...Abortion Abortion, also called voluntary abortion, is a medical procedure used to end a pregnancy which results by the death of the fetus or embryo. In 76% of industrialized countries, abortion has been legalized, while the debate is still on table for the rest of the world. It’s a question that still divide although it’s quite difficult to take a clear position, there is no right or wrong but purely a question open to interpretation. Those who claim abortion to be right is the result of a personal free will, argue it’s a woman’s right be able to choose what happen to her body; in the other side those who refute claims it’s a murder of an innocent and vulnerable baby whose freedom was taken away. So many questions can be raised by this fervent debate that make me confused on my own position. First, as a supposedly living in a free world, women must have the right and freedom to control their body; therefore choose abortion and control their own reproductive capacity; abortion is thus a tool for it. Also what opposition forget sometimes is if abortion is illegal, it will only increase self-abortions or “back alley” abortions, or worse some exhausted or angry mother may kill their baby, as happened. During 1950’s in United States, the number of illegal abortion was between 250,000 and 1,2 millions per year; plus around 5500 of women died every year as a direct consequence of insecure abortion. Second, regardless religious arguments, opposition explain that pretending...
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...Abortion in America: Right to Life or Right to Choose Paul Day, Felicia Jones, Thomas Ratcliff, Theresa M. Saau, Natasha Sabbah BCOM 275 June 26, 2014 Cecile Morris Abstract Abortion in America: Right to Life or Right to Choose Arguments for or against performing abortions in the United States, persist and are highly debatable. Since the 1973 Federal Supreme Court ruling of Rowe versus Wade, abortions have become established as legal in the United States. (Glendon, 2003) Legalized abortion in the United States, has received strong support from Pro-Choice proponents such as Planned Parenthood. (Planned Parenthood, 2014) Pro-Choice advocates for abortion, believe that pregnancies can be allowed to be ended prematurely. (MNT, 2009) Pro-Life advocates, on the other hand, view abortion as murder to human life. Opponents to legalizing abortions performed in the United States, often include Pro-Life supporters and certain religious groups. The issue of abortion in American society often involves individual belief and personal choice. The five members of the University of Phoenix’s BCOM/275, Learning Team C, have separated into two groups to debate the pros and cons relating to the legalization of abortions in the United States. Three team members debated the abortion topic from a Pro-Life perspective, and two team members sought to represent the Pro-Choice position. A team debate was held on June 13, 2014. The purpose of the debate, was to gather information from...
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...ENGL 1001 – 22 Catherine Joseph September 25, 2012 Annotated Bibliography Abortion: Parental Consent Abortion is defined as the removal of a fetus or embryo from the uterus or a termination of pregnancy. The abortion debate is full of controversy as two opposing groups (pro-life/pro-choice) argue about the legal and ethical issues surrounding the debate. Sarah Glazer, author of the article “Roe v. Wade at 25,” discusses the 1973 Supreme Court cases that legalized abortion, which thus sparked unprecedented social change and the unsettling debate of abortion. One major aspect regarding this issue is parental consent; it is still undetermined [on both a state and federal level] whether parents should be involved in a minor’s decision to terminate a pregnancy. The following sources provide both pro-life and pro-choice perspectives over whether parental consent should be required or not. Many of the sources supported the idea of parental consent through a pro-life perspective. In Charles S. Clark’s article titled, “Teenagers and Abortion,” he expresses the idea of how parents have the right to be involved in any medical decisions regarding their child and suggests that teens may be too immature to make a grave, life-changing decision on their own. Hyman Rodman, author of “Should Parental Involvement be Required for Minors Abortions,” expresses the idea of how parental consent can benefit teens as they are able to make a better decision about their pregnancy with the input of...
