SUBMITTED TO

BRIG NASRE ALAM

BY QAISER ZAMAN
MPH-IV

ABORTION
ETHICAL PRACTICE IN CLINICAL MEDICINE
Abortion
Abortion is the ending of pregnancy by removing a fetus or embryo before it can survive outside
the uterus. An abortion which occurs spontaneously is also known as a miscarriage. An abortion
may be caused purposely and is then called an induced abortion, or less frequently, "induced
miscarriage".

Causes of Induced Abortions

 Continuing with the pregnancy would involve a greater risk to the woman's life than
ending the pregnancy.
 Continuing with the pregnancy would involve a greater risk of injury to the woman's
physical or mental health than ending the pregnancy.
 Continuing with the pregnancy would involve a greater risk to the physical or mental
health of any of the woman's existing children.
 There is a significant risk that the baby would be born with a serious physical or mental
disability.

Abortion is a controversial subject that has been continually argued over for the last 30 years.
The main question is whether or not abortion should be legal?
There are two sides to this abortion topic, the Pro-Life side and the Pro-Choice side.

The pro-life side are those people who are against abortion altogether while the pro-choice side
are those individuals who believe, it is the woman’s right to choose. The pro-life solution is to
have the child and raise it.

Pro-Life Arguments against Abortion

1. Since life begins at conception, abortion is akin to murder as it is the act of taking human
life. Abortion is in direct defiance of the commonly accepted idea of the sanctity of
human life
2. No civilized society permits one human to intentionally harm or take the life of another
human without punishment, and abortion is no different.
3. Adoption is a viable alternative to abortion and accomplishes the same result. And with
1.5 million American families wanting to adopt a child, there is no such thing as an
unwanted child.
 4. An abortion can result in medical complications later in life; the risk of ectopic
pregnancies doubles, and the chance of a miscarriage and pelvic inflammatory
disease also increases.
5. In the instance of rape and incest, proper medical care can ensure that a woman will not
get pregnant. Abortion punishes the unborn child who committed no crime; instead, it is
the perpetrator who should be punished.
6. Abortion should not be used as another form of contraception.
7. For women who demand complete control of their body, control should
include preventing the risk of unwanted pregnancy through the responsible use of
contraception or, if that is not possible, through abstinence.
8. Many Americans who pay taxes are opposed to abortion, therefore it's morally wrong to
use tax dollars to fund abortion.
9. Those who choose abortions are often minors or young women with insufficient life
experience to understand fully what they are doing. Many have lifelong regrets
afterwards.
10. Abortion frequently causes intense psychological pain and stress.

Pro-Choice side
Pro-choice side are those individuals who believe it is the woman’s right to choose.

1. Nearly all abortions take place in the first trimester, when a fetus cannot exist independent of the
mother. As it is attached by the placenta and umbilical cord, its health is dependent on her health,
and cannot be regarded as a separate entity as it cannot exist outside her womb.
2. The concept of personhood is different from the concept of human life. Human life occurs at
conception, but fertilized eggs used for in vitro fertilization are also human lives and those not
implanted are routinely thrown away. Is this murder, and if not, then how is abortion murder?
3. Adoption is not an alternative to abortion, because it remains the woman's choice whether or not
to give her child up for adoption. Statistics show that very few women who give birth choose to
give up their babies - less than 3% of white unmarried women and less than 2% of black
unmarried women.
4. Abortion is a safe medical procedure. The vast majority of women - 88% - who have an abortion
do so in their first trimester. Medical abortions have less than 0.5% risk of serious complications
and do not affect a woman's health or future ability to become pregnant or give birth.
5. In the case of rape or incest, forcing a woman made pregnant by this violent act would cause
further psychological harm to the victim. Often a woman is too afraid to speak up or is unaware
she is pregnant, thus the morning after pill is ineffective in these situations.
6. Abortion is not used as a form of contraception. Pregnancy can occur even with responsible
contraceptive use. Only 8% of women who have abortions do not use any form of birth control,
and that is more due to individual’s carelessness than to the availability of abortion.
7. The ability of a woman to have control of her body is critical to civil rights. Take away her
reproductive choice and you step onto a slippery slope. If the government can force a woman to
continue a pregnancy, what about forcing a woman to use contraception or undergo sterilization?
8. Taxpayer dollars are used to enable poor women to access the same medical services as rich
women, and abortion is one of these services. Funding abortion is no different from funding a
war in the Mideast. For those who are opposed, the place to express outrage is in the voting
booth.
9. Teenagers who become mothers have grim prospects for the future. They are much more likely
to leave of school; receive inadequate prenatal care; rely on public assistance to raise a child;
develop health problems; or end up divorced.
10. Like any other difficult situation, abortion creates stress. Yet the American Psychological
Association found that stress was greatest prior to an abortion, and that there was no evidence of
post-abortion syndrome.

There are three particular ethical conditions of Abortion:

(1) Where it is neither immoral nor moral to have an abortion,

(2) Where it is immoral to have an abortion,

(3) Where it is moral to have an abortion.

