People find themselves in a dilemma of making decisions while considering the repercussions of each. A person has to weigh those options depending on the moral implication each has on oneself or the society. Abortion is one of the major topics that have put people into a dilemma of whether to legalize or criminalize it. Some people oppose any form of abortion claiming that it denies a child the fundamental right to life. They state that a person undertaking or aiding abortion should face prosecution for having committed murder. However, some people reject this notion and argue that abortion is necessary for some instances like when the life of the mother is in danger. One aspect that emerges from abortion discussions is the morality of practicing or rejecting it. Abortion is an ethical issue requiring various ethical approaches to avoid a dilemma.
Argument for Abortion
Abortion proponents have put various arguments on why it should be legalized. First, proponents of abortion state that the life of a human being starts at birth. They produce various characteristics of a human being as the basis for their argument. Some of those features include the ability to make decisions, feel pain and respond to external factors. Abortion supporters opine that a fetus lacks such characteristics and is thus not classified as a human being ( Svenaeus, 2018) . Secondly, there are cases where the life of a mother has been in great danger due to the existence of the pregnancy. In such cases, doctors and nurses remain with the option of either saving the mother and terminating the pregnancy or losing both. Instead of allowing the mother and the child to die, healthcare professionals might decide to remove the fetus. Another reason why some people advocate for abortion legalization is due to the right the mother has on deciding on the number of children to have and privacy. According to those proponents, a fetus develops inside the mother’s body and thus she has the right to keep or terminate it.
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Arguments against Abortion
The first argument against abortion starts from the objection of life starting from birth. Those who advocate for the criminalization of abortion claim that life starts at the conception stage. Therefore, a fetus is a developing human being and has a right to life and thus a person who willingly terminates it is liable to murder charges (Marquis, 2021). The second reason why some people oppose abortion is due to possible complications that a mother can develop thereafter. Those complications are common in women with advanced pregnancies. Therefore, such a woman might find it hard to conceive or experience a miscarriage in the subsequent pregnancy. Lastly, there are religious concepts that prohibit abortion. For instance, Christians claim that God is the giver of life and thus the only one to take it. Therefore, those who participate in abortion go against Biblical laws which prohibit killing.
American Medical Association (AMA) Code of Ethics
The AMA Code of ethics contains laws that guide the relationship between a physician and the patient. Such laws may bring a dilemma to a healthcare professional in deciding on whether to procure an abortion or not. The first principle claims that any medical practitioner must protect life. Therefore, a healthcare professional should not participate in an activity that endangers human life. However, there might be instances where the existence of a fetus threatens the mother’s life. The doctor faces the dilemma of terminating the pregnancy and living with the guilt of killing life or letting the mother and the child die. The second principle is the ethic of consent, decision making, and communication which states that a patient has the right to make independent choices concerning any treatment without coercion. Therefore, a healthcare professional has no right to decide on behalf of the patient but can only offer advice. People who support the legalization of abortion can use this principle to claim that a mother has a right to decide whether to keep or terminate a pregnancy. However, some people might blame a healthcare professional who participates in such an abortion for having gone against the fundamental principle of protecting human life.
Morality and Abortion
A person facing an abortion dilemma can apply various moral and ethical principles in deciding whether to undertake an abortion or rejecting it. First, the sanctity and respect for life should guide one when deciding on abortion. It should be a duty of any person to uphold human life and thus one should desist from unnecessarily procuring an abortion (Austin, 2019). Secondly, the existing legal structure should guide one in deciding whether to keep or terminate a pregnancy. A person faces prosecution by procuring an abortion in a country or state where this practice is prohibited. Lastly, one should strive to minimize the long-term effect of abortion by trying to save as many lives as possible (Baron, 2018). For instance, a healthcare professional should choose termination of the pregnancy when the life of the mother is threatened to avoid losing both. Various theories should guide a person to overcome the dilemma of choosing whether to procure an abortion. The first one is Aristotle’s Golden Mean which states that a person decides by balancing two options. In this case, a person has to weigh the advantages and shortcomings of a particular action. Aristotle claimed that a human being should not live on any extreme and thus one should strive to get satisfactory results from any action (Miller, 2018). Concerning the abortion dilemma, one can procure it when the involved parties agree. Therefore, the mother, father, and healthcare professionals must be fully convinced before undertaking an abortion. Secondly, a person can use Unitarianism to overcome the abortion dilemma by looking at the consequences of each action. According to this theory, one chooses the most moral choice by identifying the one most benefit. In deciding whether to procure an abortion or not, a person has to consider the outcomes of each decision to the parties involved. For instance, a healthcare professional can procure an abortion which saves the life of the mother. However, the doctor should avoid terminating a pregnancy that leads to complications in subsequent pregnancies. The third theory a person uses to overcome the abortion dilemma is the natural law principle which states that human beings can choose right from wrong. Proponents of this theory claim that a person always aims at living a happy life and thus will choose what brings maximum satisfaction. The theory also states that an outside force like the authority should not influence decisions a person makes. Therefore, a mother is free to decide whether to keep a pregnancy or to terminate depending on the personal benefits derived. Natural law theory tends to advocate for the legalization of abortion in all states.
