General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: Mom Charged For Helping Daughter Obtain Illegal Abortion: Is This Our New Reality? [View all]theHandpuppet
(19,964 posts)Although this document pertains to women in the developing world, it is sadly becoming a reality right here at home.
WHO
World Health Organization
Note: the link below is to a pdf
Unsafe abortion: the preventable pandemic
http://www.who.int/reproductivehealth/publications/general/lancet_4.pdf
(excerpt from the WHO document)
Unsafe abortion endangers health in the developing world, and merits the same dispassionate, scientific approach to solutions as do other threats to public health. Although the remedies are available and inexpensive, governments in developing nations often do not have the political will to do what is right and necessary. The beneficiaries of access to safe, legal abortion on request include not only women but also their children, families, and societyfor present and future generations.
Women have always had abortions and will always continue to do so, irrespective of prevailing laws, religious proscriptions, or social norms. Although the ethical debate over abortion will continue, the public-health record is clear and incontrovertible: access to safe, legal abortion on request improves health. As noted by Mahmoud Fathalla, Pregnancy-related deaths
are often the ultimate tragic outcome of the cumulative denial of womens human rights. Women are not dying because of untreatable diseases. They are dying because societies have yet to make the decision that their lives are worth saving. Simply put, they die because they do not count.