Legalized Abortion And The Public Health

Abortion is a legal medical procedure that has been provided to millions of American women. Since the Institute of Medicine first reviewed the health implications of national legalized abortion in 1975, there has been a plethora of related scientific research, including well-designed randomized clinical trials, systematic reviews, and epidemiological studies examining abortion care. This research has focused on examining the relative safety of abortion methods and the appropriateness of methods for different clinical circumstances. With this growing body of research, earlier abortion methods have been refined, discontinued, and new approaches have been developed. The Safety and Quality of Abortion Care in the United States offers a comprehensive review of the current state of the science related to the provision of safe, high-quality abortion services in the United States. This report considers 8 research questions and presents conclusions, including gaps in research.

It is increasingly implausible to speak of a purely domestic abortion law, as the legal debates around the world draw on precedents and influences of different national and regional contexts. While the United States and Western Europe may have been the vanguard of abortion law reform in the latter half of the twentieth century, Central and South America are proving to be laboratories of thought and innovation in the twenty-first century, as are particular countries in Africa and Asia. Abortion Law in Transnational Perspective offers a fresh look at significant transnational legal developments in recent years, examining key judicial decisions, constitutional texts, and regulatory reforms of abortion law in order to envision ways ahead. The chapters investigate issues of access, rights, and justice, as well as social constructions of women, sexuality, and pregnancy, through different legal procedures and regimes. They address the promises and risks of using legal procedure to achieve reproductive justice from different national, regional, and international vantage points; how public and courtroom debates are framed within medical, religious, and human rights arguments; the meaning of different narratives that recur in abortion litigation and language; and how respect for women and prenatal life is expressed in various legal regimes. By exploring how legal actors advocate, regulate, and adjudicate the issue of abortion, this timely volume seeks to build on existing developments to bring about change of a larger order. Contributors: Luis Roberto Barroso, Paola Bergallo, Rebecca J. Cook, Bernard M. Dickens, Joanna N. Erdman, Lisa M. Kelly, Adriana Lamačková, Julieta Lemaitre, Alejandro Madrazo, Charles G. Ngwena, Rachel Rebouché, Ruth Rubio-Marín, Sally Sheldon, Reva B. Siegel, Verónica Undurraga, Melissa Upreti.

Every Third Woman in America: How Legal Abortion Transformed Our Nation tells the forgotten story of the transition from the back alley to safe care after Roe v. Wade was enacted in 1973. The legalization of abortion resulted in prompt and dramatic health improvements for women, children, and families, but an entire generation of Americans has grown up unaware of the harsh and unnecessary tragedies of back-alley abortions. Current attacks on safe, legal abortion at the state level are designed to return women to those desperate, dangerous days before abortion was legalized. One of the world's leading abortion scholars, Dr. Grimes chronicles the public-health story of legal abortion in America and the harms women face at the mercy of state laws restricting access to care. He shares the stories of his patients seeking abortion and how they and their families benefited.

At a UN General Assembly Special Session in 1999, governments recognised unsafe abortion as a major public health concern, and pledged their commitment to reduce the need for abortion through expanded and improved family planning services, as well as ensure abortion services should be safe and accessible. This technical and policy guidance provides a comprehensive overview of the many actions that can be taken in health systems to ensure that women have access to good quality abortion services as allowed by law.

Essay from the year 2010 in the subject Sociology - Medical Care, grade: B, The University of Texas at Austin, language: English, abstract: From research which was carried by the World Health Organization, there are about four thousand abortions made every single day in America. And world wide, the numbers of abortions in a single day are about one hundred twenty thousand. The issue on weather abortion should be legalized is still bothering many people's minds and the question is, what is abortion? This can be referred to as pregnancy destruction accidentally in form of a miscarriage or by someone's willed. Therefore we would be weighing the merits and demerits of abortion and discover if abortion legalization is a significant right women should have. Abortions that come up as a result of rape and possible health concerns to a mother are about 7% from the research made by doctors. But social and personal factors are the major cause for most of the abortions.

Unsafe abortion remains one of the most neglected sexual and reproductive health problems according to the World Health Organisation. In recent years it has been estimated that nearly 44 million abortions occur annually leading to around 47,000 deaths. At this rate a woman will die of an unsafe abortion every 11 minutes. Bringing together a wealth of information from around the world, this book argues that the time has come for a great change in legislation, advocating a shift towards the legalization of abortion to improve the health of women in poorer countries. With attention to circumstances in each of the major continental regions, an outline of the global situation is provided to reveal the major trends in the provision and procurement of abortion, as well their effects. Presenting data drawn from over a hundred countries covering over ninety per cent of the world’s population, based on published statistical information, changes to legal frameworks, court cases and the accounts of local commentators and activists, Unsafe Abortion and Women's Health will be of interest to scholars and students of the sociology of medicine, gender and reproductive health, social and health policy and feminist studies.

Essay from the year 2016 in the subject Medicine - Other, grade: 1, Egerton University, language: English, abstract: This argument paper will give an overview over the issue of abortion and attempt to provide a justification for the legalization of abortion. Abortion is seemingly becoming an enormous public health challenge in the United States. It has also emerged to be one of the most contentious social issues among the U.S population, leading to an unprecedented debate over its legalization. This debate can be attributed to the current situation whereby the prevalence rates of abortion seem to have assumed upward trends. It is quite surprising to learn that almost half of pregnancies among women, in the United States are unintended; thus, termination of the pregnancies serves as the most appropriate alternative. It has been found out that half of the women experiences at least one unintended pregnancy before the age of 45 years, and a third of these pregnancies are terminated. In the past decade, cases of abortion have increased significantly and this change in prevalence trends is believed to have been caused by an array of social, medical and economic factors. Currently, epidemiological reports indicate that four women out of ten pregnant women carry out abortion, in the U.S. However, it is worth noting that the prevalence of abortion among different social classes of people with different socioeconomic status are relatively variant, owing to the differences in conception rates. In the past two decades, unintended pregnancy rates among women with low socioeconomic status increased by 50%, whereas the rates decreased by 29% among women with high socioeconomic status. These epidemiological trends have caused uproar in the society, leading to the current abortion debate. Despite the controversy overshadowing the issue, abortion appears to be a personal issue because; it influences one’s health and social life.