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...The Church of England encourages people to think through the issue of abortion very carefully and recognises that each individual will have differing views on the subject. However, the Church's governing body, The General Synod, has passed resolutions on the matter which provide a coherent Church of England position. The Church of England combines strong opposition to abortion with a recognition that there can be - strictly limited - conditions under which it may be morally preferable to any available alternative. General Synod The Church of England shares the Roman Catholic view that abortion is 'gravely contrary to the moral law'. As the 1980 statement of the Board of Social Responsibility put it: In the light of our conviction that the foetus has the right to live and develop as a member of the human family, we see abortion, the termination of that life by the act of man, as a great moral evil. We do not believe that the right to life, as a right pertaining to persons, admits of no exceptions whatever; but the right of the innocent to life admits surely of few exceptions indeed. Church of England Board of Social Responsibility, 1980 However, this statement does acknowledge that under some circumstances abortion could be permissible. The 1983 resolution of Synod, after expressing concern about the number of abortions in recent years went on to recognise: That in situations where the continuance of a pregnancy threatens the life of the mother a termination of pregnancy may be...
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...Equality: Too Much to Ask For? The Equal Rights Amendment has been the source of much debate for almost an entire century now. Since first purposed by Alice Paul in the 1920s one’s stance on the potential amendment has been a dividing factor in the political sphere. Though the amendment was shut down in the 1920s there has been discussion about adding the Equal Rights Amendment into the constitution today. If the potential amendment was to be brought back up my stance on the debate would be in support of the amendment. For some background on the debate on the Equal Rights Amendment it would be good to look back and see where activists in the past were split and what about the Equal Rights Amendment has divided them. The Antebellum era gave two different types of women activists, the true women and the Early Feminists. The True Women argued for gender distinctions, separate spheres, domesticity, and women as moral guardians in their natural role as a mother. The True Women would be the women who be apposed to the Equal Rights Amendment and would be active in the fight against it. Arguing against the True Women were the Early Feminists who stressed gender equality, suffrage for women, equal education, human rights, and saw women as rational beings. This group of activists would be in support of the Equal Rights Amendment. Next would be the Progressive era where the two parties in the debate would be the Early Feminists and the Female Reformists. The Early Feminists argued for...
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...Student’s Name Institution’s Name Course Name Submission Date Abortion With the expansion of personal freedoms through the constitutional provisions, abortion has become a question of personal choice rather than a moral question. Yet there are those who still argue that individuals should not be given the prerogative to decide if they should carry their pregnancies to term, even if that pregnancy is as a result of rape. All these arguments are misguided. In this paper, I propose that the question of aborting or not should be left to the individual(s) who has the responsibility of bringing up the child if at all the pregnancy is taken to full term. Proponents of Pro-choice argue that women who have procured an abortion have a higher propensity of suffering from a broad spectrum of mental health complications such as agoraphobia, panic attack, panic disorder, major depression, bipolar disorder and substance-abuse anomalies (Coleman et al. 45). Notably, these side effects are bound to affect women who have procured abortion and this is largely due to the fact that with opposition still coming from some sections of our societies, these women are denied their rightful societal place due to discrimination. Most of them balk away from the society as they suspect, and accurately so, that they will be discriminated against by the very people who are supposed to provide moral and psychological help. In fact, the propensity of these women to retreat into these psychological...
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...Abortion Is Ethical Problems with Death, 2006 "A woman deciding whether to continue a pregnancy stands on moral ground. She is entitled to make her decision....No one else...should decide whether she will use her body to bring new life into the world." In the following viewpoint Caitlin Borgmann argues that abortion is ethical for many reasons. First, women have the right to decide what to do with their own bodies, she contends. Second, abortion allows women to participate equally in society by enabling them to postpone childbearing until they finish school or establish their careers. Borgmann also maintains that abortion allows women to have children only when they are ready to take care of them, and protects their health by allowing women to terminate pregnancies at legal clinics. At the time this article was written, Caitlin Borgmann was state strategies coordinator for the American Civil Liberties Union Reproductive Freedom Project in New York. As you read, consider the following questions: What two groups of women does the author suggest suffer the most due to restrictions on abortion rights? In the author's view, in addition to a woman's right to choose, what else does the pro-choice movement stand for? What examples does the author use to support her argument that institutional opposition to abortion rights is part of a campaign to undermine women's autonomy and equality? The movement to preserve and advance reproductive freedom is suffering the consequences of...
