Abortion

2 Pages 458 Words

Abortion

Abortion is a controversial subject that has been the center of debate and rhetoric for several decades. But what exactly does this word “Abortion” mean? According to Webster’s dictionary it is: The termination of pregnancy and expulsion of an embryo or of a fetus that is incapable of survival. Now let us take this a step further. The word “embryo” is defined as: An organism at any time before full development, birth, or hatching.
There have been numerous scientific and religious debates about this topic, yet the pure ethics of this issue are sometimes overlooked. A good way for someone to refer to abortion on an ethical or philosophical basis would probably be through the description and evaluation of the subject based on the beliefs of Immanuel Kant. Even though Kant does not address the issue of abortion as a topic directly, one can search into discussions about the moral agent and how we should treat people. By this formulation Kant argues that human beings are not simply of subjective importance to them, but are of objective importance to all others as ends in themselves. Therefore, in making moral decisions we should act in a way that recognizes the objective importance of every other individual. The above could probably be used for a pro-life position. The pro-life arguments, which are against abortion, are the following: 1. It is a murder to kill an innocent human being 2. A human fetus is an innocent human being 3. Therefore, in conclusion it is a crime to kill a human fetus. On the other side, we have perhaps a stronger, and more philosophical argument which is that although the fetus has some future rights to self-freedom, if it was the case that the child would be severely handicapped to the point where self-consciousness would be impossible or their freedom to take control of their being was nil, then perhaps Kant would argue pro-choice. Pro-choice suggests that a fetus is not a human being until it:...