The common moral principle often used in difficult situations is that found in the theory of natural person known as the principle of double effect. The principle of double effect evolved in order to address just these types of difficult moral dilemmas in the case of abortion where both of the lives of those affected, because the women may have a cancerous uterus or similar, are innocent, and yet something must be done or will happen which inevitably will endanger one of these two innocent lives. The obvious application for our purposes here is when a woman, who is herself an innocent human being, whose human life is precious and must be respected, is pregnant with an unborn child, who is also an innocent human being and whose life is also precious and must be respected. Since, as natural law theory puts forward, one may never directly intend to kill an innocent human being, under what circumstances and conditions is it morally right for a woman to have an abortion procedure or for a doctor to help one of these innocents by ending the life of the child.
In natural law there are three parts which determine whether something is right or not. Firstly the act itself which in this case is having an innocent child aborted and killed by someone elses choice, which is either good, evil, or neutral. Secondly, the motive or intention which is what the person wants to achieve by the act which in abortion can be either to save the mother or just stop them having to have a child which may be handicaped etc. And finally the circumstances, which is what has become of this act. The child in the abortion is dead.
It is true that it is not the task of the law to choose between to impose one law rather than another. But the life of the child takes precedence over all opinions. A person cannot allow freedom of thought to destroy this life.
“Abortion is the best option if the foetus is abnormal”. Discuss.
I believe abortion is never the best option in any circumstance unless it is to protect the mothers’ life. If the foetus is abnormal there is no reason the parents should not go ahead with the birth. Firstly, if they do not want the responsibility of an abnormal child they should give it up for adoption. This can be easily done after the birth and they will never have to be in contact with the child again and yet the child has a chance to live. Secondly, the child may lead a perfectly happy life as the abnormal child will live with that abnormality all their life therefore it will become normal for them. There is also no proof that in the future that abnormality could not be fixed. And thirdly the moral answer would be that it is never the best option to abort the child as it is not our choice. Life is sacred and therefore the foetus has a right to live, no matter what the abnormality is.
It could also be argued that the foetus has gone past the embryo stage therefore has a soul and by aborting the baby we would be destroying the soul. If it was possible to be aborted earlier this may have not been wrong.
