The abortion debate is one of the most controversial and irrational issues that have lacked a concrete solution for a very a very long time in America. Although all incoming and outgoing leaders have promised Americans to find a common agreeable solution to this issue, still none of their solutions seems to achieve a common opinioned society on abortion. For example, during President Obama’s campaigns, he promised to find a common consensus concerning abortion. Although he made such promises, to many Americans this is a dream that will remain unrealized for centuries to come, because of the rigid ideologies held by pro-life and pro-choice groups. Because of this, every day America looses precious lives, which doctors can save, if these two opposing groups put their personalized ideologies aside. Therefore, considering the numerous issues surrounding abortion, and noting that most counties lack abortion providers, it is important for the government to not only enact legislation that will fully legalize the practice, but also ensure that abortion services are part of the national healthcare plan.
To many pro-lifers, enactment of such legislation and inclusion of abortion services in the national healthcare plan is equivalent to committing moral suicide. This is evident as most of them not only oppose the legalization of abortion in America, but also they have been on the front line in opposing the funding of America’s non-governmental health organizations in foreign countries. To justify why the government should include such services in the national healthcare plan, it is important to critically analyze the conditions that may force one to have an abortion. Yes, to some extent, the pro-life’s woes are logical, but one primary question that arises is; do their moral principles consider other life related areas that go hand in hand with ethics and morality? For example, it is right to say that abortion terminates the life of an unborn child thereby denying such a child the right to enjoy life. Although this is the case, sometimes individuals overlook issues that surround some pregnancies.
One of such cases is when a pregnancy endangers a mother’s life. Is it worth to lose two lives, rather than saving one and save the other? Take a case of a pregnancy where implantation has taken takes place in the fallopian tubes (ectopic pregnancy). In this like a case, unless mothers have access to services of a qualified medical physician, chances of most of them surviving are minimal. This makes it necessary to consider both sides of the argument on abortion before refuting or accepting issues related to abortion. In addition to abnormalities in implantation, it is medically wrong for a mother suffering from health complications for example, hypertension and kidney anomalies to carry a pregnancy to full term. Therefore, because of the expensive nature of the cost of terminating pregnancies in this like a scenario, majority of mother will opt for illegal abortions or use of. This poses a great health threat to the survival of these like mothers hence, the need for health insurance covers for these like mothers.
Another common reason why pro-lifers tend to oppose the inclusion of such services in the plan is the argument that, abortion is an un-ethical practice and dehumanizes the human dignity. To some extent, antagonists of abortion are correct here, because some pregnancies are outcomes of promiscuous behaviors or sexual irresponsibility. Using this analogy, it will not be wrong for one to refute the idea of including such services in the healthcare plan. However, is it right to overlook other factors surrounding other pregnancies hence, deny mothers the right of accessing quality abortion services? Ignoring other factors surrounding pregnancies is equally suicidal as killing an unborn child hence, because pregnancies can be products of other factors, for example, rape and ignorance.
In conclusion, although the pro-lifer’s arguments that abortion is equivalent to taking away a fetus’s right to life, and that the entire practice is purely un-ethical , morally wrong, and dehumanizes the human dignity, inclusion of abortion services in the national healthcare plan is likely to have more benefits than harm. Such benefits include saving of mother’s lives and protecting mother’s fundamental rights of accessing quality healthcare.