View of Abortion: The Question of Human Life and Death

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Table of Contents

Introduction
Personal Sociological Imagination
Public Sociological Imagination
Personal Opinion
Conclusion
Works Cited

Introduction

Abortion is a controversial topic because it deals with the question of human life and death. There are no contemporary ethical issues so emotionally charged and inviting of public, political, legal and moral controversy as those involving matters of life and death. Abortion is one such ethical issue and one that has the capacity not only to cause extreme and damaging divisions among people, but violence as well. abortion is defined differently by those who do support it and those who do not. This is significant, in that it again raises questions concerning the supposed value neutrality of so-called ‘objective’ moral definitions and concepts, and the extent to which these can be ethically loaded (Stetson 34). Thesis Using sociological imagination, it is evident that abortion is morally right and permissible because it benefits a woman and society in general.

Personal Sociological Imagination

In order to describe the question of abortion it is important to define and explain it. “Abortion’ as a ‘spontaneous or induced termination of pregnancy” (Stetson 32), and “miscarriage’ as the ‘the spontaneous loss of an early pregnancy at any stage before the twentieth week after conception” (Stetson 34). Pro-abortionists use similar language when discussing abortion, tending typically to define it in terms such as ‘terminating pregnancy’ or “ridding the products of unwanted conception”. Anti-abortionists, by contrast, tend typically to define abortion in such terms as “artificially causing the miscarriage of an unborn child”, or of “killing an innocent human being” (Stetson 32).

Primarily, the question of abortion affects women and their health. The decision to make an abortion involves emotional and psychological trauma, but it some cases it can be the only possible solution to family problems. Abortion is not morally wrong because it helps a woman and family to make their choice and control their destiny. “If we want poor women to make choices which might benefit the larger community then society needs to make choices which benefit poor communities” (Colker 49). Critics state that abortion is a traumatic event causing emotional suffering. Thus, pregnancy and child birth is mare traumatic causing physical changes and psychological stress. A woman should have a right to choose her destiny and avoid health risks. Very often, illnesses and psychological disorders are the main causes of abortion. Some women have to choose between personal health and unborn child. Another popular argument raised in defense of abortion under a moderate’s banner is that a woman is under no moral obligation to bring a pregnancy to term, particularly in instances where the pregnancy has been forced upon her (as in the case of rape), or where the pregnancy has not resulted from a voluntary and informed choice (as in cases involving the intellectually impaired, the ignorant and uneducated, or, quite simply, contraceptive failure). “A woman who has not chosen to engage in sexual intercourse is not likely to have the opportunity to choose to use contraception (and certainly will not be able to persuade her partner to use contraception)” (Colker 68).

Financial considerations are also important when a woman decides to abort a child. “The fundamental mistake in the Court’s analysis is that pregnancy is not actually entirely a physical condition. By not covering those costs, the state exacerbates the poverty of women in society, a poverty that is related to the financial burdens of childcare that women disproportionately face” (Colker 92). The main problem is that a family or a single woman cannot afford a second or a third child. If pregnancy requires a woman to make a large sacrifice — and one which she is not willing to make — it is morally permissible for her to terminate the pregnancy. It could, of course, be objected that the kinds of sacrifices a woman might ultimately be required to make by giving birth could be avoided by her allowing the unwanted child to be born. They include financial considerations, a desire to limit family size (from one other child to many others), that they are unmarried, that the lover-or-husband does not want a child, that a child would wreck a fragile relationship with the man or make the relationship permanent, fear of birth defects, because of parental pressure, that they are too young or too old, and (strange though it may sound) even that they love children too much to bring one into the circumstances of their world. Among the very young, however, it may be safely speculated that age itself is an influential factor in abortion decisions (Stetson 32). Some women get abortions because they do not want to have a child at that time in their lives. Informal surveys of counselors at abortion clinics and pro-life organizations reveal that the reasons women offer for not wanting a child vary enormously.

Spiritual considerations are important for religious families believing in God’s providence and destiny. The pro-life perspective conceives of the individual woman as an extended figure. A woman is part of a set of mutually beneficial obligations that individuals have to each other (Stetson 23). The joys and pains of childbirth are well documented. Viewing pregnancy as the fulfillment of beneficial obligations requires a stress on joy instead of pain. The Good Samaritan role–roughly, rendering assistance beyond that which duty requires–stresses the painful character of pregnancy. In both roles, however, the individual woman is an extended figure. The private figure of pro-choice gives way to the individual who merges self-interest with the interests of others (Stetson 99).

