Bioethics & medical ethics
In What Circumstances Should Abortion Be Permitted?
LNAT Section B · Model essay
The essay prompt
Under what conditions, if any, should the law allow a pregnancy to be terminated, and what justifies drawing the line where it is drawn?
The stance
Abortion should be permitted, but in specified and safeguarded circumstances rather than without limit: where it protects the woman's life or health, where it respects her bodily autonomy before viability, where conception was non-consensual, and where there is severe foetal abnormality. The right answer is neither prohibition nor an unconditional licence, but a proportionate, gestationally bounded permission.
Defining the terms
- "Abortion" means the intentional medical termination of a pregnancy. In Great Britain it is lawful, on the statutory grounds, principally up to 24 weeks, with no upper limit where the pregnancy threatens the woman's life, risks grave permanent injury to her health, or there is a substantial risk of serious foetal abnormality.
- "Permitted" means legally authorised and not criminalised, subject to regulation (gestational limits and medical certification), rather than morally praised or encouraged.
- "Circumstances" frames the real question: not "is abortion good?" but "under what conditions should law and morality authorise it?" - risk to life or health, autonomy, rape, foetal abnormality, and harm reduction.
- "Viability" is the point (around 24 weeks) at which a foetus can survive outside the womb; it marks the threshold where the strength of competing claims shifts, which is why most legal systems anchor their main limit there.
Assumptions to interrogate
- That the law has legitimate authority to decide when termination is permissible at all, rather than leaving it entirely to private conscience.
- That foetal interests can be weighed against, and sometimes outweighed by, the actual rights and interests of the pregnant woman.
- That a moral and legal line can be drawn (typically at viability) without that line being merely arbitrary.
- That regulation can hold autonomy and the protection of potential life in proportion, rather than having to choose one absolutely.
The case for
Risk to the woman's life or health: an actual life cannot be sacrificed to a potential one.
Where continuing a pregnancy threatens the woman's life or risks grave, permanent injury to her physical or mental health, refusing abortion compels her to bear a lethal or disabling burden for the sake of a being that is not yet a separate person in law. The UK Abortion Act 1967 reflects this, permitting termination at any gestation to save life or prevent grave permanent injury. To deny it is to demand that the law compel martyrdom.
Bodily autonomy before viability: the state may not conscript one body to sustain another.
Forcing a woman to remain pregnant against her will treats her body as a public resource. The law does not compel even a parent to donate blood or an organ to save a born child; it cannot consistently compel reproductive gestation. Judith Jarvis Thomson's violinist analogy captures the point: the right to life does not include a right to use another person's body. Before the foetus is viable and independent, the woman's autonomy is decisive.
Non-consensual conception: justice forbids compounding violation with compulsion.
Where pregnancy results from rape or incest, forcing the woman to carry it to term layers a second, state-imposed harm onto the first. The foetus is innocent, but refusing to force lifelong consequences of a violation is not punishment of the foetus; it is refusal to make the victim bear the offender's crime in her body. Consent withdrawn from the act cannot be imputed to its consequence.
Severe foetal abnormality and harm reduction: compassion and reality both count.
Where abnormality means the child cannot survive or faces unavoidable, profound suffering (such as anencephaly), permitting termination spares futile pain. Separately, prohibition does not end abortion; it drives it underground. The WHO finds that where unsafe abortion is common the death rate exceeds 200 per 100,000 procedures. A law that ignores this trades women's lives for the appearance of moral purity.
The case against
The foetus has a serious claim to life that grows as it develops.
If the foetus is a potential or actual bearer of the right to life, then ending it requires very strong justification, and mere preference cannot suffice. This claim is why no legal system treats late-term abortion as casually as early termination, and it is the strongest reason to reject abortion "on demand" without limit.
Abortion for disability risks expressive harm and a slide toward eugenics.
Permitting termination specifically for foetal abnormality can signal that disabled lives are worth less, wounding disabled people and inviting selection on ever-widening grounds. The worry is not abstract: disability-rights advocates argue that the abnormality ground sends a message equality law otherwise forbids.
Health and autonomy grounds can be stretched until the limit is meaningless.
If "risk to mental health" or "autonomy" can justify almost any termination, then a regime of regulated exceptions collapses into abortion without limit by another name. Critics argue the line is illusory and the safeguards are not really enforced.
The argument, step by step
- Define "permitted" and "circumstances" so the question is about conditions and limits, not a yes/no verdict, and state the stance: permitted, but bounded.
- Establish the floor first: where life or grave health risk is at stake, an actual person's life outweighs a potential one, so abortion must be available (Abortion Act 1967).
