The Rogerian Argument On Abortion And Awareness Around It

Abortion is a serious issue for concern in the world and people tend to have a polarized opinion. It can be a solution to overpopulation, unwanted pregnancies due to contraception failure, children as a result of rape, poor financial conditions and other problems. Dr. X, the author of the “Narrative Matters” essay, is a physician at a Community health center and a faculty at medical school. She is concerned about issues that lead to abortion. The primary aim of the author is to promote healthy lives for people by trying to raise awareness about pregnancy and child birth. She also argues that abortion should be performed in a safe and legal way. The narrative focuses on how unsafe abortions are dangerous to the health and reasons why abortion will continue in the future. But on the other hand, abortion today is considered as choice and many claims that it is absolutely safe.

There were severe problems related to abortions like smaller number of health providers, abstinence, newly untrained physicians, late detection of pregnancy, health compromise of mother and child, threat to mother’s life, unavailability of contraceptives, and lack of knowledge about use of contraceptives. Dr. X says that “Due to a smaller number of health providers, patients had to travel far in order to perform abortion.” (1264) The author also raises the concern about unavailability and lack of knowledge regarding contraceptives. For instance, the author describes many stereotypic problems such as male partner not willing to use condom while performing sexual activities. The author shares her experience that one teenager visited her clinic exaggerating that she will not get pregnant as she wore the abstinence ring on her finger. Without proper reproductive health knowledge and understanding the process clearly, the girl was at higher risk for unintended and unwanted pregnancy. Some abortions are riskier than others. their timing influences the risk as well as different methods of abortion have different risks.

The author describes abortion related issues in the United States as a whole. In “Narrative Matters” essay, the author depicts that “about 1.5 million abortions are performed in U.S., which makes this as the most common surgical procedure.” (1264). This brings to “consciousness-raising” point that legal social and economic conditions of women’s dependence have changed dramatically since years in the United States. Now, there are perspectives which we can classify as reasons to abort. But since time abortion is described as “A private choice” which ultimately shuts down all the reasons. On the other hand, pregnancy - related deaths are deaths in women within 1 year of pregnancy due to its complications or childbirth; deaths associated with complications of induced abortion are also considered related to pregnancy.

The author suggests the myriad solutions to fix our health system that would help to solve the concerns presented in this essay about abortion. She states, “To promote safe abortions in U.S., ensuring enough abortion providers should be considered.” (1267) Moreover, medical training given to physicians should include- counseling of contraceptives, pregnancy options, and abortion services. With this, training should be given about the treatment of sexually transmitted diseases and ways to manage normal pregnancy and childbirth. As the concern of a policy changes with time, its meaning also changes in ways that have consequences other than its original intentions. In recent years, some states have initiated to provide their own state’s fund to people holding Medicaid for abortion of the child.

In the article, “Shaping the abortion policy – competing discourses on the Zambian termination of pregnancy act,” the author discusses about the implementation of Zambian Termination of Pregnancy Act (1972) in order to stop illegal abortions or pregnancy terminations. The law made was quite strict but ensured safe abortions. The policies stated that “abortions should be performed in well recognized and registered hospitals and at least three doctors must sign the form to perform abortion. The institutions who provided illegal abortions were penalized up to 7 years.” (2) For safe abortions, the Zambian Act states that the pregnant woman’s age and her circumstances should be taken into consideration to allow her for legal abortion.

In another article, “Abortion in Modern health Care: Considering the Issues for Health-care Professionals,” the author gives evidence of a lady named Savita, who is thirty-one-year-old and after 17 weeks of pregnancy, she suffered miscarriage of a child. Although, her foetus was undeveloped, and membranes were ruptured, she was not eligible for medical treatment because the foetus had the heartbeat. Eventually, she miscarried a foetus and was diagnosed with perilous sepsis and died of the multiorgan failure. This Savita’s example shows the consequences of the abortion policies which were weak and developed. Even after any policy is made, examples like these should be followed which can be raised as a question against such regulations. On the contrary, in “Narrative Matters” essay, the author shares experience of her medical training where she encountered a diabetic woman with life-threatening kidney disease willing to end her pregnancy. She helped the woman in aborting the child because the woman’s life was in threat. So, instead of taking risk of dying during pregnancy, the author took rational decision by taking account of broad variables like life threat, birth-control failure, and economic condition of the woman. Smyth and Lane describe in the article that “there exists an ethical dilemma and challenges quite often in health-care professions.” (116) This problem arises as people have some religious ideology which prevents them to believe in scientific theory. As Dr. X states “the girl with abstinence ring reminded her friend that viruses and diseases can get through because the end of a condom looks like chicken-wire fence. So, condoms don’t work.” (1267) This shows that inaccurate knowledge creates misconception and people tend to believe less in scientific theory.

These narratives helped me realize how important the issue of abortion is. Pregnancy is meant to bring new life on this earth, and it should be a good experience for the mother and the baby. Unwanted pregnancy is burdensome for the mother and the family. Also, the child born in such an environment will not get a good life. The medical training of all physicians should include the sessions on appropriate ways to use birth controls, precautions for sexually infectious diseases, and abortion. They should also learn how to make a pregnant woman comfortable so that she can understand completely and can take a proper decision without any hesitation. Therefore, as a society we should raise awareness on methods of birth control, appropriate age for motherhood and safe abortion for the mothers who do not wish to continue their pregnancy. Also, awareness on reproductive health and sexually transmitted diseases should be given at schools and colleges.