Abortion is one of the most ethically charged issues nowadays. The present work is focused on exploring the major ethical concerns revolving around pro-life and pro-choice tendencies for the purpose of revealing ethical basis of each, common ground for both, and potential guidelines.
Opinions differ on this present matter, ranging from arguments in favor of the fetus having full moral status of a person, to arguments that fetuses are only partly human (and partly entitled to a set of rights), to an even a more radical stance claiming that moral status depends on "capacity for moral agency, hence fetuses are similar to animals corresponding to their gestational stage" (Sperling).
The most important ethical debates raised by abortion ensue around the issues of personhood (strongly advocated by pro-life supporters) and the right to life (largely claimed by both pro-life and pro-choice supporters).
Personhood is the principle built around determining the exact moment of intrauterine development when a fetus can be deemed a person, for the purpose of establishing that a later abortion would be, according to Christian and deontological ethics, synonymous with murder. On the other hand, marking the viability of a human fetus in a certain stage of biological development is yet unaccomplished and a difficult task, due to its "dependency on scientific knowledge, which is dynamic and changing" (Sperling).
Furthermore, the rather conservative outlook allows abortion solely on the condition that the mother's life is endangered; hence this approach follows along the lines of situation ethics theory and the so-called doctrine of double effect, where the primary voluntary action is saving the woman's life, but the accompanying unintentional action is termination of pregnancy.
The right to life capitalizes on the freedom of choice that a human being, whether adult or fetal, is entitled to. The liberal interpretation of this theory suggests that mother's choice of abortion is permissible regardless of fetal development, with a strong emphasis on preference utilitarianism and the right of a woman to make the decisions which, after all, affect her own body and life.
A fruitful consensus between the liberal and conservative approaches could be achieved through certain guidelines (Tribe). Namely, abortion could be ethically permissible until an agreed "specified stage of fetal development [rule utilitarianism] or for some moral reasons that are believed to be sufficient to warrant abortions" (Sperling). For instance, early (pre-uterus implantation) termination of pregnancy through medication ought to be acceptable, much like the decision to abort if the woman was a victim of rape or incest (Tribe 231); virtue ethics could endorse abortion so long as it is an act of courage, and not cowardice.
A distinct matter is the question of delivering a baby when the pregnant woman is comatose. Given that the mother is not conscious in order to express her will and the baby's well-being is jeopardized, this is a difficult ethical judgment call. Ideally, the mother should present a previously expressed or implied consent to specific surgical procedures, the requirement for consent deriving from a person's right to inviolability and bodily integrity.
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