The Rights Of Pregnant Women

In some ethical and legal respects a pregnant woman and her fetus can be considered separate. Both the woman and the fetus are ordinarily affected by the well-being of one another for as long as each of them live. The ethical and legal issues are challenged deeply in cases where the well-being of the fetus and the mother appear to be in conflict. Our society struggles with identifying cases where the pregnant woman’s interests and/or behaviors might put her fetus at risk. Criminal and/or civil commitments should be used to bar pregnant women from exposing their fetuses to risk.

There are many factors that are taken into consideration when determining if abortion is morally permissible, or wrong including; sentience of the fetus, the fetuses right to life, the difference between adult human beings and fetuses, the autonomy of the pregnant woman, and the legality of abortion. Don Marquis argues that abortion is always morally wrong, excluding cases in which the woman is threatened by pregnancy, or abortion after rape, because fetuses have a valuable future. Mary Anne Warren contends that late term abortions are morally permissible because birth is the most significant event for a fetus, and a woman’s autonomy should never be suspended.

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.

Abortions were widely used in the early eighteen hundreds and kept secret due public scrutineer. Not only were they considered against the law in some places but were risky due to high risk of infection from unsterile equipment used to perform the actions.” Without today’s current technology, maternal and infant mortality rates during childbirth were extraordinarily high. “(National abortion Federation, 2016) as time contained states changed and modified their laws to accommodate political agendas, these opposed to legal abortion had begun to fight absent any stated funded abortion clines. Then there was Roe v. Wade this was the first major Supreme Court battle based on abortion laws and ethics. Roe v. Wade decision of the courts said that they “considered the constitutionality of a Texas statute made it a crime to obtain an abortion except when it was necessary to save the life of the mother”. (Harris, 2014) There was another Supreme Court case that changed the views of the courts based on how they judge the frame work of decision on the trimester model. The ethics involved in this are not just solely left to the mother of the potential life but in the network of people

The topic of reproductive rights surrounding women in Texas has been a hot buttoned issue since the closing of many reproductive centers across the state. Recently damaging abortion restrictions were passed and therefor encroach on women’s reproductive rights even more by decreasing access to abortion care. Texas’ 84th Legislature, both passed HB 3994 as a law and had it Governor Abbott make it effective with his signature on July 8, or this year. This law complicates access to abortion services for mistreated and neglected minors and for those who do not possess specific identification cards in Texas.

Mary Anne Warren (p.195-196) points out the exceptional circumstances of pregnancy; where one human is entirely biologically reliant on another and where it is impossible for complete personhood rights to not be in conflict between the foetus and the mother. Consider the following case. A mother and an expecting mother both express an intent to kill their child or unborn child respectively. Services are available to take the postnatal children from their mother without affecting her body. Yet to protect the foetus, one would have to imprison the mother until birth, or worse, force a caesarean on her. Warren (193) points out that forced caesareans are not merely a hypothetical

Jane Roe, a pregnant mother wanting to abort her child sued in the interest of herself, and other women in comparable circumstances during a struggle to stop Texas from criminalizing all abortions except the ones that would save the life of a mother. Texas had made it a crime to receive an abortion except when the doctor advises the mother have an abortion for her own health and safety. Jane Roe wanted a ruling that declared these Texas’ statutes to be unconstitutional and also, she wanted to prevent the District Attorney from enforcing them. Roe alleged that she was pregnant and unmarried. She could not legally obtain an abortion by a licensed doctor because her life was not endangered. So, she argued that the law was unconstitutional and invaded upon her privacy rights that were protected by multiple amendments and laws. Claiming it invaded upon her privacy rights by not allowing her to abort her child.

