Running Head: Maternal Versus Fetal Rights

Maternal Versus Fetus Rights: A Literature Review on Abortion

Karla Ponzio
RWS 1302
Riley Welcker (Teach)

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Abstract
The medical procedure of abortion has dated to ancient times, it is the termination of
pregnancy through various methods available such as surgical or medical means. With the
legalization of abortion many issues arouse in the mid to late 1900s in the United States and
internationally. After this legalization, anti-abortion communities formed, many of which were
led mostly by catholic influences. The conflicts between people that choose pro-life and people
that are more aligned to pro-choice are never ending. It is a topic that will never be set to peace
because it touches on the values and morals of each and every individual and it deals with many
of our basic beliefs. In 1973 the court passed the Roe v. Wade law and established the right of
women to get an abortion. Even though this gave women more options, the abortion rate has
gone down since 1980. With the many beliefs and religions developing in this new era, abortion
will surely rest as a controversial topic.
Figure 1: Displays the rate of abortion from 1973 to 2011 and how it has gone down.

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Source: Facts on Induced Abortion In the United States. (2014, July 1). Retrieved March 20, 2015, from
http://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/fb_induced_abortion.pdf

Maternal Versus Fetus Rights: A Literature Review on Abortion

Introduction
Abortion has always been a very controversial topic. Throughout the years it has raised
many ethical, moral, legal, and religious issues in society. There are two types of abortions:
induced abortions, which is the ending of a pregnancy intentionally, or a spontaneous abortion
which happens to save the life of the mother or just happens due to natural medical reasons.
Spontaneous abortions also known as miscarriages are usually not viewed as something morally
wrong and is accepted by most. Induced abortion is what causes most of the moral controversy in
society. Abortion laws have changed through time as more research is done. This research
involves scientific, medical, psychological, religious, legal, and philosophical points of views.
Some of which come to an agreed argument and some which have tenable yet completely
opposite arguments on this topic.
However after many years of getting to know this topic, society has not come to a
common agreement of whether it is correct or not. Many anti-abortionist have tried to get rid of
abortion completely by protesting and making abortion illegal, but feminist and people in society
who fight for woman rights have fought back and kept abortion legal throughout the years. Even
though abortion is legal, it has a highly erroneous view in society. Many questions have been
raised about this topic as time passes. Arguments on abortion are many and they are all very
diverse. To make the topic about abortion a little more clear on whether abortion is correct or not
three questions need to be answered and fully understood:

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1. According to professionals what are the moral medical concerns about fetuses? Are they
human beings or not?
2. According to public discussion why has abortion come to inexorably privilege fetal life
over female life?
3. Do professionals believe that abortion should become completely illegal again? What
would happen is abortion becomes illegal again?
The following research paper will inform the reader: if professionals believe that fetuses should
be considered a human being and given all the rights an actual human being has, and the views
and beliefs of people with, philosophical, medical, religious, and legal knowledge towards this
subject. It will provide the information needed to understand all the point of views involving
abortion and its controversy.
According to professionals what are the moral medical concerns about fetuses? Are they
human beings or not?
At what point of the pregnancy the fetus is considered an actual human being, is one of
the most common controversies when speaking about abortion. In the book by Lewis Vaughn
entitled Doing Ethics: Moral Reasoning and Contemporary Issues, many different perspectives
are talked about. According to Vaughn, conservatives believe that abortion " is never, or almost
never, morally permissible", the only reason they allow abortion is to save the life of the mother,
but in any other case the termination of pregnancy should be avoided. This belief is due to the
fact that conservatives believe that a fetus is a person, and thus have the same rights a human
being since the moment of conception (L.Vaughn, 2008, p.169). Therefore the conservatives'
argument is that the fetus is obviously a human, killing a human is wrong, abortion is the same a
killing, so abortion is wrong (L.Vaughn, 2008, p.169). On the contrary, James Fiesner a

