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The Ethical Dilemma of Abortion

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Published: Jan 28, 2021

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Ethical dilemma, core beliefs.

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• America’s Abortion Quandary

2. Social and moral considerations on abortion

Table of contents.

• 1. Americans’ views on whether, and in what circumstances, abortion should be legal
• Public views of what would change the number of abortions in the U.S.
• A majority of Americans say women should have more say in setting abortion policy in the U.S.
• How do certain arguments about abortion resonate with Americans?
• In their own words: How Americans feel about abortion 
• 3. How the issue of abortion touches Americans personally
• Acknowledgments
• Methodology

Relatively few Americans view the morality of abortion in stark terms: Overall, just 7% of all U.S. adults say abortion is morally acceptable in all cases, and 13% say it is morally wrong in all cases. A third say that abortion is morally wrong in  most  cases, while about a quarter (24%) say it is morally acceptable most of the time. About an additional one-in-five do not consider abortion a moral issue.

There are wide differences on this question by political party and religious affiliation. Among Republicans and independents who lean toward the Republican Party, most say that abortion is morally wrong either in most (48%) or all cases (20%). Among Democrats and Democratic leaners, meanwhile, only about three-in-ten (29%) hold a similar view. About four-in-ten Democrats say abortion is morally  acceptable  in most (32%) or all (11%) cases, while an additional 28% say abortion is not a moral issue. 

White evangelical Protestants overwhelmingly say abortion is morally wrong in most (51%) or all cases (30%). A slim majority of Catholics (53%) also view abortion as morally wrong, but many also say it is morally acceptable in most (24%) or all cases (4%), or that it is not a moral issue (17%). And among religiously unaffiliated Americans, about three-quarters see abortion as morally acceptable (45%) or not a moral issue (32%).

There is strong alignment between people’s views of whether abortion is morally wrong and whether it should be illegal. For example, among U.S. adults who take the view that abortion should be illegal in all cases without exception, fully 86% also say abortion is always morally wrong. The prevailing view among adults who say abortion should be legal in all circumstances is that abortion is not a moral issue (44%), though notable shares of this group also say it is morally acceptable in all (27%) or most (22%) cases. 

Most Americans who say abortion should be illegal with some exceptions take the view that abortion is morally wrong in  most  cases (69%). Those who say abortion should be legal with some exceptions are somewhat more conflicted, with 43% deeming abortion morally acceptable in most cases and 26% saying it is morally wrong in most cases; an additional 24% say it is not a moral issue. 

The survey also asked respondents who said abortion is morally wrong in at least some cases whether there are situations where abortion should still be legal  despite  being morally wrong. Roughly half of U.S. adults (48%) say that there are, in fact, situations where abortion is morally wrong but should still be legal, while just 22% say that whenever abortion is morally wrong, it should also be illegal. An additional 28% either said abortion is morally acceptable in all cases or not a moral issue, and thus did not receive the follow-up question.

Across both political parties and all major Christian subgroups – including Republicans and White evangelicals – there are substantially more people who say that there are situations where abortion should still be  legal  despite being morally wrong than there are who say that abortion should always be  illegal  when it is morally wrong.

Asked about the impact a number of policy changes would have on the number of abortions in the U.S., nearly two-thirds of Americans (65%) say “more support for women during pregnancy, such as financial assistance or employment protections” would reduce the number of abortions in the U.S. Six-in-ten say the same about expanding sex education and similar shares say more support for parents (58%), making it easier to place children for adoption in good homes (57%) and passing stricter abortion laws (57%) would have this effect. 

While about three-quarters of White evangelical Protestants (74%) say passing stricter abortion laws would reduce the number of abortions in the U.S., about half of religiously unaffiliated Americans (48%) hold this view. Similarly, Republicans are more likely than Democrats to say this (67% vs. 49%, respectively). By contrast, while about seven-in-ten unaffiliated adults (69%) say expanding sex education would reduce the number of abortions in the U.S., only about half of White evangelicals (48%) say this. Democrats also are substantially more likely than Republicans to hold this view (70% vs. 50%). 

Democrats are somewhat more likely than Republicans to say support for parents – such as paid family leave or more child care options – would reduce the number of abortions in the country (64% vs. 53%, respectively), while Republicans are more likely than Democrats to say making adoption into good homes easier would reduce abortions (64% vs. 52%).

Majorities across both parties and other subgroups analyzed in this report say that more support for women during pregnancy would reduce the number of abortions in America.

More than half of U.S. adults (56%) say women should have more say than men when it comes to setting policies around abortion in this country – including 42% who say women should have “a lot” more say. About four-in-ten (39%) say men and women should have equal say in abortion policies, and 3% say men should have more say than women. 

Six-in-ten women and about half of men (51%) say that women should have more say on this policy issue. 

Democrats are much more likely than Republicans to say women should have more say than men in setting abortion policy (70% vs. 41%). Similar shares of Protestants (48%) and Catholics (51%) say women should have more say than men on this issue, while the share of religiously unaffiliated Americans who say this is much higher (70%).

Seeking to gauge Americans’ reactions to several common arguments related to abortion, the survey presented respondents with six statements and asked them to rate how well each statement reflects their views on a five-point scale ranging from “extremely well” to “not at all well.” 

The list included three statements sometimes cited by individuals wishing to protect a right to abortion: “The decision about whether to have an abortion should belong solely to the pregnant woman,” “If legal abortions are too hard to get, then women will seek out unsafe abortions from unlicensed providers,” and “If legal abortions are too hard to get, then it will be more difficult for women to get ahead in society.” The first two of these resonate with the greatest number of Americans, with about half (53%) saying each describes their views “extremely” or “very” well. In other words, among the statements presented in the survey, U.S. adults are most likely to say that women alone should decide whether to have an abortion, and that making abortion illegal will lead women into unsafe situations.

The three other statements are similar to arguments sometimes made by those who wish to restrict access to abortions: “Human life begins at conception, so a fetus is a person with rights,” “If legal abortions are too easy to get, then people won’t be as careful with sex and contraception,” and “If legal abortions are too easy to get, then some pregnant women will be pressured into having an abortion even when they don’t want to.” 

Fewer than half of Americans say each of these statements describes their views extremely or very well. Nearly four-in-ten endorse the notion that “human life begins at conception, so a fetus is a person with rights” (26% say this describes their views extremely well, 12% very well), while about a third say that “if legal abortions are too easy to get, then people won’t be as careful with sex and contraception” (20% extremely well, 15% very well).

When it comes to statements cited by proponents of abortion rights, Democrats are much more likely than Republicans to identify with all three of these statements, as are religiously unaffiliated Americans compared with Catholics and Protestants. Women also are more likely than men to express these views – and especially more likely to say that decisions about abortion should fall solely to pregnant women and that restrictions on abortion will put women in unsafe situations. Younger adults under 30 are particularly likely to express the view that if legal abortions are too hard to get, then it will be difficult for women to get ahead in society.

In the case of the three statements sometimes cited by opponents of abortion, the patterns generally go in the opposite direction. Republicans are more likely than Democrats to say each statement reflects their views “extremely” or “very” well, as are Protestants (especially White evangelical Protestants) and Catholics compared with the religiously unaffiliated. In addition, older Americans are more likely than young adults to say that human life begins at conception and that easy access to abortion encourages unsafe sex.

