Abortion: Does a foets have a human right to life - Essay Example

touched moral and ethical sides, it became clear that without legal definition of the terms as abortion, fetus, embryo and the related subjects and situations it will be impossible to regulate the situation with abortions. The rising debate in the society as for the rights of the woman to kill the unborn child made it clear that the necessary laws had to be created for the definition of the basic terms and for giving (or not giving) the fetus the right to live and the right to exist. Thus, it is essential to discuss the present legal situation in terms of fetus.

The firt recorded law on abortion can be found in Sumeria dated by the 18 century BC. The abortions according to that law were punished without any relation to the status of this abortion – whether it had been caused intentionally or accidentally; though the law didn’t give any clear definition as for the status of fetus, it may be assumed that fetus was considered to have legal status of a human through the prism of the punishments which women had to carry as a result of abortion. The 16th century BC was also notable for the Babylonians who also implemented punishment for abortion.

The Old Testament, namely, the book of Exodus stipulated penalties for the miscarriage, either accidental or intentional. Provision 53 of the Ancient Assyrian Code, dating from the 12th century BC stipulated gruesome punishment for abortion. (King, 1999) The oath of Hippocrates also prohibited abortions; however in this case the reason for this prohibition was encouraging larger families, and not because fetus was considered to be a human and to have a human right for life. Thus in the history of abortion law it is possible to distinguish different reasons for the creation of such statements.

1 While at present the legal status of fetus is not clearly defined, the number of different laws, which often appear to be argumentative and opposite in their definitions, give certain assumptions and implications for the coming to the