The Ethics And Ethics Of Abortion

Abortion’s legalization through Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade, has allowed for one in three pregnancies to end in abortion. This means that 1.5 million abortions are performed in the United States each year (Flanders 3). It ranks among the most complex and controversial issues, arousing heated legal, political, and ethical debates. The modern debate over abortion is a conflict of competing moral ideas and of fundamental human rights: to life, to privacy, to control over one's own body. Trying to come to a compromise has proven that it one cannot please all of the people on each side of the debate.

One of the most frequently debated topics in bioethics is the morality of abortion, or the ending of a pregnancy without physically giving birth to an infant. Often times abortions are categorized into either spontaneous, a natural miscarriage; induced or intentional, which is premeditated and for any reason; or therapeutic, which albeit intentional, its sole purpose is to save the mother’s life. It seems however that moral conflicts on issue mainly arise when discussing induced abortions. In general, people universally agree it is morally wrong to kill an innocent person and in some people’s eyes induced abortions are the intentional killings of innocent persons, thus making them immoral. However not all individuals view fetuses as persons and consequentially argue it is not morally wrong to kill them.

There is a vast number of ethical theories, whether or not you believe in those theories is a matter of opinion and personal belief. For this reason, people can take the general concept of a theory and explain it in a way that aligns with their beliefs. Personally, I feel as though there is some truth in most, if not all, ethical theories. Though, there is one theory in particular I have taken a liking to; and this theory is egoism. Egoism, in the most general terms, is a theory in which a person is motivated by their own self-interest to further their wants or goals. This theory can be interpreted in a number of ways, one of them is that it is considered selfish. Egoism, is not necessarily selfish in that it may be in your own self-interest to do something for others. To help further explain my understanding of egoism, I’d like to bring up the topic of abortion. The debate over abortion has been going on for a while. As time goes by, my opinions on the topic have changed, especially when I learn about the different arguments each side makes. I will take some arguments from both sides to help explain egoism. Through my explanation on my understanding of egoism, I will ultimately express my views on this social issue as well. Though it is important to keep in mind that my main goal is to explain each side of the debate through the views of an egoist and whether or not each side is morally sound.

Before researching on abortion issues, I never imagined it to be such controversial and debatable case because the problem arises from the very early stages of analyzing what administrative ethics would answer. I became overwhelmed to start because my mind became blurred on legality and ethics of abortion as early as defining administrative ethics: “well-based standards of right and wrong prescribing what public administrators ought to do in terms of duty to public service, principles, virtues, and benefits to society”. Ethics triangle is grounded on duties in the center with principles, virtues, and benefits to society augmenting it. Duties of public administrator involves those ‘obligations taken on while assuming a position’. They might

There are many common pregnancy alternatives, but most often the resulting decision is abortion because it is effortless. Abortion is endings a women’s pregnancy by removing or forcing a fetus or embryo from the mother’s womb before it is able to survive on its own. Not all abortions are purposely done some are spontaneous like when a women that has a miscarriage. Rather abortion is done purposely or naturally it is a worldwide complication as to it being wrong or right. Abortion is an ethical issue that will be analyzed according to a personal worldview and Christian worldview. Ethical thinking will be examined by value-based decisions that address abortion from the perspective of a Christian worldview and comparing it to a personal assumption by addressing ethical dilemma, core beliefs, resolution, evaluation, and comparison.

Abortion and the morality of it has been a hot topic for years in the United States although it has been carried out for centuries in different cultures. Abortion is a medical procedure deliberately terminating a pregnancy. Abortions usually happen within the first 28 weeks of pregnancy and are considered an outpatient procedure. The first abortion laws were passed by Britain in 1803 and by 1880 most abortions in the U.S. were illegal, except for those that were performed to save the life of a woman. This exception to the rule gives insight into the battle that exists today and the ethical debate of abortion.

An ethical dilemma is a debate between two moral principles, where two sides can dispute about what is wrong or what is right. However, there is no real answer to an ethical dilemma. Is it a “simple” matter of what one believes in? The best answer would be, in ethics, it is not always simple. Ethics have a propensity to engage in moral reasoning, performing critical examination of different beliefs, in order to determine whether they should be accepted or rejected. Abortion is considered an ethical dilemma. It is examined by two different groups, which have two different perspectives; Pro-Life versus Pro-Choice.

The issue of abortion is one of the most sensitive and controversial issues faced by modern societies. This issue leads to topics of whether abortion is right or wrong, if it is the actual killing of a person, and what actually defines the moral status of a fetus. In this paper, I will be arguing against Bonnie Steinbock, who believes that abortions are morally acceptable. So I will be supporting the view that abortions are not morally acceptable.

An 18 year old girl gets pregnant and can’t decide whether to keep the baby or have an abortion. Her parents are very religious and do not believe in sex before marriage therefore would not take to kindly to their daughter being pregnant.

In the article Ethics of Abortion, much of the pro life argument seems to be

“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).

Abortion is always argued with different cases and play a main role in medical ethics (blackwell.,p291).It is evidently reasonable for some to argue that in moral situation, abortion is a murder and it should be illegal, while others may claim that abortion is woman’s right when concerning on autonomy ( The abortion debate in Australia). Opponents of making abortion legal claim that abortion is a kind of murder on extend of moral situation. It is always regarded as a sin to kill a person who is no aggressor in most moral communities (new ethics 1). Fetus is a biologically human as it is not just a part of the mothers, such as a lung or a kidney. On the contrary, it is obvious that fetus is human due to he or she has genetic code of human and human parents as well (abortion myth p5). Moreover, it has potentiality to be a person with primary moral worth (text book p210-211). As Gillion (new ethics) pointed out, every person has his right to life, especially he is not an aggressor. This point is also been pointed by (Rebecca and john,Blackwell p204), “embryos has a right to life” .The fetus is innocent and

Abortion is a highly-debated topic of whether it is ethical for a woman to decide to have one. Abortion is any of various surgical methods for deliberately terminating a pregnancy. When we speak of abortion today, we mean induced abortion performed by trained doctors, not including miscarriage (MacKinnon & Fiala, 2015). Some current methods of abortion are morning-after pill, mifepristone, uterine or vacuum aspiration, dilation and curettage, saline solution, prostaglandin drugs, hysterotomy, and partial birth abortion. Abortion involves questions about rights, happiness, and well-being, as well as the status and value of human life. The people who think it is ethical to have an abortion stand on the Pro-choice side and the people who think it is unethical stand on the Pro-life side. The liberal view of abortion supports abortions and the conservative view opposes abortion. There are many legal, religious, and medical conflicts that are included in the debate over abortion. The arguments made from both sides help us better understand whether a woman should have an abortion.

The Ethics Of Abortion is a very controversial subject that has been continually argued over for the past few years and probably many more years to come. The main controversy is should abortion remain legalized? Before we get into the many sides of abortion we must first define abortion. Abortion is the destruction of the fetus or unborn child while the child is still in the mother’s womb. This can be done by almost anyone from the mother herself to back alley abortions and even to abortions by clinics set up especially for this purpose. There are two sides to this abortion topic, the PRO-LIFE, which is those who are against abortion altogether and the PRO- CHOICE or those who believe it is the woman’s right to

Our society is filled with numerous ethical dilemmas. We are consistently bombarded with ethical issues daily. At times, these ethical dilemmas are virtually impossible to unravel. I believe the topic of abortion is one of the most difficult and controversial issues in today’s society. It is also the one people are most passionate about as it continues to be scrutinized by two groups, holding fast to different perspectives; Pro-Life versus Pro-Choice.