Existentialism: Pregnant Women And Abortion

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Recommended: Legal and ethical issues surrounding abortion

This essay argues that it is fair that a pregnant woman can receive abortions without the fetus's say. To be accurate, “fetus” in this essay refers to the fetus in stages which can be legally aborted.
Existentialism
There is no wrong for the mother to have the right to end her fetus’s life. From the perspective of existentialism, I agree to that women have the right to abortion no matter what the reason is behind. Existentialism emphasizes the inner voice of one’s heart (Warnock, 1970). The mother must be honest to the feeling in her heart in order to create the special meanings to her life. If abortion is what she wants, she should follow her mind and do it. Existential anxiety may happen to her when she denies the freedom and ignores her …show more content…

It is true that the decision to have an abortion from the mother is unfair to the fetus if the fetus is treated as a potential human. Marquis (1989) stated that abortion is morally wrong only with rare exceptions, with the reason that the wrongness of killing life can be applied on fetal life with the strong belief that a fetus contains characteristics both necessary and sufficient for being a human. Yet, I doubt whether a fetus has the right to determine her mother’s action on her pregnancy. Personally, I do not take a fetus as a human life but an extended part of the pregnant woman. Considering in a biological way, there are too many variables during the pregnancy on defining it as a human being or a life. Nevertheless, a fetus lacks the ability to develop a soul or mind for logical inference, criticizing and understanding, which is human-defining (Lakoff & Johnson, 1999). As a result, it is difficult to biologically define a fetus as a human being. Some may argue that even though the fetus is not a human, whether it can be killed is controversial. Take animals as an example, killing or torturing an animal, which is not a human being, for no reason is morally wrong. I view this in another way. Instead of killing an animal for no reason, if it is killed for a morally correct reason, the decision can be debated. For example, animal euthanasia is to help animals with the deadly disease to pass away in the most

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