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Why Abortion Is a Fact of Life

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The Moral Case for Abortion

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Abstract

Since contraception sometimes fails, abortion is an essential to a birth control strategy. Where abortion is legal, it is frequently used by women as a ‘back up’ to their regular method of contraception. However, while contraception is valorised as a an essential social good, abortion is demonized as a social problem. Yet both preventing and ending pregnancy may have the same motivation: limiting family size. This chapter explores why family planning programmes that aim to prevent abortion cannot succeed.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    B. Ganatra, C. Gerdts, C. Rossiter et al. (2017). Global Regional and Subregional Classification of Abortion by Subregion. Lancet 390: 2372–2381.

  2. 2.

    Janet Hadley (1996). Abortion: Between Freedom and Necessity. London: Virago.

  3. 3.

    The law in Northern Ireland is different to England, Scotland and Wales as it was excluded from the provisions of the Abortion Act 1967.

  4. 4.

    George Devereux (1955). A Study of Abortion in Primitive Societies: A Typological, Distributional, and Dynamic Analysis of the Prevention of Birth in 400 Pre-industrial Societies. New York: Julian Press, p. 1.

  5. 5.

    Abortion Statistics, England and Wales (2020). Summary information from the abortion notification forms returned to the Chief Medical Officers of England and Wales. Published to gov.uk in PDF form only.

  6. 6.

    Anna Coote and Beatrix Campbell (1987). Sweet Freedom: The Struggle for Women’s Liberation. London: Virago.

  7. 7.

    See Audrey Simpson (1998). Abortion in Northern Ireland: A Problem Exported. In E. Lee (Ed.), Abortion Law and Politics Today. London: Palgrave Macmillan.

  8. 8.

    See Keith Hindell and Madeleine Simms (1971). Abortion Law Reformed. London: Peter Owen.

  9. 9.

    Cecil Gill (1966). And How Should I Decide? Medical World, January p. 23.

  10. 10.

    Rachel K. Jones, Lori F. Frohworth and Ann M. Moore (2008, January). ‘I Would Want to Give My Child, Like, Everything in the World’: How Issues of Motherhood Influence Women Who Have Abortions. Journal of Family Issues, 29, 79–99.

  11. 11.

    Frank Furedi (2004). Therapy Culture: Cultivating Vulnerability in an Uncertain Age. London: Routledge.

  12. 12.

    Jennie Bristow (2009). Standing Up to Supernanny. Exeter: Societas Imprint Academic.

  13. 13.

    Frank Furedi (2008). Paranoid Parenting: Why Ignoring the Experts May Be Best for Your Child. London: Bloomsbury.

  14. 14.

    Hillary Rodham Clinton (1996). It Takes a Village: And Other Lessons Children Teach Us. New York: Simon & Schuster.

  15. 15.

    Simon Duncan, Rosalind Edwards and Claire Alexander (2010). Teenage Parenthood: What’s the Problem? London: Tufnell Press.

  16. 16.

    E. Lee, J. Bristow, C. Faircloth and J. Macvarish (2014). Parenting Culture Studies. London: Palgrave Macmillan.

  17. 17.

    Elizabeth G. Raymond, Francine Coeytaux, Kristina Gemsell-Danielsson, Kirsten Moore, James Trussell and Beverly Winikoff (2013). Embracing Post-Fertilisation Methods of Family Planning: A Call to Action. Journal of Family Planning and Reproductive Health, 39, 244–246.

  18. 18.

    John Bongaarts and Charles F. Westoff (2000). The Potential Role of Contraception in Reducing Abortion. Studies in Family Planning, 31(3), 193–202 and Cicely Marston and John Cleland (2003). Relationships Between Abortion and Contraception: A Review of the Evidence. International Family Planning Perspectives, 29(1), 6–13.

  19. 19.

    Office of National Statistics: Abortion Statistics, England and Wales: 2020.

  20. 20.

    James Trussell (2009). Understanding Contraceptive Failure. Best Practice & Research Clinical Obstetrics & Gynaecology, 23(2), 199–209.

  21. 21.

    James Trussell (2011). Contraceptive Failure. In R. A. Hatcher, J. Trussell, A. L. Nelson, W. Cates, D. Kowal & M. Policar (Eds.), Contraceptive Technology: Twentieth Revised Edition. New York: Ardent Media, pp. 779–863.

  22. 22.

    Beverly Winikoff (2014). Is One of These Things Not Just Like the Other? Why Abortion Can’t Be Separated from Contraception. Conscience, XXXV, 27–29.

  23. 23.

    https://www.guttmacher.org/article/2021/04/2021-track-become-most-devastating-antiabortion-state-legislative-session-decades.

  24. 24.

    Rosalind Pollack Petchesky (1986). Abortion and Woman’s Choice: The State, Sexuality and Reproductive Freedom, UK edn. London: Verso, p. 241.

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  1. Faversham, UK

    Ann Furedi

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Furedi, A. (2021). Why Abortion Is a Fact of Life. In: The Moral Case for Abortion. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-90189-9_2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-90189-9_2

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  • Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-030-90188-2

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-030-90189-9

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