- Ground the core of the permission in bodily autonomy before viability, using Thomson's violinist analogy and Article 8 ECHR, and explain why autonomy is decisive while the foetus is not yet independent.
- Add the justice case for rape and incest, distinguishing refusal of forced gestation from punishment of the foetus.
- Handle the two hardest grounds (severe abnormality and harm reduction), conceding the eugenics worry and answering it by confining the ground to non-viable or gravely suffering cases.
- Steel-man the foetal-rights objection and the "line is illusory" objection, then rebut: viability gives a principled, non-arbitrary threshold, and strict certification confines the exceptions.
- Bring comparative law to bear: the UK's bounded statutory scheme, Canada's autonomy-led settlement after Morgentaler and Tremblay v Daigle, and the ECHR's margin-of-appreciation approach in Vo and A, B and C v Ireland.
- Conclude: a proportionate, gestationally limited permission is the only position that respects both the woman as an actual rights-bearer and the foetus as a developing interest the law may legitimately protect.
The model plan
Stance up front: permitted, but in specified, safeguarded circumstances, not without limit. Intro (~90 words): reframe from "is abortion good?" to "under what conditions?"; define permitted, circumstances, viability; signpost four grounds plus the two hardest objections. Para 1 - life and health: actual life outweighs potential life; Abortion Act 1967 allows termination at any gestation to save life or prevent grave permanent injury; the law cannot compel martyrdom. Para 2 - autonomy before viability (the core): Thomson's violinist; the state compels no one to donate an organ; Article 8 ECHR; autonomy decisive while the foetus is not independent; viability gives the principled limit. Para 3 - rape and incest: refusal of forced gestation is not punishment of the foetus; consent withdrawn from the act cannot be imputed to its consequence. Para 4 - severe abnormality and harm reduction: confine the abnormality ground to non-viable/gravely suffering cases to answer the eugenics worry (concede it honestly); WHO data on unsafe abortion (>200/100,000). Objections + rebuttals: foetal-rights claim (answered by viability threshold) and "the line is illusory" (answered by strict certification). Comparative: UK bounded statute; Canada's Morgentaler (s.7 Charter) and Tremblay v Daigle (foetus no legal personality); ECHR Vo (when life begins is within the margin of appreciation) and A, B and C v Ireland (broad margin, but a procedural duty where life is at risk). Conclusion (~70 words): not prohibition, not unconditional licence, but proportionate, gestationally bounded permission - the only stance that respects the woman as an actual rights-bearer and the foetus as a protectable developing interest.
The model essay
The right question is not "is abortion good?" but "under what conditions should the law allow it, and what justifies the line?" Answered that way, the extremes both fail. A blanket ban sacrifices actual people to potential ones; an unconditional licence ignores that a developing foetus is an interest the law may legitimately protect. My stance is that abortion should be permitted, but in specified, safeguarded circumstances: to protect life and health, to respect autonomy before viability, where conception was non-consensual, and in cases of severe foetal abnormality.
The clearest case is risk to the woman's life or health. Where continuing a pregnancy threatens her life or risks grave, permanent injury, refusing termination compels her to bear a lethal or disabling burden for a being that is not yet a separate person in law. The UK Abortion Act 1967 reflects this, allowing termination at any gestation to save life or prevent grave permanent injury. To deny it is to ask the law to compel martyrdom, sacrificing an actual life to a potential one.
The core of the permission, however, rests on bodily autonomy. Forcing a woman to remain pregnant treats her body as a public resource. The law compels no parent to donate blood or an organ even to save a born child, and it cannot consistently compel nine months of reproductive gestation. Judith Jarvis Thomson's violinist analogy makes the point sharp: the right to life does not include a right to use another person's body without consent. Article 8 of the European Convention protects private life and bodily integrity, and before the foetus is viable and independent the woman's autonomy is decisive. This is why a defensible regime is gestationally bounded rather than open-ended: viability gives a principled, non-arbitrary threshold where the balance of claims genuinely shifts.
Non-consensual conception strengthens the case further. To force a woman to carry a pregnancy resulting from rape or incest layers a second, state-imposed harm onto the first. The foetus is innocent, but refusing to make a victim bear the lifelong consequences of a violation in her own body is not punishment of the foetus; consent withdrawn from the act cannot be imputed to its consequence.
