‘Our Body, Our Choice’ Was it Really?

Everyone was so loud about 'Our body, our choice movement' until it was a young woman who wanted to decide on her own body for herself. Until 2022, the maternal mortality rate was 20 percent in total. The number was awfully ridiculous considering the medical research was incredibly progressing right now. Until early this year 90 million women were recorded living in the country that denied an abortion for them in any type of circumstances. The mortality rate was far from decreasing, and the act of terminating one pregnancy was considered a crime in those countries. WHO, states that illegal abortion or unsafe abortion is a process to terminate an unwanted pregnancy by people with limited key skills or in an environment where medical standards aren't met, or both. By banning abortion. there is no legal way for them to access a safe abortion procedure. even when the woman's health was at risk, abortion was still not allowed, it was such an infringement to their right to healthcare. The history of the abortion law changes up a bit after the death of Savita Halappanavar, a woman who might have saved her life by having an abortion, a law was passed in multiple countries in 2013 that allowed such terminations. Unfortunately, despite there were countless sensible and logical reasons why a woman should not be shut down from going through the procedure, there are places, regions, states, countries that still do not enable abortion in the country including on the grounds of rape, incest or fetal impairment. How many lives will we lose from this preventable action? When will they realize, by banning, it won't curb the abortion rate but instead, it will drive the victims to seek an illegal or unsafe abortion, which then will cause tolls on their health and life, and exacerbate the problems of baby dumping?

Abortion was banned in a lot of countries with the reason to decrease the abortion rate and on basis of the procedure done due to sex selection, race selection, and gender anomaly. It was very ironic because even with the law banning abortion was initiated, the number of abortion cases keeps increasing each year. To make it worse the maternal mortality rate also increased along with the increase of the abortion procedure. The action of denying women to do abortion legally was as if by closing a door to open a window but also building a new huge archway, in a bad way. It was the invitation of all the evil. The evidence was, over 56 million abortions were recorded, half of it, the procedure was done illegally and under unsafe conditions (Say et al., 2014). From millions of cases worldwide, not every woman survives the procedure regardless of it being the most preventable maternal mortality contributor. Mostly it happened in developing countries. Many reasons why women choose to go under the procedure, despite knowing that it can compromise their own life. Family pressure to hold onto their family pride, when the girl or woman reaches out for their families, to ask for help, the possibility for them to be disowned by their family is greater than if they are getting help. Being pressured to not taint their family name and pride, they go for the unsafe abortion, because to their family 'dead daughter is better than unwed pregnant daughter'.

Does illegal abortion, or the act of banning legal abortion impact women's health and safety. The short answer is yes. The longer answer is yessss! How may you ask? When it was banned, the woman was not allowed and cannot undergo the procedure, in one way or another she still had to continue her pregnancy. Forced pregnancy violates the provision of personal liberty and, given the potential application to all women, forces women into the unequal position which entrenches the duty of service to others and not themselves(Koppelman, 2010). Theoretically speaking, that pregnancy was forced upon her. She was pressured to carry on with her remaining terms since the legal abortion was not available for her and she doesn't want to take a risk to undergo an illegal procedure. During that period, we know a woman's body went through a change due to her hormonal imbalance, they tend to have mood swings and physical pains. When the woman was willing, the symptoms and the side effects of pregnancy became more bearable for them. They may have a good partner and support system. Their family can always look out for the lady, so it's easier for them to go through her pregnancy. However, for the woman who wanted an abortion, but the option was not available for them, usually they were pregnant due to teen pregnancy, she and her partner may do the intercourse willingly but unfortunately, she got knocked up. But there are cases where the pregnancy was not done in a mutual agreement, but because they were assaulted, it was a lot worse when the perpetrator was her kin. Along with the terms, not only did she have no support, but she also faced changes, hormonal imbalance, and getting her mental health deteriorated. If they manage to have the procedure ethically, they will still have to face discrimination and treatment from the people around them, just because they chose to terminate their pregnancy (Kumar A, Hessini L, Mitchell E., 2009).

Finally, the ban of legal abortion, execrable the problem of baby dumping. Statistics by Polis Diraja Malaysia (PDRM), the cases reported since 2018 to last September, on average 9 cases reported regardless of the babies found alive or not. The main question is why? Why do they choose to dump their child? The answer is when, abortion is banned, the procedure was not accessible for these mothers, when they cannot choose to terminate the pregnancy, they must carry the baby until the last terms. Dianne Hubbard in her report of Baby-dumping and Infanticide (2018), these mothers, cannot afford to raise a child. In this situation, normally the father refuses to take responsibility. The mother, who was recently in labour, had to rack her brain on how to raise her kids. No mother was so cruel or out of her mind to get rid of her baby. When she can't find the solution on how to resolve her problem, she finally decided to put her baby in a baby hatch or put it in front of the mosques or churches, in hope that someone will take in and care for her baby. There was a situation where the mother threw her baby from a building, which just shows how much damage a pregnancy can do to a woman when she barely has any support.

Ultimately, banning the procedure, won't uproot the problems we faced for decades, as opposed to, banning abortion from being accessible for women, not only will cause their health to deteriorate, physically or mentally, it also won't reduce the problem of baby dumping. How do we minimise the problems? The problems can be truly dissipated when abortion was legalized worldwide. When it is legalised, the maternal mortality rate will surely subside. The abortion rate will keep increasing but it will be fine since it is a legal procedure. The most important is, no woman will be dying because of the problems that can be evaded from the beginning. If they insist on instilling the ban, then the procedure should be prohibited for the parent who wants a specific gender for their child, or due to the race of the woman since she was assumed not to be trusted for her medical situation. There was no 'one fit all' answer in this situation, every condition has its own method of approaching, thus banning abortion for everyone was not the answer. The authorities should play their roles to find solutions for the people. Women should be given an option where their pregnancy was due to sexual violence for example rape or assault. They should not be forced to continue their terms when they are not willing to do so. The option also should be given to the mother who cannot afford to raise a child, if she was still forced to do so, she should be given help throughout her pregnancy and for the entire childhood time of the child. To curb the problem of baby dumping, that was not a problem that caused overnight. The first thing that should be done is, enforce sex education for students, many parents are against this because they thought sex education teach their child to do intercourse which is not, because the purpose of sex ed is to provide knowledge for them of the safe sex, on how they can protect themselves against STD or HIV. It was impossible to stop these young teenagers from doing sex with us knowing, so the best thing we can do is provide education for them so there won't be any teen pregnancy that may lead to another problem. The crime of sexual assault or any crime that led to unwanted pregnancy should be more severe. When the punishment is very bad, no one will dare to commit, the victims and witnesses should step out so these offenders can be punished, surely no one will do it in the future, so lesser problems for the women.