by Katy Murphy RN

Created on: January 07, 2011   Last Updated: January 08, 2011

Let me start off by saying that I do not hold an outright feeling on whether women should be able to choose to have an abortion - or whether that right should be denied to them. I'm one of the many who don't like the idea of abortion - and yet do not feel strongly enough against it to believe that my squeamishness should dictate to other people or should influence the rights of other people to make the decisions which are best for them. I'm "one the fence" so so speak, understanding that it is a complex area and I believe that while abortion can never be morally "right", it can be morally justified. 

*Sitting on the Fence* 

However, one area that I do struggle with is when I hear some people say "I only agree with abortion in certain situations" - because, to me, this argument just doesn't hold up. If someone said that they would only consider an abortion in certain circumstances then that would be perfectly rational, but to say that they judge abortion to be wrong in one situation yet okay in another situation sounds a little cracked. Surely it makes sense that you believe that someone either has the right to an abortion - or they don't - and imposing a set of value judgements over whether it is acceptable or not seems to miss the whole set of arguments that proponents of the anti-abortionist lobby and the pro-choice contingent put forward. I'll return to this later on. 


*The Right to Life* 

It seems to me that probably the most central concept that is fundamental to the ethics surrounding abortion is that of the right to life. When does life begin? When does personhood begin? Does the right to life come before everything else? 

At the moment, the upper limit for abortion is set at 24 weeks gestation. Therefore, legally you can terminate a pregnancy as long as the fetus is under 24 weeks (with the agreement of two doctors) - and after 24 weeks it is never legally permissible in the UK to terminate a pregnancy. So what happens between 23 weeks and 24 weeks that means that the fetus' legal status changes in the course of a few days? Basically, the argument given is that from 24 weeks a fetus is considered "viable" because it can survive outside of the mother (albeit with a lot of medical support!). It was always believed until very recently that 24 weeks is when the nervous system was fully formed - although it is now generally held that this happens as early as 18 weeks gestation. 

So, does the fact that the baby is reliant on its mother

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