Summary of the case
Various ethical considerations associated with abortion raise controversies between the doctors and the anti-abortion activists. Indeed, the abortion service providers and the anti-abortion activists seek to protect the rights of some people. However, as the activists fight for the rights of the unborn child, the abortion service providers fight for the right of the mother who will not be comfortable having the child.
The author of the article, Texas anti-abortion law forces women to make tough choices, tries to inform the audience of the aftermaths of Texas anti-abortion law. According to the author, Texas abortion laws have complicated the lives of women who want to terminate the lives of their unborn for various reasons (Colman & Joyce, 2011). The law also affects the various people who assist the women in one way or another.
Hannah Roe Beck is a volunteer in a nonprofit making organization that offers financial assistance for needy women who would want to have abortions. As evident from the number of streaming calls into the Lilith fund hotline, women are in desperate need of abortion services although some of them have financial constraints. Beck can answer approximately 25 calls in six hours, but she can only give financial assistance to a couple of women because of the limited amount of cash allocated per shift.
According to the author, anti-abortion activists have struggled to have strict regulations imposed on abortion service providers. The doctors who offer abortion services ought to have admitting privileges in hospitals located about 30 miles from their clinics. This is practically impossible and most doctors have closed down their clinics for failing to meet the requirement (Colman & Joyce, 2011). Although the anti-abortion bill was introduced in several other states, some blocked the anti-abortion law while some states rejected it immediately, but the law is likely to take effect in Texas. Essentially, the strict anti-abortion laws will not prevent the women from aborting; they will only prompt them to use unsafe abortion procedures.
Stakeholders’ opinion
The author strongly objects to the anti-abortion bill as it causes more harm than good. By restricting abortion, the anti-abortion activists only make it difficult for people to get an abortion whenever they want, but it is not a guarantee that those who want to do an abortion will surrender. The author cannot agree that there is a need for the abortion service providers to have admitting privileges at local hospitals as the probability of having complications during abortions are minimal.
This requirement has indeed affected the poor slum dwellers. The anti-abortion activists do not achieve utilitarianism because they do not consider the consequences of their pleas. If the struggle continues, the anti-abortion activists may win, and their pleas will have negative effects on some women in Texas.
The doctors can’t obtain admission privileges, as the hospitals’ emergency attendants cannot afford to favor specific doctors’ patients at the expense of other patients. Therefore, no clinic would be eligible to offer abortion services, and the women who need abortion services will suffer considerably. The author gives an example of an overpopulated rural slum in lower Grande Valley. The residents of the slum are extremely poor and they could find it difficult to afford the high abortion fees. Essentially, the poor residents are in desperate need of abortion services as evident from the number of women who had abortions in the year 2011. According to the demographers’ survey report, the anti-abortion law in Texas will bar about 22,000 women from accessing abortion services.
The other controversial issue that the author addresses is the medication abortion that has strict regulations. A woman seeking an abortion of this form in Texas has to make a second trip to the hospital within 48 hours to obtain the full dose of the medicine.
While other states find it efficient to offer the woman with the full dose of the medicine in the first visit, Texas’ women are obligated to make two trips to the hospital to obtain the full dose and make a final checkup trip after fourteen days. Uninterestingly, the women may have to travel for miles before accessing the hospitals with such services; moreover, it is not guaranteed that the woman will find the same doctor during all the visits. The doctors in Texas apply deontological moral aspects. They have to follow the rules and regulations in Texas regardless of the inconveniences that the rules cause the affected women.
Justification of the stakeholders’ opinion
The anti-abortion activists try to convince the women intending to abort that they are doing wrong. Their struggle to protect the rights of the unborn child is understandable; however, the activists have failed in one way or another. They are using force and unfair procedures to address their issues, and consequently, they are complicating the abortion procedure that ought to be easy. The anti-abortion regulations are imposing unnecessary burdens on the women who want to terminate their pregnancies. Abortion is a non-complicated procedure, but the law enforcers have made it a requirement for abortions after 16 weeks to be done in ambulatory surgical centers, which is quite expensive. Essentially, less than 0.05 % of the abortions done by qualified medical doctors have complications.
The informed consent laws may cause distresses to abortion seekers. It is very anguishing to present colored photographs of aborted fetuses as it leads to guiltiness. Moreover, linking abortion to breast cancer and suicide without medical evidence is wrong. All these procedures seek to illegalize abortion indirectly. Law enforcers should know that mistreating women who are seeking refuge in abortion is unjust. With the distressing abortion procedures, women resort to using self-induced abortion drugs that are readily available in the pharmacies (Grossman, Baum, White, Hopkins, & Potter, 2010). The self-induced abortions may cause one or more complications daily, but they are the only resolutions to the poor women who want to do abortions without much difficulty.
Supporting theoretical evidence
Every woman would love to deliver a child and enjoy the pleasure of motherhood. However, some situations are unbearable, and sometimes women have no choice but to resolve in terminating their pregnancies. Cases of rape, extreme poverty levels, accidental pregnancies, and broken relationships are some of the few reasons that would lead women to resolve in aborting their fetuses (Boonin, 2003). Women who resolve in having an abortion for some staunch reasons are already distressed; therefore, obligating them to pass through difficult moments is unfair. The government should loosen the strict abortion regulations that may cause more harm than good to the women’s fraternity.
Essentially, forcing a woman to keep a fetus unwillingly would mean that an unwanted child is born. The child would pass through immerse sufferings such that one would conclude that the child was better dead than alive. Therefore, Texas’ anti-abortion laws ought to be reviewed with immediate effect.
References
Boonin, D. (2003). A defense of abortion. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Colman, S., & Joyce, T. (2011). Regulating abortion: Impact on patients and providers in Texas. Journal of Policy Analysis & Management, 30(4), 775-797.
Grossman, D., Baum, S., White, K., Hopkins, K., & Potter, J. (2010). Impact of restrictive abortion law on women in Texas. Contraception, 88(3), 434.