There are debates all over the world about whether or not abortion should be legal, and many people pick which side based on their feelings on the morality of abortion. Frequently, the debate centers around disagreements of the moral status of the fetus, and at what point it has all the rights of an adult. Other ethical debates focus on the rights of the mother or the circumstances of conception.
Abortion is ethical
Abortion is a matter of preventing cells from continuing to grow. Some arguments for the ethicality of abortion are arguments for the potential parent's right to control their body and arguments for fetuses not being human beings.
Abortion is ethical because we have a right to bodily autonomy
Abortion is ethical because a fetus is not a person
Personhood requires a certain level of consciousness and rationality, of which a fetus is incapable. Therefore, it does not have the full rights of a human being.
If a fetus has not developed enough to be considered a child or if it threatens the life of the mother, then she has the right to choose an abortion. Additionally, if the mother is raped, then it would be ethical for her not to bear the consequences of something over which she had no control.
In cases of rape, abortion is ethical
In cases of rape, a woman never consented to raise a child, so she should not have to give birth to that child.
If during pregnancy, the mother's life is in danger, it is ethical to abort the child. As an adult who has an established life, it is worse to lose her than the child. Therefore, abortion is moral.
While at conception, the embryo does not possess all the rights of a person, over the course of the pregnancy it will acquire those rights. Therefore, abortion is only ethical prior to the fetus becoming a person with rights.
From the moment of conception, a fetus is a child with all of the rights of any person. A fetus will grow up to be just like any other person and could have a meaningful future, and abortion is also religiously unacceptable. As such, abortion is unethical.
Abortion is unethical because of the right to life
A fetus has the full rights of an adult human. Therefore, it has the right to life and to not being killed.
Abortion is unethical because it is denying a future human a future
Though a fetus does not yet possess all of the rights of an adult human, it will eventually. By terminating the life a fetus you rob it of its future and all that it potential could have had and could have been.