1) When It Is Not Immoral or Moral

The first situation deal with concerning an abortion is when the act of it is neither immoral nor
moral. The situation is this: when the unborn fetus is not a conscious being. In this case, the
unborn infant is incapable of feeling pain or suffering. To say that it is immoral to destroy it is
just as absurd as saying it is immoral to destroy a rock. Though it may seem cruel to compare a
living, unborn infant with an inanimate rock, the comparison is justified. Both beings are
incapable of thought, incapable of suffering, and incapable of emotion in general. But still,
further investigation into the matter will simply confirm that not only is an unborn infant
incapable of emotion and thought, but this also renders it incapable of another thing: desire.
Since an unborn infant is not capable of desiring anything, it cannot desire to live any more than
it can desire to die. The position of the Pro-Life ideology, advocating the right of an unborn
infant to live, is then almost meaningless. How can someone (or "something") have rights, when
it is incapable of wanting those rights? But this raises an even more important question to those
who advocate the life of the unborn: when the unborn do not want the right to life, just as they do
not want the right to death, as they cannot want, then what is the point in defending their right to
life? At this point, those who destroy unborn fetuses are doing as much a favor to them as those
who try to preserve them.

The primary argument against the right to destroy an unconscious fetus is the Sanctity of Human
Life: that human life, in whatever form, conscious or unconscious, deserves the right to life. This
argument is antiquated, though it is relatively new. It is, in a way, a Humanist argument,
claiming that humans hold value over all other beings.

2) When It Is Immoral

Abortion is immoral when the unborn infant is a conscious being. The reason for this is the same
as the reason why it is immoral to take the life of any conscious being: it is ending happiness,
taking away a person's existence. In one way, it deprives an individual of their own life, but in
another way, it deprives the Universe of another soul making it just a little bit lonelier to walk at
night. It is immoral to kill a conscious, unborn infant, because it violates the principle of valuing
a conscious being. Since those beings which are capable of feeling emotion more often prefer life
than death, to end one's existence without their consent is to offend a grievous wrong.

3) When It Is Moral

When Abortion is moral means that the destruction of the living fetus is a duty, an honorable and
admirable act, very praiseworthy. If a mother knows that her unborn infant is going to be born
into a world of poverty and crime, where no night street is safe to walk, where work consists of a
repetitive, hazardous condition, where there is no star of hope in the sky of life and no reason
besides affection to live. If a woman understands that she is afflicted with a disease that will
deprive her son of a mother, that will give her daughter nothing more than a pillow to fill with
tears .If a mother knows that she is breeding children so that they may be fodder for cruelty and
brutality, without a single defender, then it is but the honorable and admirable act of this mother
to destroy her unborn, and deprive from them the ability to see the scorching pain of misery.
 Facts about Abortion
Fact #1: Every abortion kills an innocent human being.

Every new life begins at conception. This is an irrefutable fact of biology. It is true for animals
and true for humans. When considered alongside the law of biogenesis that every species
reproduces after its own kind, we can draw only one conclusion in regard to abortion: every
single abortion ends the life of an innocent human being.

Fact #2: Every human being is a person.

Personhood is properly defined by membership in the human species, not by stage of

development within that species. A living being's designation to a species is determined not by
the stage of development but by the sum total of its biological characteristics.

Fact #3: Beginning at conception, every pregnancy involves two or more

bodies.
No matter how you spin it, women don't have four arms and four legs when they're pregnant.
Those extra appendages belong to the tiny human being(s) living inside of them. At no point in
pregnancy is the developing embryo or fetus simply a part of the mother's body.

Fact #4: It is just, reasonable, and necessary for society to outlaw certain
choices.
Any civilized society restricts the individual's freedom to choose whenever that choice would
harm an innocent person. Therefore, it is impossible to justify abortion by simply arguing that
women should be "free to choose."

Fact #5: The right to not be killed supersedes the right to not be pregnant.

The comparison between a baby's rights and a mother's rights is unequal. What is at stake in
abortion is the mother's lifestyle, as opposed to the baby's life. Therefore, it is reasonable for
society to expect an adult to live temporarily with an inconvenience if the only alternative is
killing a child.
Fact #6: Poverty, rape, disability, or “unwontedness’” do not morally justify
abortion.
There are all sorts of circumstances that people point to as justification for their support of
abortion. Since none of these circumstances are sufficient to justify the killing of human beings
after birth, they're not sufficient to justify the killing of human beings before birth.

Fact #7: The differences between embryos and adults are differences of degree
not of kind.

Like toddler and adolescent, the terms “embryo” and “fetus” do not refer to nonhumans but to
humans at particular stages of development. Human beings inside the womb are smaller, less
developed, and more dependent than human beings outside the womb. These are differences of
degree, not differences of kind. We can all point to other people who are bigger, stronger,
smarter, or less dependent than we are, but that doesn't make our life any less valuable or any
less deserving of protection.

Fact #8: Less than 1% of all abortions are performed to save the life of the
mother.

