Custom «Late-Term Abortion» Essay Paper

A late-term abortion is also known as a partial birth abortion. This is an abortion that is done during the late stages of pregnancy.  In this case the fetus is more developed, and can be able to survive outside the mother’s womb. It’s actually not possible enough to state which stage of prenatal development is justifiable for abortion. For any ethics that cherishes life, it will consider abortion as not right and the more mature the fetus is the more should be the objection. In a late-term abortion the fetus is presumed to be periviable or viable, which means that it can be able to survive outside the uterus. At this point the fetus is grown and actually resembles a human being (Raymond, pp 358-361).

There has been allot of controversy on late-term abortion, giving a rise in heated political, ethical and legal debates. In the recent times the debate on late-term abortion is on whether abortion is morally right, given the human rights to life, control over one’s body and the right to privacy. The debate mostly arises between the pro-choice and the pro-life, in that the pro-choice argue that a woman has the right to abortion which should never be restricted whatsoever. Whereas the pro-life argue that a fetus has the right to live which should not be interfered with, through abortion. The main question that is mainly asked is whether a fetus can be assigned the same rights to live as an adult person, and can a late-term fetus be regarded as a child?  (Tamara, pp23)(Knowledgerush, Web page).

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Some  of  the reasons why women go for abortion are; the mother may be too old to raise a child, the mother may also be  too young or immature and as such not ready to take any responsibility of parenting, fear of single parenthood, health risks that the mother may be exposed to, rape or incest, inability to afford the costs of taking care of them child, when the father does not want a child, disruption of education or career, and the disruption of  the kind of lifestyle that the mother or the father was enjoying and given that the child is unwanted(Tamara, pp 3-5).

Morality and abortion:

Morality is all about the treatment that people give to each other, and what is accepted as good by a particular society. This in this case may include, the survival of people on the planet, reducing harm to people, the quality of life, making other people’s lives to be as fulfilling as possible and not forgetting the treatment that we give to children which should be great, given that they are the most precious resources in the society as they are perceived as the generation to come. This will mean providing children with adequate environment of good nurturing, love, proper parenting and the opportunity for them to be responsible adults. The controversy that underlies the cases of abortion is whether women should be given the right of choice on either giving birth or terminating a pregnancy for whatever reasons. This is what drives the point that abortion should be legalized, as many believe that it should be a woman’s right to decide whether she wants a child at that time when carrying the pregnancy or not. This is regarded as a woman having the right to property including her body and the fetus she is carrying.  For those who are anti-abortion of the pro-life, they believe that, “life is present from the moment of conception” (Marquis, pp 526).

The essay by marquis on “why abortion is immoral” considers the immorality that is there in abortion in that the killing of a fetus is being compared to the killing of an adult who is presumed to wanting to enjoy a future life. He is placing the death of both an adult and a child in the same category. It is wrong to kill a person, why? What actually makes killing wrong is not the effect it has on the murderer or even the friends and relatives of the victim, but the effects that killing has on the victim. Losing of one’s life is termed as one of the greatest loses one can ever experience. This is because losing one’s life deprives a person all the activities, enjoyments, experiences, which would have led to a person’s future. When one is killed today, it denies that person what he/she values today, which will make up the future of the person. Therefore  according to Marquis what makes the killing of  another human being to be considered wrong is the fact  that  there is  loss  of  future in  that human being, that is whether the future was valuable  or not but the fact that that  human being had a  future makes killing  a wrong thing to do.(Marquis, pp188-190).

The central argument:

P1: the fetus is an innocent person

P2: it is morally wrong to put to an end the life of an innocent person.

Conclusion: therefore from this deductive argument we can say that it is morally wrong to end the life of a fetus.

In most of the debates about abortion, the main argument is on whether the fetus is a person, or its not, if it is a person, it means that, it has the rights that are entitled to any other person, which includes the right to life. Therefore we can say that the concept of personhood that is in a fetus is what makes the fetus have the right to life. The personhood  in  the fetus  is stated in  terms of; the  fact that its conceived by humans, it has a genetic structure, the presence of soul, it has a  future  like  the one  we have and the physical  resemblance to humans. Given that a late-term abortion is conducted on a child that has all the physique of a grown human being as it is developed, it then deserves the same human rights to live like any other adult individual(Oppapers, Web page)( Lucinda, pp115).

Conclusion:

Abortion is a violation of human life whether done as early as 5 weeks or as a late-term abortion, this is because it’s the killing of an innocent life. Given the fact that the child has complete different genetic make-up from the mother then it’s a separate human being from the mother, it then means that this unborn human child should have a right to life and thus their life should be protected. Abortion at what stage is termed to be morally wrong in that, and much more at later terms of pregnancy. The religion too has condemned this through the use of religious books such as the bible and the holy Koran, as they state that killing of babies is against the religion, it’s sinful and immoral. For example in the bible, there are Ten Commandments, in which one of them states clearly that, “thou shall not kill” therefore  we can highly conclude that it is immoral to perform a late-term abortion, and even abortion at any prenatal stage of development(Morse, pp 181-183)( Tamara, pp31).

Notes

A late-term abortion being is that is performed later in the pregnancy, i.e. in the late stages of prenatal development. It’s termed as immoral given that it’s killing of a human being. As much as there are controversies over, whether a woman should be given the right to make a decision over the child she is carrying, the debate is yet to win, given e ideas of both the pro-choice and the pro-life. Immorality in killing here, arises in the sense that, a fetus at later stages of development is much developed and has the generic structure as a normal grown human being, thus it should enjoy the same rights to live like an adult person. The religion intervenes to state that killing is wrong, given that life beginxs at conception, then at whatever stage.