Abortion Flashcards
Define embryo
Fertilised ovum in the first 8 weeks of development before organs
Define foetus
Unborn human between 8-24 weeks gestation
Define viability
Point at which the developing foetus becomes capable of surviving outside of the womb
Jonathon Glover argues you must not let abortion after this point because there is no difference between a born baby and a foetus who is unborn
Define consciousness
State of being aware, awake or sensitive to one’s surroundings
Sometimes suggested as a definition of personhood
Ability to feel pain and pleasure, a sentient being
Define personhood
Ethical quality or human condition which denotes a morally significant or valuable individual being
Facts of abortion
92% in 2013 were under 13 weeks, 80% under 10
Under 16 rate- 2.5 per 1000
Decrease from 185,311 to 184,571 in 2014
Conception in relation to abortion debate
- moment of fertilisation
- Christian view of when life begins- sanctity of life, formed you…knew you…, do not murder
- not certain at this point whether it is 1,2,3+ lives
- no genetic imprint
- Part x, part James- John Gallagher
- Judith Jarvis Thomson- acorn is not oak tree
- critics say the fertilised egg is too different from what we recognise as a person to be the same thing
- Johnathon Glover- to call a foetus at the point of conception a person stretches beyond normal boundaries
Value of potential and real life- when life begins- quotes from scholars
- John Grigg- ‘conception is the magic moment’
- Dee Wells- ‘I do not believe that a fertilised ovum is a human life…I believe life begins at birth
- Pope Pius IX- ‘a foetus is a human person at the moment of conception’– scientifically all genetic information is necessary to form a unique human being is present at moment of conception
- Judith Jarvis Thomson- ‘acorn has potential to become an oak tree but is not yet an oak tree’
- Mary Anne Warren- ‘birth rather than an other earlier point marks the beginning of true moral status’
Value of potential and real life- opinions of when life begins in general
-presence of primitive streak or central nervous cortex- 14days, unclear about how many people
-consciousness- cannot be applied to all living tissue e.g. Even though animals can experience pleasure and pain they are not humans, we cannot use the ability to communicate as a definition because dolphins and chimpanzees do. Small babies or people with severe mental disabilities have no sense of past and future but are still humans
-point of viability- up until then it is only a potential person. Only problem with this is that it is getting earlier with technological advances. Foetus has intrinsic value not because it can survive but because of what it is
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Define abortion
The deliberate termination of a pregnancy which results in the death of the foetus usually before 24 weeks gestation
Primitive streak in relation to abortion
- 14 days, also point of central nervous cortex forming
- determines number of babies, cells differentiate
- all experimentation has to stop here
- RC Church argue that at this point it changes from a potential being to a being with potential
- foetus does still not yet have the same rights as a human and it isn’t minded because it still doesn’t present features that are similar to a human so cannot yet identify as one
- Thomson and Glover’s opinions on conception apply here too
Viability in relation to abortion
- time at which baby could survive outside, usually 24 weeks, limit for UK abortions
- argued that the foetus must have same rights as a healthy, able bodied premature child born at 24 weeks- Johnathon Glover’s view
- even with technology this is unlikely to be earlier
- after 24 weeks it is late abortions only- mothers life at risk or severely disabled child, unlikely to survive, kindest thing for mother and baby
CofE views on abortion
- accept abortions in special cases- potential death of mother/baby
- but it still strongly opposed- ‘CofE 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
- worried about a rise in no. of abortions, ‘the number of abortions carried out since the passage of the abortion act 1967 is unacceptably high’
- see abortions as morally evil and too many ‘pointless’ abortions happen
- ‘gravely contrary to moral law’
Roman Catholic views on abortion
- completely opposed to abortion- all having one are excommunicated
- believes abortion has serious physical and emotional side effects
- playing God- stopping natural cycle of events as God planned it
- only approve if mother’s life is in grave danger e.g. pre-eclampsia or ectopic pregnancy- JJT mother in house
- ‘life must be protected with utmost care from moment of conception; abortion and infanticide are the most abominable of crimes’- Second Vatican Council
- ‘from first moment of his existence, a human being must be recognised as having the rights of a person-among which is the inviolable right of every innocent being to life’- Catechism of the Catholic Church
- ‘go forth and multiply’
Outline the Hippocratic oath
- taken by doctors and other medical professionals
- ‘nor counsel any such thing nor perform the utmost respect for every human life from fertilisation to natural death and reject abortion that deliberately takes a a unique human life’
