25 May Abortion and Morality
There is a lot of misinformation circulating in pro-life circles regarding the “immorality of abortion.” Many arguments point out that ending a pregnancy is immoral because the procedure causes the unborn to experience extreme pain. Moral and ethical debates are often anchored on the premise that one should not intentionally cause suffering to another living being.
This is where the need for science comes in.
In the article, “Fetal pain is a lie: How phony science took over the abortion debate,” Katie McDonough argues that new laws that ban abortion are based on pseudoscience.
The article mentions an interview with Dr. Anne Davis where she mentions that, “We know a lot about embryology. The way that a fetus grows and develops hasn’t changed and never will. And what we know in terms of the brain and the nervous system in a fetus is that the part of the brain that perceives pain is not connected to the part of the body that receives pain signals until about 26 weeks from the last menstrual period, which is about 24 weeks from conception.”
In other words, the fetus doesn’t feel pain or suffering. However, the woman, in any type of pregnancy, does feel pain.
In the article, “New Moms Describe What Labor Is Really Like,” Kate Kelly asked new moms to describe what labor felt like for them. Here are some of the responses gathered from the article:
With both my babies I didn’t experience normal contractions. Instead I felt like I was having one long contraction that felt like the worst menstrual cramps I had ever had.
To me, labor felt like the worst menstrual cramp or gas pain that you’ve ever had, combined with someone stabbing you in the stomach!
The pain is like having your insides twisted, pulled, and squeezed. If I fought it, the pain became worse.
The best description I can offer of how the pain actually felt was like a deep internal “pulling” — like someone kept reaching up deep inside me, grabbing hold of whatever internal organs they could, and trying to tug them out.
My labor pain felt like my hips were being pulled apart!
Women experience extreme, indescribable pain throughout the labor process. This is an experience that one should not be forced into. Furthermore, a woman who isn’t ready to have a child, without the choice to end her pregnancy, also feels dread, anxiety, and suffers from extreme stress.
We should support access to safe and legal abortion because ethics and morality is about the well-being of sentient beings. A fetus can’t feel pleasure and pain. It doesn’t have goals and desires. It doesn’t have anxieties and fears. It will not suffer from the end of a pregnancy.
It is the woman, the human being, whose life will be forever altered if she chooses to proceed with a pregnancy that we should cater to.
It is the woman who can feel the pain of carrying a pregnancy to term, who will feel the pain of labor. It is the woman whose goals and desires will come to a halt if she has to care for a child she wasn’t prepared for. It is the woman who will undergo the stress and anxiety in figuring out how to provide for a pregnancy that may be unplanned or unwanted.
If the legality of abortion was based on the prevention of pain and suffering, that’s more reason to make it legal!
For more resources on abortion please visit: EnGendeRights’ Policy Briefs and Fact Sheets
Sources:
Kelly, K. (n.d.), “New Moms Describe What Labor Is Really Like.“. Retrieved on: April 12, 2017.
McDonough, K. (2013, August 07), “Fetal pain is a lie: How phony science took over the abortion debate.” Salon. Retrieved on: April 12, 2017.