It is an extremely rare case when abortion is required to save the mother’s life. Of course, when
two lives are threatened and only one can be saved, doctors must always save that life. However,
abortion for the mother’s life and abortion for the mother’s health are usually not the same issue.
Since every abortion kills an innocent human being, it is morally abhorrent to use the rare cases
when abortion is necessary to save the life of the mother as justification for the millions of on
demand "convenience" abortions.

Fact #9: To be only "personally pro-life" is to not be pro-life at all.

If abortion doesn't kill children, why would someone be opposed to it? If it does kill children,
why would someone defend another's right to do it? Being personally against abortion but
favoring another's right to abortion is self-contradictory and morally baffling.
Fact #10: If there is uncertainty about when human life begins, the benefit of
the doubt should go to preserving life.

It is a scientific fact that life begins at conception. However, if one personally has even a shred of
uncertainty about when life begins, then they are still morally obligated to err on the side of life
and NOT have an abortion. Why? Because to make a mistake about the exact time when life
begins is to kill an innocent human being.

Fact #11: Abortion is more dangerous than childbirth.

Not only does every abortion kill an innocent human being in the womb; but abortion is also
more dangerous to the mother than if she were to give birth to the child. The evidence
overwhelmingly proves that the morbidity and mortality rates of legal abortion are several times
higher than that for carrying a pregnancy to term.

Fact #12: Prior to abortion's legalization, 90% of abortions were done by

doctors, not by "coat hangers in back alleys."

Some justify abortion on the claim that if it is outlawed, women will abort anyway and may die
in the process. There are 3 problems with this hypothesis. First, it doesn't address the ethics of
abortion. Second, laws against abortion would deter most women from having one. Third, there
is no evidence that illegal abortions are more dangerous than legal abortions. Of course, even if
the "coat hanger" argument was true (it's not), then it's still morally ridiculous to legalize
procedures that kill innocent babies just to make the killing procedures less dangerous to the
mother.

Fact #13: The 8 week+ unborn baby feels real physical pain during an
abortion.

Yes, every abortion kills an innocent human being. Even more alarming is the fact that beginning
at the 8th week of development, an unborn baby that is aborted feels pain during the abortion.
The baby feels both psychological and real physical, organic pain. Let that sink in. Of course,
whether or not abortion is a painful experience to the unborn child being aborted, the child is left
no less dead as a result. In talking about the question of fetal pain, we must remember that it
ultimately has no bearing on the morality of abortion.
Fact #14: Abortion is condemnable for the same reasons that slavery and
genocide are.

Networks of killing centers across the globe are eliminating "unwanted, unborn" children at a
staggering rate. Were the context not abortion, the world would be outraged. Call it what you
want, when an innocent group of human beings is targeted and exterminated by the millions that
is an injustice on par with any of history's most egregious atrocities. At the end of the day, if the
unborn are people (and they are), then abortion is not only comparable to past crimes against
humanity but is also, by sheer volume, the greatest holocaust of all.

Fact #15: Abortion is not a “women's only” issue.

Abortion affects both men and women. Beyond that, abortion is a human issue, not a gender
issue. If abortion kills innocent human life (it does), then everyone, male and female, should
stand against it. One doesn't need to be a young girl to take a position against the sex trafficking
of young girls, and one doesn't need to be a woman to take a position against abortion.

Fact #16: Every legal surgical abortion stops a beating heart and terminates
measurable brain waves.

What do we call it when a person no longer has a heartbeat or brain waves? Death. It's a
scientific fact that life begins at conception, but even more obvious; what should we call it when
there is a heartbeat and there are brain waves? Life. It is an indisputable fact that each and every
legal surgical abortion in America today stops a beating heart and stops already measurable brain
waves.

Fact #17: The right to not be killed supersedes the right to privacy.

Some defend abortion by claiming that they have a right to privacy. Whether they have an
abortion or not is between them and their doctor. Everyone else should stay out of their business.
Of course, if abortion kills an innocent human being (it does), then killing done in private is no
more acceptable than killing done in public; and the encouragement or assistance of a doctor
does not change the nature, consequences, or morality of abortion.
Fact #18: Abortion disproportionally targets minority babies.

Whatever the intent of the abortion industry may be, by functional standards, abortion is a racist
institution. In the United States, black children are aborted at 5 times the rate of white children
and Hispanic children don't fare much better. Abortion is the leading cause of death among black
Americans. We can debate the racial intent of Planned Parenthood past and present, but we
cannot debate the results. Abortion is by no means an equal opportunity killer.

Fact #19: Abortion has become a form of gendercide, shrinking the global
female population at an alarming rate.

On top of the fact that every abortion kills an innocent human being, abortion has also become
the driving force in eliminating females around the globe. Estimates put the global gender gap
somewhere between 100 and 200 million people. Abortion has become the most effective means
of sexism ever devised, ridding the world of multitudes of unwanted females.

Fact #20: Laws concerning abortion have significantly influenced whether

women choose to have abortions.

Some will concede that every abortion kills an innocent human being. They will also concede
that society has a right to outlaw choices that harm innocent human beings. But even after
conceding those points, some still do not favor more stringent abortion laws because they think
that they don't really work - there would still be too many abortions. Historical data, morality,
and basic legal theory prove this line of thinking to be false.