DEBATE ON ABORTION: A FEMINIST ARGUMENT

Abortion is one of the most controversial issues discussed in the contemporary engagement in applied or medical ethics though legally it is not permitted. This issue is also closely linked with human rights issue because human beings have a right to life. It is also connected with the debate over the identification of fetus with human beings. One thing very clear is that it is morally or legally wrong to eliminate one's life or to disturb the situation that will become a living organism. The right to exist whether living or non-living is also another fundamental moral issue. No one has the right to violate the right of others. The violation of one's right whether legitimate or illegitimate within a social structure or a state system is legally as well as morally wrong. The present paper attempts to make an understanding of the issue of abortion from the perspectives of moral ground vis a vis the violation of human rights. The term abortion is usually connected with a human act that disturbed a biological natural process. It is called a premature termination of pregnancy. In the medical moral community, they used the word evacuation, instead of abortion, which is value neutral. Some philosophers define the word abortion as termination of unborn life. This view is subject to criticism from the standpoint of debate on the beginning of life. The termination of life or the disturbance of the biological process can be occurred in two ways. One is spontaneous and another induced. The former is seen when there is malfunctioning of the natural process take an example of miscarriage and the later has happened when some external agent disturbs the process with certain objectives. The moral issue involves in the act of any way of terminating the life considering the motives behind the act and also determining the motives of the actors become a moral dilemma.