Why Abortion Is Immoral - Essay Example

Abortion is Immoral There are at least three philosophical reasons why abortion is immoral. First, it is a crime to kill; therefore killing your baby must be a crime. Second, the Divine Command theory enforces the commands of God and abortion opposes that command. Lastly, abortion is not a viable method to regulate population. After providing evidence that a fetus is viewed by the whole of society as a person worthy of similar considerations regarding life and the losing of life, this discussion will examine the criminal implications of abortion. The bulk of the paper explores the Divine Command Theory and debates the moral aspects of this divisive issue before touching on the practical arguments surrounding abortion by investigating its use to control population in China. The life of a human, from the time of conception, should be considered equally as viable as any individual. Consequently, the right of life as well as the social definition regarding ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ types of deaths should apply to potential lives which possess a future value of life, the same as any living person. Denying a being their future is murder. Unnatural, premature deaths that are considered justifiable by society include those that occur during war-time in addition to those that result from ‘mercy killings’ and the death penalty. Outside of these instances, society generally acts to protect all life even animals that have at least a chance of future potential. This is demonstrated by the life-saving techniques employed without question or hesitation in the case of people who wanted to end their life. Society will not allow it because it is simply wrong by any standard to end a life with potential. ‘Pro Choice’ advocates counter this seemingly universal truth by saying just because a person has great potential doesn’t mean that they will achieve greatness in life therefore a potential life is not yet a life. They also argue that because a fetus is unconscious disqualifies it for being considered a person. Of course, emergency medical treatment is administered to unconscious people in an effort to save their life. Society mourns the death of the young more so than the old. Taking the life of a potential person who possesses an inherent value of life and is of the very youngest of society is in opposition to this widely accepted societal value.1 Various studies through the years have proven that abortion is an abhorrent physical, psychological and moral option for all concerned yet the ‘right to choose’ still exists because the Supreme Court has stated it cannot determine for certain when life begins. We have been at a 30-plus year impasse since the Roe v. Wade decision in 1973 which legalized abortion in the U.S because the court system is unclear regarding when human life begins. The ‘Roe’ decision invalidated any state law that restricted a woman to have an abortion or a doctor to perform an abortion during the first three months (first trimester) of a pregnancy. It also restricted abortions during the second-trimester unless a woman’s health was in jeopardy.2 The Constitution does not directly address the issue but simply because the word ‘abortion’ does not appear, the Constitution is still the origin for legal precedence for this issue. The liberal interpretation of the Constitution in this matter (7-2 in favor) is at the heart of the legal issue. Because the Supreme Court has become more conservative in terms of overall ideology since 1973, many believe that soon this interpretation will more closely resemble Justice Rehnquist’s dissenting opinion regarding Roe v. Wade. According to Rehnquist, “The so-called right to abortion is not what the majority makes it out to be. The Court must be wrong to find any basis for this right in the 14th Amendment to the Constitution. To reach its result, the Court necessarily has had to find within the scope of the Fourteenth Amendment a right that was apparently completely unknown to the drafters of the Amendment.”3 There are those that argue that if the courts cannot decide when life begins and because the Roe decision has yet to be overturned even though it was not based on a solid constitutional reasoning, then the Congress, not the courts should decide matters such as this which have weighty moral implications. The Bible does not provide any assistance to the debate as it does not speak specifically of abortion, a practice that was seen as unthinkable even in those barbaric times and “childlessness was seen as a curse.”4 The Constitution and the Declaration of Independence were written by men who believed in God, men who thought prayer was important, that life was sacred, and that many of our current-day controversial practices, such as homosexuality and abortion, were biblically and morally reprehensible. The reality that a few of our Founding Fathers were deists, rather than theists, does not change the fact