Moral Issue
–
▪ Is the expulsion of a living fetus from the
mother's womb before it is viable.
▪ In medical parlance, it is defined as the
termination of pregnancy, spontaneously or
by inducement, prior to viability.
▪ Viability is about 28th week (calculated
from the 1st day of last menstrual period)
or toward the end of 7th month.
Types of abortion
1. Natural abortion
2. Therapeutic abortion
3. Eugenic or selective abortion'
4. Indirect abortion
▪ Natural abortion
• Known as spontaneous or
accidental
• Expulsion of the fetus through
natural or accidental causes.
• Unintentional and involuntary
• oi.e. A pregnant woman who scrubs
the floor with all her might or who
willfully steps on a banana peel in
order to slip, with the intention of
inducing abortion
▪ Therapeutic abortion
• Deliberately induced expulsion of a
living fetus in order to save the
mother from the danger of death
brought on by pregnancy.
▪ Eugenic abortion
• Recommended in cases where
certain defects are discovered in
the developing fetus.
• Eugenic because it is meant to get
rid of abnormal babies, and thus
prevent from "contaminating" the
human species.
MORAL ISSUE | ISSUE 3 – ISSUE 5
• Also known as selective abortion or
abortion on fetal indications
(recommended on a case-by-case
basis, depending upon the gravity
of fetal indications or
abnormalities)
▪ Indirect abortion
• Removal of the fetus as secondary
effect of a legitimate or licit
action, which is the direct and
primary object of the intention.
• An instance of the double effect
principle
ISSUE 3: ABORTION (Ethical Issues)
▪ Ethicist point to the difficult question
regarding the beginning of human life as
the moral issue of abortion
1. the theory of immediate hominization
▪ Immediate ensoulment
▪ Contends that a new human being exists
immediately upon conception, thus the
newly fertilized ovum is already a human
being
2. the theory of delayed animation
▪ Ensoulment occurs at a later time from the
moment of conception→ no ensoulment→
not a human being
▪ Pro-Life and Pro-Choice Views of Abortion
▪ Pro-life disapproves abortion
• Abortion is never permissible, or at
most, is permissible if and only if it
is required to save the pregnant
woman's life
• Life begins from the moment of
conception
▪ Pro-choice has approving view
• Abortion is always permissible,
whatever the state of fetal
development may be.
 Moral Issue
–
• Fetus has no ontological status;
neither an individual, human nor a
person thus possesses no rights and
moral
ISSUE 3: ABORTION (In Medical Context)
▪ Advanced technology→ human values→
more difficult and complicated moral
decisions
▪ Amniocentesis - can detect malformation or
deformity of fetus in utero as early as the
5th month or 16th week of pregnancy
▪ Fetoscope - used to visualize various parts
of the fetus detecting anatomical
abnormalities in the developing fetus
▪ Abnormalities/deformities → woman is
faced with moral issue of abortion
• HC professionals role is to informed
the parents about the degree of
deformity, cost of multiple
operations to be incurred, and the
consequences of whatever decision
they may arrive at.
ISSUE 3: ABORTION (Application of Ethical
Theories)
▪ CHRISTIAN ETHICS
• Abortion is intrinsically wrong
▪ SITUATION ETHICS
• Endorses selective abortion or
abortion on fetal indications.
• Pregnancy caused by sexual
aggression.
• Gravity of chromosomal deformity
▪ PRAGMATIST AND UTILITARIAN ETHICS
• Considers practicality,
beneficiality, and workability of
aborting a terribly malformed fetus
especially in cases of pregnancy
caused by rape or incest
MORAL ISSUE | ISSUE 3 – ISSUE 5
• Aborted fetus may be used as
subjects of human experimentation
for the greater benefits of
humankind.
▪ on vitro means fertilization :within a glass".
▪ Aka "laboratory fertilization"; "test-tube
fertilization
▪ Laparoscopy → maturing ova are extracted
from female's ovary + husband's semen
(petri dish) → fertilized ovum or embryo →
implanted in the wife's uterus → embryo
burrows itself in the endometrium → normal
pregnancy to term
ISSUE 4: IN VITRO FERTILIZATION (In the Medical
Context)
▪ Done to overcome female sterility due to
obstruction of the fallopian tube, which
prevents the ovum from passing through the
oviduct (tube) where it meets the sperm and
then descends to the uterus for burrowing.
▪ Transcervical Balloon Tuboplasty (TBT) is a
new technique to clear blocked fallopian
tube and is easier and cheaper than IVF.
▪ Transcervical Balloon Tuboplasty (TBT)
• Appears to be an effective
alternative for infertile women who
want to be become pregnant
without surgery
▪ Other significant goals of IVF in the medical
field
1. to observe and evaluate the process of
fertilization, in vitro, which is not possible in
the case of fertilization in utero;
2. to test the effectiveness of anti-fertility
agents and to evaluate the fertilization of
the ova of Px with infertility problems;
 Moral Issue
–
3. to assess the structural and biochemical
normality of the conceptus in patients who
have had repeated spontaneous abortions;
4. to better understand the mechanisms
needed for genetic studies;
5. to advance understanding of normal and
abnormal cell growth and differentiation;
and
6. to increase the knowledge that is used in
contraceptive technology and in alleviation
of genetic disorders and other deformities.
