A Study of Abortion and Problems in Decision-Making (original) (raw)
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Marecek, J., Macleod, C., & Hoggart, L. (2017). Abortion in legal, social, and healthcare contexts.
Worldwide, abortion is one of the commonest gynaecological procedures (Sedghet al., 2012). The common occurrence of abortion around the globe, however, belies considerable diversity in the social, political, and ethical meanings of terminating a pregnancy, as well as the practices surrounding abortion. All of these vary from locale to locale, from one historical time to another, and among social groups within particular times and places.In this two-part Special Issue, we present feminist scholarship that addresses some of the diverse contexts and circumstances in which abortion takes place and the psychological implications of such contexts. This issue, Feminism & Psychology, 27(1), is Part 1 of the Special Issue ‘‘Abortion in Context’’; Part 2 will appear in May 2017 as 27(2). The pieces in Part 1 explore the legal, sociocultural, and healthcare contexts of abortion. These contexts set the conditions of possibility for women who seek to terminate a pregnancy and, to some extent, for the practitioners who provide them. Part 2 will be devoted to pieces that focus on women’s experiences of abortion – for example, decision-making, stigma, and post-abortion distress – and that examine how women’s experiences are embedded in the discursive, institutional, and material contexts of their lives.
Abortion, intimacy, and the duty to gestate
Ethical theory and moral practice : an international forum, 1999
In this article, I urge that mainstream discussions of abortion are dissatisfying in large part because they proceed in polite abstraction from the distinctive circumstances and meanings of gestation. Such discussions, in fact, apply to abortion conceptual tools that were designed on the premiss that people are physically demarcated, even as gestation is marked by a thorough-going intertwinement. We cannot fully appreciate what is normatively at stake with legally forcing continued gestation, or again how to discuss moral responsibilities to continue gestating, until we appreciate in their own terms the goods and evils distinctive of gestational connection. To underscore the need to explore further the meanings of gestation, I provide two examples of the difference it might make to legal and moral discussions of abortion if we appreciate more fully that gestation is an intimacy.
Rethinking the Right to Abortion
Balkan Social Science Review, 2020
The ending of pregnancy is an issue that keeps attracting great attention even today, at the beginning of the 21st century. Since the 1970s, abortion legislation has moved steadily towards liberalization, especially in developed countries around the world. In Europe, only a few countries still prohibit abortion on request. Yet neither the current legislation nor the relevant case law of supreme and constitutional courts have brought about consensus on the justification thereof. An exceptionally delicate matter made so by a wealth of moral, ethical, philosophical, medical, religious, economic, legal and other aspects, abortion is a bone of contention in the general public and many an expert community. The reasoning provided in constitutional reviews of law is lambasted in equal measure by the pro-choice and the pro-life camps, the latter of which are felt in presence and influence despite the ever-growing liberalization. The paper primarily examines the matter of abortion in comparat...
Thinking Critically About Abortion: Why Most Abortions Aren’t Wrong & Why All Abortions Should Be Legal, 2019
This book introduces readers to the many arguments and controversies concerning abortion. While it argues for ethical and legal positions on the issues, it focuses on how to think about the issues, not just what to think about them. It is an ideal resource to improve your understanding of what people think, why they think that and whether their (and your) arguments are good or bad, and why. It's ideal for classroom use, discussion groups, organizational learning, and personal reading. From the Preface To many people, abortion is an issue for which discussions and debates are frustrating and fruitless: it seems like no progress will ever be made towards any understanding, much less resolution or even compromise. Judgments like these, however, are premature because some basic techniques from critical thinking, such as carefully defining words and testing definitions, stating the full structure of arguments so each step of the reasoning can be examined, and comparing the strengths and weaknesses of different explanations can help us make progress towards these goals. When emotions run high, we sometimes need to step back and use a passion for calm, cool, critical thinking. This helps us better understand the positions and arguments of people who see things differently from us, as well as our own positions and arguments. And we can use critical thinking skills help to try to figure out which positions are best, in terms of being supported by good arguments: after all, we might have much to learn from other people, sometimes that our own views should change, for the better. Here we use basic critical thinking skills to argue that abortion is typically not morally wrong. We begin with less morally-controversial claims: adults, children and babies are wrong to kill and wrong to kill, fundamentally, because they, we, are conscious, aware and have feelings. We argue that since early fetuses entirely lack these characteristics, they are not inherently wrong to kill and so most abortions are not morally wrong, since most abortions are done early in pregnancy, before consciousness and feeling develop in the fetus. Furthermore, since the right to life is not the right to someone else’s body, fetuses might not have the right to the pregnant woman’s body—which she has the right to—and so she has the right to not allow the fetus use of her body. This further justifies abortion, at least, until technology allows for the removal of fetuses to other wombs. Since morally permissible actions should be legal, abortions should be legal: it is an injustice to criminalizing actions that are not wrong. In the course of arguing for these claims, we: 1. discuss how to best define abortion; 2. dismiss many common “question-begging” arguments that merely assume their conclusions, instead of giving genuine reasons for them; 3. refute some often-heard “everyday arguments” about abortion, on all sides; 4. explain why the most influential philosophical arguments against abortion are unsuccessful; 5. provide some positive arguments that at least early abortions are not wrong; 6. briefly discuss the ethics and legality of later abortions, and more. This essay is not a “how to win an argument” piece or a tract or any kind of apologetics. It is not designed to help anyone “win” debates: everybody “wins” on this issue when we calmly and respectfully engage arguments with care, charity, honesty and humility. This book is merely a reasoned, systematic introduction to the issues that we hope models these skills and virtues. Its discussion should not be taken as absolute “proof” of anything: much more needs to be understood and carefully discussed—always.
