ABORTION AS A FORM OF IMPLEMENTATION OF A WOMAN’S RIGHT TO REPRODUCTIVE CHOICE: STUDY OF CERTAIN ASPECTS OF FULL OR PARTIAL PROHIBITION

Abstract

The article examines the experience of individual countries in the field of partial or complete prohibition of abortion as a form of exercising a woman’s right to reproductive choice. Namely, the experience of the USSR (20–60s of the 20th century), Ireland (80–90s of the 20th century – the beginning of the 21st century), the United States (70–90s of the 20th century – the beginning of the 21st century) and of Poland (20s of the 21st century). The negative social phenomena of a complete or partial ban on abortion as a form of exercising a woman’s right to reproductive choice are such negative social phenomena as: violation of a woman’s right to reproductive choice; the development of the “abortion underground”, the carrying out of illegal abortions, which in most countries is a criminal offence; performing abortions by incompetent persons, without proper medical education and in unsanitary conditions; increasing the mortality rate of women and harming their reproductive health; full or partial prohibition of abortion violates a woman’s right to life and respect and private and family life; lack of effective mechanisms for identifying legal grounds for abortion based on medical or socio-economic indicators; protest movements of supporters and opponents of the legalization of abortion, confrontation with law enforcement agencies; lack of an adequate system of medical and social institutions, material support for mothers and families in which children with physical and mental disabilities were born, as a result of the ban on abortions due to defects and genetic diseases of the fetus; a decrease in the birth rate in most countries of the world (for example, in Poland, the birth rate is 1.4); not all women have equal access to free abortion and others.