Abortion Ethics Essay, Research Paper

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.