The Ethical Dilemma of Abortion
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Abstract
This paper discusses the extremely complex and important topic and dilemma of abortion. Specifically, that the pro-life versus pro-choice dilemma is an imperative one that continues to cause ethical tensions in the United States. For this reason, this issue and dilemma warrants close scrutiny. It affects many major areas including ethics, religion, politics, law, and medicine. Ethical theories and principles of the pro-life position and the pro-choice position will be contrasted. This paper will further discuss the arguments in the context of Roe v. Wade and its impact on laws in the United States. The general ethics of the pro-life argument and the pro-choice argument are founded on the issues of human rights and freedom. Three main principles that the pro-life argument argues (the Human Rights Principle, the Mens Rea Principle, and the Harm Principle) will also be discussed. This account will not include this author’s own prescriptive response (in the form of recommendations, best practices, or similar types of judgments) and therefore, this paper does not go beyond a purely comparative method. Lastly, the Nuremberg Code, which was created at the Nuremberg Doctors’ Trial, will be discussed. Specifically, the Nuremberg Code will be correlated in relation to laws in the United States, as well as contemporary bioethical debates, which are misleading when comparing the use of fetal tissue for transplants from abortions to experiments done during the Holocaust and crimes of Nazi biomedical science.
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References
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