Is Pregnancy A Medical Issue?

Mary Anne Warren (p.195-196) points out the exceptional circumstances of pregnancy; where one human is entirely biologically reliant on another and where it is impossible for complete personhood rights to not be in conflict between the foetus and the mother. Consider the following case. A mother and an expecting mother both express an intent to kill their child or unborn child respectively. Services are available to take the postnatal children from their mother without affecting her body. Yet to protect the foetus, one would have to imprison the mother until birth, or worse, force a caesarean on her. Warren (193) points out that forced caesareans are not merely a hypothetical

Proponents of punishing pregnant women, who put their fetuses at risk, have highlighted some pertinent legal and ethical issues. One is that a viable fetus (fetus after 27 weeks gestation) has certain rights and privileges. They are of the opinion that as soon as the fetus is viable and can survive independently from it mother, it becomes a

As a society we have advanced immensely and swiftly in multiple areas such as science, medicine, and technology. Because of these advancements we are seeing a spike in C-sections and other practices in pregnancy such as induction drugs and epidurals. We may want to reconsider some of the trending practices that are not always necessary and cause dangerous outcomes for mother and child. Woman need to say no to medical interventions during pregnancy unless absolutely necessary and opt for a more natural approach as that is what our bodies were designed to do on their own, and have done for thousands of years. What sparked my interest in the subject was having some

. Rapid development of medicine in the 20th century couldn’t shy away from this side of medicine. New ideas about physiological and pathophysiological processes of productive (genital) system of a man, contemporary approaches towards diagnostics, appearance of new diseases, change of therapeutic methods and preventive measures to avoid pregnancy, appearance of assisted reproductive technologies and prenatal diagnosis lead not only to creation of new specializations in obstetrics and gynecology, but also to appearance of new moral and ethical issues in medical practice. The development of prenatal diagnosis has led to the appearance of new medical indications for the artificial termination of pregnancy.

Recent legal movements and rules are being placed within the practice of maternal mothers with focus on the protection of the fetus as a separate entity from the woman. These legalities are said to question the rights of the pregnant woman about her own medical care and decisions. The new protective actions for the fetus will enforce criminal charges on women who behave in a way that is associated with fetal harm or adverse perinatal outcomes. The ethical dilemmas with maternal decision making are being approached because it “constrains the pregnant woman’s decision making by punishing them which erode a woman’s basic rights to privacy and body integrity.” (ACOG, 2011) The technological advances of current imaging, testing, and treating of

Statistics, for example, show that maternal mortalities are almost twenty times higher in developing countries where this type of care (midwives, and medical service) is not available. To further support the benefits of obstetric care, the World Health Organization puts out an estimate of 15% of women require serious medical intervention to prevent long-term complications in their futures. Furthermore, a religious community that declined professional care showed absolutely no decline in maternal mortality when compared with that of 100 years ago. These facts demonstrate the importance of the medical professionals available to us and the impact they have had over time. In some ways, the author explains how medicalization of childbirth may have come too far. For example, the enormous number of caesarean sections performed in Brazil and Spain leave mothers with lifelong health concerns as a result of damage caused by the instruments used during the procedures. This also takes away from the perspective of birth as a "normal physiological process" (Johanson, 106), with which women are less informed about risks involved and given fewer choices in terms of the medical professionals available to assist them. Although they are often overshadowed by the ethical discussions about new reproductive technologies, the health risks associated with the techniques are also an issue. The Assisted Human Reproductive Act fails to recognize the severity of some of the issues and has been criticized for its failure to avoid discrimination (Harris, 99). One problem is the opinion that certain NRT's are too "experimental" (Unit 3, 57). Most of the drugs given to aid in the conception process are new and not

terests of the woman and the sometimes conflicting interests of her fetus. Part I discusses the

The term "reproductive rights" has become synonymous with abortion rights, birth control access, and issues surrounding reproductive technologies, yet the struggle for a woman's right to choose when and how to become pregnant often overshadows a woman's right to choose where and how to give birth. The lack of feminist discourse and activism surrounding issues of childbirth may attest to the hegemony in the modern American birth ritual of increasing medical intervention from obstetricians in hospital settings. There are currently several movements to challenge this dominant birth model--prepared childbirth advocates offer education classes and natural childbirth advocates

