legalization of abortion in the philippines essay

Making Unsafe Abortion History in the Philippines

• Written by Shiphrah Belonguel
• September 28, 2021
• WGNRR/ PINSAN

On September 28, feminist activists around the world mobilize around International Safe Abortion Day. The day originated in Latin America and was known as “Campaña 28 de Septiembre por la Despenalización del Aborto”. In 2011, the Women’s Global Network for Reproductive Rights (WGNRR) adapted the campaign into an annual global event with a specific theme or focus each year.

This year, the campaign theme is “Safe Abortion is Essential Healthcare #MakeUnsafeAbortionHistory”.

For safe abortion advocates in the Philippines, September 28 this year marks the first anniversary of the launch of the first-ever proposed bill and parallel campaign to decriminalize abortion in the country. 

The Philippines remains to have one of the most restrictive abortion laws in the world. Women, physicians, and anyone involved in inducing an abortion may be punished with up to six years of imprisonment. There are no express provisions allowing exceptions. 

Despite the restrictive law, many Filipino women still seek out abortions. Because of the restrictive law, most of them end up having unsafe abortions.

Decriminalizing abortion would remove penalties on women and other marginalized genders for having abortions, as well as medical practitioners who may wish to provide the service. It would also reverse a centuries-old law dating back to Spanish colonial times.

Apart from the fact that both the proposed legislation and the campaign are firsts for the country, the September 28, 2020 launch is also historic in that it happened amid an unprecedented global pandemic.

“The reason why we’re talking about this now… is because of the pandemic,” Philippine Safe Abortion Network (PINSAN) spokesperson Clara Rita Padilla has said.

During the launch, advocates rang the alarm on the rise of unintended pregnancies amid lockdown as a result of barriers to access reproductive health information, services, and commodities as well as a spike in incidences of gender-based violence.

According to advocates, these pandemic-induced conditions would increase unsafe abortions and constitute a public health emergency.

They were right.

Emerging estimates from 2020 project that around 1.26 million abortions were induced in the country.

This presents an increase of more than 100% from previous estimates made in 2012 of around 610,000 induced abortions. Back then, three women were estimated to have died from complications related to unsafe abortion.

“Campaigning on such a grim picture is difficult but necessary,” says Marevic Parcon, Executive Director of the Women’s Global Network for Reproductive Rights (WGNRR). “But we try our best to also present a different picture – one where women and marginalized genders assert their rights to reproductive freedom and bodily autonomy.”

Indeed, in the last year, WGNRR and PINSAN organized online discussions, learning sessions, and art workshops to present the current picture of abortion in the Philippines, but as well as to invite people to dream and hope for a better future. They even produced a music album, Pasya ( Choice or Decision in English ), that celebrates “the strength of people standing up to challenges against their rights to bodily autonomy”. 

Still, in a Catholic-majority country with few progressive politicians, advocating for safe abortion remains challenging. But in the year that was, it seemed clear that for these advocates, holding space for one another and for people who have experiences of abortion is creating that future where unsafe abortion is history.

• Categories: Development , Feminism , Gender Based Violence , Girls' Globe News , Health , Maternal and Child Health , Politics , Rights , Society , SRHR
• Tags: Abortion , SRHR , The Philippines

The Conversation

One response.

Can someone please help me I had done catheter abortion procedure im afraid and I don’t know how to remove this 😭

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Notify me of follow-up comments by email.

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed .

Never miss a post, story or important news from changemakers worldwide.

• More from Shiphrah Belonguel

In the Philippines, Community Pantries stir a Mutual Aid Movement

A Pleasure-Based Approach to Activism and Coping With Suffering

Why do Women Still Die Giving Birth in Nepal?

We Need to Talk About Periods in a More Inclusive Way

The Forgotten Women and Girls: Criminalisation of Abortion in Kenya

How Intergenerational Dialogues about Mental Health and SRHR Fosters Leadership in Japan

Maureen’s Story: What Young Women can Achieve Despite the Hardest of Conditions

Becoming a Peer Educator with Si Mujer Gave Me Confidence

Young Women’s Lack of Access to Information on Safe Abortion in Zambia

How MAMA Network is Making Safe Abortion Accessible in Sub-Saharan Africa

Chiara Martinelli on the Climate Impact of the EU Elections

Akinyi Juma, Kenya

Student Movement for Palestine: Voices Against Genocide

Emmanuel Achiri on the EU Migration Pact and Europe’s Identity Crisis

Elisa gambino, usa, sadia jahan rothi, bangladesh, share your stories and expertise..

We amplify the voices of changemakers and organizations that work to strengthen gender equality, human rights, social justice and sustainability around the world. This platform exists for our members. Your stories and your expertise matters! Join us as an individual contributor or as a publishing member organization. 

Never miss a story or post from our global community.

Waterfalls media.

© Girls’ Globe 2024

Girls' Globe

Members’ area.

Girls’ Globe is the global media platform for changemakers and organizations working to strengthen gender equality, human rights and social justice.

We amplify voices for equality, rights and justice all year round...

Subscribe and help build the global feminist media movement - one post at a time..

Hey there! We use cookies 🍪 to ensure that we give you the best experience of our global feminist media platform. If you continue to use this site we assume you’re happy with it. 

Get the voices of changemakers directly to your inbox.

Open for applications, publishing memberships for organizations.

 Gain visibility, develop your content and have a greater impact with our Publishing Memberships for Organizations. Learn more and apply here.

Solidarity and Thought Leader Membership for Individuals

This membership is for experienced individuals and leaders within gender equality, human rights and sustainability.  Learn more and apply here.

Applications Closed

The girls' globe fellowship program.

A communications and sustainable activism program for young women changemakers worldwide.

Other Partnership Opportunities

Girls’ Globe is all about collaboration. We’ve partnered with grassroots organizations, international NGOs, and private companies. Learn more about partnership opportunities here.

Coming Soon!

Subscribe and be the first to know when we launch..

• Subscribe Now

The reality of abortion in the Philippines

Already have Rappler+? Sign in to listen to groundbreaking journalism.

This is AI generated summarization, which may have errors. For context, always refer to the full article.

J ust this August, Maria (not her real name), a 21-year old rape victim who became pregnant as a result of the rape with a child with dwarfism condition, died a day after giving birth due to childbirth complications.  Her mother lamented that her daughter might be alive today had her daughter been able access to safe and legal  abortion .

I have interviewed many poor women who divulged risking their health and lives by self-inducing  abortion  using catheters or dispensing drugs without proper dosage and supervision eventually suffering complications.  

Such cases are common in our country where over half of the pregnancies are unintended, and about 17% and one-third of the unintended pregnancies end in  abortion  nationwide and in the National Capital Region, respectively, and where two-thirds of those who induce  abortion  are poor.  

Views, religion, and abortion 

The 2004 national survey on  abortion  showed that nearly 90% of those who induce  abortion  are Catholic. Regardless of Church teachings, Filipino women still resort to  abortion  with the poor, rural and young women being the most vulnerable to self-induced unsafe  abortion .

Although the Reproductive Health (RH) Law provides humane, non-judgmental, compassionate post- abortion  care and, a law known as RA 8344 provides for stabilizing patients in serious cases such as when a woman is bleeding due to complications from self-induced unsafe  abortion , making  abortion  safe and legal is the best means for women who resort to  abortion  to be assured that their health and lives are not at risk. 

 Even with RA 8344, the problem, in the past years and until now, is that some medical health care providers erroneously deny life-saving procedures even in cases of intrauterine fetal death where therapeutic  abortion  is needed to save the life of the woman.  

In cases of ectopic pregnancy where the pregnancy occurs outside the uterine cavity, surgery is necessary to save a woman’s life . Within a few hours from a ruptured ectopic pregnancy, the abdomen becomes rigid and the woman goes into shock. Ectopic pregnancy is a life-threatening, emergency condition requiring immediate surgery.

Expressing negative views on  abortion  is dangerous because it maintains the status quo where many medical providers threaten women with prosecution in cases of intrauterine fetal death, spontaneous  abortion ,  abortion  due to trauma from intimate partner violence and self-induced  abortion .  

As a consequence of these threats of prosecution, women end up dying because they delay going to hospitals or do not seek emergency medical care at all.

Judgmental views about known abortifacients such as  Cytotec  must be eliminated because these are lifesaving medications  necessary for the evacuation of the uterus for incomplete  abortion , missed  abortion , intrauterine fetal death,  severe eclampsia, labor induction, post-partum hemorrhage, and cervical ripening prior to obstetrical/gynecological procedures such as therapeutic curettage and insertion of intrauterine devices.

Abortion and law

The current criminal law on  abortion  is an outdated colonial law that violates the rights to health and life of Filipino women.  

It was a direct translation of the old Spanish Penal Code of 1870s that used to criminalize  abortion —in the time of the Spanish friars and conquistadores.   Without knowing the full consequences of such a harsh and restrictive law, our Congress enacted the criminal provision in our Revised Penal Code of 1930.  

At the time the law was adopted, Filipino women did not even have the right to vote, there was no Universal Declaration of Human Rights and no international human rights treaties such as the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR, 1976), the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR, 1976), Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW, 1981), Convention Against Torture (CAT, 1987), and Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC, 1990).  These came much later.