Gender differences on these questions, however, are muted. In fact, women are just as likely as men to say that human life begins at conception, so a fetus is a person with rights (39% and 38%, respectively).

Analyzing certain statements together allows for an examination of the extent to which individuals can simultaneously hold two views that may seem to some as in conflict. For instance, overall, one-in-three U.S. adults say that  both  the statement “the decision about whether to have an abortion should belong solely to the pregnant woman” and the statement “human life begins at conception, so the fetus is a person with rights” reflect their own views at least somewhat well. This includes 12% of adults who say both statements reflect their views “extremely” or “very” well. 

Republicans are slightly more likely than Democrats to say both statements reflect their own views at least somewhat well (36% vs. 30%), although Republicans are much more likely to say  only  the statement about the fetus being a person with rights reflects their views at least somewhat well (39% vs. 9%) and Democrats are much more likely to say  only  the statement about the decision to have an abortion belonging solely to the pregnant woman reflects their views at least somewhat well (55% vs. 19%).

Additionally, those who take the stance that abortion should be legal in all cases with no exceptions are overwhelmingly likely (76%) to say only the statement about the decision belonging solely to the pregnant woman reflects their views extremely, very or somewhat well, while a nearly identical share (73%) of those who say abortion should be  illegal  in all cases with no exceptions say only the statement about human life beginning at conception reflects their views at least somewhat well.

When asked to describe whether they had any other additional views or feelings about abortion, adults shared a range of strong or complex views about the topic. In many cases, Americans reiterated their strong support – or opposition to – abortion in the U.S. Others reflected on how difficult or nuanced the issue was, offering emotional responses or personal experiences to one of two open-ended questions asked on the survey. 

One open-ended question asked respondents if they wanted to share any other views or feelings about abortion overall. The other open-ended question asked respondents about their feelings or views regarding abortion restrictions. The responses to both questions were similar. 

Overall, about three-in-ten adults offered a response to either of the open-ended questions. There was little difference in the likelihood to respond by party, religion or gender, though people who say they have given a “lot” of thought to the issue were more likely to respond than people who have not. 

Of those who did offer additional comments, about a third of respondents said something in support of legal abortion. By far the most common sentiment expressed was that the decision to have an abortion should be solely a personal decision, or a decision made jointly with a woman and her health care provider, with some saying simply that it “should be between a woman and her doctor.” Others made a more general point, such as one woman who said, “A woman’s body and health should not be subject to legislation.” 

About one-in-five of the people who responded to the question expressed disapproval of abortion – the most common reason being a belief that a fetus is a person or that abortion is murder. As one woman said, “It is my belief that life begins at conception and as much as is humanly possible, we as a society need to support, protect and defend each one of those little lives.” Others in this group pointed to the fact that they felt abortion was too often used as a form of birth control. For example, one man said, “Abortions are too easy to obtain these days. It seems more women are using it as a way of birth control.” 

About a quarter of respondents who opted to answer one of the open-ended questions said that their views about abortion were complex; many described having mixed feelings about the issue or otherwise expressed sympathy for both sides of the issue. One woman said, “I am personally opposed to abortion in most cases, but I think it would be detrimental to society to make it illegal. I was alive before the pill and before legal abortions. Many women died.” And one man said, “While I might feel abortion may be wrong in some cases, it is never my place as a man to tell a woman what to do with her body.” 

The remaining responses were either not related to the topic or were difficult to interpret.

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Ethics and Morality

Ethics and abortion, two opposing arguments on the morality of abortion..

Posted June 7, 2019 | Reviewed by Jessica Schrader

Abortion is, once again, center stage in our political debates. According to the Guttmacher Institute, over 350 pieces of legislation restricting abortion have been introduced. Ten states have signed bans of some sort, but these are all being challenged. None of these, including "heartbeat" laws, are currently in effect. 1

Much has been written about abortion from a philosophical perspective. Here, I'd like to summarize what I believe to be the best argument on each side of the abortion debate. To be clear, I'm not advocating either position here; I'm simply trying to bring some clarity to the issues. The focus of these arguments is on the morality of abortion, not its constitutional or legal status. This is important. One might believe, as many do, that at least some abortions are immoral but that the law should not restrict choice in this realm of life. Others, of course, argue that abortion is immoral and should be illegal in most or all cases.

"Personhood"

Personhood refers to the moral status of an entity. If an entity is a person , in this particular sense, it has full moral status . A person, then, has rights , and we have obligations to that person. This includes the right to life. Both of the arguments I summarize here focus on the question of whether or not the fetus is a person, or whether or not it is the type of entity that has the right to life. This is an important aspect to focus on, because what a thing is determines how we should treat it, morally speaking. For example, if I break a leg off of a table, I haven't done anything wrong. But if I break a puppy's leg, I surely have done something wrong. I have obligations to the puppy, given what kind of creature it is, that I don't have to a table, or any other inanimate object. The issue, then, is what kind of thing a fetus is, and what that entails for how we ought to treat it.

A Pro-Choice Argument

I believe that the best type of pro-choice argument focuses on the personhood of the fetus. Mary Ann Warren has argued that fetuses are not persons; they do not have the right to life. 2 Therefore, abortion is morally permissible throughout the entire pregnancy . To see why, Warren argues that persons have the following traits:

• Consciousness: awareness of oneself, the external world, the ability to feel pain.
• Reasoning: a developed ability to solve fairly complex problems.
• Ability to communicate: on a variety of topics, with some depth.
• Self-motivated activity: ability to choose what to do (or not to do) in a way that is not determined by genetics or the environment .
• Self-concept : see themselves as _____; e.g. Kenyan, female, athlete , Muslim, Christian, atheist, etc.

The key point for Warren is that fetuses do not have any of these traits. Therefore, they are not persons. They do not have a right to life, and abortion is morally permissible. You and I do have these traits, therefore we are persons. We do have rights, including the right to life.

One problem with this argument is that we now know that fetuses are conscious at roughly the midpoint of a pregnancy, given the development timeline of fetal brain activity. Given this, some have modified Warren's argument so that it only applies to the first half of a pregnancy. This still covers the vast majority of abortions that occur in the United States, however.

A Pro-Life Argument

The following pro-life argument shares the same approach, focusing on the personhood of the fetus. However, this argument contends that fetuses are persons because in an important sense they possess all of the traits Warren lists. 3

At first glance, this sounds ridiculous. At 12 weeks, for example, fetuses are not able to engage in reasoning, they don't have a self-concept, nor are they conscious. In fact, they don't possess any of these traits.

Or do they?

In one sense, they do. To see how, consider an important distinction, the distinction between latent capacities vs. actualized capacities. Right now, I have the actualized capacity to communicate in English about the ethics of abortion. I'm demonstrating that capacity right now. I do not, however, have the actualized capacity to communicate in Spanish on this issue. I do, however, have the latent capacity to do so. If I studied Spanish, practiced it with others, or even lived in a Spanish-speaking nation for a while, I would likely be able to do so. The latent capacity I have now to communicate in Spanish would become actualized.

