Lesson video

Hello, I'm Miss Kendrick.

And I've been teaching all the lessons in these matters of life and death unit.

If you've been taking part in them, in this lesson we're going to be looking at a religious and non-religious responses to abortion.

So we're going to be looking at the UK law on abortion.

Why are we might choose to have one and Christian, Islamic and humanist views.

Now, some people this is going to be a sensitive topic as we're going to be talking about the termination of a pregnancy.

So if that applies to you, you may want to do the rest of the lesson with a trusted adult nearby who can support.

For this lesson you're going to need a pen or pencil, a different coloured pen or pencil, and some paper to write your answers on as well.

So if you don't already have those things in strategy you can pause the video now quickly and run get them, and just make sure that you're in a good working environment, turn off any music or the TV.

If you're doing less on your phone, turn off your notifications.

So you're not getting distracted by messages or things like that.

So there's an opportunity for you to pause the video and do all of those things now.

So we're going to start by recapping some key concepts that are going to be relevant to this lesson.

So the first three we're looking at are all ethical theories.

So the first one is the sanctity of life.

So the sanctity of life is an ethical theory that is usually a religious theory and Muslims and Christians will both agree with the idea of the sanctity of life, because it says that human life is special.

It's sacred because it's created by God.

And for evidence with this belief, you can look at the creation verses in the Qur'an or the creation narrative in the Bible, in which mankind is made in an intimate, special way and sort of soul or life is breathed into Adam.

One slight difference between Islam and Christianity when it comes to sanctity of life, is that Christians believe that humans are made in God's image whereas Muslims do not believe that.

Another aspect of it is that Christians believe that Jesus died for humans and for human sin.

And that would be another reason why life is valuable in Christianity.

Next we'll have a quick recap of utilitarianism.

So utilitarianism is a non-religious ethical theory, which argues that the right action to do in a situation is that which will bring about the most happiness for the majority of people.

And this is very focused on consequences rather than the actions themselves.

So that's going to mean that there's no overrule rules about, things are always going to be right, or always going to be wrong in certain situations, which might be the case for some religious views, which talk about laws, like do not murder.

They might say, well, that rule should be held in place in any situation.

Whereas utilitarianism might say, well, if it's going to bring about a huge good to a huge number of people to murder one person, then it might argue that that should be done.

One of the challenges of utilitarianism is that you can't always predict consequences.

I'm sure we've all had things where we thought something was going to make us happy.

Maybe a certain present we thought we wanted or an activity we wanted to do, and then it's turned out it's not made us happy at all.

So this is going to be one of the challenges of utilitarianism.

How do we know for sure what is going to make people happy? Next we're recapping situation ethics.

So this is a Christian ethical theory, and this is based on the Christian teaching from Jesus, which says, "Love your neighbour as yourself." So this ethical theory says that every situation is different.

And in each situation you should do the thing that's going to be the most loving for the people involved.

And so sometimes in similar situations, which have some differences, you might do different things and decide that that is right, depending on what's going to be most loving.

Then the important thing to be aware of with situation ethics is that lots of Christians actually reject it.

So most Christians would argue that love should be used as a guide for what is the right thing to do.

But the problem with just using love and detaching it from other Christian teachings in the Bible is that love is actually very subjective.

What one person thinks is loving might not seem loving at all to somebody else.

And this is going to be quite challenged when deciding what is the best thing to do.

Also many Christians would argue that it doesn't fit well with other Christian teachings such as do not murder.

If situation ethics says, well, it's going to be most loving in a situation to take a life.

Then that seems to contradict other Christian teachings about not taking life.

So that is one challenge of situation ethics.

So not all Christians are going to follow it.

I find that we've got the idea of quality of life.

So if somebody is considered to have a good quality of life, or someone says themselves that they've got a good quality of life, but generally means that they're able to live their life with dignity, that they enjoy their life, that they have everything that they need.

They have their basic needs being met.

