of very natural looking rock blocks. Their color is a mixture of gray, back and white. There is an unnaturally large space between the blocks which is filled with cement. There are a total of five windows in the front part, which is the only part visible from my point of view. They are all broken in some way, and the windowsills, which were originally white, are now dirty brown. Not only is the paint peeling off, but also the wood itself; it is possible to see huge missing pieces of wood. The curtains inside the windows are a discolored blue and pink plaid. Some of them are half torn down. All of the windows, except the windows in the balcony door, are covered with white painted bars, even those on the second floor. Once they might have looked nice, but now they don’t. Some bars are missing and the white paint has turned black and brown.
A bright yellow water or gas pipe is another element that makes the house look alive; however they look old and the reddish brown rust is clearly visible. One of the window bars on the side of the first floor is covered with dead leaves that fell from a tree which is growing upwards against the wall. On the other side, it is only possible to see the very top of the bars because of a huge blue container, which is probably used as a shed. You can hear a funny sound when the melting icicles from the roof fall and land with a crunch on the top of the container.
On the upper right section, there is a fairly new extension. Even though it was built recently, it looks almost as old as the rest of the house since no one has taken care of it. The white painted walls are not white anymore, but black as the window bars because of the polluted air. The window glass is not whole anymore and large plastic sheets have been put where there is no glass left.
There is a balcony in the middle of the wall on the second floor. It does not look very safe, because it is rests on shaky looking tiny cement blocks which are stacked upon each other. But it might be safe enough, because every morning, during the summer, people are sitting there drinking coffee. Long lines of string, covered with clothes hang from the balcony and over to the left window and another one to the right window.
There is also a small garden outside the house, which seems misplaced; it does not quite fit in with the environment around it. The blue container is placed in the middle of it and the garden looks like it has not been tended for a while.

I have seen different standards of living in different places of the world. What bothers me sometimes is why people don’t focus more on warm insulation and roofs which don’t leak, when they build their houses. I’ll conclude that not everybody is able to do this, either because of economic reasons or because of absence of information.