Women's reproductive rights

The Correspondence by Ciaran Clarke1Clarke C Abortion and The Lancet's call to arms.Lancet. 2019; 3942241Summary Full Text Full Text PDF PubMed Scopus (2) Google Scholar is a sophisticated attempt to support forced motherhood, but, in reality, it is a vicious antiwomen statement. The Soviet Union did pass the first law making abortion legal, but the Soviet Union did not invent abortion as implied. Abortion is as old as recorded history. It is necessary because of the ability to get pregnant. Most women do not want a baby every 9 months for 30–35 years. Does Clarke propose that women have an unlimited number of children? If so, who would take care of them? Of course, abortion can be abused. The Nazis used forced abortions against people they considered racially impure,2David HP Fleischhacker J Hohn C Abortion and eugenics in Nazi Germany.Popul Dev Rev. 1988; 14: 81-112Crossref PubMed Scopus (21) Google Scholar but it remained illegal for the majority of Germans. Regarding the comments on the skewed sex ratio in India, sex-selective abortion is just the means, discrimination against girls is the real cause behind this issue. Reproductive rights are a woman's right to decide whether and when to have children. Motherhood should be chosen, not forced on women or denied to them. The people who oppose reproductive rights recognise that making women into baby machines is the best way to oppress us. Lastly, Clarke says “abortion is the deliberate ending of life”. Yes, potential life. 25% of pregnancies end in spontaneous miscarriage.3Dugas C Slane VH Miscarriage. StatPearls Publishing, Treasure Island, FL, USA2020Google Scholar Should spontaneous miscarriage be criminalised too? In El Salvador it is.4Citizen's Coalition for the Decriminalization of Abortion on Grounds of HealthEthics and Fetal Anomaly, El SalvadorFrom hospital to jail: the impact on women of El Salvador's total criminalization of abortion.Reprod Health Matters. 2014; 22: 52-60Crossref Google Scholar But like everyone who is antiabortion, Clarke seems to value life only before birth. After that, it is only the woman's problem. Clark does not address women's deaths from complications of wanted pregnancies or deaths due to unsafe abortions. That is what should really concern anyone devoted to human wellbeing. I declare no competing interests. Women's reproductive rightsI hope it is stating the obvious to suggest that it is despicable both to ban abortion and to impose it on women whether in the name of religion, in the service of a political ideology, or as a perceived demographic imperative.1 Forced birth and forced abortion are foul. They are an assault on the autonomy, dignity, and rights of women, and are a threat to their lives, health, and wellbeing. Examples of banning and forcing abortions are found throughout the world and across time (sometimes in the same place and at the same time, as seen in Nazi Germany). Full-Text PDF