Adolescents and Abortions Research Paper

The debate on whether abortion should be practiced or not has been politicized in most countries and this comes out with controversial opinions. Adolescent is primarily the transitional phase of growth and development between childhoods to adulthood. According to the WHO adolescent age is always between 10 and 19 years as mostly in societies adolescent is usually equated too puberty and the physical changes that occur in reproductive organs. Abortion is therefore the medical process of terminating pregnancy so that the barer doesn’t give birth to the baby. This therefore mean adolescent abortion is the termination of pregnancy among those between the ages of 10 to 19 years of age. Unsafe abortion on the other hand is can be self-induced or conducted by unskilled person using dangerous, unhygienic methods.

Those methods include packing dirt or other self-invented ways. This normally occurs in countries where abortion is illegal and highly restricted unlike the safe abortion which normally occur in countries where abortion is legal. According to different reports, there are different reasons why adolescent abortion is considered prevalent among the adolescents. These includes, poor evaluation and decision making as they lack the knowledge to assess whether the decision they are making is right or wrong and what next after the abortion. Through this way it would solve the ever rising statistics of the adolescent pregnancies. This therefore means, adolescents would need a lot of abortion counseling in their lifetime more than even the adults. Adolescents making decision about an abortion or post-abortion period needs someone so trustworthy they can share with.

This should be someone who can take them through counseling and helping them explore different alternative solutions. This is always an internal conflict within the individual that is between positive aspects of conception and pregnancy, societal beliefs on teenage pregnancy. Therefore there is increased need for these safety instruments and facilities which can ensure that there is safe abortion if it has to be done. Researchers estimate that in 2008 (the most recent estimate available), about 3. 2 million adolescent women in developing regions underwent unsafe abortions, an annual rate of about 16 unsafe abortions per 1,000 women aged 15–19. Age-specific information on safe abortions in developing countries does not exist, so there are currently no global or regional estimates of total (safe and unsafe) abortion incidence among adolescents.

Abortion incidences The global rate masks substantial variation in the unsafe abortion rate between geographic regions. As a result, adolescents more frequently make multiple attempts to end their pregnancies, instead of having one safe, effective procedure. Studies from India and Ghana show that adolescents have second-trimester abortions (instead of first-trimester abortions) more often than older women. This is because adolescents typically take longer than older women to recognize their pregnancies, locate providers and find a way to pay for the procedure. This landscape might be changing with the increase in access to medical abortion—primarily through the use of misoprostol—in countries with highly restrictive abortion laws. Drugs such as misoprostol are less expensive than surgical procedures, and much easier to obtain and use clandestinely.

This bars most people from making decisions whether to abort or not. They have to give birth if the reason behind the abortion does not lie among the stated reasons in the law. If they do abort then others opt to do it out of sight and through back doors which is dangerous and in most cases it would result to death. Adolescents in particular do not have to make any decision then since it would require them to have money that would finance the abortion. They therefore end up relying on parents to make these decisions for them. If just everyone would be in the pregnant adolescents’ shoes and be thinking about an abortion, I’d want to know. It’s heartbreaking to me to think about not knowing — and about them going through that alone.

For adolescents own safety and well-being, they should have the right not to tell me. That’s the consensus of several medical organizations, including the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Medical Association, and the Society for Adolescent Health Medicine, the American Public Health Association and the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology. And I agree. When teens go through with pregnancies they don’t want (very few place babies for adoption), they are not only more likely to suffer psychological consequences for it, but it can have consequences for the child as well to have been “unwanted. ” The medical consequences of making teens tell their parents can be significant. Teens tend to realize later than adults that they are pregnant, so they are already off to a later start with decision-making — and if they don’t want to tell their parents, or if they have to go in front of a judge, they often delay (or the system delays them) and end up with a second-trimester abortion, which is much more dangerous medically and psychologically than a first trimester abortion (generally very safe).

Teens may do things to try to induce an abortion, which can be very dangerous. Parents may understandably worry that their teen isn’t capable of making such an important decision without their input — but studies show that teens are actually quite capable. Therefore this leaves the decision whether to abort or not between two people; parents and adolescent ones. There is no freedom at all. Again, health facilities that provide abortion services are limited and out of reach by individuals in certain age brackets therefore forcing an adolescent individual to accompany the parent. Thus this leaves room for inclusion of the parents when deciding whether to abort or not. Not enough there are also restrictions on who should access the drugs and tablets that aid in abortion.

It’s the right thing to do. Therefore policies such as medical policies concerning abortions, restriction of the access to abortion processes, requirement of a third party for abortion to be done, restrictions regarding the age brackets to access the medical attention concerning abortion, restrictions and specifications of the reasons why abortion should be done and concealing the knowledge about the safe abortion as well as limiting access and charging highly for the abortion services. These singles out the adolescents and they have to rely on parents for any decision regarding abortion. Thus it is high time the government and other institutions to examine the tremendous and life threatening results due to these restrictions. An act is required in this regard and thus all stakeholders have a role to play.