Bioethics & Legality of Abortion
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Considering what is ethical and what is legal in terms of abortion can become very complex. When the Roe v. Wade decision was handed down by the Supreme Court in 1973, legalizing abortion, many believed that the Court's reasoning in reaching their decision could just as easily be used to justify infanticide, which is clearly against the law (Mortimer, 2003, 155). DR. C. Everett Koop, then Surgeon-in-Chief at Philadelphia's Children's Hospital and Professor of Pediatric Surgery at the University of Pennsylvania, gave a commencement speech that year at Wheaton College, predicting that imperfect newborns would be at risk next because the Court left the decision between feticide and infanticide very hazy by refusing to come to grips with the time life begins.ö Koop identified a philosophical shift from an ethic of equal human moral worth in which all patients are cared for to a hierarchical ethic where some are no longer equal, and neglect would be an acceptable treatment option for disabled newborns. At the same time, Dr. James Watson, the co-discoverer of the double helix structure of DNA, was advocating infanticide as a choice (Mortimer, 2003, 155). If a child was not declared to be alive until three days after birth, this would give the parents time to decide whether to let the child live or die under the law. He was advocating the extension of the law, currently available only to a limited few, to everyone. Infanticide rarely comes before the law, yet is widesprea
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nvolved a partial delivery of the fetus, which was often still alive. However, the Born Alive Infants Protection Act was passed in 2002 by the U. S. Senate assuring that an unborn child born alive during an abortion is considered a full legal person under federal law. President Bush is the first president in American history to sign a criminal ban on abortion procedures.
Michelman believes those who chose abortion do so because they cannot give the child what it needs and deserves (Michelman, 2003, 6). She says that respect for womenÆs lives and judgement is profound in the Jewish tradition. She is speaking of President BushÆs decision to sign the criminal ban on certain abortion procedures, even when a womanÆs health is in jeopardy. She points out that since 1995, Congress has voted 152 times on matters of a womanÆs right to choose, and on only 26 occasions has the pro-choice view prevailed. On April 25 this year, she will lead a one million woman march on Washington to demand a womanÆs right to choose. Women everywhere are incensed as the present administration continually erodes womenÆs rights. First, trying to undermine contraception, then stripping foreign family-planning organizations of American funds they desp
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Approximate Word count = 1651
Approximate Pages = 7 (250 words per page)
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