Is Abortion Ethical?
Case Study – By Brian Willett
Abortion is a significant ethical issue in modern society. I believe that abortion is wrong
in many circumstances, but also acceptable in some situations as well. Abortion is wrong in that it
involves taking the life of a living human being. Abortion is acceptable only if the sex was
forceful and unintentional, such as rape. Abortion is not morally acceptable for consensual
unprotected sex as the partners having sex knowingly chose not to wear protection; therefore they
should face the consequences of their actions.
In the situation I’m describing in this case study, the person who had the abortion chose
and agreed with her partner not to wear a condom. Subsequently she came to know she was
pregnant and seemed very shocked. She and her partner decided to make a morally wrong
decision to have sex without being married, which increases the chances of contracting an
sexually transmitted disease (STD) and high probability of pregnancy. These actions
consequentially lead to another common morally wrong decision in today’s society: to have an
abortion. This woman was capable of conceiving the baby and had a lot of support from family
members and friends. If she had decided to have the baby, her life would have drastically
changed in a way she did not intend to set out and live her life. This is the main issue with
abortion in that if you decide to have the abortion or not, your decision will drastically change
your entire life.
One major question within in her decision of having an abortion is, should she be judged
morally as a bad person by society? Or should society not look down upon her decision to have
an abortion in that it would be more beneficial for her and society to not have the baby? This
women decided to kill technically a living being. Along with killing her child she made morally
wrong decisions before that in deciding to be irresponsible and have unprotected sex, knowing
the chances of her becoming pregnant or contracting an STD, which is morally wrong in today’s
society. Should society believe that she in fact made the wrong decision of having sex but the
right decision to not to have the baby. Since she did not have the baby, she was able to continue
through high school and not drop out and was able to attend college without the difficulties of
taking care of a baby as well. From her being able to successfully graduate high school and move
on to college she will be better off in society and society would be better off as well. Taxpayers in
society would not have to pay money to help fund her life with the baby and also it would be
easier for her to graduate college successfully and become a more successful person working in
the job market and contributing to society’s well being.
The next moral question related to this issue is whether the abortion is somewhat to be
considered a murder? A question that follows along with this is should the fetus be considered a
person or just a living being. Many pro-life advocates argue that life begins at conception. But is
that life really technically a person yet? She technically didn’t kill a person at the point of her
abortion but rather killed a living being. A person defined in philosophy terms is a self –
conscious or rational human being. Her baby theoretically was not a self conscious or rational
human being in that it had not yet developed traits to have these factors. She did not kill a human
being who had any awareness of what was going on or knowing they had a chance at life. Her
actions although were still somewhat morally wrong in that she prevented someone having the
chance of life, even though the fetus is unaware of anything.
Finally since she decided to make some morally wrong decisions before conception,
should she be forced by society to have this baby or should she be able to make the decision
herself like she did. A person currently is entitled to what they want with the baby in today’s
society, but should society begin to force these individuals to have their baby as a penalty for
making immoral decisions? If today’s society made a law that forced individuals to have a baby,
because the individual brought it upon themselves and knew the consequences, would this make
unplanned pregnancies less likely to happen? I feel if individuals understood these laws, if they
came into place that they would be much more likely to use a condom or subscribe to birth
control. This issue would undoubtedly cause conflict for people in today’s society, but it would
help unplanned pregnancy rates go down because of the harsh consequences that would come
with it, although there would still be illegal underground abortion clinics for people who wouldn’t
believe in this kind of law. People should have to face and deal with the consequences of actions
that can be easily prevented, especially when they know the consequences of having a baby. If
someone was raped and became pregnant as a result it is a totally different story. In this instance
abortion should be deemed permissible by society and not morally wrong in that the sex was
unintentional by the women and had no choice in that she was physically forced to have sex and
have sex without a condom on. A rape victim does not commit any morally wrong decision when
having sex. Therefore she is just a victim of an immoral person who should have to deal with the
consequences in jail. If the woman was forced not to have an abortion, her child would be an
everyday reminder of the horrid incident and many people would not be able to live under such
circumstances. In addition the woman may not be able to deal with the costs of having a child as
well.
You should have learned from this case study that abortion is morally wrong in some
ways and should be considered permissible in some situations. Immoral acts of sex will almost
certainly lead to some sort of bad situation such as conceiving a baby or contracting a STD. Also
abortion technically is not killing a person in that a person is a self conscious and rational human
being and the fetus does not yet contain these traits. If you make common moral decisions while
having sex you certainly will not have to deal with the harsh and hard decisions that come along
with an abortion.