With this article, I do not want to change your mind. The best part of living with freedom is that we can share the same country even though we have different points of view. Every time I hear your arguments, you talk about the importance of human life. You think abortion is a synonym of killing. You fight for the life of the baby.
I am from Latin America. Many of the countries there have not legalized abortion. No women there have the right to go to a clinic and end her pregnancy. Maybe, as a result, you think there are no abortions there, but the truth is totally different.
Because abortion is not an option in Latin America, we have two phenomena. The first one is that an important amount of newborns are being thrown into the garbage. Yes, you read correctly. There is a significant number of babies who are abandoned by their mothers in the trash. Sometimes, the baby can survive because someone finds him or her; sometimes, they die.
It means, all these women did not go to a hospital; they had their babies somewhere, and in their desperation, they actually tried to kill the baby.
The second option is that these women have an abortion. Yes, even though abortion is illegal, there is a black market for abortion. Then, no matter if abortion is legal or not; women will have an abortion. Banning abortion only provokes women to go to the black market.
For example, in Argentina, abortion is illegal. Thousands of Argentinan women are fighting to change the law because the numbers are not helping. Each year, 500,000 women go to the black market and have an abortion. The 10%, 50,000 women, end in the hospital for complications of the procedure, and each week at least a woman dies, over 50 per year because her abortion was done in unhealthy conditions.
Do you know what is the worst part of the black market? Only rich people have access to it. That means that women with enough money to afford an illegal abortion will have a safe abortion. However, women who cannot afford a safe abortion will go to an unsafe place where they can proceed with the abortion in a dirty place using as a tool a piece of metal. This kind of situation only can make that woman get sick with a horrible infection where she can die.
Banning abortion only hurts poor people. Americans have been working to make our country great, a country where all of us have the same rights; we are equal. With all these bans, we only have an unequal country.
If you want to save lives, please, think of all those women who would die because of an illegal abortion. Think in all those babies who are going to die in trash cans. We are not saving lives because we ban abortion. We only are changing the victims.
Banning abortion is not going to stop a woman who is desperate and decided to interrupt her pregnancy.
My best piece of advice is to listen to these women. Have you ever talked with a woman who had an abortion? Have you ever tried to understand her situation? I promise you nobody in the world is looking to get pregnant only because she wants to have an abortion. Making that decision is as difficult as deciding to have the baby.
If you want to stop the number of abortions, you can work in organizations who help these women. Also, you can fight to give them a choice. My point is that anytime I see there is a ban for abortion, there is no other option. We are prohibiting women from keeping their pregnancy, but we do not give them any extra help: it could be money, daycare or psychological support.
Please, I only ask you to think about it.
