MARIA LEA G.

CALIBOSO OCTOBER 13, 2022

2GB- BS CRIMINOLOGY

ABORTION

Answer the following:

1. Define the moral issue you have chosen.
- Morality is subjective, so what one party sees as immoral, someone else may see as moral.
For me, morality is about life not about birth. If you are campaigning for forced birth but not
working to ensure that the ongoing lives of those that you forced into being are not also better
off, that is not helping anyone. It is enforcing nothing more than suffering on any subsequent
children, on men, on women and the wider families or communities of those that people seek to
force into unwanted parenthood. This is like religious people demanding that dying strangers
suffer horrific and prolonged pain and death (rather than opt for euthanasia) as opposed to
allowing people to choose to end it… on the basis that their life … and therefore suffering? (I
guess) is sacred? It’s weird to me how some people see themselves as moral or good people
when all they do is inflict increased misery on others for no net benefit. If you truly hold life
sacred, then you will work to increase wellbeing and reduce misery AND you will consider
everyone’s wellbeing and personal choices. Otherwise, when it comes to abortion, you don't hold
life sacred, you hold birth and embryo’s sacred and you ignore real suffering while reducing the
value of women to nothing more than vessels and you create a situation where the lives of
unwanted children are nothing more than a nasty task that they must be forced to perform just to
conform with your beliefs… which would be the opposite of holding life sacred and very much
immoral.

2. What is your personal stand on the issue? (Pro or against? Explain using the sources of
morality.)
- I am prolife; the source of morality is that human life should always be protected,
especially when it is impossible for this human being to protect by himself or herself. People that
think that human can be terminated according to the stage, never come to an agreement to which
stages are less important and why, because there is no logic in their reasoning.

3. What does the Catholic Church say/teach about the issue?

-The only direct reference to abortion in the Bible, which is the only source for determining
God’s will, is a passage where the Bible describes a ceremony to be performed by a priest on a
presumed “unfaithful” wife. ((Numbers 5:11-3) the procedure described results in abortion of
any fetus resulting from the “unfaithful” act. All other arguments are circuitous referring to
prohibitions of murder. However in ancient (biblical) times it was common practice to simply set
unwanted children outside the city gates and let them die of exposure, unless someone else
picked them up (think of Oedipus). Therefore, it cannot be argued that the Bible “protects” the
life of an unborn infant - it did not even protect the life of an infant after birth. In spite of the fact
that the Bible itself does not specifically mention abortion other than in the context mentioned
above, modern Evangelical Christians have “interpreted” the Bible to fit their own notion that
abortion is against God’s will, So yes, we have to conclude that any prohibition of abortion is
attributable to humans, not God