Sometimes life can be incredible to define, how do we define life? Should we define life from an existential point of view or should it be organic in nature? Can man just be narrowed down to his existence on the biological chain? Or is man a higher being based on his ability to make thoughts, suppositions and higher definitions? Is a person not defined from an identity of self, their consciousness of being alive? Who knows if animals also have thoughts or understand their own existence? Maybe they see themselves in the light of what they are.
According to Webster dictionary, the biological definition of life is the condition that distinguishes animals and plants from inorganic matter, including the capacity for growth, reproduction, functional activity, and continual change preceding death. If we take a closer look at that definition particularly at the words reproduction and continual state preceding death; we can say therefore; life is about reproducing and dying but then we ask again how we reproduce and how do we die. Who is responsible for reproducing and who can determine who dies? These are some of the questions I asked myself when I think about the subject Abortion. Abortion has been one of the biggest controversies of all time and the most divisive social issues in western society and has been so for years. Many people believe it is immoral and even consider it to be murder.
Before I go deeper I would like us to understand human reproduction and what the roles of the major players are? Human reproduction could be in most cases a form of sexual contact between two opposite sex that could result in the conception of a child. Now, we understand that for reproduction to exist in many occasions it involves a token from two parties; from the man and the woman. We should also put into account the process itself; for humans to reproduce we have the following basic steps; Sexual intercourse, Pregnancy, Birth and Parental care.
Before I go jump into the pro-life or pro-choice debate, I will like to us to first understand what abortion is and why is deliberate termination a key word in driving the fight for abortion among women. Abortion is widely defined as a deliberate termination of a human pregnancy, most often performed during the first 28 weeks of the pregnancy. This definition clearly mention that it is an act carried out with full awareness and understanding. Included in this definition is a timeline which is known as the birth term. This definitely points to the fact that an abortion is expected within a particular time-line.
So what do we know about the history of Abortion? Abortion is not a new concept or a new idea that science just discovered, it is as old as reproduction itself. Tracing it back, one of this first record of word abortion came in the 1550 BCE, it came from the Ebers Papyrus (ca. 1550 BCE), that was taken from an ancient Egyptian medical text. This Papyrus suggests that abortion in those days was induced with the...