Punishing Abortions, Is it Real Justice?

Ethics is a very intriguing concept for discussion because everyone has a different variant of what they perceive is the ‘right’ thing to do. One political opinion that seems to garner more of an ethical dilemma in the mainstream is the discussions on abortion rights. Is it ‘right’ or is it ‘wrong’ for an individual to receive an abortion?

This conversation has even extended to possible punishment for the doctors that perform the procedure. My stance is that abortion rights are always ethical, and I hope at the end of the piece you understand why my stance has been formed to such a manner. Abortion rights were primarily established through Roe v. Wade, a Supreme Court Case that has influenced abortion laws in America since 1973.

In 2021 alone, there have been more than 500 restrictions made in the states when it comes to abortion rights. Such restrictions have included states like Idaho and Texas which have put in a limit of obtaining an abortion in the first six weeks of pregnancy. A punishment for those who obtain an abortion after the first six weeks.

That restriction alone is so limiting that most women don’t know that they are pregnant in the first six weeks. These restrictions come at a time when the Supreme Court looks entirely different, with new members being part of strict religious sects that have voiced an opposition to abortion rights since their conception. Why would I disagree with these religious sects and assert that the more ethical choice is ensuring abortion rights for anyone who seeks an abortion?

In El Salvador, they are currently going through a similar dilemma that we are facing in the states, the difference being that El Salvador has had abortions illegal since 1998. During that time, there has been a rising push back by families living there to obtain abortion rights. One leading case that has gathered international attention is Manuela and Family v. El Salvador.

Manuela is a pseudonym to help keep the family’s identity safe. Manuela is a 33-year-old woman with two kids who had a stillbirth after having a fall at her home. She was rushed to the hospital unconscious and was suffering from hemorrhaging. Manuela says that she had no idea she was pregnant with hospital personnel accusing her of intentionally inducing an abortion.

The hospital personnel proceeded to call the police, and Manuela was handcuffed to her hospital bed. This is procedure because medical personnel can also face 6-12 years in prison and barred from practicing medicine. This even extends to family members who help a woman in receiving an abortion resulting in a punishment of 2-5 years’ imprisonment.

Manuela was charged for 30 years in jail for her miscarriage. This isn’t even limited to El Salvador though as some unlucky women have faced imprisonment in the U.S. through state legislature. Angela Carder was a 27-year-old woman who found out she had cancer when she was 26 weeks pregnant.

Due to the risk Angela was forced to have a c-section in Washington D.C. as an attempt to save the baby but ended with both of their deaths. Melissa Ann Rowland of Utah has a similar story where she was charged with murder after suffering a still birth of one of her twins. She was charged because she refused to have a c-section.

It is very hard to distinguish legally if it was a stillbirth, miscarriage or an abortion so even trying to distinguish who is at fault in the termination of the child. Resulting in innocent people being arrested, facing jail time and sometimes death. Now an argument that has been used countless times is that after conception the growing embryo is a human being, and that the termination of the embryo is still murder.

Now without discounting this argument with the usual counterpoint that the embryo is not yet a human and instead is a bunch of cells. I will instead take the argument that after conception it is a human life. In ethics philosophy, there is a classic thought experiment called “The Trolley Problem,” which puts a trolley endangering five people on one track and one person on the other track. The individual who is being asked the thought experiment to decide to flip the switch to kill either the five people or kill the one.

When an individual is considering an abortion, it can range from a multitude of reasons but overall, it boils down to “I don’t think I could/would be able to take care of the child.” This boiled down reason speaks louder to an unnoticed part of the debate to those who consider abortion as murder. When an individual is believing that they can’t take care of the child it doesn’t mean they’ll never try later to have a child.

I’d like to propose a trolley problem, if an individual that finds themself pregnant were to want to end the life of their would-be child because they don’t believe they are ready to take care of said child. Later that same individual finds a partner and wants to have a large family of five. Is it right to imprison the individual and punish them for the death of one child which then would result in the other five children never being born? If you decide to punish the individual, then you would be responsible for the loss of six children but if you don’t punish them then the loss is of only one child. So, is one life more important than five lives?