Ethical & Physiological Concerns of Abortion

There are different methods of abortion, and so different consequences for the women who make use of those methods. Abortion may be induced by the use of different drugs. Aminopterin has been used for the induction of abortion in women with advanced tuberculosis or malignant disease. Even after warnings about the use of this drug were issued, it was still used as an abortifacient, including unsupervised use. Between 1956 and 1972, there were a number of publications on fetal malformations associated with the use of aminopterin, and because there were striking similarities between the nature of the malformations described, this led to their compilation as the fetal aminopterin syndrome. This consists of cranial dysplasia, broad nasal bridge, lowset ears, and limb anomalies. Another drug used as an abortifacient is methotrexate, used since 1962 and more recently combined with the prostaglandin analogue misoprostol for this same purpose. Methotrexate interferes with

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ith this issue for centuries. The issue may be couched as directly as it is above--that killing is morally wrong--or it may center on specific instances which some believe alter the moral equation, such as in war, for purposes of euthanasia, or most recently, with reference to the issue of abortion. Of course, the latter involves the further question of when human life begins so that the killing of a fetus can be considered the killing of a human being. Leiser (1986) characterizes the main arguments for liberal abortion laws and in so doing points to many of the reasons why it is morally correct that there be choice. First, he notes that restrictive abortion laws assume that women are chattel, the property of the state, so that control of their persons belongs to the state and not to themselves: This is a demeaning and degrading state of affairs, hardly consistent with the professed goal of freedom in a democratic society. A woman should be the master of her own body, and should not be forced, against her will, to serve as the soil for the growth of seed that she does not want to be there (Leiser, 1986, 113). Another argument is based on concern for the fetus, finding that where abortion is illegal, women are forced to se
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Approximate Word count = 1863
Approximate Pages = 7 (250 words per page)

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