Under What Conditions Should Abortion Be Permissible? Essay Sample

Abortion can be defined as the process of terminating a pregnancy that results in the death of the embryo or fetus. In the current society, everything is divided into good evil, right, and wrong. The distinction between the two is what brings the difference, as discussed in this paper. The paper discusses the issue is that if abortion should be permissible under what conditions should it occur.

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Sometimes society might look down upon the age at which abortion should be done. Other societies allow abortion regardless of the circumstances. Abortion could be conducted in the mother's health's sake, including her mental health (Giubilini and Francesca 261). It should be conducted in case of criminal activities and other instances such as rape, incest, or even child abuse. In other instances, it could be done when the pregnancy would produce unacceptable quality, and the child would have serious mental issues, serious genetic problems, and physical handicaps. Some governments would have policies to regulate how abortions should be done and for various reasons. For instance, when the government wants to regulate the population size of the country, as a way of regulating groups within a particular population (Giubilini and Francesca 261).

Abortion as a substitute for contraception, especially for the early stages of pregnancy. The United Nations in 1965 noted that some societies use abortion as a substitute for adequate provision of contraception, and the societies would do so purposely to regulate the population size (Giubilini and Francesca 262). Most of Western supporters of human rights do not support abortions, especially when they have been carried for unnecessary reasons. However, doctors argue that abortions should be part of a country’s policy (Giubilini and Francesca, 263).

Abortion and disability are another major concern as many ethicists feel like abortion should be allowed where the baby is born, and would suffer physical or mental handicaps. They feel allowing abortion; for this reason, is wrong to some extent because it implies that they and their lives are less worthwhile as compared to normal people (Giubilini and Francesca 262). The UK Abortion Act of 1967 noted that termination of pregnancy at any time should be significant to the risk of the baby. Conditionally, abortion should take place within six months of pregnancy (Giubilini and Francesca 263).

Abortion is also concerned with gender selection and eugenics. This is done by countries that do want to control the growth of population groups genetically. Recently, this has been a major criminal and human rights concern in most countries (Apostolaki, 2016). For sociological and economic reasons, some families prefer having boys rather than girls and parents do not discover the gender of the fetus in advance. Sometimes the fetus is terminated if found to be female in these circumstances.

World Health Organization notes that abortion should follow medical procedures because maternal deaths are caused by complicated and unsafe procedures (Apostolaki, 2016). As the organization reports, there are very few deaths that happen as a result of unsafe abortion. Between the years 2010 to 2014, the world reported at least 20% of pregnancies ended through induced abortion (Apostolaki, 2016). Surprisingly, more and more women are defending the need to have an abortion and to have a safe one. Global North and Global South acknowledge preventing unsafe abortion is one way of reducing avoidable maternal deaths as well as protecting international human rights.

In 2002, several countries permitted abortion within all grounds. For developed countries, this was marked by 65% and 14% for the developing countries (Apostolaki, 2016). Some of the other grounds include if a woman would have HIV infections and has an age of fewer than 16 years or either she is more than 40 years, and she is not married, or even the woman has more children (Apostolaki, 2016). The abortion, in this case, would be allowed to protect the existing children because of the contraction’s failure. For countries like the United States, Canada, Colombia, and India, supreme court decisions allow individual women abortion beyond the 20-week upper limit. In the majority of Muslim supported nations such as Tunisia and the United Arab Emirates, religion does not allow abortion to take place in such interpretations (Apostolaki, 2016).

Conclusively, the international human rights bodies call for reforms in maintaining safe abortions. The entire issue has gone so far as many people want abortion to be decriminalized. It is an issue of debate, but I think for certain circumstances as noted above, abortion should be allowed in all countries. All counties are governed by constitutions which guides them about the issue. I feel some of the circumstances noted above are worth doing, especially when the life of the mother is at risk.

Part 2

Under what conditions should abortion be impermissible?

Perhaps, there exist instances when abortion is seriously wrong. As analyzed here, these are the exceptions. They are considered unethical when eliminating a fetus because they bring controversial details for clear-headed opponents of abortion. As analyzed in the paper, these include, in case of rape for the first fourteen after conception when the fetus is not an individual.

