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It is true that irreconcilable differences can exist on bioethical issues. In the case of abortion, this is due in part to our starting premise not always being the same. Should the rights and concerns of women or the rights and concerns of the foetus prevail? It would seem that the value of life itself put forward by the Pro-Life or Anti-Abortion lobby is at loggerheads with the value of autonomy- the rights granted to each person to determine what happens to their own bodies. In this paper I will examine various perspectives on the abortion dilemma and then purport an argument to support abortion but with certain limitations in relations to its implementation and legal procedures.

Abortion means the termination of a pregnancy but this paper will deal with situations where a conscious and wilful decision is made to terminate a pregnancy. It can be often be classified according to the time on the pregnancy at which it occurs.

Kerridge, Lowe and McPhee (2005) acknowledge that the abortion debate is often seen as a polarisation between the foetus’s right to life and the autonomy of the right of the women and that “our ability to resolve this conflict appear entirely hopeless. But each of these positions is over simplistic, and studies reveal that few people actually hold such one-sided views”.

Several viewpoints exist in relation to the abortion dilemma. In the conservative position the right to life of the foetus is the overriding factor and that it is intrinsically wrong to do away with it. This deontological approach tries to apply a universal rule to cover specific situations. Some moderate conservatives would argue that abortion is justified in the situation such as rape or when the mother’s life is in danger. Kerridge et al refers to this as the “double effect.” So even in these extreme cases the rights of the foetus are seen as differing from the rights of other humans.

The liberal viewpoint...