Abortion in America as a Conflict in Values

However, sometimes large portions of people in society have values that are in conflict. Perhaps there is no better example of values in conflict than those involving abortion in America; and this remains true despite the fact that the Supreme Court has recognized that a woman has a legal right to an abortion.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the values dilemma over abortion in America. An attempt is made to specifically reference the debate to social workers who must provide counseling to women confronted with the decision of whether or not to have an abortion.

The particular case focused upon is the case of a social worker who must provide some form of counseling to a woman who, while she has come to a family planning clinic, remains very ambivalent on moral grounds regarding her decision. The paper contrasts and compares values/beliefs on a personal, professional, agency, community and societal level.

Abortion in America: A Conflict in Values

The first component that any social worker must face in dealing with a client confronted with the decision of wh

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edure, the values-dilemma can intensify with the addition of the agency role component. Should the social worker simply accept the clinic's assumptions about their clients and make efforts to convince her that the decision to abort is a sound one over which she should not feel guilty; or should she press further, attempting to get an ambivalent client in touch with her ambivalence prior to rather than after the abortion? The choice a given social worker might make if she found herself in such a dilemma could be influenced by the nature of the community wherein the agency was located. If the community, for example, was rural and religious values were a large part of community life, it might be doubly important to the social worker that she help the client to clarify her own moral ideas prior to the abortion. On the other hand, if the community was that of a large urban city, the notion of clarifying the client's particular moral conflict prior to the abortion might be downplayed with the idea that any psychoemotional problem attendant to the abortion could be dealt with via post-abortion counseling. So far it can be seen that regarding abortion counseling, the social worker can experience a values dilemma that spans personal
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Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 1771
Approximate Pages = 7 (250 words per page)

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