Whereas a bad quality of life might mean that somebody is experiencing day to day suffering.

Perhaps they're not able to get up and walk around or to go out to places.

Maybe, they're going to be really limited and the things they can do or eat, and maybe they are in pain all the time.

So quality of life is going to be a big factor for many people when deciding, especially for utilitarianism and situation ethics, what's going to make people most happy because people might argue, if someone's got bad quality of life, then they're not going to be happy.

And what's going to be the most loving thing to do.

Some of my argue that, well, if you make a decision, that's going to result in someone having a bad quality of life, then that's not loving.

Next is I haven't linked it to sanctity of life in the same way.

And we'll look a little bit at why that is later on in the lesson.

But for now, you're going to pause the video and you're going to answer some questions on these key concepts to show that you can understand them.

So to talk about religious responses to your abortion and whether or not it is considered ethical, we need to know what it is and what the law is on abortion in the UK.

So abortion is the deliberate termination of a pregnancy.

And under UK law, an abortion is legal.

It was legalised in the UK in 1967.

And currently in the UK is possible to get an abortion up to 24 weeks into a pregnancy.

Abortions after 24 weeks are legal in the following circumstances.

So firstly, if continuing the pregnancy risks the life of the mother.

Two, if continuing the pregnancy risks, serious physical or mental damage to the mother, or three, if the unborn baby is likely to be born with serious physical or mental handicaps.

So why 24 weeks? Why is it that unless a mother is likely to have serious health issues, if she continues the pregnancy up to 24 weeks or if it turns out that the baby is likely to be born with severe disabilities, why is it that the cutoff point for most abortions is 24 weeks? Well, pregnancy is usually last nine months or 40 weeks and a baby is considered preterm if they are delivered before 37 weeks, so if they're more than about three weeks early, extremely preterm infants are born at 23 through 28 weeks.

So what we can see and what we know is that lots of babies who are born as early as 24 weeks do survive.

So if a baby is born at 23 weeks, they have a 50% chance of survival.

And this goes up by each week and therefore many people would argue that is wrong to have an abortion after the point of 24 weeks, because they say, what if the baby was to be born at that point, then the likelihood is that they would survive.

And so that is one reason why 24 weeks is the cutoff point.

Another one would be that the many people would say that the earlier a woman has an abortion, the better that's going to be for her health as well.

And in terms of the mental health issues that are going to be brought up by having an abortion, it can be quite traumatic if it's a late term abortion for that woman.

And this is because of how abortions take place.

I'm not going to go into much detail at all here, but a woman may seek an abortion through her doctor or through an independent abortion provider.

And up to nine weeks drugs would be given to cause the womb to give up the embryo.

Now, after this, it becomes a bit more invasive.

So after nine weeks, the woman would need to have a procedure to have the embryo removed.

And after 20 weeks, drugs are used to bring about an early birth.

Now in 2019, there were 207,384, abortions women resident in England and Wales, the highest number since the abortion act was introduced.

And what we've actually seen is quite a dramatic increase in number of abortions in recent years in the last 10 years or so.

But what we're going to do in a minute is we're going to think about some of the reasons why a woman might seek to have an abortion.

But before we do that, we're going to have an opportunity to pause.

So you can answer some questions about the law in the UK.

And we're also going to think about what are some of the key challenges when deciding whether or not abortion is ethical.

So before we look at some reasons why a woman might request to have an abortion, we're going to look at some of the key challenges when deciding whether or not abortion is ethical.

I've got about a four that we're going to talk about, but I'm not covering everything.

So be aware that there may be other challenges out there, but we're just going to look four of the main ones.

So one of the first ones, and one of the biggest challenges is when does life begin? When is somebody considered a human life? And this is impossible to say, for sure it could be at conception or perhaps the first heartbeat.

Is it when there are brainwaves when the baby is viable? So that means if the baby was born with it, it would be able to survive or would it be at birth? And what are the challenges here as well is that our technology is getting so, so good.

