Support for the legalization of abortion is centered around the pro-choice movement, a sociopolitical movement supporting the ethical view that a woman should have the legal right to elective abortion, meaning the right to terminate her pregnancy.
A key point in the development of the movement was the decriminalization and legalization of elective abortion in various states following the U.S. Supreme Court's 1973 decision in Roe v. Wade, which struck down most state laws restricting abortion.[1][2] The same decision gave rise to an opposing countermovement of anti-abortion campaigners (also called pro-life campaigners) who generally argue for the rights of fetuses and for prohibition or restriction of abortion.
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Abortion-rights advocates argue that whether or not to continue with a pregnancy is an inviolable personal choice, as it involves a woman's body, personal health, and future. They believe that both parents' and children's lives are better when abortions are legal, thus preventing women from going to desperate lengths to obtain illegal abortions. More broadly, abortion-rights advocates frame their beliefs in terms of individual liberty, reproductive freedom, and reproductive rights. The first of these terms was widely used to describe many of the political movements of the 19th and 20th centuries (such as in the abolition of slavery in Europe and the United States, and in the spread of popular democracy) whereas the latter terms derive from changing perspectives on sexual freedom and bodily integrity.
Abortion-rights individuals rarely consider themselves "pro-abortion," because they consider abortion an issue of bodily autonomy, and find forced abortion to be as legally and morally indefensible as the outlawing of abortion. Indeed, some who support abortion rights consider themselves opposed to some or all abortions on a moral basis, but believe that abortions would happen in any case and that legal abortion under medically controlled conditions is preferable to illegal back-alley abortion without proper medical supervision. Such people believe the death rate of women due to such procedures in areas where abortions are only available outside of the medical establishment is unacceptable.
Some who argue from a philosophical viewpoint believe that an embryo has no rights as it is only a potential and not an actual person and that it should not have rights that override those of the pregnant woman until it is viable.[3]
Many abortion-rights campaigners also say that anti-abortion activists oppose sex education and contraception, thus increasing the demand for abortion, and that abortion-rights activists, in contrast, support policies that decrease this demand.[4] Proponents of this argument point to cases of areas with limited sex education and contraceptive access that have high abortion rates, either legal, illegal or de facto exported (i.e., where a high proportion of abortions from a state occur outside that state in another country with a more liberal abortion regime). Irish women who visit the United Kingdom for abortions are one example, as were the Belgian women who travelled to France (before Belgium legalized abortion).
Some people who support abortion rights see abortion as a last resort and focus on a number of situations where they feel abortion is a necessary option. Among these situations are those where the woman was raped, her health or life (or that of the fetus) is at risk, contraception was used but failed, the fetus has acute congenital disorder and defects, incest, one-child policy/overpopulation, or she feels unable to raise a child. Some abortion-rights moderates, who would otherwise be willing to accept certain restrictions on abortion, feel that political pragmatism compels them to oppose any such restrictions, as they could be used to form a slippery slope against all abortions.[5]
The issue of abortion remains one of the most divisive in public life, with continuing battles to liberalise or restrict access to legal abortion. Abortion-rights groups are active in all states in the USA, campaigning for legal abortion with varying degrees of success. Few of these states allow abortion without limitation or regulation, but most do allow various limited forms of abortion. Abortion-rights campaigners themselves are frequently divided as to the types of abortion that should be available and to what extent access is to be restricted.
South Africa allows abortion on demand under its Choice on Termination of Pregnancy Act. Most African nations, however, have abortion bans except in cases where the woman's life or health is at risk. A number of abortion-rights international organizations have made altering abortion laws and expanding family planning services in sub-Saharan Africa and the developing world a top priority.
Most European countries have legalized abortion (in at least some cases) through certain laws (United Kingdom, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Netherlands, etc.). Russia legalized the procedure in 1955. It is also the country with the lowest level of sexual education.[7]
In the United Kingdom, the Abortion Act 1967 legalized abortion, except in Northern Ireland. In Great Britain, the law states that pregnancy may be terminated up to 24 weeks[8] if it:
However, the criteria of risk to mental and physical health is applied liberally, and de facto makes abortion available on demand,[9] though this still requires the consent of two NHS doctors. Abortions in Great Britain are provided for free by the National Health Service. Official text of the statute as amended and in force today within the United Kingdom, from the UK Statute Law Database.