Denying women access to safe and legal  abortion  is a means to control women’s bodies, propagating subordination of women where women’s decisions including personal decisions related to pregnancy and childbirth are totally disregarded. 

Permitting restrictions on women’s right to decide their own bodies perpetuate discrimination against women and inequality of women in law in clear violation of women’s right to equal protection of the law and women’s right to privacy.  

Allowing penal provisions imposed on women who induce  abortion  and those who assist them to prevail in Philippine law based on religious standards violates the constitutional guarantee of non-establishment of religion. 

Denying access to safe and legal  abortion  is a public health issue.  

The illegality of  abortion  with no clear exceptions drives women to self-induce  abortion  unnecessarily endangering their health and lives. If we want health care service providers to provide humane, non-judgmental, compassionate post- abortion  care and if we want to reduce maternal mortality and morbidity due to unsafe  abortion , then we should rethink the archaic colonial law that restricts access to safe and legal  abortion.

We should also welcome discussion on exceptions in cases of rape, incest, danger to the health and life of the woman,  grave fetal infirmity  incompatible with life outside the uterus, or allow  abortion  up to 14 weeks of pregnancy or, better yet, simply repeal the penal provisions imposing penalty on the women who induce  abortion  and the service providers assisting them.

In other countries

Access to safe and legal  abortion  is also a social justice issue with rich women being able to go to places like Hong Kong where  abortion  is safe and legal while poor women who do not have funds to go abroad end up self-inducing unsafe abortion .  

We need to address the prevailing inequality besetting poor women. Serving this social justice concern will contribute to greatly reducing maternal deaths and morbidity related to self-induced unsafe  abortion .  

Allowing outmoded colonial penal laws on  abortion  in Philippine law makes us all complicit to the estimated 3 women who die each day from self-induced unsafe  abortion .  Letting such law prevail in our society breeds hatred and hostility towards Filipino women who resorted to self-induced and unsafe  abortion . Our laws should never countenance this.   

Other predominantly Catholic countries and former Spanish colonies have liberalized their laws on  abortion.  

Spain legalized  abortion  on request during the first 14 weeks of the pregnancy in 2010 and other predominantly Catholic countries such as Belgium, France, Italy, Portugal, Poland, Hungary, Costa Rica, and Ireland and former Spanish colonies such as Uruguay and Colombia allowed  abortion  on certain grounds. This leaves the Philippines to contend with its antiquated colonial Spanish law.  

Asian countries such as China, Japan, Malaysia, Singapore and Vietnam have liberal  abortion  laws while Cambodia, Indonesia and Thailand have recently liberalized their laws to allow  abortion  on certain grounds.

Some people mistakenly believe that the Philippine Constitution prohibits  abortion  because of the provision on equal protection of the life of the woman and the unborn from conception.  

On the contrary, other countries with constitutions and laws explicitly protecting the life of the unborn or life from conception allow  abortion  under certain exceptions such as Ireland, Slovak Republic, Poland, Kenya, Hungary, and Costa Rica.

In the complaint of LC v Peru filed with the Committee on Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW Committee), L.C. was 13 years old when a 34-year old man started sexually abusing her.  She became pregnant as a result of the rape and, in a state of depression, attempted suicide by jumping from a building, suffering spinal injuries with “a risk of permanent disability.”  

Despite her serious and deteriorating condition, her doctors refused to perform an operation because she was pregnant and denied her request for therapeutic  abortion . L.C. then miscarried spontaneously.  

The Committee recommended to Peru in 2009 to provide reparation to L.C., review its laws to establish effective access to therapeutic  abortion , include protocols to ensure health services are available and accessible in public facilities, and decriminalize  abortion  when the pregnancy results from rape.

The 2006 CEDAW Concluding Comments recommended for the Philippines to remove the punitive provisions imposed on women who induce  abortion  and to provide access to quality services for the management of complications arising from unsafe  abortions  to reduce maternal mortality rates.

In the 2014 CEDAW Committee report on the inquiry on reproductive rights violations in the Philippines, the Committee recommended for the Philippines to amend articles 256 to 259 of the Revised Penal Code to “legalize  abortion  in cases of rape, incest, threats to the life and/or health of the mother, or serious malformation of the fetus and decriminalize all other cases where women undergo  abortion .”

Upholding reproductive rights

In this day and age, we must uphold reproductive rights to the fullest extent where we champion women’s rights. Our country will be a step closer to women’s equality when every woman who decides to have an  abortion  is able to do so in a safe and legal manner.  

We owe such enabling environment to our mothers, sisters, and daughters who risked their health and lives by making the difficult decision to self-induce unsafe  abortion  and most especially to the women and adolescent girls who were hospitalized, threatened by health care providers, and those who died because of our long-standing restrictive  abortion  laws. 

Our rule of law is governed by secular standards, not religious standards.  To uphold women’s rights to equality and eliminate discrimination, women must have access to safe and legal  abortion . Philippine law must uphold secular standards, human rights, and public health.  

We should all should work towards a humane society where no woman should die from unsafe  abortion . Making  abortion  safe and legal will save the lives of women.  –  Rappler.com 

Clara Rita Padilla is the founder and executive director of EnGendeRights. She spearheaded the submission of the request for inquiry to the CEDAW Committee. She holds a Juris Doctor degree from the Ateneo de Manila University and has been practicing law for over 21 years working in the field of gender, gender-based violence, sexual and reproductive health and rights, and sexual orientation, gender identity and expression.

Photo of equipment and ultrasonograph from Shutterstock  

Add a comment

Please abide by Rappler's commenting guidelines .

There are no comments yet. Add your comment to start the conversation.

How does this make you feel?

Related Topics

Recommended stories, {{ item.sitename }}, {{ item.title }}.

Checking your Rappler+ subscription...

Upgrade to Rappler+ for exclusive content and unlimited access.

Why is it important to subscribe? Learn more

You are subscribed to Rappler+

By providing an email address. I agree to the Terms of Use and acknowledge that I have read the Privacy Policy .

Why decriminalizing abortion is not possible in the Philippines

Before the last national elections, as I was going through the platforms of senatorial and congressional candidates, I noticed that some of them said they will work for the “decriminalization of abortion.”

With the June 24, 2022 landmark decision of the United States Supreme Court on the case of Dobbs v. Jackson, which ruled that there is no such thing as a “constitutional right to abortion,” those intended moves on the part of these now elected lawmakers would seem to be passé. Now, the trend in the United States is to protect the life of the unborn by enacting state laws that will prohibit abortion.

The majority opinion of the US Supreme Court was written by Justice Samuel Alito. It is a masterpiece of philosophical and legal reasoning, and research on the history of the criminal nature of abortion in English and American jurisprudence. We can say that it is common sense which tells us that abortion is the killing of an innocent person who does not even have the capacity to defend himself. In our own language, we call a pregnant woman “nagdadalang-tao” (someone who is carrying within herself another human being). We naturally think she has inside her another person.

Decriminalizing abortion means removing the status of abortion as a crime. Laws have a role to play in the moral education of a society. When the laws remove the criminal status of a crime like abortion, it is teaching society that you may commit abortion and the state will not punish you. Go ahead. You can do it. The act is not banned.

In the context of the Philippines, the decriminalization of abortion is not possible because of our basic law, the Constitution . In Article II Section 12 it says, “[The state] shall equally protect the life of the mother and the life of the unborn from conception.” How else can the state protect the life of the unborn except by banning abortion and imposing penalties on those who take away the life of the unborn? In the same way that Justice Alito repeated several times in his piece that there is no such thing as a right to abortion, it might be worth repeating that it is not possible to decriminalize abortion in the Philippines given our Constitution and given our culture and traditions.

Because abortion is prohibited in the Philippines, it is very difficult to get accurate data on the number of abortions performed in the country. There are only estimates that range from 600,000 to even over a million for the last year. This is not a small number to say the least. This is a real problem for our society. But decriminalizing abortion is not the solution. As the experience of the US shows, decriminalizing it made the problem worse.

Like poverty, abortion is a complex problem that will require a complex and manifold solution. It is above all a moral problem. The Catholic Church has always advocated the moral education of people so that their mores might conform to right reasoning about their sexuality and morality. At the root of the problem about unwanted pregnancies and abortions is difficulty about virtues related to human sexuality. Chastity is the virtue that is at stake here. It is grossly misunderstood and misinterpreted as meaning “don’t do this or that” or “being a killjoy.” Understood well, it means love, affirmation, and happiness in life.

The Church has also fought for the defense of the dignity of each human person. In the case of abortion, she has fought for respecting the dignity of both the mother and the unborn child. What happens in an abortion is that both the mother and the baby are reduced to and manipulated as commodities. Their personhoods are destroyed and eliminated. The existence of the post abortion stress syndrome attests to the destruction of the person of the women who committed abortion. They find it very difficult to live with the thought, “I killed my own baby!”

It might be better for our lawmakers to think about how to help those mothers who are contemplating having an abortion solve their problems and difficulties. They need counseling, financial help, moral support, livelihood, education. They don’t need the decriminalization of abortion.