Preterm babies are surviving more and more and more, whereas in the past they probably wouldn't have survived.

And if they were born as early as 24 weeks.

And so as we're seeing babies being able to survive earlier and earlier, it really does push this question of when does life begin? Different religions views are going to have different attitudes, as well as humanist as well.

For Roman Catholics they would usually say that life begins at conception and many other Christian groups agree as well.

Whereas in Islam, they would say ensoulment happens at 120 days, which is around four months.

So ensoulment is the idea that that is the point at which that child gets its soul and becomes a full human.

And so some Muslims would argue that before 120 days, abortion is more acceptable.

Whereas afterwards, after 120 days, they might say that it's not acceptable, but there's going to be a huge variety of opinion about when life begins.

The key thing to remember is that we cannot know for sure.

Secondly, we've got sort of two questions that are joined to one another.

What are the rights of an unborn child? Does a child in the womb have the same rights as a, we called baby, or as an adult, for example.

And linked to this, what are the rights of a woman over her body? If a baby that is not yet fully developed, not yet reached full term is 100% dependent on their mother to grow and to survive.

Then could you argue that actually it is the mother's choice, whether or not that pregnancy continues.

And this is an idea that really underpins their pro-choice movement, which argues that it is always a woman's right to choose what happens to her body and that she should not have to be subject to laws, which are often decided by men or historically have been decided by men.

Many feminists have argued that it is a woman's right to decide what happens with her body.

And therefore it's a woman's right to decide whether or not she continues a pregnancy.

Finally, this question of what do we mean by quality of life? So I've already explained a little bit to you about what quality of life means, but the thing is quality of life is really subjective.

This means different people are going to have very different views on what is a good quality of life and what is a bad quality of life.

So for example, often people who have not experienced disability or longterm illness assume that those who are living with a disability or a life limiting illness, they often assume they have a lower quality of life, that they enjoy life less.

However, surveys have often show that when people with disabilities or limiting illnesses are asked, they often report that they have a high quality of life.

They don't enjoy life any less than anybody else.

And I'm sure we've all met somebody who seems to be miserable all the time, even though on the surface of it, they've got everything they need.

They've got food, money, friends, et cetera, but they might not enjoy life very much.

So that's going to be something that's very subjective and really unpredictable as well.

When you're considering the life of an unborn child, you don't know what sort of personality they'll have.

If that child is likely to have a disability, it might be that they would consider themselves to have a great quality of life or not.

You can't predict that before a child is born.

In addition to this, many would argue that aborting a foetus, which is showing signs of having a disability is an act of discrimination.

So an example of this is the debate surrounding testing for down syndrome.

So it's common practise for pregnant women to undergo a test, which will show whether or not their baby has down syndrome.

And when they are tested positive, then women are often offered abortion.

Now some campaigners argue that education about down syndrome needs to be improved.

And that people with down syndrome generally live very happy lives, are able to contribute towards society And are just as valuable as any other human.

and therefore many campaigners say that the fact that a foetus that tests positive for down syndrome can be aborted right up to full term.

They would say that that isn't active discrimination.

And that that tells people with down syndrome that their lives are less valuable than life of somebody who doesn't have down syndrome.

So this is going to be raising some really big questions about human rights.

Who's entitled to human rights and what is discrimination when it comes to aborting foetuses and things like that.

So I've talked about lots of these key challenges, but I'm going to get you to do is write down a couple of these key challenges.

And I also want you to think about why might a woman request to have an abortion.

It's a really big and serious decision for any woman who has to make it.

It's not something that people enter into life lightly, and therefore there's going to be some pretty powerful reasons behind why many people argue that abortion should be legally available to women.

I hope you got on and you're okay with your mind map.

I've got a few reasons why a woman might seek to have an abortion.

I'm going to talk through some of them.

And like I've said before, I'm not going to be covering every single reason as I go through this list.

Firstly, a woman might seek an abortion because the mother is underaged.

