Abortion and its effects

Introduction.

Abortion can be defined as pregnancy termination that results to fetus death. This issue is considered as a sensitive, divisive globally. The method for pregnancy termination is dependent on the pregnancy stage, the institution policy and needs of the patient. Abortion laws liberalization in various parts has led to spectacular increase in the number of abortions undertaken in hospitals, clinics and physicians offices. Healthcare providers in objection of abortion are morally and legally free to opt not to take part in the procedure. They are advised to avoid situations which involve responsibility for the patients’ care who choose abortion to terminate an unwanted pregnancy. This paper discusses two Don Marquis and Judith Thomson who have written about abortion. It gives their position on the issue of abortion. It also gives the moral principle of egoism and relativism. Evaluation of the philosophers views according to the moral principles and the author’s position.

Philosophers’ description.

On his essay, Why Abortion Is Immoral, Don Marquis makes the assumption that it is typically wrong to kill a human being. He asserts that killing a human being deprives them of their future. It denies an individual of what they value currently as well as what they would value in time to come. Some of the connotations of Marquis on regard to the wrong of killing are that it is critically immoral to kill infants or children. It also implies that biologically human life can have a great moral worth. Additionally it might be typically immoral to kill some presently existing non-human mammals. Depriving a being the value of future like that us makes its killing wrong. When a fetus is killed, its value of a future like that of us is denied. This fact makes the fetus killing immoral.

On her essay, a defense of abortion, Judith Jarvis grants the premise that a human embryo is a person. She challenges the notion that one can effectively argue from this premise that all abortion is morally impermissible. Judith claims that the fetus is a human being and all human beings have the right to life; hence the fetus has the right to life. He also argues that the mother has a right of deciding what takes places in and to her body. However, the right to life of a fetus outweighs the right of the mother to make a decision on what takes place in and to her body. As a result, the fetus may not be killed, and the abortion may not be carried out. Judith suggests that abortion may sometimes be permissible morally. This is in the event that it saves the mother’s life or when it is as a result of rape (Rachels, & Rachels, 2011).

Moral principles.

Relativism and abortion.

The universal consensus in regard to the inviolability of innocent human life is among the weighty characteristics of moral and juridical conscience of a man. The moral relativism reigning today has managed to muddle common sense in regards to the human life; life and death have become insignificant issues. In the standpoint of abortion advocates, the new human life in the womb is just a potential human biological material. They are lives from a biological point of view, but not from the cultural and philosophical point of view. On this note, suppressing the fetus’s life amounts to suppressing a biological material and not a human life. Philosophical relativism affirms that there is not immutable human nature. Relativism theorists state that human beings or being a human are philosophical concepts that do not have correspondence to any objective truth since there is no existence of objective truth. Therefore, relativism would assert that abortion can be allowed in some situations. For instance, when the mother’s life is at risk or when a rape led to the pregnancy.

Egoism and abortion.

Ethical egoism does not imply that a woman is being selfish on her abortion decision. For instance, when a woman opts to have an abortion because she is not ready to have a child, she has not financial or emotional support or she is still schooling. The woman opts that it would benefit her more to have an abortion. This does not necessarily make her a dreadful person. The universal ethical egoism states that all people ought to act in their own self interest, irrespective of the interest of others, unless their interests act as hers. In this case, the woman who made a decision of procuring abortion will not worry on bringing unplanned child to the world.

Evaluation of Philosopher’s Views according to Moral Principles.

An indispensable condition for the wrongness of killing a being is that doing this would interfere with fullness of the desire of living. However, do not have a desire to continue living. Therefore, relativism would argue that killing them is not wrong. However, Marquis argues that only victims can be wronged. Therefore, it does not hurt an embryo to procure an abortion. Contrary to what Marquis claims, denying a human being the privilege of a future like us is not right. This is because if the contentions of Marquis were true, then use of contraceptives would not be right and this sounds rather strange. Marquis argument is against moral egoism as it gives all rights to the embryo with no options for the mother to act in her own interest.

Judith Jarvis shows agreement with relativism when she claims that abortion is permissible in some situations. Her agreement with abortion in some situations indicates that she agrees with moral egoism. In this situation, the mother is allowed to act in her best interest. When abortion is done for the greater benefit of the mother, then according to Judith this would be permissible.

Student’s position.

Abortion has been a subject of heated debate for years now. This subject needs to be handled with sober minds. Though abortion has been demonized in many quotas, those opposing ought to consider both sides of the matter. In some situations, pregnancy takes place in circumstances that are traumatizing to the mother. For instance, some of the pregnancies take place due to rape. In other circumstances, the pregnancy may be a threat to the life of the mother as well as that of the child. In these situations, I would support abortion to be procured. Nonetheless, in the event that mother or the unborn baby is not endangered, then there is no justification for abortion to be procured. Before deciding on whether to procure an abortion, the rights of the unborn together with those of the mother should be considered. There should be clear rules regarding when abortion is permissible to avoid its misuse.

Reference

Rachels, J. & Rachels, S. (2011) The Right Thing To Do: Basic Readings in Moral Philosophy New York: McGraw-Hill

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