Here is the key point for this argument: Given the type of entities that human fetuses are, they have all of the traits of persons laid out by Mary Anne Warren. They do not possess these traits in their actualized form. But they have them in their latent form, because of their human nature. Proponents of this argument claim that possessing the traits of personhood, in their latent form, is sufficient for being a person, for having full moral status, including the right to life. They say that fetuses are not potential persons, but persons with potential. In contrast to this, Warren and others maintain that the capacities must be actualized before one is person.

The Abortion Debate

There is much confusion in the abortion debate. The existence of a heartbeat is not enough, on its own, to confer a right to life. On this, I believe many pro-lifers are mistaken. But on the pro-choice side, is it ethical to abort fetuses as a way to select the gender of one's child, for instance?

We should not focus solely on the fetus, of course, but also on the interests of the mother, father, and society as a whole. Many believe that in order to achieve this goal, we need to provide much greater support to women who may want to give birth and raise their children, but choose not to for financial, psychological, health, or relationship reasons; that adoption should be much less expensive, so that it is a live option for more qualified parents; and that quality health care should be accessible to all.

I fear , however, that one thing that gets lost in all of the dialogue, debate, and rhetoric surrounding the abortion issue is the nature of the human fetus. This is certainly not the only issue. But it is crucial to determining the morality of abortion, one way or the other. People on both sides of the debate would do well to build their views with this in mind.

https://abcnews.go.com/US/state-abortion-bans-2019-signed-effect/story?id=63172532

Mary Ann Warren, "On the Moral and Legal Status of Abortion," originally in Monist 57:1 (1973), pp. 43-61. Widely anthologized.

This is a synthesis of several pro-life arguments. For more, see the work of Robert George and Francis Beckwith on these issues.

Michael W. Austin, Ph.D. , is a professor of philosophy at Eastern Kentucky University.

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From Bioethics Briefings

• Abortion remains controversial.
• In recent years, several states, including Texas and Oklahoma, have passed abortion bans early in pregnancy.
• For nearly 50 years, there was a Constitutional right to abortion in the United States, established by the Supreme Court in Roe v. Wade in 1973
• The Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in June 2022, eliminating the Constitutional right to abortion.
• A central ethical question in the abortion debate is over the moral status of the fetus.
• Opinions range from the belief that the fetus is a human being with full moral status and rights from conception to the belief that a fetus has no rights, even if it is human in a biological sense. Most Americans’ beliefs fall somewhere in the middle.
• Moral philosophers from various perspectives provide nuanced examinations of the abortion question that go beyond the standard political breakdowns.

Framing the Issue

Abortion has been one of the most divisive and emotionally charged issues in American politics. At one end of the debate are those who regard abortion as murder, a despicable and heinous crime. At the other end of the spectrum are those who regard any attempt to restrict abortion as an egregious violation of women’s rights to make their own decisions about their bodies and what is best for them and their families. Most Americans are somewhere in the middle.

A central philosophical question in the abortion debate concerns the moral status of the embryo and fetus. If the fetus is a person, with the same right to life as any human being who has been born, it would seem that very few, if any, abortions could be justified, because it is not morally permissible to kill children because they are unwanted or illegitimate or disabled. However, the morality of abortion is not settled so straightforwardly. Even if one accepts the argument that the fetus is a person, it does not automatically follow that it has a right to the use of the pregnant woman’s body. Thus, the morality of abortion depends not only on the moral status of the fetus, but also on whether the pregnant woman has an obligation to continue to gestate the fetus.

Ethical Considerations Around Abortion

Public opinion on abortion falls into three camps—conservative, liberal, and moderate (or gradualist)—each of which draws on both science and ethical thinking.

Conservative

Conservative opposition to abortion stems from the conviction that the fetus is a human being, with the same rights as any born human being, from the beginning of pregnancy onward. Some conservative groups—such as the Catholic Church—consider the fetus to be a human being with full moral rights even earlier than the beginning of pregnancy, which occurs when the embryo implants in the uterus. The Church regards the embryo as a full human being from conception (the conjoining of sperm and egg). This is because at conception the embryo receives its own unique genetic code, distinct from that of its mother or father. Therefore, Catholic doctrine regards conception, not implantation, as the beginning of the life of a human being.

Although conservatives concede that the fetus changes dramatically during gestation, they do not accept these changes as relevant to moral standing. Conservatives argue that there is no stage of development at which we can say, now we have a human being, whereas a day or a week or a month earlier we did not. Any attempt to place the onset of humanity at a particular moment—whether it be when brain waves appear, or when the fetus begins to look human, or when quickening, sentience, or viability occur —is bound to be arbitrary because all of these stages will occur if the fetus is allowed to grow and develop.

A secular antiabortion argument given by Don Marquis in 1989 differs from the traditional conservative view in that it is not based on the fetus’s being human, thus avoiding the charge of “speciesism.” Rather, Marquis argues that abortion is wrong for the same reason that killing anyone is wrong—namely, that killing deprives its victim of a valuable future, what he calls “a future like ours.” It is possible that some nonhumans (some animals or aliens) have a future like ours. If so, then killing them is also wrong.

This raises two questions about what it is to have a future like ours. First, what precisely is involved in this notion? Does it essentially belong to rational, future-oriented, plan-making beings? If so, then killing most nonhuman animals would not be wrong, but neither would killing those who are severely developmentally disabled. Second, at what point does the life of a being with a future like ours start? Marquis assumes that we are essentially human animals, so our lives start with the beginning of our organisms. But Jeff McMahan denies this, arguing that we are essentially embodied minds, and not human organisms. On McMahan’s view, our lives do not start until our organism becomes conscious, probably some time in the second trimester. Early abortion, on his view, does not kill someone with a future like ours, but rather prevents that individual from coming into existence – in much the way contraception does.

The pro-choice position on abortion is often referred to as the liberal view. Mary Anne Warren provides a classic statement of the liberal view. Warren does not dispute the conservative’s claim that the fetus is biologically human, but she denies that biological humanity is either necessary or sufficient for personhood and a right to life. She argues that basing moral standing on species membership is arbitrary, and maintains that it is the killing of persons , not humans, that is wrong. Indeed, Warren thinks that the conservative is guilty of a logical mistake: confusing biological humans and persons. Persons are beings with certain psychological traits, including sentience, consciousness, the capacity for rational thought, and the ability to use language. There may be some nonhuman persons (e.g., some animals, extraterrestrial aliens), and there may be biological humans that are not persons, including early gestation fetuses, who have no person-making characteristics. By the end of the second trimester, fetuses are probably sentient, but even late gestation fetuses are less personlike than most mammals who are not considered to be persons.

In 1971, Judith Thomson gave a completely different pro-choice argument from the classic liberal one, in which she maintained that even if the personhood of the fetus were granted, for the sake of the argument, this would not settle the morality of abortion because the fetus’s right to life does not necessarily give it a right to use the pregnant woman’s body. No one, Thomson says, has the right to use your body unless you give him permission—not even if he needs it for life itself. At least in the case of rape, the pregnant woman has not given the fetus the right to use her body. (Thus, Thomson’s argument, somewhat ironically for an article entitled “A Defense of Abortion,” provides those who are generally anti-choice with a rationale for making an exception in the case of rape, as do many pro-lifers—though not the Catholic Church.) Thomson maintains that whether a woman has a moral obligation to allow a fetus to remain in her body is a separate question from whether the fetus is a person with a right to life, and depends instead on the amount of sacrifice or burden it imposes on her.

