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Is Abortion Medically Necessary?
Published in Nicholas Colgrove, Bruce P. Blackshaw, Daniel Rodger, Agency, Pregnancy and Persons, 2023
“[T]he latest salvo in a well-orchestrated campaign to spread disinformation about abortion” is how the claim that abortion is never medically necessary has been dismissed (Morgan 2017, p. 42). The quotation refers to the Dublin Declaration on Maternal Healthcare (Table 14.1) which states, “[D]irect abortion—the purposeful destruction of the unborn child—is not medically necessary to save the life of a woman” (2012). This claim is defended on grounds that there is no medical reason to kill the fetus, even when the mother’s life is at risk since it is always possible to deliver it instead, albeit in a way that may cause it harm or lead to its death (Harrison et al. 2019). More recently, it has been argued that late-term abortion is not medically necessary because it does not meet criteria such as the targeting of a specific disease or being evidence-based (Studnicki 2019). As the opening quotation shows, however, such claims are sometimes met with hostility. This is perhaps unsurprising since one of the traditional justifications for the decriminalization of abortion is that it is sometimes required to save life and limb. The goal of this chapter is to challenge this widely held assumption.
Is Fetal Moral Status Linked to Fetal Development?
Published in Christopher Kaczor, The Ethics of Abortion, 2023
Fifth and finally, Peach points to the fact that, in general, late-term miscarriages are experienced as more traumatic than early miscarriages. Even if they feel or have judged that abortion is a necessary evil, all things considered, their sense of remorse and loss would often be more palpable or intense given the level of development of the fetus; what has been taken away cannot plausibly be denied. This may be particularly true for the woman, whose attachment to the individual in her womb presumably develops as the individual develops. Just as, in general, late-term miscarriages are likely to impact a woman (or couple) more severely than early term ones, late-term abortions very often impact a woman (or couple) more severely than early term ones (2007, p. 138).
A response to Mulder
Published in Bertha Alvarez Manninen, Jack Mulder Jr., Civil Dialogue on Abortion, 2018
I agree with Mulder that non-therapeutic late-term abortions are prima facie morally problematic. In fact, I defended this contention in my book.36 It is precisely because I would find such “elective” late-term abortions difficult that I advocate for almost unfettered access to early-term abortions. Indeed, one of the reasons women sometimes wait until later in pregnancy to obtain an abortion is because they had difficulties obtaining one earlier. Nevertheless, abortions of this kind are exceedingly rare. Only 1.5% of all abortions take place after 20 weeks gestational age.37 Out of those, many late-term abortions occur due to health complications for either the woman or the fetus. Here are, as examples, some cases of women who chose late-term abortions for extremely difficult reasons.
Bereaved parents’ unwillingness to participate in a joint research interview: The case of feticide
Published in Health Care for Women International, 2020
Ronit D. Leichtentritt, Galia Weinberg Kurnik
Feticide is an ethically controversial and challenging medical practice, revolving around the question of personhood and fetal rights and interests. Most conspicuous is the growing conflict between the rights of the mother and the rights of the fetus as gestational age passes the point of viability. At what point, if any, does the mother lose her right to reproductive freedom and the fetus gain the enveloping protection of the state, thereby limiting late-term abortions? Various countries answer these questions differently. Some countries impose a restrictive policy of legislative fiat. In the United States, for example, third trimester abortions are largely illegal. States such as Israel adopt an unrestricted policy, allowing the mother total discretion over the fate of the developing fetus (Gross, 2002; Moodley, 2008). Regardless of the specific legal framework, late-term abortions and feticide remain a source of consternation for many healthcare professionals, raising ethical and professional dilemmas and evoking significant consequences for both mothers and fathers. In the current study, we aim to reveal some of these consequences by adopting for the first time a dyadic point of view.
I Poems on Abortion: Women’s Experiences With Terminating Their Pregnancies for Medical Reasons
Published in Women's Reproductive Health, 2018
Furthermore, the participants’ experiences argue strongly for the need for late-term abortion in certain circumstances. Late-term abortions are uncommon; only 1% of abortions occur after the 21st week of pregnancy, and women rarely elect them unless medically necessary (Later abortion, 2017). However, draconian laws prevent women from seeking safe abortions late-term. Future research could explore how abortion laws impact the experience of terminating a later-term pregnancy, and could compare and contrast experiences in different countries with different laws and cultures.
Use of in vitro fertilization—ethical issues
Published in Upsala Journal of Medical Sciences, 2020
In families in which a child with a severe monogenetic disease has previously been born or if there is a high risk of aneuploidy, preimplantation genetic testing (PGT; previously PGD, preimplantation genetic diagnosis) offers a way to escape a pregnancy with a severely diseased child. A possible late-term abortion or the birth and early death of an infant may be avoided. For early-onset severe or lethal monogenetic diseases and structural chromosome rearrangements, the use of PGT is relatively non-controversial ethically.