Abortion

Essay by terry_thommoHigh School, 11th gradeB, May 2004

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In this speech I will claim that the most important issues in deciding the morality of an abortion are the nature and strength of the competing rights of the potential mother and the foetus, the circumstances of the pregnancy, and mercy and compassion. All abortions must be considered individually and on the specific terms they are sought.

I will use a discussion on the relevance of the moral status of the foetus to the morality of abortion as a tool to draw out these conclusions. I will take the hard line conservative and liberal positions as a starting point in the discussion since they seem to see the question of the humanity of the foetus as decisive, and settled unequivocally.

Abortion is defined as the premature ending of a pregnancy in order to destroy the offspring. There is 3 different views that abortion can be seen as, firstly some people believe that it's a woman's right to demand an abortion, then there are those who believe it is a murder of an unborn human individual and those that think it is justifiable under certain circumstances.

I will give both sides of this argument and explain why I believe abortion should be illegal. There are, however, cases where the rights of the potential mother will be in sufficient conflict with those of the foetus that an abortion could be justified. The reason for this is that it is not justifiable to destroy the life of someone who can't defend itself.

The reason why abortion is such a controversial issue is that every abortion kills a baby. The issue of abortion is serious and could be considered as one of the largest human rights issues in Australia today with over 80 000 unborn children being killed by abortion annually, even when it...