First, abortion is impermissible because it is wrong to kill human beings. In most world communities, moral rights are used to guide the behaviour of individuals. A human being should have the same premise sense because it is wrong to kill something merely homo sapiens. Human being’s fetus is a member of the moral community. Warren (2020), extremely defends the permissive view on abortion. Warren says that genetic human is sufficient for moral humanity. He lists some of the characteristics that entitle an entity of a person. These include consciousness particularly in the capacity of feeling pain. Secondly, persons’ reasoning developed from a complex problem. Thirdly, in the capacity of communication where messages are indefinitely several possible contents and topics. And, in the presence of self-concepts and self-awareness.

Warren (2020), describes abortion as any being that does not make posses’ moral sense. Therefore, a fetus is a potential being and the fact that she is unborn does not provide claim end their life. A potential person has the right to live and for a reason, does not outweigh the right of a woman to obtain an abortion. If abortion kills newborns reason being, they are not full-fledged member of the community; then, it is by the same standard for killing newborns. As well as killing any non-human animal would also be permissible. In reality, this is not what happens (Warren, 2020). Marquis (184) noted that a woman would want to find a moral principle concerning the wrongfulness of killing. Marquis further noted that this tends to narrow down the scope that the fetus would not fall under it. Primarily, it is wrong to kill a human being, and, in this case, the pro-choicer knows fetuses are human beings (Marquis 190).

Killing through abortion is affects not only the murderer and its victims’ friends and relatives but also effects the victim. (Westlund 378). It results in loss of future value for the victim as believed by people who are dying. Each county’s constitution should consider fetus life as a person in the laws and policies (Westlund 379).

However, the moves to save the unborn may be difficult from that of the pro-choicer. The problem arises reason being the contractarian feels the difficulty of accounting for an individual who is not persons. Some of the reasons why some women abort are; firstly, unreadiness to become parents (Westlund 379). Statistics show that in the United States, over 1.2 million women abort each year for this reason. It is also referred to as unintended pregnancies, where the majority of the termination fully captures the reason and life circumstances behind women's decisions (Westlund 380). Secondly, family, social and economic factors make women end a pregnancy. Lack of financial resources and maybe the women have no partner is one of the common reasons why women abort (Edwards and Lee 255). This is because the women consider that if the child is born, it would need to feed, go to school, and the parent would not in the position to manage that.

Warren feels that unintended pregnancies would be estimated more accurately if developing countries give accurate information. When comparing the level of pregnancies in Tanzania and Latin American countries using available information, abortion in Tanzania is high as compared to those of Latin countries (Warren, 2020). When comparing the literacy level of the two, Latin Americans have fewer cases of abortion because they have higher literacy levels as compared to Tanzania (Warren, 2020).

In conclusion, the decision by women to abort is typically motivated by various factors that are interrelated in some way. Themes such as lack of financial support, loss of a partner, and resource limitations are some of the reasons women have for doing abortion. I think the limitation of data is one significant reason why the comparison between countries and creating awareness about the matter is becoming difficult. I feel it is morally wrong to abort for these reasons because a person can remain single parent and try to ask for assistance on how they could raise the children rather than terminating them before they are born. As a result, I feel preventing abortion would be so difficult.

Part 3

Imagine you are the decision-maker

Even though policy two says it is morally wrong to do an abortion, it is important also to consider some risks. Otherwise am making a strong argument that analyst one has a point right because sometimes if abortion is not done, it puts the life of the mother at risk as well. In the end, the mother can also lose her life. Consequently, here, the paper defends policy analysts one for all reasons.

Abortion can affect the loss of a family in many ways. I feel keeling an unborn fetus equals the brutalization of a person to death. Killing poses a premature death and cutting short someone natural lifespan. I think abortion is more costly to the victim because I cannot believe that she would have a valuable future. This is confirmed because most victims’ research shows that they undergo a lot of traumatic stress. Anyway, it is always important for the victim to note that what is valuable at a young age is not valuable at middle age. Therefore, I think it is better abortion be taken for serious reason when mothers’ life is at risk.

For policy two, abortion should not be permitted under the reasons stated because, for instance, the mother does not have the good financial background to support the child, she can always ask for financial support from friends rather than terminating the life the fetus (Greasley et al., 2017). Loss of a partner is not enough reason for terminating a fetus. I believe the world has at least 10% of single couples. These people strive and make a living to help their children (Greasley et al., 2017). For that reason, I do not think abortion option is the best for women to take.

Except for unusual circumstances, abortion is a serious wrong committed by many women. On the issue again, men are not left behind because, in one way or another, it is corporate matter to be handled by the entire community (Haugeberg, 2017). To some extent, I feel some governments have failed on responsibility and on making policies that govern how the how should be done. It is the time when we should regard a woman as a person but a container for a fetus.