MORAL VIEW OF THE HUMAN LIFE VALUE

Introduction

The interruption is and probably always will be discussed topic. There will always be someone who
will (dis)agree with abortions. But mostly everyone has own oppinion for the decision.

In this essey we will find out what an interruption is and what are the methods of it. Then we will
see how it looks like when are laws restrictive or not now and in the history. And what that means
for a mother and child.

There is a part where we can see an evolution of abortions and unwanted pregnancies during the
years and what the expectations are for the future.

The most imporant part of the essay if there is an ethical attitude of the countries in the world
and what should countries do to safe the most of human lifes – not just a baby, but also a woman.

In the end we should realise that the best attitude is completed by both of the views. It is
important to protect everyone who needs the protection, but also leave the right for making own
decisions for each of one.

We can give an advice, we can talk about a problem with everybody, but we must let everybody to
make a final decision on his own.

What is interruption?

It is discontinuation of evolution of unborn child. But if we say the discontinuation, that means
that we possibly could continue later. But not in this case. The interruption is irresversible act.
(Frank, 2012)

Interruption is on of the most questionable issues on the world. People used to rely on the law
when they need to figure it out what is the best solution for unexpected pregnancy.

Lawers have to follow the law not to care about the ethics, even if the law is pointless and
straightforward.What can a lawer even say about ethics of abortion? Nothing. They just say that
woman is autonomous segment (Hewson, 2001).

According the Board of the Nation Abortion Federation the interruption is moral act which respects
patient´s autonomia and reduces the pain. In the way the woman comes to the doctor for help, even
if she is or is not pregnant, he is obligatory to protect, support and defend health and welfare of
the patient (NAF, 2011).

Not so distant history…

In 2015 the human fetus was still biological waste if it had around half of kilogram or was until
22th week of evolution then it could be banished in hospital incinerator. This was the view of
czech law. In that year, if parents did not ask for ordinary funeral for their dead newborn child
until four days, the newborn life ended up also in hospital incinerator. Etical view and law view
was totally different, because each of views still has own oppinion what is human life.

If the woman got a birth to the child which had less than half of kilogram, she had no right to ask
for ordinary funeral in 2015. This rule was changed and the final decision is more sensitive to
mourning parents nowadays (Koubová, 2015).

The main dispute is usually evaluate if the human embryo is the human from the fusion of sperm with
egg or from the specific stage of pregnancy (Frank, 2012).

Juristic viewpoint

According to the artical no. 6 the law no. 2/1993 Coll., Charter of Fundamental Rights and Freedoms
says: „Everybody has a right for life. Human life has to be protected before the birth. No one has
to be getting rid of the life“ (zákon č. 2/1993 Sb., 2021). That means no one can decide to end up
the pregnancy. Interruption as a medical action, can be carried out according the law no. 66/1986
Coll. Of the Czech national council for abortion. This law states that the discontinuation of
pregnancy can be done until 12th week. A pregnant woman under the age of 16 has to have a parental
consent. The medical interruption is legal according the juristic viewpoint.

Types of interruptions

Opponents of interruption have different oppinions on the types of medical interruptions. There are
two available attitudes – a chirurgical or chemical interruption in professional literature.
Chirurgical or mechanical interruption can be divided into curettage and suction by pump. Chemical
interruption contains hormonal medical contraception or abortive contraception.

The chosen type of interruption depends on stage of pregnancy and on choice of pregnant woman.

It is recommended to use mix of interruption methods during and after 16th week of pregnancy. A
late interuption is used for reduction in the number of embryos or for Caesarean section of
undeveloped child.

Interruption Reasons

No scientist, philosopher or educator can say that interruption is a good thing. Interruption is
evil, on the other side somethimes the interruption is the way to avoid to even worse evil. There
is always a side of mother and of the unborn child.

Threat for a mother

The new born child can change the quality of the life of the parents. The small flat, low age of
the mother or father, a lack of money, absence of partner, poverty etc. are the reasons of the low
life quality of the parents.

Mother´s or child´s life threat can end in death each of them.

Somethimes mother refuse unborn child after the rape by a child´s father.

Threat for a child

The most usual reason for interruption is medical desease of the unborn child. Mostly the doctors
can´t say for sure that the child will be sick. There is question if the parents get rid of the
unborn child for the „child´s good“ or for their own comfort (Frank, 2012).

