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Abortion - “the Wrong of Abortion”

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Abortion - “the Wrong of Abortion”
Abortion is one of the most controversial topics of all times. The definition most people associate with abortion is the termination of unwanted pregnancy. In their essay, “The Wrong of Abortion”, Patrick Lee and Robert P. George argue that intentional abortion is unjust and therefore objectively immoral no matter the circumstances. Also, they argue that “the burden of carrying the baby is significantly less than the harm the baby would suffer by being killed; the mother and father have a special responsibility to the child; it follows that intentional abortion (even in few cases where the baby’s death is an unintended but foreseen side effect) is unjust ” (24).
I am personally in between pro-life and pro-choice. On the one hand, I agree with their argument in that the mother and the father are responsible for their baby and that abortion should not be a choice. However, I disagree with the part where they say that abortion is unjust even if the baby (fetus) may have a defect. Yet, I believe that the choice of abortion is immoral if women use it as their last resort- contraceptive purposes, but I think that abortion should be allowed if the baby (fetus), which is still in the womb, is predicted to have a side effect such as deformation or diseases like Down’s syndrome. For example, if I were to bear a child and I find out later on that my baby has Down’s syndrome; then, in this case, I will choose to get aborted, not for selfish reasons, but because this defect may hurt my baby in the long run. Besides, my baby is the one that has to live with it for the rest of his/her life and it will definitely have a big effect on them in the future. In short, I am pro-life in most cases, especially if women do not take responsibility for their actions, but I am pro-choice if and only if there are side effects with the baby or the mother that might endanger their lives and of course, abortion is permissible in case of incest and rape. Lee and George claim that human

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