Benchmark Assignment: Ethical Dilemmas The issue of abortion has almost no equal in possessing the potential to polarize two sides of an issue, often resulting in high-emotion and on rare occasions leading to violent reactions including the bombing of abortion clinics and attacks on the doctors who perform them. The controversial issue was decided in the 1973 Supreme Court decision Roe v. Wade, which affirmed a woman’s right to have an abortion. However, the issue still remains unresolved in the hearts and minds of many across the country as battle lines are drawn on when life begins. This paper will examine both sides of the abortion debate, and in particular, whether an abortion would be an appropriate response by someone who has become aware that the child they are carrying has Down syndrome.…
The ethical issue that I feel everyone should be aware of states the morality of parents using pre-implantation genetic diagnosis (PGD) to achieve the same disability that they have. Parents use that process to select an embryo of a disability or a disease to acquire the same characteristic as the parents. In the case study Causing Deaf Children, a lesbian couple chose a sperm donor that was deaf to ensure that their child would also be deaf like they are. This is an ethical problem because most people would disagree that people should not create “designer babies,” and that babies should be born without any tests being done to see if they have a disability or to create a human just like the parents or family. There are even cases where people screen to see if they can choose what embryo is most likely to be disabled.…
Don Marquis argues in his article An Argument that Abortion is Wrong that abortion, except in specific rare instances is seriously wrong. He bases this claim off of the principle that killing any innocent human being is wrong. While the central point of most pro-choice individuals is that women should have the right to control their body, Marquis argues that the right of the unborn fetus outweighs the right for a woman to control her body. Before supporting his thesis Marquis lays out one of the main problems in the abortion debate. People in favor of abortion often have a very narrow view on what constitutes a person and this is problematic because it leaves out infants, severely retarded and mentally ill individuals.…
Imagine a world where a small group of people could destroy a nation-wide organization with slanderous lies. If the Republicans in Congress get their way, Americans wouldn’t have to imagine. Defunding the Planned Parenthood Federation of America over a false accusation would be harmful to the health and finances of American citizens. Planned Parenthood is an organization that provides many essential health services for both men and women. Not only do these services directly benefit millions of people, but the scientific advancements made possible by Planned Parenthood have improved the lives of many more.…
Every unborn child should have the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness in the second and third trimester. In 2010, research shows that states indicated that unborn children are considered humans under tort, property and criminal law (Roden, 2010). By these laws shown, a mother shouldn’t get to choose whether the fetus lives or dies. The unborn child is its own person and by a mother aborting her own child should be considered murder. Under law a child is supposed to be born for many different reasons, including being capable of having a legacy (Roden, 2010).…
Living in a world filled with people of different cultures, religions, and personalities, it is impossible to think that with every situation that presents itself in American that mutual agreement upon it will be made. In the news, we constantly hear debates about gay-marriage, police brutality, racism, and many other incidents in America that bring out the inner activists of our people. Most debates over these controversies are no surprise to the public because they have been going on for years. One in particular is the debate about abortions. Since 1973, the world has been divided into two distinct groups of “Pro-life” and “Pro-choice” due to the landmark case of Roe v. Wade.…
The use of embryonic stem cells is an area of debate for those in the medical field, and those who are involved in making sure that practices and treatments are still ethical. These bioethical professionals question whether medical science has gone too far. Using an embryos’ stem cells has brought both positive and negative feedback. Those who believe the practice to be unethical say, “The primary argument against such research is that an embryo that could have implanted in a woman 's uterus and gone on to produce a baby is alive, has the moral status of a person and thus should not be destroyed, no matter how great the human benefit” (Harvard Commentary). What if this embryo’s life had already been taken due to an unrelated cause such as…
A theory about religion is that life starts at conception. People with other beliefs should not be forced to abide by this certain theory. Legal abortion today states that human life starts at birth, but when a baby is born, it grows and develops into a teenager, then a mature adult, until it finally becomes old and dies. Humans are made to develop and change, so a human becomes a human during conception.…
Ethical Dilemma Essay Everyday life can lead one into territory that will change them for the rest of their life. As such, a mother-to-be receiving news that her child will likely be born with a disability is one of those situations that can plunge that mother-to-be into an ethical dilemma. One will normally approach the ethical dilemma with much trepidation because the implications of the decision rendered could perhaps affect several individuals’ other than the mother-to-be and the unborn child.…
Another argument is that abortion of a foetus with a disability permits eugenic abortion - abortion to eliminate disabling genes from the human race. (BBC,…
The increase of knowledge regarding the topic altering genes has become rapid and have open and paved the hope of designing your own perfect baby. Even today, the use of reforming and adjusting the genes of an unborn child is being put in effect. “Techniques of genetic screening are already being used, whereby embryos can be selected by sex and checked for certain disease-bearing genes. This can lead to either the termination of a pregnancy, or if analyzed at a pre-implantation stage when using In Vitro Fertilization (IVF), can enable the pregnancy to be created using only non-disease bearing genes” (Steere, 2011, para. 6). Altering the babies genes can not only harm the baby, however, can also terminate the baby.…
Grass Roots Abortion Abortion has been involved in multiple accounts of controversial arguments. It is defined in which the developing fetus is killed by the choice of the mother bearing the child. Women of the fetuses have reasons to why their decision of removing the fetus from their belly, such as the protection of Women 's Rights, the medical risk of the mother 's life, and to prevent severe disorders of the child 's life . Women 's Rights correlates to every individuals, including males. Women have the moral right to decide what to do with their own bodies, whether it is customization of any surgical procedures that involves cosmetics, or outside situations that causes the woman to be impregnated with an unwanted partner.…
An unborn child should not have to be punished for the same scenario. There is no such thing as a child coming into this world unwanted there are couples all over the world that cannot conceive and would love to be able to adopt a child to love and care for as their own. An unborn baby’s lifespan in the womb explains that the unborn are alive and they are tiny human beings just forming at their own rate.…
Contrary to that belief, “Researchers have no say in whether a fetus is aborted or develops into a human baby” as noted in,“The Case for Fetal-Cell Research” by Nathalia Holt of the New York Times. One cannot stress the importance of this concept; the fate of the fetus rests only on the shoulders of the mother. Acquiring embryonic stem cells from a something that held the potential to live, but will unfortunately never have to chance to, will never be the most desirable way to do obtain them. However, women will continue to have abortions if that is what they choose is best for themselves. Therefore, instead of allowing this great amount of potential go to complete waste by simply discarding the aborted fetus, isn’t in far more moral to utilize these aborted stem cells to improve or even save the life of…
Honoring Parents’ Requests: the Ethicality of Termination in Case Study #1 Ethical dilemmas revolving around those with disabilities are quite frequently a topic of contention within the general public, namely that of which asks the question of whether or not one with a disability should live or face significant struggles in the future. The case presented involves a child with Down Syndrome who necessarily requires a stomach procedure in order to survive independently; the child’s parents ultimately decided against the surgical procedure. The child—should doctors abide by its parents’ decision—will ultimately die of exposure.…