Should Abortion Be Permitted in Canada

Abortion is a topic, which is filled with middle grounds, grey areas, and uncertainty. Just about any argument for or against abortion evokes very strong emotions and feelings on all sides. This is because people who are against abortion, believe it is the death of a life and thus the death of any innocent life results in an emotional response. On the other hand, people who are pro choice believe a woman s personal freedom and rights are being violated if they are disallowed an abortion. The faces of these arguments consist of liberals and conservatives, each with their own separate motivations for their beliefs. In Canada, it is legal to abort a fetus up until the mother has given birth. That is, the fetus is not considered a person with rights until birth. In this essay, I will present a few of the clashing ideals between the conservatives and the liberals; I will also tie up these views with my own views regarding each issue. I will explore two major topics: Mothers rights versus fetus rights, and the beginning of life. The conservative view holds that the fetus has just as much right to life as the mother does. Some conservatives argue that even if one yields that a fetus is not self-conscious or even living yet, abortion is still impermissible. Liberals on the other hand consider the rights only applicable when the fetus is self-conscious and aware. A common liberal argument is that even if we assume the fetus is alive with rights, the mother s rights outweigh that of the child s. Judy Thompsons uses the opera singer analogy. She argues that no person is morally required to make sacrifices of their own body to keep someone else alive, thus aborting a dependent fetus is morally permissible. Her analogy involves one waking up plugged in to a famous opera singer who needs your support for 9 months to survive. Thompson argues that such a sacrifice is not required from the mothers stance, and she has a right to choose not to support the baby (opera singer in the analogy). A conservative response is that the mother chose to be pregnant. Her choice started at conception, and thus she gave life (and consequently rights) to the fetus. One cannot simply choose to correct their decision weeks or months later because they ve changed their mind. This would be like promising the opera singer support and then unplugging 2 months later. Once the promise has been made, the opera singer (or fetus) has just as much rights as the mother, and thus an abortion should be considered murder. I hold a more of a middle ground. In most cases, the mother has more rights then the unborn fetus. The fetus relies on the mother, and I do not believe it is fair to force the mother to go through an unwanted pregnancy as this violates her personal freedom and rights. In most cases, reasons make all the difference. If a rape victim were to want an abortion, this should be morally permissible. This would very much be like waking hooked up on life support with someone else and in this case; the mother s rights outweigh that of the unborn fetus. Furthermore, if an abortion is needed to save the mother s life, an abortion should be permissible. The question of rights is tied deeply with the question of when life begins. Surely, if one

does not consider a two-week-old zygote a human life, then this zygote does not have any rights at all. I will elaborate on this in the next paragraph. Conservatives hold the view that life begins at conception. While the early zygote has organs and is merely a cell, it was eventually become a human and thus must be treated as one. Many use the religious argument and claim that the soul of the human is infused at the time of conception. Many hold the opinion that it is the natural starting point, plain and simple. There is no other point of division in the life of the fetus and any attempt at making one results in a multitude of grey areas. Liberals will hold the view that life does not begin until the fetus is externally viable, or even up until birth. For as long as the survivability of the fetus relies completely on the mother, the fetus is more of an extension of the mother rather then a separate living being. The problem with both views is that they attempt to attach a black and white definition of something that simply cannot be made black or white. I hold closer to the liberal view in this case. I do not think a union of two gametes or any point afterwards can be directly designated as the beginning of life. The development of a child is smooth and continuous and cannot be discretely marked. Any arbitrary starting point we give it is surely an artificial construct. I make the claim that life should be the opposite of death. When we die, we can consider it the cessation of our organs and most importantly our brain functioning. It is because of this I hold a more neurological view of life. I consider the beginning of brain activity to be the beginning of life, just as the cessation of such activity is death. When a patient loses a leg or even organs, we do not consider them dead because their brain still works. It is clear to me that a functioning brain is what most of use to define a living person. The beginning of such brain wave patterns occurs at approximately 24-27 weeks. A fetus may develop neurons and a neural system before this period, but it is essentially a bunch of unconnected neurons. It is as incapable of functioning as a pile of unconnected computer chips. It is only when these synapses are connected (which occurs at about week 24) that the fetal brain has any capacity to function. It is at this stage that the fetus truly acquires humanness. It is this property of humanness, which I define to be a human life. If we try and make the claim that a zygote is life, then the same claim can be made for sperm or egg cells. The determining factor is this capability of thought and brain activity. Without neural networks, there is no thought, brain activity, emotion, or pain; and without any of these qualities, there is no human life. Until this stage, there is no fetal right as it is not a human life. Before this happens, any and all abortions should be morally permissible. There are many grounds to stand on in this discussion of abortion. Canada has chosen to allow abortion up until birth. In doing so, we can assume that Canada has consequently defined the beginning of life as birth. Furthermore, by allowing abortion until birth Canada must also be making the claim that at all points, regardless of situation, the mother holds more rights then the fetus. As we can quickly see, by simply creating a black and white solution to this complex problem, we make several leaps by allowing abortion until birth. The solution to this problem

should require a more complex solution. In my opinion, the Canadian policy should be case by case (just like Euthanasia, for example). First as foremost, allowing abortion past 24-25 weeks should be morally impressible in Canada. I have defined human life as the development of a cortex capable of functioning and such waves occur well before the last stages of pregnancy. Anything before this stage should be permissible, as the fetus has no rights over the mother since it is not even a human life yet. It feels no pain or emotion so it is not so different as removing various organs from ones body. Anything after this stage, abortion will usually be impressible as the fetus now has equal rights to the mother. However, in some cases abortion would be permissible as the rights of the mother might outweigh that of the child s. If an abortion needs to happen in order to save the mother, then an abortion should be permissible even after 24 weeks. The mother can survive without the fetus but the fetus relies on the mother so in this case, we must value the life of the mother more then that of the fetus. This is what I think the policy should be: permissible abortion before the development of a cortex and conditional abortion anything after that. An ethics panel of sorts would decide upon the conditions but it would nonetheless be more complex then the current Canadian system. I believe this way is most consistent with our current definitions of life and most fair to both fetus and mother rights.