In 2003, Margaret Little argued that while abortion is not murder, neither is it necessarily moral. A pregnant woman and her fetus are not strangers; she is biologically its mother which provides her with some reason to protect its life. However, she may have duties of care to others, such as her existing children, which would be more difficult to fulfill if she has another child. The typical abortion patient is already a mother, single, and low-income or poor. Although Little does not regard the fetus as a person, it is a “burgeoning human life,” and as such is worthy of respect. But abortion does not necessarily conflict with respect for human life. Many women regard bringing a child into the world when they are not able to care for it properly as itself disrespectful of human life.

The moderate, or gradualist, agrees with the classic liberal that an early fetus, much less a one-celled zygote, is not a person, but agrees with the conservative that the late-gestation fetus merits some moral concern because it is virtually identical to a born infant. Thus, the moderate thinks that early abortions are morally better than late ones and that the reasons for having one should be stronger as the pregnancy progresses. A reason that might justify an early abortion, such as not wanting to become a mother, would not justify an abortion in the seventh month to the moderate.

Fetal Development Timeline (pdf)

The Legal Perspective

In Roe v. Wade , the Supreme Court based its finding of a woman’s constitutional right to abortion prior to fetal viability on two factors: the legal status of the fetus and the woman’s right to privacy. Concluding that outside of abortion law, the unborn had never been treated as full legal persons, the Court then looked to see if there were any state interests compelling enough to override a woman’s right to make this momentous personal decision for herself. It decided that there were none at all in the first trimester of pregnancy. In the second trimester, the state’s interest in protecting maternal health allows for some restrictions, so long as these are actually related to maternal health and not the protection of the life of the fetus. The state’s interest in protecting potential life becomes “compelling,” and trumps the woman’s right to privacy only after the fetus becomes viable, which in 1973 was somewhere between 24 and 28 weeks. Today, some premature infants are being saved as early as 22 weeks. However, it appears that, absent development of an artificial placenta, 22 weeks represents an absolute lower limit on viability. After viability, states may prohibit abortion altogether if they choose, unless continuing the pregnancy would threaten the woman’s life or health.

Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v. Casey (1992) pitted the Justices who wanted to reverse Roe against those who wished to preserve it. Neither side prevailed and the result was a compromise written by Justices O’Connor, Kennedy, and Souter. It upheld Roe’s central finding, that women have a constitutionally protected right to choose abortion, prior to viability, while rejecting the trimester framework. Casey held that the State’s profound interest in protecting potential life existed at all stages of pregnancy, not just after viability. States may enact procedures and rules reflecting its preference for childbirth over abortion, so long as these rules and procedures do not constitute an “undue burden” on the woman’s choice.

The Court interpreted the undue burden standard as permitting a requirement that required doctors to provide information about the abortion procedure, the relative risks of abortion and childbirth, embryonic and fetal development, and available resources should the woman choose to carry to term, provided the information given to the woman is truthful and not misleading. This qualification has not always been followed. In several states, doctors are required to tell women seeking abortions that having an abortion increases their risk of breast cancer. While not exactly a lie, this is certainly misleading. Having a full term pregnancy can reduce the risk of breast cancer, but having an abortion does not increase a woman’s risk of developing breast cancer. The Court also upheld a waiting period of 24 hours, as its intent is to make the abortion decision more informed and deliberate. Yet the actual effect of waiting periods is often to make abortion access much more difficult, especially in places where women have to travel long distances to find an abortion provider.

After attempts to overturn Roe failed, a new strategy of restricting abortions was developed. This strategy included outlawing particular methods of abortion, such as partial-birth abortion, imposing time limits based on claims of fetal sentience, and imposing restrictions on clinics and doctors who perform abortions in the name of protecting maternal health.

Fetal Sentience

In 2010, Nebraska banned all abortion after 20 weeks, on the ground that the fetus at that stage can feel pain. Subsequently, more than a third of states passed similar laws. In 2015, the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act passed the House of Representatives; the motion to consider the bill in the Senate was withdrawn. The bill prohibited a physician from performing an abortion after 20 weeks, except where necessary to save the life of a pregnant woman (excluding psychological or emotional conditions) or in cases of rape or incest against a minor.

Are 20-week old fetuses sentient? This claim is rejected by the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, which says it knows of no legitimate scientific information that supports the claim that a 20-week old fetus can feel pain. Other researchers think that while we do not know when fetuses become sentient, it might occur as early as 17 weeks. Utah became the first state to require doctors to give anesthesia to women having an abortion at 20 weeks or later. The law, which went into effect in May 2016, would not apply to women having abortions needed to save their lives, or in cases of rape or incest. An obstetrician-gynecologist in Utah, who spends half of a Saturday each month in an abortion clinic, protested, “You’re asking me to invent a procedure that doesn’t have any research to back it up. You want me to experiment on my patients.”

Protecting Women’s Health

Casey allowed states to restrict abortions based on a concern for women’s health, so long as the restrictions did not impose an undue burden on the choice. A key issue raised by the Supreme Court case Whole Woman’s Health v. Hellerstedt, decided in 2016, was how judges should evaluate such health-justified restrictions. The case concerned a 2013 Texas law that required any physician performing an abortion to have admitting privileges at a hospital not further than 30 miles from the abortion facility, and required any abortion facility to meet the minimum standards for ambulatory surgical centers. The District Court said that the law was unconstitutional because of its impact on access to abortion in Texas. Many abortion facilities would be unable to meet these requirements and would be forced to close, thereby severely limiting access to abortion. Moreover, the law’s provisions were unnecessary to protect women’s health. Abortion is an extremely safe medical procedure with very low rates of complications and virtually no deaths. In fact, although childbirth is 14 times more likely than abortion to result in death, Texas law allows a midwife to oversee childbirth in the patient’s own home. Thus, the new law was a solution to which there was no problem.

The Fifth Circuit reversed the District Court decision. One of its more startling claims was that states are entitled to impose health-justified restrictions, which are not subject to judicial review. In a 5-3 decision, the Supreme Court roundly rejected this claim. Writing for the majority, Justice Breyer said, “. . . the Court, when determining the constitutionality of laws regulating abortion procedures, has placed considerable weight upon evidence and argument presented in judicial procedures.” In other words, states may not simply assert that the restrictions are necessary, but must have factual evidence to show that they are. Moreover, the Court has an independent constitutional duty to review factual findings where constitutional rights are at stake.

Despite new restrictions on abortion, the core principle of  Roe  and  Casey– that the right to abortion is protected by the Constitution — was upheld. But that was soon to change.

The Change in the Composition of the Supreme Court

Between 1991 and 2020, five Justices openly hostile to abortion (Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Barrett) were appointed to the Court, making the 6-3 decision to reverse Roe possible.

