Abortion and its effects on society

Abortion is an issue that has always been a subject of hot debate between its advocates and the opponents to this practice in the society. Every side of the argument normally gives its reasons based on the advantages and disadvantages of this practice. The truth of the matter is that abortion has both positive and negative effects on the society. Different sociological perspectives have varying ways of explaining the impact of abortion on the society. This paper analyzes the issue of abortion as a social problem and explains its effects to the society based on the Structural-Functional, Social Conflict, and Symbolic Interaction paradigms.

Abortion as a social problem 

Sociologists normally study and give their comments on the existing social problems and effects on the society. A social problem is described as something that many people in the community consider it undesirable. It is vital to note that sociology normally takes a very different approach when it comes to the issue explaining social problems. Sociologists hold the view that the individual problems are normally embedded in the aspects of challenges arising from the society as a whole. Abortion is a problem that affects the whole society. Sociologists have found different paradigms of explaining effects of this social problem to the society.

Abortion refers to the termination of the life of an embryo or fetus (Singh, 2006). Individuals who go to look for an abortion may not be aware of the consequences of this act. Moreover, they may not even know the way it is done. Therefore, whether the procedure for an abortion is done properly or recklessly may not be part of their concerns (Singh, 2006). Statistics indicate that about 14,000 women get abortions as a result of the unwanted pregnancies. The number of abortions done annually is estimated to be 43 million. There are various sociological theories that explain the issue of abortion. 

In the recent past the restrictive States laws about abortion have been the topic of debate. In the United States, over 15 States have now responded by liberalizing their abortion laws. It is vital to note that the main motive behind the increased drive for reforms to the existing abortion laws has been the concern for the welfare and rights of women. These reforms are mainly advanced by the proponents of abortion who argue that restricting abortion is tantamount to threatening the lives of innocent women across the earth (Singh, 2006). These proponents feel that it is quite unfair to force women to take care of unwanted pregnancies since it gives them distress, particularly those involved in rape incidences. For the poor women, they end up being overburdened by the responsibilities, which they cannot afford. 

On the contrary, there are those who also give their reasons for opposing abortion. They argue that it is about killing lives, which is extremely against the ideals of humanity (Singh, 2006). They also argue that abortions are the cause of many deaths today. Many women are losing their lives as a result of abortions. It is, thus, important to stop this practice. Other reasons include the need to have a youthful generation making up the largest share of the population in the world. With increased abortion, the future world may have the old people as the majority in the population. This scenario may greatly hamper economic growth because of lack of a productive human resource. 

Structural-functional theory

This sociological theory views the human society as an organism with inter-dependent parts, which function together for the benefit of the whole body. Therefore, in the same way the body has organs that work together for the survival of the whole organism, the society has parts functioning interdependently (Layder, 2014). Removal of one part means the whole system fails. Some of the integral parts of the societal system include the government, families, religion, polity, economy, hospitals, businesses and schools. For a society to be fully functional, all these sectors must be operational.

Understandably, the structural-functional paradigm is premised on the assumption that all members of a given society take social problems from the point of relative consensus. Moreover, this paradigm assumes members of the society are aware of the fact that the social institutions have to be changed in order to meet the emerging developments within the physical and societal environments (Layder, 2014). In essence, the functionalist perspective usually relies on consensus that concentrates on the overall good for the whole society. This paradigm, therefore, suggests that the individuals and various sub-groups in a given society must be willing to sacrifice their interests for the good of the society as a whole. This theory may, therefore, appear to be harsh when applied (Layder, 2014). Many people feel it ignores the pain and grievances of the individuals and sub-groups at the expense of meeting the needs of the whole society. 

The structural-functional perspective takes proposes four key functions within the society. These four functions are integral to any society and essential for its survival. The society cannot exist without even just a single of these four key functions. These functions include adaptation, which is the production and distribution of goods and services in the economy. The second function is goal attainment, which entails writing and enforcing of the rules in a system known as polity (Layder, 2014). The third function is integration, which involves procreation and socialization of the children in a family. Finally, there is latency, which is a system of values and beliefs held within a given religion.

From the structural-functional perspective, it is evident that abortion is bad to the society since it adversely affects the integration function of the societal system. With 43 million abortions in the world every year, it implies that equivalent number of children is lost annually. Integration, which is a very key function that is necessary for the survival of the society, is slowed down because the lack of children. These children are lost through abortions. The children lost through abortions could be ones to lead the economy, government, hospitals and religion in the future. Without these children, the future of these integral parts of the society is doomed. The society needs children to be doctors in the hospitals, engineers to build good infrastructure, business persons, political leaders, educationists and religious leaders. Losing these children through abortions means these sections of the society may lack the right people to run them in the future hence lead to total failure of the entire society.

