The Ethics and Implications of Abortion

Whitney Elaine

Edited by Jessica Hwang

Dissecting Bioethics

Written on November 24, 2023

The Ethics and Implications of Abortion

This is a summary of the moral and ethical implications of both abortion

prohibition and legalization. Both proponents of the right to an abortion and those

who favor its prohibition are discussed in the article. 

According to a study on the subject, the prohibition of abortion raises the number

of illegal abortions, which in turn raises maternal mortality and infertility. Among

the reproductive rights of women and people with uteruses is the right to an

abortion. The right to family planning, the right to life, and the right to an abortion

are all intimately related. In this sense, the moral and ethical complexity of the

abortion debate affects many basic ethical issues, including women's and people

with uteruses’ attitudes toward abortion, the attitudes of families, communities,

states, and churches toward this issue, as well as the extent to which public

policy influences individual decision-making. 

The issue of abortion impacts the lives of multiple parties simultaneously: the

person who has chosen to end their pregnancy and the embryo (fetus) growing

inside them. Because he has the same right to start a family as a woman, the

biological father of the unborn child may also be impacted by this issue. But since

a person bears a child when they become pregnant, the issue of abortion directly

impacts both the person who bares their child and the unborn child. So, the

central query is whether or not to legalize abortion, which seems to be the moral

and ethical conundrum.

What is the view of those who support abortion prohibition?

Abortion opponents use the argument that abortion violates a woman's and

person with uteruses’ right to life to support their position. They contend that

since human life begins at conception rather than birth, an embryo's rights,

including the inalienable right to life, ought to be safeguarded on an equal footing

with those of other people. The Symposium participants on “Moral and Ethical Aspects of Artificial Termination of Pregnancy" articulated this viewpoint, stressing the importance of human life beginning at conception.

The so-called conservative point of view is that those who oppose abortion

frequently refer to the unborn child as such and feel that it should not suffer as a

result of the mother or parent’s issues or the circumstances surrounding its

conception. 

Proponents of this viewpoint contend that since the fetus has the potential to

develop into a person, any attempt on their life ought to be considered murder.

The creature's helplessness and total dependence on its birth giver, who must

ensure its safety, make guilt for the “murder” more difficult to bear.

Conservative defenders also oppose abortion at any point during a person’s

pregnancy, but hardline conservatives demand that no mitigating factors be

considered. Therefore, it is unacceptable to have an abortion when the birth

giver’s life is in danger, when rape occurs during pregnancy, or even in cases of

incest.

Those who are against abortion frequently use the loss of reproductive potential

and high maternal death rate as examples of how abortion causes harm to

society. The argument that abortion violates one's right to form a family can

also be made.

What is the view of those who support the legalisation of abortion?

Abortion rights advocates dispute the aforementioned claims with WHO statistics.

Undoubtedly, one of the reasons for infertility and maternal death is abortion.

Nonetheless, the World Health Organization makes it clear that risky abortion is

the cause of the aforementioned outcomes.

Abortion is risky when it is carried out by unqualified individuals, when the

conditions under which it is performed fall short of minimal medical requirements,

or when both of these situations exist. The World Health Organization reports

that tens of thousands more women experience serious health complications and

that 23,000 women die annually as a result of unsafe abortions.

Therefore, proponents of women's abortion rights fight legislative attempts to

restrict it, claiming that doing so will lead to an increase in illegal abortions and all

the associated problems. If abortion is legal, there is no reason why a pregnant

person who wants to end their pregnancy should go to untrained individuals who

work outside of hospitals or in unhygienic settings for assistance.

The phenomenon of "abortion tourism" to other nations where pregnancy can be ended without difficulty is another effect of the abortion ban. Regarding the

argument that the right to family planning is incompatible with the right to an

abortion, the World Health Organization defines family planning as the act of

allowing people to attain their desired number of children, if any, and to

determine the spacing of their pregnancies.  It is evident that a person’s right to

an abortion is connected to their right to family planning, which encompasses the

freedom from unintended pregnancies.

The ethical premise of the body's autonomy serves as a guide for proponents of

the right to an abortion. This postulate states that the freedom to choose not to

carry a pregnancy to term entails the right to control one's body, which includes

the right to an abortion. Since an embryo is not a person or a human being, every

woman and person with a uterus has the right to an abortion as part of their right

to control their own body. 

One of the primary ideas of an ethical, democratic, and free society is that each

individual should have moral justification for their right to bodily autonomy.

It is interesting to consider the perspective of American philosopher Judith Jarvis

Thomson. In A Defense of Abortion, her essay, she proposed various fictitious

experiments. One of them goes like this: “Imagine that there are human seeds

flying in the air that can fly into your room through the window and take root in

your carpet. Knowing this, you buy special window screens that rarely let these

seeds through. If you're unlucky, does the seed that flies have ownership of your

house?” The philosopher argues that no one's right to life entails another's

having to give it up for someone else's. As a result, even if we accept the fetus as

a complete human, it lacks the right use the body of a pregnant person as as

though they were merely a vessel for procreation. It cannot claim ownership of

the body.

Strong evidence also supports the claim that prohibiting abortion results in the

birth of unintended children, which in turn fuels the rise in abandoned babies,

infanticide, violence against children, postpartum depression, and mental health

issues in parents who are unable to care for their child because of a lack of

financial, psychological or time related resources.

Therefore, when abortion is outlawed, the number of illegal, "out-of-hospital"

abortions rises, which leads to an increase in infertility and maternal mortality.

This is in contrast to expectations that the birth rate would rise. One basic truth

must be realized in order to comprehend the essence of such a pattern in its

entirety. And it consists of the fact that the family's need for a specific number of

children is not resolved by the abortion prohibition. The taboo on abortion merely

"drives" these issues in an unlawful direction.

When examining abortion from a moral and ethical perspective, one must keep in

mind that it is a complicated and multifaceted matter of a person's moral and

psychological decision. Furthermore, only the person themselves is able to

decide whether or not to have an abortion. But in order to have that option,

abortion has to be legalized worldwide, at the very least.