The change in the Court’s composition emboldened several states to pass abortion bans much earlier than viability. One of the most restrictive, signed into law by Texas Governor Greg Abbott in May  2021, prohibits abortions after a fetal heartbeat is detected, usually after six weeks of pregnancy. About a year later, Oklahoma adopted a similar restriction and made illegal abortion a felony punishable by up to 10 years in prison. A bill introduced in Louisiana (House Bill 813) in May 2022 allowed criminal charges for murder to be brought against those who perform or have abortions. Its sponsor, Republican Danny McCormick, justified the bill by saying, “it is actually very simple: Abortion is murder.” Louisiana Right to Life did not support the bill, since their policy is that “abortion-vulnerable women” should not be treated as criminals. The group also called the bill unnecessary since Louisiana already had a trigger law that would outlaw abortion, except when necessary to save the life of the mother, if Roe were overturned. An amended version of HB 813, which removed the language about charging women having abortions with murder and exempted birth control from being outlawed, did pass the House.

Overturning Roe and Casey

Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health (June 2022) .  The case concerned a Mississippi law banning all abortions after 15 weeks gestational age except in medical emergencies and in the case of severe fetal abnormality. Characterizing the decisions in Roe and Casey as “egregiously wrong,” the majority held that:

“. . . Roe and Casey must be overruled. The Constitution makes no reference to abortion, and no such right is implicitly protected by any constitutional provision, including the one on which the defenders of Roe and Casey now chiefly rely — the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. That provision has been held to guarantee some rights that are not mentioned in the Constitution, but any such right must be “deeply rooted in this Nation’s history and tradition” and “implicit in the concept of ordered liberty.”

With the overturning of Roe and Casey , the matter of abortion has been returned to the states. Most abortions are banned in 14 states, while protected by state law or constitution in 21 states. (For updates, see Kaiser Health News Abortion Policy Tracker .) Abortion providers and advocates have challenged abortion bans in many states as violating the state constitution or another state law. In Georgia, on Sept. 30, 2024,  a state judge struck down Georgia’s six-week abortion ban , saying it violated the state constitution. One week later, the Georgia Supreme Court stayed the lower court’s decision , while the case is being appealed. This means that abortions after six weeks of pregnancy are again illegal in Georgia.

In his concurrence, Chief Justice Roberts said that while he agreed with the majority’s conclusion to uphold Mississippi’s law, he would have preferred a narrower approach based on the principle of judicial restraint. Instead of “repudiating a constitutional right we have not only previously recognized, but also expressly reaffirmed applying the doctrine of stare decisis “, the Court could simply have rejected viability as the point at which the state’s interest in protecting potential life outweighed the woman’s right to terminate her pregnancy, and upheld Mississippi’s right to ban abortions after 15 weeks. The majority rejected this approach, in part because it “would only put off the day when we would be forced to confront the question we now decide. The turmoil wrought by Roe and Casey would be prolonged. It is far better–for this Court and the country–to face up to the real issue without further delay.”

Abortion After Dobbs

The claim that Dobbs will end the turmoil over abortion is dubious. Abortion rights activists have challenged trigger bans in a dozen states. Some have already been rejected by judges, but other cases continue. Most of the legal challenges nationwide seek to establish that state constitutions protect a right to abortion. President Biden signed an executive order designed to ensure access to abortion medication and emergency contraception, leaving the details up to the secretary of health and human services.

Court cases have challenged the availability of medication abortion . Another issue likely to result in lawsuits is whether states can prevent their residents from traveling to other states to have abortions. Nor are legal battles necessarily limited to the states. Some anti-abortion activists are pushing for a federal ban on abortion, while some pro-choice advocates are pushing for a federal law to protect the right to abortion. Neither side has the 60 votes necessary, but that could change in the future.

The Supreme Court expressly noted that its opinion “is not based on any view about if and when prenatal life is entitled to any of the rights enjoyed after birth.” That leaves open the question whether states may confer legal personhood on embryos. May they punish women who have abortions under their homicide statutes, even executing them in death penalty states?

The extreme conservative position, taken by the official teachings of the Roman Catholic Church, regards even abortions necessary to save the life of the pregnant woman as illicit, since it is forbidden to kill one innocent human being in order to save the life of another. As of July 2022, all of the state anti-abortion laws and proposed laws make an exception for “medical emergencies,” but nothing in Dobbs requires states to make this exception. Moreover, the determination of what counts as a medical emergency can be extremely subjective. A pregnant woman may develop a condition that might be, but is not definitely, life-threatening. May a doctor perform an abortion in that case? Five women in Texas have filed a lawsuit saying that they were denied medically necessary abortions. Joined by two ob-gyns, they are seeking to clarify when abortion is permissible under state law.

Questions abound. How close to death must a woman be for doctors to act? Will doctors be willing to take the risk of possible jail time if they make a call that is later questioned?

Complications can arise in any pregnancy, but the inability to get an abortion for medical reasons is likely to impose particular burdens on pregnant patients with chronic illnesses and disabilities, including psychiatric conditions, diabetes, and heart conditions. Pregnancy may take years off their lives, but this would not be enough for them to get an abortion in states that provide an exemption only in the case of a “medical emergency” that “necessitate[s] the immediate performance or inducement of an abortion.”

Thus, Dobbs has had a deleterious impact on the ability of doctors to care properly for their pregnant patients, with two confirmed deaths and others likely . In Georgia, Amber Nicole Thurman and Candi Miller, died as a result of the restrictive abortion law in their state. The AMA condemned the Dobbs decision as “an egregious allowance of government intrusion into the medical examination room, a direct attack on the practice of medicine and the patient-physician relationship, and a brazen violation of patients’ rights to evidence-based reproductive health services.” In the weeks after the Dobbs decision, there were reports of profound changes in other medical care, including for ectopic pregnancies and for women with lupus, which is treated with a medicine that can cause miscarriage.

There are no exceptions for pregnancies that result from rape or incest in Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Kentucky, Louisiana, Missouri, Oklahoma, Ohio, South Dakota, Tennessee, or Texas. The rationale is that it is unjust to end a pregnancy because its father is a rapist. Those who favor exceptions for rape and incest regard it as equally unjust to force women to continue a pregnancy for which they have no responsibility.

The Impact of Dobbs Beyond Abortion

The loss of abortion rights is real and of great concern to many Americans, not only because of the impact this will have on the lives of women and their families, but also because a rejection of the constitutional right to privacy and substantive due process could have effects beyond abortion. On the face of it, the analysis in Dobbs applies to other rights that the Supreme Court has upheld, including the right of both married and unmarried couples to use contraceptives ( Griswold v. Connecticut , 1965, and Eisenstadt v. Baird , 1972), the right to marry a person of a different race ( Loving v. Virginia , 1967), the right to engage in private, consensual sexual acts ( Lawrence v. Texas , 2003), and the right to marry a person of the same sex ( Obergefell v. Hodges , 2015). None of these rights are mentioned in the Constitution, nor are they deeply rooted in this Nation’s history and tradition. This means, in the words of the dissenters (Breyer, Sotomayor, and Kagan) that “one of two things must be true. Either the majority does not really believe in its own reasoning. Or if it does, all rights that have no history stretching back to the mid-19th century are insecure. Either the mass of the majority’s opinion is hypocrisy, or additional constitutional rights are under threat. It is one or the other.”

