The subject of abortion may well be the most intense and polarizing ethical and philosophical issue of the our times because, in Laurence Tribe's words, it is a clash of absolutes (Tribe 1992). There is, in practical terms, no room for compromise. While one may speak of the importance of weighing the rights of the mother and the rights of the fetus, in practical terms a woman cannot both carry a fetus to term and have an abortion. Other important social issues allow for a range of compromises: Welfare reform, for example, exists in a dozen shades of gray. But abortion is an either/or proposition - or at least it is for the most part. What small area of gray there is will be discussed below. However, while there is some room for compromise, this paper in general argues that abortion is morally wrong.
There is, as Tribe argues, no practical middle path between the choice of carrying a pregnancy to term and ending it through abortion. It should be noted, however, that there is in fact a spectrum of opinion: Between pro-life and pro-choice positions lies a continuum of ethical and political positions. Very few people argue that a fertilized egg always has primacy, even if a woman will definitely die as the result of a pregnancy. And very few argue that abortion should simply be used as a regular form of birth control. This paper takes the position that abortion is wrong because a fetus has as much right to life as any other human being.
It is perhaps worth noting here that this paper is focusing on induced abortions, which is the intentional ending of a pregnancy by the actions of a doctor or midwife or other health professional (or in places where abortion is not legal or not easily accessible by lay practitioners). The pregnancy is ended because the pregnancy is unwanted or because it presents a risk to a woman's health. It is this type of abortion that is the subject of fierce political debate in the United States and that is th...