Journal of Contraception Reproductive Health Care - The European ...

The 8th Congress of The European Society of Contraception Abstracts of Invited Speakers
IS-17
Ethical and global aspects of abortion
H. Goldstein
Copenhagen, Denmark
Abortion, legal as well as illegal, has been known from ancient times. Probably since then pros and cons have been debated, and
political as well as religious systems have stated their points of view very often, also in recent decades.
For several decades a variety of Western societies have allowed abortion until a certain number of gestational weeks. The ethical
questions have been debated very strongly, and no consensus is found by all political directions. The practice of legal abortion
may vary from country to country, although the ethical problems are the same: Is the medical doctor a murderer? Has the fetus
in utero the same legal status – and moral value – as a full born infant? Does the pregnant woman decide alone, if she wants the
child, or does the father-in-future have some influence? Does legal and illegal abortion influence the global demographic situation?
Or can abortion be used as a tool in order to change a demographic situation? May legal abortion be used as a tool if
parents want a boy or a girl – after ultrasound examination?
IS-18
Abortion; influencing politics
M.M. Lech
Fertility and Sterility Research Center, Warsaw, Poland
Abortion is a response to unwanted pregnancy, and is a consequence of poor sexual education and poor (or unavailable) family
planning services. As it is well known, yearly number of abortion all over the world, approach the number of 50 million. 40%
of them are illegal and unsafe. Everyday more than 200 women die due to unsafe/illegal abortions. Legalisations of abortions
make these procedures safes, save women’s lives and diminish indicators of maternal mortality. Restrictive abortion laws means;
illegal abortions, creation of abortion-underground, high number of unsafe abortions, woman’s mortality and morbidity, criminalization
of the society, and even infanticide.
Abortion law is the most influent factor of availability and accessibility of abortions in Europe. Abortion laws in Europe vary
from the complete prohibition, in Malta, and availability of abortion only in case of endangered (by pregnancy) life of the
women, in Ireland and Poland, to ‘‘abortion on request’’ in most of the European countries.
In reality, restrictive abortion law in the certain country does not mean ‘‘abortion-free-country’’. For example, official data on
number of abortions in Poland is less than 200 per year (means 0.022 per thousand women in the age of 15–49), but in reality,
estimated numbers of abortion exceed 50 thousand abortions per year. Restrictive abortion law in Poland means also ‘‘safe abortion
services availability for well-off women only’’. The fight for the contemporary and democratic abortion law (similar to
abortion laws in most of the European countries) is one of the very hot points of politics in Poland. Some of groups of society,
woman’s right lobby, NGO’s and some of the health professionals are trying to influence politics by; raising awareness, monitoring
and initiating activities concerning reproductive health/rights and women’s rights in the community, initiating media
campaigns (through reports, press conferences, fact sheets, press releases, NGO’s bulletins, open letters etc) on legalization of
abortion and introducing sex education at schools, advocating for implementation of the commitments made by the Government
during the international conferences (Cairo Conference on Population and Development, Beijing Fourth World Conference on
Women), formation of various national and international networks and coalitions (including the Polish Committee of NGO’s-
Beijing ’95), promoting international standards concerning human rights in the area of women’s reproductive health and rights.
20 The European Journal of Contraception and Reproductive Health Care