In Roe v. Wade, in 1973, the Supreme Court held a case that a pregnant woman has the full privacy right to have an abortion. The right to abortion is not guaranteed and must be stable against the State’s countervailing benefits in keeping the health of the woman and in protecting the life of the unborn child. The State’s belief in protecting the health of the woman becomes definite, therefore greatly enough to support state ruling of abortion under the strict scrutiny standard of judicial review; after the first trimester, which is the stage of pregnancy when abortion becomes dangerous to the mother carrying the child to term. The State’s concern in protecting the life of the unborn child becomes irresistible, after possibility, the stage of pregnancy when the unborn child is capable of independent life. Because neither interest is irresistible before the second trimester, the State may not regulate abortion in the first trimester either to reserve the woman’s health or to protect the life of the unborn child. After the first trimester the State may control the act of an abortion, but only for the purpose of protecting the woman’s health, not for the purpose of protecting the life of the unborn child. After viability, the State may regulate, and even forbid, abortion to protect the life of the unborn child, except when the act of abortion is needed to

Since Roe v Wade, there have been major advancements in the maternal-fetal world of medicine. Advanced technology and science have shown us that there is “life” to a fetus before the last trimester, leading to many regulations and laws to prohibit abortion for the life the fetus. Discussed in this paper are the policies, court cases, and executive decisions affecting legal abortion in the US and the ethical implications that debate them.

While, I do not support this position, I have at times, struggled to support women on welfare who continue to have children receiving benefits so I understand the frustration others or the public may express in regards to welfare benefits being given to women who continue to have children while “the system” raises the child. However, it is not for to make choices regarding another women’s reproductive right and would not want someone make such choices for me on my behalf. The NASW and I both are in agreement that women should not be denied benefits based on her choice to continue to children while receiving welfare benefits. “Public policies and legislation,

In 1973, the US Supreme Court declared abortion a nationwide fundamental right through a trial called Roe vs. Wade and protected this right underneath the Fourteenth Amendment, more specifically, the right to privacy. A basic human right, especially one outlined by the Supreme Court, must never run at risk or threat chiefly because not everyone agrees with it. Under no circumstances should a pregnancy ever adjudge mandatory. Abortion is a Constitutional right and as a nation we must fight to give the right and freedom of safe abortions to women all around the nation, make birth control and sex education accessible to women, and raise awareness about the topic itself. (LawCornell)

Angela Carder was diagnosed with a terminal lung tumor when she was 25 weeks pregnant. She was admitted to the hospital where she decided against a caesarean section but for comfort medications and hospice for herself. This case shows how Carder’s own rights were ignored while the physicians, hospital administration, and the courts fought over the conflict between maternal and fetal rights. The result was an important step in the legal process that not only secured, but also clarified, the rights of pregnant women (Murphy, n.d., p. 49-52).

Of all the legal, ethical, and moral issues we Americans continuously fight for or against, abortion may very well be the issue that Americans are most passionate about. The abortion issue is in the forefront of political races. Most recently the “no taxpayer funding for abortion act”, has abortion advocates reeling. Even though abortion has been legal in every state in the United States since the monumental Supreme Court decision, “Roe v Wade”, on January 22, 1973; there are fewer physicians willing to perform abortions today than in 2008. (Kraft) At the heart of the ethical dilemma for many in the medical profession is the viability of the fetus. And just to make this whole dilemma more confusing, according to the United States

According to Carmen Shalev (1989) and John Robertson (1994), both of them libertarians and progressives, women are free to do whatever they want to do and feel is proper to do with their wombs and reproductive capacity. Shalev goes further and, at least once in her famous book ‘Birth Power’, she states that a woman holds the right to make a profit from her womb just as any other person holds the same right to obtain benefits from the private property she has accumulated throughout her life. I object to this argument due to its lack of clarity. It seems that, in Shalev’s view, women are a certain type of owners of ‘reproductive’ property that is just waiting to be exploited for profit purposes. Shalev points this out in the name of women’s power to decide the best way to make money.

According to the findings by Mariotti (2012), the psychosocial and emotional components are an integral part of every woman’s pregnancy, and she can make decisions of whether to sustain life in her own uterus or end it (p. 269). At the same time, numerous studies have questioned the personhood of the fetus to provide well-evidenced approaches to evaluation of its social and legal status. Does a woman provide it with all necessary resources and substances like a donor? Does she have a right to extract it from her body in case she does not want to give it life, has some health care issues that put her and the baby at risk, or carries a fetus that was the result of a rape? All those questions are easier to ask than answer, but women should have the right to do with their body everything they want.