Does abortion kill a person? Debatable but female foeticide still a dogma in patriarchal societies

A new controversy has popped up with the commencement of New Year – was abortion the leading cause of death in 2018? Breitbart’s report, claiming abortion was the number one cause of death worldwide in 2018 (based on Worldometers’ figures), spawned a ripple of same news over the Internet.

According to a worldwide data source, Worldometers, 42 million abortions took place in the world in 2018. The overall figure further corresponds to around 125,000 abortions per day. The data on abortions displayed on Worldmeters is based on the global statistics provided by the World Health Organization (WHO).

Apart from Breitbart, LifeNews also fuelled the same controversy claiming that more human beings died due to abortions than any other cause of death in 2018. But Snopes has argued with a viable stance reminding that ‘abortion is a legal, constitutionally protected medical procedure in the United States and many countries.’ It further argued that ‘abortion is not considered a cause of death by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), WHO and other leading authorities, and statistics on induced abortion are excluded in the CDC’s national foetal-death statistics.’ It also stated that the legal, philosophical, religious and scientific arenas provide no definitive answers as to when personhood begins for a foetal. The ultimate question – when does a foetus become a person (at fertilization, birth or somewhere in the mid-process) – has no definitive solution yet. Thus considering the foetal-deaths as deaths of persons is debatable.

On the other hand, many nations prohibit induced abortions recognizing that the medical procedures kill an unborn baby. Several countries recognize that unborn babies have value and require protection either at conception or any advanced stage of pregnancy. As far as new scientific findings are concerned, scientists at Northwestern University of Chicago launched a new outstanding video showing a flash of light that occurs at the moment of conception – when a human life forms. Several scientists, biologists, medical authorities including some abortion activists had the same opinion that human life does begin at conception, hence an abortion kills that human being.

In some nations, the enactment of foetal personhood statutes resulted in the prosecution of pregnant women over circumstances under which they terminated their pregnancies. Nonetheless, whether abortions to be included in the list of other causes of human death or not still need a definitive answer. Further, whether abortion is killing an unborn person or not but it definitely depicts the common social or patriarchal stigma of getting the male child or opt for the female foeticide. And this centuries-old inclination towards the male child undeniably still exists even among the developed nations worldwide.