Abortion – Moral or Immoral? I would argue that abortion is immoral.

Abortion is a debate that continues day in, day out, year in, year out. We have laws that have been set into place, yet the debate continues. The opposing sides in the debate each strongly believe they are right. The pro-choice supporters see a woman's right to choose as central to the debate. The pro-choice advocates see the life of the baby as the most important concern. Very little middle ground exists on the issue of abortion.

I. When Does Life Begin?

[1] "Development of the embryo begins at Stage 1 when a sperm fertilizes an oocyte and together they form a zygote."
— England, Marjorie A. Life Before Birth. 2nd ed. England: Mosby-Wolfe, 1996, p.31
Pro-choice people do not think abortion is murder because they consider the aborted fetus a mass or cells or tissue. Abortion is the taking of innocent human life, which is wrong under virtually any circumstances. An unborn baby is meaningful human life that should not be considered expendable. After conception, there is no specific event that occurs in the development of the fetus that indicates a change in the fetus from not being human to becoming one. Human life begins with conception.

II. What is abortion? For this paper, I will be referring to an elective abortion.

[6] Oxford Dictionaries: the deliberate termination of a human pregnancy, most often performed during the first 28 weeks of pregnancy.

[7] Encarta World Dictionary defines Abortion as operation to end pregnancy: an operation or other intervention to end a pregnancy by removing an embryo or fetus from the womb

[8] The word abortion comes from the Latin abortio, which means to abort, miscarry, deliver prematurely. The Latin word abortus means "miscarriage, premature, untimely birth". In medicine abortion means ending a pregnancy prematurely.

Abortion - generally used to mean an induced termination of pregnancy (termination intentional).
Miscarriage - generally used to mean a spontaneous termination of pregnancy (termination not intentional).
Therapeutic abortion - induced termination of pregnancy to protect the mother's health or life.
Elective abortion - induced