Should Abortion Be Legal?

Tom Shahan and Alexander Bolton on whether abortion should be legal. 

Areas in blue are where abortion is currently legal on request

Tom Shahan

Abortion is wrong because it’s is ending a human life. The arguments presented are not based on any religion or holy books as they are irrelevant to an atheist. However there are significant amounts of scientific evidence that point towards the immorality of abortion.

Abortion is morally wrong because human life begins at conception, and no one has a right to kill an innocent baby, whether it is located inside or outside a woman’s uterus. Life begins at conception as it is the only possible place to logically draw the line. If life is only possible when there is a heartbeat, then someone who uses an artificial pacemaker to keep their heart beating cannot be considered alive. If life is only present when someone has memories and feels connections to somebody, then someone with advanced stage Alzheimer's for example, cannot be considered alive due to their lack of memories and connections with someone. If life is due to full brain activity then someone in a coma cannot be defined as being alive. Not only do all of these points highlight how the only logical start of life is at conception but also that all these occur in a matter of weeks into a pregnancy. Proving once more the value a foetus holds.

The idea that a foetus is simply a bundle of cells is a ridiculous a argument as, by 24 weeks, the limit to an abortion being legal, the majority of premature births survive and live on, according to verywellfamily.com. The idea that something which can survive outside a mother’s womb is without intrinsic value is not logical and when looking into how an abortion at this time takes place it is impossible to ignore how this is simply evil. After 20 weeks an abortion is conducted using techniques known as Dilation and Evacuation. At this time the foetus has already developed legs, arms and its brain. It will also begin to kick as well as suck its thumb in preparation for the expected breast feeding it would usually receive. The procedure to terminate the abortion will involve several graphic techniques. The baby’s skull will be crushed and it’s brains will be sucked out by a suction tube. The baby’s body will have its limbs removed (dismembered) using forceps. No body can surely try to justify this and, with the exception of when the mother's life is in danger, is murder and should not be legal.

An individual who is pro choice will often respond to views opposing their own with two fundamental arguments. First people will try to claim that due to someone being a male, they are unable to decide or even have an opinion on abortion laws. However gender has nothing to do with right or wrong. The people who fought against slavery and plantations were mostly well off white men. They were not plantation owners and they were not black slaves, however they still were able to recognise evil and thankfully they were able to put a stop to it. A person's gender, colour or status has nothing to do with their judgment and when it is something as evil as killing an innocent baby. Secondly a common response is that abortion should be legal due to rape impregnating women. Firstly, rape is an evil act and an individual should be severely punished if they were to ever carry out such a thing, however killing the baby is not the solution to achieve justice. We should not be punishing the baby, we should be punishing the rapist. Whilst people will claim that making the mother keep the baby is punishing her, it does not compare to killing of an innocent life. Also, whilst convincing, the rape argument cannot be used to justify all abortions.

Abortions resulting from incidents of rape make up a small minority of abortion cases each year. We should not use the minority to justify the majority, and this is something that applies to many things as well as abortion. 

Abortion should be made illegal and it should be the clinics who perform the abortions who are prosecuted, not the women. We should aim to educate pregnant women on the advances of keeping the baby rather than to scare them into keeping it as it would be productive.

To conclude, abortion is wrong and should be illegal due to the value that the foetus possess. Human life begins at conception and to kill a baby is wrong. A foetus is not just a bundle and cells and it is not your own property. Something that requires the crushing of its skull it’s and it’s body dismembered, is wrong and evil and should be illegal.


Alexander Bolton

On the surface, the ideology of abortion in western civilisation gives the view that abortion should be legalised across the world.  However, the very idea of a pluralist democracy; the acceptance of differences such as religion and cultures, makes this view far more complex.  Therefore, being able to pass a law were abortion becomes legalised across the whole world becomes virtually impossible.

Abortion is the ending of a pregnancy by deliberately removing a foetus by surgical or medical means. There are 26 countries in the world where all abortion is illegal and in 37 countries abortion is illegal unless the mother’s life is at risk.

The idea of abortion being legalised started to become a reality in the late 1960’s. This is shown by the UK only legalising abortion on the 27^th October 1967 and the US only legalising it in 1973. This shows how the idea of legalising Abortion has only started to occur in the late 1960’s so therefore as we have moved further into the future more countries should start to implement this rule as times are changing and more people are starting to become pro-life (against abortion) than pro-choice(for abortion)

However  many countries that have strong Islamic views such as Saudi Arabia, where the majority of people follow the religion of Islam, will strongly disagree with the views that Abortion is right and should be legalised. This is because all Muslims believe that Allah created everyone in his image and life is a gift from Allah and it is not for humans to interfere in his plan for any individual. So therefore Saudi Arabia would never legalise abortion as they are also strongly against contraception and it is only allowed in very special circumstances. Islamic countries, such as Saudi Arabia, will only ever allow abortion to save the women’s life. This is because Muslims believe her life is more important than the baby’s so an abortion is acceptable.

Moreover, fundamentalist American Christians would also strongly agree with the Muslim idea that abortion is wrong. This is shown by in 1994; at least 11 American gynaecologists were killed by pro lifers in an abortion clinic. This is hugely important as America as a whole, is a country that legalised abortion before many other countries did. Thus showing how not all people in a country agree in the view there government has made, and how it will be extremely difficult to legalise abortion across the whole world when there are so many people who are pro life, and are willing to do radical things to prove a point.

Additionally, many non religious people also believe that abortion is also wrong. These people are called pro lifers. These people would create strong arguments against the legalisation of abortion as many people would agree with their points of view as it is a highly controversial topic.  Some of the arguments they have are; every embryo has the potential for life, and should, therefore, have a right to born as well as just because a baby may be disabled, does not mean it cannot live a good life.

 On the contrary, a huge number of people called pro-choicers believe abortion is acceptable. There two main strong arguments; it is a women’s body, so she should have the right to choose what she does with it. Also if a baby will not be wanted or loved when it is born, it is better for it not to be born at all. Therefore many people from multiple different countries would agree that abortion should be legalised across the world.

In conclusion, I believe that abortion should not be legalised across the whole of the world. This is because doing this would be highly unethical as it would go against Muslim views of their god. However, I strongly believe that all countries should make it so abortion is not illegal if the mother’s life is in danger. This is because I believe that a mother’s life is more important than an unborn foetus and to make it illegal when a person could die is highly unethical.