Moderation as the Best Approach to Abortion Research (Essay Sample)

Student’s name
Professor’s name
Philosophy
July 21, 2017
Moderation as the Best Approach to Abortion
Abortion has continuously been an issue of concern globally, with a series of different opinions. The moral dilemma on whether abortion is morally permissible or not has caused a cultural civil war in most communities. There are conservatives who believe that life begins at conception and abortion is equal to killing a human being. They mostly consist of religious groups. There are also moderates who also believe that life starts at conception but it could be morally right on some special cases. For instance, they would allow abortion if the mother’s life is at risk. Finally, there are liberals who believe that women have a right to safe and professional abortions in order to exercise their reproductive rights. Moderation is the choice in this whole issue. This is because, both the mother and the fetus have rights and unless the fetus the mother’s right in some ways, then their life should be preserved (Kamide, 2012).
The moderates do not infringe on anyone’s right, they consider the situation of both the mother and the fetus. For instance, in the case where the fetus endangers the mother’s life, the mother has a right to choose whether to keep it and risk their life, or abort it and save themselves. While it may seem unnatural, mothers need to have a choice to some extent because the pregnancy may bring changes that may infringe their different rights. On the other hand, moderates do not allow abortion as a type of Planned Parenthood because just like the mother, the fetus also has a right to life. People should use contraceptive and other protection against pregnancy instead of waiting until conception then terminate it. Planned Parenthood and women’s reproductive rights should be based on safer means of contraception in order to avoid invalid reasons for abortion.
In comparison, moderation stands for more rights that both conservatism and liberalism. The moderates stand both for the rights of the mother and the fetus as well. For instance, conservatives totally neglect the right of the mother. They assume all the possibilities where a mother would have the dilemma between the right of the child and their own rights. They totally assume all the dangers and responsibilities a mother is exposed to just by carrying the pregnancy. A good example is when the mother’s life is in danger; they do not leave a chance for the mother to make a choice to live. They take all their rights away. However, if the unborn has a right, the mother also has a right to live. This is where moderation comes in, while preserving the rights of the fetus like the conservative want; they also consider the right of the mother. The fetus and the mother are both humans with rights (Net Industries, 2017).
Liberalism in comparison to moderation also makes a lot of assumptions. They uphold the rights of the mother, something that moderates also do, but totally neglect the rights of the fetus. Placing abortion as one of the ways of planning parenthood completely infringes the right of the fetus to live. In the current generation, women have many different ways to plan parenthood and decide when to have a baby. There are many different contraception options. Therefore, unless the life of the mother or the condition of the baby necessitates an abortion, invalid reasons to abort are morally wrong. Allowing abortion for any reason would rise the rate of abortion in the community. This is why moderation is a better choice that liberalism.
However, both conservatism and liberalism have an element of similarity to moderation. Moderation should act as the general reasoning that both the conservatives and the liberalist should embrace in order to reach to a point of agreement on the issue. For instance, liberalist mean well while making an effort to protect the women’s reproductive rights which would also aid in the effort to reach equality between men and women. However, they do not consider that the fetus also have a right, which is the main argument of the conservatives. Both stands are geared towards conserving rights. That is the main similarity between the two stands and moderation; conserving the rights of all humans. Moderation conserves the rights of the mother just like the liberals do as well as conserves the rights of the fetus which is the main stand of the conservatives. Therefore, in order to save both the rights of the mother and the fetus, moderation is the best choice.
There are some criticism against the moderate take on abortion. The first one is the potentiality argument. The argument states that even though the fetus may not show the features of self-awareness, they have the potential to do so which they will eventually grow into. The potential guarantees them a right to personhood that every adult has. They argue that even adults do not exhibit self-awareness like in their sleep or while drunk. That does not deny them the right to personhood. They still expect their rights to be reserved by those around them. According to this argument, both the mother and the fetus have equal rights to personhood. As a result, there should be no enough reason for the adult, who is in this case the mother to infringe the right of the fetus. They should let nature take its course. There is no exemption whether the mother is in danger due to the pregnancy. Abortion is considered in this criticism as intentional killing of a potential person (Fieser, 2017).
The other criticism to moderates is that women have the right to their bodily autonomy. This is the argument that qualifies any reason a woman may have to abort just because it is their body and they should have control what happens to it. According to this argument, women should be given the right to perform abortion in case the pregnancy affects them not only physically but also emotionally because the fetus is growing in their body. This reasoning is mostly associated with unwanted pregnancies that may come with a lot of emotional strains and social emotional impact. It argues that women should have the choice of whether they want to keep the fetus inside their bodies or not. They argue that this also gives the women equality to men who are not physically affected by the pregnancy. The woman’s body and life are directly affected by the pregnancy which is why they should decide whether they want that to happen or not (Fieser, 2...