FR. CECILIO L. MAGSINO [email protected]

MORE LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

Clueless about land transport?

The challenge after the 2022 election

Subscribe to our daily newsletter

Education’s transformative results in 4Ps

Fearless views on the news

Disclaimer: Comments do not represent the views of INQUIRER.net. We reserve the right to exclude comments which are inconsistent with our editorial standards. FULL DISCLAIMER

© copyright 1997-2024 inquirer.net | all rights reserved.

We use cookies to ensure you get the best experience on our website. By continuing, you are agreeing to our use of cookies. To find out more, please click this link.

Home — Essay Samples — Social Issues — Abortion — Why Abortion Should Be Legalized

Why Abortion Should Be Legalized

• Categories: Abortion Pro Choice (Abortion) Women's Health

About this sample

Words: 1331 |

Published: Jan 28, 2021

Words: 1331 | Pages: 3 | 7 min read

Table of contents

Introduction, why abortion should be legal.

• Gipson, J. D., Hirz, A. E., & Avila, J. L. (2011). Perceptions and practices of illegal abortion among urban young adults in the Philippines: a qualitative study. Studies in family planning, 42(4), 261-272. (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1728-4465.2011.00289.x)
• Finer, L. B., & Hussain, R. (2013). Unintended pregnancy and unsafe abortion in the Philippines: context and consequences. (https://www.guttmacher.org/report/unintended-pregnancy-and-unsafe-abortion-philippines-context-and-consequences?ref=vidupdatez.com/image)
• Flavier, J. M., & Chen, C. H. (1980). Induced abortion in rural villages of Cavite, the Philippines: Knowledge, attitudes, and practice. Studies in family planning, 65-71. (https://www.jstor.org/stable/1965798)
• Gallen, M. (1979). Abortion choices in the Philippines. https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/journal-of-biosocial-science/article/abs/abortion-choices-in-the-philippines/853B8B71F95FEBDD0D88AB65E8364509 Journal of Biosocial Science, 11(3), 281-288.
• Holgersson, K. (2012). Is There Anybody Out There?: Illegal Abortion, Social Work, Advocacy and Interventions in the Philippines. (https://www.diva-portal.org/smash/record.jsf?pid=diva2%3A574793&dswid=4931)

Cite this Essay

Let us write you an essay from scratch

• 450+ experts on 30 subjects ready to help
• Custom essay delivered in as few as 3 hours

Get high-quality help

Verified writer

• Expert in: Social Issues Nursing & Health

+ 120 experts online

By clicking “Check Writers’ Offers”, you agree to our terms of service and privacy policy . We’ll occasionally send you promo and account related email

No need to pay just yet!

Related Essays

1 pages / 628 words

5 pages / 2476 words

4 pages / 1770 words

5 pages / 2211 words

Remember! This is just a sample.

You can get your custom paper by one of our expert writers.

121 writers online

Still can’t find what you need?

Browse our vast selection of original essay samples, each expertly formatted and styled

Related Essays on Abortion

It is crucial to understand and critically examine the topic of abortion rights. This contentious issue has been a subject of debate and controversy for decades, with individuals holding strong opinions on both sides of the [...]

The practice of aborting a pregnancy has been a subject of debate among different cultures, religions, and societies. The controversy surrounding abortion lies in the ethical, legal, and religious implications it has on society. [...]

Abortion laws have been a contentious issue in many countries, with varying degrees of permissiveness and restrictiveness. This essay aims to analyze the current state of abortion laws by examining a selection of relevant [...]

Overall, the arguments and evidence against abortion are significant and compelling. Not only is it a violation of human and fetal rights, but it also has physical, psychological, social, and economic ramifications. While this [...]

Abortion can be defined as the deliberate causing of the death of a fetus, either by directly killing it or by causing its expulsion from the womb before it is “viable.” With “the killing of an innocent human being without [...]

Abortion has been a major conflict in society. It puts a tremendous amount of pressure on women who are debating whether to change their lives dramatically by having a baby. Abortion terminates fetuses in the womb and that is [...]

Related Topics

By clicking “Send”, you agree to our Terms of service and Privacy statement . We will occasionally send you account related emails.

Where do you want us to send this sample?

By clicking “Continue”, you agree to our terms of service and privacy policy.

Be careful. This essay is not unique

This essay was donated by a student and is likely to have been used and submitted before

Download this Sample

Free samples may contain mistakes and not unique parts

Sorry, we could not paraphrase this essay. Our professional writers can rewrite it and get you a unique paper.

Please check your inbox.

We can write you a custom essay that will follow your exact instructions and meet the deadlines. Let's fix your grades together!

Get Your Personalized Essay in 3 Hours or Less!

We use cookies to personalyze your web-site experience. By continuing we’ll assume you board with our cookie policy .

• Instructions Followed To The Letter
• Deadlines Met At Every Stage
• Unique And Plagiarism Free

An official website of the United States government

The .gov means it’s official. Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

The site is secure. The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

• Publications
• Account settings

Preview improvements coming to the PMC website in October 2024. Learn More or Try it out now .

• Advanced Search
• Journal List
• Rom J Morphol Embryol
• v.61(1); Jan-Mar 2020

A research on abortion: ethics, legislation and socio-medical outcomes. Case study: Romania

Andreea mihaela niţă.

1 Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Craiova, Romania

Cristina Ilie Goga

This article presents a research study on abortion from a theoretical and empirical point of view. The theoretical part is based on the method of social documents analysis, and presents a complex perspective on abortion, highlighting items of medical, ethical, moral, religious, social, economic and legal elements. The empirical part presents the results of a sociological survey, based on the opinion survey method through the application of the enquiry technique, conducted in Romania, on a sample of 1260 women. The purpose of the survey is to identify Romanians perception on the decision to voluntary interrupt pregnancy, and to determine the core reasons in carrying out an abortion.

The analysis of abortion by means of medical and social documents

Abortion means a pregnancy interruption “before the fetus is viable” [ 1 ] or “before the fetus is able to live independently in the extrauterine environment, usually before the 20 th week of pregnancy” [ 2 ]. “Clinical miscarriage is both a common and distressing complication of early pregnancy with many etiological factors like genetic factors, immune factors, infection factors but also psychological factors” [ 3 ]. Induced abortion is a practice found in all countries, but the decision to interrupt the pregnancy involves a multitude of aspects of medical, ethical, moral, religious, social, economic, and legal order.

In a more simplistic manner, Winston Nagan has classified opinions which have as central element “abortion”, in two major categories: the opinion that the priority element is represented by fetus and his entitlement to life and the second opinion, which focuses around women’s rights [ 4 ].

From the medical point of view, since ancient times there have been four moments, generally accepted, which determine the embryo’s life: ( i ) conception; ( ii ) period of formation; ( iii ) detection moment of fetal movement; ( iv ) time of birth [ 5 ]. Contemporary medicine found the following moments in the evolution of intrauterine fetal: “ 1 . At 18 days of pregnancy, the fetal heartbeat can be perceived and it starts running the circulatory system; 2 . At 5 weeks, they become more clear: the nose, cheeks and fingers of the fetus; 3 . At 6 weeks, they start to function: the nervous system, stomach, kidneys and liver of the fetus, and its skeleton is clearly distinguished; 4 . At 7 weeks (50 days), brain waves are felt. The fetus has all the internal and external organs definitively outlined. 5 . At 10 weeks (70 days), the unborn child has all the features clearly defined as a child after birth (9 months); 6 . At 12 weeks (92 days, 3 months), the fetus has all organs definitely shaped, managing to move, lacking only the breath” [ 6 ]. Even if most of the laws that allow abortion consider the period up to 12 weeks acceptable for such an intervention, according to the above-mentioned steps, there can be defined different moments, which can represent the beginning of life. Nowadays, “abortion is one of the most common gynecological experiences and perhaps the majority of women will undergo an abortion in their lifetimes” [ 7 ]. “Safe abortions carry few health risks, but « every year, close to 20 million women risk their lives and health by undergoing unsafe abortions » and 25% will face a complication with permanent consequences” [ 8 , 9 ].

From the ethical point of view, most of the times, the interruption of pregnancy is on the border between woman’s right over her own body and the child’s (fetus) entitlement to life. Judith Jarvis Thomson supported the supremacy of woman’s right over her own body as a premise of freedom, arguing that we cannot force a person to bear in her womb and give birth to an unwanted child, if for different circumstances, she does not want to do this [ 10 ]. To support his position, the author uses an imaginary experiment, that of a violinist to which we are connected for nine months, in order to save his life. However, Thomson debates the problem of the differentiation between the fetus and the human being, by carrying out a debate on the timing which makes this difference (period of conception, 10 weeks of pregnancy, etc.) and highlighting that for people who support abortion, the fetus is not an alive human being [ 10 ].

Carol Gilligan noted that women undergo a true “moral dilemma”, a “moral conflict” with regards to voluntary interruption of pregnancy, such a decision often takes into account the human relationships, the possibility of not hurting the others, the responsibility towards others [ 11 ]. Gilligan applied qualitative interviews to a number of 29 women from different social classes, which were put in a position to decide whether or not to commit abortion. The interview focused on the woman’s choice, on alternative options, on individuals and existing conflicts. The conclusion was that the central moral issue was the conflict between the self (the pregnant woman) and others who may be hurt as a result of the potential pregnancy [ 12 ].

