Abortion refers to the medical process of ending a pregnancy. The controversial abortion is induced abortion, where individuals remove the early embryo, and are commonly elective. Spontaneous abortion or miscarriage is when the medical practitioner involuntarily expels the embryo from the uterus due to diseases or trauma. The international human rights law highlights that everyone has a right to health and life and is free from discrimination or violence. The human rights law gives a right to bodily autonomy whereby the individual has total control over what happens in their lives. Forcing an individual to carry unwanted pregnancy or forcing them to terminate the fetus is a violation of human rights incorporating rights to bodily autonomy and privacy. Research highlights that the fetus or the embryo is a human being who has a right to life. Killing the embryo is equal to denying the person the right to life; thus, it is wrong to perform an abortion.
It is morally impermissible to perform an abortion because a fetus is a person, and it has an exemplary life from conception time. Human life begins after conception, whereby the female germ cells unite with the male through the process of fertilization. The fertilized ovum is a zygote that later grows into an embryo. An embryo is the initial development stage of human beings that occurs from the first to the second months in the uterus (Hendricks, 2021). It is prudent to understand that human life emanates from the fetus; thus, terminating it means losing a life. Research highlights that the fetus possesses brain waves at six weeks, and the heart develops by the tenth week (Hendricks, 2021). During the development process, the organism is alive but attached to the mother for support. It gradually acquires the human features that manifest in the late parts of the trimesters. The process highlights that the fetus is alive, and no one has the right to terminate it; else, the individual will be killed, which is morally wrong.
Abortion is the wrong reason being it incorporates depriving the being of life like the one people are currently living. In most cases, abortion only deprives the fetus of a right to life which is seriously prima facie wrong. Prima facie wrong refers to when there is a valid moral reason for doing a sure wrong thing, but it cannot override the moral elements (Scarfone, 2020). Performing an abortion denies the fetus a promising future, similar to when the perpetrators kill the human being. Don Marquis’s non-religious argument affirms that killing adult humans is equivalent to killing a fetus because the fetus grows into a human being (Scarfone, 2020). The majority of people enjoy life, but the fetus does not extend to relish the future. Everyone has a right to life, and no person has a right to kill a tiny fetus through abortion. Regardless of the underlying reasons to conduct an abortion, it is morally wrong to deprive the fetus of a future like ours.
On the other hand, contraception is the wrong reason being it prevents the future value of the fetus. According to Thomson, unless the mother allows the fetus the right to use their body, it would be just to kill the fetus (Scarfone, 2020). The individual should not kill the fetus unjustly based on underlying causes such as rape cases. The reason why the opposing side is wrong is that the fetus acquires all rights after conception. Research highlights that the fetus acts in a parasitic way, and it avoids the mother’s rejection by influencing her metabolism for its gains, such as diverting nutrients and blood (Scarfone, 2020). The fetus possesses a whole panoply of human rights which include individuals not killing it through medical experiments and the reproductive acts of other people. Consequently, taking contraception does not course direct harm like abortion which incorporates denying the human being a right to life. There are no arbitrarily identifiable aspects of contraceptives, but it is wrong to take conduct and abortion.
In conclusion, abortion is a controversial process involving terminating a premature fetus or embryo. The international human rights law denotes that everyone has a right to life, and the fetus is part of human life, thus, sharing equal rights. Scholar indicates that it is morally impermissible to conduct an abortion because the fetus contains the life that begins immediately after conception. Abortion deprives the fetus of living a life like that of other people. The author stipulates that abortion is prima facie wrong, but it is morally wrong to conduct and abort despite the underlying reasons. Abortion is morally wrong and should not occur at any stage of human life because it only deprives the fetus of a right to life. The mother has a moral obligation to protect the embryo to help secure its future and not break the moral codes dictated by the human rights authority.
References
Hendricks, P. (2021). The axiology of abortion: Should we hope pro-choicers or pro-lifers are right?. Ergo: An Open Access Journal of Philosophy.
Scarfone, M. (2020). Incoherent Abortion Exceptions. Journal of Social Philosophy. doi: 10.1111/josp.12366