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philosophy teacher from the University of Tennessee Martin wrote an article about abortion, he
compares the features of a human zygote to that of the animal life. Fiesner states that a human
zygote in development doesn't fully display certain features he believes are needed in order for a
fetus to be considered to have "personhood", which are: life, consciousness, self-awareness, or
human-like rationality. He goes on to stating that until the last trimester of the pregnancy of the
woman fetuses do start demonstrating certain of these features, " But then so do chickens and
lizards, and many of us would feel uncomfortable adopting a criterion of personhood that
includes these creatures." (J. Fiesner, 2015) James Fiesner is stating that fetuses in development
don't display the features needed to consider that something or someone is associated with
personhood, therefore shouldn't be given the rights of a human being. Another point of view
opposing abortion, that Lewis Vaughn states, is that even though some people don't see the fetus
as an actual human being, it will someday become a person, so fetuses should have the right to
live. Even though some people do have this point of view just mentioned it is "implausible",
because even though it has the potential of becoming a human being it doesn't mean he already is
one (L.Vaughn, 2008, p.171). Vaughn also talks about a position called the "moderate" position,
which say that abortions are "almost never permissible". Mostly all moderates are considered
liberals because they take a median position saying that abortion is permissible and justifiable in
certain cases, but not in all like liberals do. Rebecca Traister is pro-choice like James Fiesner, she
is for abortion because she believes that her rights, health, consciousness, and her obligations to
others "outweigh the rights of the unborn human inside" her, as she states on an article called,
Let's Just Say It: Women Matter More Than Fetuses Do. Further down the article, Traister states
that abortions shouldn't be about the embryos or the babies, but that of the "choices, health, and
moral values" of each and every women deciding if abortion is the correct path she wants to take

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(R. Traister, 2014). What she is trying to explain is that female rights should be moreimportant
than that of the rights of the fetuses.
According to public discussion why has abortion come to inexorably privilege fetal life over
female life?
Woman's rights has been slowly progressing throughout the years. One of the rights that
was focused on woman, was the act that was passed by the Supreme Court on 1973 called the
Roe v. Wade, making abortions legal. Giving the right to woman to decide on their own moral
values if they wanted to have an abortion or not. Judith Jarvis, a well-known philosopher, states
in an article called A Defense of Abortion, that even if we gave the fetus the rights to life, there a
certain occasions in which the rights of the mother prevail the rights of the unborn child. She
talks about three different situations: rapes that result in pregnancy, pregnancies that risk the life
or even health of the mother, and contraceptive malfunctions that result in a pregnancy. Thomson
makes the reader relate to these situations by making you consider different scenarios. In the
situation of the rape ending in pregnancy she asks the reader to imagine that you wake up in the
morning in a hospital after being kidnapped and you are attached to a famous unconscious
violinist because he has deathly kidney alignment and only you have the correct blood type to
help him survive. So, to keep the violinist alive you have to stay plugged to him for nine months
or he will die. What Thomson is stating, is that if a rape ends in abortion it is morally justifiable
to have an abortion as is to leave the violinist if the person doesn't want to stay, it would be nice
if she stayed, but she doesn't have to (J. Jarvis 1971). Another way of viewing this is how
Rebecca Traister believes that society as a whole, no matter what religion or background has
made everyone believe that all abortions are somehow tragic and traumatic, making

