Abortion: The Ethical Battle Essay

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Abortion: The Ethical Battle

Background

Abortion has been around since the beginning of recorded history, but only now in the 21st century has it become something that is frowned upon. In many cultures such as the Assyrian, Jewish, and Greek, it was very normal to have abortions and was not at all frowned on. In fact, the Romans would use abortion to limit family sizes. Even in these situations though the father of the family would always take the decision as to whether or not it was ethical and if the abortion would be performed or not. This debate even though very little before, turned into a very large and popular debate with the roe v. wade case in the 1973. This case made it legal for a woman to have an abortion in the earlier months of her pregnancy. After this, there was an evolution in abortion cases. Abortion went through a phase where it became legal to perform them in hospitals or in private clinics. This made it a lot safer for women to abort a pregnancy, but quickly following these events, many people who were against abortion began to harass those getting abortions and protest even to the point of violence in some cases.
Points of View

The issue of abortion has been a problem for many years. A large part of the debate over abortion is the ethical issue of it. Is it unethical or immoral to have or to perform an abortion? When this is brought up, generally people form into two main groups which are pro-choice and pro-life. Still, many are not against, nor do they promote abortion. People who are pro-choice commonly believe that an abortion has nothing to do with morals, and those who are pro-life who believe it is an ethical issue. Inside of their two debates, it boils down to whether or not it is killing. People who are pro-life generally take a biological approach to abortion, arguing that a human being is a human being no matter how small. On the other hand, pro-choice people take a more thought based approach where they believe that it is only a problem to kill a being that can think and function on its own. It then comes down to whether or not it is okay or not to kill a fetus. While these two approaches make sense and are both valid, Professor of philosophy from Kansas University Don Marquis states (2006) that “[killing] deprives one of all the experiences, activities, projects, and enjoyments that would otherwise have constituted ones future.” This would mean that we should avoid killing anything that has the possibility of a valuable future.

Pro-choice

Those who are pro-choice like mentioned before take a more psychological approach to abortion. On this side, a person is a person when they can reason and function for themselves which means that a fetus still doesn’t have valuable life worth saving, but that after birth when the baby functions on its own then it is a person and has it’s worth of life. They also focus on the fact that a woman should have the choice to decide what she wants to do with her own body and life. Finally, Pro-choicers believe that those who follow pro-life movements promote the violation of human rights. Pro-choicers believe that an embryo is not yet a person, they are against the religious belief that at conception, an embryo is a person. When a baby is conceived, the first couple of days, the cluster of cells are often times no bigger than a raisin. According to this information, these cells are far smaller and more primitive than a fish or a bird. It is for reasons like these that those who are pro-choice don’t believe that abortion is murder because these reasons show that a fetus is not yet a person. A woman should have the opportunity to do what she wants to with her own body and with what she wants to do with her life. Women who can’t have an abortion and have to have