In my opinion, there are many cases in which an abortion can be justified. If the woman involved has been raped, I think she should have the choice of whether she keeps the baby or not. I think this because the woman would not feel comfortable with a baby she did not want, or plan. This may land her in financial difficulties, or emotional stress, because the baby she conceived was from an attack by a vicious man. In this situation, a Roman Catholic would advise her to keep the baby, and put it up for adoption, if she was unable to cope with it. This is because they believe that life begins at conception, so aborting the baby is murder. In the bible, it states Jeremiah 1:5, it states; ‘The Lord said to me “I chose you before I gave you life, and before you were born, I selected you to be a prophet to the nations.”’ This would show a Roman Catholic, that life does begin at conception, as God chose Jeremiah before birth to be a prophet. In a situation of rape, I do not think that there are any other options apart from abortion. This is because, if she does choose to then keep the baby, and put it up for adoption, she might become attached to the baby, and not wants to hand it over. This could land her in emotional and financial problems.
I feel that if it is known that the baby will be born severely handicapped, abortion is a possible solution. There are many severely disabled people in this world, some who were born handicapped, and some who developed them. In this world, there are many prejudiced people who would discriminate against these people, and in a lot of cases, be sniggered at. I am sure that unless you were very strong-willed, you would feel like an outsider and different. Although it is an option I myself do not know if I would take, it may be more humane to terminate them before they can survive independently of their mother. Steven Hawking, the famous physicist is one of the most intelligent people in the world. He suffers from motor-neurone disease, which slowly devours you until you are left with nothing but your mind until you die. In this case, Steven is badly handicapped, and although he was not born with it, if he was aborted, many of the discoveries about physics and space may not have been discovered. This shows that even the most handicapped of babies, should not be terminated because they can still turn out to be very important people, rather than freak-shows in circuses. From a Roman Catholic point of view, no matter how handicapped the baby, it should never be judged. It should always be given a chance to live. I agree with this fully, but for all the hate and prejudice in the world, I do not know whether I could let a baby live and grow up like that having all of its pride and very existence stripped from it.
I do not think society as a whole does enough to support pregnant women in situations like these. This is mainly because there are so many debates going on about this issue that not enough people are willing to commit themselves to either helping one side or the other. For the circumstances, society does do the best it can. It is just a matter of time before women in this position are given wider options.