The structural-functional theory demands that the individual women sacrifice their personal goals for the good of the whole society by keeping the pregnancies to maturity and bearing children who will serve in running the different institutions of the community. Therefore, this theoretical perspective ignores personal issues such as unwanted pregnancies, instead demanding the children to born for the sake of the societal integration function. 

Social Conflict 

The other theoretical perspective of the abortion social problem is the social conflict sociological theory. This normally views the society as a system of groups, which are not equal hence in constant competition and conflict (Layder, 2014). These competing parts of the society are always in a fight for the scarce resources available. From this perspective, therefore, the fundamental processes within the society are competition and conflict, but not cooperation for the good of the whole community. According to this perspective, all the societal systems have a minority of the very powerful elites who always exploit the poor. Everything that happens in the society is based on competition and conflict over the control for the scarce resources available. Therefore, it is evident that the social conflict theory normally focuses on the state of the economy of a given society (Layder, 2014).

Based on the social conflict theory, abortion means minimal costs for each family. Most women do abortions in order to avoid the prospect of taking care of a large family size, which may significantly drain the available scarce resources. To be able to amass wealth and climb ladder of social classes, families must use abortion to ensure they have very small sizes hence free resources to invest in development projects and capital goods. 

Abortion has a very huge impact on the birth rate in the society. It greatly lowers the birth rate in a given country. With the reduced rate of birth, the size of population rise in a country also falls exponentially. Many people have argued that abortion, thus, helps in reducing pressure on the environment. A lot of the environmental students have come out to argue that it may be impossible to preserve the good quality of the environment of the population growth is not controlled. A large population causes high pollution within the environment making less supportive to lives. The pressure that is exerted on the environment by the human beings seeking settlement areas reduces natural vegetations and leaves a bare earth that is risky to live in. The increased population also channels all the waste materials from the many industries into rivers and the open land. In essence, with the current large population size, the environment is increasingly becoming intoxicated and harmful to human life. It is, thus, imperative that the society finds ways of halting the current growth in the population. One very effective way of doing this is said to be abortion. Therefore, it can be held that abortion leads to a minimal rate of population growth causing sustainable preservation of the environment. It is important to note that this view is mostly held by the proponents of abortion. Direct population control measures like abortion have been favored in the society. Family planning is commonly viewed as not effective in terms of controlling the rate of conception.

Another effect of abortion within the society is on the issue of poverty. The high incidence of unwanted pregnancies hence costs of rearing children enhance the level of poverty in the already poor households. This leads to an increased gap between the rich and the poor since their level of poverty grows further as they struggle to rear their children. With control over the unwanted pregnancies, the poor people can have limited size of families hence spare some funds for capital investments. Capital investments then improve their standards of living and this helps in reducing the gaps between the rich and poor within a given society. It must be noted that the current cost of living is extremely high. It is not easy to rear a big number of children since the cost per child is overwhelmingly high. The effect of abortion in the society is that it enables a poor woman to discard an unwanted pregnancy and have a desirable family size. This development translates into a society that has its poor people making money to invest in capital ventures and improve standards of living. The Marxist perspective of social conflicts suggests such measures as abortion in order to close the gap between the rich and the poor in the society. Abortion gives the poor women and their families increased time to perform remunerative work outside the home and improve on the income for these low class households. The unwanted children always hold these women in the homes so that they attend to their young ones. 

Unwanted pregnancies make the youthful girls to drop out school in order to take care of the pregnancies and the born children. Dropping out of school is a cause of increased poverty in the low class homes. It causes increase in the level of illiteracy and poverty within the poor families hence widening the gap between the poor and the wealthy. However, with abortion, many girls can now complete their studies and get good paying jobs after training. The jobs enable these poor girls to pull their families out of poverty and significantly reduce the gap between the rich and the poor. The society now has many children who do finish their education since they do not have the distraction of unwanted pregnancies.

However, again abortion means fewer adults to perform the various economic activities in the society in the future. The many lives that are killed through abortion mean lack of enough labor in the society in future. There will be a great deficit of human resource to steer the economic growth agenda. 

It is evident that analyzing the impact of abortion from the perspective of the social conflict theory gives two perspectives. One is its positive effect in terms of enabling the family to minimize its cost of rearing children. The second one is the lack of sufficient number of adults to provide human resource in the various sectors of the economy in the future.