The Labour Party and the Liberal Democrats are predominantly pro-abortion-rights parties, though with significant minorities in each either holding extremely restrictive definitions of the right to choose, or subscribing to an anti-abortion analysis. The Conservative Party is more evenly split between both camps and its leader, David Cameron, supports abortion on demand in the early stages of pregnancy.[10]
Abortion is illegal in the Republic of Ireland except when the woman's life is threatened by a medical condition or a suicide risk, since a 1983 referendum amended the constitution. Subsequent amendments – the thirteenth and fourteenth – guaranteed the right to travel abroad (for abortions) and to distribute and obtain information of "services" not available in the country, such as abortion, which are lawful in other countries. A proposal to remove suicide risk as a ground for abortion was struck down in a 2002 referendum. Thousands of women get around the ban by privately traveling to the other European countries (typically Britain and the Netherlands) to undergo terminations.[11]
The Labour Party, Sinn Féin, Communist Party and Socialist Party are in favor of liberalizing the laws. For many other parties (such as the Green Party), it is a 'matter of conscience' and they have no official line on the issue.[12]
Abortion is also illegal in Northern Ireland, except in cases when the woman is threatened by a medical condition, physical or mental.[13][14]
Abortion is illegal in Poland unless the pregnancy endangers the life of the mother, the pregnancy was the result of a criminal act or the fetus is seriously malformed.[15] Abortion was legalized by the Soviet Union throughout its rule of Poland, but this policy was abandoned after the fall of the USSR.
Prior to 1973, abortion was not subject to United States constitutional law, but was purely a matter for the individual states, all of which chose to apply some level of restrictions. The first legal restrictions on abortion appeared in the 1820s, forbidding abortion after the fourth month of pregnancy. By 1900, legislators at the urgings of the American Medical Association had enacted laws banning abortion in most U.S. states.[16] In its landmark 1973 case, Roe v. Wade where a woman challenged the Texas laws criminalizing abortion, the U.S. Supreme Court reached two important conclusions:
Planned Parenthood, NARAL Pro-Choice America, National Organization for Women, and the American Civil Liberties Union are the leading abortion-rights advocacy and lobbying groups in the United States. Most major feminist organizations also support abortion-rights positions.
In the United States, the Democratic Party's platform endorses the abortion-rights position, stating that abortion should be "safe, legal, and rare".[17] Not all Democrats agree with the platform, however, and there is a small pro-life faction within the party, expressed in such groups as Democrats for Life of America.[18] Similarly, there is a small abortion-rights faction within the Republican Party.
The terms "pro-choice" and "pro-life" are examples of political framing. They are terms which purposely try to define their philosophies in the best possible light, while attempting to define their opposition in the worst possible light: "Pro-choice" implies the alternative viewpoint is "pro-coercion" or "anti-choice", while "pro-life" implies the alternative viewpoint is "pro-death" or "anti-life".[19] Similarly each side's use of the term "rights" ("reproductive rights", "right to life of every unborn child") implies a validity in their stance, given that the presumption in language is that rights are inherently a good thing and so implies an invalidity in the viewpoint of their opponents. (In liberal democracies, a right is seen as something the state and civil society must defend, whether human rights, victims' rights, children's rights, etc. Many states use the word rights in fundamental laws and constitutions to define basic civil principles; both the United Kingdom and the United States possess a Bill of Rights.) Other examples of political framing frequently employed in this context are: "unborn baby", "unborn child", and "pre-born child".[20][21]
The term "pro-life" for those who are opposed to legal abortion is further objected to by activists who support the legalization of abortion because women's lives are lost due to unsafe abortions when abortion is illegal. The use of that term is also considered ironic since many "pro-life" activists oppose the use of abortion procedures even when they are deemed medically necessary to save the life of the pregnant woman, or to resolve a situation that endangers both the life of the woman and the fetus to such an extent that both will die if an abortion is not performed.[22] Members of the pro-choice movement counter the "pro-life" terminology with the argument that being pro-choice is pro-life: pro-women's lives.
The Associated Press and Reuters encourage journalists to use the terms "abortion rights" and "anti-abortion", which they see as neutral.[24]