Reserch Paper on Abortion - Essay Example

“The question which we must answer in order to produce a satisfactory solution to the problem of the moral status of abortion is this: How are we to define the moral community, the set of beings with full and equal moral rights, such that we can decide whether a human fetus is a member of this community or not? What sort of entity, exactly, has the inalienable rights” (Warren, 1996). This report will look at this and other arguments around the general issue of abortion, providing answers to these questions and also posing new questions through the process of intensive research.

In terms of Western philosophy, abortion has historically been a social issue that was mixed up with the time at which a fetus is said to gain a soul or become a human. Issues of morality were less important to these thinkers in terms of aborting a fetus that was seen not to yet have acquired a soul, which was seen to take form anywhere, by time, after four months post-conception. Therefore, American law, having a Western precedent in terms of philosophical and social maintenance of ideals in its beginnings, adopted this neutral morality in its own policies involving abortion, which was not the subject of penalty under early American law.

In thinking of the psychology of morality in a political sphere, it is interesting to think of morality at the same time appearing in a social-scientific sphere of psychology, in terms of past and present ideals. It is the purpose of a psychological and social perspective to discuss these ideals in terms of a polarized national debate about abortion, asking vital questions: “Is it better to be born as the result of a pregnancy that at least one parent intended or one that neither parent intended?

If intentions diverge, do infants whose conception was intended by their mother fare better than those whose conception was intended by their father?” (Korenman, 2002). One must think of the serious social and psychological toll of unintended