The majority insisted that its decision “concerns the constitutional right to abortion and no other right. Nothing in this opinion should be understood to cast doubt on precedents that do not concern abortion.” But if other precedents fail the test for determining constitutional rights provided in Dobbs , why aren’t these cases also wrongly decided?

Same-Sex Marriage

In his separate concurring opinion, Justice Thomas forthrightly accepted this implication, saying, “in future cases, we should reconsider all of this Court’s substantive due process precedents, including Griswold , Lawrence , and Obergefell .” Thomas, unsurprisingly, did not mention Loving , perhaps because he assumes that discrimination based on race is prohibited by the Fourteenth Amendment’s guarantee of equal protection. The dissenters, however, note that the right to marry someone of a different race was not protected at the time of the adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment any more than the rights to abortion, contraception, to engage in private, consensual acts, or to marry a person of the same sex.

While anti-miscegenation laws are unlikely to garner much public support, the same may not be true for LGBTQ rights protected by Lawrence and Obergefell . Some far-right Republicans have expressed an interest in ending same-sex marriage . Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has said that he would defend the state’s defunct sodomy law if the Supreme Court were to follow Thomas’s suggestion and revisit Lawrence .

Contraception, IVF

It seems unlikely that there would be much enthusiasm in the states for banning contraceptives in general, although some conservatives might favor rolling back the sexual revolution that stemmed from the Pill. Presumably, that would satisfy the rational-basis test that the Court identified as the standard for abortion restrictions or prohibition. Moreover, some forms of contraception, such as IUDs, that prevent a fertilized egg from implanting, might be prohibited under laws like Oklahoma’s that define persons as human beings from conception onwards.

IVF could also be adversely affected by Dobbs , because of the routine practice of discarding embryos. This occurs for two reasons. First, the creation of excess embryos enables fertility doctors to implant only one or two embryos per cycle, and to freeze the remainders for future use. This protects women from having to go through the onerous process of egg retrieval in future pregnancies. Freezing embryos has also facilitated single embryo transfer for good-prognosis patients, which has resulted in fewer twins and higher-multiple births, which are riskier for both mothers and babies than singleton births.

Second, it is now routine in IVF to test embryos for chromosomal defects and to discard affected embryos. This improves the chances for a successful pregnancy since embryos with chromosomal defects are less likely to implant and to miscarry. At this point, embryos created in labs are not explicitly targeted by state laws that ban abortion. Trigger laws in most states are aimed at preventing the termination of pregnancy, not regulating IVF embryos. That could change. A spokeswoman for Students for Life Action, a large national anti-abortion group, says that they are looking at IVF : “Protecting life from the very beginning is our ultimate goal, and in this new legal environment we are researching issues like IVF, especially considering a business model that, by design, ends most of the lives conceived in a lab.”  Ironically, laws intended to prevent the termination of pregnancies might deprive infertile couples from having a successful pregnancy.

On February 16, 2024, the Supreme Court of Alabama held that frozen embryos are children with respect to Alabama’s wrongful-death statutes. Some have claimed that this will disallow the discard of embryos by IVF clinics, but that is not obvious. Wrongful-death suits must demonstrate negligence, not simply causing death. Nevertheless, the implications of the court’s decision are unclear, creating anxiety among IVF providers and patients. The University of Alabama health system is pausing in vitro fertilization treatments while considering the implications of the court’s decision.

Care for Miscarrying Patients

Another area of concern is the medical care given to women with wanted pregnancies who miscarry. In what is known as a “missed miscarriage,” the fetus dies in the womb but is not expelled from the woman’s body. In an “incomplete miscarriage,” not all of the fetal tissue is expelled. These situations can cause infection that poses a threat to the woman’s life. The medical options are waiting and hoping that the woman miscarries naturally or intervening medically with either a surgical procedure (D&C) or abortion medication to remove the fetus or fetal tissue. Because these interventions are also used in abortion procedures, outlawing abortion could have a chilling effect on what doctors are willing to do.

In states with abortion bans, there are reports of doctors declining to perform any procedure that could be seen as an illegal abortion. In some cases, women have had to wait to miscarry, which could take weeks. Not only does this impose added emotional stress on women who have lost a wanted pregnancy, but it could even cost their lives. This happened in Ireland in 2012. Savita Halappanavar, 17 weeks pregnant, was admitted to hospital after a miscarriage was deemed inevitable. When she did not miscarry after her water broke, she discussed having a termination with the attending physician. This was denied because Irish law at the time forbade abortion if a heartbeat was still detectable. While they waited for the fetus’s heart to stop, Savita developed sepsis and died. The case was instrumental in getting abortion legalized in Ireland.

So far, restrictive abortion laws in the U.S. have not resulted in the deaths of any women who were denied appropriate medical care after a miscarriage. But some have come close. An ob-gyn in San Antonio, Tx., had to wait until the fetal heartbeat stopped to treat a miscarrying patient who had developed a dangerous womb infection. The delay caused complications which required her to have surgery, lose multiple liters of blood, and be put on a breathing machine. Texas law essentially requires doctors to commit malpractice.

Landmark cases like Quinlan (1976) and Cruzan (1990) relied on a constitutional right of privacy and substantive due process. The rejection by the Court of these principles could threaten well-established rights of patients to refuse life-saving care and to stipulate their wishes in that regard in advance directives.

At this point, it is impossible to predict all of the effects of overturning Roe and Casey . This much is clear: the battle over abortion rights is far from over.

Bonnie Steinbock , PhD, a Hastings Center fellow, is professor emeritus of philosophy at The University at Albany/State University of New York.

• Symposium: Seeking Reproductive Justice in the Next 50 Years. The Journal of Law, Medicine & Ethics, 51 (Fall 2023): 455.
• Linda Greenhouse and Reva Siegel, “Casey and the Clinic Closings: When ‘Protecting Health’ Obstructs Choice,” Yale Law Review 125 (2016): 1428-1531.
• Bonnie Steinbock, Life Before Birth: The Moral and Legal Status of Embryos and Fetuses, 2nd edition (Oxford University Press, 2011).
• Ronald Dworkin, “The Court and Abortion: Worse Than You Think,” New York Review of Books, May 31, 2007.
• Margaret Olivia Little, “The Morality of Abortion,” in Christopher Wellman and R.G. Frey, eds., A Companion to Applied Ethics (Blackwell Publishing, 2003).
• David Boonin, A Defense of Abortion (Cambridge University Press, 2002).
• Jeff McMahan, The Ethics of Killing: Problems at the Margins of Life (Oxford University Press, 2002).
• Susan Dwyer and Joel Feinberg, eds. The Problem of Abortion (Wadsworth Publishing Co., 1996).
• Sidney Callahan and Daniel Callahan, eds. Abortion: Understanding Differences (Plenum, 1984).
• Kristin Luker, Abortion and the Politics of Motherhood (University of California Press, 1984).
• Don Marquis, “Why Abortion Is Immoral,” Journal of Philosophy, April 1984.
• Donald H. Regan, "Rewriting Roe v. Wade." Michigan Law Review, August 1979.
• Mary Anne Warren, “On the Moral and Legal Status of Abortion,” The Monist, January 1973.
• Judith Thomson, “A Defense of Abortion,” Philosophy and Public Affairs, Winter 1971.
• Ethics and Abortion Resources from The Hastings Center
• Bonnie Steinbock, PhD Hastings Center Fellow and professor emeritus of philosophy at The University at Albany/State University of New York [email protected]
• Thomas H. Murray, PhD President Emeritus and Fellow, The Hastings Center [email protected]
• Maggie Little, BPhil, PhD Director, The Kennedy Institute of Ethics; Hastings Center Fellow [email protected]
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Following the leak of a draft decision by the Supreme Court that would overturn Roe v. Wade, the Medical School’s Louise King discusses how the potential ruling might affect providers.

