Abortion, intimacy, and the duty to gestate (original) (raw)

Phenomenology of pregnancy and the ethics of abortion

Medicine, Health Care, and Philosophy, 2018

In this article I investigate the ways in which phenomenology could guide our views on the rights and/or wrongs of abortion. To my knowledge very few phenomenologists have directed their attention toward this issue, although quite a few have strived to better understand and articulate the strongly related themes of pregnancy and birth, most often in the context of feminist philosophy. After introducing the ethical and political contemporary debate concerning abortion, I introduce phenomenology in the context of medicine and the way phenomenologists have understood the human body to be lived and experienced by its owner. I then turn to the issue of pregnancy and discuss how the embryo or foetus could appear for us, particularly from the perspective of the pregnant woman, and what such showing up may mean from an ethical perspective. The way medical technology has changed the experience of pregnancy – for the pregnant woman as well as for the father and/or other close ones – is discussed, particularly the implementation of early obstetric ultra-sound screening and blood tests (NIPT) for Down’s syndrome and other medical defects. I conclude the article by suggesting that phenomenology can help us to negotiate an upper time limit for legal abortion and, also, provide ways to determine what embryo-foetus defects to look for and in which cases these should be looked upon as good reasons for performing an abortion. Keywords: ethics of abortion; phenomenology; lived body; pregnancy; obstetric ultrasound; quickening; NIPT

Targeting the Fetal Body and/or Mother-Child Connection: Vital Conflicts and Abortion

Linacre Quarterly , 2019

Is the “act itself” of separating a pregnant woman and her previable child neither good nor bad morally, considered in the abstract? Recently, Maureen Condic and Donna Harrison have argued that such separation is justified to protect the mother’s life and that it does not constitute an abortion as the aim is not to kill the child. In our article on maternal–fetal conflicts, we agree there need be no such aim to kill (supplementing aims such as to remove). However, we argue that to understand “abortion” as performed only where the death of the child is intended is to define the term too narrowly. Respect for the mother, the fetus, and the bond between them goes well beyond avoiding any such aim. We distinguish between legitimate maternal treatments simply aimed at treating or removing a damaged part of the woman and illegitimate treatments that focus harmfully on the fetal body and its presence within the mother’s body. In obstetrics as elsewhere, not all side effects for one subject of intervention can be outweighed by intended benefits for another. Certain side effects of certain intended interventions are morally conclusive.

Body (Subject) Interruptus: A Phenomenology of Unwanted Pregnancy

Presented to the Society for Existential and Phenomenological Theory and Culture, Saint Thomas University and the University of New Brunswick (Fredricton, Canada), May 30 – June 4, 2011

In Jane Martin's Pulitzer Prize-nominated play Keely and Du, Keely, a young working class woman intending to terminate her pregnancy, is abducted by a group of religious fundamentalists, who spirit her away to an undisclosed location where she is held prisoner.

The Moral Status of the Fetus and the Concept of Personhood

2021

The purpose of this study is to provide a comprehensive analysis of the existing approaches and concepts regarding the status of the fetus, address its importance as well as identify an approach that could possibly help in solving the dilemma on the moral status of the fetus. In general, the topic of abortion is very complex and raises a lot of different issues regardless of whether we try to analyze it from ethical, scientific, religious, legal, or political point of view. This study is focused solely on two ethical questions in the abortion debate. The first question is to define the moral status of the fetus and the second is about determining the importance of the fetal status for the abortion debate. Employing the descriptive, analytical, and comparative methods the study presents various different views and ethical approaches on the issue. The analysis demonstrates that all of the theories have their own problems and could potentially be very misleading and harmful to society....

Early and Later Abortions: Ethics and Law

Most abortions occur early in pregnancy. I argue that these abortions, and so most abortions, are not morally wrong and that the best arguments given to think that these abortions are wrong are weak. I also argue that these abortions, and probably all abortions, should be legal. I begin by observing that people sometimes respond to the issue by describing the circumstances of abortion, not offering reasons for their views about those circumstances; I then dismiss “question-begging” arguments about abortion that merely assume the conclusions they are given to support; most importantly, I evaluate many arguments: both common, often-heard arguments and arguments developed by philosophers. My defense of abortion is based on facts about early fetuses’ not yet possessing consciousness or any mental life, awareness or feeling, as well as concerns about rights to one’s own body

Ethics and Politics of Induced Abortion and the Sanctity of Human Life

African Journal of Politics and Administrative Studies

This research work argues that induced abortion as a means of birth control is morally unacceptable. Although, the question of abortion is being considered as a means of birth control but this position not only has generated much controversy from antiquity to the postmodern era, it has also politicized many democratic societies. Proponents of induced abortion couch it in terms of gender equality and human right of women to choose or what to do in matters that their body. This too has presented us with political and ethical quandary. The problematic as conceptualized in the title is embedded in moral questions implied in these questions, among others, regarding the morality of induced abortion and the politicization of the ethical question. What makes one’s choice right or wrong? Is it one’s choice that makes an act right? Isn’t it first, that an act is judged right according to certain ethical norms that makes the action morally justified? Thus, some ethicists and pro-abortion advoc...

A Study of Abortion and Problems in Decision-Making

Journal of Marital and Family Therapy, 1977

This paper is directed to people who, sufficiently disturbed by the complex realities of problem pregnancies, are prepared to think beyond the confines of ideology. It is a challenge to people who tend to reduce the problem of unwanted pregnancies either to "abortion on d e m a d or to 'Zight to life" ideologies, thereby igmring the relationship dynamics that impact, shape, and enable the process of decision-making with its implications for mutual caring and for long-term trust. Rebalancing the emphases on ideologies and individual rights, this article is multidirectional in approach. It surfaces a concern for the unborn fetus, for the woman and the man involved, and for future human relatedness in which the capacity for trust and accountability are actualized rather than forced to stagnate. I went back to my hospital room to rest. I tried to read.. . but I couldn't get into reading. There was a phone by my bed 90 I called friends, because I didn't want to think. I could hear other women phoning too. It struck me that nobody was talking about their men. I didn't see any men there all day-and there seemed to be a whole floor of abortions-except for one who tried to force his way in to be with his girlfriend. They wouldn't let him in. I found that offensive (Howard, 1974, p. 118).