The facts of this situation are pretty painful to read. But the truth of the matter remains that, whether the country in which they live permits it, the same amount of women are getting abortions. The New York Times reported on a study that concluded that about 20 million women get unsafe abortions. The main reason for this surprising amount of abortions in dangerous environments is because of legality. These are all done in countries in which abortion is illegal. Some of these countries, like Uganda, even have double the abortion rate of the United States.
With this knowledge in mind, why make abortion illegal? The number of women choosing abortion doesn't change, but their safety whilst getting the procedure does. Making the process illegal would do nothing more than increase the risk for women with unwanted pregnancies.
And the risks would be great. The same study found that 67,000 women die from illegal abortions and their complications. These women could have been okay if they had a safe place to have the procedure and doctors who could properly perform it. But they could not.
So what should be done? It's simple and requires only two things:
- Keep abortion legal.
- Make contraception widely and readily available
The only thing that this study found to prevent abortions - to keep them from occurring as frequently at all - is more available contraceptives. In countries in Eastern Europe, the abortion rate has decreased by 50 per cent since contraceptives have been more broadly available. Even those who prefer pro-life must agree: This is a good thing.
Again, as I've said, this is what being pro-choice is about. Readily give women the options necessary so that she will not have to come to the choice of abortion or not. And, should she come to that choice, give her safe options, so that she may be safe. Otherwise, it seems as though one would rather see more life lost than less.
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