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How a bioethicist and doctor sees abortion

Alvin Powell

Harvard Staff Writer

Her work touches questions we can answer and questions we can’t. But her main focus is elsewhere: ‘the patient in front of me.’

With the leak Monday of a draft decision by the Supreme Court that would overturn Roe v. Wade, the future of abortion in the U.S. has been a highly charged topic of conversation all week. Doctors are among those wondering what’s next. Louise King is an assistant professor of obstetrics, gynecology, and reproductive biology at Harvard Medical School and a Brigham and Women’s Hospital physician whose practice includes abortion services. King, who is also the director of reproductive bioethics for the Center for Bioethics at the Medical School, spoke with the Gazette about ethical dimensions of abortion and how a ruling against Roe might affect providers.

Louise King

GAZETTE: In the U.S., abortion is framed in broad ethical terms: life versus death, privacy versus government intrusion, etc. From a medical ethics standpoint, what are the important concerns to be balanced on this issue?

KING: I frame the topic in the context of the patient in front of me. In other words, I look primarily to autonomy and beneficence in the context of doing good for the patient. That might mean upholding that person’s choice not to proceed with what is still a very dangerous proposition, namely carrying a pregnancy to term and delivering. If someone says to me, “I’m pregnant and do not wish to be pregnant,” for a multitude of reasons, I support that decision, because the alternative of carrying to term is risky. I want to protect that person’s bodily autonomy. From a reproductive justice standpoint, I want to support persons who have uteri in making decisions about when they wish to have a family, how they want that to look, whether they want to have a family at all, in expressing their sexuality, and in all kinds of different things.

I don’t believe that life begins at conception. Among the minority of people in this country who believe that’s the case, some are vocal and aggressive in imposing that belief on others, which may happen with this upcoming decision. But quite a number of students that I meet who believe life begins at conception still don’t believe that they have the right to impose that belief on others. To contextualize what we ask of persons with uteri when we make abortion illegal, it’s helpful to compare instances where we could ask people to undergo very risky procedures to help others. For example, we don’t demand that people give blood. It’s not a big deal and it could save lives every day, but we don’t demand that anybody donate blood or bone marrow. We don’t demand kidney donations, which are less risky than childbirth nowadays.

So we generally don’t ask one human being to give so completely of themselves to another, but we do so when it’s a pregnant person. That, I believe, does not comport with our ethics. But it also doesn’t fully address the concerns of persons who believe life begins at conception. They come to those beliefs honestly, but I think they have to explore them more deeply and figure out whether, even if true — do they hold up to the point where we require somebody to have a forced pregnancy to term? I would say, within my understanding of ethics, no.

“It’s not a big deal and it could save lives every day, but we don’t demand that anybody donate blood or bone marrow. We don’t demand kidney donations, which are less risky than childbirth nowadays.”

GAZETTE: Abortion is one of the most divisive issues in the country. Is the medical profession unified on it one way or another?

KING: That’s hard to say definitively. No study or survey exists to truly quantify this. The American Medical Association and the America College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists say that abortion is health care, and I agree. ACOG is very strong in their wording about supporting the right to access abortion. Unfortunately, only 14 percent of practicing OBGYNs provide abortion care. As a profession, our words and actions don’t match. I think there’s a multitude of reasons for that. One is the stigma associated with providing abortion care in some parts of the country.

I would guess that most providers feel similarly to the majority of Americans — that abortion is health care and should be available. While I’ve met some medical students and practicing physicians in all kinds of disciplines who feel strongly that abortion is unethical, the vast majority that I’ve spoken to feel as I feel: that it’s health care and should be provided.

GAZETTE: A big part of the debate over the decades has centered on viability. Is this an issue for science to determine? Is it an issue for society? Is it an issue for religion?

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KING: I don’t think that science can tell us definitively when life begins. Life is a broad term and includes a variety of living entities. I don’t think that religion can define it because we have freedom of religion and religions see this differently. Rabbis will explain that in the Torah, it’s very clear that an embryo is simply an extension of a woman’s body, like a limb, and should not be considered another person until birth. The leaked decision presumes that one version of Christianity’s assessment of this prevails, which seems to violate our understanding of freedom of religion in this country.

Ultimately, “when life begins” isn’t the right question because it’s unanswerable. The question then must be: How do we as a society come up with a compromise that upholds the autonomous rights of the persons in front of us who may become pregnant, who may have excessive risks associated with a pregnancy, or who may simply not wish to be pregnant, that also observes whatever our society’s agreed-upon understanding is of when a protected entity exists.

I think Massachusetts absolutely gets it right. If you read the Roe Act : Abortion is allowed for any reason in the first and second trimesters, and then abortion for medical reasons or lethal fetal anomalies can extend into the third trimester with careful consideration between patient and medical teams. To me, that is an exceptionally well-thought-out compromise. This is a societal decision. It shouldn’t be made by a minority of persons based on their narrow definition of “when life begins.”

GAZETTE: If something like the leaked draft decision emerges, is there a potential for medical providers to get caught in the middle?

KING: Overturning Roe would turn the question over to the states. That would mean that those providers who exist within the states that are clearly going to go forward with legislation to outlaw abortion would be in dire situations. In Massachusetts, we could provide the care we’re already providing and would expect people to travel from out of state to us. I don’t think that the long-arm statutes would reach a provider here, that somebody could come after me from Texas if somebody traveled from Texas to me and I provided care. But if I traveled to Texas, for a conference, it might. Legal experts aren’t sure.

GAZETTE: Have you ever been threatened because you’ve offered abortions?

KING: I haven’t, but many of my colleagues have. I did my training in Texas, so I lived a long time in the South. I’ve not been threatened directly, but spoken sternly to by many people who disagreed with me. I mentioned earlier that there are plenty of people who believe life begins at conception but who do not feel they should impose their viewpoints on others — those are people I met in Texas and Louisiana. There are a lot of people like that, but they can’t speak up for fear of being ostracized. The sense that I have through all the conversations I’ve had over many years is that we are all talking past each other. You started off by saying this is a topic that divides our country, but it doesn’t. The vast majority of people are settled on having abortion as an option, having contraception as an option, and having sex education available. There’s a group of politicians who make it appear that we’re divided and build their political careers off of that. It’s incredibly disheartening and unethical for them to do so.

