Situation with Abortion in Albania: Analytical Essay

Abstract

This research paper provides a critical review about the sensitive topic of abortion, mainly focused in the actual situation in Albania, with a view toward suggesting promising avenues for future references about improving education on this topic. It aims to make a call for attention for the consequences that this way of ending pregnancies brings in the population. In this research paper we will see the information of significant events of the topic such as the stages of becoming legal, the difference rate between spontaneous abortion, willingly interrupted abortion including selective abortion, reasons why lots of women choose to take this action and also new information about illegal abortion, added by personal surveillance due to the lack of information published by the government. From this paper we will also have the possibility to absorb extra information for raising awareness and consider the life as this overriding moral issue.

Keywords: abortion, history, legalization, Albania, selective abortion, education, awareness.

Methods

The study originated from a need to explain the medical, social, religious issue of abortion. Basically, the statistics and facts are taken from the government and IShP published facts throughout the years, being updated not every single time. The table and graphics were guaranteed from some websites with the permission of specific organizations. After collecting and analyzing known facts, I directed my attention toward some unknown facts. Since the issue of abortion is much more complex I have proceeded with some questionnaires with 5 women at ages 35-65, in my hometown and some 13-18-year-old boys and girls. These interviews were done anonymously promising to keep their identity secret. Their answers were summarized and have stated some issues that are not presented in any of the government statistics. Illegal abortions done in unhealthy conditions, for removing baby girls was the greatest fact shown by them.

Introduction

An increasing number of abortions in Albania have been occurred lately according to government statistics uploaded. The situation seems to be affected from different factors among social, economic and related to health condition of the fetus and the woman carrying it. The main problem here are the abortions not registered, made illegally, in unhealthy conditions due to society moral that forces them to be ashamed of being pregnant or being abused for carrying out girls and not boys. Sadly this is the reality that Albania still faces today in the 21st century even though not like before.

What is abortion?

As an act abortion is considered the action of removal of the embryo from the uterus of the woman carrying it, in the medical-surgical way or unintentionally (also called miscarriage). For the induced abortion, it is strongly recommended to be done when the fetus is currently 22 to 24 weeks old when is the limit when the fetus becomes “liable”, which means after that if it is pre-born it has high chances of living. Even though there have been cases when the fetus has survived when they were born much earlier than 24 weeks old.

History

In U.S. state abortion has been legal, after long-term debates that also led to cascading events, in 1973 when finally the Supreme Court ruled in Roe v. Wade (1973) that women are totally capable of deciding about their own bodies medically. The same court denoted that fetuses had their own rights too, but only when the pregnancy has proceeded to the point where fetus can be considered as a real independent human being.

Albania has had a more difficult history about legalizing it. During communism, women were forced to have abortions performed illegally or inducing them in miserable conditions. Eventually, on that time Albania had the second-highest maternal mortality rate in all of Europe. Around 50% of pregnancies ended in abortion.

Long after the communist era the first step of legalizing abort was taken. In 1989 abortion was legally allowed in case of incest, rape or if the women were 16 years old or younger. Two years later, in 1991 a new concept was introduced. Abortion by application allowed all women in Albania to stop their pregnancies if a board of doctors considered their reasons valid. Fully legalized on December 7, in 1995, the new law nullified all the previous laws and setting new standards.

Abortion through years after the 2000s

There are not updated information showing off abortion rate changed for the last two years but according to older statistics even though the abortion number has been decreased considerably it is still really high for a small country such as Albania. According to INSTAT the number of aborts it is not in proportion with the number of births in most of the counties.

The lowest abort reports are in Kukes and Gjirokastra while the highest are in Tirana and Fier. We should also highlight that the statistics on figure 1 and 2 (below) are not a true reflector of today’s reality.

Factors and reality

Reasons why women in Albania see abortion as the only option :

• Social, economic conditions (most of them are unemployed or with one average or a really low salary in the family);
• Being a single mom (for different personal reasons) and not seeing it possible to raise a kid on their own;
• Being underage or a teenager.

Apart from these reasons, in Albania there is a sad reality where women are forced to abort because of the primitive thought of wanting only boys to be born. This worldwide phenomenon causes the loss of 100 million unborn females every year in the whole world. In Albania this phenomenon even though lately it has been reduced drastically, it is still present and what makes it worse is that abortions of these kind happen illegally.

You literally cannot find any information about this dark segment of abortion. After doing some questionnaires with some people I was addressed to, the reality I found out was much worse than we all can imagine, because no official records show the real abortion stats. Some old ladies, who preferred to keep their identity secret, stated that they execute the process of abortion in home conditions, illegally, in exchange of a symbolic amount of money. They said that most of the women that come to them want to abort in secrecy because they feel ashamed or they are going to be abused otherwise. Also they admitted that a lot of them come to abort girls because their husband or family feels uncomfortable of welcoming a baby girl. This needs to be stated out loudly because the conditions these abortions are carried out are really unhealthy and may even lead to the death of a pregnant woman.

Lack of education

What I surveyed during my second act of interviews with 13-18 years old boys and girls was how little they actually knew about abortion. They only knew abortion as the process of removing a baby from a mother’s womb and nothing more. Only a couple of them were aware of the risks taken and the real consequences that came after. What was even more shocking was that they had not learned any information about this topic in school but from personal different cases. They admitted that in some schools it is still taboo to talk about these kinds of sensitive issue topics.

Conclusion

In conclusion by understanding the real definition of abortion, shocking statistics and conditions they are carried, one can use this report for raising awareness of what the situation really is in our country. Publishing facts it is not always a good solution. As we saw women still choose abortion. There must be taken actions like raising the education about this topic not only in school but in any other environment, especially ones with the presence of females. We need to take responsibility of our actions. Where will our society be, let’s say in 30 years if a life can be taken so casually and barbarously? The failure to answer this, it questions the real values and morality of society leaving it right there without being able to move further and escalating the situation in worse circumstances.