How we understand abortion

One way to classify theories that deal with abortion is to divide them into those that define abortion as the termination of pregnancy and those that define abortion as the termination of the life of the fetus. When deciding whether to have an abortion, at least in some cases, a woman actually makes two different choices: first, she chooses to terminate her pregnancy, that is, to remove the fetus from her body; and second, she chooses to end the life of the fetus. Currently, the first decision (the autonomy decision) is inseparable from the second one (the reproductive decision). The use of artificial wombs would enable these decisions to be made separately. This forces us to examine how ethical theories define abortion and whether such definition is adequate, given what abortion as a procedure is. Cannold?s research shows that there is a big gap between what ethical theories say about abortion and what abortion really is for women who make that decision. In everyday life, when deciding whether to have an abortion, women not only decide whether they want to be pregnant, but also whether they want to be mothers. Therefore, we cannot define abortion as merely a termination of pregnancy.