Isha Shreejit Nair
17060321124
Savita Halappanavar
Abortion is defined as “the termination of a pregnancy after, accompanied by, resulting in, or closely followed by the death of the embryo or foetus: such as spontaneous expulsion of a human foetus during the first 12 weeks of gestation (miscarriage), induced expulsion of a human foetus or Expulsion of a foetus by a domestic animal often due to infection at any time before completion of pregnancy (contagious abortion.)”
In philosophy, abortion is often used as a synonym for homicide.
The three views on abortion
1) The extreme conservative view- this is the view held by the catholic church. Some opponents (anti-abortionists, pro-life activists) holding the extreme view, argue that human personhood begins from the unicellular zygote and thus – according to the religious stance – one should not have an abortion by virtue of the ‘imago dei’ of the human being. To have an abortion for them would be homicide.
2) The extreme liberal view-The extreme liberal view is held by proponents (abortionists). They claim that human personhood begins immediately after
…show more content…
Pro-lifers say that even a foetus is human. Therefore, an abortion must never be done. However, the fact must be considered that an abortion can be morally acceptable when the mother’s life is in danger or there are no hopes that the baby will survive. Like the case mentioned above, Savita was denied abortion because in Ireland, the law in force at the time (the Offences against the Person Act 1861), states that the act of abortion, where there is no immediate physiological threat to the woman's life to continue the pregnancy, is a criminal offence punishable by life imprisonment. In her case, she requested for an abortion when she realized that miscarriage was inevitable. However, the doctors denied her an abortion as they could not see any immediate physical harm being caused to her due to the