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...Few issues have fostered such controversy, as has the topic of abortion. The participants in the abortion debate not only have firmly-fixed beliefs, but each group has a self-designated appellation that clearly reflects what they believe to be the essential issues. On one side, the pro-choice supporters see individual choice as central to the debate: If a woman cannot choose to terminate an unwanted pregnancy, a condition which affects her body and possibly her entire life, then she has lost one of her most basic human rights. These proponents of abortion believe that while a fetus is a potential life, its life cannot be placed on the same level with that of a woman. On the other side, the pro-life opponents of abortion argue that the fetus is human and therefore given the same human rights as the mother. Stated simply, they believe that when a society legalizes abortion, it is sanctioning murder. In today's more industrialized societies, technology has simplified the abortion procedure to a few basic and safe methods. Technology, however, has also enhanced society's knowledge of the fetus. Ultrasound, fetal therapy, and amniocentesis graphically reveal complex life before birth, and it is this potential human life that is at the heart of the debate. In order to form an opinion on this matter, we must first question and define several common factors which are numerously debated. I. When does human life begin? Scientists identify the first moment of human life...
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...The medical ethics topic that I have researched is the issue of abortion. Abortion is the deliberate termination of a pregnancy. In the UK, every year around 200,000 women abort unwanted pregnancy. Abortion was legalised in the UK in 1967 through the Abortion Act which allows women to have a free abortion on the NHS if signed off by two doctors. It is a highly controversial issue due to many people showing that it is highly necessary but others say that it’s too easy to have. It was legalised to avoid issues such as back street abortions from occurring as many women were killed or severely injured by them. There are three main methods which are used to abort a foetus; an early medical abortion which can be used up to twelve weeks of pregnancy, vacuum aspiration which is used between seven and fifteen weeks of pregnancy and surgical dilation and evacuation which is used from fifteen weeks of pregnancy. Central to the theological debate are the different views as to when life begins, whether abortion is murder or should it just be seen as another form of birth control? Roman Catholics believe that life begins at the point of conception and preserving life is a ‘primary precept’ whereas the Islamic view is that life begins at 120 days of gestation. These different viewpoints show that abortion is even controversial within different religions. Another clear point of controversy withinthe topic is whether abortion is classified as murder. Albert Schweitzer developed the idea of...
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...Abortion - An ethical issue. The issue of abortion is one that has been dealt with intense fervor, contention and scrutiny over the years, often emerging as the epicenter of moral, legal, civil and political battles. At the heart of this dichotomous issue is a fundamental disagreement on the morality of abortion, the right to individual freedom and a theological disposition manifesting in a collusion of the separation of church and state. This essay attempts to throw light on the moral and social imperative - a cornerstone of most anti-abortionist arguments as well as reproductive freedom, a thought central to the pro-abortionist defence. The term ‘abortion’ refers to the act of willful termination of pregnancy resulting in the removal of a foetus. The methods of abortion are varied and address the termination of pregnancy at differing stages of foetal development. While emergency contraceptives and abortion inducing drugs target removal of embryos at early stages, surgical means of foetal removal are called into play during late term abortions. Traditionally, there has been a vehement opposition to later term abortions and has drawn strong parallels of murder. However, in more recent times drug induced abortions have drawn the ire of those opposing abortion in any and all forms. Anti abortion or “pro-life” advocates oppose abortion as they deem it an immoral act. The moral debate on abortion draws from two distinct premises. On one hand is the question of whether a human...