ISSUE 4: IN VITRO FERTILIZATION (Application of
Ethical Theories)
▪ CHRISTIAN ETHICS
• Demands the preservation of the
biological process of human
reproduction.
• No medically scientific end,
however noble it may be, can in
any way justify the manipulation of
living human embryos, whether
viable or not, either inside or
outside the mother's womb.
▪ PRAGMATIST AND UTILITARIAN ETHICS
• Claim that the accumulation of
scientific knowledge that
biomedical specialists would be
able to gain from in vitro
fertilization will be beneficial,
useful, advantageous, and
profitable to the understanding of
human reproduction which would
pave the way for the discovery of
medical drugs for fetal disorders
and children's diseases.
▪ SITUATION ETHICS
• Endorses in vitro fertilization (as an
Al procedure) to be the answer to
childlessness.
MORAL ISSUE | ISSUE 3 – ISSUE 5
• The good end justifies the means
▪ Consists of depositing a man's semen in the
vagina, cervical canal, or uterus, through
the use of instruments (like syringe) to bring
about conception unattained by sexual
intercourse.
▪ Process may either be:
• Intravaginal - placing the semen in
the vaginal vault
• Intracervical - in the cervical
cavity o
• Intrauterine - inside the uterus
Types of Artificial Insemination
1. Homologous insemination (called AlH) in
which the semen is obtained from the
husband himself.
• Two Different Methods of AIH
1. Upon an Al specialist's instruction, a wife
can artificially inseminate herself by using a
medical syringe containing the sperm
previously extracted from her husband.
• Aka as "do it yourself" Al
2. homologous IVF and ET (embryo transfer) is
a technique used to facilitate a human
conception through in vitro fertilization of
the generative cells (sperm and ovum) of a
couple, and then the newly-conceived
embryo is transferred into the wife's uterus
for gestation.
• Aka as embryo transfer
▪ Justifications for AIH
1. husband's impotence i.e. the husband is
incapable of penile erection, hence
ejaculation which is necessary for
fertilization is not possible;
 Moral Issue
–
2. anatomical defects of husband's urethra,
affecting the conveying of semen;
3. deficient sperm count (oligospermia) i.e.
defect in the quality of the sperm
4. some types of spinal injury, and certain
physical/psychological problems that hinder
normal intercourse;
5. some husbands who undergo vasectomy for
contraceptive purposes have their semen
stored for eventual use in the future, if for
some unforeseen reason they decide to have
a child;
6. physiological obstructions in the genital
apparatus of the wife such as malposition of
the cervix and/or too small os (opening), in
virtue of which the sperm cannot reach the
ovum in the oviduct
2. Heterologous insemination (AID) in which the
semen is acquired from a donor other than the
husband.
• Two Possible Methods for AID
1. heterologous Al, a technique used to obtain
a human conception through the transfer
into the genital tracts of the wife of the
sperm previously extracted from a donor,
other than the husband;
2. heterologous IVF and ET which is used to
obtain a human conception through IVF of
the generative cells (sperm and ovum) taken
from at least one donor other than two
spouses in marriage.
▪ Justifications for AID
1. the husband is sterile (Azoospermia);
2. the husband is a carrier of hereditary
disease;
3. the wife's oocytes are defective, or she may
also be a carrier of certain genetically-
linked disorders; and
MORAL ISSUE | ISSUE 3 – ISSUE 5
4. the wife's fallopian tubes are severely
damaged by gonorrhea
ISSUE 5: ARTIFICIAL INSEMINATION (Application
of Ethical Theories)
▪ CHRISTIAN ETHICS
• Al is immoral, insofar as the Al child
is not a fruit of conjugal act as an
expression of personal love.
• Fertilization is licit only when it is
the result of conjugal act, which
per se suitable for the generation
of children to which marriage is
ordered by its very nature and by
which couples have become one
flesh.
• AID in particular separates
procreation from marriage, a case
of baby making without love
making, which violates the
marriage covenant.
▪ SITUATION ETHICS
• Endorses Al as our right to
overcome childlessness.
• Marital fidelity is more than a legal
requirement or a sexual monopoly.
It is rather a personal agreement
nourished by mutual love for each
other, which is fulfilled in ensuring
that a child born into this world by
whatever means should be reared
in the family.
▪ UTILITARIAN ETHICS
• AlH and AID for childless couples
may promote more good than
harm, more happiness than
unhappiness, more pleasure than
pain, and more hope than despair.
• Being aware of one's infirmity and
do nothing to cure it, in spite of the
 Moral Issue
–
availability of medico-
technological resources, appears to
be an omission for which one is held
morally responsible.
▪ PRAGMATIST'S ETHICS
• Al is most practical, beneficial,
workable, and useful technique to
be undertaken by spouses who are
beset with the problems of
impotence, hereditary disorders,
defective genes, and anatomical
defects.
• The decision however, must be
optional, volitional, and mutual.
▪ DUTY ETHICS
• Kant's concept of individual
rational being as an autonomous
person who has to decide by and
for his/her own welfare seems to be
in keeping with the personal
decision of a childless couple to
beget a child through Al.
• From the principle of autonomy, it
is clear that the decision to
undergo the process must be
voluntary and consensual.

MORAL ISSUE | ISSUE 3 – ISSUE 5