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Abortion on Demand The process of working in the team. The Preparation and the presentation of the debate, the problems and difficulties encountered and how these were solved by the team. I would like to start answering this question by introducing the topic. According to the law dictionary, abortion is a form of miscarriage, or the premature expulsion of the womb’s contents before the term of gestation is complete . In law this means the confinement of a pregnant woman at anything short of the full term, that is, her miscarriage. The 1967 Act made lawful the termination of a pregnancy by a registered medical practitioner, if two registered medical practitioners are of the opinion formed in good faith continuance of the pregnancy would involve a greater risk to the pregnant woman or to her children than if the pregnancy were terminated or if there is a substantial risk that if the child were born, it would be seriously handicapped by physical and mental abnormalities. A pregnancy may be lawfully terminated without taking the opinion of the two registered practitioners in case of an emergency, although evidence of professional practice and medical probabilities is necessary. In R v Smith it was stated that it is an indictable offence any pregnant woman unlawfully administer to herself any poison or other noxious substance, or unlawfully uses any instrument or other means with intent to procure her own miscarriage, or where any person unlawfully administer to or causes to be taken by any woman, whether pregnant or not any noxious thing with intent to procure her miscarriage or uses any instrument or other means with like intent . The process of working in the team and preparation of the debate/presentation There were eight people altogether that showed interest in this topic. The first meeting was held in on 19th February 2008 when the group was formed. The second meeting was held on 22nd of February 2008. At this session, we discussed the reasons why we chose the topic on Abortion, and the instruction for everyone was to research on the topic. We had our next meeting on 29th of February and the debate was structured at that meeting with an instruction for everyone to make his or her finding on the topic. On the 7th of March, the group was divided into 2 sub groups; one group was in support of abortion and the others on anti- abortion. Mini meeting was held in favour of abortion, at the meeting on 14th March, we exchanged ideas within sub-group and materials such as website to get information in favour of abortion. Every member in this group showed much interest on this topic. And we all exchange ideas at this meeting. On 5th meeting, we practiced the debate and we made correction to the area that was not up to the standard, for example, where the theories and cases were not mentioned. On the 28th March, which was the 6th of our meeting, the sub-group met again to discuss the issue of making the debate on theory and we also practiced on the debate as well. At the 7th meeting, the two groups met and we practiced the debate. Correction were made most especially to base the debate on theory. A meeting was also held on the 11th April, 2008, the two groups met to look into our and to make sure that our argument is based on theory and also we practiced the debate. On the 15th April, 2008, which was the date given to our group, we met two hours earlier before the time allocated for our debated to finalise on how to argue and how to start our debate. I found people the people in this group very cooperating. The Argument produced in the debate According to one of the argument from the anti-abortion, it was stated that abortion is a sin according to the word of God, and she based her argument on the natural law theory. She made mentioned that: God is the creator of the universe and everything physical and intellectual comes from God. She made her quote from the holy bible10 “which states that we ought to obey God rather than men” Philosopher Thomas Aquinas sees abortion as a sin before God. She also made mention that this natural law theory is related to the Catholic Church believe that life begins at conception, because that is when soul enter into the body. So by intentionally taking of an innocent human life is never a conscionable act. The opponent group based their argument on Mill’s approach that ‘the only purpose of which power can be rightfully exercised over any members of civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others’. 10. Holy Bible: Acts 29 In their argument, they used the theory of values and the right conduct, which Mill define as the idea that someone ought to do is an action that will provide the best consequences. They continue by saying that some people value a foetus and believed that their ends must be considered. Since the best consequences for all is considered, Mill believe this is an issue that concern the effects of a community by increasing and decreasing the population. The future happiness of the child combined with the estimated value of the effects on others is enough to prove that increasing any population on itself is a way to enhance the community as a whole. Looking at Rand Ayu approach whose philosophy objectivism helped found libertarian movement, in her article, “Man Rights”, she refer to the unborn child as non-living and said human being life begin at birth. By applying this to Mill’s harm principle, the principle states that, the only purposes for which pain can be rightfully exercised over any member of civilized community, against its will is to prevent harm to others. Therefore, if the life begins at birth, then the abortion is not doing any harm to the foetus. Another philosopher in the liberal perspective, Dworkin supported the morality of abortion. He put test as whether the foetus is viable independently of the woman who is carrying it. The liberal position is based on autonomy of woman in respect of their own bodies. From the Dworkin argument, he said the issue should be seen in terms of the sanctity or inviolability of every stage of every human life11. Referring to constitutional, Dworkin argued that the key question is not whether a foetus is constitutional person12. In the context of whether foetus has constitutional right of protection and the legislate of the law’s claim to be entitled to protect those interest to the detriment of another person, that is, the pregnant woman who is plainly a constitutional person. Dworkin distinguishes between the law asserting derivative claims and detached claims13. 11. Life Dominion 1993 p.238 12. Legal Theory p.226 13. What the Constitution says in Freedom’s Law: The Moral Reading of the American Constitution 1996 p.4