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Is Abortion Ethical?

SabahTheLoner

Master of the Art of Couch Potato Cuddles
I don’t have a problem with abortions but my mom knew women who had to have them because they were too poor for long-term childcare and they said that afterwards they feel sad about the fact their baby couldn’t be born. Not depressed sad, just sad that the abortions had to happen, but they knew it was better than living with a child they couldn’t feed. And like other people said, sometimes there are medical reasons why a woman might need an abortion. Sometimes it’s known before birth that the child will have a fatal disease, other times the fetus can actually attack the mom’s body.
 

sun rise

The world is on fire
Premium Member
So how do you stand on a fourteen year old rape victim who does not want the baby? Also, how many children have you adopted?
As to the first question - I answered it in my last paragraph.

What does what we did have anything to do with anything. If you don't believe people are waiting to adopt children, say so.
 

9-10ths_Penguin

1/10 Subway Stalinist
Premium Member
As other posters have mentioned, when the in-utero child is capable of surviving outside the womb (even if a little help is needed), then I think the decision has been put off too long, and that abortion should probably not be allowed except in the case of imminent danger to the mother's or child's survival."
So wait until the womb is no longer strictly needed to insist that it be provided without its owner's consent? This position seems like the worst of both worlds... though you aren't the first person I've heard suggest it.

However, at the end of the day, and those considerations aside, I have no choice but to leave the decision to the mother, and her alone. And what she decides, I will consider ethical.
Well, that's good.
 

निताइ dasa

Nitai's servant's servant
I think abortion is generally unethical (morally wrong). There are exceptions that are morally excusable however (cases where child is severely disabled or mothers life at risk).
 

BSM1

What? Me worry?
As to the first question - I answered it in my last paragraph.

What does what we did have anything to do with anything. If you don't believe people are waiting to adopt children, say so.

Orphanages all over the world are full of kids.
 

9-10ths_Penguin

1/10 Subway Stalinist
Premium Member
Some 20 odd years ago i was faced with this question as an Anesthetic Technician, we were given the option of yes or no for attending abortion surgery ....

My conclusion was, I do not approve of abortion as a method of contraception.... so No
I do however approve in cases of pregnancy from Rape, or when the mother and potential child
have blood groups that are poison to each other, or life is endangered by the continuation of pregnancy .. so that is a Yes ...
How about second-guessing the autonomy of your patient? Do your ethics have anything to say about that?
 

9-10ths_Penguin

1/10 Subway Stalinist
Premium Member
As the infant of a district midwife i was oft in the care of my mother the midwife during school holidays,
attended many births, and read all the medical books around the house ...
so no i do not accept your first sentence that all are endangered by pregnancy ... care during it is important ....
One of my best friends - who had all proper care during her pregnancy - would have died from pulmonary hypertension if she hadn't happened to have been close to a hospital when the problem suddenly arose. They saved her life by immediately delivering her baby prematurely. With slightly different circumstances, her pregnancy would have killed her... and with no suggestion that anything was wrong until it was suddenly life-threateningly wrong.

Even here in Canada, which has one of the best maternal mortality ratios in the world, pregnancy and childbirth kills 7 women for every 100,000 live births.

Maternal Mortality Ratio - Wikipedia

There are countries where the maternal mortality ratio is worse than the mortality rate of American soldiers in World War 2.
 

निताइ dasa

Nitai's servant's servant

We've had this debate before. Basically:

1) If a fetus has a right to life then that right of life cannot be violated even as a means of restoring another right (autonomy, life etc). An action that does this is morally wrong.

My rationale:
There is no strong imperative to restore violated rights but there is to not violate already intact ones. For example, take life. There is not a strong onus to heal people who are dying but there is a strong onus not to kill people who are healthy. In a similar way we have a strong duty not to steal (i.e not violate rights of property), but a weaker duty to restore the property of victims of theft. When a women is pregnant, her right of autonomy has already been violated (either out of her own actions, or action of others, i.e rape). Thus the culprit must be punished for that transgression. However, she cannot use other's rights (namely a fetus' right of life) as a mere means to restore that autonomy. I cannot steal from someone else (violate their right of property) merely because someone stole from me (to restore my violated right of property).

2) A fetus has a right to life

My rationale:
Essentially my definition of person-hood is eventual rationality. Sentience is too wide (think animals etc) rationality alone is too narrow (i.e we exclude comatose patients, etc) and thus eventual rationality I think is an arguable definition.

3) Abortion does violate a fetus's right of life as a means of restoring autonomy. (this just follows from (1) and (2) )

Conclusion: Therefore Abortion is morally wrong.
 

