Abortion Essay, Research Paper

The Morality of Abortion

Abortion, in my opinion, is the taking of a life. On the question of abortion being moral, the answer is, ending a fetus’ life under most circumstances is immoral. However, in instances of rape and incest, to have the baby would be immoral. Why should a child suffer because a seventeen-year-old girl forgot to use a condom in a moment of haste? I am usually pro-life and if there is anyway of keeping and supporting a healthy child than do it. For new life comes around only once in a while.

The quality of life is a major factor in the question of the morality of abortion. Just because the fetus may not be able to walk and talk does not mean that it is not alive. When parents decide whether or not to keep a baby, the option of adoption is not considered. The reason for this is that once the baby is born 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, the people should proceed with the pregnancy. If the answer is no, then they should consider adoption instead of abortion.

To keep our thinking clear, we must keep several issues in our minds. First, we should recognize the options available to a person with an unwanted pregnancy. She could have the child and raise it showing it the love it deserves; she could have the child and bear responsibility if she could have helped conceiving the child, or she could have the child and give it away for adoption regardless of how it was conceived. I think that when two people create a child, even if it is as small as a fetus it should still be considered a child because it is a living, breathing organism made by the two people. I also believe that a fetus has rights to a good life, love and happiness no matter how small it is and no one should be able to take that privilege away from them.

A credible objection to my main position is that abortion is right in cases of rape or incest. One good reason for this is that the 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. I am not saying that having the babies due to rape or incest is okay. Those are, in my opinion, the only abortions that should be allowed. In those instances, the parents should make the decision themselves, because only they know if they can handle living with a child conceived in those manners. To say that the abortion is moral because the pregnancy arose from a crime is not placing a value judgement on the child before it is born.

I believe that abortion should only be legal for the reasons stated above. When a person chooses to have sex she is taking a chance. This she does on her own free will, and she has control over what she is doing. If a person decides to have sex whether it is safe or not, what happens after that is her responsibility as well as his. If a person chooses to participate in this risky act they should be ready to face the consequences. Therefore my solution to the abortion problem is it should be illegal for those who chose to do what they did and are faced with their consequences.

The circumstances surrounding the pregnancy can be deemed moral or immoral, as can the abortion. This statement does not even come close to undermining my position. The fact that the pregnancy occurred illegally does not make that human being worth less than the one that was conceived by accident. A person should not interpret this in that way. Neither should they interpret it as that the values are the same and that total value is zero as a human being because it isn’t one yet. The moment of conception does not assemble a human the instant that the egg hits the sperm. However, it does create a life that has every right to come into this world. Science has determined when the fetus can think and feel. It is a proven fact that a fetus can function at four months after conception. The range for an abortion is between the third and fifth months. By the third month the baby is alive and therefore killing it is immoral. If it were impossible for us to know when a fetus could feel and think than the obvious answer would be that it is moral.

I think that it is important to remember that morals can be established for a society in particular. Even though, abortion is immoral its morality status can still be changed by the context of how the pregnancy occurred. By this line of reasoning you can follow me to the logical conclusion of this paragraph. Just because it is logical to terminate the life of a fetus because of a particular circumstance, it does not mean that it is moral to do so under any circumstance. What the issue comes down to is whether or not a child?s right to life compares to a woman?s right to control her situation. A child?s right to life should always outweigh a woman?s right to convenience. It is not unreasonable for society to expect that a woman go through a temporary inconvenience when a child?s life is at stake.

To conclude this paper, I have tried to show how quality of life must be added into the decision of whether or not an abortion is moral. I have tried to outline why abortion is immoral by guiding the reader through a series of steps outlining thinking toward the fetus and the way we should regard it. I also tried to state that social context must be taken into account that abortion is either one way or the other, depending on the circumstances surrounding how the pregnancy occurred. We should not regard it is as a lifeless thing until it can feel or think, whichever comes first. It should always be thought of as a living thing. I will close my paper with the following statement. While the men of the world try to hash this controversy out, it is important to remember that each life has value, no matter how young it may be.