Abortion Ban’s=Unsafe Abortions

 

 

Perhaps one of the most common arguments in favour of abortion is that implementing an abortion ban would result in the greater harm of women, due to lack of regulation, oversight, and safe methodologies. This is actually well supported by data. According to the World Health Organization, 23,000 women die from unsafe abortions each year and tens of thousands more experience significant health complications globally. A recent study estimated that banning abortion in the U.S. would lead to a 21% increase in the number of pregnancy-related deaths overall. Simply because staying pregnant is more dangerous than having an abortion. Increased deaths due to unsafe abortions or attempted abortions would be in addition to these estimates.

 

On it’s face, this seems compelling reason to lay waste to any bans. But this argument has a glaring flaw. It seems to ASSUME the position that abortion does NOT constitute the taking of innocent infantile life. If we view the problem through the lens of abortion being a neutral, MERELY medical act, of course bans would cause an addition of moral/ physical harm. If we banned the removing of an appendix, we would also see an uptick of injury/mortality in relation to that.

 

Let’s take the phrase “Safe abortion”. Even that constitutes the assumption that the abortion, performed perfectly, is safe for all morally relevant parties. However, if you take my position, that Abortion is Murder (The taking of innocent life) than Safe Abortion is not only an incorrect statement, but actually impossible, in the same way that “Consensual Rape” is. The prefix being contradicted being actually necessary to describe the noun.

 

Now, this is not a philosophical argument AGAINST abortion. It just was relevant to point out that it is NOT a compelling argument in terms of the morality of abortion aside from any utilitarian concerns.

 

Let us assume for a moment fetus’ are granted full moral human status. I think it would be safe to say that a complete ban on abortion would lead to a reduction in frequency of human death related to childbearing and birthing (Including maternal deaths) in any region that adopted this. Even if I am incorrect in this assumption, that would STILL not justify abortion prima facia. Imagine we demonstrated mothers’ are 10% more likely to die young unless they kill their 2 year old child. I don’t think many of us would find that to be a compelling reason to justify infanticide. We would earnestly search for other solutions. And they do exist. This serves to demonstrate that the statistics are not sufficient to answer the true question at hand. I think I have demonstrated that these are not good arguments for either side in terms of addressing the root of the issue. Each must assume their case to make it. If abortion is just removing a non human biological entity, then of course it should be legally, readily available, etc. So we must look elsewhere to answer the question in regards to abortions’ “deontology” or moral status