Divine Command Theory On Abortion

On January 22, 1973, the United States Supreme Court, in a 7-2 decision, handed down two rulings legalizing abortion in America. Today American women have the legal right to obtain an abortion in all 50 states. The Supreme Court declared that autonomous abortion rights are built into the Constitution and that legal barriers to abortion are unconstitutional. This ruling was on the premise of the 9th and 14th Amendments and according to legal precedent established during the 1960’s, it guarantees a woman’s “right to privacy” a right that extends even to abortion. Since then, this ruling has been debated for many years. The two main camps for and against abortion is Pro-Life and Pro-Choice. Pro-Life believe it is an immoral act to kill a baby.
The theory can “provide sufficiently clear moral direction and an adequate sense of duty” (Cowan and Spiegel, 2009). This theory is based on the fact that God is the creator of the laws governing morality and that he commands them; in that he would be against abortion and considered Pro-Life. Cowan and Spiegel state that “an implicit divine command about the morality of abortion may be inferred from” the biblical scripture Exodus 21:22-24. This scripture is about a woman who has a miscarriage that was caused by two men who were fighting. The scripture does not flat out state that she had an abortion, but it implies that the miscarriage was not justified and immoral because a life was lost. It is a Christian belief “that the life of an unborn child is as valuable as that of an adult” (Cowan and Spiegel, 2009). According to Isaiah 44:2, “thus says the LORD who made you, and formed you from the womb, who will help you. Do not fear, O Jacob My servant, and you Jeshurun whom I have chosen” (Deem, 2006). In the previously mention scripture God tells Jacob that he should feel no fear because God gave him life from his mother’s womb. The divine command theory would support that it is our duty to ensure that the human life, whether it is an adult or a baby in a womb, be given life and not have it taken away. It would be morally wrong and bad to do so. Therefore, abortion is morally wrong and
The focus is on the greatest good for the overall greatest number of people. He used the Hedonistic Calculus Theory as a way to determine which pleasures are of the greatest good and should be pursued by others (Nussbaum, 2004). According to Bentham abortion is permissible under specific circumstances Pro-Choice. An example would be if the mother did not have the financial resources to raise the baby, or the fetus tested positive for having chromosome 21, or if a woman was raped and subsequently became pregnant. Then abortion would be justifiable because the baby could possibly bring more pain to the mother, the family, and even the baby itself. In “Principles of morals and legislation” (Bentham, 1780), a person’s value of a pleasure or pain considered by itself is based on the following aspects: its intensity, its duration, its certainty or uncertainty and its propinquity or remoteness. This is clear and logical enough to analyze a solution to an abortion as it offers the capacity of finding a better one than the other. In Bentham’s view, there is no distinction to what is right and what is wrong, only if the results give the person, the family, or the community the greatest happiness. An individual cannot just decide what he or she want to do, but must consider the collective pleasure of the majority. Therefore, an abortion is decided by the meticulous consideration of the overall and utmost