6.1 Medical Ethics (ABORTION)

Question 1

Pope Francis

Answer 1

‘Is it permissible to contract a hitman to solve a problem?’

Question 2

LAW FOR ABORTION IN GREAT BRITIAN (excluding Northern Island)

Answer 2

• The law requires that two doctors give their consent before a pregnancy is terminated
• An abortion can take place up to 24 weeks after conception.
• An abortion can be performed after this period if there is a risk that the mother will be permanently injured by continuing or if the child has a serious disability.

(Doctors consider social factors as well as medical)

Question 3

The religious viewpoint

Answer 3

Natural Law/Catholic Church argue that the natural consequence of a woman becoming pregnant is to give birth.

Other religious groups accept certain situations in which abortion might be permissible e.g. after rape.

In Islam, abortion is considered wrong but NOT punishable wrong if it is performed in the first 120 days of pregnancy.

OVERALL VIEWS:
1. Only God has the right to decide when a person should die.
2. Each person has an eternal soul and this should be protected.
3. Life is God-given, once life is devalued by legally/morally destroying life then all life is under threat.

Question 4

The pro-choice argument

Answer 4

• Pro-choice is not ‘pro-abortion’. The argument is about who should decide
• Supporters believe a woman should be free to decide 1. The foetus is part of the woman’s body until it is capable of independant life 2. The woman has a right to decide because at that stage life is potential not actual 3. Must consider social, family or financial circumstances in giving birth.

Question 5

The issue of personhood

Answer 5

• Whether the foetus is a person or a potential person
• Whether the foetus has rights and how to balance these rights against the rights of the mother.

Question 6

Don Marquis argument

Answer 6

-Argues abortion is wrong, not because of the personhood of the foetus but because abortion deprives the foetus of a ‘future like ours’.

• If it is wrong to kill a child on the ground that they are being deprived of a future, the same argument applies to a foetus.

BUT argument does not consider future cases where a foetus could be disabled to the extent their experiences would be unpleasant and painful.

Question 7

Judith Jarvis Thomson’s thought experiment

Answer 7

Summarised: You wake up to find yourself connected to an unconscious famous violinist. You’ve been kidnapped because only your kidneys can save his life by filtering his blood. If you disconnect now, he will die, but if you stay connected for nine months, he will survive.

Question 8

Thomson’s argument explained

Answer 8

Thomson argues you are entitled to unplug yourself from the violinist becuase the right to life does not entail the right to use another person’s body.

Likewise, abortion merely deprives the foetus of something, the use of a pregnant woman’s body, to which it has no right.

Question 9

Criticisms of Thomson

Answer 9

1. Argument only seems to work in cases of abortion after rape.
   2.If the pregnant woman has voluntarily engaged in sex, she is responsible for the foetus’s need to use her body.
2. The pregnant woman has a special obligation to sustain her offspring (the violinist confers no such obligation)
3. There is a moral difference between killing and allowing to die.