He considered all acts as objective 'ends' and therefore was not concerned with the 'means' with which these ends were reached. .
Kant's ethical opinions are encompassed in his two most important notions of 'duty' and of the 'categorical imperative'. To do one's duty is to simply act morally for the sake of it, without giving thought to any potential reward. The notion of categorical imperative has two maxims and serves as the instructions that must be followed in order to do one's duty and act according to moral law (Bowie 2004, p.56). In relation to the ethics of abortion we must ask ourselves, is it morally right to terminate an unborn child? .
Through the Kantian lens, abortion is not considered morally right as it fails the moral framework in two ways. Firstly, it fails the categorical imperative's first maxim; the universality test. Kant believed that killing a person was wrong in every circumstance, thus it would not be okay if everyone did it, all the time (Jasmine, 2011). Whilst a select few might believe abortion is permissible everywhere, the argument put forward by Harry J. Gensler undermines this belief. Gensler states that within the Kantian context, for a person to agree that abortion is permissible everywhere, they would have to agree that the termination of their own birth would have also been permissible. This concept is validated since the majority of people disagree to this notion (Gensler, 1986). In some instances abortion also fails the second maxim according to the categorical imperative. The second maxim states that you must not use a person as a means to an end. A pregnant woman would be acting immorally by aborting the child due to financial incapacity or inability to raise the child. However in the controversial and unfortunate circumstance of rape, the resulting abortion would still be immoral. Irrespective of the circumstances, the termination would be failing to do one's duty to preserve the sanctity of life and would fail the universality test of the first maxim (McCoy 2011, p.