From the religious point of view, abortion is unacceptable for all religions and a small number of abortions can be seen in deeply religious societies and families. Christianity considers the beginning of human life from conception, and abortion is considered to be a form of homicide [ 13 ]. For Christians, “at the same time, abortion is giving up their faith”, riot and murder, which means that by an abortion we attack Jesus Christ himself and God [ 14 ]. Islam does not approve abortion, relying on the sacral life belief as specified in Chapter 6, Verse 151 of the Koran: “Do not kill a soul which Allah has made sacred (inviolable)” [ 15 ]. Buddhism considers abortion as a negative act, but nevertheless supports for medical reasons [ 16 ]. Judaism disapproves abortion, Tanah considering it to be a mortal sin. Hinduism considers abortion as a crime and also the greatest sin [ 17 ].

From the socio-economic point of view, the decision to carry out an abortion is many times determined by the relations within the social, family or financial frame. Moreover, studies have been conducted, which have linked the legalization of abortions and the decrease of the crime rate: “legalized abortion may lead to reduced crime either through reductions in cohort sizes or through lower per capita offending rates for affected cohorts” [ 18 ].

Legal regulation on abortion establishes conditions of the abortion in every state. In Europe and America, only in the XVIIth century abortion was incriminated and was considered an insignificant misdemeanor or a felony, depending on when was happening. Due to the large number of illegal abortions and deaths, two centuries later, many states have changed legislation within the meaning of legalizing voluntary interruption of pregnancy [ 6 ]. In contemporary society, international organizations like the United Nations or the European Union consider sexual and reproductive rights as fundamental rights [ 19 , 20 ], and promotes the acceptance of abortion as part of those rights. However, not all states have developed permissive legislation in the field of voluntary interruption of pregnancy.

Currently, at national level were established four categories of legislation on pregnancy interruption area:

( i )  Prohibitive legislations , ones that do not allow abortion, most often outlining exceptions in abortion in cases where the pregnant woman’s life is endangered. In some countries, there is a prohibition of abortion in all circumstances, however, resorting to an abortion in the case of an imminent threat to the mother’s life. Same regulation is also found in some countries where abortion is allowed in cases like rape, incest, fetal problems, etc. In this category are 66 states, with 25.5% of world population [ 21 ].

( ii )  Restrictive legislation that allow abortion in cases of health preservation . Loosely, the term “health” should be interpreted according to the World Health Organization (WHO) definition as: “health is a state of complete physical, mental and social wellbeing and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity” [ 22 ]. This type of legislation is adopted in 59 states populated by 13.8% of the world population [ 21 ].

( iii )  Legislation allowing abortion on a socio-economic motivation . This category includes items such as the woman’s age or ability to care for a child, fetal problems, cases of rape or incest, etc. In this category are 13 countries, where we have 21.3% of the world population [ 21 ].

( iv )  Legislation which do not impose restrictions on abortion . In the case of this legislation, abortion is permitted for any reason up to 12 weeks of pregnancy, with some exceptions (Romania – 14 weeks, Slovenia – 10 weeks, Sweden – 18 weeks), the interruption of pregnancy after this period has some restrictions. This type of legislation is adopted in 61 countries with 39.5% of the world population [21].

The Centre for Reproductive Rights has carried out from 1998 a map of the world’s states, based on the legislation typology of each country (Figure ​ (Figure1 1 ).

The analysis of states according to the legislation regarding abortion. Source: Centre for Reproductive Rights. The World’s Abortion Laws, 2018 [ 23 ]

An unplanned pregnancy, socio-economic context or various medical problems [ 24 ], lead many times to the decision of interrupting pregnancy, regardless the legislative restrictions. In the study “Unsafe abortion: global and regional estimates of the incidence of unsafe abortion and associated mortality in 2008” issued in 2011 by the WHO , it was determined that within the states with restrictive legislation on abortion, we may also encounter a large number of illegal abortions. The illegal abortions may also be resulting in an increased risk of woman’s health and life considering that most of the times inappropriate techniques are being used, the hygienic conditions are precarious and the medical treatments are incorrectly administered [ 25 ]. Although abortions done according to medical guidelines carry very low risk of complications, 1–3 unsafe abortions contribute substantially to maternal morbidity and death worldwide [ 26 ].

WHO has estimated for the year 2008, the fact that worldwide women between the ages of 15 and 44 years carried out 21.6 million “unsafe” abortions, which involved a high degree of risk and were distributed as follows: 0.4 million in the developed regions and a number of 21.2 million in the states in course of development [ 25 ].

Case study: Romania

Legal perspective on abortion

In Romania, abortion was brought under regulation by the first Criminal Code of the United Principalities, from 1864.

The Criminal Code from 1864, provided the abortion infringement in Article 246, on which was regulated as follows: “Any person, who, using means such as food, drinks, pills or any other means, which will consciously help a pregnant woman to commit abortion, will be punished to a minimum reclusion (three years).

The woman who by herself shall use the means of abortion, or would accept to use means of abortion which were shown or given to her for this purpose, will be punished with imprisonment from six months to two years, if the result would be an abortion. In a situation where abortion was carried out on an illegitimate baby by his mother, the punishment will be imprisonment from six months to one year.

Doctors, surgeons, health officers, pharmacists (apothecary) and midwives who will indicate, will give or will facilitate these means, shall be punished with reclusion of at least four years, if the abortion took place. If abortion will cause the death of the mother, the punishment will be much austere of four years” (Art. 246) [ 27 ].

The Criminal Code from 1864, reissued in 1912, amended in part the Article 246 for the purposes of eliminating the abortion of an illegitimate baby case. Furthermore, it was no longer specified the minimum of four years of reclusion, in case of abortion carried out with the help of the medical staff, leaving the punishment to the discretion of the Court (Art. 246) [ 28 ].

The Criminal Code from 1936 regulated abortion in the Articles 482–485. Abortion was defined as an interruption of the normal course of pregnancy, being punished as follows:

“ 1 . When the crime is committed without the consent of the pregnant woman, the punishment was reformatory imprisonment from 2 to 5 years. If it caused the pregnant woman any health injury or a serious infirmity, the punishment was reformatory imprisonment from 3 to 6 years, and if it has caused her death, reformatory imprisonment from 7 to 10 years;

2 . When the crime was committed by the unmarried pregnant woman by herself, or when she agreed that someone else should provoke the abortion, the punishment is reformatory imprisonment from 3 to 6 months, and if the woman is married, the punishment is reformatory imprisonment from 6 months to one year. Same penalty applies also to the person who commits the crime with the woman’s consent. If abortion was committed for the purpose of obtaining a benefit, the punishment increases with another 2 years of reformatory imprisonment.

If it caused the pregnant woman any health injuries or a severe disablement, the punishment will be reformatory imprisonment from one to 3 years, and if it has caused her death, the punishment is reformatory imprisonment from 3 to 5 years” (Art. 482) [ 29 ].

The criminal legislation from 1936 specifies that it is not considered as an abortion the interruption from the normal course of pregnancy, if it was carried out by a doctor “when woman’s life was in imminent danger or when the pregnancy aggravates a woman’s disease, putting her life in danger, which could not be removed by other means and it is obvious that the intervention wasn’t performed with another purpose than that of saving the woman’s life” and “when one of the parents has reached a permanent alienation and it is certain that the child will bear serious mental flaws” (Art. 484, Par. 1 and Par. 2) [ 29 ].

In the event of an imminent danger, the doctor was obliged to notify prosecutor’s office in writing, within 48 hours after the intervention, on the performance of the abortion. “In the other cases, the doctor was able to intervene only with the authorization of the prosecutor’s office, given on the basis of a medical certificate from hospital or a notice given as a result of a consultation between the doctor who will intervene and at least a professor doctor in the disease which caused the intervention. General’s Office Prosecutor, in all cases provided by this Article, shall be obliged to maintain the confidentiality of all communications or authorizations, up to the intercession of any possible complaints” (Art. 484) [ 29 ].

The legislation of 1936 provided a reformatory injunction from one to three years for the abortions committed by doctors, sanitary agents, pharmacists, apothecary or midwives (Art. 485) [ 29 ].

Abortion on demand has been legalized for the first time in Romania in the year 1957 by the Decree No. 463, under the condition that it had to be carried out in a hospital and to be carried out in the first quarter of the pregnancy [ 30 ]. In the year 1966, demographic policy of Romania has dramatically changed by introducing the Decree No. 770 from September 29 th , which prohibited abortion. Thus, the voluntary interruption of pregnancy became a crime, with certain exceptions, namely: endangering the mother’s life, physical or mental serious disability; serious or heritable illness, mother’s age over 45 years, if the pregnancy was a result of rape or incest or if the woman gave birth to at least four children who were still in her care (Art. 2) [ 31 ].

In the Criminal Code from 1968, the abortion crime was governed by Articles 185–188.

