Preventing women and girls from accessing abortion does not prevent them from needing it. As a result, attempts to ban or restrict abortions fail to reduce the number of abortions; What they are doing is forcing people to have unsafe abortions. Feminist philosophy and the social movement have focused their defense of abortion on a woman`s right to her own body and on reproductive and sexual rights. “The right to a legal, safe and free abortion is the great debt that Latin American democracies, which are no longer so young, owe to women on the path they would have taken to recognize them as citizens” (8, p. 109). The intention of this proclamation is to leave all reproductive decisions to the woman, including the autonomy to avoid or terminate an unwanted pregnancy. The most orthodox opposition insisted that the fetus also has rights, because from the moment of conception it is a human being and a potential person, or acquires it at an early stage of its embryological development. The committee, which oversees compliance with the UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW or Women`s Rights Treaty), has repeatedly found that restrictive abortion laws discriminate against women. This declaration applies to all women and persons at risk of becoming pregnant, as the Committee on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women has confirmed that the protections of the Convention and associated State obligations apply to all women and therefore include discrimination against lesbian women, bisexual and/or transgender. especially if we take into account the specific forms of discrimination from which they suffer. Over the past 25 years, more than 50 countries have amended their legislation to allow for better access to abortion, sometimes recognizing that access to safe abortion is essential to protecting women`s lives and health. Ireland joined the list on 25 May 2018 after a long-awaited referendum in which the population voted overwhelmingly to lift the almost complete ban on abortion provided for in the Constitution.
The mere perception that abortion is illegal or immoral leads to women and girls being stigmatized by health workers, family and judges, among others. As a result, those seeking access to abortion services are at risk of discrimination and harassment. Some women reported being insulted and embarrassed by health care providers when they used abortion services or medical help after an abortion. This visibility contrasts with the issue of abortion, which “has been largely absent in the sphere of representation” because it is polymorphic, being a procedure “universally practiced” but rarely accepted and “frequently condemned” while being “widely tolerated” [4, pp. 14-16]. The visibility of the fetus reinforces its presence as a bearer of rights and gives firmness to those who confirm that the pregnant woman carries from conception or for others from the early stages of embryonic development to a person who is a moral subject of rights, whose voluntary elimination constitutes murder. This visibility has been greatly reinforced by opponents of the use of embryonic cells or tissues from induced abortions, who claim that “there is an urgent belief in self-interest and complicity with abortion on the part of researchers and society” when “the contradiction is observed that Nasziturus is not desired or appreciated, but that its organs are” [10]. I. Legal framework on the issue of induced abortion. Induced abortion has been maintained throughout history as a widespread practice that has been plunged into darkness and secrecy because all extramarital fertilization has been socially rejected.
Since the mid-20s. In the nineteenth century, there was an attitude of tolerance that led to the decriminalization and legalization of abortion, according to two legal models: the model of indications, known as therapeutic abortion, which was adopted in conservative countries, and the model of delays, which allows women to request abortion during the first trimester of pregnancy. The liberalization of abortion is due to the immutable social policy aimed at eliminating clandestineness and its harmful effects, educating, deterring and finally considering abortion as a safe and accessible medical service within the frameworks established by law, all regulations aimed at reducing the frequency of abortions obtained. The draft law on the decriminalization of abortion submitted to the Chilean Parliament follows the model of indications, which are presented in a very restrictive manner and therefore do not correspond to the three objectives that should guide it: (1) legal framework for the practice of abortion; (2) Contribution to social peace; 3) Solve the public health problem of clandestine abortion. There was an urgent need to open the debate in order to include more decisive alternatives, in line with the general tendency to favour the calendar model, which included respect for women`s choices. Human rights laws clearly state that decisions about our bodies belong solely to us, a principle known as “physical autonomy.” Abortion is a medical procedure that ends the pregnancy. This is a basic health need for millions of women, girls and others who may become pregnant. It is estimated that one in four pregnancies worldwide ends in an abortion every year. The WHO estimates that 25 million unsafe abortions occur each year, the vast majority of them in developing countries.
Claire Malone, a young Irish woman who already had two children, gave Amnesty International her harrowing account of how her right to health had been compromised because she did not have access to abortion services due to the country`s strict legislation. The antagonism of pro-life versus pro-choice banners is misleading. The rejection of abortion under the motto “pro life” does not mean having a monopoly on the defense of life, because every living being, as Spinoza said, carries within it the inherent conatus or the tendency to persist. And defending the autonomy of choice does not mean putting freedom above all restrictions; but to realize, this time with Kant, that the autonomous will is the anthropological attribute of man: we are all for life and for autonomy, and it is not at this moment that the controversy of abortion intersects. One of the biggest barriers these groups face in accessing abortion services is lack of access to health care. In addition, those who have access to health care may suffer from stigma and biased views in the delivery of health services, as well as the presumption that they do not need access to information and services related to contraception and abortion. In some settings, 28 percent of transgender and gender non-conforming people report harassment in medical facilities, and 19 percent say they are denied medical care altogether because of their transgender status, with an even higher percentage in communities of color. This is due to many interrelated factors such as poverty, race and related multiple discrimination.
In fact, access to abortion is one of the most controversial issues in the world, and the heated debate it sparks is clouded by misinformation about the true impact of restricting access to this basic health care. In other words, for the conceptual perspective, the conceptus is at all times a person with a complete ontological and moral status, while for evolutionary and relational visions, the embryo that survived the early stages of pregnancy becomes Nasziturus and, as such, has an ontological presence and moral value. This marks a biological boundary (from embryo to fetus), a moral boundary (from biological unity to man) and a legal boundary (from permitted abortion to unacceptable abortion).