In twenty first century there are two points of view on abortion: pro-choice and pro-life. Pro-life are people who think that abortions should not be legal at all. As pro-life activists say, "A pregnant woman needs support, not abortion." In seventeen countries around the world abortion is still illegal. It is hard to believe that abortions can be stopped by making them prohibited.
Fertility control is a universal phenomenon. In every known culture – literate or preliterate, primitive or modern—people have attempted to regulate their fertility. The efficacy and safety of preconception and post conception practices, the dissemination of these methods, and the relationship of the polity to the practice of fertility control has varied through the time. The oldest known prescriptions for contraceptives come from an ancient Egyptian papyrus; dating back to 1850 B.C., this document is known as the Kahun papyrus (McFarlane, 2001).
The Ancient Hebrew tradition of saving a pregnant woman's life was the only justification for abortion. However, abortion was not considered murder. Traditional Jewish law prescribed penalties for deliberate abortion, but these penalties were not as harsh as those prescribed for homicide (McFarlane, 2001).
Abortion was also common in ancient Greek society, though not nearly as widespread as infanticide (the killing of infants). Greek religion did not profess any strong concern for the unborn, although Greek inscriptions on temples describe birth, miscarriage, and abortion as occasions of ritual impurity (McFarlane, 2001).
It is estimated that over two hundred contraceptive and abortion methods were in common use during the Middle Ages (Heinsohn & Steiger 1982). Western Europeans were evidently quite successful in controlling their fertility. The average household in medieval Italy had only 2.44 children, and in German territories in the eighth and ninth centuries there were about 2.36 children per woman. Apparently, much of the knowledge about fertility control in Western Europe was transmitted by lay midwives, who served as healers and childbirth assistants, were also providers of abortion (McFarlane, 2001).
The Bible clearly prohibits taking the life of an innocent person. Everywhere around the world people go to prison for killing. As many people would say, abortion is killing, and the worst thing is that many wonderful children never have a chance to be born.
But look at it this way – the Bible was written in ancient times. Many years have passed, and a lot of things have changed. In our days we have new problems like street children, abused kids, child labor, and "invisible" children.
Maybe abortion is killing, but sometimes it is better this way. There are women who get pregnant and then throw away their babies to die in the dumpster, and there are women who give birth and then do not care about their kids at all. That is where "street kids" come from, from families who never wanted them. Street children live on streets and are often hungry and angry. They rarely ever met a nice person in their lives; even their moms hate them. The street kids don't even know where their mothers are. Sometimes these children wish they never were born at all: “The phenomenon of street children is global, alarming and escalating. No country and virtually no city anywhere in the world today are without the presence of street children. It is a problem of both developed and developing countries, but is more prevalent in the poor nations of Latin America, Asia and Africa. Poverty, family disintegration due to health or death, neglect, abuse or abandonment, and social unrest are all common triggers for a child's life on the streets.” (Worldwide Statistics, 2007, p. l).
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