Moral & Legal Justifications of Abortion

PHL 126-01 10/31/12

“Congratulations! You are having a baby!!”

“Pregnant”, a little disyllabic noun, but it has one of the biggest implications, especially with words ending with suffix –lee. Geographically, a pregnancy intended to be kept full-term could be a good or bad thing; for example, in China, where population size is being somewhat monitored, a second or third pregnancy would cause alarm, and potential sanctions. Religiously, it would prove pre-marital sex, which is not encouraged till marriage in some religions. Financially, it would require smarter expenditure in order to prioritize on the incoming baby’s needs. Most importantly however, emotionally, it could bring great join to the expecting parent(s) or great distress. Laughter and tears of happiness would probably be expected from a woman or couple who had grim odds of reproducing, but what about the teen mom-to-be? Or the busy workaholic? According to the Minnesota Citizens Concerned for Life (M.C.C.L.), a pro-life group, about 54,559,615 U.S. abortions have been reported, since it was legalized in the U.S. in 1973 to 2011. Of this astounding number, less than 2% of women who aborted their fetuses say they became pregnant as a result of rape or incest. So what goes through the mind of those who ultimately decide to have an abortion? In what situations should abortion be allowed based on reviewing the moral and legal implications?
Legally, abortion should be allowed in a case where the mother-to-be is mentally unstable or not yet mature mentally. In most situations, physical care of the fetus wholly falls on the mother when it is still at a fetal stage and most of the emotional and further physical care of the child after birth falls on her too. It does not make any sense to not give a slightly pregnant woman dealing with a mental disorder the option of abortion. Even though she should have reasoned out before winding up pregnant that she was not quite qualified to be a mother, the reality of the situation is that it happened, and if she ( or her loved ones, in this case) believes she really cannot take care of the baby, she should abort. What if she does not remember to take her pre-natal vitamins or eat healthier and avoid alcohol and drugs during her pregnancy? Those actions definitely hurt the innocent fetus mentally and physically in ways that may not be observed until they become alive. Dangers caused just by smoking during pregnancy include the Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (S.I.D.S.), increased chances of miscarriages, and increased chances of birth defects such as cleft palate. What about mentally unstable women who have to raise their kid on their won, but could forget to get their children the appropriate shots, or try to give them the shots at home, or create an unstable home environment for their children by their constant delusions or mood swings, just to name a few? My point is; forcing such a woman to keep her pregnancy ultimately would gravely hurt the innocent child, some of whom might not bounce back after such a rough introduction to life. Is it worth repeating the cycle that much? Of course there is the option of Foster Care, but at what point do individuals have to take responsibility for their actions?
Secondly, and despite the fact of sounding cliché, abortion would be a smart move legally and morally in extreme cases because they do occur. By extreme cases I mean a) rape; whereby the woman not only lost her right to say no, but wound up pregnant. Should she keep it, knowing fully that she cannot dissociate her feelings of shame and anger from affecting a potential relationship with the child she might deliver? She has a legal window of 7-9 weeks in the U.S. to make and carry out an abortion decision, and she will decide by then definitely, but at least she has the option to abort. Another case would be non-consensual incest that leads to pregnancy. Incest is morally shunned because it is a bad thing, but while the man faces the short term consequences, without abortion being legal and safe, the woman will face life-long consequences of primarily taking care of this child. The fact that its parents are related could be bad news for the child as far as increased probability of genetic diseases that could be lethal or life-long. Again, I say give the mother the option of rejecting her pregnancy. A last issue with extreme cases of pregnancy involves it threatening the lives of the mother or the child. Ectopic pregnancies do occur, and if the mother cannot afford incubating the fetus once it reaches the point of being independently viable or if even getting to that point threatens her life, she should abort. Also, there are medical specialists nowadays who can help determine if the baby would have severe and life-crippling diseases such as Fragile X Syndrome and Cystic Fibrosis. Fragile X Syndrome briefly is an X-linked genetic condition causing cognitive impairment, developmental issues, ADD, ADHD, and Down Syndrome-like features in about 1 out of 4,000 males or 1 out o 8,000 females. Cystic Fibrosis is an inherited disease of the secretory glands and it mainly affects the lungs, pancreas, liver, intestines, sinuses, and sex organs by making the normally slimy mucus lining these organs thick and sticky, hence leading to complications. Obviously, just these two genetic diseases sound quite serious, now imaging if you were a parent faced with these prognosis. What would you do, especially considering your healthcare plan, financial and emotional state? A lot of families obviously accept taking care of their sick children, just as there will be those families who cannot afford the treatments involved or the emotional toll of not being able to make everything right, hence they choose abortion.
On the other hand, what excuse do you have for aborting a fetus when the stars (well, the important ones) seem to line up for you? I read an incredible article a couple of days ago which I would briefly summarize. A 27 year-old, Netherlands who decided to abort her baby five months into the pregnancy. This is because, according to her, she did not receive the appropriate amount of well-wishes, congratulations and just general curiosity which she thought befitted a pregnancy announcement on social media. Karine Voorthuizen posted the 20-week echo, but after four days only three of her 282 friends had clicked ‘like’, and not a single person left a comment. Apparently, she started doubting her pregnancy even earlier when 1 month into her pregnancy, she made an announcement of her pregnancy via twitter, and after a week, got only five retweets of that post; it was double that amount when she announced her first pregnancy. She claims not to regret that decision, especially because the new “Timeline” feature on Face book shows to anyone who bothers to check that the child was a social reject even before being born. She concludes, “Should we put a child on this earth that carries the stigma of prenatal impopularity? I don’t think so”. Her update about her abortion received 2 “shares”, so she appreciated the beauty of social media being able to share someone’s pain and says she felt bad for the 3 people who had “liked” her pregnancy announcement. How about what your first child feels or the almost-father? What about how your real family and friends will feel, especially those who do not have or check their Face book pages regularly enough to “like” you announcements and pictures? This situation, I think, would be an indisputable example for Pro-Life advocates to use both morally and legally to push for even stricter laws on abortion. We cannot excuse her actions by claiming she is too young, so immature. Her main priority was the acknowledgement from her social media peers, and many of us have never even met a few of our Face book friends. She cannot rely on inexperience, because she already knows what parenthood is like, she doesn’t sound like she has big financial issues, so I do think she was morally wrong for aborting her fetus, and even though abortion is legal, she should be fined somehow.
Lastly, it is my belief that abortion is morally and legally permissible if the parent(s) knows it would not be consistently involved in his or her child’s daily life due to a lack of time or just the nature of their jobs. By “nature of the job” I am mainly talking about the kind of jobs that would be very hard to continue doing while pregnant, such as being in the armed forces, being a construction worker or one requiring constant travelling. By not having time, I am talking about being career-driven woman potential parents or people focusing on completing school. Furthermore, there are a minute percentage of pregnancies which results despite the fact that people had protected themselves against it during intercourse. In this case, already committed individuals might have to create some wiggle room in their lives in order to accommodate a baby. This falls under a supererogatory duty as Judith Thompson, they are not morally required to keep it; they tried being responsible by preventing it, but it still happened, so they do not have to take responsibility for the consequence. Furthermore, tons of jobs now involve signing contracts, and even though some have clauses for maternity and paternity leaves, some people just do not want to raise a child they did not plan for. There is always the option of giving up the baby for adoption, but I can imagine there is some fear that they child ends up being swallowed in the system and worse off. I am also a strong believer, especially for the women, that the changing mood swings and chemical imbalance in a body kind of act like alcohol or drugs in a body; it is impairing our decision-making abilities, so we may think we can go through the adoption process until we start feeling kick, random interactions with the fetus as it grows in our wombs and we bond with it. Under the influence, we may not want to give it up for adoption even though it was promised
I therefore believe that abortion can be morally justified both morally and legally, although it is easier to justify it legally in extreme cases, or in the inability to take an extended leave of absence throughout pregnancy due to the physically demanding nature of a job involving a contract. Morally, an abortion is okay if birth control steps taken to prevent it still did not work or the type of birth control was later discovered to be defective and recalled, like the Pfizer LO/OVRAL-28 pills recalled earlier this year for being defective (MyHealthNewsDaily). In this case, the legal aspects could work two ways; suing that company in a class-action lawsuit and providing a reason for the choice of abortion. Aborting due to harm that will befall mother and/or child if pregnancy went any further would be both morally and legally right too. The abortion decision ultimately comes down to how different individuals feel on it, but remember, “Abortion is failing to keep alive, not as killing” –Judith Thompson.

