AS INVESTIGATIONS 2009 Examine and comment on the view that the principle of the sanctity of life should always

be considered of first importance in the fileld of medical ethics, with reference to the topic you have investigated. (50) MODEL ANSWER (IJP)
Within the field of medical ethics, few topics cause such controversy as that of the practise of abortion. Defined as the premature expulsion of the foetus from the womb resulting in the death of the foetus, the morality of induced abortion has been opposed by many on cultural, philosophical, and religious grounds. As far back as the second century, there is evidence of moral and religious objection to the practise in the Didache You shall not cause the unborn to perish. However, as the religious, predominantly Judeo-Christian world view has gradually been challenged in Western society, beginning with the enlightenment and culminating in the social changes of the 1960s in Britain, so other perspectives on the morality of abortion have emerged. With the passing of the 1967 Abortion Act, it became legal for a foetus to be terminated up to the 28th week of pregnancy, subject to the consent of 2 doctors. This time limit was reduced to 24 weeks in 1990, and remains the same, despite many calls from both sides of the debate for the law to be revisited once more. In 2008, there were 198,500 abortions carried out in Britain, and with recent proposals for abortion services to be advertised on television being mooted by politicians, it seems as if abortion remains as controversial as ever. Amongst the varied views expressed in the debate, Tthe controversy regarding the morality of abortion is centred around the key questions of when life begins, the moral status of the embryo, and a conflict of rights the right of a woman to bodily autonomy against the foetus so-called right to life. The moral and religious opposition to abortion is best exemplified by the Catholic Church, which maintains a strong sanctity of life, or vitalist view. The sanctity of life maintains that every human life is sacred, of intrinsic and equal value, and made in the image of God (Genesis 1:27). Being made in the image of God renders human life uniquely valuable within the whole of creation, being an expression of the divine mind, which found its ultimate expression through the incarnation of Jesus., which renders aAll of human life is sacred, regardless of age, or ability or circumstance. . As OMathuna claimed (in What Is The Image of God), Human beings ARE the image of God regardless of what they can do, or not do. This image bearing of the Creator is a privilege extended uniquely to humans. No other creation can make this claim. Furthermore, human life is sanctified from the moment of conception (Ps 139, Before you formed me in the womb you knew me) and therefore the killing of a human life in the womb directly breaches the commandment Thou shaltshall not kill (Exodus ??20). The Catholic Church bases maintainsits an absolute, deontological moral objection to abortion and would regard an induced abortion as the moral equivalent of murder Direct abortion, that is to say, abortion willed either as an end or a means, is gravely contrary to the moral law (Catholic Catechism 2271). In the Churchs view, the moral status of the foetus is clear; from the moment of conception, the foetus must be recognised as having the rights of a person - among which is the inviolable right of every innocent being to life (Catechism 2270). However, abortion statistics (an estimated 4 million abortion have been carried out in the last 40 years) would suggest that an absolute sanctity of life position is no longer the dominant moral view in Western society, and many secular philosophers such as Mary

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Anne Warren , and Judith Jarvis Thomson and Peter Singer have rejected both the biblical sacred universe upon which it is based, as well as the central claims of the embryos moral status as a person and consequent right to life. In the words of the ethicist Peter Singer, By 2040, it may be that only a rump of hard-core, know-nothing religious fundamentalists will defend the view that every human life, from conception to death, is sacrosanct (sacred).. Mary Anne Warren, in her seminal paper On the Moral and Legal Status of Abortion warns against confusing a biological with a moral question when examining the status of the embryo/foetus. Biologically, the embryo can only be human, she acknowledges, but this does not necessarily confer moral status or personhood. Warren proposes a criteriaa criterion for personhood, including such qualities as consciousness, ability to reason, and capacity for complex communication. As a foetus clearly does not meet her criteria, there can be no moral objection to abortion, as it is simply the removal of unwanted cells and tissues. She concludes her argument If the right to life is based on resemblance to a person, then the foetus cannot be said to have any more right to life than say a newborn guppy. For those who would reject the sanctity of life principle, Warren appears to provide a convincing conclusion. However, her argument is not without criticisms. Her criteria for personhood may be said to be too closely tied to brain function, and therefore too narrow and exclusive. The mentally handicapped, the elderly or those in a coma would all fail to meet her criteria. . Could such a moral universe justify the practise of euthanasia, eugenics and other practises many would find reprehensible? Indeed, herHer criteria failscriterion fails to distinguish between a late-term foetus, and a newborn baby, and yet Warren herself would reject infanticide. Nevertheless, Warren is clear that the argument claim of a feotus right to life, as expressed by the Catholic Church, can never over-ride the right of a woman to obtain an abortion at any stage during her pregnancy. The issue of individual rights is basis for the second secular objection to the sanctity of life argument. Society has moved away from the acceptance of biblical and religious authority as the dominant guiding force for morality, towards a secular, pluralistic democratic model, where the rights of the individual predominate. This coincides with the feminist movement of the 1960s, which sought to challenge historical inequalities between men and women in society. For feminist philosophers, a woman has a prima facia right to privacy and control over her body and reproductive ability, and those who seek to limit or deny access to abortion are denying women a fundamental human right. As the feminist philosopher Ellen Willis asked, Can it be moral, under any circumstances, to make a woman bear a child against her will? The feminist philosopher Judith Jarvis Thomson bases her arguments around this issue of womens rights. In her 1971 paper A Defence of Abortion (published 2 years before the Roe vs Wade court case, which effectively legalised abortion in the US), she grants, for the sake of argument, that the foetus is a person before birth, and seeks to prove instead that abortion is a justified killing. She takes the position that an unwanted foetus is effectively an invader or aggressor, and a woman would be entitled to terminate such a foetus under her right to self defence. Furthermore, she states that as a women has complete ownership over her body, or bodily sovereignty, the foetus is no more than a tenant, and should the woman desire its removal, the foetus has no rights of occupation. She used the analogy a being hooked up to a famous violinist for nine months to illustrate how the taking of another life can be morally justified on the grounds that no-one should be compelled to have their body used against theitheir will.r will. She

