‘Though shalt not avenge, nor bear any grudge against the children of thy people, but thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.’
Catholics are against abortion because they interpret quotes in different ways and may see this quotation to show if you should love everyone as yourself, you should love and treat everyone well. This includes a foetus. For example bearing a grudge on the foetus’ father the foetus would suffer particularly in the issue of rape. Therefore if everyone were to be treated equally, believers of life beginning at conception would believe that foetus’ also deserves respect and rights. I who am for abortion can interpret it and say the term ‘children’ refers to living humans and I consider foetus’ not to be living. Therefore this quotation doesn’t link with abortion so it has no relevence in this situation.
Another argument from the New Testament is when Jesus said,
‘I have come to free the oppressed’
The oppressed refers to the abused, misused, exploited and put upon people. To follow Jesus’ example to try and free the ‘put upon’ people Catholics would argue we need to free the foetuses. They would say that they are the most vulnerable and weak and need to be freed in to the new world. I interpret this to mean that surely the mothers are the ‘misused’ people in such situations as rape. The foetuses are just the end product.
Other anti-abortionists would argue that modern science has proven that the unborn child, even though he or she is in the mother’s womb is a separate human being from conception. They may also argue that people with severe handicaps can lead happy and fulfilled lives. Every foetus is a unique, talented human being, a genius perhaps even a William Shakespeare or Beethoven. An example of a person is the education minister who is blind, David Blunkett. Other examples are people who are involved in the paraolympics, a large achievement and success of disabled people. A very famous man called Stephen Hawkins has motor neurone disease. He is a wheelchair user because he is paralyzed and can only communicate through a computer. He has achieved such things as being a famous author and is a very well known scientist. If a woman wanted a child and found out from a scan that it would be severely handicapped and disabled she may want an abortion. Surely, as a parent you want what’s best for your child in the long run and not put him or her through the pain of at least a childhood and adulthood of teasing or even worse bullying. If he or she was severely disabled mentally then he or she may not be able to communicate. This would affect the child mentally and physically. In modern day society there is a high chance of being discriminated against. Everywhere people are prejudice so why risk any abuse. Why put it through pain all of its life when it could have no pain at all.
On the other hand ‘Pro Choice’ would argue that it is justified in every situation because it’s the woman’s body therefore her choice to control her fertility. Having an abortion would be thought of as getting rid of an unwanted problem (a baby), a practical solution. The woman may not want the baby or isn’t capable of having it or bringing it up.
I believe abortion is justified in some situations.
One example is rape. Surely if a woman who is raped, gets pregnant and wants an abortion then it is completely understandable. By offering her an abortion it is a humane and practical way of helping her. I’m sure the mother wouldn’t want to have a baby where she could look at it and see the rapist’s face every single day. It would bring back memories of the pain, the torture she had been through in the rape attack. In this situation I think the value of the life of the mother overules the value of the foetus.
The mother may get pregnant because the contraception didn’t work properly. Surely she can’t be blamed from that.
At the end of the day in all these circumstances the mother would have to deal with such problems as money difficulties, maybe she is still a student and hasn’t got a job. She wouldn’t be able to give the baby luxuries as well as necessities that he or she may need. For the mother it maybe more of a trauma to give up a child for adoption than having an abortion because that way shw wouldn’t have much of a chance to get too attached to the baby. To look at it from the babys point of view, it would never have a real father to love and be loved by. When the child grew older it would certainly want to know what his or her dad was like. The truth would be that the mother knows as little as the child. Every child has a right to be a wanted child. Abortion saves several thousands of children being unwanted and generally saves society from many problems.
Could you ever tell your child that it was unwanted and a mistake?
Overall I think the value of the mother overrules the value of the foetus which I think isn’t living. So the value of a living thing overrules a so-called object.