that these documents were written by and for a generally theistic people. According to John Adams, “Our Constitution was made for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”5 Today, however, popular culture has forgotten that our nation was founded, in large part, on Christian principles, and that the Constitution was written for a “moral and religious people.” We are, of course, free to practice our own religious beliefs, but our present society has become obsessed with the idea of tolerance. Everything is to be tolerated – with the exception of Christianity. The majority of Americans are Christians. The majority of Americans also are in favor of legal abortions. If a democratic government sanctions an act, its society sanctions it as well. In essence, many Christians are endorsing murder in opposition to Gods’ Constitution, the Ten Commandments. The Divine Command theory (DCT) embraces a simple concept, that “the moral rules contained in God’s Word are good, true, and obligatory.”6 God’s rules, as written within the texts of the Bible, are the paramount, if not the only dependable method by which Christians should seek answers to questions regarding morality. According to the theory, Christians are presented practically no situation in life that justifies disregarding scriptural doctrine. In the Book of John, Jesus said, “If you love me, you will obey what I command.”7 In the Book of Matthew, Jesus reinforced this statement. “Anyone who breaks one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven.”8 Those Christians who adhere to the DCT trust God and obey his words even when this route seemingly will lead to less than desirable outcomes.9 The DCT assumes that God created man therefore retains an unconditional entitlement of man’s obedience consequently man should act upon God’s commands. If one perceives that an omnipresent God indeed exists and has bestowed upon man commandments to live by, it is only rational that man obeys these laws. Following God’s commandments many times involves making moral decisions based on what is clearly right or wrong. At other times, right and wrong cannot be defined in simple terms of black and white. Life choices are sometimes complex and the answer to a question of God’s law and morality are ambiguous and hidden within shades of grey. Sometimes, adhering to the DCT means deciding which of God’s commands to follow when they conflict. As an example, “what if a woman’s husband demands that she get an abortion? Should she follow the command to submit to her husband, or the command not to kill?”10 This is a realistic dilemma that women face every day in a country that allows legalized murder of its youngest citizens. Legal abortion enables fathers to force their will on mothers. Some women resort to abortion in desperation because they fear continued abuse. That fear is substantiated as women who refuse to abort have been subjected to serious abuses which have escalated to murder if the women still persists in her refusal. Murder is the leading cause of death for pregnant women and for what other motive could there be? “Sixty-four percent of women surveyed report being pressured by others into unwanted abortions.”11 There is little freedom of choice for women who are experiencing an unwanted pregnancy. The women themselves usually wish to bring their baby to full term. Other powerful influences in her life such as husbands/boyfriends, parents and friends are generally the forces that exact pressures on her to terminate the pregnancy. Most often, the father of the child, not wishing to accept responsibility, may beg or even threaten a woman until she agrees to the abortion. “In 95 percent of all cases the male partner played a central role in the decision.”12 This and other studies have illustrated clearly that most women decide to have an abortion in spite of their own conscience and the commandment of God. Which of God’s commands does the woman break? Disobey the husband and risk breaking apart the sacred family unit or justify aborting her baby? Because the government and society endorses abortion, the answer too many times is to protect her own health interests and attempt to retain harmony in the family by aborting her baby. The answer for many may seem simple but the dynamics of the every situation are complex and vary widely for each individual circumstance. If society, through its government and court system did not endorse abortion, following God’s law in this circumstance would be more of a routine affair and less a choice of convenience. God’s commands are more clearly defined for the ‘orthodox’ Christian. ‘Thou shall not kill’ is straightforward and non-ambiguous i.e. don’t kill babies. The reason society has allowed abortions to be semi-accepted within the culture is that for some Christians, the implications of God’s commands are not as obvious. Some extend this Commandment to include the death penalty, others do not. Some believe life begins at