Abortion Essay, Research Paper
Abortion
Life or Death, Who chooses? During the past quarter century, abortion has joined race and war as one of the most debatable subject of controversy in the United States. It discusses human interaction where ethics, emotions and law come together. Abortion poses a moral, social and medical dilemma that faces many individuals to create an emotional and violent atmosphere. In most arguments dealing with abortion there is always a position to be held about whether or not the fetus is a human being or not. There are many different arguments that have different views about the fetus, whether it has the right to live, or we get to decide that. Some believe that it is a human agent from conception to the time of birth. Others feel there is an arbitrary choice to be made in deciding when the fetus can be called a human agent. In these cases there is usually a time line during the process of fetal development that one claims before a certain time the fetus is not a human agent but, when that time line is crossed in development it should then be called a human agent.
Pro-lifer believe that life begins at the moment of conception. When the merge of the egg and sperm is complete, they are fertilized and known as the zygote. According to the book Problems of death: opposing viewpoints, abortion is considered murder by half of all Americans (45). The unborn baby still has a human life and not all of those advocating repeal of adoption laws can alter this. There are still many people who seek to protect the human who is still to small too cry aloud for it s own protection.
People, who are not against abortion, place different value on the life of the fetus, just because they think it is not alive. I agree that the fetus has not developed it s full potential as a human being, but neither have any of us. Nor will any of us anytime soon, that point of perfect humanness, when we die. Some of us may be less far along the path than others that does not give anyone the right to take away our lives. To say that 10-week fetus has less value than a baby does, also that one must consider a baby of less value than a child, and a young adult of less value than an old man.
The popular argument against abortion the Pro-lifer believe is that the fetus is a person; of course nobody would disagree that every person has a right to life. In this case a fetus has the right to life. The mother also, has the right to decide what should happen to or in her body but this claim would be seen by anti-abortionists as a weaker premise then a fetus having the right to life. This argument to me however does not seem to make sense. It gives no control to the woman having the baby.
I also feel that there is a strong case to be made about what the mother has to say in the topic of abortion. The mother has the soul right of whether to have or not to have the baby. There is a strong claim against that the child has a greater right to life then the mother and in this case she should allow the fetus to come to term. The falseness of this claim however is that, that really has the right to state who has a greater rights to life then the other. Those people who oppose abortion must realize that people most affected by the results of an act have the greatest choice. Lets say my parents tell me after I graduate from high school I have to go to college no matter what. Who in this case is effected the greatest on whether I go to college or not? I am, therefore the choice to attend college should be my choice instead of my parents. In United States, 1.6 million pregnancies have ended in abortion. Women with income under eleven thousand are over three time more likely to abort than those with income above twenty-five thousand (Everett, 25). The same is true for a mother. She is the person having the baby and will be the most effected in terms of taking care of the child and all the time and money needed to raise it. The pe
There is also the claim that doesn’t the fetus have a right to life because it will be a potential person. If allowing an abortion to take place because the fetus does not have the present ability to reason should it then have a right to life due to the fact that it will potentially be a person someday? This is a strong claim and there is of course no definite answer to handle the issue. All that can be done is to weigh both sides of the argument and find the most beneficial conclusion. I surely am not obligated to ensuring the life of potential people. Let s say that every grain of dust has the potential to become a person if it entered my house. Am I entitled to grant all those potential persons the right to life? Better yet let s say I am on a planet where if I were to donate my body parts they would become people. Must I give up my life in order to allow the potential people from my body to exist? I truly think not, implying such a burden on a person is not only out of the scope of being moral but it is supererogatory. This of course means an act that is above and beyond the call of duty. Clearly, no rule of morality requires you to attempt an action of this magnitude. It would be noble of course, but not morally wrong if the act was not committed.
It forces you to go out of your way and make sacrifices due to the existence of potential people. You should not be obligated to such choice for a person that does not exist. I also must claim that the fact the mother is an actual person and the fetus is a potential person gives the mother more control over choices instead of the potential person. Surely nobody would disagree with such a proposition. In that case the mother can decide to terminate a potential person because she is not obligated to insure something that does not in fact exist. It is clear that in any situation that a mother’s right to health, happiness, freedom, and life is far outweighs that of fetus, which has not developed fully. (Hadley, 52).
The final point I will make and which I feel has the most substance and intuition is that of women being suppressed in two different manners of society. First, let s state the facts that an anti-abortionist would agree with. In our society today women are surely oppressed. Whether this oppression is in job opportunity or a political arena we must all agree that women have it tough and have to work harder then males to get equal consideration. After all that’s what the feminist movement was all about. In establishing this obvious fact about women in our society how can we possibly put a second oppressing force on women in that they must carry a fetus to term? It just doesn’t make sense to oppress a group of people that already seems to be oppressed in a greater scope of the issue. On one hand you have women crying out for equal rights because they are treated unfairly but on top of that you are forcing them to do something to their own bodies that is clearly a choice for them to make instead of a society. Women should have equal rights in the job market and politically but they are also allowed the right to make a choice about what happens to or in there bodies regardless of what may result from that choice.
In conclusion, I think a women has the right to choose what she wants to do with her body, let alone a child growing inside of her. I don t think this is an easy decision for any person. Therefore, once the decision has been made, we should respect that person for having the courage to deal with such a problem. Regardless of what my believes are I think I would never discriminate against a person who have had the abortion, or who didn t.