Tuesday, August 07, 2012

STICKY POINT: ABORTION (TO ALLOW IT... OR NOT TO)

The debate on abortion has moved away from the empowerment of women to cutting religious propaganda

Kenya, India, Bangladesh, Spain, Mexico, all are nations where abortion is illegal (after a few weeks of conception; like in India) but the governments are not able to control or deliberately overlook the illegal abortions (Mexico has over 900,000 illegal abortions every year). And this point is where religious groups, especially the Catholic communities, are lobbying very hard to stop abortions globally. In general, a majority of Catholic Christians are considered to be pro-life. While Barack is now giving millions of dollars to groups that aggressively promote the pro-choice concept, he has been highly condemned by the Vatican along with pro-life leaders on this move. In the Dominican Republic, after the Dominican Catholic Church lobbied, the present laws ban abortion in all circumstances, even in cases of rape; in fact, even when the mother’s life is in danger. Abortion is banned in Catholic heavy Ireland, except in cases where the mother’s life is in danger. In Spain, though abortion is illegal, with the passage of gay rights the ban was expected to be removed. However, the Catholic Church has launched campaigns to prevent the reform from being passed. It’s clear that the issue of abortion can never escape the bloodying conflict between the political and religious spheres. The politician who attempts to go against the existing religious paradigm could well end up losing a huge base of voters – Obama knew that and still won.

But then, is abortion right or wrong? That, we truly believe, is for a nation and its people to decide. If the democratically elected legislature of a country – which promotes equal women’s rights – believes abortions should be allowed or banned, in whatever form or reason, then be that as it may! Unfortunately, not only is the majority of most legislative assemblies almost always made up of men, these nations also suffer what we now know as the Roe Effect, which says that pro-choice parents have generally ended up having more abortions and hence fewer children over decades than the pro-life population; thus support for legal abortions has declined over time, and will decline further in the future. That, sadly, might be the way of things to be in the future...


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