concludes, having a right to life does not guarantee having either a right to be given the use of or a right to be allowed continued use of another persons body-even if one needs it for life itself. Again, whilst this may appear a convincing argument, there are notable weaknesses. Firstly, the assumption that women are or should be granted total bodily sovereignty is open to debate. As Mark Goldblatt pointed out in his paper Liberty, Logic and Abortion, the law already places restrictions on what we do with our bodies, for example the outlawing of prostitution, of selling organs for transplant, or even the restrictions against the use of drugs. This undermines the key idea tenet of the argument that women should be free to choose what to do with her body. As Goldblatt says, if there is no absolute right to bodily sovereignty, we are left with a tautology a woman should have the right to an abortion because a woman should have a right to abortion. Secondly, although her violinist analogy is strong, it could only be truly applicable in the case of non-consensual pregnancy, in other words a pregnancy in the case of rape. And whilst such cases are tragic, they are also very rare, and can the citing of such rare cases really be used to justify unrestricted access to abortion for all women, as Thomson argues? Can the exception be used to demand the rule? Nevertheless, the tragic and highly emotive issue of a woman becoming pregnant as a result of rape is often regarded as a unique circumstance which would justify abortion. Rape is a violent, sexual attack, and no woman, the argument says, should be compelled to endure nine months of pregnancy carrying a child she did not consent to conceiving and which may well serve to extend and remind her of the original trauma and extend her suffereding. Indeed some Christian denominations would allow for an exception to be made in their opposition to abortion. This is sometimes known as a weak sanctity of life view. Denominations such as the Methodist Church, which takes a gradualist view of the foetus personhood, would teach that an abortion in the circumstance of rape may be viewed as the lesser of 2 evils. Inspired by Jesus command to Love your neighbour, allowing the victim of a traumatic sexual assault the right to terminate an unwanted foetus may well be construed as the most loving thing to do. However, the Catholic Churchs strong sanctity of life view regards each embryonic life as sacred, a gift from God, and most pertinently a person, from the moment of conception, regardless of the circumstances under which it is conceived. Therefore despite the tragic and gravely immoral manner of its conception, the embryos right to life remains paramount.. This view is supported by the theologian and ethicist Dr Michael Bauman, who stated, "A child does not lose its right to life simply because its father or its mother was a sexual criminal or a deviant."
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In conclusion, there are strong arguments made on both sides of the debate. Warren provides a useful distinction between the biological status of human and the moral question of personhood, and if we were to accept her criteria, she is right to argue that there is no ethical difficulty in accepting the practice of abortion.. Warren makes the important difference between an actual person and a potential person clear, but at the same time highlights the difficulties that arise with applying such a restrictive criteria. She does not satisfactorily explain why a new born baby, for example, has personhood yet a 238 week old foetus does not. Peter Singers suggestion of harvesting organs from newborn babies, which even many pro-choice thinkers would find unethical, could simply be said to be the logical conclusion of Warrens criteria. The Catholic Churchs position on the Sanctity of Life provides a coherent absolute which, even if a thinker would disagree, and as we have seen, many do, it is fair to say they have maintained a consistently ethical, deontological position in the face of a

Comment [U1]: Meaning unclear

Comment [U2]: Need to analyse Thomson as well the limitations of her analogy.

changing culture and society. This is simultaneously a strength and a weakness. There are those who find its absolute stance to be lacking in compassion and failing to recognise the individual circumstances, for example poverty, which contribute to a woman deciding to have an abortion. Surely, the criticism says, this contradicts the fundamental Christian principle of Love thy your neighbour. Thomson, a feminist, takes and successfully supports the view that the mothers rights are of priority, so if a woman feels that having an abortion is the best option than why should the foetus be of higher priority? Its the womans body therefore her wishes must be respected and taken into account, which is the underlying feminist motive of Thomsons argument. However, her argument only succeeds if we accept that a foetus is part of a womans body. The Catholic Church would deny this, viewing a newly fertilised blastocyst to be a unique individual in its own right. Her violinist analogy puts forward a very strong argument; although it is limited to the specific situation of rape. However, as Goldblatt pointed out, is it reasonable to use the relatively rare case of pregnancy through rape to justify abortion on demand? Should the exception demand the rule? On reflection there are no easy answers, and perhaps this is the point. A decision issue of this magnitude must not be dealt with lightly. Ultimately, , the morality of abortion would seem to depend very much on the moral status of the foetus, and despite the best efforts of many scholars, there is no coherent definitive reason to assume that personhood can be developed gradually, and few would seriously argue the foetus has no moral status until birth. Accordingly, the Sanctity of Life view remains the strongest and most cohesive view, recognising as it does the grey area of when life begins, but proposing the most inclusive view: Even if doubt existed concerning whether the fruit of conception is a human person, it is objectively a grave sin to dare to risk murder. (Document on Procured Abortion, 1974). It would seem that this view must prevail, until there is convincing scientific proof to the contrary.
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