So especially if somebody is very young, maybe only 14 or 15, then the mother might think that they are not ready to have a baby.

It's going to have a huge impact on their education and things like that.

And so they might request an abortion.

Also if the mother is the victim of an assault, so many people would argue, well, it was not that woman's choice to become pregnant.

And that it would be a huge emotional strain to carry the child of someone who had attacked her.

And therefore many people would say it would be most loving to allow them women in that situation to have an abortion.

It might be that the mother is concerned that she'll be unable to provide for the baby.

Now that could be for several reasons that might be financially.

And perhaps she's worried about the cost of raising a child.

It might be that the woman has poor mental health and feels that she would be unable to give stability to that child or that she might not have the support she needs to raise that child.

Another reason would be because the woman's life is at risk or perhaps her long-term health would be at risk.

So in these situations, many people would argue, it would be the lesser of two evils to have an abortion in that scenario.

It could be because the baby is likely to be disabled.

And the parents believe that their child would have a very poor quality of life.

And this is often in the case of very severe disabilities, or if the baby is very unlikely to survive longer than a few days or a week, if they are born with a severe disability, or finally, simply if the pregnancy is unplanned for that woman, it might not be the right time for them to become a mother or to have another child.

They might not want children at all, or they might want children at different stage in their life.

Again, there are so many different reasons why a woman might seek an abortion.

So before we do a task, I'm just going to give you a specific example of why it might be necessary for pregnancy to be terminated.

So an ectopic pregnancy is when a fertilised egg implants itself outside of the womb.

Usually in one of the fallopian tubes, if an egg gets stuck in them, it will not develop into a baby.

And the mother's health may be at risk if the pregnancy continues.

And in these cases, unfortunately, it's not possible to save the pregnancy.

And it usually has to be removed using medicine or an operation.

In the UK, around 1 in every 80-90 pregnancies are ectopic.

And this is around 12,000 pregnancies a year.

Now, one of the reasons why this example is so powerful is because it shows us that there are some circumstances in which the termination of a pregnancy seems to be the only option.

And many women who have had ectopic pregnancies 100% wanted to have that baby and would have been absolutely devastated to find out that it would not be possible.

And so it's partly in here as an example, just to show number one, it's always going to be a huge challenge for a woman to make this decision.

And it also shows that in some circumstances, the woman might not want an abortion at all, but for the sake of her health and in the knowledge that in these situations, the baby wouldn't survive anyway, then it would be a necessary procedure.

So what we're going to do next is we're going to pause.

You're going to write down a couple of reasons why a woman might have an abortion.

And I want you to choose the ones that you think are the most understandable reasons why someone might choose to have an abortion.

I also want you to think about whether there are any situations in which you do not think it is ethical for a woman to have an abortion.

And this is your own opinion.

You might say that there's no situation where a woman should not be allowed to have an abortion, or you might say it's always ethical.

You might say, it's always that woman's choice.

Or you might think, well in certain situations, actually, it's not ethical.

And you're also going to answer a question about ectopic pregnancy as well.

Okay, so here's just a moment for you to check your answers on ectopic pregnancy.

Because the other two questions were your own opinion.

So pause video now, so you can just check your answer.

So it was just going to have a quick outline of two Christian responses to abortion.

Then we're going to look at each of these and in more detail.

So first they've got the sanctity of life.

So I've already recapped the sanctity of life.

And the theory that says human life is sacred as it's created by God.

And this means that many Christians would say that it's wrong to take human life and so Christianity follows sanctity of life are likely to say that abortion is always wrong.

And we've also got situation ethics as well, which says that we should do the most loving thing in each particular situation.

So let's look at each of these in more detail.

So Roman Catholic Christians are against abortion due to the sanctity of life.

And I've got three quotations here that support that view.

We firstly got, "Let us make man in our image." This is the belief that humans are made in the image of God.

And therefore it's always wrong to take an innocent life.