Moreover, this paradigm sees abortion as a class issue within the society (Mouzelis, 2016). The elite members of the society have quite a lot of wealth and can take care of the cost of safe abortion. However, the poor people within the low social class have limited financial resources hence have no ability of settling the cost of abortion. Abortion is, therefore, an issue of the high social class in the society. Conversely, the social conflict sociologists would argue that abortion is done by the people in the low class who feel rearing children is very expensive. They would, therefore, use abortion as a means of controlling the family size based on the financial resources they have. Abortion, in this case, assists the poor to free themselves from the control of the upper class elites. 

Symbolic interaction 

This perspective sees the society as always in a constant condition of recreation. This recreation happens through negotiation and interaction of the different meanings. The rules that govern the society were created by its members. However, these rules are always recreated daily as people get to interact with one another (Parsons, 2013). This paradigm also sees the society as always conservative when it comes to social change. The rules created and the ways in which people interact are determined by the symbolic meanings that are attached to different things and events in the society. Rules and interaction of people in the society are also influenced by the sense of morality and ethics installed among its members. The things valued within a given society also have a great impact on the rules that are created and the manner in which people interact.

The perspective of symbolic interaction on the social problems is that they are caused by people interacting. This particular interaction among people is of concern in two main ways. Firstly, the social problems like abortion arise because of interaction between women and men. It is this interaction between men and women that leads to the unwanted pregnancies that have to be terminated through abortion. Through the sexual interactions between women and men, the problem unwanted conceptions and need for abortion arises. Moreover, the interaction between pregnant women and those who believe in committing the practice of abortion also propagates this issue. Through the interaction with a person who believes in doing abortions, a woman is convinced to use it as the only way of getting rid of an unwanted pregnancy. They woman is convinced and starts valuing abortion as a positive thing. The woman may also convince another person making to become an accepted and legitimate norm within the society.

Symbolic interaction normally emphasizes on the subjective nature of social problems. This perspective suggests that the perceptions of people do matter despite the presence of the objective realities about the given problem. It is the subjective perceptions of people that determine the level at which a given condition, action or behavior becomes a social problem. Therefore, this perspective provides that the social problem of abortion can only be held so if it is recognized by many people in the society in terms of perception.

Some of the basic suggestions of this theory include the provision that reality is a social construction, which is built through the interaction among people. This theory also provides that morality, ethics and values held are not given, but created by ways of interactions among people. It also states that the social action of a person is determined by his or her beliefs, perceptions and negotiations of meanings. If a person does not like the rules governing a given society then he or she is free to work towards changing them.

Understanding abortion from this perspective, one gets the sense that the effects of this practice are dependent on the beliefs and perceptions of the involved person. There are those who may attach a positive meaning to abortion taking it as the most effective way of discarding unwanted pregnancies. Some take abortion as a means of controlling the size of the family hence its of positive impact to the society. However, to others abortion has a negative meaning and adversely affects the society. Anyone who dislikes abortion has the freedom of changing the rules set by the society regarding it. Equally, the people who feel abortion is good then have the freedom of changing the rules of the society and recreating the entrenched values to suit their attitudes towards this social issue.

Abortion is a major social problem within the society. It leads to many deaths of women and deprives the society of future men and ladies who would steer the developmental work. Abortion brings health complications to women and makes others unable to conceive in the rest of their lives. Abortion is immoral since it involves killing a life. Many religions, thus, view abortion as an archaic act that is against the teachings of God. However, the proponents of abortion feel it is the right way of controlling the population. It is important in the quest for preservation of a good environment since it minimizes the growth of the population. The proponents of this practice also feel that abortion helps the poor families within the society to rear an affordable number of children. Women are, therefore, able to complete their education and secure highly paying jobs. This makes it possible for girls to improve their incomes and improve the standards of living. As seen in this paper, there are different sociological paradigms that try to explain abortion as a social problem. These sociological paradigms include structural-functional, social conflict and the symbol interaction theories. 

References

Layder, D. (2014).  Structure, Interaction and Social Theory (RLE Social Theory)  (Vol. 79). Abidgon-on-Thames: Routledge.

Mouzelis, N. P. (2016).  Back to sociological theory: the construction of social orders . New York City: Springer.

Parsons, T. (2013).  Social system . Abidgon-on-Thames: Routledge.

Singh, S. (2006). Hospital admissions resulting from unsafe abortion: estimates from 13 developing countries.  The Lancet ,  368 (9550), 1887-1892.