Abortion and Infanticide - Essay Example

ABORTION AND INFANTICIDE By Presented to Abortion refers to ending pregnancy or terminating the life of a fetus in the womb. This can be done through medical methods to induce the pregnancy termination. However certain fundamental objections have been put forward on this with an unending debate on the ethics and morality of this practice. Sometimes it has been argued that abortion can be secured if the life of the mother is in danger so as to save her life. This has been one of the plausible arguments for those that support abortion as a practice. The issue is about destroying one life to save the other. The fundamental objections for abortion to save the mother’s life advance the arguments that the fetus too is a life that should not be terminated. Infanticide on the other hand is the act of killing a borne child within a year of birth. It is referred to killing a child under the age of 12 months. However, the morality of these two forms of life termination is the question. This essay therefore will discuss the morality of abortion and infanticide focusing on whether a fetus is justifiable to be considered human. From the debate of what makes a fetus human, lets decipher the society understanding of human beings. Those who condemn abortion believe that the fetus is human being. However, who is a human being? What makes a human being in the society is the ability to be recognized or counted as a member of that particular society. Therefore, how then do we include a person still living inside another as a member of the society? Do they count? What is their participation in the society? Without any meaningful social participation of a being then it does not qualify to be a part of a society. The fetus does not even have a name to it. Its gender may not even be known and its fate as well. It has no birth certification and does not count in the population of the existing society. As such it is not a part of the social society. Even culturally, infants are more valued than the fetus. Celebrations follow birth of a baby and not mere conceptions. The value of the life begins at birth since a new member has joined the family. Otherwise they are seen as those coming to join the family. In this case societies view life or rather human beings as the born infants and not the fetus in the womb. Therefore the social customs and norms determine what life is. That is why historically there were cultures that did not even consider life until the child has come of reasonable age. A look at the view of the pro-life arguments reveals a complete different approach. The pro-life rather see life to begin from conception. It does not matter whether the functional matters that determine life like the heartbeat and brains exist. For them, life of humans begins from when the sperm fertilizes the woman’s eggs. But how would one even refer to this as life. The embryo itself is not even visible and can only be felt through ultra sound. The fetus on the other hand does not even have the structures that can be used to distinguish it as human being. How then is it referred to as human being? An abortion that takes away such a “thing” does not in my view amount to destruction of life. The zygote or fetus does not even have a developed brain. An unhappy philosophy here is the use of human being and a person interchangeably. The dispute between the anti and pro-abortionists is all beginning from the use of the word human being and how it is applied in the sense of where life begins. This would have solved the dispute had the philosophy of defining the term life of a human being pre empted the controversy. At week 10 however, the fetus has developed legs and has a detectable brain. This has life, one would argue. The anti abortionist will condemn terminating life of this fetus. This is because it is a human being. It can be seen as such and has a detectable brain. Methinks this does not qualify it to be a human being. It still does not have a social count in the society. It is not existent in real world independent of the mother. It feed from another person, rather parasitic, and depends on the life of another to survive. At this stage the fetus does not qualify to be a human being. But what properties should something have in order to be granted the status of a person? This argument focusing on the property of humans is a misleading point of view. It does not therefore give a clear cut distinction on a fetus and human being because there are stages where both almost have a good percentage of what the other possesses. Thus arguing this case with the terminologies as humans and not human will be even harder. The moral question thus should be focusing on whether the fetus at any given stage possesses what is necessary to consider it as having life (Tooley, p. 2, 1972). Infanticide which involves the act of killing a borne child within a year of birth or simply killing a child under the age of 12 months is another emotional debate. The moral of killing a baby before age 1 ids the fundamental question here. Why would anyone terminate some child’s life at infancy? Some people would do so because of certain disabilities that the child may be having that they feel will be of more problems in the child’s life. As such they find it more convenient to kill the child before they get to age 1. In their own view they are saving the child the sufferings that they are likely to undergo in life due to their disability as well as saving themselves the trauma and difficulty of raising a disabled child. Is this act morally correct? The pro-infanticide will argue it positively just like the pro-abortionists. They will hold the view that it is not a life worth living for the child. This makes me wonder whether killing an infant is less crime or less wrong that killing an adult. This is much a kin to the reasoning that sometimes is applied in the ethics of euthanasia. To relieve someone of the pains and suffering they will go through in their life so as to enable them die a dignified life. Really! An infant killed because of disability is released of sufferings and pains. Well, ethics from my understanding constitutes what is considered right or wrong as per perceived by the society norms and practices. Well how would the society view the justification of infanticide as prevention of sufferings that the child would go through in their life? The moral question is what the societal understanding of disability is. Certain disabilities as matter of fact are just mere deformations or lack of certain non essential parts of a human body. For example a physically disabled person with one of their hands deformed is not bound to suffer! The notion that certain people have about disability is wrong. This call for a proper understanding of the popular mantra disability is not inability. In order to enable us settle this dispute around abortion and infancy, the following is necessary: the morally accepted principles that determines an individual’s right to life and the factual point that defines the stage that a particular organism qualify to be a person (Tooley, p. 3, 1972). These two issues are the necessary or fundamental questions in this dispute. The morally accepted principle that determines an individual’s right to life can be understood as follows. A parallel comparison between abortion and infanticide is drawn with slavery of the Negros (Tooley, p.3, 1972). The question is why it was easy for people to decide that slavery was an acceptable practice while abortion and infanticide is a rather difficult one for people to accept. This is the reason. The underlying moral principle in the case of slavery isn’t controversial and as such very easy for people to settle on it morality. However, the case of abortion and infanticide is different. The complexity of the debate is in its fundamental morals which are rather complex. The conditions that are universally agreed to be for ascribing life to an organism have been controversial and as such the right to life therefore does not suffice in settling this pertinent issue (Tooley, p.4, 1972). There is need for a standard definition of where life begins, who a right to life and what makes life livable. This is because in the case of infanticide one would argue that the disabled child should not live since the life it is going to live is not worth living. It is a life of suffering that bears no dignity on human life. As such they are pro-infanticide and I find their argument rather valid from that approach. It might be easy to put forward other arguments in the case of infanticide and abortion whether for or against but settling the debate requires more principal universal understanding and agreement on the fundamental issues around what qualifies life to be and at what stage of an organism it qualifies to be referred to as human being. The debate around the ethics of the quality of life worth living in the case on infanticide is a rather contentious issue that agreeing upon from the two opposing sides is not easy to come by. The question on the ethics of abortion and infanticide revolves around the moral principle that is very plausible. It deals in the question of where life begins and what value of life is livable. When this issue is resolve the permissibility of abortion or infanticide will cease to be an issue of debate. The underlying conditions should be dealt with squarely and life should be defined from the stage it begins. Organisms should be understood in the sense of what stage their life begins so that there is an understanding on what constitutes life. Is it certain body parts? Is it where an organism exists? I.e. in the womb or outside. Is it when the society accepts one as a part of it? Is it when a person is registered and is known to exist? This is the fundamental question in this debate. Therefore the morals around abortion and infanticide should have a clarification these fundamental issues otherwise there is no agreement that will be reached on the morality of these two issues of societal concern. Reference Tooley, M. 1972. Abortion and Infanticide. Oxford. Reference Read More