Catholics teachings say that willingly, knowingly and deliberately committing evil is never justifiable - Even if the intent is good, with this moral being absolute and cannot be changed. The church teaches that not innocent life is to be taken. Catholicism provides the teaching that Abortions are differing to natural law and are sinful.
Are they able to reason and act upon this accurately? Abortion would go against the primary precept of reproduction and if the foetus is considered a person, then the primary principle to preserve innocent life would also be broken. This means abortion will generally not
Despite the fact that both she and the fetus has the equal right to life, opponents of abortion would still consider it wrong to preform an abortion with reasons ranging from killing an innocent person is always wrong and is murder to one must always prefer letting a person die to killing a person. J.J. Thomson would respond to say that these reasons are all false if we consider that the mother is only preforming an abortion in order to save her own life and not for personal interests. Hence abortion should be considered morally permissible in such situations when the life of the mother is threatened by the fetus. In order to determine whether abortion is permissible in cases where the mother’s life is not in immediate danger, we should analyse whether the fetus truly has the right to live. Take for example, rape.
They would therefore promote the idea that as a foetus is a person from conception, it therefore has a right to live just like every person and this right is more important than the mother’s right to decide what happens to her body. Despite this, Roman Catholics do generally accept the doctrine of double effect in the event of an ectopic pregnancy where the foetus is in the fallopian tube as the intention is to save the mother’s life which is a good effect with the second bad effect being that the foetus dies. Therefore, Roman Catholics would teach that ending a human being’s life through abortion is intrinsically wrong except under the doctrine of double effect. On the other hand, someone who believed in the quality of life, such as an Act Utilitarian as opposed to the sanctity of life, which emphasises the nature of life or the conditions in which it is lived for both the mother and the foetus. For example, if it is known that the foetus will be born into a miserable life in which it is unloved or cannot be cared for, an Act Utilitarian would see this as sufficient grounds for an abortion but the opposite would mean that the abortion would be less justified.
To say that someone is "pro-life" is to say that the person believes that the government has a right to preserve all human life, regardless of intent or quality-of-life. The "pro-choice" view is that a baby does not have human rights within the mother's womb. Pro-life believes- that even incapable growing babies and undeveloped human life is sacred and must be protected by the government. Abortion they therefore believe must not be legal, nor should it be widely done on an illegal basis. Pro-choice believes- that abortion is the belief that women have the right to choose to abort a baby from their body.
Should Euthanasia or Physician-Assisted Suicide Be Legal? Dion O. Hales SOC120 Introduction to Ethics and Social Responsibility Prof. Theodore Framan June 22, 2012 Should Euthanasia or Physician-Assisted Suicide Be Legal? While killing yourself is harder than having someone do it for you is that killing yourself requires firmer resolve, Should euthanasia or physician-assisted suicide be legal? Because a patient's last will and last testament should be honored, a competent patient's request to terminate life-sustaining treatment, and it is our moral right to prevent a person from suffering if they suffer from a disease we cannot cure. First, Should euthanasia or physician-assisted suicide be legal?
IT is however important to note that Natural Law thinkers are not concerned with the consequences of actions, whether they bring good or bad doesn’t matter but what matters to them is whether the action itself is good or bad. Kantian Ethics would also further disagree with Fertility Treatment as the Categorical Imperative says that people must be treated as ends in themselves. If an embryo is a life then the destruction of spare embryos during IVF would be seen as using them as a means to an end. Further if the embryo was experimented upon instead, and the embryo
Pro-life is the opposing argument to pro-choice, and that abortions should be made illegal like in Northern Ireland unless the mother’s life is at serious risk. Many Religions have the traditional view that abortion is a sin. It is argued that if a teenager becomes pregnant and has an abortion they may come to regret this in later life, because at the time they were only a minor. The argument for Pro-life is a choice by people who feel that it is wrong to take a man life, weather that human has been born or not is irrelevant. Abortion is seen as no different to murder.
It focuses on the intrinsic value of the action itself and whether or not it is inherently good or bad, meaning that when applied to abortion there is not much lenience as it directly breaks three of the primary precepts: those of preserving life and the innocent, proliferation of the species, and to a lesser extent, the education of children (by removing the potential for one). This, coupled with the deontological nature of moral law, means that when following it to the letter abortion is wrong. However, this can be challenged by the doctrine of double effect, the concept that an action that is morally bad may be allowed if its effect will outweigh the action in terms of goodness or moral gain. Aquinas observed “Nothing hinders one act from having two effects, only one of which is intended, while the other is beside the intention. Accordingly, the act of self-defence may have two effects: one, the saving of one's life; the other, the slaying of the aggressor.
Persons that are pro legal abortion claim that a fetus is not a human being and that personhood begins at birth. In addition they claim fetuses are incapable of feeling pain when an abortion is performed. The anti-abortion is usually a religious belief and threatens the vital separation of church and state. Furthermore, abortion gives the couples the option to choose not to birth babies with severe and life-threatening medical conditions; it is not right to sentence a child to life with an acute handicap such as Cystic Fibrosis or Down Syndrome. Moreover children should not come into the world unwanted as this only increases the already high number of orphans.