Research Paper on Abortion: Pro-Life and Pro-Choice Moral Arguments is published for informational purposes only. The free papers are not written by our writers, they are contributed by users, so we are not responsible for the content of this free sample paper. If you want to buy a quality Essay on Research Paper on Abortion: Pro-Life and Pro-Choice Moral Arguments at affordable prices please use our essay writing services offered by EssayEmpire.

An abortion is the premature termination of pregnancy resulting in the death of any or all carried embryo(s) or fetus(es). In medicine, the following terms are used to define an abortion:

 - Spontaneous abortion: An abortion due to accidental trauma or natural causes. Also known as a miscarriage.

 - Induced abortion: Deliberate (human induced) abortion. Induced abortions are further subcategorized into therapeutic abortions and elective abortions.

 - Therapeutic abortion: An abortion performed because the pregnancy poses physical or mental health risk to the pregnant woman (gravida).

 - Elective abortion: An abortion performed for any other reason.

In common parlance, the term "abortion" is used exclusively for induced abortion.

A pregnancy that terminates early, but where the fetus survives to become a live infant, is instead termed a premature birth. A pregnancy that ends with an infant dead upon birth, due to causes such as spontaneous abortion, is termed a stillbirth. Certain forms of birth control are used to prevent implantation before the pregnancy occurs. These acts of emergency contraception are often considered the equivalent of abortion, but are not classified as such in medicine.

The ethics and morality of induced abortion have become the subject of an intense debate in the past 50 years in various areas of the world, including the United States of America, Canada and a number of countries in Europe.

Both pro-choice and pro-life often start their moral arguments from hard (loosely defined here as "extreme") cases. Here are three hard cases which lead people to favor legal abortion.

1.         A 14-year-old is raped by her mother's boyfriend. The assault on the girl is so severe she suffers a hairline skull fracture and a broken arm. She undergoes therapy with a psychiatrist to restore her mental stability. Upon finding out that she is pregnant, she immediately requests and receives an abortion. She says later that "I would have gone under with a baby. I had to forget the whole thing to stay sane."

2.         A woman married seven years discovers she has multiple sclerosis. She stops using birth control pills because they aggravate the illness. In spite of reasonable precautions, she becomes pregnant. She has an abortion, explaining that "I cannot care for a child, and my husband cannot bear the burden alone." Both the woman and her husband are relieved and have no regrets.

3.         A forty-one-year-old woman with three grown children accidentally becomes pregnant. After some discussion, she and her husband accept their renewed responsibility. She undergoes an amniocentesis test at the request of her doctor. The test indicates that the unborn child has Tay-Sachs disease. The woman decides to have an abortion, explaining that "My husband and I could not bear to allow a child of ours to suffer for several years and then die."

The appeal of cases like these is unmistakable and widespread. Public opinion polls (discussed in the fourth chapter) show that most Americans favor abortion in cases where (a) the pregnancy is the result of rape or incest, (b) the woman is physically handicapped, (c) the fetus suffers from a severe genetic defect, (d) the woman's health is jeopardized by the pregnancy, or (e) if the woman is a pregnant, unmarried teenager. Whether these beliefs are morally valid will be explored in a moment. But the cases do incline most people to a pro-choice conclusion. Now look at some hard cases that favor pro-life.

1.         A woman married for six years with two children in school accidentally becomes pregnant. She and her husband are in critical stages of their careers -- he about to change jobs, and she just getting established as a real estate broker. They are financially secure, but the prospect of starting over with diapers and nursery school is appalling to them. They both decide that she should have an abortion to keep intact the style of life they are living.

2.         A young married woman wants to have a baby with her husband, even though he is uncertain about taking on parental responsibility at this time in his life. To her delight and his surprise, she becomes pregnant. He argues with her at length and convincingly that the time is not right for them to start a family. Even though she willingly conceived, she reluctantly agrees to have an abortion.

3.         A thirty-eight-year-old woman becomes pregnant with her lover of several years. He is pleased and starts making long-term plans for their relationship, including marriage. She is not sure she wants to make the relationship permanent. She wavers over an abortion for several months, hoping that the amniocentesis test will demonstrate a fetal defect justifying an abortion. Instead, the test indicates that no problems exist with the fetus. In her sixth month of term, she finally decides to have an abortion and finds a doctor who will perform one on her.

