CHAPTER ONE

GENERAL INTRODUCTION

1.1 BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY

I want to start this thesis by saying that, abortion is most poorly understood, easily misunderstood, easily mixed up and abused subject matter, yet abortion is one of the topics in applied ethics that creates a great deal of public debate.

I have always wanted to research on the morality of abortion, partly due to the incidence of induced abortion, and complications from unsafe abortion around the world. I have seen many women risk their health and life in order to get abortion in countries where abortion is against the law. Everyday, approximately 186 women die around the world due to complications from unsafe abortion; many of these deaths are in countries where access to abortion is legally restricted.^[1] The legal restrictions of abortion do not mean that abortion does not happen; it simply is driven under-ground and becomes more dangerous, that is to say, that despite all these legal restrictions and prohibitions of abortion, women still seek for abortion, and when abortion is illegal it is more likely to be unsafe and harmful to women s health, lives, families, and communities. As important, it denies women their most fundamental rights to health and to control their own bodies. Unsafe and often ineffective methods include taking various drugs or caustic substances by mouth; inserting objects into the vagina or flushing the vagina with caustic substances.