Arguments for and Against Abortion in Terms of Teleological and Deontological Theories

AbstractThe most important general and theoretical horizons regarding bioethics, refers to the ethical theories foundation. We can talk about two general main categories in which we can fall the ethical theories: teleological and deontological. Form the first category we enumerate the Aristotelian perspective or the one developed by J. St. Mill, while the Kantian perspective is exemplary for deontological ethics. According to the teleological perspective a form of human behavior is described as moral or non-moral according to the goals explicitly set. The mere achievement of these goals is a necessary and sufficient condition to qualify as moral actions or people's deeds without taking into account the “intermediate stages” of actions to achieve goals. Deontology, as a general horizon of articulating the ethical theories, believes on the contrary that in every moment of our existence, every action or deed that we accomplish can be described as moral or non-moral according to the ethical principles underlying our behavior. Very important consequences arising from the two general theoretical horizons concerns two different perspectives on “human nature” or what we call as the essence of being human. Starting from this horizon we have the consequentialist and deontological dimensions related to the abortion cases. The bioethical dimension in which we will discuss the issue of abortion involves both dimensions and horizons. The arguments against abortion seem to rely rather in the deontological horizon of Kantian type, while abortion pros seem to rely on consequentialist horizon