Unitarianism is the best ethical theory one can choose when facing an abortion dilemma. The theory focuses on the outcomes of each action thus being the clearest means of choosing what is wrong or right. Therefore, a person facing an abortion dilemma will weigh each option and choose the one with maximum benefits (McLean et al., 2019) . Unitarianism has various advantages as means of gauging the morality for or against abortion. First, the theory focuses on society’s satisfaction. Therefore, a person making any choice does so by considering personal benefits and those of other society members. When deciding on whether to procure an abortion or not, a healthcare professional should not consider the financial gain but also the repercussion to the patient’s family. Those considerations prevent one from benefitting from another person’s misfortune. Secondly, the theory is easy to implement as one can forecast the outcomes of each action. For instance, termination of a late pregnancy might lead to the mother’s death and thus the reason to avoid it.
First, the reason for not choosing Aristotle’s Golden Mean theory is its inability to give a solution on the parameters to check when solving an abortion dilemma. Aristotle suggests that a person needs to look for a middle ground when deciding whether to terminate or keep a pregnancy. However, it is hard to have a balance on the moral issue as there are right and wrong choices. Secondly, the natural law theory is not the best means of basing morality in abortion dilemma as it encourages selfishness in decision-making (Deinhammer, 2016) . A person using this theory will not consider the effects own’s decisions have on other society members. Therefore, the selection of Unitarianism supports earlier assertion on the need to identify the repercussions of each action before selecting any.
Conclusion
Abortion is an ethical issue requiring various ethical approaches to avoid a dilemma. Some people advocate for the legalization of abortion arguing that life begins at birth or when keeping a fetus endangers the mother’s life. However, those opposed to abortion claim that a fetus is a form of life and that its termination can be classified as murder. One can use Golden Mean, Unitarianism, or natural law theories in deciding the morality for or against abortion. However, Unitarianism is the best theory to solve the abortion dilemma.
References
Austin, M. W. (2019). Ethics and abortion. Psychology Today. https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/ethics-everyone/201906/ethics-and-abortion
Baron, M. W. (2018). Kantian ethics almost without apology . Cornell University Press. https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=vi5zDwAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PP1&dq=kantian+ethics+scholarly+articles&ots=1hJBLx7dpT&sig=NbSIkvVNAkSyMnJ-prW1EC2eQAo
Deinhammer, R. (2016). Can Natural Law Ethics be Tenable Today? Towards a Critical Natural Law Theory. The Heythrop Journal . https://doi.org/10.1111/heyj.12345
Marquis, D. (2021). An argument that abortion is wrong. California State University Library. https://web.csulb.edu/~cwallis/382/readings/160/marquis.html
McLean, M. et al. (2019). When the law makes door slightly open: Ethical dilemmas among abortion service providers in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. BMC Medical Ethics. https://bmcmedethics.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12910-019-0396-4#citeas
Miller, C. (2018). Arguments about Abortion: Personhood, Morality, and Law. Taylor-Francis Online. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/20502877.2018.1468594?casa_token=9xnTU2G87Z8AAAAA:4xlqPbjmT2yz16ST3eiGf53EIuiqQHzbfY8YH93aNwiZRHi58C4cZrkYN_faNdh11XhTDxZKDkNjdJMW
Svenaeus, F. (2018). Phenomenology of pregnancy and the ethics of abortion. Medicine, Health Care and Philosophy , 21 (1), 77-87.
