Sweat dripping off her face as she was trying to bring herself up with all the strength left in her body.
Foot sound approaching her.
Heart thudding.
The sound of a flyer being unzipped.
Eyes closed
As you have been reading this, I am sure a seething flow of emotions has submerged your body, even for a split of a second, feeling sorry for every person that had to undergo this, but also feeling grateful that you have been lucky enough to carry out a safe and normal life. Now imagine this very person, after this trauma, discovering she is carrying the outcome of it. A baby that is part of her, but also part of the most disturbing memory she would do anything to get out of her system. I know this is just one case scenario, but just imagine …
I have been hearing a lot of protest against the legalization of abortion. I have read a lot of articles and watched debates discussing who should we take into account when talking about abortion. Some are against abortion because they think about the baby. To them, aborting a baby is a crime and, in a religious context, a sin that can never be pardoned. They even argue that everyone should face the consequences, and here we are talking about giving birth. Some are for abortion because perhaps they picture themselves in the shoes of that very person who was once raped or loved and fell pregnant, a thing that some would describe “a mistake “. Or simply because they think everyone is fairly responsible for their own body, that abortion is a choice. I never quite understood why when this topic is brought up, we tend to discuss abortion rather than the fact of making it safe. The debate keeps steering away from the core of the topic to discuss a controversy.
According to the World Health Organization, around 25 million unsafe abortions were estimated to have taken place worldwide each year, almost all in developing countries. And each year between 4.7% — 13.2% of maternal deaths can be attributed to unsafe abortion. Allow these statistics to sink in your mind and ponder on what I am taking the liberty to say next. Truth is, abortion has existed a long time ago and will carry on existing whether we legalize it or not. That is a fact that we all ought to be conscious about, a fact that we all ought to face and not keep on throwing a blind eye to it.
Legalizing abortion will only make it a safer operation. And safety is the least you can afford for a human being, regardless of everything. Legalizing it does not mean necessarily that you are promoting it, but it does mean that you are promoting a safer operation. It is useless to argue on who we should care about first when talking about aborting. You can never know because you were not faced with the decision of whether to abort on not. So as long as we cannot picture ourselves in the body of these women, I say let us talk about making these operations being carried on the norms of the human being safety. Now here, I am not saying that I am for abortion, in complete honesty, I find myself neutral regarding this topic. However, I do find it absurd to discuss whether or not an operation like this, one that could turn out to be risky at times, should be safe. This only means that you are ready to subject a human being to the possibility of death, because of a belief, an opinion. The irony is that sometimes this very opinion can be tweaked, according to one’s convenience. For example, a man believes that abortion is murder, however, when he is not ready to assume fatherhood, it seems that abortion is his only way out. It seems to me that for this man to save face, abortion does not look all bad, all of a sudden, no longer murder. Now, this brings me to what I said earlier, as long as you are not put in a similar situation, restrain yourself from forming an opinion, especially when this opinion decides for another human being’s life. Abortion is a choice, quite frankly, I do believe so, but I believe more strongly that carrying a safe abortion is a must.
