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The abortion debate is the ongoing controversy surrounding the moral and legal status of induced abortion. The sides involved in the debate are the self-described "pro-choice" movement (emphasizing the right of women to decide whether to terminate a pregnancy) and the self-described "pro-life" movement (emphasizing the right of the embryo or fetus to gestate to term and be born). Both terms are considered loaded in mainstream media, where terms such as "abortion rights" or "anti-abortion" are generally preferred.〔For example: 〕 Each movement has, with varying results, sought to influence public opinion and to attain legal support for its position, with small numbers of anti-abortion advocates sometimes using violence. For many people, abortion is essentially a moral issue, concerning the commencement of human personhood, the rights of the fetus, and women's rights over their own body. The debate has become a political and legal issue in some countries with anti-abortion campaigners seeking to enact, maintain and expand anti-abortion laws, while abortion rights campaigners seek the repeal or easing of such laws while improving access to abortion care. Abortion laws vary considerably between jurisdictions, ranging from outright prohibition of the procedure to few limitations on it. Women's access to safe abortion care is also varied across the world. ==Overview== In ancient times, abortion, along with infanticide, was considered in the context of family planning, gender selection, population control, and the property rights of the patriarch.〔See generally, "The Kindness of Strangers: The Abandonment of Children in Western Europe from Late Antiquity to the Renaissance", John Boswell ISBN 978-0-226-06712-4 Nov. 1998, Intro.〕 Rarely were the rights of the prospective mother, much less the prospective child, taken into consideration.〔See generally Spivack, Carla, ''To Bring Down the Flowers: The Cultural Context of Abortion Law in Early Modern England''. Available at SSRN: () Introduction〕 Although generally legal, the morality of abortion, birth control and child abandonment (as a form of infanticide) was sometimes discussed. Then, as now, these discussions often concerned the nature of man, the existence of a soul, when life begins, and the beginning of human personhood. While the practice of infanticide (as a form of family planning) has largely died out in developed countries, child abandonment, birth control, and abortion are still practiced; and their morality and legality continues to be debated. While modern debates about abortion retain some of the language of these older debates, the terminology has often acquired new meanings. Discussion of the putative personhood of the fetus may be complicated by the current legal status of children. Like children or minors in the U.S., and unlike corporations, a fetus or an embryo is not legally a "person", not having reached the age of majority and not deemed able to enter into contracts and sue or be sued. Since the 1860s, they have been treated as persons for the limited purposes of Offence against the person law in the UK including N. Ireland, although this treatment was amended by the Abortion Act of 1967 in England, Scotland and Wales. Furthermore, there are logistic difficulties in treating a fetus as "the object of direct action." As one New Jersey Superior Court judge noted, If a fetus is a person, it is a person in very special circumstances – it exists entirely within the body of another much larger person and usually cannot be the object of direct action by another person.〔(''State v Loce'' ) September 6, 1991〕 Proposals in the current debate range from complete prohibition, even if done to save the woman's life,〔("Sister Margaret's Choice" ) May 27, 2010〕 to complete legalization with public funding, as in Canada. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「abortion debate」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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