These three cases are hard for pro-choice to use as a basis for their arguments. Though no opinion polls have asked such questions, the reasons for aborting in these three cases do not meet the tests widely accepted for legitimate abortions. Abortions performed (1) for convenience, (2) after consenting to pregnancy when no important impediments will interrupt carrying to term, (3) on the wishes of another (husband, lover, parents, etc.) instead of the woman, or (4) late in term when no overriding reasons of health or life exist, are not the stuff on which to build pro-choice arguments. Such abortions are cases that are more effectively used to support the pro-life point of view.

Those active in abortion politics are not usually moral philosophers. This fact may be classified in the benefit, not the loss, column by those responsible for counseling women contemplating abortion. Michael Herr in Dispatches describes a brief glance into the eyes of a long-range recon patroller as "looking at the floor of an ocean." Anyone who has studied moral philosophy in depth could not quarrel with this description as a metaphor for morality: visually rich, constantly refracted. Indeed, as we shall see very shortly, moral argument will not resolve the main disputes over abortion. But it is also fact that any exploration of abortion takes the inquirer very quickly into the language of moral discourse. The cases listed above, if read aloud to any attentive listener, will begin a discussion of abortion. Pregnancies from rape must place abortion decisions with the victim. Abortions on convenience are indefensible. Why (in both cases)? Because -- and here the rules and evidence of moral argument take over.

Among the gloomier discoveries made by the author in his inquiries is that morality almost never enters the counseling given by pro-choice organizations unless raised by the woman; and that the moral considerations pressed on the women by pro-life organizations are rigid principles drawn from the dogma of absolute fetal rights to life. If abortion is a moral issue (as it surely is), then an inspection of moral philosophy is bound to be helpful in arranging (without dogmatic rigidity) the complex and often conflicting principles in abortion arguments. Among the more modest goals might be some illumination into our intuitions on the hard cases often introduced to abortion disputes without any reflection on why they are hard cases.

Any student of moral philosophy can report that moral reasoning is not an axiomatic science. Reasonable people can differ on the conclusions of moral deliberation even when following the same rules and looking at the same evidence. But courses of action can also be narrowed, alternatives ruled out, rational (not axiomatic) conclusions reached if moral arguments are framed with care. An inspection of moral arguments over abortion may allow us to adjudicate between pro-life and pro-choice -- to see which of the sides is the greater persuasive force.

The moral arguments available in abortion issues are many and varied. The initial priority is language. The terms used to describe abortion and its referents are evaluatively rich. Those opposed to abortion often use "fetus," a word derived from Latin for "offspring" (and which is neutral between animal or human), though the pro-life movement much prefers the more evaluative phrase "pre-born child" (for obvious reasons). Those favoring individual discretion on abortion lean toward "embryo," from the Greek word meaning "to swell inside." The term "conceptus" is more neutral (though exceedingly abstract). It effectively covers fetus, embryo, and the less frequently used terms "zygote" (a cell formed from the union of two gametes -- a mature sperm and an ovum) and "blastula" (an early embryonic form). The strategy here will be to use fetus when discussing pro-life and embryo when discussing prochoice -- if possible. In this way, an acceptable language will be used within each point of view. Abortion, the act itself, means no more and no less than the failure of any process to attain full development.

Language clarification is only a preliminary, however. The second, and major, step in moral argument is to organize the relevant considerations in such a way that a rational conclusion can be drawn telling the affected parties what ought to be done. Suppose that we exhibit the underlying structure of moral reasoning in terms of principles and rules that must be interpreted and applied to human experience. The dominant principle in abortion is respect for the value of human life. It generates a widely held rule: "One ought not to kill human beings." This rule (as with all rules) may be established in a variety of ways -- discovered in natural laws or the word of God, chosen by individuals on rational grounds. But whatever the origin of the rule, it must be interpreted as to meaning and extension. What does "kill" mean? What is a "human being?" Applications of the rule to particular situations must be settled. Such settlement requires determining whether exceptions or defeats occur, these by combining description and additional rules. Self-defense, for example, will normally free persons from their obligation not to kill -- at least for the particular circumstances of saving their own lives. When the primary rule is interpreted, and when no exceptions or defeats occur, then a directive (recommendation, imperative) can be drawn (deduced, inferred) from the rule prohibiting killing, in this case, most appropriately, "Do not kill" (here and now).

