FAMILY MEDICAL CARE: LEGAL TERMINATIONS OF PREGNANCY

The net result is a rapidly increasing rate of legal terminations. Indeed, some doctors believe the interpretations have made it all too easy. But the proponents claim that these enlightened measures have almost entirely removed criminal abortions, and these were the areas that produced so many medical problems in years past.

So, whether it is for better or for worse, there seems little doubt that the new attitude to legal terminations will be here, and in most Western countries, for a long time to come.

Although some will use it in its widest interpretation and allow cases of a questionable nature to receive treatment in this manner, many other doctors will tend to stick to what they believe is right. They will recommend legal termination when it truly means that the total health and welfare of the lives- at stake are seriously involved.

At least, as the proponents claim, it has largely reduced (and in many countries completely eliminated) the amateur, and the backyard, illegal operator from the scene. Enormous numbers of women (claimed to be 10 to 15 per cent of all pregnancies in Western lands) ended up having illegal (criminal or "induced") abortions carried out.

The circumstances were often anything but ideal. Hygiene and sterility were often lacking, and in some cases non-existent.

Actions were often rushed, and the operator was often quite unsuited and inadequately trained for the operation. Many cases of bungling inefficiency are on record. Many patients became infected and deaths occurred on numerous occasions. Some women had to be subsequently admitted to hospital for a "clean up" operation, and treatment of their sepsis (infection).

At least, under the new system, terminations are carried out in properly equipped hospital operating theatres, complete with all facilities to meet any eventuality. The surgeons are trained gynaecologists, quite expert with their duties.

There are certain medical indications for the need for therapeutic abortion (or legal termina­tion). Carried out in its rightful place, this can be of major assistance to a mother in need. However, before any mother rushes into an abortion clinic to have the baby destroyed (and that is what it actually is) please think of the moral issues involved. The foetus you destroy is actually a living being. Though small, it is a perfectly formed human being. Is it right that you should take the life of this human being simply because it is inconvenient for you to give birth to it? Have you the right to say whether it shall live or die merely because its presence might curtail your social life, strain your budget, interfere with your career or embarrass you by its presence? You have no moral right to decide whether this unborn child shall live or die. If you make the wrong choice, you will never be free of the guilt pangs which people with consciences know when they choose abortion as an "easy way out."

 

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GENERAL HEALTH