Abortion Ethics
On the question of abortion being moral, the answer is clearly that
terminating
a fetus' life under certain circumstances is not only moral, but
it is also our
responsibility to terminate it if the quality of life is in
question for the
fetus. A second major reason is that to declare abortion
immoral would mean that
we would have to consider the factor of how the
conception came about. This
cannot and should not be done. Quality is a major
factor in the question of the
morality of abortion. When parents decide to
keep or not keep a baby the issue
of adoption does not play into this. The
reason for this is that once the baby
is born that the parents may change
their mind if they want to keep it. Parents
must decide at the onset of the
pregnancy to decide if they can in good
conscience bring a child into the
world, if the answer is yes, then people
should proceed with the pregnancy
and then determine whether they want to give
the child up for adoption. It is
a parent's moral responsibility to make sure
that the environments which the
child will be brought into will be healthy and
supportive. It is a far
greater crime to treat a child poorly for eighteen years
then it is to
terminate a fetus that cannot think, feel or is aware of its
existence. On
the second point of making the way that conception occurred a
non-factor I am
not saying that having the babies of rapists or in cases of
incest is okay.
Still, for the argument that abortion is immoral, you must argue
that the
action is immoral, not the child. The child cannot be either at this
point.
If we are then talking about the act of abortion then who is to
determine
right and wrong. A court of law should have no place in this
decision. The
primary interests in this pregnancy should make the decision
themselves. This
would normally be the parents of the fetus. The action in
the case of rape is
defiantly immoral, but the fetus is not. To say that the
abortion is moral
because the pregnancy arose from a crime is to place a
value judgement on a
child before it is born. A fetus is just the product of
sperm and an egg, an
accidental meeting that resulted in a pregnancy. If the
fetus is not at fault
but can be terminated, why should a different set of
standards be in effect
because two young people experimenting with sex made a
mistake and the end
result was the same as in the case of rape. I offer you
the explanation that the
circumstances surrounding the pregnancy can be
deemed moral or immoral, but the
fetus and therefore the abortion cannot. The
outcome was an accidental meeting
of a sperm and an egg in both instances.
The moment of conception does not
assemble a human the instant that the egg
hits the sperm, it takes a full nine
months. During this gestation period
parts develop slowly, not all at once.
Science has determined when the
cut off is that a fetus can think and feel
etc... If it were impossible for
us to know when a fetus could feel and think
than the obvious answer would be
that it is immoral, but we can tell and
therefore it is not. I think that it
is important to remember that morals can be
established for a society in
particular, such as abortion in immoral, but cannot
be changed by the context
of how the pregnancy occurred. Either the termination
of life is moral or it
isn't. By this line of reasoning you can follow me to the
logical conclusion
of this paragraph. If it is logical and ethical to terminate
the life of a
fetus because of a particular circumstance, then it is moral to do
so under
any circumstance. A credible objection to my main position is that
abortion
is wrong except in the case of rape or incest. One good reason for this
is
that young parents of a fetus that made a mistake and got pregnant made
that
initial decision to have sex, while the rape or incest victims did not.
A second
reason is that we as a society should not force a mother to relive
her crime
every day for nine months and possibly longer if she kept the baby.
These two
statements do not even come close to undermining my position. My
primary problem
with the above argument is that the person on that side is
putting a value on
human life. The fact that the pregnancy occurred illegally
makes that human
being worth less than the one that was conceived by
accident. The argument above
hits a brick wall if you pursue it further. A
person cannot come up with a
justifiable reason why the fetus is worth less
as a human because of the nature
of the conception. At which point the person
on the side of the argument must
admit that values are the same and that
total value is zero as a human being
because it isn't one yet. As to the
second reason, why should we remind a
seventeen year old girl every day for
nine months and possibly longer because in
a moment of haste they forgot to
use a condom. An objection to my first
statement about the quality of life
could be argued that after the pregnancy is
over the baby could be given up
for adoption. Along this line of reasoning the
quality of life does not play
into the factor. This argument is filled with
holes. When a person is 18
years old and loses a leg in a car accident the leg
is gone, never to be seen
again. The case is much the same for a young girl, she
has carried this thing
around for the better part of a year. A new mothers
natural response to
giving the fetus up would be the same if after the accident
the doctors asked
the victim if they wanted to keep their leg. Of course the
answer would be
yes. Therefore having an abortion take this problem out of the
equation and
lets a mother make an informed decision whether or not to have a
child and
whether or not to give it for adoption. A second problem is the cost
of a
birth. What if there is no insurance, and there is no one to pay the
immense
cost of a hospital stay. Why should the same young girl go into
financial
debt for something that she is not going to keep, and she has no way
of
knowing if that babies life will be any better than what she could
have
provided for. To conclude this paper is a difficult task. I have tried
to
outline why abortion is moral by guiding the reader through a series of
steps
outlining thinking toward the fetus and we should regard it. The way
that we
should regard it is as a lifeless thing until it can feel or think,
whichever
comes first. This is not to that abortions should be common, cheap,
or as easy
to get as a physical is. Circumstances involved around the
conception including
the how and why should not be regarded. One abortion
cannot be moral while
anither is not. I would guess that I am taking an
absolutists point of view on
this subject. I also tried to state that social
context must be taken into
account, and that abortion is either one way or
the other, indepedent of
circumstances surrounding how the pregnancy occured.
I have also tried to show
how quality of life must be added into the decision
of whether or not to have a
child. I will lastly close with the statement
that while the men of the world
try to hash this controversy out, it is
important to remember who physically has
the child. And that it is ultimatly
the womens decision whether or not to have a
child. If abortion is declared
immoral than it will eentually lead to laws
making it illegal as well. When
this happens we will see the practice go
underground and have a lot of deaths
among women attempting to have this done in
an unclean environment.