Abortion – an ethical act?
The last sentence was the motion of the debate that took place last Friday
on my English class, of which I was a part of. We had to talk about whether we
thought abortion was an ethical thing to do in case of an unexpected or an
unwanted pregnancy. We were to discuss the facts, opinions, statistics, etc.,
that we researched and thought were crucial at the moment of knowing you are
pregnant, and want to make an informed decision.
I belonged to the team that supported the motion, which means that we were
defending the act of abortion. We had approximately 6 days to prepare for our
debate, and honestly none of us wanted to go on with the debate because we were
really nervous, we thought it was very little time to get prepared. But still
we went on with the debate, and had a really good experience. I think we got a little carried away and got really into it, but then again, that was the whole idea, to defend your motion as well as you could.
To make this debate we had different motions, and my main motion was
malformations during pregnancy and how it gets mixed with religion. This means,
the different points of view and opinions the different religions have on
abortion depending on the case.
My main focus was on the Jewish religion, which is the most flexible on this
case. According to the Jewish Talmud and the Encyclopedia of Jewish Medical
Ethics, a mother can abort its fetus it she is in danger of death, if multiple
fetuses compromise the mother’s health, and if the product is less than 40 days
old, as it is only considered just fluid.
What amazed me the most is the flexibility of other religions compared to
the Catholic one. Some of them allow an abortion when the baby is product of a
violation, some of them if the mother is in danger of death, and some of them
have a debate to see if the request is valid and acceptable for abortion.
Apart from this I also made statements about Women’s rights for complete
freedom.
But even though we found some really good argument on the internet, that
were enough to make the audience decide that those of us going for the motion
had a better outcome, I would like to say that I am not pro-abortion. I think
that you cannot have a really valid opinion until you have been on that
position and even less judge a person for taking whichever decision she felt
comfortable with.
Everyone can have an opinion on abortion, but then again, who are we to
judge on something we don't know?