The Article 185, “the illegal induced abortion”, stipulated that “the interruption of pregnancy by any means, outside the conditions permitted by law, with the consent of the pregnant woman will be punished with imprisonment from one to 3 years”. The act referred to above, without the prior consent from the pregnant woman, was punished with prison from two to five years. If the abortion carried out with the consent of the pregnant woman caused any serious body injury, the punishment was imprisonment from two to five years, and when it caused the death of the woman, the prison sentence was from five to 10 years. When abortion was carried out without the prior consent of the woman, if it caused her a serious physical injury, the punishment was imprisonment from three to six years, and if it caused the woman’s death, the punishment was imprisonment from seven to 12 years (Art. 185) [ 32 ].

“When abortion was carried out in order to obtain a material benefit, the maximum punishment was increased by two years, and if the abortion was made by a doctor, in addition to the prison punishment could also be applied the prohibition to no longer practice the profession of doctor”.

Article 186, “abortion caused by the woman”, stipulated that “the interruption of the pregnancy course, committed by the pregnant woman, was punished with imprisonment from 6 months to 2 years”, quoting the fact that by the same punishment was also sanctioned “the pregnant woman’s act to consent in interrupting the pregnancy course made out by another person” (Art. 186) [ 26 ].

The Regulations of the Criminal Code in 1968, also provided the crime of “ownership of tools or materials that can cause abortion”, the conditions of this holding being met when these types of instruments were held outside the hospital’s specialized institutions, the infringement shall be punished with imprisonment from three months to one year (Art. 187) [ 32 ].

Furthermore, the doctors who performed an abortion in the event of extreme urgency, without prior legal authorization and if they did not announce the competent authority within the legal deadline, they were punished by imprisonment from one month to three months (Art. 188) [ 32 ].

In the year 1985, it has been issued the Decree No. 411 of December 26 th , by which the conditions imposed by the Decree No. 770 of 1966 have been hardened, meaning that it has increased the number of children, that a woman could have in order to request an abortion, from four to five children [ 33 ].

The Articles 185–188 of the Criminal Code and the Decree No. 770/1966 on the interruption of the pregnancy course have been abrogated by Decree-Law No. 1 from December 26 th , 1989, which was published in the Official Gazette No. 4 of December 27 th , 1989 (Par. 8 and Par. 12) [ 34 ].

The Criminal Code from 1968, reissued in 1997, maintained Article 185 about “the illegal induced abortion”, but drastically modified. Thus, in this case of the Criminal Code, we identify abortion as “the interruption of pregnancy course, by any means, committed in any of the following circumstances: ( a ) outside medical institutions or authorized medical practices for this purpose; ( b ) by a person who does not have the capacity of specialized doctor; ( c ) if age pregnancy has exceeded 14 weeks”, the punishment laid down was the imprisonment from 6 months to 3 years” (Art. 185, Par. 1) [ 35 ]. For the abortion committed without the prior consent of the pregnant woman, the punishment consisted in strict prison conditions from two to seven years and with the prohibition of certain rights (Art. 185, Par. 2) [ 35 ].

For the situation of causing serious physical injury to the pregnant woman, the punishment was strict prison from three to 10 years and the removal of certain rights, and if it had as a result the death of the pregnant woman, the punishment was strict prison from five to 15 years and the prohibition of certain rights (Art. 185, Par. 3) [ 35 ].

The attempt was punished for the crimes specified in the various cases of abortion.

Consideration should also be given in the Criminal Code reissued in 1997 for not punishing the interruption of the pregnancy course carried out by the doctor, if this interruption “was necessary to save the life, health or the physical integrity of the pregnant woman from a grave and imminent danger and that it could not be removed otherwise; in the case of a over fourteen weeks pregnancy, when the interruption of the pregnancy course should take place from therapeutic reasons” and even in a situation of a woman’s lack of consent, when it has not been given the opportunity to express her will, and abortion “was imposed by therapeutic reasons” (Art. 185, Par. 4) [ 35 ].

Criminal Code from 2004 covers abortion in Article 190, defined in the same way as in the prior Criminal Code, with the difference that it affects the limits of the punishment. So, in the event of pregnancy interruption, in accordance with the conditions specified in Paragraph 1, “the penalty provided was prison time from 6 months to one year or days-fine” (Art. 190, Par. 1) [ 36 ].

Nowadays, in Romania, abortion is governed by the criminal law of 2009, which entered into force in 2014, by the section called “aggression against an unborn child”. It should be specified that current criminal law does not punish the woman responsible for carrying out abortion, but only the person who is involved in carrying out the abortion. There is no punishment for the pregnant woman who injures her fetus during pregnancy.

In Article 201, we can find the details on the pregnancy interruption infringement. Thus, the pregnancy interruption can be performed in one of the following circumstances: “outside of medical institutions or medical practices authorized for this purpose; by a person who does not have the capacity of specialist doctor in Obstetrics and Gynecology and the right of free medical practice in this specialty; if gestational age has exceeded 14 weeks”, the punishment is the imprisonment for six months to three years, or fine and the prohibition to exercise certain rights (Art. 201, Par. 1) [ 37 ].

Article 201, Paragraph 2 specifies that “the interruption of the pregnancy committed under any circumstances, without the prior consent of the pregnant woman, can be punished with imprisonment from 2 to 7 years and with the prohibition to exercise some rights” (Art. 201, Par. 1) [ 37 ].

If by facts referred to above (Art. 201, Par. 1 and Par. 2) [ 37 ] “it has caused the pregnant woman’s physical injury, the punishment is the imprisonment from 3 to 10 years and the prohibition to exercise some rights, and if it has had as a result the pregnant woman’s death, the punishment is the imprisonment from 6 to 12 years and the prohibition to exercise some rights” (Art. 201, Par. 3) [ 37 ]. When the facts have been committed by a doctor, “in addition to the imprisonment punishment, it will also be applied the prohibition to exercise the profession of doctor (Art. 201, Par. 4) [ 37 ].

Criminal legislation specifies that “the interruption of pregnancy does not constitute an infringement with the purpose of a treatment carried out by a specialist doctor in Obstetrics and Gynecology, until the pregnancy age of twenty-four weeks is reached, or the subsequent pregnancy interruption, for the purpose of treatment, is in the interests of the mother or the fetus” (Art. 201, Par. 6) [ 37 ]. However, it can all be found in the phrases “therapeutic purposes” and “the interest of the mother and of the unborn child”, which predisposes the text of law to an interpretation, finally the doctors are the only ones in the position to decide what should be done in such cases, assuming direct responsibility [ 38 ].

Article 202 of the Criminal Code defines the crime of harming an unborn child, pointing out the punishments for the various types of injuries that can occur during pregnancy or in the childbirth period and which can be caused by the mother or by the persons who assist the birth, with the specification that the mother who harms her fetus during pregnancy is not punished and does not constitute an infringement if the injury has been committed during pregnancy or during childbirth period if the facts have been “committed by a doctor or by an authorized person to assist the birth or to follow the pregnancy, if they have been committed in the course of the medical act, complying with the specific provisions of his profession and have been made in the interest of the pregnant woman or fetus, as a result of the exercise of an inherent risk in the medical act” (Art. 202, Par. 6) [ 37 ].

The fact situation in Romania

During the period 1948–1955, called “the small baby boom” [ 39 ], Romania registered an average fertility rate of 3.23 children for a woman. Between 1955 and 1962, the fertility rate has been less than three children for a woman, and in 1962, fertility has reached an average of two children for a woman. This phenomenon occurred because of the Decree No. 463/1957 on liberalization of abortion. After the liberalization from 1957, the abortion rate has increased from 220 abortions per 100 born-alive children in the year 1960, to 400 abortions per 100 born-alive children, in the year 1965 [ 40 ].

The application of provisions of Decrees No. 770 of 1966 and No. 411 of 1985 has led to an increase of the birth rate in the first three years (an average of 3.7 children in 1967, and 3.6 children in 1968), followed by a regression until 1989, when it was recorded an average of 2.2 children, but also a maternal death rate caused by illegal abortions, raising up to 85 deaths of 100 000 births in the year of 1965, and 170 deaths in 1983. It was estimated that more than 80% of maternal deaths between 1980–1989 was caused by legal constraints [ 30 ].

After the Romanian Revolution in December 1989 and after the communism fall, with the abrogation of Articles 185–188 of the Criminal Code and of the Decree No. 770/1966, by the Decree of Law No. 1 of December 26 th , 1989, abortion has become legal in Romania and so, in the following years, it has reached the highest rate of abortion in Europe. Subsequently, the number of abortion has dropped gradually, with increasing use of birth control [ 41 ].

Statistical data issued by the Ministry of Health and by the National Institute of Statistics (INS) in Romania show corresponding figures to a legally carried out abortion. The abortion number is much higher, if it would take into account the number of illegal abortion, especially those carried out before 1989, and those carried out in private clinics, after the year 1990. Summing the declared abortions in the period 1958–2014, it is to be noted the number of them, 22 037 747 exceeds the current Romanian population. A detailed statistical research of abortion rate, in terms of years we have exposed in Table ​ Table1 1 .

