Ethical Dilemma Of Abortion Essay

The issue of Abortion in the United States has been a major ongoing issue. Merriam-Webster’s dictionary defines abortion as a medical procedure that is used to end or terminate a pregnancy and therefore cause the death of the fetus. The ethical dilemma of abortion is dealing with the fact on whether it is morally right to terminate a pregnancy while thinking about the moral status of the fetus and the rights of a woman over her body. Some people think that abortion is wrong in all senses and shouldn’t be legal. On the other hand, there are people who accept abortion in certain situations. This is displayed in two opposing positions, grouped into sides coined as pro-life and pro-choice. Pro-life are those individuals who advocate against

Arguments for having the choice of abortions are all the negative impacts that would happen due to regulations and issues of pregnancy due to uncontrollable situations. In past decades, women who had unwanted pregnancies regardless of abortions being legal or not were still carrying out unsafe procedures to get rid of the pregnancy. “Estimates of the number of illegal abortions in the United States during the 1950s and 1960s range from 200,000 to 1.2 million per year” (Obos Abortion Contributors, 2014). Before the Roe v. Wade, as many as 5,000 American women died yearly as a direct correlation to unsafe abortions (Obos Abortion Contributors, 2014). According to the World Health Organization, the death rate from induced abortion is currently 0.6 per 100 000 procedures, making it as safe as an injection of penicillin (World Health Organization, 2008). Legal abortions protect women from suffering serious and life-threatening illnesses and genetic disease that can be passed onto their children with devastating consequences” (Arthur J, 1999). On the other hand if a woman is raped it should be her choice on what she wants to do. No one knows or understands what that woman has gone through physically and emotionally. She should have that reproductive choice that gives her the control of her body. Pro-life people would fight back by saying abortion is murder and that

It is known to be a woman’s legal right to choose what she does with her body, and it should not be altered or influenced by anyone else. The most relevant ethical principle and theory relating to the legal aspect would be autonomy and act utilitarianism. Autonomy is what lets people have the right to make their own decisions about their lives and act utilitarianism which lets a person perform a certain act that helps the most people regardless of feelings and laws. On January 22, 1973, the U.S. Supreme Court announced its decision in Roe v. Wade case, which was a challenge to a Texas statute that made it a crime to perform an abortion unless a woman’s life was at stake. In this case, Joe Roe was a unmarried woman who wanted to end her pregnancy legally and safely. In its ruling, the court recognized for the first time that the constitutional right to privacy “is broad enough to encompass a woman’s decision whether or not to terminate her pregnancy” (Roe v. Wade, 1973). The right of privacy; personal autonomy is protected under the Due Process Clause of the 14th Amendment. Under this amendment, women have the moral right to decide what to do with their bodies, this right to abortion is vital for gender