Between Autonomy and Human Good of Life.

Is there a right of abortion?

Abstract

In contemporary debates about the moral legitimacy of induced abortion, one of the most common arguments focuses on an alleged conflict of moral rights between the right of autonomy of the pregnant mother and a right to life of the fetus. The document analyzed the central terms of this argument, although studying only the core of the proposal. Among the main conclusions reached by the author are that the mere ability to choose different ways of action - the so-called autonomy - cannot by itself justify a deliberate action - abortion - intentionally directed to kill a human fetus, since that death - which is the object of the act - cannot be justifiably a moral reason for the action. A contrary opinion means the ruin of ethics as a rational activity and the forgetting of the basilar principle on which all human communities arise: that human beings should not be deliberately and directly killed.