No actual case of moral reasoning need ever exactly fit this simple outline. The outline may even be entertained as a metaphor, depicting our thoughts as we move from deeper rules and principles to practical cases of moral action. But the outline is still helpful in arranging various moral arguments for and against abortion. Both sides on the abortion issue, for example, respect human life and accept rules prohibiting the killing of human beings. (Were this not so, abortion would be easier to resolve and less interesting an issue -- one side could simply be labeled as killers and the label would be accepted by both sides). The disagreements over abortion occur on minor premises and the role of such premises in deriving either a pro-choice or anti- abortion conclusion.

Start with the opposition to abortion. The major rule is accepted -- "One ought not to kill human beings." Then two moves occur as minor premises. First, the issue of relevance is settled by an acceptance that the fetus is a human being and has a right to life. Second, very few defeating conditions are allowed. Some (not many) pro-lifers will not even accept self-defense as a justification for abortion, even when the fetus threatens the woman's own safety or physical well-being. On these two determinations (relevance, no defeats), it is then a straightforward matter to end with the moral imperative, "Do not abort," since it resembles a standard "Do not kill" imperative.

The pro-choice conclusion follows in logically similar ways. Again, the major rule is accepted. But then two different minor premises are introduced. First, and primarily, the embryo is not accepted as a human being, or the acceptance includes no right to life. Second, as an alternative, some defeat is accepted. For example, self-defense may be claimed. If the embryo poses a physical threat to the woman (causing renal deficiency, for example), then, though the embryo does not intend to harm the woman, a case for aborting is accepted sometimes even by those who accept the fetus as human. Either premise permits abortions by denying the moral imperative routinely accepted by pro-life.

These two patterns of reasoning are skeletal forms. The logic dominating each form, however, is clearly expressed. The pro-life argument extends the no-killing rule from start to finish. The right to life of the fetus sustains the rule through to the conclusion. The pro-choice argument prevents the no-killing rule from yielding a moral imperative. Two tests halt the derivation. Either no human being is present or justifiable killing is demonstrated.

Each point of view -- pro-choice, pro-life -- is usually fleshed out with additional rules and principles. One helpful way to understand these rules and principles is to imagine oneself in the position of either a pro-life or pro-choice supporter. Then, within the skeletal form of moral reasoning, one searches for those things that will extend and elaborate one's basic convictions.

Start with the pro-life view. One important rule is the doctrine of double-effect. Stated succinctly, it is a rule prescribing that (1) bad effects not be intended either as a means or an end, and (2) the good effects which are intended should outweigh the unintended bad effects.

Example 1: Penicillin is a powerful drug that can adversely affect the fetus. If, however, a pregnant woman is ill with a serious strep infection, the objective of curing the woman is important enough to warrant use of the drug. The intended good effect -- combating the strep infection -- outweighs the unintended side effects of the drug on the fetus.

Example 2 (adapted from Dinello, 1971): Jones cannot live more than two weeks without a heart transplant. Smith cannot live more than two months without a kidney transplant. Each is the only possible donor for the other. When Jones dies, Smith gets Jones' kidney. If Smith is killed, Jones gets Smith's heart. A moral end to this story must consist of Smith getting the transplant.

Notice the differences brought out by these two examples. In example 1, a good effect outweighs unintended bad effects. Use of the drug is justified with the doctrine of double-effect. In example 2, a bad effect would be intended with surgical (or other) intervention. Thus the passive response is justified. Though each possible action in 2 -- do nothing vs. kill Smith -- leads to the certain death of one of the donor pairs and the salvation of the other, killing Smith is obviously wrong. It intends a bad effect -- killing a human being. Letting circumstances take their course is morally right. Even if Jones is the better person, or the needier of the two (with more dependents, say), or the more vital to society (an important scientist), no moral or legal code would sanction an active intervention to save Jones by sacrificing Smith. The doctrine of double-effect explains why these intuitively sound examples are also theoretically valid.