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"conversation about abortion... so terribly warped" that the unborn " have taken moral
precedence over the adult women in whose bodies they grow." (R. Traister, 2014). What she is
trying to explain is that society itself has so many different ideas about abortion and people
against abortion make it seem like the worst decision anyone can make, that it has privileged
more the rights of the unborn than that of the mother. Traister comments that for many years anti
abortions has been enforcing "the language of family, love, and morality to the embryo and the
fetus, and rarely to the women who carry them"(R. Traister, 2014) making many independent
women become defensive towards this subject. She states that the solution to this is that women
who do get abortions need to speak more openly about it, so that other women see not only the
bad situations and maybe someday woman's rights will be taken more seriously.
Do professionals believe that abortion should become completely illegal again? What would
happen if abortion becomes illegal again?
Before the Roe v. Wade law was passed women abortion was viewed as morally, legally,
and medically incorrect. Women were going to extreme desperate measures to get an abortion
and many incidents happened. In the documentary called After Tiller by Martha Shane and Lana
Wilson, Dr. LeRoy Carhart, one of the few doctors in the country that decided to do third
trimester abortions, stated that he is scared if abortion is ever to become illegal again because
many women would practice unsafe abortion by themselves and the rates of death due to
abortion would go up again. Rachel Benson Gold also wrote an article about abortion called
Lessons from Before Roe: Will Past be Prologue?, in which she states that the help of the act Roe
v. Wade has helped women's health and well-being overall, explaining that abortion death rates
are at their lowest right now. Benson also believes that the legality of abortion will not change in

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the coming years, however she believes that the pressure the legal system has toward this subject
might lead to the reestablishment of a two-tiered system in which options available to a woman
confronting an unintended pregnancy would be largely determined by her socioeconomic status".
Meaning that women with socioeconomic disadvantages will be affected, which is something
many hoped demolish by now the 20th century. Vaughn states, that even "The Court has agreed
that the use of the word person in the constitution 'does not include the unborn'" meaning that
even the legal system hasn't fully recognized the fetus or the unborn as a 'person in the whole
sense'(L.Vaughn, 2008, p.165). Meaning that it is unlikely for abortion to become illegal for the
health of American women.
Figure 2: With this chart the reader will be able to see the declining of deaths due to abortion after the Roe v. Wade act was
passed.

Source: Benson Gold, R. (2003, January 1). Lessons from Before Roe: Will Past be Prologue? Retrieved March 20, 2015, from
https://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/tgr/06/1/gr060108.html

Conclusion
With the data presented it is obvious that there will never be a complete agreement on
whether abortion is an ethically and morally correct decision for a pregnant women to take. It

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will continue rising many questions throughout the years about the legal system, medicine,
philosophy, and religion. Abortion touches some of the most basic to the most complex beliefs of
society and this is why it is one of the most controversial topics spoken about since a long period
of time. Abortion still has a long ways to go relating to women's rights according to many
professional. Even though it is viewed as something morally incorrect in society, the legalization
of abortion has improved the health and well-being of American women as many statistics and
research shows. Conservatives will not change their way of thinking and neither will liberalists
and as long as abortion continues existing, this topic will never come to peace.

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References
Fieser, J. (2015, January 1). ABORTION: From Moral Issues that Divide Us and Applied Ethics:
A Sourcebook. Retrieved from the University of Tennessee Martin website: http://
www.utm.edu/staff/jfieser/class/160/5-abortion.htm
Guttmacher Institute. (2003, March). Lessons from Before Roe: Will Past be Prologue? (vol.6).
DC: Rachel Benson Gold
Jarvis, J. (1971). Judith Jarvis Thomson: A Defense of Abortion. Retrieved from university of
Colorado, Philosophy and public affairs website: http://spot.colorado.edu/~heathwoo
/Phil160,Fall02/thomson.htm
Liptak, A. (2014, December 15). Supreme Court Lets Decision on Arizona Abortion Law Stand.
The New York Times. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/
Shane, M & Wilson, L. (Directors & Producers). (2013). After Tiller [Documentary]. United
States: Paramount Home Entertainment.
Traister, R. (2014, November 11). Let's Just Say It: Woman Matter More Than Fetuses Do.
Retrieved from http://www.newrepublic.com/
Vaughn, L. (2008). Abortion. In P. J. Simon (Ed.), Doing Ethics: Moral Reasoning and
Contemporary Issues (pp. 163-228). New York, NY : W.W. Norton & Company, Inc.

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