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Abortion: A Benefit or a Loss?
Various organizations all over the world strike down every law that regulates or restricts the practice of abortion. This action is based on the premise that advances of modern medicine have now made abortion “relatively safe”. However, national statistics have shown that 10% of women undergoing abortion suffer from immediate complications, of which one-fifth were considered major (Frank et. al., 1985). Nearly 100,000 women who have abortions every year end up in the hospital (The New York Times, pp. B-5). As more cases of abortion result to damage, many begin to question the effects of abortion. Despite the dispute that abortion is beneficial to women, it is detrimental not only to the physical health of women, but also to their emotional and psychological, and social aspects.
Each year in the Philippines, hundreds of thousands of women become pregnant without intending to, and many women with unintended pregnancies decide to end them by abortion. Supporters of abortion argue that abortion is beneficial to women in a lot of ways. Abortion gives women a choice and it helps the women financially. We must admit that these advantages offer a lot of relief to women; however, there are drawbacks that post great danger to women who undergo abortion.
According to the best record based study of deaths following pregnancy and abortion, a 1997 government funded study in Finland, women who abort are approximately four times more likely to die in the following year than women who carry their pregnancies to term. In addition, women who carry to term are only half as likely to die as women who were not pregnant (Gissler, M., et. al., 1997). Similar elevated risks of subsequent cervical, ovarian and liver cancer have also been linked to single and multiple abortions. Uterine damage may result in complications in later pregnancies and may eventually

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