The hardest grounds are severe abnormality and harm reduction, and honesty requires conceding the objection. Permitting abortion specifically for disability risks the expressive harm of suggesting disabled lives are worth less, and disability-rights advocates rightly resist any slide toward eugenics. The answer is to confine the ground narrowly, to cases where the foetus cannot survive or faces unavoidable, profound suffering such as anencephaly, rather than as a general filter. Harm reduction supplies an independent reason: prohibition does not end abortion but drives it underground, and the WHO finds that where unsafe abortion is common the death rate exceeds 200 per 100,000 procedures. A law indifferent to that reality trades women's lives for the appearance of purity.
Two objections must be met. First, that the foetus has a right to life that should bar termination. It is precisely because that interest grows with development that the permission is bounded at viability rather than unlimited; the line is drawn, not abandoned. Second, that "health" and "autonomy" can be stretched until the limit is meaningless. The reply is institutional: strict medical certification and gestational caps keep the exceptions exceptional, which is how a regulated regime differs in practice from abortion without limit.
Comparative law confirms that bounded permission is the workable settlement. The UK operates exactly such a statutory scheme. Canada, after R v Morgentaler struck down its criminal abortion law as a breach of security of the person under section 7 of the Charter, and after Tremblay v Daigle held that a foetus has no legal personality and a father no power to veto, settled on an autonomy-led model with no criminal prohibition. The European Court, by contrast, holds in Vo v France that the question of when life begins falls within each state's margin of appreciation, and in A, B and C v Ireland that the margin is broad, though even a restrictive state owes a procedural duty where the woman's life is at risk.
Abortion should therefore be permitted, but not without limit. A proportionate, gestationally bounded permission is the only position that respects the woman as an actual rights-bearer and the foetus as a developing interest the law may legitimately protect.
Authorities worth knowing
Abortion Act 1967 (as amended by the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 1990)
1967 c. 87, s.1(1) (Great Britain)
Abortion is lawful on certification by two registered medical practitioners: up to 24 weeks where continuing the pregnancy risks injury to the woman's (or her existing children's) physical or mental health (s.1(1)(a)); and at any gestation to prevent grave permanent injury to her health (s.1(1)(b)), where there is risk to her life (s.1(1)(c)), or where there is substantial risk of serious foetal abnormality (s.1(1)(d)).
Paton v United Kingdom
App no 8416/78, (1980) 3 EHRR 408 (European Commission of Human Rights, 13 May 1980)
A prospective father has no right under the Convention to be consulted on, or to veto, a lawful abortion; the foetus's Article 2 right (if any) is subject to an implied limitation balancing it against the woman's life and health, and her Article 8 interest prevails.
Vo v France
App no 53924/00, [2004] ECHR 326; (2005) 40 EHRR 12 (ECtHR, Grand Chamber, 8 July 2004)
The unborn child is not a "person" directly protected by Article 2 ECHR; because there is no European consensus on when life begins, that question falls within each state's margin of appreciation.
A, B and C v Ireland
App no 25579/05, [2010] ECHR 2032; (2011) 53 EHRR 13 (ECtHR, Grand Chamber, 16 December 2010)
States enjoy a broad margin of appreciation on the substance of abortion law, even against a European consensus toward broader access; but where domestic law does permit abortion (here, to save the woman's life), the state owes an effective procedural mechanism to determine that entitlement (Article 8 violation as to the third applicant).
R v Morgentaler
[1988] 1 SCR 30, 1988 CanLII 90 (SCC) (Supreme Court of Canada)
The Criminal Code's restrictive abortion procedure violated the right to security of the person under section 7 of the Canadian Charter, because its delays and barriers endangered women's health; the provision was struck down, leaving Canada with no criminal abortion law.
Tremblay v Daigle
[1989] 2 SCR 530, 1989 CanLII 33 (SCC) (Supreme Court of Canada)
A foetus has no legal personality in Canadian common law or Quebec civil law before live birth, and a prospective father cannot obtain an injunction to prevent his partner's abortion.
How the law frames it
United Kingdom
Great Britain permits abortion under the Abortion Act 1967 (as amended by the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 1990) on four statutory grounds: a 24-week limit where continuing the pregnancy risks injury to the woman's or her existing children's health (s.1(1)(a)), and no upper limit to prevent grave permanent injury to her health (s.1(1)(b)), where there is risk to her life (s.1(1)(c)), or substantial risk of serious foetal abnormality (s.1(1)(d)). Two doctors must certify the grounds. In Paton v UK the prospective father was held to have no veto. Northern Ireland decriminalised abortion in 2019 under section 9 of the Northern Ireland (Executive Formation etc) Act 2019, with regulations from 2020 allowing termination on request to 12 weeks and on broader grounds to 24 weeks.