The number of abortions declared in Romania in the period 1958–2016

Source: Pro Vita Association (Bucharest, Romania), National Institute of Statistics (INS – Romania), EUROSTAT [ 42 , 43 , 44 ]

Data issued by the United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF) in June 2016, for the period 1989–2014, in matters of reproductive behavior, indicates a fertility rate for Romania with a continuous decrease, in proportion to the decrease of the number of births, but also a lower number of abortion rate reported to 100 deliveries (Table ​ (Table2 2 ).

Reproductive behavior in Romania in 1989–2014

Source: United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF), Transformative Monitoring for Enhanced Equity (TransMonEE) Data. Country profiles: Romania, 1989–2015 [ 45 ].

By analyzing data issued for the period 1990–2015 by the International Organization of Health , UNICEF , United Nations Fund for Population Activity (UNFPA), The World Bank and the United Nations Population Division, it is noticed that maternal mortality rate has currently dropped as compared with 1990 (Table ​ (Table3 3 ).

Maternal mortality estimation in Romania in 1990–2015

Source: World Health Organization (WHO), Global Health Observatory Data. Maternal mortality country profiles: Romania, 2015 [ 46 ].

Opinion survey: women’s opinion on abortion

Argument for choosing the research theme

Although the problematic on abortion in Romania has been extensively investigated and debated, it has not been carried out in an ample sociological study, covering Romanian women’s perception on abortion. We have assumed making a study at national level, in order to identify the opinion on abortion, on the motivation to carry out an abortion, and to identify the correlation between religious convictions and the attitude toward abortion.

Examining the literature field of study

In the conceptual register of the research, we have highlighted items, such as the specialized literature, legislation, statistical documents.

Formulation of hypotheses and objectives

The first hypothesis was that Romanian women accept abortion, having an open attitude towards this act. Thus, the first objective of the research was to identify Romanian women’s attitude towards abortion.

The second hypothesis, from which we started, was that high religious beliefs generate a lower tolerance towards abortion. Thus, the second objective of our research has been to identify the correlation between the religious beliefs and the attitude towards abortion.

The third hypothesis of the survey was that, the main motivation in carrying out an abortion is the fact that a woman does not want a baby, and the main motivation for keeping the pregnancy is that the person wants a baby. In this context, the third objective of the research was to identify main motivation in carrying out an abortion and in maintaining a pregnancy.

Another hypothesis was that modern Romanian legislation on the abortion is considered fair. Based on this hypothesis, we have assumed the fourth objective, which is to identify the degree of satisfaction towards the current regulatory provisions governing the abortion.

Research methodology

The research method is that of a sociological survey by the application of the questionnaire technique. We used the sampling by age and residence looking at representative numbers of population from more developed as well as underdeveloped areas.

Determination of the sample to be studied

Because abortion is a typical women’s experience, we have chosen to make the quantitative research only among women. We have constructed the sample by selecting a number of 1260 women between the ages of 15 and 44 years (the most frequently encountered age among women who give birth to a child). We also used the quota sampling techniques, taking into account the following variables: age group and the residence (urban/rural), so that the persons included in the sample could retain characteristic of the general population.

By the sample of 1260 women, we have made a percentage of investigation of 0.03% of the total population.

The Questionnaires number applied was distributed as follows (Table ​ (Table4 4 ).

The sampling rates based on the age, and the region of residence

Source: Sample built, based on the population data issued by the National Institute of Statistics (INS – Romania) based on population census conducted in 2011 [ 47 ].

Data collection

Data collection was carried out by questionnaires administered by 32 field operators between May 1 st –May 31 st , 2018.

The analysis of the research results

In the next section, we will present the main results of the quantitative research carried out at national level.

Almost three-quarters of women included in the sample agree with carrying out an abortion in certain circumstances (70%) and only 24% have chosen to support the answer “ No, never ”. In modern contemporary society, abortion is the first solution of women for which a pregnancy is not desired. Even if advanced medical techniques are a lot safer, an abortion still carries a health risk. However, 6% of respondents agree with carrying out abortion regardless of circumstances (Table ​ (Table5 5 ).

Opinion on the possibility of carrying out an abortion

Although abortions carried out after 14 weeks are illegal, except for medical reasons, more than half of the surveyed women stated they would agree with abortion in certain circumstances. At the opposite pole, 31% have mentioned they would never agree on abortions after 14 weeks. Five percent were totally accepting the idea of abortion made to a pregnancy that has exceeded 14 weeks (Table ​ (Table6 6 ).

Opinion on the possibility of carrying out an abortion after the period of 14 weeks of pregnancy

For 53% of respondents, abortion is considered a crime as well as the right of a women. On the other hand, 28% of the women considered abortion as a crime and 16% associate abortion with a woman’s right (Table ​ (Table7 7 ).

Opinion on abortion: at the border between crime and a woman’s right

Opinions on what women abort at the time of the voluntary pregnancy interruption are split in two: 59% consider that it depends on the time of the abortion, and more specifically on the pregnancy development stage, 24% consider that regardless of the period in which it is carried out, women abort a child, and 14% have opted a fetus (Table ​ (Table8 8 ).

Abortion of a child vs. abortion of a fetus

Among respondents who consider that women abort a child or a fetus related to the time of abortion, 37.5% have considered that the difference between a baby and a fetus appears after 14 weeks of pregnancy (the period legally accepted for abortion). Thirty-three percent of them have mentioned that the distinction should be performed at the first few heartbeats; 18.1% think it is about when the child has all the features definitively outlined and can move by himself; 2.8% consider that the difference appears when the first encephalopathy traces are being felt and the child has formed all internal and external organs. A percentage of 1.7% of respondents consider that this difference occurs at the beginning of the central nervous system, and 1.4% when the unborn child has all the features that we can clearly see to a newborn child (Table ​ (Table9 9 ).

The opinion on the moment that makes the difference between a fetus and a child

We noticed that highly religious people make a clear association between abortion and crime. They also consider that at the time of pregnancy interruption it is aborted a child and not a fetus. However, unexpectedly, we noticed that 27% of the women, who declare themselves to be very religious, have also stated that they see abortion as a crime but also as a woman’s right. Thirty-one percent of the women, who also claimed profound religious beliefs, consider that abortion may be associated with the abortion of a child but also of a fetus, this depending on the time of abortion (Tables ​ (Tables10 10 and ​ and11 11 ).

The correlation between the level of religious beliefs and the perspective on abortion seen as a crime or a right

The correlation between the level of religious beliefs and the perspective on abortion procedure conducted on a fetus or a child

More than half of the respondents have opted for the main reason for abortion the appearance of medical problems to the child. Baby’s health represents the main concern of future mothers, and of each parent, and the birth of a child with serious health issues, is a factor which frightens any future parent, being many times, at least theoretically, one good reason for opting for abortion. At the opposite side, 12% of respondents would not choose abortion under any circumstances. Other reasons for which women would opt for an abortion are: if the woman would have a medical problem (22%) or would not want the child (10%) (Table ​ (Table12 12 ).

Potential reasons for carrying out an abortion

Most of the women want to give birth to a child, 56% of the respondents, representing also the reason that would determine them to keep the child. Morality (26%), faith (10%) or legal restrictions (4%), are the three other reasons for which women would not interrupt a pregnancy. Only 2% of the respondents have mentioned other reasons such as health or age.

A percentage of 23% of the surveyed people said that they have done an abortion so far, and 77% did not opted for a surgical intervention either because there was no need, or because they have kept the pregnancy (Table ​ (Table13 13 ).

Rate of abortion among women in the sample

Most respondents, 87% specified that they have carried out an abortion during the first 14 weeks – legally accepted limit for abortion: 43.6% have made abortion in the first four weeks, 39.1% between weeks 4–8, and 4.3% between weeks 8–14. It should be noted that 8.7% could not appreciate the pregnancy period in which they carried out abortion, by opting to answer with the option “ I don’t know ”, and a percentage of 4.3% refused to answer to this question.

Performing an abortion is based on many reasons, but the fact that the women have not wanted a child is the main reason mentioned by 47.8% of people surveyed, who have done minimum an abortion so far. Among the reasons for the interruption of pregnancy, it is also included: women with medical problems (13.3%), not the right time to be a mother (10.7%), age motivation (8.7%), due to medical problems of the child (4.3%), the lack of money (4.3%), family pressure (4.3%), partner/spouse did not wanted. A percentage of 3.3% of women had different reasons for abortion, as follows: age difference too large between children, career, marital status, etc. Asked later whether they regretted the abortion, a rate of 69.6% of women who said they had at least one abortion regret it (34.8% opted for “ Yes ”, and 34.8% said “ Yes, partially ”). 26.1% of surveyed women do not regret the choice to interrupted the pregnancy, and 4.3% chose to not answer this question. We noted that, for women who have already experienced abortion, the causes were more diverse than the grounds on which the previous question was asked: “What are the reasons that determined you to have an abortion?” (Table ​ (Table14 14 ).

