Contraception and abortion

Contraception and abortion

Contraception and abortion are sometimes linked together, but they are actually very different issues.

Most people think that there is an important moral difference between not starting a life and ending a life. As one philosopher puts it:

In the case of abortion a pregnancy has begun, and there is something - a foetus - that will suffer harm if it is aborted.

Birth control operates before pregnancy begins, and until the sperm fertilises the egg there is nothing that is going to suffer loss and so the issue is very different from the case of abortion. (And since the egg and sperm would cease to exist whether fertilisation takes place or not, they can't be said to suffer loss, either.)

Non-religious arguments about birth control are therefore concerned only with the rights of the parents and with the consequences for those parents and for society in general. The issue of possibly killing a person, and of the rights of the mother versus the rights of the foetus, which dominate the topic of abortion, do not arise.

Do contraceptives cause abortions?

Some methods of contraception act after the egg has been fertilised but before a pregnancy has become established.

Some people regard this as a very early abortion, and describe such techniques as "abortifacient". People who object to all forms of abortion regard such contraceptive techniques as morally wrong.

There are particular problems with the "morning-after pill", a form of emergency contraception which many people consider a potential form of abortion.

Morning-after pills are high-dose birth control pills. They work in various ways; by stopping eggs being released, inhibiting sperm or preventing the implantation of a fertilised egg. The last of these methods of operation is regarded as an abortion by some people.

When a woman uses an emergency contraceptive, neither she nor the doctor can know whether the technique works as a contraceptive to prevent fertilisation, or terminates the development of the fertilised egg. The risk of abortion leads opponents of abortion to object to these techniques.

Some IUDs can also work by preventing the implantation of a fertilised egg - these have also been criticised as possibly abortifacient.

The ethical debate on this issue centres on whether a pregnancy begins at fertilisation or at a later stage of the reproductive timetable.

This problem does not occur in those cultures where abortion is viewed as a form of contraception to be used if other methods fail.

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• Abortion