Jumi

Well-Known Member
If you don't believe people are waiting to adopt children, say so.
Everyone knows there are not enough people waiting to adopt and it's always been this way. And not all the places people dump their unwanted kids(or children born out of wedlock, as some moral requires) take care of them. Where abortions were illegal, it was often left for religious institutions, who cared less for the children than many people expected.

Mass grave of 796 babies found in septic tank at Catholic orphanage in Tuam, Galway - BelfastTelegraph.co.uk
'It was a prison': Man born in Irish orphanage where mass grave discovered demands apology

This is by no means a problem of only the Irish.
 

sun rise

The world is on fire
Premium Member
Everyone knows there are not enough people waiting to adopt and it's always been this way. And not all the places people dump their unwanted kids take care of them. Where abortions were illegal, it was often left for religious institutions, who cared less for the children than many people expected.

Mass grave of 796 babies found in septic tank at Catholic orphanage in Tuam, Galway - BelfastTelegraph.co.uk
'It was a prison': Man born in Irish orphanage where mass grave discovered demands apology

This is by no means a problem of only the Irish.
"Everyone knows" - well, I'm part of everyone and I want to see some statistics.
 

Jumi

Well-Known Member
"Everyone knows" - well, I'm part of everyone and I want to see some statistics.
Why aren't orphanages and similar children's homes not empty? One of my close relatives adopted a kid for this reason. There were still many left there, even though abortion is legal here.
 

Laika

Well-Known Member
Premium Member
I think it's time for a good healthy debate. What is your stance on abortion? Do you think it is ever really okay or not? Why do you think so?

I'm Pro-Choice by default. I don't have the belief in a God to command people not to have an abortion so for me it would rely on a secular justification for the state to deny women the right to control their own bodies. That would be hard to do.

Personally, it is a very emotive issue about whether a fetus should be aborted, whether that fetus has a "right to life" and the arbitrariness of defining person-hood from birth. I can sympathise the Pro-Life arguments but I don't believe I have the authority to force women to be human incubators as a duty to the state simply because the idea of "killing babies" makes me uncomfortable. Treating either women like cattle or babies as disposable is not an attractive choice however you put it.

moreover, women will try to get abortions regardless as to whether they are legal or not, and that should really be done safely- so that is a fair argument for legalisation.
 

Enoch07

It's all a sick freaking joke.
Premium Member
I'm having an extremely hard time with this question. Recently, I've been re-evaluating my stances on a lot of things and abortion is the one topic that has been stumping me. On one hand, you have the rights of the woman to consider. And what if it was from incest or rape that she got pregnant? But on the other hand, you need to consider the fetus and whenever it's life starts. I guess it all just depends on what you deem life beginning at, but yeah...

I think it's time for a good healthy debate. What is your stance on abortion? Do you think it is ever really okay or not? Why do you think so?

If the life of the child and mother are in danger I would consider it ethical. If the pregnancy is the result if rape and/or incest, I would also consider it ethical. If not for either one of these reasons imo, its unethical. For those worried about overpopulation, if your so worried about overpopulation why is being able to abort more important than asking people who do not want children, to stop having sex. Perhaps we should castrate people who do not want children. Surely it is more ethical than allowing them to have sex, just to abort an unwanted pregnancy?
 

PureX

Veteran Member
I'm having an extremely hard time with this question. Recently, I've been re-evaluating my stances on a lot of things and abortion is the one topic that has been stumping me. On one hand, you have the rights of the woman to consider. And what if it was from incest or rape that she got pregnant? But on the other hand, you need to consider the fetus and whenever it's life starts. I guess it all just depends on what you deem life beginning at, but yeah...

I think it's time for a good healthy debate. What is your stance on abortion? Do you think it is ever really okay or not? Why do you think so?
Do you have the right to impose your beliefs on others by denying them the right to choose their own beliefs? Because that's what the anti-abortion people want to do. And that's the crux of the abortion debate.

No one thinks abortion is a 'good idea'. No one believes that aborting fetuses is a morally desirable solution to the problem of an unwanted pregnancy. Everyone understands that it's a bad solution to an even worse problem. But until we can come up with a better solution to that specific problem it's the only immediate solution we have available to us.

But this is a separate issue from the question of forcing our own preferred solutions onto other people (and their bodies) because we think our solution to their problem is "right" and their solution to their problem is "wrong". Once we open up that "can of worms" we have opened the door to a far greater realm of man's inhumanity to man (and more specifically to woman) than allowing abortion, does.
 
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BSM1

What? Me worry?
We've had this debate before. Basically:

1) If a fetus has a right to life then that right of life cannot be violated even as a means of restoring another right (autonomy, life etc). An action that does this is morally wrong.

