SHOULD ABORTION BE LEGALISED IN NIGERIA?
........... similarly, I will not give to a woman an abortive remedy but I will keep pure and holy both my life and my art..... - Hippocrates Oath.
It is a common saying that wherever there is no law, there is no crime. What then will be the fate of every Nigerian if the same set of laws that make it clear that most people find the killing of a fetus to be repugnant and it's life worthy of protection and these same laws, however permit a mother, one of the two people in the world who should be protecting the fetus and putting its interest above anyone else's, to have an abortion? If it is unacceptable for a stranger to kill a baby, why is it acceptable for a mother and her doctor to do so? My lord, let us call a spade a spade, there is a huge difference between population control by the use of contraceptives and by killing. I won’t applaud my opponent when she decides to mislead us by mentioning abortion as a means of population control because abortion is committing murder.
Flipping through pages, it is not difficult to find the part where abortion was specifically forbidden in the original version of the Hippocratic oath sworn by all doctors. What would happen if abortion is legalized? Would that not mean transgression of the oath taken? I also hope we are aware that any doctor who fails to perform an abortion after it has been legalized would also be disobeying the constitution. That leaves the doctors in a state of confusion and I'm sure a division in the health sector is the last thing the country needs right now.
Many religions reject abortion. In short, the Bible says that a fetus is a person from conception, Jeremiah 1:5 says explicitly 'Before I formed thee in the belly, I knew thee and before thee cameth forth out of womb, I sanctified thee and I ordained thee a prophet unto the nations'. The Bible specifically instructs that man 'shall not kill'.
Hindu tradition finds that abortion is no different than the act of killing one’s parents and considers a person who kill a fetus as one of the greatest possible sinners.
Similarly, many Buddhists believe that life begins at conception and that abortion is likened to murder. The Dalai Lama has advised that abortion is generally negative but can be permissible only when the mother is in danger. However, there is no single opinion about Abortion in Islam but the Quran considers that all life is sacred as it states 'whosoever has killed a soul, it is as if he has murdered all mankind'. If all these major religions kick against it, why should Abortion be legal?
Dear jury, let it be known to our subconscious minds that immediately abortion is legalized, it will give room to unprotected sex since people can now abort as at when willed, no use of contraceptives, condoms might even be eliminated, people will waste more time and energy on illicit affairs which might lead to continuous spread of sexually transmitted diseases such as HIV/Aids, gonorrhea, the list is endless.
Of course, there are certain circumstances where difficult and heartbreaking decisions have to be made, we are not however discussing those here. We are considering whether the easy access to abortion on demand should be a fundamental human right. Abortion, whether through partial birth or otherwise is quite simply horrific. In a society where we have easy access to contraceptives which if used properly or in combination would prevent an unwanted pregnancy there is simply no excuse for abortion.
My Lord, I know that legalizing abortion will reduce the risk of unwanted pregnancy and put a stop to most broken homes that are rampant nowadays but it might be the end of the beginning of another Nelson Mandela.
SHOULD ABORTION BE LEGALIZED IN NIGERIA?
All protocols duly observed.
Abortion can be defined as the cessation of pregnancy or fetal development through the removal of the growing fetus from the womb of the mother. With the 20th century, abortion rate has risen drastically in most part of the world, not excluding Nigeria. But, unlike Nigeria, countries around the world are legalizing abortion, and this is still a cause of controversy in our nation.
Your Honor, the reasons for legalizing abortion are as numerous as the stars in the sky. For one, not legalizing abortion will not stop women from having abortion; it will only cause an increase in the amount of the unsafe abortion procedures. Now that abortion is not legalized, a lot of women get their abortion done by quack doctors, and are prone to a lot of infectious diseases, and sometimes, even death in severe cases. For example, in 2012; 285,000 women in Nigeria had complications from unsafe abortions enough to warrant treatment, but did not go to the hospital for the required care. Now, if abortion was legalized, this startling number of women who had infections due to unsafe abortion could be drastically reduced, or perhaps, non-existent.
My opponent would most definitely want to use the much hackneyed quote ‘Prevention is better than cure’ to justify the fact that using contraceptives would be a better way to prevent unwanted pregnancies. But we must remember that our beloved country has a very low rate of contraceptive use. There is little or no education concerning contraceptives in Nigeria. Only 11% of women use a modern contraceptive method in Nigeria while being sexually active.
Meanwhile, 25% of pregnancies in Nigeria are unintended. This large number of unintended pregnancies explains to a great extent why the number of abandoned children and orphanage homes in Nigeria are increasing by the day.
If women were given the option of legally aborting their unwanted children instead of giving birth to children which were not planned for and ultimately would not be raised well enough, the Nigerian population, which is reaching an alarming number these days, will probably reduce. Unwanted children form adults that are ill-equipped to cope with the demands of the modern world.
Furthermore, Your Honor, let’s take into consideration women who were raped and became pregnant as a result. Is it really humane to insist that these women keep children that they never thought they would have, that are walking and talking reminders of the disaster that occurred to them? Isn’t it their right to get a safe abortion, or is it more preferable that they go and get an unsafe abortion from a quack which could lead to infections or even death.
My opponent might also bring up the Hippocratic Oath, and might want to talk about how it is against a doctor’s ethics to ‘kill an unborn child’. I would love to remind us all that a fetus is not a child. Besides, many underprivileged children are in Nigeria today, starved, with no roofs under their heads, hustling as much as full grown adults to make ends meet. What kind of doctor would let a child grow to suffer in the world where he has no one to cater for it rather than just excising the child from the womb?
Thank you.
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