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• Should Abortions be Legal? Words: 2403
• Abortion: Arguments in Support Words: 1382
• The Problem of Abortion Words: 641
• Abortion as a Controversy Words: 2241
• The Advantages and the Dangers of Abortion Words: 1527
• Abortion Legalization and Its Implications Words: 1758
• Abortion Legalization and List of Circumstances Words: 1107
• Ethics in Practice: Abortion Choice Words: 4368
• Abortion: Negative Impacts on Women Words: 1131
• Women Have the Right to Decide the Abortion Words: 939

Abortion: An Ethical Dilemma

There are many reasons as to why abortion poses an ethical dilemma for most women. Reasons such as religious beliefs, medical concerns are easily resolved by reason and need. While other cases, such as pregnancies resulting from criminal acts, are more often debated and considered an ethical dilemma.

It is not difficult to see why abortion is a hotly debated topic. Any discussion that involves the ending of a life, a life that never asked to be conceived in the first place, leaves the woman with the problem of deciding when it is right to continue or end that life cycle.

The religious believe that such an important decision should be left only in the hands of God. But because of abortion, women, and men have taken on the role of God as well, dictating when and who shall live even before that person becomes a part of the real world.

Medical science has become so far advanced that doctors now have the ability to discover when a wanted pregnancy shall endanger the life of the mother. In such cases, they leave the decision to continue the pregnancy in the hands of the parents.

Again, asking them to play God and decide if they love themselves more than the life that they brought into being. In such cases, an abortive procedure may be acceptable. But then again, if it is something that occurs too late in the pregnancy, it leaves the soon to be parents at a crossroads. Unable to decide upon which decision would be best for them and their unborn child.

In the case of pregnancy resulting from rape, the fetus is definitely unwanted and unloved. Most women who find themselves in such a situation would most likely opt for an abortion. If we think about it, such a decision will fall within reason. The woman neither knows the father of the child, nor what to expect of the child once it is born.

She will be unable to love the child mainly because of the circumstances surrounding its conception and birth. However, it is in such situations that abortion should not be an option. Allowing the child to come to full term and undergoing a legal adoption procedure would be the most logical step of action because the unwanted child of another can always be loved by someone else as if she were the one who breathed life into the child.

In my opinion, abortion is a procedure that should be legally accepted as part of a woman’s basic right. I am not advocating that women undergo abortion like they do plastic surgery, but rather, I am advocating that abortion be discussed with women as something that they can choose to do if they find themselves in such a situation that calls for it.

Most women who undergo abortions do not really understand much about it because it is a taboo topic in society. An open discussion will help women come to informed decisions and help in government regulation of abortion clinics. This, in turn, will lead to more open discussions and acceptance of abortions for what it is, a way of fixing a life-altering problem for most women.

There is no wrong or right answer when it comes to abortion, mainly because each abortion case is unique in its circumstances. No woman should be held with a stigma for undergoing the procedure. It is only an ethical dilemma because society refuses to see the benefits of abortion in the lives of women. Once the benefits are more clearly spelled out, the dilemma will be over for most women.

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50 years after Roe, many ethics questions shape the abortion debate: 4 essential reads

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Jan. 22, 2023, marks the 50th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, the landmark Supreme Court decision that recognized a constitutional right to abortion. That stood for nearly half a century, until a majority of justices reversed it in June 2022’s Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health decision.

People with a broad range of views on abortion often say their faith tradition helps inform their opinions. But beyond religion, many other ethical and moral questions shape Americans’ perspectives on the topic.

Here are some of The Conversation’s most thought-provoking articles on the underlying philosophical and bioethical issues involved in abortion debates.

1. Rethinking ‘personhood’

Activism for and against abortion rights often gets summed up into two simple-sounding terms: “pro-life” and “pro-choice.”

But “‘life’ and ‘choice’ are not, in and of themselves, really the issue,” wrote Robert Launay of Northwestern University. “The central question is what – or who – constitutes a person.”

As an anthropologist , Launay studies that question in terms of culture. Different religions and societies think about personhood in different ways, he explained. Ideas about personhood in the U.S., for example, often stem from Christian ideas about the soul and are black and white – something is or isn’t considered a person.

In some of the Indigenous African traditions where he has done research, meanwhile, “many view personhood as a process rather than a once-and-for-all phenomenon” – something humans gradually acquire over time, through relationships, or through rituals.

Read more: What does it mean to be a 'person'? Different cultures have different answers

2. Moral status

Even within a single society, defining “personhood” can be complex and controversial.

Personhood is a key concern in bioethics, wrote University of Washington philosopher Nancy Jecker . In that context, being a “person” isn’t necessarily the same as being “human” – and it’s not an easy concept to nail down.

“When philosophers talk about ‘personhood,’ they are referring to something or someone having exceptionally high moral status, often described as having a right to life, an inherent dignity, or mattering for one’s own sake,” she explained. Personhood implies that someone or something can make strong moral claims, such as a claim against being interfered with. In abortion debates, Jecker added, “no one disputes the fetus’s species, but many disagree about the fetus’s personhood.”

Americans hold three main views of when personhood begins – at conception, at birth, or sometime in between – which is a central part of the country’s inability to agree about abortion rules. But the implications of how societies define personhood go much further, Jecker said, influencing areas like care for the environment and end-of-life treatment.

Read more: What is 'personhood'? The ethics question that needs a closer look in abortion debates

3. Breaking down bioethics

Given Americans’ diverse views about religion and personhood, are there other concepts that can help forge consensus?

In another article, Jecker broke down four key bioethics terms , four bedrock principles in the field: autonomy; nonmaleficence, or “do no harm”; beneficence, or providing beneficial care; and justice.

People disagree about how to interpret those principles: Someone in favor of abortion rights, for example, might be most concerned about harm to pregnant women, while someone who opposes them could be more concerned about harm to a fetus.

Understanding how people see those principles in play, though, is at least a constructive step. Jecker suggested that, short of reaching a moral consensus, “articulating our own moral views and understanding others’ can bring all sides closer to a principled compromise.”

Read more: Abortion and bioethics: Principles to guide U.S. abortion debates

4. Beyond ‘my body, my choice’

For decades, one other phrase has dominated the U.S. abortion debate: the slogan “my body, my choice.”

At this point, the catchphrase is practically synonymous with the movement for reproductive rights. It’s profoundly shaped how people think about abortion rights: as an issue of privacy, decisions that women should make for themselves with their doctors.

But “my body, my choice” doesn’t fully capture the key ideas , argued Elizabeth Lanphier , a moral philosopher and bioethicist at the University of Cincinnati. Reproductive rights aren’t just about a lack of interference, what philosophers call “negative liberty.” Abortion is also about the right to access health care.

“‘My body, my choice’ suggests that because people own their bodies, they get to control them,” she wrote. But self-ownership isn’t so valuable without also having “positive liberty,” the freedom to do something.

“My research suggests ‘my body, my choice’ was a crucial idea at the time of Roe to emphasize ownership over bodily and health care decisions,” Lanphier concluded. “But I believe the debate has since moved on – reproductive justice is about more than owning your body and your choice; it is about a right to health care.”

Read more: With abortion heading back to the Supreme Court, is it time to retire the 'my body, my choice' slogan?

Editor’s note: This story is a roundup of articles from The Conversation’s archives.

• Reproductive rights
• Essential Reads
• US reproductive rights

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