My rationale:
There is no strong imperative to restore violated rights but there is to not violate already intact ones. For example, take life. There is not a strong onus to heal people who are dying but there is a strong onus not to kill people who are healthy. In a similar way we have a strong duty not to steal (i.e not violate rights of property), but a weaker duty to restore the property of victims of theft. When a women is pregnant, her right of autonomy has already been violated (either out of her own actions, or action of others, i.e rape). Thus the culprit must be punished for that transgression. However, she cannot use other's rights (namely a fetus' right of life) as a mere means to restore that autonomy. I cannot steal from someone else (violate their right of property) merely because someone stole from me (to restore my violated right of property).

2) A fetus has a right to life

My rationale:
Essentially my definition of person-hood is eventual rationality. Sentience is too wide (think animals etc) rationality alone is too narrow (i.e we exclude comatose patients, etc) and thus eventual rationality I think is an arguable definition.

3) Abortion does violate a fetus's right of life as a means of restoring autonomy. (this just follows from (1) and (2) )

Conclusion: Therefore Abortion is morally wrong.

This sounds like you're saying in the case of a rape impregnation that the woman has no choice but to bear the child. Isn't this like saying if someone sets your house on fire you arrest the arsonist, but the homeowner has to let the house burn down?


If the life of the child and mother are in danger I would consider it ethical. If the pregnancy is the result if rape and/or incest, I would also consider it ethical. If not for either one of these reasons imo, its unethical. For those worried about overpopulation, if your so worried about overpopulation why is being able to abort more important than asking people who do not want children, to stop having sex. Perhaps we should castrate people who do not want children. Surely it is more ethical than allowing them to have sex, just to abort an unwanted pregnancy?

It sounds like you're saying abortions are ethical as long as they meet your criteria--rape, incest, etc. I think most people have a problem of the right of choice being ethical, not the actual abortion.
 

Enoch07

It's all a sick freaking joke.
Premium Member
It sounds like you're saying abortions are ethical as long as they meet your criteria--rape, incest, etc. I think most people have a problem of the right of choice being ethical, not the actual abortion.

Your right, but the OP is asking for people's opinions on abortion. So I gave my own personal opinion. It is in these cases only would I ever consider abortion an option. The right of choice is ethical under my criteria. My opinion is that it is unethical to abort for any other reason.
 

9-10ths_Penguin

1/10 Subway Stalinist
Premium Member
We've had this debate before.
Right - I forgot.

Basically:

1) If a fetus has a right to life then that right of life cannot be violated even as a means of restoring another right (autonomy, life etc). An action that does this is morally wrong.
But does this apply generally? We don't force people to donate life-saving organs or tissue - or even blood - and we don't force people to put themselves in peril to save others, so it seems it's not true in a general that we demand that others give up their autonomy or bodily security to save another life.

You say that you're considering a fetus a person, but it seems that you're demanding rights for the fetus that actual people don't enjoy.

My rationale:
There is no strong imperative to restore violated rights but there is to not violate already intact ones. For example, take life. There is not a strong onus to heal people who are dying but there is a strong onus not to kill people who are healthy. In a similar way we have a strong duty not to steal (i.e not violate rights of property), but a weaker duty to restore the property of victims of theft.
That seems like a wonky approach to me, but regardless... you think that a fetus - something that depends on a form of literal life support to live - is more akin to a healthy person than someone who's close to death? Why?


When a women is pregnant, her right of autonomy has already been violated (either out of her own actions, or action of others, i.e rape). Thus the culprit must be punished for that transgression.
A person can't violate their own autonomy. In most cases, the first thing that would violate that right is being refused an abortion.

However, she cannot use other's rights (namely a fetus' right of life) as a mere means to restore that autonomy. I cannot steal from someone else (violate their right of property) merely because someone stole from me (to restore my violated right of property).
Are you talking about legal or moral rights here?

Legally, it's clear that yoir interpretation is wrong: if my property is stolen and then sold to an unwitting third party, I can get my property back, even if the unwitting third party can't recover the loss from the thief.

2) A fetus has a right to life

My rationale:
Essentially my definition of person-hood is eventual rationality. Sentience is too wide (think animals etc) rationality alone is too narrow (i.e we exclude comatose patients, etc) and thus eventual rationality I think is an arguable definition.
"Arguable" is an understatement... but it seems like you would agree that a fetus has no more rights than a person does; correct?

3) Abortion does violate a fetus's right of life as a means of restoring autonomy. (this just follows from (1) and (2) )

Conclusion: Therefore Abortion is morally wrong.
Except you haven't established that the fetus's "right of life" supersedes the right of the pregnant person to autonomy and bodily security. All you did was decree this without justifying it.

In general, autonomy and bodily security always win out over the right to life: for instance, people aren't compelled to risk their lives or provide organs and tissue for others. This right even continues after death: if your wish while alive is that your organs not be donated, then when you die, your organs are buried or cremated regardless of how many lives they would have saved.
 
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