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September 28 of each year is World Safe Abortion Day, and the World Health Organization considers abortion a medical and health right.
The reasons why women resort to abortion vary. The organization’s statistics indicate that the world witnesses about 73 million abortions annually. Abortion ends six out of every 10 unintended pregnancies (61 percent) and about three out of every 10 intended pregnancies (29 percent).
Abortion is considered a common and safe health intervention when performed in proportion to the duration of pregnancy and by a health care provider who has the necessary skills.
However, unsafe abortion is a major cause of maternal mortality and causes between 4.7 and 13.2 percent of maternal deaths annually.
It can cause physical and psychological health complications for women who undergo it. It also creates significant financial burdens on women and local communities.
In addition, many countries impose legal penalties, up to and including imprisonment, on women who undergo abortions, and many also impose penalties on doctors or caregivers who provided assistance.
The World Health Organization estimated that approximately 45 percent of abortions between 2010 and 2014 were performed unsafely, and 97 percent of them occurred in developing countries.
The organization considers that the inability to provide good health care and safe abortion constitutes a violation of human rights, which include the right to life, physical and mental health, to benefit from scientific progress, to make a free and responsible decision regarding the number of children, the spacing and timing of births, and to not be subjected to torture, cruel treatment or punishment. Or inhuman or degrading.
What is safe abortion?
Image source: Reuters
Dr. Bella Ganatra, of the World Health Organization’s Department of Reproductive Health and Research, points out that there are “two ways in which this simple health care intervention can be provided safely,” either through “a procedure that can be performed by doctors, nurses or midwives at the center of care.” Local health care, or through the use of a medicine sold in the form of tablets.
She points out that these drugs “have been studied for several decades and we have strong evidence of their safety.”
Ganatra confirms that it is very rare for these medications to cause serious side effects and they do not cause any long-term effects, such as side effects on fertility, for example. Therefore, she says, these pills can be provided in several ways, whether “in a facility with a health care provider, or through an online doctor’s visit, or if the woman is early enough in the pregnancy, meaning less than 12 weeks, that she can take Tablets and follow directions at home.
No girl or woman can visit a doctor or specialized health care provider, if the laws of the country in which she resides do not allow it, which forces her to undergo an unsafe abortion, which may cost her her life.
What is unsafe abortion?
Ganatra says that unsafe abortion does not differ technically from safe abortion, but rather in terms of unsafe conditions, such as when it is performed by an insufficiently trained person or if counterfeit or low-quality pills are used.
She adds: “We are very concerned about the problem of counterfeit and substandard medicines and the lack of access to accurate information or backup support when necessary in the event of any side effects.”
She points out that the greatest danger is when people are forced to “use all kinds of other medications, chemicals, mixtures, and herbal medicines that are taken orally, injected, or inserted into the vagina.” “At best, some of them are ineffective, but at the same time they delay your access to effective health care. At worst, they can be very dangerous, even fatal,” she adds.
Resorting to a medical clinic to perform an illegal abortion, using designated medical instruments, may also be fatal.
The physical health risks resulting from an unsafe abortion in this way include incomplete abortion, that is, failure to remove or expel all of the gestational tissue from the uterus, exposure to severe bleeding, infection, or perforation of the uterus, resulting from the use of a sharp instrument to perform the abortion. Risks may also include damage to the reproductive system and internal organs due to the tools used in the unsafe abortion process.
Image source: Reuters
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A drug used to induce abortion
Does banning abortion encourage unsafe conditions?
Doctors and health care providers agree that states banning abortion does not actually prevent the procedure or reduce decision-making rates, but rather forces girls and women to have it unsafely and puts their lives at risk.
Dr. Rasha Al-Khoury, an obstetrician with Doctors Without Borders, pointed out in a previous interview with BBC News Arabic that these laws “prevent abortion among a group of people, not all of them,” because “people who have money and can travel to… “Other countries, who can afford private health care, will be able to perform abortions.”
She adds: “The poorest women who cannot travel because of society or family reasons suffer because of these laws.”
For her part, Ganatra points out that restricting women’s access to safe abortion does not actually address the underlying reasons that drive them to have abortions in the first place.
She confirms that there are ways to address this problem, and that the solutions are known. “We need to make sure women and girls have access to safe abortion when they need it,” she says. But she adds that this should be “within a comprehensive range of services, in addition to family planning and contraception to help prevent unintended pregnancies and sex education.”
“When we provide the full range of comprehensive sexual and reproductive health care and put women and girls at the heart of decision-making, we care about their health, and only then can we eliminate the problem of unsafe abortion,” she points out.
Image source: Reuters
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A pro-abortion rights activist during a protest outside the US Supreme Court in Washington on June 26, 2022.
According to a study published in the Journal of the US National Library of Medicine, issued in 1985, abortion is not considered a phenomenon associated with modern times, but rather has been practiced since ancient times, but its legality and availability are always under question.
Over the past decades, abortion has become a hot political issue in some countries, along with deep-rooted beliefs about women’s fundamental right to make important decisions about their bodies and reproductive health.
The study indicates that laws that absolutely prohibit the practice of abortion are a relatively recent development.
For example, the Church did not consider abortion a crime until the year 1588, during the reign of Pope Sixtus V, who declared abortion of all kinds a crime, and its penalty was excommunication. However, this decision has changed several times since then.
Abortion has become a prominent political issue in the US presidential elections, for example, especially after the US Supreme Court overturned in June 2022 its decision on the right to abortion, which it had issued in 1973.
2023-09-28 07:35:11
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