conception and others when a baby takes their first breath therefore abortions are not taking a life and God’s command is not violated. The Bible is progressively becoming viewed as a moral guideline by a growing number of parishioners and the Ten Commandments as the Ten Suggestions. According to the DCT, God’s words are the basis of morality and should be followed to the letter. Still, even for the most conservative Christian, the command not to kill is somewhat subject to interpretation. Can people kill animals for the pure sport of it or only as a food source? It is not difficult to understand how God’s words can be considered open to interpretation but the difficulty of the abortion issue is that the breadth of the interpretation is very wide. It includes discounting future people as simply a clump of tissue. A myth espoused as fact is that the aborted fetus is no more than a cluster of cells, a bit of tissue unable to even feel pain. A developing embryo has a unique set of fingerprints as well as different genetic patterns than its mother. It is a human being unto itself. If one defines death as the stoppage of a heartbeat and murder as the forceful and intentional stopping of a heart then abortion is surely murder. If the existence of heartbeat legally defined life, then almost all abortions would be illegal as the heart is formed by the 18th day in the womb. A British medical journal reported that when a pin is stuck into an eight-week-old fetus, it opens his mouth in a crying motion and pulls his hand away. By week five, eyes, legs, and hands begin to develop. “By week six, brain waves are detectable, mouth and lips are present and fingernails are beginning to form. By the eighth week the baby can begin to hear. Every organ is in place, bones begin to replace cartilage, and fingerprints begin to form.”13 The DCT is clear and non-negotiable for some but for others, its tenets remain subjective and vague. If a person rejects the DCT, this does not imply that they believe morality to not be founded by God but that His commandments are not the foundation of morality. For example, “according to Natural Law Theory, God created the world and all its physical laws and this includes the laws of morality; and we can gain knowledge of these laws even if we do not believe in God and know nothing about his will and commands.”14 If a person accepts the Natural Law Theory, God’s commands are still valid within this reasoning and should be adhered to because, if for no other reason, that they are widely accepted as sound moral advice if not the basis for morality.  Given that the DCT is beyond reproach, the concept of morality as understood by the individual may be skewed because of a lack of understanding which tends to distort the commandment’s message to the receiver. “A person’s moral view combined with certain plausible assumptions might have unforeseen implications that are incompatible with some of that person’s particular moral judgments.”15 While true, this argument is often erroneously used to explain why those who subscribe to the DCT oppose abortion. The claim is based on the premise that the fetus constitutes a person and is arguable therefore the conclusion that abortion is in moral conflict with God’s law is also arguable. This reasoning applies to other issues such as homosexuality. Those that consider homosexuality to be in opposition to God’s law and unnatural may have an inflexible view of what is unnatural. As evidence, persons who are gay believe their lifestyle to be perfectly natural. Of course, the majority of society does not agree with this viewpoint and God’s law specifically forbids homosexuality. Natural Law Theory reasoning cuts both ways however. An individual may believe, for example, that abortion is acceptable in the eyes of God and not morally wrong because it is not immoral to destroy something that is not aware it exists and a fetus is unaware. The premise of this reasoning is flawed because an infant is not aware of its existence either and all would agree, including the courts, that infanticide is morally unacceptable and in clear violation of God’s commandments. Good advice for those that have varying views of when life begins, oppose or support legal abortions, believe homosexuality is natural or unnatural is not to blindly accept the established ideology whether spiritual, political or personal in nature. Throughout the history of the world, many strongly held opinions were commonly accepted by the majority of the population such as the idea that black persons or Jews were subhuman, the earth was flat (according to the Bible), a monarchy was the best form of government and women were to be subservient to their husbands in every way. It’s very likely that some of people’s strongly held opinions today are as grossly mistaken as well. While some moral opinions are seemingly unchangeable, others are less so. Those of all opinions would be well-served to maintain an open mind to other