Public Sociological Imagination

Public is split in the expected ways on this issue (pro-life firm in their belief that the fetus has the moral status of a human being, pro-choice holding to the conviction that human being-ness comes about later in time). Pro-life advocates are as one in their beliefs about the origin of life, while pro-choice people disagree on the point of origin and are also inclined to dismiss the question as not vital to their own position. Pro-lifers march in step with each other on the bottom-line view that human life begins at conception. Pro-choice advocates agree that a human being is not present at conception, but their views are scattered on when human status is achieved and where morality enters abortion decisions (Abortion Statistics 2006). In order to investigate public situation, it is important to take into account statistical results and abortion trends. The pregnancy rates go up as the socioeconomic status goes down. It is not clear that abortion rates increase with lower socioeconomic status. In a study of Rhode Island, a state with a predominantly white and Catholic population, 56 percent of all pregnancies in teenagers at the highest socioeconomic status ended in abortion, while only 22 percent of pregnant teenagers living in poverty areas got abortions.

Best estimates are that the greater number of poor women who get pregnant at least evens out these percentages, so that the number of abortions among poor teenagers equals, perhaps exceeds, those among more affluent teenagers (United States Abortion Statistics n.d.). In New York State, the highest abortion rates among pregnant women occur in girls under 15 and women over 40. More abortions, however, are obtained by women in their twenties. Thirty-five percent of all abortions in the United States are performed on women in the 20 to 24 year old age group, another 20 percent on women in the 25 to 29 year old group. Given this, it is difficult to avoid the impression that the ongoing abortion debate is as much a matter of disagreement of religious dogma as it is of moral values. Abortion is usually viewed as both a moral and a legal problem. In this instance, morality and legal law have vitally interdependent roles to play in ensuring the realisation of just outcomes. Common questions which both law and morality attempt to answer include: Who, if anyone, ought to be permitted to have an abortion? Under what circumstances or conditions might abortion be allowed? Generally speaking, there are roughly three positions that can be taken on abortion: a conservative position, a moderate position and a liberal position (Abortion Statistics 2006).

According to the conservative position, abortion is an absolute moral wrong, and thus something which should never be permitted under any circumstances — not even in self-defense, such as cases where a continued pregnancy would almost certainly result in the mother’s death. A common concern among conservative anti-abortionists is that, if abortion is permitted, then respect for the sanctity of human life will be diminished, making it easier for human life to be taken in other circumstances. Arguments typically raised against abortion here are almost always based on the sanctity-of-life doctrine (Stetson 92). Whether human beings do in fact have a natural right to life, and whether fetuses are in fact human beings, are matters of on-going philosophical controversy. Thus, following (Colker 49):

Society’s failure to provide decent housing, nourishment, and healthcare to all of its citizens may seem as unreasonable to poor people as poor people’s failure to use condoms may seem to middle-class people. Society needs to respect the lives of poor women by giving them real options to escape the cycle of poverty. When society offers poor women such respect then society can expect to receive respect in return” (49).

Abortion is permissible provided that it is procured during pre-sentience (i.e. before the fetus has the capacity to feel). Since a fetus cannot feel, it cannot be meaningfully harmed or benefited. Thus, as with other non-sentient or pre-sentient entities, it makes no sense to say a fetus has rights, much less a right to life. In the case of post-sentience, Abortion may still be justified on carefully defined grounds, namely: self-defense (for example, where the life or health of the mother would be at risk if the pregnancy was allowed to continue); or unavoidability (for example, where abortion cannot be avoided, such as in the case of pregnancy or accidental injury). Abortions performed on lesser grounds are unjustified (Kramlich 783).

Since fetuses are not undisputed persons, they do not have the same rights not to be killed as do actual undisputed persons. Thus, in the case of life-threatening pregnancy, at least, a woman’s right to life overrides that of the fetus. If women are not permitted to have abortions, the community might find itself deprived of the beneficial contributions that a woman freed of the burdens of child rearing would otherwise be free to make (Kramlich 783). There are also cases in which others stand to benefit from the pregnant woman’s bearing a child, and that this too might contribute to the community’s benefit. The bottom line of this position is that abortion is morally permitted in some situations, and might even be ‘morally required’ in others, and it is not morally permitted in some other types of situations. Colker underlines that:

When poor people also act in ways consistent with those majoritarian values by not valuing the length of their lives, we should not be surprised or look to poor people to change. We need to change the social fabric in which we all live, in which we all fail to value life and choice for poor people (Colker 49).

In other words, it is one thing to be human in the genetic sense, but it is quite another to be human in the moral sense. These two senses are quite distinct, and care must be taken to distinguish between them (Cleland and Marston 6). The consequence of this is unavoidable. It has yet to be demonstrated that the genetic humanity of fetuses alone qualifies them to have fully-fledged membership of the moral community. A fetus is not a person. It is nothing more than a newly implanted clump of cells. In defense of this claim, she argues that a fetus is no more a person than an acorn is an oak tree. The analogy can be extended further to show that, just as stepping on an acorn is significantly different from cutting down an oak tree, so too is aborting a fetus significantly different from killing an actual person (Colker 112).

