Debate On Abortion: Is It Ethically Permissible?

Exegesis

Abortion is termed as the termination of the foetus that has no power to live (Dworkin, 2011).  The whole process of abortion may be viewed in different dimension by different people. In my argument abortion should remain legalised to make a woman free from physical and health problems. Women should have equal right to abortion just like any other right. The plans that every human being has are crucial and very important. Woman should feel free to get rid of the foetus at any given time she wants. It is unethical to restrict the woman from her rights.

According to World Health Organization (2015) abortion which is legalised and done under medical control is safer than illegal abortion that is done secretly by unqualified medial doctors. The first person who makes decision on whether to undergo abortion is the woman. There is a great risk that sometimes occurs during the process. Some abortion is not dangerous especially when allowed and done medical doctors. The whole matter cannot be stated as safe at all. There is evidence of women who has died while undergoing this process of abortion (Bryant, Grimes, Garrett & Stuart, 2011).

The act of abortion should be plainly left to the woman to decide whether it is bad or not. Few people criticize abortion and say it is a best practice and therefore the only person that remains with the decision is sorely the woman. It should be therefore good to legalise abortion in our societies. Believers don’t conquer with the practice since they see it sinful when done by human kind. There is a great controversy on whether to legalise abortion or not.

Thesis: decrees barring abortion prevent liberty of select and risk physical and mental health of the woman

The first premise argues that even if the foetus is a person, abortion remains morally permitted. According to Bridges (2011) the right of a foetus don’t supersede the right of the mother to control her body and its life support function. Foetus in my view is not a human being, just like any other cell in the body or any body part so is the foetus. If a person can undergo surgery and any part removed, the same way a foetus can be removed .A foetus is just but a cell. Cells die and degenerate again, since foetus is a mass of cells therefore it’s not a human being.

A person is a being with certain capacities for example reasoning, morality and self-awareness, and is culturally made of social relationship and has a legal obligation. A person is somebody who physically or mentally can control an activity on his own without being reminded on what to do .Based on Pruss (2011) he argues that if abortion is wrong then amputating somebody hand due to accident or any other factor is totally wrong removed .At a certain developmental stage there is a view of some organs developed which resemble that of the human being. If then we terminate the foetus we don’t terminate life at all. To add on this there is no difference between taking a contraceptive and abortion; it means that both practices are same. But if we claim use of contraceptive is legal, and then abortion should be allowed, they go hand in hand with it without objection.

Premise 1

Women have the final say without question, they have authority over their own bodies. Trying to tell a woman to carry pregnancy for nine months is inhuman and unethical too (Pruss, 2011). She has control over her own body throughout her life. Raising a child is not an easy task to enrol to due to lack of financial ability as well as stability in relationship.

The second premise will argue that many women will make decisions to do abortion since they are unwanted pregnancies. In regard to this the mother will conceive while she is not prepared and has no potential to cater for the new-born (Pallitto et al., 2013). This is due to high cost of living and other factors such as cases of rape and defilement. Such cases are dehumanising and the mother can’t cope up with the pregnancy of unknown person and the people she don’t have any relationship.

Any tabled right becomes legalised, since foetus are not people at all the legal aspect of abortion allows them to be terminated. If the foetus is not a person then it means it is just like any other non-living thing. Therefore, terminating the pregnancy has no question of humanity in it.

Burgess (2010) argued that it’s morally wrong to kill a foetus that has potential to life. People against abortion tend to argue that foetus is like real human being since it has the ability to undergo evolution to become a mature human being. The fact that abortion is wrong is to take position that a person existing was given the chance to evolve and become a human being, and then it means that if the potential existence will be shunned. It means that killing a foetus is merely killing the real human being which is openly wrong (Burgess, 2010).

Many times we argue that abortion is a solution to people practising careless sexual behaviour to many people, thus here the solution is not terminating the foetus and this can’t be allowed at any mean. This is inhuman since the foetus has upcoming future just like that of the mother.

Based on Parent (2017) moral values means doing what is right at the right time, we can’t then fail to put limits on this issue since caress sex behaviour can be prone issue all over. Careless sexual behaviour is totally unethical and abortion coming from that behaviour is out of my argument. Self-discipline is crucial in any aspect of life; irresponsible sexual behaviour cannot be grilled towards abortion. This will lead to more irresponsible sexual behaviours in action .There is the legal frame to which abortion should be permitted; this will culminate the issue of irresponsible sexual behaviour. If legalised to all dimension immorality will pick at a highest degree (Sundaram, Juarez, Bankole& Singh, 2012).

As stated earlier in my thesis about woman being in danger either physically or mentally when pregnant, and as seen in the human right that foetus is not a person it means, if the mother has some health problems that can be affected by pregnancy, it is better for pregnancy termination to occur to keep the person alive and discard the foetus who is not a person.

The rights of the woman should be protected whether or not the pregnancy is there or not, it is by means clear that any other surgery that can occur in one’s body to save her, then it means that abortion falls in the same category. Health wise the woman should be fit physically and nobody should rule her throughout in her life and must be made legal.

References

Burgess, J. A. (2010). Potential and foetal value. Journal of Applied Philosophy, 27(2), 140-153.

Bridges, K. M. (2011). Privacy rights and public families. Harv. JL & Gender, 34, 113.

Bryant, A. G., Grimes, D. A., Garrett, J. M., & Stuart, G. S. (2011). Second-trimester abortion for fetal anomalies or fetal death: labor induction compared with dilation and evacuation. Obstetrics & Gynecology, 117(4), 788-792.

Dworkin, R. (2011). Life’s dominion: an argument about abortion, euthanasia, and individual freedom. Vintage.

Pallitto, C. C., García?Moreno, C., Jansen, H. A., Heise, L., Ellsberg, M., & Watts, C. (2013). Intimate partner violence, abortion, and unintended pregnancy: Results from the WHO Multi?country Study on Women’s Health and Domestic Violence. International Journal of Gynecology & Obstetrics, 120(1), 3-9.

Parent, W. A. (2017). Privacy, morality, and the law. In Privacy(pp. 105-124). Routledge.

Pruss, A. R. (2011). I was once a fetus: That is why abortion is wrong. In Persons, moral worth, and embryos (pp. 19-42). Springer, Dordrecht.

Sundaram, A., Juarez, F., Bankole, A., & Singh, S. (2012). Factors associated with abortion?seeking and obtaining a safe abortion in Ghana. Studies in Family Planning, 43(4), 273-286.

World Health Organization. (2015). Health Worker Role in Providing Safe Abortion Care and Post Abortion Contraception. World Health Organization.