The extension of the doctrine of double-effect to abortion is unimpeded. Abortion is wrong because, on the acceptance of the fetus as a human being, it intends (for all practical purposes, especially in the early stages of term) a bad effect -- the death of a human being. One particularly controversial implication of the double-effect doctrine for abortion is that medical intervention is not justified even to save the mother's life. Like the Smith-Jones example, only the natural outcome of pregnancy is acceptable unless the lives of both mother and offspring are in jeopardy. (Then a greater good -- saving one life -- is preferable to a passive response that allows both individuals to die.)

The key to all moral principles used in the pro-life position is the starting point for human life. The pro-life position is firmly committed to the view that life begins at conception. Two arguments support this view. One rests on a theory of being. All that any individual has genetically is present at conception. Therefore, in the sense of genetic endowment, a zygote is human. The second argument rests on a theory of becoming. A human conceptus develops into a human being, not anything else. Like acorns becoming oak trees, the process is natural. (Only an external intervention or a deficiency within the process prevents the teleological end-state from being reached.) Thus any effort to abort such a process is, ipso facto, the termination of the end-state (the fully developed sentient being). In one sense, these two arguments are different -- one relies on what is, the other on what will be. But in another sense they are not. The fact that a full genetic endowment is present in the zygote is what makes the potentiality argument valid.

The pro-life belief that life begins at conception is supported by the natural continuum of gestation. One famous device used by pro-life supporters is the "slippery slope" argument. The argument is employed against any attempt to mark a stage in pregnancy before which pro-choice is valid, after which abortion is regulated or denied (as in Roe v. Wade ). The strategy is this: pick any point in the development of a fetus from conception to birth. Now if this point is to be a divider between permissible and impermissible abortions, I will choose a point a few hours or days earlier. You must then tell me how your point differs in a morally relevant way from mine. Obviously the "slippery slope" argument is effective because the slope between conception and birth is continuous, without natural demarcations. (Even "trimesters" is an arbitrary division of time.) The developmental nature of pregnancy provides a rebuttal to any assignment of human life to some stages of pregnancy while denying the assignment to others. But the "slippery slope" argument is ineffective toward those who maintain that life begins at birth (or later).

The pro-choice position, as might be expected, is elaborated with different rules and principles. Pro-choice proponents also interpret some of the same rules and principles differently when they extend across both positions. The fundamental moral principle for prochoice is the right to control one's own body against social regulation. This right is deeply embedded in Western traditions. John Locke stated that "every man [woman] has a property in his [her] own person. . . ." Authority over one's body is a right of privacy, in the most intimate sense. Though many laws prohibit suicide, the right to one's own body is at the center of what is minimally meant by individual liberty. The pro-choice position again and again comes to rest on this right.

But, since rights to privacy (however conceived) do not override rights to life, the pro-choice position also develops several theories on killing, letting die, and the beginning of life. One powerful, though limited, principle in defeating no-killing rules is a consideration of the interests of others.

Example 1 (adapted from Thomson, 1971): An individual is asked to give periodic blood transfusions to a close relative, his aunt. The aunt has a rare and fatal disease. She will die unless she receives bimonthly transfusions. Only her nephew has the right blood type for such sustained therapy. His own health will be jeopardized by this arrangement, the welfare of his life considerably reduced.

Example 2: A human being attacks another for no good reason, threatening his life. The only way in which the victim can save himself is by killing the attacker.

Both examples expose a general truth sometimes ignored in abortion issues. The right to life is conditional, not absolute. The nephew is under no overriding obligation to begin the blood transfusions simply because of the aunt's right to life. She does not have a right to maintain her life no matter what the costs of doing so are to others. If the right to life can be realized only at the expense of others' lives or basic welfare, at least the question is open whether the right ought to be exercised. Example 2 makes the same point in more dramatic fashion. A right to life means only a right not to be killed unjustifiably. Self-defense is justifiable homicide. Or, as Thomson (1971) establishes more exactly, (a) a right to life, and (b) a right to have those conditions necessary to life, are two quite different rights. And (b) does not follow necessarily from (a). Type (b) rights are, in the parlance of the day, morally negotiable. The main effect of distinguishing (a) and (b) type rights is that abortion can then be justified even when the fetus is granted a right to life.