Secondly, "You created every part of me," "You put me together in my mother's womb." And some translations say, "You knit me together in my mother's womb." Now this is showing the belief that God intimately creates each person whilst they are still in the womb.

And so it supports the idea that a foetus that's not yet being born is a fully human life being created by God.

And so that supports the view of sanctity of life.

And finally, we've got the commandment, "Do not murder." So if Christians believe that the unborn foetus is human has been created by God in God's image, then they might consider abortion to be murder, which is quite a strong way of putting it.

But that is how many Christians feel about abortion.

And again, this is partly because of the belief that life begins at conception.

So you're going to pause your video and you're going to answer some questions on this view.

So let's begin to look at situations ethics.

So some Christians will accept a portion in some circumstances due to situation ethics, and be aware where I say some circumstances, just like I asked you earlier, for your opinion about, are there any circumstances in which you would say abortion is not the right thing, then situation ethics.

It will still draw a line.

It's not necessarily going to say that any situation that abortion is acceptable.

And a situation ethics is based on the teaching from Jesus to love your neighbour as yourself.

So for example, the church of England says that the number of abortions carried out since the passage of the abortion act in 1967 is unacceptably high.

So we could say that many Christians who follow situation ethics would argue that in those extreme cases where the child is not expected to live very long, where the mother's life or health is severely at risk, then they might argue that abortion is acceptable in those circumstances, they might include if the mother is underaged or if the woman's the victim of a sexual assault.

But they might not allow other reasons because they might say that if you include lots of other reasons as well, then the number of abortions increases dramatically.

And they would say, well, that is not a loving thing to do.

So we're going to pause for now and you are going to give the view from situation ethics about abortion.

So we're going to have a look at Islam and also humanism.

And then we're going to do some practise questions as well.

So Muslims will also generally be against abortion due to the sanctity of life.

And we've got this quotation here, which says, "Do not kill your children for fear of poverty," "we provide for them and for you." "Indeed their killing is ever a great sin." Now this next to a historical practise where in the past, when people were unable to care for a child, or if the baby looked like it was unlikely to survive, they might have abandoned that child or even killed that baby, or, you know, left it's died from exposure.

Now in that, in the UK, that's obviously illegal.

But in the past, when people were going to have reliable contraceptives and where they were much more likely to be affected by things like famine, then people did practise that.

And Islam spoke out against it and said that that was not something that people should do.

And it says that this is because Allah is the provider.

Allah will provide for people, everything that they need.

The Qur'an teachers that life should be valued and therefore abortion is generally haram.

Which means forbidden.

However, they would permit abortion in some circumstances.

So for example, if the baby would have a very poor quality of life or if the mother is likely to have serious health issues or even die because of the pregnancy, then abortion might be seen as the lesser of two evils.

And this is a really important phrase because it's still saying that abortion is wrong, but it's saying it's not as wrong as allowing the mother to die, for example.

So that phrase lesser of two evils, make sure you know it, and in a minute, we'll pause so that you can answer some questions on the Islamic view.

But first we're going to look at the humanist view on abortion.

So humanists will usually be pro-choice.

And this means that they believe that it is the mother's right to choose what happens to her body.

And remember humanism is a non-religious view.

So they don't have the idea of human life being valuable because it's created in the image of God or created by God.

They don't have this idea of rules from God about murder, but they do argue that human life is valuable because humans are rational because humans can care for one another, live in community and make a difference to the world, all of those reasons.

But they're going to use utilitarianism as a guide, which says, "Do the greatest good" "for the greatest number of people." Now, many humanists would argue that it's better for women to have access to safe abortions.

This is because we can see historically in places where abortion has been illegal.

Then women have often in desperation sorts what's called a backstreet abortion.

So gone to somebody, who's not a doctor who's promised that they can terminate their pregnancy.

But these have been very, very dangerous and women have often died from it because people don't have the medical knowledge to really carry out what they're promising.

So therefore many humanists would argue that it's better for society as a whole to have access to safe and legal abortions.