For instance, women who have trouble in getting pregnant can use ectogenesis as another option. It can be a respectable treatment for infertility compared to surrogacy and abortion, and provide viable options for women facing the loss of a pregnancy due to faulty placental implantation or medical conditions that make pregnancy dangerous. Others, on the other hand, warn it could seriously erode women 's reproductive rights and health, for example, in a coercive society, women deemed by authorities to be 'unfit ' to carry a pregnancy to term could be placed under a 'coercive treatment order ' and forced by the state to place their fetuses in artificial uteri until independently viable). They further advise women that ectogenesis could cause unanticipated consequences to infant health (not least emotional health) in offspring born by this method. Thus, the current innovations in ectogenesis technology will have lasting ethical, moral, and social implications for our society.

With it highly medicalization in contemporary in north America, there are opponents of medicalized birth. These opposite camps continue to argue whether birth should be best thought of as a dangerous and abnormal process that should be managed by medical practitioners in a medical institution or as a natural or normal bodily

Our world has an immense collection of advanced technologies, but it is a shame that many use it for immoral actions. Such technology has given mankind the power to ‘produce’ desired children from a cellular level, but at the same time offer families the freedom to abort the unwanted. In his article, Rajendra Kale (2012) argues that healthcare professionals should not inform parents the sex of the unborn until 30 weeks of pregnancy to avoid termination. In another article, Margaret Little (2005) reasons that abortions are merely the demise of fetuses, and not the violation of rights to live. Although the two present themselves in different ways, it can be assumed that Little would ultimately support Kale’s assessments. Perhaps the

In the late 1800s, the development of more effective treatments made general public more trusting of the medical world. The technological improvements in medicine also gave the medical personnel a validation of their authority. Physicians began defining "normal" standards for childbirth and determining the levels of "risks" women may experience with childbirth. As a result, women became more aware of potential risks (which may or may not even apply to their specific cases) and seeking ways such as drugs, staying at hospitals, etc to minimize them as much as possible. The social construction of childbirth risks has greatly influenced women to change views on childbirth. As Forde perfectly states "increased risk awareness not only changes the way people think about health...more profoundly and seriously..changes human values, self-identity and perspective on life". Not only did the medical personnel viewed the childbirth as "dangerous"and "risky", but women themselves started questioning their true biological abilities and their life choices. Women became discouraged of natural childbirth process and thus forgot their power and authority in their own lives.

The United States citizens (especially women) have one of the least access to healthcare and worst health outcomes among developed countries in the world despite the US spending about two and a half times higher on health care per person than any other developed country in the world (Flynn, 2013). The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA, 2013) and the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD, 2016) report similar data. This is reflected in the country’s disproportionately high unintended pregnancy rate (about half of all pregnancies are unintended), high teenage pregnancy and high maternal mortality rates (Fig 1, Table 1). Adverse maternal and child health outcomes such as delayed pre-natal care, premature birth, negative physical and mental health effects for children are some of the implications for unintended pregnancies (Guttmacher, 2016).

The tone that is dominant throughout the article supports the claim that the author has allowed his emotions to dominant his diction, therefore displaying his biasness. “…‘big up’ mothers. Mothers probably wanted to, but decided not to abort or kill that child in the womb!” While the writer praises mothers in this instant, he implies the contrary to the women who aborted. Chisholm chooses not to consider the possible reasons that may lead to abortion and argues his points accordingly, despite the glaring counterarguments. Hence being biased against women who considers abortion as a solution. The author further goes on to discriminate doctors by referring to them as ‘a certain brand of medical schizophrenia.’ Again, without careful examination of the controversy on a whole, he displays a bias attitude towards the medical community. The author’s choice of words clearly reveal that he holds doctors partially responsible for their contribution the abortion. Here, he creates a fallacy, since he distracts the audience with distorted arguments, rather than tackling the issue from logical and realistic perspective. Without any authentic investigation, Chisholm displays biasness against them, in that, he does not consider their point of view or stance in the matter, therefore presenting examples that are debatable. This piece conveys the author’s points in an emotively biased

The first debate comes around the medication; they divide pregnant into different groups “Pregnancy and childbirth have become increasingly medicalized