When does this collection of cells obtain rights?

During these days I have witness a great debate around the topic of "abortion" because there are people organizing the "March of life" which is a catholic group of people against the right of women to have an abortion. Many people have commented about it both ironically and in a serious matter. I found a really interesting articule about the topic. Let's check it out.

(In english: Giving birth is a decision, not an imposition)

Dale Hansen is a blogger at the Detroit News (USA) who wrote a very interesting article about this subject. With his permission, I am sharing an extract of the text  (I added some comments on brackets):

The question then becomes, when does this collection of cells obtain rights?

The pro-life camp tends to believe life begins at conception. So every abortion is murder.

The pro-choice camp tends to think personhood isn’t achieved till much later so an abortion is a medical procedure to remove unwanted cells. Neither side is willing to back down from their stance, but the highest court in the land has thus far sided with those in the pro-choice camp.

There are, of course, many people who fall somewhere in between. Some are against abortion but OK in the case or rape or incest. Some feel an abortion is justified if the life of the mother is in danger. Others believe an abortion is justified if the fetus has defects that would affect its quality of life.

Then there are also those that feel that the legality of an abortion corresponds to a certain time frame — once there’s a heartbeat, once there are brain waves, or no later than 20 weeks. If you take all of these variations into account, only 20% of the population believes an abortion is murder starting at conception. It should also be noted that if 20 weeks is an acceptable cut off only 1% of all abortions occur after 20 weeks.

Liberal or conservative, Republican or Democrat, no one wants more abortions to occur each year. President Bill Clinton set the standard of “safe, legal, and rare.” That’s reasonable.

Unfortunately, the methods each side supports for how to achieve that goal are dramatically different. Pro-life organizations have worked diligently to make getting an abortion more and more difficult, hoping to eventually make all abortions illegal. Given the results of government crackdowns in other areas, such as Prohibition and the War on Drugs, it seems unlikely that making abortion illegal will actually reduce the number of abortions per year.[It means it DOESN'T work] Instead, it will just make abortions more dangerous and turn otherwise law-abiding citizens into criminals.

Pro-choice groups would prefer to use the power of information to reduce the number of abortions. Instead of attempting and failing to rewire the brains of teenagers with abstinence-only education, pro-choice groups would prefer to explain what happens during sex, how to prevent pregnancy, and give people all the information necessary to help them make better choices.

To many people, the effectiveness of the methods isn’t important. If having sex results in a pregnancy, then you must see that pregnancy through. Purposely removing those cells is murder even though the law says otherwise. [In USA, abortion is legal]

Of course, if all human life was as sacrosanct to conservatives as a zygote, an embryo, and a fetus, you might expect them to act differently in other situations. [Most of conservative people belong to the Republican party]

For instance Republicans are twice as likely as a Democrat to support the death penalty. About as far from “pro life” as it gets.

Over 30,000 Americans die every year from guns, yet Republicans overwhelmingly oppose restricting or reducing gun rights. Not very compassionate.

Republicans support drone strikes at significantly greater levels than Democrats, even though these drone kill hundreds of civilians each year. The taking of innocent lives is a feature, and not a bug, of drone attacks.

Republican legislators oppose many of the efforts of the EPA aimed at reducing air pollution even though some 200,000 Americans die every year from poor air quality. Including a lot of babies.

Heart disease kills some 600,000 Americans per year, yet attempts to curb the availability of foods that lead to heart disease are often rebuffed as government overreach.

Just like abortion statistics, these numbers don’t prove one side right or the other side wrong.

What they do show is that one person’s “murder” is another person’s “choice.” 

All that he has describe can be applied to the peruvian society. Sadly, the church and other organizations are intense promoters of the "Pro life" campaigns when they don't realize that many women die each year due to lack of medical assistence when facing an unwanted pregnancy. A group of (as Dale says) "unwanted cells". Is it more important the life of a "baby" than the life of a woman?

What quality of life does a unwanted child has when he/she is born?
What can you tell a child that has been born due to a rape?
How can you understand what is it to have an unwanted child inside of you?

Today, abortions are prohibited in Peru (a woman can spend 2 years in prison for his) but there are still many done illegally. CLEARLY, prohibition is not a solution. An example is Uruguay. Abortion is not penalized in this country since december 2012. It is one of the first latin american countries to legalize it. The biggest number of abortions registered is from the year 1995, based on a study from the sociologist Rafael Sansiviero where he concluded that there were 33.000 illegal abortions bein done. Nowadays, over a year since abortion became legal in Uruguay, there has been reports of 6.676 abortions being performed in public and private hospitals. This means that almost 7 thousand women decided over their own bodies and lifes. An extremely small number compared to all the illegal abortions performed in 1995. Then we can conclude that legalizing it doesn't mean the increase. It means the opposite.

In Peru, the aproximately number of illegal abortions anually is 352 thousand (acording to study from 2000). They are 352 thousand women that pay taxes, vote, decide who gets to be president, mayor and congresmen but they can't decide over their own bodies. 352 thousannd women that had to put their lifes at risk for different reasons and that, unfortunately, have a law that rather protect a "group of unwanted cells" instead of protecting them.


Is it fair? Which life is more important? The life of woman or the life of a group of unwanted cells? And if it is called "March of life"... which quality of life?

Here are some tweets that I liked and that are making fun of the "March of life". Apparently the ones that are against it are not few.

Spanish version: http://blogs.peru21.pe/sexosentido/2014/03/cuando-esta-coleccion-de-celulas-obtiene-derechos-aborto-decidir.html

Picture: Bárbara Boyero
Sources:
http://www.elpais.com.uy/informacion/aborto-meses-mayoria-mutualistas.html
http://www.inppares.org/sites/default/files/Aborto%20clandestino%20Peru.pdf
http://blogs.detroitnews.com/politics/2014/03/16/abortion-murder-medical-procedure/