https://www.irishtimes.com/science/2022/...-abortion/
EXCERPTS: Abortion remains a hugely divisive social/moral issue. [...] Science is silent on the moral value of the human embryo. Moral value is a philosophical question, but not amenable to final proof. Nevertheless, following the recent US supreme court decision, leading scientific/medical journals and American national medical associations are publicly campaigning in favour of abortion.
[...] The sole function of science is to explain how the natural physical world works. Science has nothing to say about many other important areas, for example, values, aesthetics or the supernatural.
[...] Nevertheless, science is helpful when pondering this ethical issue. It helps me, and many others, decide that we are dealing with a human being from the moment of conception and that, since it is morally wrong (ethics) to kill a human being, abortion is morally wrong. I argued this case previously in this column during the Irish abortion referendum debate in May 2013.
But others, equally as sincere and scientifically literate as myself, argue that a human being does not arise until a certain point along the continuum is reached, for example when the foetus could survive outside the womb, about six months after conception, and that therefore abortion is morally permissible up to that point. But none of us can absolutely prove our case because there is no objective way to assign value.
Several leading science/medical journals have come out against the recent Dobbs verdict, such as the Lancet, Nature Medicine, Science Advances and the New England Journal of Medicine. None of this coverage acknowledges that science is silent on the ethics of abortion nor that philosophy cannot finally adjudicate on this matter.
The articles highlight medical ill-effects to women denied access to abortion but not the ill effects to embryos of killing them. Nor do they comment on the enormous scale of abortion — according to the World Health Organisation, about 73 million induced abortions take place worldwide each year... (MORE - missing details)
EXCERPTS: Abortion remains a hugely divisive social/moral issue. [...] Science is silent on the moral value of the human embryo. Moral value is a philosophical question, but not amenable to final proof. Nevertheless, following the recent US supreme court decision, leading scientific/medical journals and American national medical associations are publicly campaigning in favour of abortion.
[...] The sole function of science is to explain how the natural physical world works. Science has nothing to say about many other important areas, for example, values, aesthetics or the supernatural.
[...] Nevertheless, science is helpful when pondering this ethical issue. It helps me, and many others, decide that we are dealing with a human being from the moment of conception and that, since it is morally wrong (ethics) to kill a human being, abortion is morally wrong. I argued this case previously in this column during the Irish abortion referendum debate in May 2013.
But others, equally as sincere and scientifically literate as myself, argue that a human being does not arise until a certain point along the continuum is reached, for example when the foetus could survive outside the womb, about six months after conception, and that therefore abortion is morally permissible up to that point. But none of us can absolutely prove our case because there is no objective way to assign value.
Several leading science/medical journals have come out against the recent Dobbs verdict, such as the Lancet, Nature Medicine, Science Advances and the New England Journal of Medicine. None of this coverage acknowledges that science is silent on the ethics of abortion nor that philosophy cannot finally adjudicate on this matter.
The articles highlight medical ill-effects to women denied access to abortion but not the ill effects to embryos of killing them. Nor do they comment on the enormous scale of abortion — according to the World Health Organisation, about 73 million induced abortions take place worldwide each year... (MORE - missing details)