Business Ethics

Name : Sabrina Bahar

BLEMBA 6

Mid Test Essay - Business Ethics

ABORTION : ETHICS OR UNETHICS

As we know nowadays, so many Birth Hospital do some abortion legally. Still a lot of question whether it’s ethics or not to do such a “semi-killing” action. Some people say that it against the human moral while another say that it is not against human moral.

Here we can see some reason for doing abortion. Most of the reason is unwanted pregnancy, usually done by unmarried couple. While there are some another reason as well, e.g mother health or the baby health.

Abortion as a result of Rape

Only 1% of abortions take place as a result of rape [1]

The decision of whether to allow an abortion to take place on the grounds of ‘rape’ has been one that has been debated over for many years. A rape of a young girl in 1938 by British soldiers led to one of the first well known abortions by a doctor (Mr Aleck Bourne) on the grounds of mental health. At the trial he was acquitted and established the grounds for rape to be one of the fundamental grounds on the 1967 abortion act.[2]

The grounds of rape which the abortion act takes into consideration:

1. The act takes into consideration whether the unwanted pregnancy will continue the Trauma for the mother but also for the existing family.

2. It may be argued that any child born of rape may suffer extreme trauma of learning their origins.

The aim of this act was to exonerate the doctor from prosecution if two doctors could give their assent on at least one of the six grounds for abortion outlined in the act.

Judith Javis Thomson’s argument (1971) justified ‘a woman who is pregnant through rape having an abortion primarily on the grounds of ownership rights over her body. This view was subject of much controversy and strongly followed the common feminist view at that time. [3]

Thomson outlined the following justifications for having an abortion:

Self-defence – the strain on her body justifies the...