Three conditions are often introduced as restrictions on a right to life. One, the narrowest and least controversial, is self-defense. Few disagree with the view that a woman has a right to maintain her own life when threatened by continued pregnancy. Some conditions of pregnancy, like ectopic pregnancies, cancer of the uterus, and a severely traumatized uterus, can only be treated by therapies that usually result in termination of the pregnancy. Even the prolife movement -- for example in the Human Life Amendment -- generally favors abortion in such conditions. (Though not unanimously -- Notre Dame law professor Charles Wright has urged that no exceptions allowing abortions be introduced to the Human Life Amendment.) Maintaining the mother's life is the sole criterion agreed on by friends and foes in battles over federal funding of abortions. Abortions are almost always accepted when self-defense is demonstrable.

The abortions justified by self-defense are few in number, however. Threats to the woman's life are unusual experiences today, becoming increasingly less likely with improvements in medical techniques. Federally funded abortions were reduced to miniscule levels when rape, incest, and threats to the woman's life were allowed as the only legitimate reasons for a publicly financed abortion. Also, self-defense is a public justification, subject to approval by medical and perhaps political authorities. Since the pro-choice movement believes that authority to end pregnancies should be solely with the woman, self-defense is at best a fringe issue in the pro-choice movement.

A second condition restricting rights to life is euthanasia. It is also confined to a limited number of abortions. But it is an extremely controversial restriction. Let euthanasia stand here for any termination of life on the judgment that the life is not worth living. Applying this test to fetal life is very difficult. There is first the problem of consent. If an individual makes a judgment that his own life is not worth living, this is one type of moral problem. Many, though not all, would grant individuals the right to end their own lives on a variety of conditions (severe and endless pain, terminal illness, extreme physical debilitation, etc.). But a fetus cannot speak, cannot make such a judgment. Someone else must make the judgment on behalf of the embryo or fetus. Deciding for others that their lives are not worth living is more controversial, since what one person may judge as intolerable may be the very inspiration for another to accomplish admirable things. (The stories of severely handicapped individuals who lead full lives are numerous and well known.)

A second problem compounds the first. The defects of life are multiple and difficult to evaluate. A range of genetic and other defects can now be discovered through prenatal testing. Amniocentesis (the withdrawal of fluid from the amniotic sac by insertion of a needle into the mother's abdomen) can disclose the presence of several fetal problems -- Down's syndrome, Tay-Sachs disease, sickle-cell anemia, and many more. Which of these problems (if any) warrants an abortion? Tay-Sachs disease is a terrible affliction, limiting infants to a brief and painful existence. It is one of the stronger justifications for abortion. But Down's syndrome? Here children lead a relatively short, painless, and -- at lower men given to a golden retriever, renders the dog as intelligent as an average human being in the space of six months. Suppose the chemical is administered and then, two weeks later, the owner has a change of heart. An antidote is given that nullifies the effects of the chemical. Pro-choice people are inclined to see no morally relevant difference between (a) deciding not to give the chemical and (b) administering the antidote. The fact that the dog would become as intelligent as a human at the end of a process is not a consideration before it matures. In pro-choice perspectives, what is here and now counts, not what is there only potentially (as a future state of affairs). Abortion, though not exactly like birth control because of its costs and effects on individuals, is morally equivalent to birth control on the principle of moral symmetry -- the one preventing a process from beginning, the other stopping the process before it realizes its end.

Moral and life-conceiving rules/principles tailor neatly to arguments on abortion. Pro-life arguments deny abortion on the assumption that a fetus is human and has a right to life. This basic argument is enriched with strong condemnations of direct killing and a belief in the continuity of being from conception forward. Pro-choice arguments allow individual discretion on the belief that an embryo is not human and has no right to life, or that the conditions needed to maintain life can on occasion be justifiably withdrawn (as in self-defense, euthanasia, or the absence of consent to the pregnancy). A concern with actual as opposed to potential features of an embryo characterizes many pro-choice arguments. . .

Free essays are not written to satisfy your specific instructions. You can order a term paper, research paper or custom TOPIC at our site which offers professional essay writing services. Get your high quality custom paper at relatively cheap prices. EssayEmpire is the best solution for those who seek help in essay writing related to TOPIC and other relevant topics.