Ethical Issues Of Abortion: Family, Religion, And Education

Ethics is a system dealing with morals and principle. Ethics, morals and principles affect the decisions individuals make throughout their life and are formed from many different influences. Family, religion and education are some of the ways individuals form their own ethics, morals and principles. There are many common issues that are deemed as ethical issues which many people argue about. An ethical issue is the conflict of a right or wrong situation. An ethical issue is open to each individual’s opinion.

Abortion is a very common ethical issue, especially in the catholic church. An abortion is a medical procedure performed by choice to terminate a human pregnancy. Abortions are usually undertaken in the first 28 weeks of the pregnancy.
Many people are pro-life and many others are pro-choice. Pro-choice people believe that women have the right to make their own decisions as to whether they have an abortion or not, they believe that the women has the right to decide whether she should carry out the pregnancy to term. Pro-life people believe that all humans have the right to life, they believe abortion is wrong and that is murder. They believe that as soon as the egg has been fertilised, the unborn baby has the right to their life. There are many religions which are pro-choice and others which are pro-life. Jewish Women International, the Presbyterian Church and the Evangelicals for Choice are only a few of the pro-choice religions in the world. There are around one thousand pro-life denominations in North America, a few of these include; The Roman Catholic Church, The Southern Baptist Convention and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (the Mormons). The catholic church believes that abortion is wrong because they believe that every child has a right to life and that nobody, not even their parents can decide whether they live or whether they die. The Youth Catechism of the Catholic Church states, “God alone is Lord over life and death. Not even ‘my’ life belongs to me. Every child from the moment of conception on, has a right to life. From his earliest beginnings an unborn
It never clearly defines the religions views on abortion although God’s viewpoints on the issue are displayed. An example is, “When men strive together and hit a pregnant woman, so that her children come out, but there is no harm, the one who hit her shall surely be fined, as the woman’s husband shall impose on him, and he shall pay as the judges determine. But if there is harm, then you shall pay life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burn for burn, wound for wound, stripe for stripe.” – exodus 21:22-25. This shows that the catholic bible believes that abortion is wrong and it clearly indicates that a baby in the womb is considered by God to be the same as a fully-grown adult and the abuse of an unborn baby is just as serious as the abuse of a fully-grown adult. This verse shows that Catholics believe that the death of an unborn baby is the same as murder. As the bible states in Exodus 20:13 “thou shall not kill” which is the sixth commandment. Therefore, the Catholic religion believes that if an individual has an abortion, they are breaking the sixth