Every life counts. . weekly-engagement #53.

Greetings everyone 🙌!

This week's weekly-engagement topics by the @hiveghana community are quite interesting and it gives me much pleasure to air and share my views with you all here on my blog.

Responding to the first topic whuch states

Abortion rights: do you think women deserve the right to abortion? Why?

Abortion is defined by the Oxford's dictionary to be the deliberate termination of pregnancy. I have also heard that some countries legalize abortion and the reason for this is that the female is free to do what she wants with her body hence she is free to terminate her pregnancy. Another reason I came across is that it is a mechanism to curb over-population. I don't know but this second reason seems like a joke to me.

I believe there are better ways to control population increase than resorting to abortion. There are many safe medical treatment procedures that females can be enlightened on in order to raise awareness on how to curb population increase via easy and affordable family planning techniques.

I am not in support of giving women the right to abortion or to legalize abortion and this is solely because that pregnancy even in its embryonic stage in the womb is already a life in developmental stage. So deliberately snuffing out that life just because a girl feels like it is not morally and humanly right.

I am also inclined to this view because of the devastating effects of abortion which I can list as follows:

• Truamtic stress
• Shame and regret
• Womb weakening
• Infection risks
• Womb puncturing
• Excessive bleeding
• Psychological trauma
• Death
• Inability to have children later in life.

These are but a few of the many negative effects that comes with the deed. I am well aware that some females don't wish to have kids due to the stress involved in parenting and I respect their stand but I also feel that it should not be a ground for terminating a life.

The truth is that these females with such opinions can donate their uterus for other females to make use of or better still they can get a hysterectomy (womb removal) or tubal ligation. That way their wish to not have kids will be fulfilled and they wouldn't have to go through the stress of abortion too. There is also the option of adoption on delivery.

I come from a part of the world that is very religious, where children are considered as gifts from God and not just an embryo, and as such, things like abortion is considered a sin against God Almighty. In fact, abortion is akin to murder in my religion and faith. The believe of dire consequences befalling anyone who indulges in it is what has kept so many from it.

Rather than propose women's rights to freely terminate their pregnancies especially when there is no foetal abnormality or health complication like the instance of ectopic pregnancy, then more rights should be geared towards female empowerment and enlightenment especially focused teaching healthy sexual practices, for those who wish to indulge in it.

Even married women need to be enlightened on child spacing and healthy family planning practices as abortion is not only common amongst unmarried females. I knew a married woman many years ago who fell pregnant after just three months of giving birth to a baby boy. She was so confused as she didn't know how to cope with a baby's stress and a new pregnancy as well. Plus her body had not fully recovered from the birth pains and hormonal imbalace. All these thoughts led this woman to abort the pregnancy. After six years when her baby boy was six years old, I learnt that she has been trying to conceive but it was proving futile and this woman began to deeply regret aborting that pregnancy. To summarize, she has not given birth to another child and her son is now twelve years old. I heard her husband has gotten two kids from another woman since he wants more children and his legal wife cannot conceive another.

Its because of things like this that I strongly stand for female empowerment and enlightenment all over the world. When we as females understand that having a healthy and safe sexually active relationship will save us from future damage, many will no longer patronize abortion clinics. Also, many women who fell pregnant due to unpleasant circumstances like rape, betrayal, broken promise of marriage and dysfunctionality will be able to receive support and care from empowered communities and be able to raise their children without the fear of stigmatization.

I have a lot to say on this topic but I will pen down here and hope that I have been able to convince someone out there to not choose abortion as an escape route nor should rights be given to legalize abortion.

Thank you all for reading...shalom.

_{photo by Kelvin Agustinus}

_{photo 2 by Vika Glitter}

_{photo 3 by Sam Rana}