The reasons that led the women in the sample to have an abortion

The majority of the respondents (37.5%) considered that “nervous depression” is the main consequence of abortion, followed by “insomnia and nightmares” (24.6%), “disorders in alimentation” and “affective disorders” (each for 7.7% of respondents), “deterioration of interpersonal relationships” and “the feeling of guilt”(for 6.3% of the respondents), “sexual disorders” and “panic attacks” (for 6.3% of the respondents) (Table ​ (Table15 15 ).

Opinion on the consequences of abortion

Over half of the respondents believe that abortion should be legal in certain circumstances, as currently provided by law, 39% say it should be always legal, and only 6% opted for the illegal option (Table ​ (Table16 16 ).

Opinion on the legal regulation of abortion

Although the current legislation does not punish pregnant women who interrupt pregnancy or intentionally injured their fetus, survey results indicate that 61% of women surveyed believe that the national law should punish the woman and only 28% agree with the current legislation (Table ​ (Table17 17 ).

Opinion on the possibility of punishing the woman who interrupts the course of pregnancy or injures the fetus

For the majority of the respondents (40.6%), the penalty provided by the current legislation, the imprisonment between six months and three years or a fine and deprivation of certain rights for the illegal abortion is considered fair, for a percentage of 39.6% the punishment is too small for 9.5% of the respondents is too high. Imprisonment between two and seven years and deprivation of certain rights for an abortion performed without the consent of the pregnant woman is considered too small for 65% of interviewees. Fourteen percent of them think it is fair and only 19% of respondents consider that Romanian legislation is too severe with people who commit such an act considering the punishment as too much. The imprisonment from three to 10 years and deprivation of certain rights for the facts described above, if an injury was caused to the woman, is considered to be too small for more than half of those included in the survey, 64% and almost 22% for nearly a quarter of them. Only 9% of the respondents mentioned that this legislative measure is too severe for such actions (Table ​ (Table18 18 ).

Opinion on the regulation of abortion of the Romanian Criminal Code (Art. 201)

Conclusions

After analyzing the results of the sociological research regarding abortion undertaken at national level, we see that 76% of the Romanian women accept abortion, indicating that the majority accepts only certain circumstances (a certain period after conception, for medical reasons, etc.). A percentage of 64% of the respondents indicated that they accept the idea of abortion after 14 weeks of pregnancy (for solid reasons or regardless the reason). This study shows that over 50% of Romanian women see abortion as a right of women but also a woman’s crime and believe that in the moment of interruption of a pregnancy, a fetus is aborted. Mostly, the association of abortion with crime and with the idea that a child is aborted is frequently found within very religious people. The main motivation for Romanian women in taking the decision not to perform an abortion is that they would want the child, and the main reason to perform an abortion is the child’s medical problems. However, it is noted that, in real situations, in which women have already done at least one abortion, most women resort to abortion because they did not want the child towards the hypothetical situation in which women felt that the main reason of abortion is a medical problem. Regarding the satisfaction with the current national legislation of the abortion, the situation is rather surprising. A significant percentage (61%) of respondents felt as necessary to punish the woman who performs an illegal abortion, although the legislation does not provide a punishment. On the other hand, satisfaction level to the penalties provided by law for various violations of the legal conditions for conducting abortion is low, on average only 25.5% of respondents are being satisfied with these, the majority (average 56.2%) considering the penalties as unsatisfactory. Understood as a social phenomenon, intensified by human vulnerabilities, of which the most obvious is accepting the comfort [ 48 ], abortion today is no longer, in Romanian society, from a legal or religious perspective, a problem. Perceptions on the legislative sanction, moral and religious will perpetual vary depending on beliefs, environment, education, etc. The only and the biggest social problem of Romania is truly represented by the steadily falling birth rate.

Conflict of interests

The authors declare that they have no conflict of interests.

The Unlikely Women Fighting for Abortion Rights

The end of Roe has turned women who terminated pregnancies for medical reasons into a political force.

Riata Little Walker, right, with her husband, Ian Walker, and their family in Casper, Wyo. Credit... Jimena Peck for The New York Times

Supported by

• Share full article

By Kate Zernike

Kate Zernike covers abortion for The Times.

• May 27, 2024

For a long time, many women who had abortions because of catastrophic fetal diagnoses told their stories only privately. Grieving pregnancies they dearly wanted and fearing the stigma of abortion, they sought the closely guarded comfort of online communities identified by the way many doctors had described the procedure — TFMR, or “termination for medical reasons.”

In the two years since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, their pain has been compounded into anger by new abortion bans across the country. While these women account for a fraction of abortions in the United States, they have emerged as the most powerful voices in the nation’s post-Roe debate, speaking out against bans with their stories of being forced across state lines and left to feel like criminals in seeking care.

Many of these women started out opposing abortion, but as they have changed their minds, they have changed the way Americans speak about it. Shifting from private anguish to public outrage, they have also helped shift public opinion toward more support for abortion.

“After going through all this I wondered, why are we not the poster child for abortion rights?” said Riata Little Walker, who traveled from her home in Casper, Wyo., for an abortion in Colorado at 22 weeks, after doctors diagnosed Down syndrome and a heart defect in her fetus, which they said would require surgery and later a transplant if it survived until delivery.

“Yes, your body, your choice, but that’s not the story that pulls people in,” she said. “We have to bring our stories to the front because otherwise it’s so easy for those over here to do, ‘But they’re killing babies.’”

Ms. Walker is Catholic and had worked for Wyoming Republicans, including Senator John Barrasso. She opposed abortion, and did not realize she was having one because doctors called it “termination.” In the months that followed, she came to support abortion whatever the reason, and after Roe was overturned in June 2022, she testified against the ban on abortion passed by the Wyoming Legislature.

Although most bans allow abortions to save the life or health of the pregnant woman, few women have been granted these exceptions, and only a handful of bans allow abortions for fatal fetal anomalies. There are no bright lines to define “fatal,” or “medical reason,” and the procedure is the same whether it’s described as termination, TFMR, or abortion.

That makes these cases complicated for doctors, lawmakers, and for the women themselves: What qualifies as a medical reason?

The women speaking out say their experiences made them believe that the law can’t and shouldn’t try to address complex and endlessly varying medical cases. In this, they appeal to rare common ground in what has been a bitter, decades-long debate: Regardless of whether they identify as “pro-life” or “pro-choice” in polls, Americans overwhelmingly say that the decision to have an abortion should be up to women and doctors, not the government.

These women say they now feel compelled not only to speak out but to use the word “abortion,” to remove the stigma they themselves put on it.

“All these things we never even knew before, because before all of this it was never spoken about,” said Kimberly Manzano, who flew from Texas for an abortion in New Mexico at 18 weeks after scans showed her fetus was missing limbs, organs and genitalia.

Ms. Manzano describes herself and her husband as “big Christians,” who thought abortion was something “promiscuous women” did to end unwanted pregnancies. Their pastor assumed they would qualify as a medical exception to Texas’ ban. They did not.

“We feel it’s our calling to our child that we lost that we do need to talk about it, to educate people, because I feel that we were so uneducated,” she said.

Some of the women are appearing in ads in favor of abortion rights ballot measures or candidates . Others are confronting politicians on the campaign trail, testifying or joining lawsuits . But mostly, they are talking to friends, family members and colleagues.

Polls show that people who have heard stories about women who had to cross state lines for abortions because of severe pregnancy complications are more likely to support legalized abortion. That is true even for Republicans or those who think that abortion should be illegal in most cases. Stories like these have also moved voters who oppose abortion to support ballot measures that have enshrined broad abortion rights in conservative states like Ohio and Kansas.

“By telling people’s stories, it makes it reality,” said Megan Kling, who traveled from her home in Wisconsin to Minnesota for an abortion at 23 weeks after a scan revealed that her fetus had no kidneys , so was not creating amniotic fluid, and would die after delivery, if not in utero. “You want to think every woman is perfectly healthy, every pregnancy is perfectly healthy, when in reality there’s a lot of things that can go wrong.”

Ms. Kling said some family members have argued that her situation is different: They support abortion if the fetus has a devastating condition, they just don’t want women using it as birth control. She understands, because she never thought of herself as someone who would choose abortion. “But women need health care options, and that’s what they don’t understand: Abortion is health care,” she said. “That’s what these stories raise up.”

Researchers say it’s not clear how many of the roughly one million abortions each year in the United States would be considered “for medical reasons,” but that they are rare.

Still, TFMR or “ending wanted pregnancy” communities have flourished online, with websites , private groups on social media where thousands of women share their stories — and separate sites for their partners — as well as podcasts and psychotherapists devoted solely to TFMR, and an awareness day in early May.

Many of these women don’t fit the usual angles of the abortion debate. They bristle at the clinical language of abortion rights groups; instead of saying “fetus,” they speak of the pregnancies they lost as unborn children. They name them, mark birthdays and imprint their tiny feet on keepsakes.

Ms. Kling found herself in an awkward position after she wrote letters to her state legislators, including the Republicans who represent her, in an attempt to move beyond her grief and anger after losing her pregnancy. She heard back only from a Democrat, and later, from Planned Parenthood and other groups who asked her to speak at events in support of President Biden. She agreed, but explained that she did not necessarily support him. She doesn’t think of herself as a Democrat, but she doesn’t feel like a Republican anymore, either.