Both of these sides should have a right

These two attitudes are called „for life“ and „for choice“ in United States. But not both of the
attitudes think about the human zygote as a thing and care about the fact that pregnancy is a life
comunity where one side is connected with the other one – mother is connected with the unborn child
and also the unborn child is connected with mother. The child´s right for life is not deduced from
the mother-child connection, it is deduced from the (un)favorable prenatal medical resultes. If we
see mother and the unborn child as a two different and separeted things than the responsibility for
the future human being is not deduced from the mother-child´s clasp, but i tis deduced from moral
status of the zygote. This is called pregnency conflics, where are two different claims and
opinions of the mother and of the unborn child. Prenatal diagnostic and possibility of reproduction
medicine also help to maintain this attitude – the zygote is created in Petri dish. It evokes a
proprietary feeling in parents or doktors (Huber, 2016).

Ann Furedi claims that it does not matter when or if we indicate an embryo as a human but if the
embryo deserves our respect and if we give to this life any value (Hewson, 2001).

The human development or the development into the human

When the human being is the human, is the most inflected question. It can be the phase of the sperm
and egg´s fusion, or settlement down in womb during the fifth to the eighth pregnacy day, or the
brain formation during the third month, or the ability of living, or the birth, or the life phase
when the personality is making.

Jürgen Habermas demanded to approach to the embryo as to the second person – that means the person
who I can label as „him“ or „her“. That means he expect that the embryo is going to develop into
the human (Huber, 2016).

Oppinion of scients

Interruption followers claim that conjunction of sperm and egg is not a human yet, because of not
developed organs etc. They define birth as a opposite to death, that means human is not alive
before the birth.

On the other side interruption opponents argue that the human zygote is complete after conjunction
of sperm and egg and it is just growing now. The grow don´t stop after the birth, it continues.
Biologists understand that completed zygote has a genetic information about the color of hair and
eyes, sex of the human and the whole evolution of this human life is decided. This is why the
fertilized eggs of special bird species are under state protection, while the human zygot do not
have this law protection.

Etical or religious oppinion

The sixth of the ten commandments says „you don´t kill“ so the Christian attitude against
interuption is clear.

For Christian deem the religion and the mission by the Got as more important than developing
medical knowledge. Christians as Jews and Muslims belive human life is a human even in form of
zygote. Also they belive that even a handicaped or crippled human has his own place in social
world.

„Human fetus reacted to the God´s voice before birth“. – Lukas 1,44

As we can read in bible, it shows that God is speaking to human which is not out of the mother´s
womb (Frank, 2012).

Everybody has a right to care, make a decisions and formulate his own life – that is his justice
and freedom (Huber, 2016).

Extremistic Christians are often conected to fight against abortions, however hardly anybody knows
that the origin of abortions in America is because of active religious ecclesiastic who tried to
ensure a safe health care and safe abortions for women before more than 50 years. And this
important history is forgotten as the „for life“ organization, which tries to boycott abortions,
consists of the Protestant Christians and Extreme Catholics (Parker, 2019).

Analysis

In 2015 there was carried out 35 724 of interruptions. Induced abortions constituted more than 57 %
of them.

The next year in there was carried out 35 921 of interruptions. Induced abortions constituted more
than 56 % of them. The whole number of interruptions was higher then year before, on the other side
a percent of the induced abortions was lower.

During another year there was carried out 35 012 of interruptions. Induced abortions constituted
more than 55 % of them. As we can see number of all interruptions declines as the percent of
induced abortions during the years.

In 2018 there was carried out 32 952 of interruptions. Induced abortions constituted more than 55 %
of them. The number of all interruptions declines, the percent of induced abortions is the same as
last year.

A year later in 2019 there was carried out 31 797 of interruptions. Induced abortions constituted
more than 55 % of them.

The conclusion is that the average decrease of number of interruptions is 981,75 per year during
these years. (ÚZIS, 2021)

The number of unwanted pregnancies is higher in the countries where a medical abortion is illegal
and the number is lower in the countries where a medical abortion is available. An evolution of the
unwanted pregnancies which ended in abortion has a shape of  small sinusoid. During the 90´ the
number of unwanted pregnancies which ended in abortion was 51 %, then after 2000 the number
declined a little bit.

There was around 121 millions of unwanted pregnancies every year between 2015 and 2019 and around
61 % of them ended in abortion. That means that every year it is 73 millions abortions.

The percent of the abortions is almost the same for last 30 years. However the number of unwanted
pregnancies declined. The result is the number of abortions declines too. (Gutmacher, 2020)

There is a question for what reason…

The resultes show there is more people now than ever, who are in the ages of reproduction, who are
able to limit „making babies“. It is possible that some individual people are motivated to not get
pregnant with unwanted child thanks to the access to services which is so stable and people can
rely on it.

