Abortion - Ruth's Argument

Case# 3 Abortion

Ruth's argument cannot be justified as a morally acceptable reason to have an abortion beacuse she has been pregnant for six months now. Ruth is nearing the end of her second trimester and should reconsider her decision on whether she should go ahead with the abortion because at the moment she may feel like it is the right thing to do but she and her husband may end up regretting their decision in the future. Moreover, at the moment Ruth and Carl may feel like a child doesnt fit into their life style but it may turn out to be a blessing in disguise for them. She is nearing the end of her second trimester and the child's fetal nervous system is almost developed at this stage and the child may feel pain if it were to be aborted at this stage. If Ruth and Carl had accepted the reality of their situtaion before and had decided on having an abortion earlier there would be nothing morally wrong with that because a child in their first trimester or early second trimester is nonsentient and its nervous syestem is not fully deveoped to transmit pain messages to the brain. The fetus would not be deprived of anything if it was killed at that point. Ruth and Carl are living a life style in which they can afford to bring up a child. Most fetuses have valuable futures and if they are not aborted they will come to have lives they will value and enjoy and may go on to achieving great success in the future. Being six months pregnant, the fetus inside her body has developed into a person. Ruth and Carl should reevaluate their decision because having an abortion at this stage of the pregnancy would be considered immoral and the child growing inside her body has the same status as any other child and has the same claim on its parents that any born children have. Ruth and Carl have busy careers and if they are willing to make sacrifices for themselves to live a comfortable life then why not for their unborn child.

The age of the fetus does matter because if abortion is done at a later stage of pregnancy it becomes a moral issue. The fetus inside Ruth is a living person that has rights as any other child out there does. Moreover at this stage it has a fully developed fetal nervous system as well as developed internal and external organs. If Ruth and Carl had faced the reality of their sitatuion at an earlier point it would not be considered much of a moral issue because the fetus in the first trimester or early second trimester is not conscious and does not have a life to loose. Therefore, aborting it at that point would not have deprived it of anything. An unborn person has a right to its mother's body when her pregnancy results from a voluntary act, undertaken