Bioethics in Faith and Practice, Volume 1, Number 1

Bioethics in Faith and Practice ⦁ 2015 ⦁ Volume 1 ⦁ Number 1 11 (pregnancy vs. prolonged financial obligations), but both are morally legitimate claims. If we accept the autonomy argument for women, then we must give men a say in the decision. A glaring potential problem with requiring paternal consent for abortion is that it could cause a mother to carry a child against her will. This is a legitimate concern as pregnancy carries a multitude of health and financial concerns, but men face a parallel peril; they could be forced to pay child support for eighteen years. Gestation and eighteen years of child support could be considered equivalent since many women do not have extensive complications during pregnancy. It could even be considered easier to have nine months of health than eighteen years of financial stability. While it is impossible to say that in every circumstance pregnancy and eighteen years of financial stability are equally difficult, the commonness of situations in which they would causes one to stop and consider whether men’s concerns are being considered with appropriate weight. Many current abortion arguments revolve around issues that apply not only to potential mothers, but also to potential fathers. Men can lay legitimate ethical claim to the same reasons that currently justify women’s abortion rights. Yet, men have no legal right to voice or act on their opinion. Therefore, paternal consent should be required for an abortion to take place. If this does become a legal requirement numerous complications will arise. For example, when a man and woman disagree on the decision they could end up taking it to court. Court cases can take an extended time to be settled and as the pregnancy progresses abortion becomes a higher risk procedure. Court costs would also be thrust on men and women who potentially do not have enough money to afford to raise a child, much less to pay court costs. Some may say that this complicates the process of abortion too much, making it almost unavailable to women. The legal complications involved in requiring paternal consent have an undeniable potential to victimize women to the decisions of men and the legal system. However, we cannot deny men the same rights we give women when they possess identical moral arguments. What then should society do? I would argue that the solution is not to give fathers legal say in the abortion decision but to, as a society, rethink how we debate abortion. It is the very utilitarian arguments society uses that create the issue of paternal rights. If society no longer uses or accepts the above utilitarian arguments for and against abortion, the issue would most likely disappear. Society needs to return to the basic ethical concern at the root of the abortion debate: the right to life. Society must answer the question of when life begins, and based on that decide how to approach abortion. The problem is that society has been trying to answer this question for generations, and has yet to find an agreeable answer. In our modern age, who is qualified to offer an opinion that both sides will respect? I believe scientists are. As molecular and cellular biology rapidly advance, these scientists can answer exactly when a new biological life begins; at either conception or birth. I believe that modern society would respect scientists’ opinion the most out of any party in the debate. This could offer society the solution to the issues arising from utilitarian arguments by providing a new, non-utilitarian foundation for the debate. The answer to these complications lies not in legal actions but in a different perspective on abortion; focusing more on concrete science and the right to life rather than utilitarian moral concerns of multiple parties. 1 Dennis M. Sullivan, “A Thirty-Year Perspective on Personhood: How Has the Debate Changed?” Ethics and Medicine 17:3 (2001): 177-86.