The decline of the rate of the unwanted pregnancies is unexpected, because of the better access to
the contraception pills or access to the services, which support planning pregnancies, do not
promises the decline of the unwanted pregnancies.

On the other side as we know young women are starting to avoid to the contraception pills, it is
trend to keep the body clear and the research shows that very widespread contraception pills brings
about the inability to get pregnant nowadays, especially after 20 years of using the contraception
pills. So maybe they are starting to rely on the other options for avoiding to pregnancy. But
sometimes it comprises the alternative medicines or pullout methode, when man tries to avoid
insemination into woman´s vagina. However both of these methods are not as reliable as the pills.
So we can expect to increase the number of unwanted pregnancies in the future.

Analysis can not rate with the abortion which were done at home using the available abortion drugs
as a misoprostol or mifepriston, because these abortions have not to be written into medical
records. That means the number of abortion could be higher than the statistic analysis shows
(Bearak, 2020).

The latest news

„Doctors waited and the pregnant woman died“

Anti-abortion law is blamed for the death of the thirty years old mother who died to septic shock.
Poland law do not allow to end up the pregnancy before the death of the unborn child. When the
pregnant woman found out she lost her amniotic fluid, she and doctors could not do anything else
than to wait for the death of the unborn child. The pregnant woman was afraid of the septic shock,
but she trusted the doctors. They could not do anything even if they were afraid of the woman´s
life, because of the restrictive abortion law. After the death of the unborn child, the woman also
died a day later in the hospital. Two lifes are over because of the law. (Harzer, 2021)

(Il)legal abortions?

It is confusing that dangerous complications of the illegal interruptions cause the death for the
pregnant women (Hewson, 2001). OSN promised to implement one of the developing aims as a „improving
maternal health“ in 2000 (Ackerman, 2017). Interruptions brought about 13 % of the total number of
women´s death in 2001 (Hewson, 2001). More than 20 years later we see that unavailability of legal
and safe abortions is still the crisis on the world – there is around 22 500 to 44 000 dead
pregnant women just because of the unsafe abortions. That means these deaths constitute 8 – 18 % of
all the pregnant women´s deaths in 2014 (Ackerman, 2017). As we can see it is wasting the woman´s
life.

Is better to be just a woman or a mother?

Health and choices of the women are often managed by state, professionals in medicine, interest
groups and social organizations who are trying to comply the personal, social, political or
professional ideas of themself.

Somethimes women are pushed to the interruption because of the society. Women have not the same
rights as men. Young women are not able to get a job today, because the employer expects that she
is going to have a baby soon. Somethimes it goes so far that women do not date with other sex or
share about the possibility of having a boyfriend. They are afraid of the consequences for her job.
The employers try to get rid of the pregnant woman in some companies, even if it is not ethical at
all and the pregnant woman has to chose for example because of the rest of family which need to be
donated etc (Hewson, 2001).

Is the attitude to the interruption etical in the Czech Republic and other countries?

In the Czech Republic there is more benevolent law than in other countries. It is not just about
Poland, where the access to the interruption is very difficult. There are countries where
interruption is strictly prohibited and the main reason for the prohibition is religion etc.

That does not mean that the opinion of the Czech Republic would support the interruptions.
Actually, women have a right for medical examinations during the pregnancy and she is under medical
control for the whole time. So the Czech Republic try to support to giving a birth.

It is very well known in the Czech Republic that if the woman did not have an access to the legal
medical interruption, she would find the solution in the way when she could hurt or kill herself
(Bernardová, 2021).

In case when United states of America supports the anti interruption law and organizations which
fight against inducted abortions on the one side. Also they stop to finance humanitarian
organization which try to provide a medical abortion, but there is Texas (as the state of the
United states) who started with the preparations for the new anti-abortion law on the other side.
There should be an awareness that cutting off from the health care can destroy more than „just“ one
life in womb (Parker, 2019).


Conclusion

It is important to decide when interruption is ethical and when it is necesery for saving another
life. We can not say that interruption is good thing, but it is not a bad thing everytime. It
depends.

Numbers of the interruptions are unbelievably high, they are always high. Even if there was only
one human being on the world who died because of the abortion, it is too much. Cause it is so
insignificant death.

The women should be wise and free to make a decision for themself. Every woman is able to say for
sure what she would do if she was pregnant. Eventually every man can say what he would do if his
partner was pregnant. However everybody acts differently if it is here – right now.

From religion or science side abortion is ethical in different way, but they supply each other.

