https://doi.org/10.4081/mem.1992.1090
Recurrent spontaneous abortion. Scientific aspects and moral obligations
All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.
Authors
Although the Iiterature on the morality of abortion is extensive, the debate almost always refers to the induced abortion. Little is said, however, about the moral relevance of spontaneous abortion, that is the termination of the pregnancy regardless of the woman's will and whether or not she even knows she is pregnant. The authors first present a medical account of recurrent spontaneous abortion: the incidence, aetiology and treatment. They present the protocol followed at the Department of obstetrics and gynecology of the Catholic University in Rome, where some of them work. They then discuss the moral significance of spontaneous abortion and examine it in the light of the two major opposing claims regarding the morality of induced abortion. In the authors' view it is unacceptable to make an identification between events in nature and moral precepts, so the existence of diseases in nature (which is what spontaneous abortion is) does not mean that one is obliged to induce them. In other words, the appeal to nature as foundation for a kind of natural moral law does not derive from the simple observation of phenomena in nature but from the concept of human nature. Taking into consideration the respect due to human life from the moment of the fertilization, the authors conclude that one is morally obliged to try and prevent spontaneous abortion as well as to research new ways of detecting conception immediately since it is. Any evasion of these responsabilities might result in morally culpable negligence of "spontaneous" abortion.
How to Cite
PAGEPress has chosen to apply the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC 4.0) to all manuscripts to be published.
An Open Access Publication is one that meets the following two conditions:
- the author(s) and copyright holder(s) grant(s) to all users a free, irrevocable, worldwide, perpetual right of access to, and a license to copy, use, distribute, transmit and display the work publicly and to make and distribute derivative works, in any digital medium for any responsible purpose, subject to proper attribution of authorship, as well as the right to make small numbers of printed copies for their personal use.
- a complete version of the work and all supplemental materials, including a copy of the permission as stated above, in a suitable standard electronic format is deposited immediately upon initial publication in at least one online repository that is supported by an academic institution, scholarly society, government agency, or other well-established organization that seeks to enable open access, unrestricted distribution, interoperability, and long-term archiving.
Authors who publish with this journal agree to the following terms:
- Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal.
- Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.
- Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work.