Abortion In our media-intensive culture it is not difficult to find different opinions, .
thousands of newspapers and dozen of radio and television talk showes resound different .
points of view. One important issue that is being wildly discussed is of a woman's right .
to determinate an unwanted pregnancy by making a choice to have an abortion. This .
issue can be considered from different perspectives. They can be moral, religious or legal. .
Those who oppose the abortion rights and call themselves pro-life claim the abortion as a .
criminal act. They believe that it is a murder to terminate the life of the .
zygote/embryo/fetus ( Currie 24). To murder means to kill a person. The embryo is not .
equal to a person. It has only the potential to be one, but it does not have any of the .
mental, emotional or physical features. We can not say that the baby is equal to an .
embryo ( Currie 32 ). The obstetrician and gynecologist Don Sloan argues that although .
an abortion destroys an embryo it is not a murder because the embryo is not a separate .
human life. It is not able to live outside the woman's body. He says: I wonder if people .
realize how big a fertilized ovum is. Half an inch? A quarter inch? It is less than the .
thickness of one of your hairs! That is not a "baby". Many zygotes or embryos .
spontaneously abort and over 90 % of deliberate abortions happen in the first trimester .
when the embryo is less than two inches long. Yet the pro-life movement persists in .
pretending that aborting a zygote or an embryo is the same as "killing a baby". (40) Even .
though it kills life, abortion is a moral choice when "would-be" mothers realize that their .
present circumstances do not enable them to raise a "would-be" child responsibly (Muller .
1.
25). In a case when the woman is not prepared to have a child but keeps it often the child .
.