Should Abortion Be Legal?

Those who support abortion often overuse the claim that every individual has the right to choose and it is unfair to restrict a women’s choice on abortion. Although this claim at first thought may seem to be able to uphold the abuse of abortion, we

One of the first moral issues addressed by both sides of the abortion debate concerns a pregnant woman’s so-called natural “right” to make “reproductive choices.” (“The Rights of Pregnant Women”) Anti-abortion advocacy groups claim that “the only way to actually protect the mother’s rights will be by enforcing laws that secure her child’s right to life,” (“Argument 2”) whereas pro-abortion groups contend that these laws “create a dangerous precedent for wide-ranging government intrusion into the lives of all women.” (“The Rights”) With two fundamentally contrasting viewpoints at odds with each other, it is apparent that one of the core issues concurrent with abortion is a woman’s rights versus the rights of her unborn fetus.

While parts of both may be true, both cannot stand side by side as completely true when discussing abortion. As they stand today, fetus rights and female rights are incompatible in arena of abortion. Even the “other side” agrees that the two cannot stand shoulder to shoulder. In a chapter entitled “Abortion Does Not Violate Human Rights”, Christian Beenfeldt quotes Brian McKinely when claiming that female rights have a higher precedence than fetus rights: “It’s actually quite simple. You cannot have two entities with equal rights occupying one body. One will automatically have veto power over the other.” So one question remains, which more important, fetus rights or female rights? The winner of this question can be decided by one simple factor: is the fetus to be considered a true, living human being at the point of conception, or does true human life not begin until after birth? A clarification should be made here, however. In this paper it will be assumed that everyone involved in this debate considers a newborn child to be a human being. That is, at the moment of birth, a child either becomes a human being or continues to be a human being; regardless of the fetus’s life state before birth, it will be assumed that all agree that birth “confirms”, so to speak, the life and human existence of the newborn.

The general argument made from Warren is (1) If a person, they have the right to life, (2) The fetus is not considered a person, and (3) Therefore, since the fetus is not a person they do not have a right to life. Also, (4) A human being needs all the morals of personhood to be considered a person, (5) An infant does not have morals, and (6) Therefore, an infant is not a person because the do not have the morals to be considered a person.

The debate about the legality of abortion involves debating the legal status of the fetus. If the fetus is a person, anti-choice activists argue, then abortion is murder and should be illegal. Even if the fetus is a person, though, abortion may have justified as necessary to women’s body self-govern but that wouldn’t mean that abortion is automatically ethical. Perhaps the state can’t force women to carry pregnancies to term, but it could argue that it is the most ethical choice.

 In my own point of view, abortion is morally justifiable on the basis of health such as: (1) If the pregnancy is a result of a crime such as rape, abuse, or incest, (2) if the pregnancy put the mother’s life in peril, (3) if the fetus would have a serious genetic problem. I opposed abortion when the reasons include: primarily for gender selection, second, for social reasons such as poverty or if the mother is unable to care for the child (being pregnant at an early age). I believe that there are support

The moral permissibility of abortion other than if necessary to save the life of the mother does not depend on whether the fetus is a person. This essay examines the argument to why abortion is morally permissible and defends this notion using three central impressions, to which the essay is organized by the following: first, abortion does not depend on whether the fetus is a person, because the fetus is not a person. Second, the moral permissibility of abortion cannot be exclusively contingent in defining a fetus as a person since this concept is not conclusive enough for finding a solution. Third, the permissibility of abortion depends mostly on the mother’s agency to keep the fetus alive. And lastly, I include major objections against the permissibility of abortion and relevant counterarguments that go against them.

To say that a person has moral standing is to give consideration to his or her wellbeing. According to Robert M. Veatch’s The Basic of Bioethics, moral standing is believed to be “that humans (at least normal humans) have moral standing [as well as] other animals” (27). Moral standing is determined by the physical or mental capacities of self-awareness or rationality. However, controversy arises when determining when one actually has full moral standing. Abortion is a controversial topic that directly relates to determining the full moral standing of an embryo or fetus. We are unable to achieve a consensus on the moral standing of an embryo or

“On the Moral and Legal Status of Abortion”, an essay written by Mary Anne Warren, defend abortion in any stage of a woman’s pregnancy (pg 468). Warren argues that the potential to become a human being is not the same as being human and deserving the same right to life (pg. 468-472). This essay asserts that in order to be human, one must possess five particular traits (pg. 470). These trait are consciousness, reasoning, self-motivated activity, the ability to communicate, and awareness of oneself (pg. 470). Warren claims that since a fetus has not yet acquired all of the traits, then that fetus is not human and therefore does not have the right to life (pg. 470).

The permissibility of abortion is not dependent on whether a human fetus is considered a person, but whether the rights of the mother obtain more moral significance than the fetus. This is as there is ambiguity around the conclusive stage at which a fetus becomes a person, thus alternative methods must be utilized to determine the morality of abortion other than the concept of personhood. Alternative criteria outlined by philosophers such as Warren, Marquis and Thomson(Warren,1997,pp94-96; Marquis,1989, pp.183-202; Thomson, 1971,47-66), demonstrates that the permissibility of abortion reposes with the concept of rights and conferred moral significance. Once determining that personhood cannot be defined, it is integral to this argument that

Imagine a woman was raped and later became pregnant. Shouldn 't she have the right to abort the child or should she be forced to deliver? Put yourself in her shoes. Can you imagine the pain she might feel every time she looks at the child? Should she be forced to endure this? Women should be allowed to have abortions under circumstances such as these.

A common debate in the world today involves abortion, the deliberate end of human pregnancy, and whether or not it should be legalized. “Every year in the world there are an estimated 40-50 million abortions. This corresponds to approximately 125,000 abortions per day” (“Abortions Worldwide this Year”). On one side of the argument, people are not disturbed by this grotesque number, and on the other side there are people outraged and simply appalled. Although people attempt to deem abortion acceptable in society because of circumstances like the mother not being able to support the child or in instances of rape, it is still morally wrong.

Many whom are pro-choice argue that a fetus is not a person until birth. However, Thomson’s article is unique in that she openly grants that a fetus is a person from the point of conception. Thomson believes that even if the argument against whether a fetus is a person fails, it is not enough to come to the conclusion that having an abortion is morally wrong. Rather, she reasons that abortions should be allowed because a fetus’ right to life does not include the right to draw upon the different resources a women’s body provides during the pregnancy. Therefore, women should have the right to terminate their pregnancy if they choose to do so. Thomson uses a series of analogies to defend that abortions are not morally wrong and should be allowed since the being deemed a person does not give the fetus the right to the nourishment and protection from the pregnant woman.

Abortion is a deliberate termination of a human pregnancy, most often performed the first 20 weeks of pregnancy. There are series of legal, moral and ethical issues which may arise about abortion. Most arguments about abortion are often focused on political insinuations and the legal aspect of such actions. Some frequently asked questions’ regarding the issue is if the practice should be outlawed and regarded as murder or should women have the right to practice it. For example, prior to becoming pregnant, some women feel that they would be able to choose the abortion option without trouble. However, even with reasons why having an abortion would be the best option, some women feel that this decision would not be right for them. On the other hand, some women have a strong belief that abortion is unethical prior to becoming pregnant.

Abortion has become a common argument topic in America; numerous individuals consider themselves pro-life and others pro-choice. Those who consider themselves pro-life oppose abortion, while those who are pro-choice advocate for abortion to be legalized. I believe that abortion should be illegal and that life should be recognized upon conception.