“I feel like most people feel that way,” she said. “All the extremists are so loud you almost feel like you can’t speak up.”

Anti-abortion groups argue that bans prohibit only what they call “elective abortions” for unwanted pregnancies, and that any woman who needs an abortion for medical reasons can get one under the exceptions in those bans. They accuse Democrats of manipulating medical patients for political ends.

“Women have been falsely told this is a compassionate option, however, it feeds into the growing trend of disability discrimination and the pressure women face from the medical community to abort children who might have a disability,” said Dr. Ingrid Skop, of the American Association of Pro-Life Obstetricians and Gynecologists.

On the other side, abortion rights groups fear that elevating TFMR stories promotes the message that abortion should be protected only if it is “justified,” not that it should be every woman’s right. “People need abortions for all kinds of reasons — financial, medical, life circumstances — and none should be stigmatized,” said Nancy Northup, the president of the Center for Reproductive Rights.

Even within online communities, there is debate: Is it acceptable to terminate if a child would live only a few hours? A few days, a few years? What about the “gray” diagnoses — where a fetus is likely to survive into childhood but live a life severely constrained by surgeries, medications, machinery and hospitalizations?

Women describe weeks of waiting for additional scans, hoping for miracles, poring over statistics on survival rates and research on quality of life. Some elect to continue their pregnancies.

“Theoretically, if I had a Down syndrome diagnosis, I would keep them,” said Martha Sheppard. She and her husband, a teacher, learned on a 20-week anatomy scan that their daughter’s spine had not fused — the diagnosis was spina bifida — and would require an unknown number of surgeries, the first in utero. They moved from their home in Virginia to a Ronald McDonald House near a hospital in North Carolina for further tests, and researched. Three weeks later, they decided to terminate.

“To keep a child with spina bifida is also a loving decision,” Ms. Sheppard said, “but my husband and I decided that it was a loving decision not to bring her into the world with the body that she had.”

The women might seem to be making the case for medical exceptions — dozens have joined lawsuits filed by the Center for Reproductive Rights in four states , seeking to clarify what conditions qualify as exceptions under abortion bans. Instead, “Exceptions don’t work, is what we’re proving,” said Ashley Brandt, a plaintiff in Texas.

Ms. Brandt traveled to Colorado to abort a twin that had acrania — it had no skull — and posed a threat to her other fetus. “It wasn’t just me at risk, it was my viable daughter,” she said. “We still were not an exception.”

She learned of the option to selectively abort only from a TFMR group online; her doctors had been afraid to mention termination for fear of prosecution. She saw the shame and isolation that women in those groups felt, and felt it herself. Some of the harshest comments, Ms. Brandt said, came from women struggling with infertility who cannot imagine choosing to end any pregnancy. Like many of the women now telling their stories in public, she said her experience has made her feel more compassion for women who choose abortion no matter what the reason.

“Picking and choosing, it has to stop,” she said. “We need to trust people to make their own decisions.”

But the women say it remains a fight simply to explain that what they had was an abortion.

Months after Ms. Manzano’s abortion, she noticed her doctor had recorded it as “spontaneous miscarriage” on her chart.

“We had to travel to New Mexico,” Ms. Manzano said. “There was nothing spontaneous about it.”

She has been seeing a grief counselor, who refers to it as her “medical miscarriage,” even after Ms. Manzano told him she prefers to say “abortion.”

“Neither one of us corrects the other,” she said. Still, “for me to be able to grieve and heal through the process, I have to be able to say what it is.”

Kate Zernike is a national reporter at The Times. More about Kate Zernike

Advertisement

• Newsletters
• Account Activating this button will toggle the display of additional content Account Sign out

Texas’ New Plan for Responding to the Horror of Its Abortion Ban: Blame Doctors

Last week, in a widely watched case, the Texas Supreme Court rejected the claims of Amanda Zurawski and her fellow plaintiffs that they had suffered injuries after being denied emergency access to abortion due to lack of clarity in the state’s abortion ban. Zurawski v. State of Texas has offered an important model for lawyers seeking to chip away at sweeping state bans and even eventually undermine Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization , the 2022 decision that overturned Roe v. Wade . Now the state Supreme Court’s decision offers a preview of conservatives’ response to the medical tragedies that have been all too common after Dobbs : to blame physicians and hint that the life of the fetus ultimately counts as much as or more than that of the pregnant patient.

From the beginning, Zurawski had significance for patients outside Texas. Republicans have been increasingly hostile to abortion exceptions since 2022, demanding that sexual assault victims report to law enforcement when such exemptions do exist, dropping rape and incest exemptions altogether in many other states, and going so far as to require physicians to prove their innocence rather than necessitating that prosecutors prove their guilt . Nevertheless, exceptions are critical to the post- Dobbs regime: They are popular with voters and offer the hope—in reality the illusion—that abortion bans do not operate as harshly as we may expect.

The Zurawski litigation illuminated how exceptions fail patients in the real world. Physicians, afraid of harsh sentences up to life in prison, turn away even those they feel confident will qualify under exceptions. The exemptions, by their own terms, do not apply to any number of serious medical complications or fetal conditions incompatible with life. The Zurawski plaintiffs argued that Texas’ law should cover these circumstances and that if the opposite was true, it was unconstitutional.

Although this did not succeed in Texas, Zurawski created a blueprint for litigation in other states. It also kicked off a political nightmare for Republicans. Earlier this year, when Kate Cox, a Texas woman who learned that her fetus had trisomy 18, a condition that usually proves fatal within the first year, the state’s Supreme Court denied her petition for an abortion. In the aftermath, Republicans were flummoxed about how to respond.

The Texas Supreme Court offered Republicans one way to address the emergencies Dobbs has produced. The court began by limiting physicians’ discretion about when to intervene. The plaintiffs in Zurawski argued that physicians require protection when they believe in good faith that they need to protect the life or health of their patients. The court disagreed, suggesting that the standard was whether a reasonable physician would believe a particular procedure to be lifesaving.

On the surface, this doesn’t sound so bad. Who doesn’t want doctors to have to act reasonably? But determining how sick a patient must be is never straightforward—and is all the more complicated when the wrong answer will be determined after the fact by a prosecutor and the physicians with whom they consult, and when guessing wrong will result in a penalty of up to life in prison.

The court’s message was that physicians were the problem. They had misunderstood what the court portrayed as a perfectly clear law. Doctors were the ones who had refused to act reasonably and denied help to the patients that the court thought were deserving, like Amanda Zurawski herself. Texas had stressed the same argument throughout litigation in the case.

Republicans may well borrow the same strategy. If Americans don’t like the new reality that Dobbs has brought on, the party will argue, the GOP is not to blame. It is all the doctors’ fault. This allows conservatives to have it both ways: They frighten—or, in the case of Kate Cox’s doctor, block—physicians who might be willing to offer “reasonable” care, then blame the physicians for failing to care for their patients.

The court’s interpretation of the state constitution was just as revealing. The plaintiffs had argued that Texas’ ban discriminated on the basis of sex because only some persons are capable of pregnancy. The court rejected this argument, drawing both on Dobbs and on claims that have emerged in cases about transgender youth. Regulating abortion, the court reasoned, was no different from regulating gender-affirming care—it was a rule governing a specific medical procedure, not discrimination on the basis of sex.

What about the right to life? The Dobbs case held that U.S. citizens have 14 th Amendment rights only when that liberty was deeply rooted in history and tradition. Is there a federal or state right to access abortion to avoid death or serious bodily harm? As Reva Siegel and I have written elsewhere , there seems to be historical evidence to support this argument. And the political case for such a right is strong too. If courts say that there is no constitutional limit on state abortion bans—even if patients bleed to death—that will raise yet more grave questions about what Dobbs permits.

The Texas Supreme Court did not rule out the idea that the state constitution recognizes a right to life for the patient—or deny that high courts in other conservative states had identified a right to lifesaving abortions. But if there was such a right, the court noted, it would account for “the lives of pregnant women experiencing life-threatening complications while also valuing and protecting unborn life.” In other words, the court suggested, fetuses too have rights to life, and that means that the state has every right to deny treatment to pregnant patients in an effort to prioritize the well-being of unborn ones. Texas may not yet have written fetal personhood—the idea that fetuses are rights-holding people—into its constitutional law in clear terms, but the idea of fetal rights has already affected the lives of pregnant patients in the state.

Voters don’t seem to like the idea that fetal rights trump patients’ rights. The Texas Supreme Court has suggested that judges, not voters, may be the ones who decide the question.

But even in dictating what happens to pregnant patients across the state, other Republicans will join the court in pointing the finger at the doctors charged with implementing draconian bans. “The law entrusts physicians,” the court explained, “with the profound weight of the recommendation to end the life of a child.”

The U.S. Supreme Court is likely to make things worse for pregnant patients later this month, when it hands down a ruling on whether the federal Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act preempts an Idaho ban with very narrow emergency exceptions . None of this makes Zurawski a waste. It may not have changed the reality on the ground for patients in Texas, but it did tell an important story about the kind of America Dobbs has created—and it delivered voters a reminder that they still have the power to change it.