Work Cited Page
1) "United States Abortion Statistics." Abortion Statistics for the United States. N.P., n.d. Web. 31 Oct. 2012. <http://www.mccl.org/us-abortion-stats.html.
2)This is a Netherland website so the URL is a little misleading, you will have to copy everything into the bar in order for this article to come up.
Kwesties,Stekelige. “Woman Has Abortion after Disappointing Number of Face book Likes”. De.Spald. http://www.speld.nl/2012/10/10/woman-has-abortion-after-%e2%80%98disappointing-number-of-likes-for-ultrasound-on-facebook%e2%80%99/?fb_action_ids=3302334457616&fb_action_types=og.likes&fb_source=timeline_og&action_object_map=%7B%223302334457616%22%3A436976576361159%7D&action_type_map=%7B%223302334457616%22%3A%22og.likes%22%7D&action_ref_map=[] 3) Rettner, Rachael. "Defective Birth Control Could Spur Big Lawsuits for Pfizer." Home. TechMedia Network, 1st Feb. 2012. Web. 31 Oct. 2012.

Cited: Page 1) "United States Abortion Statistics." Abortion Statistics for the United States. N.P., n.d. Web. 31 Oct. 2012. &lt;http://www.mccl.org/us-abortion-stats.html. 2)This is a Netherland website so the URL is a little misleading, you will have to copy everything into the bar in order for this article to come up. Kwesties,Stekelige. “Woman Has Abortion after Disappointing Number of Face book Likes”. De.Spald. http://www.speld.nl/2012/10/10/woman-has-abortion-after-%e2%80%98disappointing-number-of-likes-for-ultrasound-on-facebook%e2%80%99/?fb_action_ids=3302334457616&amp;fb_action_types=og.likes&amp;fb_source=timeline_og&amp;action_object_map=%7B%223302334457616%22%3A436976576361159%7D&amp;action_type_map=%7B%223302334457616%22%3A%22og.likes%22%7D&amp;action_ref_map=[] 3) Rettner, Rachael. "Defective Birth Control Could Spur Big Lawsuits for Pfizer." Home. TechMedia Network, 1st Feb. 2012. Web. 31 Oct. 2012.