Why abortion is still more rampant than adoption

The pro-choice and pro-life debates have gone on for some time now and to be honest, we’re not about to delve into that deep blue sea.

Over the years, some people have switched from pro-life to pro-choice and vice versa. At the same time, some governments have also lifted the bans on abortion while others have been firm on the laws against abortion for many reasons.

Whether you are pro-life or pro-choice, it’s still important to understand why some still opt for abortion over adoption till today.

In the current African setting, standards have changed. You are supposed to finish school first, get a job, get married then have a baby within the grounds of marriage. In real sense, these things don’t always go as planned. Many teenage girls and women end up having unplanned pregnancies at some point in life and the truth is that the fear of getting a baby this way is more than the fear of getting an abortion.

The shame and wrath from parents has a part to play in the abortion rates we see. Women are afraid of how family and society at large will react and therefore opt to have an abortion than deal with the shame and guilt.

For the pro-life movement, adoption creates a second chance for the kids. At the same time, these children still have many questions running through their minds. They often wonder if their parents hated them and some of them develop psychological problems and feelings of abandonment especially when they know their parents are alive.

Another aspect is that these women don’t want to hand over their children to strangers who might not take care of them accordingly. For them, the consequences of adoption are too much to bear so abortion is looked at as the best option for them and the unborn babies.

In the age of feminism and women empowerment, the right to abort is seen as a way of taking back the right to your own body. Some who are for aborting believe that no woman should be forced to raise a child especially when they aren’t ready for that. It’s deemed intrusive for others to control what you do and do not do with your body.

Studies have also shown that those who have been denied their right to abort develop some form of mental health problems from being forced to have a child.  In these scenarios, the babies end up being disowned, mistreated and abandoned. For these reasons, those who support the right to abort feel like it’s better to avoid such complications.

For some women, the option to terminate a pregnancy due to birth defects and deformities should be made possible. The thought of a child and parents having to suffer is strenuous and unnecessary. The pro-choice see no need to struggle with endless bills of a child who will most likely never get better.

They also support abortion because the fetus won’t feel any pain during the process. So it’s much better to save the child from pain when the parents discover that he or she has deformities early in the pregnancy.

Today, many countries are still against abortions. Countries like Malta, Madagascar and Nicaragua have stringent rules against abortion practices. Their laws are so strict that they don’t even permit it to save the mother during health complications.

Other countries like Kenya allow terminations of pregnancy under circumstances that are high risk for the mother. Others like Canada, China and Russia can allow legal abortions on basis of request. The countries that allow abortions to be done legally give women a chance to exercise their reproductive rights. This in turn makes abortions more appealing thus preferred more than adoptions.