GS Paper 4
Syllabus: Application of Ethics
Context:
Recently, U.S top court overturned a 1973 Roe v. Wade judgment on the right to abortion.
Ethical issues with women:
- Health: Both physical and mental health gets impacted because of unwanted pregnancy.
- Rights and freedom: No woman who voluntarily chose to get pregnant is likely to seek abortion unless there are some serious compelling circumstances.
- Bodily autonomy: Apart from losing reproductive choices, restrictions on abortion might lead to illegal and unsafe abortions. This goes against Right to Privacy (Puttaswamy vs Union of India Judgement).
Ethical issues with the Family:
- Husband’s/In-laws choices: As both parents conceive a child, abortion might have choices of both the parents involved.
- Conservative vs liberal values followed in a family have differing opinions regarding abortions.
Ethical issues with respect to fetus:
- Right to life: Abortion amounts to the murder of a living being.
- Motherly care: it is a unique unspoken bond shared between two lives, which cannot be questioned or regulated by laws.
Ethical issues with respect to society in general
- Valuing life: State has the responsibility of valuing each life.
- Inclusion of all: Abortion should not become a mechanism of social control for avoiding the appearance of differences or disabilities.
- Provide better life for existing children: Many times parents want abortion to be able to give a good life to existing children instead of dividing their meager resources into more children.
India’s Stance on Abortions:
- The Medical Termination of Pregnancy (Amendment) Act, 2021 ensures that expectant mothers exercise self-determination in welcoming new life to their homes. abortions may be performed up to 24 gestational weeks on grounds of risk to the mother’s life, mental anguish, rape, incest, contraception failure or the diagnosis of foetal abnormalities. It is a liberal achievement over countries where abortions are disallowed since conception, even in the most traumatising of circumstances of sexual abuse or incest.
Insta Link
US supreme court overturns abortion rights
Source: Indian Express