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...Should Abortion be Legal? Julianne Jackson PHI 103 Fabio Escobar June 11, 2012 Should Abortion be Legal? Abortion is something that I am for, not against. I was raised as a Christian and I believe that, “thou shalt not kill” however, there are circumstances in our lives that cause us to believe differently. Life is about making choices and our maker and society gives us the freedom to choose. It is because of these choices that we will make a decision as to if we are ethically right or wrong. This is because regardless of what people may believe abortion is neither right nor wrong. It is the matter of a personal opinion where each side can say with conviction that the other side is wrong. Abortion is the removal of an embryo or fetus from the uterus in order to end a pregnancy. Abortion is one of the most controversial issues around and it will remain an issue that will never be agreed upon. The issue of morals has been put into the question of whether it should be legal to have an abortion thus elevating the subject to a higher level. Some people no longer look at abortion as a question of choice but as a question of morality, and these perceptions have led to a full-blown debate over something that should not be questioned. A single pregnant woman brought a class action suit that challenged the Texas law that prohibited abortions except when medically advised with the purpose of saving the mother’s life. Roe was the single mother in this case and Henry Wade was one...
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...Introduction: There are three main different views of whether of the abortion debate. Most of the debate is if the fetus is considered a human or not is the main argument. For the pro-life side of the abortion debate, they mainly say that it should be considered human. Of course the pro-choice feel just the opposite usually. Me personally, I feel consider myself to be Pro-Life because I don’t think that we have enough information on the fetus and I could never consider killing a human (or even a fetus). I feel that the parents should have taken responsibility and taken the appropriate actions such as choosing absence, or at least using protection. Hopefully, you tend to see my view and will hopefully agree after looking at the opposition...
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...Cognitive Dissonance: Abortion Individuals are social by nature and can be influenced by various factors when making choices. An individual is capable of feeling the pressure from family, peers, and community. An individual may also believe that doing something like cheating is acceptable if in the end one obtains the desire result. An individual may experience an internal exchange of ideas and problems when making a decision how to find the way through a complicated decision. Individuals may also negotiate and barter with their divine beliefs to feel at ease when making a decision to behave in an unpleasant and moral way. Cognitive dissonance theory is extremely active in this stage of disagreement, when an individual is in a state of moral conflict the theory is applied to regulate, find a balance, and to have peace of mind (Benoit, 2012). Individuals come upon countless situations throughout life when a complicated decision must be made; often times a person will even go against spiritual and moral beliefs when sensing external pressure. Moral and cognitive maturity along with a strong sense of self will assist on a logical decision. Identify the Situation Individual Consciously Made in a Behavior that Violated Cognitions Since the beginning of time, man expands all his mental facilities and physical limitations to discover the meaning of life and search to discover, when life begins. Physicians, scholars, theologians, and lay people have spent...
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...than a gambit to keep women "in their place"-- a gambit in the guise of religious moralism. True, the guise can run deep, and many so-called "pro-lifers" genuinely believe that killing a fetus is equivalent to killing a human being. But such religious feeling has no place in the public policies of a country that claims to separate church and state. In the words of Supreme Court justices O'Connor, Kennedy and Souter: "At the heart of liberty is the right to define one's own concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe, and of the mystery of human life." No one wants to plan an abortion. But the best way to prevent abortions is to prevent unwanted pregnancies: through sex education, improved distribution of birth control, and general empowerment of women to shape our own individual lives. I think one of the biggest problems with the abortion debate is that the two sides aren't in direct opposition. The pro-life movement seeks to...
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... | |Social environment- By the time Roussel- Uclaf was determining what action to take in the US, both the pro-choice and pro-life | |sides of the debate were very vocal in their opinions, though it seems that the pro-life side was more vocal in their opposition | |(at least in the earlier stages). | |Political Environment- The United States had just had 2 Republican Presidents who were staunchly anti-abortion. However, President | |Clinton was elected in 1992 and was much more liberal concerning abortion, and appointed more liberal people into regulatory | |positions (specifically, the FDA). | |Company/Organizational Environment- There are two levels at issue here. One is between the individual employees at each | |organizational level, and the other is between the parent company, Hoechst, and Roussel-Uclaf. Within each level of the | |organization, different employees at different management levels have differing opinions on abortion, which results in often | |oppositional opinions on RU-486. Also, at the different corporation levels (e.g. Hoechst as the parent company over Roussel-Uclaf) | |have different opinions on marketing the drug, and it seems that...
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