Some Pro-Lifers however allow abortion if pregnancy proves to be a risk to the mothers life. Also exceptions maybe made in cases such as rape or incest.
The Right to Choose; Others say it is up to the individual woman to choose whether or not she wants to give birth. This is the Pro-Choice position. Pro Choicer's argue that it’s wrong to deny the women the right to choose. They believe that an embryo or fetus is not a person yet. If it is not a person then it doesn’t have the interests or rights of a person. Therefore we are not violating the rights or interests of a fetus by aborting it.
Pro-Choicer’s also point out that if abortions become illegal then women will be forced to use so called back-street abortions. These people perform abortions for money and often perform in dangerous conditions, which put the woman’s life at risk.
The Law states that an abortion is only to be performed if;
- the continuance of the pregnancy would involve risk to the life of the pregnant woman greater than if the pregnancy were terminated
- if it would prevent any physical or mental health risk to the pregnant woman or the existing children
- there is substantial risk that if the child were born it would suffer from such mental or physical abnormalities as to be seriously handicapped
- to be performed in a licensed clinic, NHS hospital or privatized hospital by a registered doctor
Religion also has different viewpoints on abortion, Protestant women are strictly prohibited to abort their fetus, and in Ireland abortion is illegal however thousand of women travel to England to carry out abortions. Many religions see humans as the creation of God, and when we abort a fetus we are destroying a creation of God. God has created us all in the image of him and that when someone is pregnant they are pregnant by the will of God and when women have abortions they go against Gods decisions. However in Sikhism women’s right far outweighs the right of the fetus, which is not given the status of s human person. Abortion is allowed up to a medically safe point.
Abortion is an issue which is to be debated upon for many years to come, for me the main question is that arises from this debate is, "is this a choice or a child?". For me a fetus is a baby in its early stage of development therefore killing a fetus is killing a baby, which is morally unjustifiable in all cases. I believe that if the child is not wanted then the child should be conceived and then put up for adoption. This is because the child lives and the women don’t face the concept of guilt for taking away life. All life is sacred and important and just because a child is disabled, it doesn’t give any reason for the child to be terminated, this is morally wrong. Many disabled people have lived a good life, Stephen Hawkins is an example of this.
To me abortion is the easy way out of a problem, it’s a choice that can be made by many women today, and puts into doubt the importance of human life. However for some people abortion is justifiable as humans have the right to choose. Many women don’t tell the potential fathers about them being pregnant and that they are going to have an abortion, so should the potential fathers have a say?
Yassir Hamid