Current Ethical Issue - Essay Example

Abortion has been a touchy topic since the Roe vs. Wade decision in 1973. The Supreme Court ruled that a woman has the sole right to decide whether or not to carry a child to term, once an unwanted pregnancy is discovered. Women find themselves pregnant in many different situations: some of their lovers are unenthusiastic about fathering, some of them are teens whose parents aren’t giving them much of a choice, many are in abusive relationships and see a pregnancy as the final nail in the coffin, a number of them are addicted to drugs and fear that their addiction will harm the fetus, or impair their ability to care for an infant, some women simply don’t desire to become mothers, some are married, but fear that procreation at that point in their lives will adversely affect them career-wise, and, of course, there are victims of rape.

Regardless of the circumstances that surround a pregnancy, though, there are better alternatives than abortion. The essay “Abortion, Killing, and Maternal Moral Authority” takes an impartial look at both sides of the choice to abort. Its author, Soran Reader, asks, “Does abortion mean evacuating the fetus from the woman’s body? Or does it mean killing the fetus?” (Reader, 2008). It seems clear that abortion is a legal form of murder. Whether early in the embryonic stage, or a late-term abortion, the fact is that a human is developing prior to the abortion.

The heart is one of the first things to develop, and can been seen beating on ultrasound at an early gestational age. Fingers and toes develop. The fetus can move. How anyone can consider that it is not a person, just because it can’t yet live outside the body is a mystery. It is living inside a body. When its host decides to terminate it, only then is it dead. Perhaps enough women don’t understand that there are plenty of options that don’t include abortion. Custody of the child can be relinquished to the father, or the