Abortion Case Study Paper
Abortion Case Study Paper
The case that I chose to discuss is an article which assesses the argument of whether it is ethically right or wrong to have a prenatal diagnosis of the sex of a child, in order for parents to decide if they want to keep the child or not. Some questions are raised as to whether sex selection through abortion is moral or immoral, and if it were immoral, in what circumstances, if any, would it be justified.
Prenatal gender selection through abortion is a legal practice in any country where abortion is legal and the technology is available to determine the sex of the fetus. When parents ask for prenatal diagnosis they are not breaking any laws. Even though it is not against the law, data suggests that physicians may or may not comply with prenatal sex selection. This shows that there is a moral decision being made here by both the parents of the child, and the physician performing the procedure. Skeptics see sex selection as a precedent for other genetic "tinkering" which could possibly arise with advances in genetics. There is also the possibility that pre-conceptual methods of determining your child’s sex will be available in the future. These two future possibilities also have to be evaluated when the decision is being made to perform the prenatal diagnosis. If the demand for this procedure becomes high, then it may give doctors more of a reason to try and take prenatal choice of characteristics to new levels. These are all relevant facts that both physicians and parents have to take into account when they are making their decision.
There are ethical issues that arise from the possibility of prenatal diagnosis of a fetus. The one obvious ethical issue is whether it is right or wrong to abort a child simply because it is not of the sex that is desired. The parents and the physician performing the procedure have to decide whether or not it is ethical to abort a fetus in order for them to have a child of the sex they desire. This is the issue for them to decide on, assuming that the child is healthy and has no complications. If complications are present, a whole new set of ethical issues is opened up. One can make a case that it is not unethical to have an abortion in cases of...