Issues-based feature story Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Issues-based feature story - Essay Example It has been reported that the number of abortions in the United States of America is decreasing but in other countries illegal abortions stay steady. A latest report by the Guttmacher Institute, a pro-choice institute, states that the number of abortions fell from over 45 million in 1995 to fewer than 42 million in 2003. That drop is all the bigger given the 10 per cent growth in the worlds population over that period. Most of the decline is in countries where abortions are legal. Prohibitions on abortion are slowly coming towards moderation, though deprived countries stay much inflexible than prosperous ones. Previously, during the period from 1967 till 1973, one-third of the states in the US eased up on their criminal abortion laws. Nevertheless, the right to have an abortion in all the fifty states became accessible to the American women in 1973 when the Supreme Court overruled the remaining warning state laws with its decision in Roe v. Wade. As a result, the number of trained doctors in the procedure increased and a countrywide system of outpatient abortion treatment centers established that allowed women who would, until that time, have had an illegal abortion or would not have been able to get one by any means, to do so lawfully in a medical service. The 1973 decision disqualified any legislative intervention in the first trimester of pregnancy and put restrictions on what limitations could be approved on abortions in later stages of pregnancy. Opposition to abortions increased turning physical and even violent. Moreover, Roe vs. Wade states that women can abort the baby as long as it hasn’t become viable. Viability is defined by the Court as the potential to live outside the mothers womb, though with artificial aid, adding that viability is normally placed at about seven months or 28 weeks but can happen earlier i.e. even at 24 weeks. Dr. Neville Sender