Is abortion morally justifiable?

I am so torn on this due to religious and political reasons.

 

What's more moral, forcing a woman to have a child, or letting her have a simple medical procedure where NO HUMAN LIFE is lost? Let zygotes be zygotes. Forcing a woman to carry a baby to term that she doesn't want to is barbaric.

 

I picked yes, but since I see morality as just a made up imaginary thing created as a social control mechanism, I don't see it as ever being relevant to any situation (unless it's a discussion on methods for manipulating people to get what you want, I suppose).

Until the collection of sperm and egg cells develops sufficiently to support a human brain/nervous system, it is functionally little different from any other collection of cells in the body that we would remove without a second thought. So who cares?

The issue of potential is irrelevant, unless we are to consider every sperm, every egg, and (given a sufficiently advanced cloning technology) every cell in the body as a potential human being and treated accordingly.

Todd

 

I think every case is different and the issue as a whole cannot be treated in a single way as moral or immoral. I think there are times were it is justified and times when it is not, but I will leave those for another day as this issue is generally best left untouched in most instances.

 

I personally think abortion is not the right choice however I do believe that it is the woman's right to choose what they do with their bodies. Abortion just seems like terrible thing to me and it feels like murder. I was born with several disabilities and to think of a woman having a abortion because of the possibility of the child being disabled makes me think that could of happened to me and I would never of been here. So when you put that in perspective abortion is just not a good thing to me personally.

 

I voted yes. There are infinite scenarios and probabilities and everyones life is so different that you aren't anyone to make any choices for them, especially one as big as having a child. Addict parents, extreme poverty, war zones and just in general f'ed up world we live in, sometimes it's better not to bring a child into this place.

 

I don't see a problem with it, provided that both parties (=the would-be father) agreed to it.

 

I picked yes.

 

I believe it is. I don't see an unborn fetus as a human. I'm not saying it's something that should be taken lightly, but if the situation requires it, it's better to abort than have an unwanted child.

 

What trimester or stage of development are we talking about here? That's pertinent.

 

based on what moral system? Utilitarian? Kantian? Virtue?

 

Are slavery and torture moral? No? Then restrictions on abortion aren't moral either.

I don't think it's remotely acceptable that the bodies of people having a uterus should be up for debate.

 

Yes. Two reasons:

1. A fetus is not a baby. It is not capable of independent thought, it has no personhood, feelings or desires. It isn't conscious or self aware. If, then, this is accepted to be true, for abortion to be morally wrong, it must be argued that the fetus's potential for the above qualities give it the same rights as a human with those qualities. However, there are plenty of other things with that same potential, namely sperm and eggs. You'd then have to accept that male masturbation, periods, and not having sex so that sperm die are all immoral as well. The choice not to have children would be immoral. Not to mention being gay.

2. Even if (and I'm not saying this is the case) you accept that the potential for the qualities I mentioned above gives the fetus the rights of an adult, I would argue that it does not have an inalienable right to use of the parent's body. The fetus would have the right to live, yes, but saying that it should then be helped to live at all costs is to misunderstand the meaning of the right to life. The bottom line is that the parent controls their own body, and are not obliged to allow a fetus to grow inside said body if they don't want. Their right trumps that of the fetus.

 

I don't subscribe to any particular moral or ethical system.

with Kant's categorical imperative you can really go either way.

Either we setup the hypothetical "If someone gets pregnant, they can have an abortion", now universalize that. Well what if everyone had an abortion when they were pregnant? The human race would cease to exist eventually, so it fails CI.
BUT CI wasn't meant to be used with nuance, so if we create this hypothetical "If someone became pregnant by sexual assualt or incest, or their life were in danger, or could not support the fetus, they can have an abortion". Now it works when you universalize that.
But that doesn't really account for situations where a person would want an abortion for another reason. CI also has a bunch of metaphysical stuff that you need to accept with it that causes problems for the system.

I think the stronger case lies in Utilitarianism. With classical (Bentham, Mill) Utilitarianism, if the suffering caused to the fetus (depending on the age, little or none) is less than the good of the person carrying the fetus, it is OK. There are of course different formulations of utilitarian ethics that may give you different results.

Consequentialism is also likely to allow abortion

I'm not firmiliar enough with Virtue ethics to make a statement about that.

Eschewing moral systems entirely, my personal feeling (which is not a moral compass) is that a person should be able to have any abortion without having to jump through absurd hoops and prerequisite examinations etc like occur in some states in the US. This, for me, is grounded that you have a fundamental right to do what you want with your body. Again grounded by the age of the fetus. Third term abortions provoke a somewhat emotional reaction for me, but that isn't a moral compass, and the doctors and the person carrying the fetus know what is best for them in their situation, so I don't support legal restrictions on age of fetus for abortion either.

Basically I object to you phrasing this as a moral question when you are really asking how people feel about abortion. If you want to ask if something is morally justifiable we need to ground how you go about figuring out what is morally justifiable and what isn't before moving forward.

That's my inner-Hume talking a la there isn't any more to how people ground morality for themselves than their emotional sentiments.

*shrug*
this is what happens when you read too much philosophy.

 

Couldn't have said it better.
Cheers Bryan