The Social, Moral and Ethical Dilemma That Abortion Causes

Social, moral and ethical dilemma of abortion
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Moral, social and ethical dilemma of abortion
For a long time, the history of abortion has dominated the current human world with different views projected from various social, religious and legal institutions. Legislations have been formulated by the various governments that have legalized abortions while other agencies and particularly some faith-based organizations have strongly opposed these bills. However, these legislations have done so little to lessen the cases of abortion in different parts of the world. In the United States 58,586, 256 cases of abortion have been reported since the year 1973 when abortion was legalized in over 50 states of America (National Right to Life Committee, 2016). However, there has been a significant decrease throughout the years. Therefore, despite the rise of several associations that are dedicated to maintaining and fighting for human life the number of abortions is threatening the survival of the future generations. This has subjected medical professionals to a dilemma in exploring the abortion aspect. This paper shall focus on the social, moral and ethical dilemmas that surround the abortion debate.
Moral perspective of abortion
Sumner, L. W. (2014), argues that the issue of morality hinges on personhood and individuality. There is a moral conscience that every individual is born with that guides them into whether an act is right or wrong. Pro-life socialists insist that there is life in unborn children. They argue that the life of a fetus should not be cut off in whatever circumstances and argue that they have the right to live. On the other hand, pro-choice claims that fetus does not have the right to life as they are not living, breathing human beings until they reach the point of birth. This reason has been the contention in the debate that the growing fetus has different rights than the woman carrying the baby (Vaughn, L. 2015).
Scientists classify a fetus as a living being and therefore argue that life begins at conception. If this argument holds water, then abortion is, therefore, killing and morally murder is wrong. In 1971, Judith Jarvis Thomson, a moral philosopher, made a similar claim dubbed “A Defense of Abortion.” She raised the argument that abortion could still be morally allowed even if “the fetus has already become a living person before birth,” because “the right to live encompasses not in the right not to be killed unjustly CITATION Nat16 \l 1033 (National Right to Life Committee, 2016). When a woman makes a choice to carry out an abortion in a way that is deemed to be just, then no one’s right to life has been violated.
Social perspective of abortion
The social perspective is more of the religious aspect of it (May and Delston 2015). Every society has its set of rules and regulations that boil down to the moral conscience of right and wrong. While this is debatable, there is a religious aspect that argues that life comes from God and He is the author of our lives. This brings out the point that as a person, the right to end life is not in your hands. The Catholic Church is very vocal among other religions that condemn abortion in all aspects irrespective of the reason behind the pregnancy. According to the church, the child is an innocent victim even where the mother seeks to have an abortion of a pregnancy arising from rape. They say that the termination of the unborn child is a sin (Kulczycki, 2014). Catholics believe that deliberately and knowingly committing a wrongful act cannot be justified hence having an abortion cannot be justified in any circumstance. The Church is of the belief that even in one situation, one individual is allowed to willingly and knowingly commit evil so as to attain a good, and then the Pandora’s Box is stirred for everyone to defend themselves that they were simply doing a so-called necessary evil for the higher interest of everyone in the long run (Jellen, 2014). Therefore, the Church propagates that one innocent life cannot be taken away even when it would save millions of people.
The views of the Roman Catholic Church have received a lot of criticisms from various factions of the society, especially after the pope came out against abortion. There is a general view that the Catholic Church favors the fetus life than the life of the mother. In the situation where a pregnant mother is undergoing a surgery operation, they are put under anesthesia for smooth running of the process. The process is carried out diligently even when there is a high probability that abortion may take place. If abortion happens in the process without deliberate efforts of the medics then no sin is committed. However, if the nurse recommends removal of the fetus because it endangers the life of the mother, then it shall be done deliberately and according to the Catholic Church that is considered a sin (Jellen, 2014).
The cases of rape and incest are not considered as reasonable enough to guarantee an abortion by the mother. In this case the church recommends that the victim should take immediate action to prevent conception from...