     “Science investigates; religion interprets. Science gives man knowledge, which is power;
religiongives man wisdom, which is control. Science deals mainly with facts; religion deals mainly
  with values.The two are not rivals. They are complementary. Science keeps religion from sinking
 into the valley of crippling irrationalism and paralyzing obscurantism. Religion prevents science
              from falling into themarsh of obsolete materialism and moral nihilism.”

                                    Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr

The people are fighting for the democracy. Especially today people gets a vaccine and some of them
shout they do not want to be pushed into it, because they should have a choice as it is a
democracy. Why the people do not give a democratic choice to the pregnant women?

References

ACKERMAN, Katrina, Kristin BURNETT, Travis HAY a Shannon STETTNER. Transcending Borders: Abortion
in the Past and Present. Imprint: Palgrave Macmillan, 2017. ISBN isbn978-3-319-48399-3.

BEARAK, Jonathan et al. Unintended pregnancy and abortion by income, region, and the legal status
of abortion: estimates from a comprehensive model for 1990–2019. The Lancet Global Health [online].
July 22 2020 [2021-11-17]. Dostupné z:
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/langlo/article/PIIS2214-109X(20)30315-6/fulltext

BERNARDOVÁ, Veronika. Zákony jsou v ČR nastaveny volněji i proto, aby se neprováděly nelegální
potraty. Novojičínský deník.cz [online] 12. 11. 2021 [cit. 2021-11-14]. Dostupné z:
https://novojicinsky.denik.cz/z-regionu/zakony-jsou-v-cr-nastaveny-volneji-i-proto-aby-se-neprovade
ly-nelegalni-potraty.html

FRANC, Aleš. Interrupce. In: Biblická apologetika [online]. Březen 2012 [cit. 2021-11-13]. Dostupné
z: http://www.apologet.cz/files/attachments/file/449-1-iterrupce.pdf

GUTTMACHER. Unintended Pregnancy and Abortion Worldwide. Guttmacher institute [online]. July 2020.
[2021-11-16]. Dostupné z: https://www.guttmacher.org/fact-sheet/induced-abortion-worldwide

HARZER, Filip. „Potrat ji stál život, lékaři jen čekali.“ Rodina viní přísné polské zákony. Seznam
zprávy [online]. 1. 11. 2021 [cit. 2021-11-14]. Dostupné z:
https://www.seznamzpravy.cz/clanek/potrat-ji-stal-zivot-lekari-jen-cekali-rodina-vini-prisne-polske
-zakony-179279#source=hp&seq_no=6&dop_ab_variant=0&dop_source_zone_name=zpravy.sznhp.box&dop_req_id
=oFD8JbnQnj0-202111012241&dop_id=179279&utm_campaign=&utm_medium=z-boxiku&utm_source=www.seznam.cz

HEWSON, Barbara. Reproductive autonomy and the ethics of abortion. Journal of Medical Ethics
[online]. 2001;27:ii10-ii14. [cit. 2021-11-15]. Dostupné z:
https://jme.bmj.com/content/27/suppl_2/ii10

HUBER, Wolfgang. Etika: základní otázky života. Přeložil Petr BABKA. Praha: Vyšehrad, 2016. ISBN
978-80-7429-642-0.

KOUBOVÁ, Michaela. Kdy začíná lidský život? Rozdíl mezi pohledem práva a etiky překlene úprava
pohřbívání plodů po potratu. Zdravotnický deník [online] 8. 11. 2015 [2021-11-12]. Dostupné z:
https://www.zdravotnickydenik.cz/2015/11/kdy-zacina-lidsky-zivot-rozdil-mezi-pohledem-prava-a-etiky
-ma-zmensit-uprava-pohrbivani-plodu-po-potratu/

NAF. Ethical Principles for Abortion Care. National Abortion Federation [online]. 2011
[2021-11-16]. Dostupné z: http://prochoice.org/wp-content/uploads/NAF_Ethical-_Principles.pdf

PARKER, Willie J. The moral imperative of reproductive rights, health, and justice. Best Pract Res
Clin Obstet Gynaecol [online]. 2020 Jan [cit. 2021-11-16];62:3-10. doi:
10.1016/j.bpobgyn.2019.07.006. Epub 2019 Jul 29. PMID: 31540808. Dostupné z:
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31540808/

ÚZIS. Potraty 2019. Ústav zdravotnických informací a statistiky ČR [online]. 2021 [2021-11-14].
Dostupné z: https://www.uzis.cz/res/f/008355/potraty2019.pdf

Zákon č. 2/1993 Sb.: Listina základních práv a svobod. Zákony pro lidi [online]. [cit. 2021-11-16].
Dostupné z: https://www.zakonyprolidi.cz/cs/1993-2

Petra Konečná, M20637