And also they would say that it's better in terms of the happiness for the majority of people do not have lots and lots of women who are having babies against their will.

So for example, those women who've been assaulted.

Then a humanist might argue, well, that's not bringing about the greatest good for the greatest number of people.

The greatest happiness, if those people, those women who've been assaulted are forced to have the baby of the person who's assaulted them.

So they're going to have happiness as a guide in this.

However, again, many humanists might argue that it is good to minimise how many abortions take place where possible due to the physical and emotional impact on women.

So many women after having an abortion really struggled with that mental health because of it.

Now, humanist would say that one of the best ways to reduce the number of abortions is not to put more restrictions on abortion itself, but to make sure there's better education about things like contraception.

So that would be one way in which humanists and religious groups as well, may aim to lower the number of abortions each year.

So we're going to pause our videos right now.

So you can answer some questions based on Islamic and humanist views on abortion.

We're going to finish this lesson by practising and explain the question.

And this one says, "Explain two contrasting beliefs about abortion?" So that means that they need to be different.

They need to be in full sentences.

And in your answer, you must name the religion you were talking about.

I cannot stress that enough.

So if you're talking about Christianity, say Christians believe, if you're talking about Islam say Muslim belief or in Islam it says.

You should make a point and then explain it.

So you need to develop your answer.

And in this case, we are needing to add detail about Christian and Muslim beliefs about abortion and the value of life.

This is because this question asks specifically for religious views.

So you're not going to be talking about humanism in this question.

So we're going to start by doing a quick mind map of what you can remember from this lesson so far.

What do you miss them say about abortion? What do Christians say about it? Can you include any verses to backup what you're saying? This question isn't asking specifically for scripture verses, but it doesn't hurt to throw the mem if you've got them.

Okay.

So here's my mind map of lots of different things we've looked at today.

So we've got some reasons why women might seek an abortion.

For example, cases where the mother is underaged or the victim of assault.

We've got the Roman Catholic view that life begins at conception and say they're going to be against abortion.

We've got the idea of being pro-choice that women have control over their bodies.

The idea from Islam that abortion might be the lesser of two evils in some situations, the physical and emotional effects of abortion on women.

The teaching from Islam of do not kill your children for fear of poverty and also health issues like ectopic pregnancies.

So we've got lots of different examples and things in here.

You need to choose a specific religious view.

And some of the other things you could use to help explain your answer.

So for example, you might say, well, in the case of an ectopic pregnancy, abortion is the lesser of two evils.

So I'm going to give you a moment, that's pause video, answer the question, and then we'll go through a central answer for you.

So this is my model answer.

You can check your answer against mine.

You might have chosen to put some slightly different views to me.

That's absolutely fine.

What you want to be looking out for is that you've got a clear point, you've got a clear explanation and that you've been really specific.

Try not to be vague in your answer.

So for example, you need to name the religion you're talking about.

Name any ethical theories you're talking about and be really clear about religious teachings as well.

So Roman Catholics are against abortion as they believe life begins at conception.

Therefore they believe abortion goes against the command, "Do not murder." However, Muslims believe that in some circumstances, abortion is the lesser of two evils.

For example, if the mother's life was at risk, they would say that it would be better to allow an abortion to save her life.

So pause the video so you can check your answers against mine.

Again, make sure you got clear point, clear explanation.

If yours is much, much shorter than mine.

I think you need to add some things.

If it's much, much longer, think about how do you really concise in your answer.

Have you just said what you need to say or have you rambled a little bit.

Always avoid rambling too much in your answers.

Thank you so much for all of your hard work when looking at quite challenging topic in this lesson.

I hope that you've got a good understanding of all these different views that we've looked at, and it just is a complicated topic.

So that's fine.

That it's complicated.

Just make sure you know lots of those reasons from different groups about why it might be considered acceptable and why isn't.

And just make sure you're not getting them mixed up with each other either.

Thanks again, for all of your work, you can now do the exit quiz.