Abortion in South Africa and the United States: An Integrative, Contrastive Comparative Analysis of the Effect of Legal and Cultural Influences on Implementation of Abortion Rights

Abstract

Despite similarly progressive abortion rights laws, women in South Africa and the U.S. experience completely different levels of access to legal and safe abortions. In this paper, I will seek to explain the reasons for this disparity by describing the ways in which natural law has influenced the application of law in the U.S. and South Africa while examining the role of cultural values in the realization of abortion rights. I will take an integrative approach to explain ideological similarities and a contrastive approach to denote the cultural differences that have led to a de facto marginalization of South African women as compared to American women concerning access to abortions. Introduction to Legal History and Ideology Both the U.S. and South Africa take a teleological approach to abortion law due to their natural law traditions. Prior to current abortion law, the natural law tradition postulated that abortion was immoral and therefore always wrong. This shared historical attitude toward abortion can be traced to the English, who colonized both countries, furthering this ideology in the process. English legal scholars like Bracton, Fortescue, Coke, and St. Germain promoted the idea of natural law in the writings, which often had a great impact on the legal field and the English culture in general, which also translated to colonies.[1] [1] See Heinrich Rommen, The Natural Law: A Study in Legal and Social History and Philosophy (Hanley, Thomas R., trans., 1998).