Last One. I figured I would push all of the hot buttons today.
The arguments of whether abortion is moral or immoral are too cut and dry. There are always exceptions to the rule in whether a fetus is a person or not, and whether killing is immoral or not. I would like to expand on Jane English’s idea that you can not judge whether abortion is immoral or moral solely based on the idea of what a person is. In this essay, I would like to prove that the argument about the morality of abortion is not cut and dry and in some cases abortion is moral and in other cases it is immoral.
In the typical abortion debate there are a number of cases that are discussed. These cases are the case where the mother’s health is threatened by the pregnancy, the case where the pregnancy is the result of rape, and the case where the woman does not want to be pregnant.
The first case that I will discuss is the case where the mother’s health is threatened by the pregnancy. Even though rare, there are cases today in which it is discovered that the mother may die if she carries the fetus to term. In such a case, I believe that it is not immoral to have an abortion. A woman has a right to protect herself even if that means killing an innocent fetus. The future of an adult woman is more important than that of a fetus, who may not even make it to term. Using English’s example, if a hypnotized person was told to attack you with a knife, it would not be immoral for you to kill the person (even though he or she is innocent) in order to save yourself. It is unfortunate when such cases arise, but in such cases the woman has the right to do whatever she can in order to survive.
The second case is that in which the pregnancy is a result of rape. In this case again, I think it is not immoral to have an abortion. The woman should not be held responsible for something that she did not consent to. In such a case, the woman’s mental health is more important and has a higher priority than that of an unborn fetus. Since acts of violence like rape affect a person on many levels (both mentally and physically), the mental health of the woman is just as important as the physical health of the woman in our last example.
However, in such cases as this I believe that a line should be drawn as to when the abortion should be performed. Since the woman will not physically die as a result of this pregnancy, the fetus should not be aborted at a stage in which it will physically suffer. I do not know exactly when an abortion should no longer be performed, but I do know the extremes. During the first couple of weeks after conception, the unborn child is classified as a zygote because it is just a cluster of multiplying cells. At this stage, the unborn child can not feel any pain and it is not immoral to have an abortion. However in the seventh month of pregnancy if the child was born, it could survive. At this stage of a pregnancy, the fetus is very similar to an infant and it can feel pain and would suffer as the result of an abortion and in such cases, abortion is immoral.
The last case is where the woman does not want to be pregnant. In such cases, I believe that an abortion should only be performed during the beginning of the pregnancy for the same reasons that I stated previously. An abortion after this point (whatever it may be) would be immoral.
In such a case where the woman consented to having sex and she will not suffer any physical harm from the pregnancy, I believe there is a limit to the number of abortions that should be performed. If a woman does not want to get pregnant, there is contraception available. I know that nothing is absolutely preventative accept abstinence, and that is why abortion is not immoral in such cases when the pregnancy was an accident. However, it is immoral to use abortion as a means of birth control.
To illustrate, if a woman walked down a particular street and was attacked and killed the attacker in self-defense, she would not be acting immorally. Now, if the woman continues to walk down that same street without taking any other precautions, it is not moral to continue to kill the attackers in self-defense because the entire situation could be avoided. People are supposed to learn from their mistakes. When children put their hands in fire, they learn that it burns and they no longer put their hand in the flame and the same is true for getting pregnant. Abortion should be used as a last resort and if a person uses abortion as birth control, they are acting immorally and irresponsibly.
In conclusion, it is obvious that there is no clear-cut answer to whether abortion is moral or immoral. However, different situations lead to different responses to abortion. If a woman will die as a result of carrying the fetus to term, then an abortion is not immoral. If a woman becomes pregnant as a result of rape, since she did not consent and she could suffer mentally as a result of carrying the baby, then an abortion is not immoral so long as it is performed towards the beginning of the pregnancy. Lastly, if a woman does not want to be pregnant, it is all right to have an abortion during the beginning of the pregnancy so long as she does not use abortion as a means of birth control. Such behavior is immoral because it is not using abortion as a last resort.
