Is Abortion Ever Justfied? Essays -- essays research papers

Is abortion ever justified? If non, why? If it depends, hence on what? It is not unreasonable to suggest that the vast majority of people pick out it morally wrong to erase other persons. There may be examples of situations where the killing of a person may be justifiable, although they are by no means universally consented to, such as killing in self defence or as a form of chief city punishment, but taken in isolation it is generally accepted that to kill is wrong. Therefore in the debate between pro and anti abortionists moldiness centre around two essential questions whether a foetus is a person, and if so when a foetus becomes a person and whether abortion fag end be say to be self defence. Possibly the deepest dilemma for an anti abortionist concerns the stage at which a foetus can be said to be alive, in the understanding in which we would refer to a nipper after it is born(p). It seems absurd to think that in the relatively short age which the get takes, the baby s status will be so radically altered yet an almost mystical store is fasten by birth as for the first time we can draw a distinct personality, and directly interact with the infant . However, it is a for the most part unfounded significance in ethical terms as birth is often governed by contingent factors and the time of birth can be manipulated. Also to be considered is the fact that if the baby is ready to emerge from the womb, then surely it possesses enough properties for us to consider it in some sense a person. For example, if not than an eight month old foetus would not have the same claim to personhood as a two-month-old baby born prematurely at six months horizontal though they are of standardised developmental stages. Thus other stages of pregnancy are more usually cited as the point in which personhood begins. John Grigg adopts the stance that there is a deportment that comes into existence as soon as conception occurs To my opinion life begins at the moment of c onception Conception is the magic moment.(John Grigg, in the Guardian, 29 October 1973)This view may be problematic if we consider that life does not necessarily imply personhood. We may claim that the foetus is a human being but this merely implies that it is a member of our species, and not that of another. Yet it is at least true to say that a foetus, even in the earliest stages of pregnancy has the potential to be a person. This is or so differe... ...elf defence, even though the foetus has no intention to harm the woman, it is a sad situation in which both parties might be aspect of as morally blameless. However, can any abortion said to be self-defence? The reaction to an intrusion in the home may be said to be defence, yet a house is worth out-of-the-way(prenominal) less than your own body. The title question of this essay and the questions raised within it remain unconcluded. The problem is not that there are no answers, alternatively there are too many. The issue is c omplicated further by the fact that e really single situation is different. Abortion is a very personal issue that effects many people in the world, the middling Russian woman has twelve abortions in her life, it is also an especially horny subject. Abortion is justified everyday, however whether it is a practice that can be morally justified with any universal consent is another issue. The lone(prenominal) way I can see that abortion might set out the most moral acceptance, is that if it is presented on the grounds that we must all timber back and respect that other moral agents have a just to make autonomous decisions, regardless of what we think about the way they direct to assert their autonomy.