opinions with regard to questions of morality and a willingness to question their own beliefs. “Even if one does not change one’s moral views, one will at least better understand one’s own moral views and those of others, and be better able to defend one’s own views rather than simply being dogmatic.”16  For the past quarter century, abortion has been legally available in the U.S. and has been mandated as part of government policy in China. In an effort to control China’s booming population growth, the one-child policy was instituted which forces women to abort their second and subsequent children. According to a report by the New England Journal of Medicine, males now outnumber females in China by more than 17 percent, an acute gender disparity. This situation has facilitated a vast criminal underground market that buys and sells women who are forced into prostitution. The government imposes serious sanctions against violators of the one child quota including unreasonable fines.17 “The law requires couples who have an unapproved child to pay a ‘social compensation fee,’ which sometimes reaches 10 times a person’s annual income, and grants preferential treatment to couples who abide by the birth limits.”18 These sanctions also include the forfeiture of employment or job demotion and the destruction of personal property in addition to being subject to many acts of intimidation, including physical threats and are subjected to what amounts to the forced execution of women’s unborn children. “Psychological and economic pressure are very common; during unauthorized pregnancies, women sometimes were visited by birth planning workers who used threats, including that of social compensation fees, to pressure women to terminate their pregnancies.”19 Women have also been incarcerated and their husbands sterilized. Medical care for infant girls is generally inadequate; many are victims of infanticide or are aborted.20 The Chinese society appears to possess a low regard for life, specifically that of the unborn, certainly to a disturbingly deeper extent than does American society. Not true. Approximately 25 percent of women (of childbearing years) in China have had a child aborted. In the U.S., this figure ranges from 35 to 43 percent, a staggering reality.21 Nearly half of all adult American women who emanate from all socioeconomic and racial backgrounds have killed a being with future potential and value. All religions are well represented as well. Of the total number of American women who have abortions 13 percent claim to be Evangelical, ‘born-again’ Christians and about a quarter are Catholics. The U.S. treats women much the same as the oppressive Chinese communist government. In this country which purports itself to be the ‘land of the free,’ women would truly have the freedom of choice if not for the present way in which they are legally enslaved. The legality of abortions gives validity to this oppression and by the most inhumane of methods possible. It allows, even encourages, enormous pressures to be placed on a mother to kill her child. Legalized abortion deals a gruesome blow to the most vulnerable in our society for the convenience of those largely unaffected by the pregnancy. The moral question simply leads to more questions than answers to the majority of Americans who, as a society, appear to heading in a liberal, progressive direction and away from God and His commandments. Works Cited Anderson, Kirby. “Arguments Against Abortion.” Leadership U. (August 5, 2003). June 29, 2007 Beach, W. Christian Ethics in the Protestant Tradition. Atlanta: John Knox Press, 1988. Ertelt, Steven. “Report Calls on China to Give Up Forced-Abortion Population Control Policy.” Life News. (September 16, 2005). Fackler, Mark & Bunn, Christopher. “Is It Ever Right To Do Wrong? Making ethical decisions when commandments seem to collide.” Discipleship Journal. Vol 104 (March/April 1998). June 29, 2007 Felis, George. “What Atheism Isn’t, Part 2: Atheism and Morality.” The New Humanist Magazine. (June, 2007). June 29, 2007 “Forced Abortion Still Part of China’s Population Control Regime says US Human Rights Report.” LifeSiteNews. (March 1, 2005). June 29, 2007 Holy Bible (King James Version). New York: American Bible Society: 1999. Marquis, Don. “An Argument that Abortion is Wrong.” (1989). Northern Arizona University. June 29, 2007 National Right to Life Foundation. “Fetal Development: From Conception to Birth.” National Right to Life. (n.d.). June 29, 2007 Pavone, Frank. “Justice Rehnquist’s Dissent.” The Conservative Voice. (June 19, 2005). June 29, 2007 Reardon, David C. Aborted Women, Silent No More. Springfield, IL: Acorn Books, 2002, pp. 11-21. “Roe v. Wade: 1973.” Women’s Rights on Trial. 1st Ed. New York: Thompson Gale, 1997. Velasquez, Manuel. Philosophy: A Text with Readings. New York: Wadsworth Publishing Co., 2002: Chapter 7, Section 4. Zimmerman, Mary K. Passage Through Abortion. New York: Prager Publishers, 1977. Read More