Personal Opinion

I suppose that the mother has a right to control her body and life’s circumstances. It might be claimed, for example, that a woman’s right to choose her lifestyle, career, economic circumstances, standard of health, and similar, override any claims the fetus might have to be ‘kept alive’ (Colker 88). The mother may then withdraw her ‘life support’ even if this means the fetus will die in the process: an unfortunate, but nevertheless unavoidable, consequence. Against this, it might still be claimed that the inconveniences and other psychological, physical or social ills caused by an unwanted pregnancy are still not enough to justify killing the fetus and violating its right to life (Cleland and Marston 6). The demand not to kill the fetus becomes even more persuasive when it is considered that there are alternatives available for helping to prevent or alleviate the ills of unwanted pregnancies, such as child welfare and other social security benefits, adoption, counseling, medication, or, as some have suggested controversially, even extracting the fetus and placing it in a surrogate or an artificial uterus. (It should be noted that this latter suggestion is not as far-fetched as it seems. Work is already being carried out overseas on ‘maintaining uteri extracted from women outside of a woman’s body’, and implanting embryos into these wombs. The mother might, for example, contemplate getting pregnant for the sole purpose of growing tissue which can be harvested and transplanted into her brain or pancreas in an attempt to restore her health (Colker 72).

The most obvious is the fetus’ and the mother’s common claim to a right to life. This is particularly so in cases where the mother’s life would almost certainly be lost if the pregnancy were allowed to continue. In such situations it seems reasonable to claim that the mother’s right to life must at least be as strong as the fetus’ right to life. It is difficult to see how anyone could reasonably and conscientiously choose an outcome which would see both the mother and the fetus die. Furthermore, as has already been discussed elsewhere in this text, morality does not generally require us to make large personal sacrifices on behalf of another, and thus it would be morally incorrect to suggest that the mother has a duty to sacrifice her life in defense of the fetus (Colker 98). In the case of life-threatening pregnancies, then, it seems reasonable to conclude that the pregnant woman’s right to life has the weightier claim. This means that society will invariably encounter moral disagreements in abortion contexts — many of which may not be able to be reconciled. The discussion has also warned the nursing profession that it cannot afford to be complacent or indecisive about taking a formal position on policy formulation in relation to abortion practices and procedures and the questions of social justice these raise (Stetson 92).

I suppose that the central issue of the regulation of abortion practices is whether abortion is, or can be assimilated to, homicide. The paths to this central issue are marked by strong arguments against state regulation of abortion. There are also strong arguments against government regulation of abortion practices even when the minimum test of direct physical harm is met. The right to control one’s own body and the location of the unborn individual in the body of another render abortion a type of action that today is normally shielded from state regulation. The shield cannot insulate individuals from state regulation if abortion counts as homicide. For homicide is a clear instance of those actions any state must regulate. The most cogent test to use in determining whether the state ought to regulate abortions is the capacity of the unborn individual to suffer harm. In simplest terms, one cannot harm those who cannot be harmed (Stetson 88). But even if, as seems likely, some zone for exceptions can be carved out of the dialogue, the main area of disagreement will not be touched by this appeal. Indeed, after allowing for that small number of exceptions that some pro-lifers accept life of the mother, pregnancies from rape or incest — the disagreement between the two individuals remains substantial (Stetson 72).

Conclusion

Abortion is like no other issue in its capacity to enlarge our moral and political perspectives. From personal standpoint, abortion is moral ad permissible because it allows a woman and a family to decide its destiny and life path. At the center of abortion disputes is this question: Many extended and poor family are not supported by the government and women have to make abortion to avoid financial burden and poverty. Abortion should be permitted in a variety of exceptional circumstances, when for example the woman’s life is in danger, on the grounds that even the highest moral rules have limits. From public standpoint, abortion benefits the society because undesirable children become a real burden for society and tax payers.

They join the army of poor and criminals. There were numerous difficulties involved in formulating and applying precise criteria of personhood. An entity does not need to have all five attributes described, and that it is possible that attributes given in criteria are sufficient for personhood, and might even qualify as necessary criteria for personhood. Given these criteria, all that needs to be claimed to demonstrate that an entity (including a fetus) is not a person is that any entity which fails to satisfy all of the five criteria listed is not a person. Abortion is the only possible way to control population growth and avoid the army of poor and unemployed. These facts show that abortion is the only possible decision for many women to avoid undesired pregnancy or health risks caused by pregnancy. Many poor families and single mothers cannot afford a second or a third child unable to support a new born. Abortion is often considered an immoral act, but it is the only possible decision to save happiness of a family and women’s health.

Works Cited

Abortion Statistics 2006. Web.

Cleland, J., Marston, C. Relationships between Contraception and Abortion: A Review of the Evidence. International Family Planning Perspectives, 29 (2003), 6.

Colker, Ruth. Abortion & Dialogue: Pro-Choice, Pro-Life, and American Law. Indiana University Press. Bloomington, IN. Publication Year: 2002.

Kramlich, M. The Abortion Debate Thirty Years Later: From Choice to Coercion. Fordham Urban Law Journal, 31 (2004), 783.

Stetson, D.M. Abortion Politics, Women’s Movements, and the Democratic State: A Comparative Study of State Feminism. Oxford University Press, 2004.

United States Abortion Statistics. n. d. Web.

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