ON ABORTION: SPONTANEOUS AND INDUCED.
In contemporary times, ?abortion? is one of the important dilemmas confronting to human society. It is a dilemma from which we cannot escape, and to which we have a collective responsibility to address. All dilemmas have two alternatives, and to choose one over the other can be a very difficult choice for any person. Even though there might not always be a ?solution? which can be universally applied, we have to decide what ought to be done in various situations. Human beings are responsible for their actions and morality depends on human actions. But morality does not exist in a vacuum, and what defines morality varies from situation to situation. So in decision-making, there is a place of the ?virtue of prudence?. Most of us try to take the best decision possible in a particular situation. It is therefore important for individuals to practice prudence. Each individual should know the criteria of what exactly defines ?prudent? behavior, what the grounds for good human action are, and what actions are morally justifiable. In this regard, I shall analyze Philippa Foot?s suggestions vis-?-vis the debate of abortion. In this Paper I have two Sections. In the first section I am discussing the various moral issues on abortion and I begin in section II by discussing a speculative framework of choice that outlines the ways and give an exposition of the value of prudence which is used in this area and also offer some suggestions for changing the existing legal, social, and political scenery to better respect the capacity of all women for reproductive self-determination. I also briefly discuss the implications of my analysis for the future of the broader abortion debate.
Abortion: A Never-Ending Interdisciplinary Debate
Különleges Bánásmód - Interdiszciplináris folyóirat
This study is the second part of the examination, considering the multifaceted feature of debates surrounding the termination of pregnancy. Although we may suppose that the so-called pro-life and pro-choice supporters have already paved their rigid ways of thinking with no possibility or hope for any modification, it might come as a surprise to learn that even Christian and Buddhist points of view can be tuned. Health-related disciplines, such as psychology keep reflecting on the issues of abortion with more and more emphasis on the post period of it.
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...
Feminist Legal Studies, 2005
, ''...throws light on important bioethical questions in the world today''. As he points out, insightful scholarly work that does so spans the disciplines, and the aim of these volumes is to bring together key articles from a range of areas of study, so as to provide a comprehensive resource for those who teach and research in this area. If the volume on abortion is anything to go by, these books will make a valuable addition to the library of anyone with an interest in bioethics. Articles that have become touchstones for subsequent debate are included-for example Judith Jarvis Thomson's ''A Defense of Abortion'', together with responses to it, and Rosalind Petchesky's ''Fetal Images: The Power of Visual Culture in the Politics of Reproduction'' (the latter being pertinent in the current British context of the flurry of debate about abortion provoked by obstetrician Stuart Campbell's 4D ultrasound images of the fetus). Other articles in this collection remind the reader of the quality of scholarship and clarity of argument that this issue has generated. The book is divided into four sections, the logic behind which is set out in Bennett's nicely written introduction. First come what she calls the ''core'' moral, ethical and legal arguments, namely those about status and rights of the foetus, and those developed by feminists, sustaining and refining the case for women's reproductive rights. Second, is ''international perspectives''. This includes some comparative pieces about the law, as well as articles about countries other than Britain. The third section-which is the shortest-deals with ''health professionals and abortion''. Notably, although perhaps not surprisingly given the particular intensity of the opposition to abortion provision in that society, all the articles in this section are about the United States. The final section, entitled, ''Prenatal diag