The problem though is that it still happens, whether it is outlawed or not. This is something men seem to struggle to understand unfortunately, even while we pass laws (religious and civil) banning abortion and I imagine in huge part because we don't have to do anything even remotely like that in our lives.
8% of all maternal deaths worldwide are caused by abortion. Over 99% of those deaths are due to unsafe abortions. A lot of women will find a way anyway.
Unfortunately, because of laws we pass, sometimes that way involves back alley medications or a coat hanger. So follows massive and uncontrolled bleeding, tetanus and other infections, often in settings in which they either have no access or may be denied access to healthcare for what they've just done. So follows death, completely and utterly avoidable and a tragic story. Or the pregnancy is followed through, the child may be left on the street or shunned from society.
I mean let's take Egypt as an example. I know you're from there and you know my wife is half Egyptian and grew up mostly there. One of her friends is probably one of the nicest and most noble people I have ever met in my life and works with street kids in Egypt, a thankless job for a widely stigmatised group. My in-laws are disgusted by them and disgusted when I give them money or buy them food or a drink. What Nelly tells me is that a huge portion of these kids (this is a few years ago now, may well have changed) are born out of wedlock. What this means (again, may have changed by now in Egypt) is that it is very difficult for these kids to get valid birth certificates, to get national id cards. It is very difficult for them to register for schooling or be able to go and access even the often poor public healthcare system.
So these children are born, through no fault of their own. And they're pretty much locked into a life on the street, outside of the normal system, with no education, housing, healthcare or dignity. Really no identity. Many of them end up in prison, often just because the police are bored and many of them will perpetuate the cycle because they will end up having kids out of wedlock (how can you get married officially if you don't exist as a real person) and so the cycle continues.
Am I say we should abort all streetkids? Of course not. However, we've created the circumstances in this instance where abortion is banned because of the sanctity of human life, only to then force those babies to lead a life on the street and without any shred of human dignity, for factors completely and utterly out of their control.
That seems neither fair nor moral to me.
Good post that. I remember I had listened to a similar discussion between a Gynecologicist and a student about letting a baby with difficult status of life later on live or abort the case, and he was firmly in the idea that surgeon is responsible for the life of mother and fetus not how will it end up being and no one will care of them more then God himself that if God thinks life would have been so difficult for the baby, it would have ended in a spontaneous abortion. A medically ethic and a religious view which many won't agree to I'm sure.
It's definitely complicated situation with several perspective to it and I don't blame those on its side. Street children have been a major problem here for ages and government has failed to solve it despite some tries previously. Yeah the problem is many of them are mostly product of un marriage sex and got thrown to street for the mother to make people not know about her scandal and other terrible reasons.