Abortion

Less than 5% of the poorest juvenile persons worldwide use up to date contraceptive methods. On average, younger women are more fertile than older women; about 10% of pregnancies each year occur among teenagers. UNFPA reports that 10-14% of young unmarried women around the world have unwanted pregnancies and at least 2-4.4 million abortions occur among adolescent women in developing countries each year. Because adolescents are less likely to have information about abortion or resources to access safe services, they more often use unsafe methods when they try to self-induce an abortion, for example, by inserting objects into the vagina or uterus, using drugs or other toxic substances, or self-inflicting bodily harm to induce miscarriage(Stotland, 2003, p139).

They also seek out unqualified providers and have abortions in unhygienic circumstances. Adolescents may more often delay seeking care for abortion-related complications due to lack of transportation, lack of knowledge about where postabortion care can be obtained, fears of censure from their parents and health-care providers, fear of legal repercussions, or lack of money to pay for services.

Women of young age, nulliparity and low socioeconomic status are at an increased risk of suffering morbidity and mortality due to unsafe abortion in comparison to other women. Where induced abortion is highly constrained by law, adolescents have the largest dangers of pain serious difficulties from unsafe abortions. Among women admitted to hospital for treatment of unsafe abortion complications, those aged under 20 years account for 38-68% of cases in many developing countries. These complications include cervical or vaginal lacerations, sepsis, hemorrhage, bowel or uterine perforation, tetanus, pelvic infections or abscesses, chronic pelvic inflammatory disease and secondary infertility(Sedgh, 2007, p106).

In article Undesired Pregnancies and Women's Right to Abortion by Dr. Nelson Soucasaux, consider the right to the interruption of undesired pregnancies, that is, the right to abortion, a fundamental right of women. This right is associated to the self-preservation of the female body against the arduous forfeitures that gestation and childbirth impose upon it. Ibelieve that the so often debated privileges of the embryo cannot prevail over the privileges of the woman who houses it interior her body - a body that has to be considerably forfeited so that the embryo can evolve and be born - particularly if this occurs against her will. The bodily injurious facets of pregnancy and childbirth for women are habitually disregarded by those who, numerous times with fanaticism, are against the ...