Canada
Canada has no criminal law on abortion. In R v Morgentaler (1988) the Supreme Court struck down the Criminal Code's restrictive procedure as a breach of security of the person under section 7 of the Charter, because its delays endangered women's health. In Tremblay v Daigle (1989) the Court held that a foetus has no legal personality before live birth and that a prospective father cannot enjoin an abortion. The result is an autonomy-led settlement: abortion is treated as a medical decision for the woman, regulated as health care rather than by criminal limit, illustrating a permissive end of the spectrum.
ECHR
The European Court of Human Rights does not require states to permit abortion, but constrains how they regulate it. In Vo v France (2004) the Grand Chamber held that the unborn child is not a "person" under Article 2 and that the question of when life begins lies within each state's margin of appreciation. In A, B and C v Ireland (2010) it confirmed a broad margin even against a European consensus toward wider access, while holding that where domestic law does allow abortion the state must provide an effective procedure to vindicate that entitlement. The Convention thus tolerates a range of circumstance-based regimes rather than mandating one.
Counter-arguments and how to defeat them
Counter. The foetus has a right to life that should bar termination, or at least require a justification stronger than the woman's choice.
Rebuttal. The strength of the foetal interest is exactly why a defensible regime is bounded at viability rather than unlimited. Before viability the foetus is not an independent rights-bearer (Vo v France; Tremblay v Daigle), and even a right to life does not, as Thomson's violinist shows, include a right to use another's body. The line is drawn, not abandoned.
Counter. Permitting abortion for foetal abnormality expresses contempt for disabled lives and risks a eugenic slide.
Rebuttal. The worry is legitimate and the ground must be confined narrowly, to cases of non-viability or unavoidable profound suffering such as anencephaly, not used as a general filter. Sparing a doomed or gravely suffering existence is distinct from devaluing the lives of disabled people, whose equality is separately protected in law.
Counter. "Health" and "autonomy" are so elastic that a regime of exceptions is really abortion without limit by another name.
Rebuttal. The difference is institutional, not merely verbal. Two-doctor certification, defined statutory grounds and gestational caps keep the exceptions exceptional. Where those safeguards are weak the remedy is to enforce them, not to ban abortion and drive it into the unsafe sector the WHO documents.
Counter. If abortion can be justified at all, the father should at least share the decision since the foetus is equally his.
Rebuttal. Equal genetic contribution does not equal equal bodily burden. The pregnancy is carried in the woman's body, so the decisional weight tracks the burden, not the DNA. Paton v UK and Tremblay v Daigle both reject a paternal veto for precisely this reason.
Conclusion
The honest answer to "in what circumstances?" is a list, not a slogan. Abortion should be permitted to protect the woman's life and health, to respect her bodily autonomy before viability, where conception was non-consensual, and in cases of severe foetal abnormality, with the abnormality ground kept narrow and the whole scheme bounded by gestational limits and medical certification. Prohibition sacrifices actual people to potential ones and breeds unsafe procedures; an unconditional licence ignores a developing interest the law may legitimately protect. A proportionate, circumstance-based permission, the kind the UK codifies, Canada reaches through autonomy, and the ECHR tolerates within a margin of appreciation, is the only position that takes both the woman and the foetus seriously.
Evidence you can cite
- A review of maternal deaths from 2009-2020 found that 8% of maternal deaths were linked to abortion, and in regions where unsafe abortions are common the death rate exceeds 200 per 100,000 abortions, against fewer than 1 per 100,000 for safe abortion.World Health Organization, Abortion fact sheet — source
- Global estimates for 2010-2014 show that 45% of all induced abortions worldwide are unsafe, out of around 73 million induced abortions performed each year.World Health Organization, Abortion fact sheet — source
- In Great Britain the principal gestational limit for abortion on health grounds is 24 weeks, with no upper limit where the pregnancy threatens the woman's life, risks grave permanent injury to her health, or there is substantial risk of serious foetal abnormality.Abortion Act 1967, s.1(1) (as amended), legislation.gov.uk — source
Further reading
- Abortion Act 1967, s.1 (as amended) - the statutory grounds and gestational limits that define lawful abortion in Great Britain.
- Judith Jarvis Thomson, 'A Defense of Abortion' (1971) - the violinist analogy and the autonomy argument in its classic form.
- R v Morgentaler [1988] 1 SCR 30 - how a constitutional court reasoned from security of the person to striking down a restrictive abortion law.
- Vo v France (2004) and A, B and C v Ireland (2010) - the ECHR's margin-of-appreciation approach to when life begins and how states may regulate.
- WHO, Abortion fact sheet - the public-health data on unsafe abortion underlying the harm-reduction argument.