The View from the Classroom – Abortion

TrueTube films are designed for use in a number of ways. Some ideas of where this film could link to your curriculum are below:

AQA

Component 2: Thematic studies:Theme B: Religion & Human Life - The origins and value of human life - Religious teachings, beliefs and attitudes about abortion, including situations when the mother’s life is at risk.

Edexcel

Area of Study 1 - Section 4: Matters of Life and Death - Implications of the religious teachings about the value and sanctity of life for the issue of abortion.

OCR

Religion, philosophy and ethics in the modern world:Freedom of expression • Freedom of practice • Equality in society • The value of human life •Self-determination - Potential clashes between religious teachings and scientific development in medical ethics, including: • abortion

WJEC

PART B -Theme 1: Issues of Life and Death - The origin and value of human life

Eduqas

Component 1 (Route A):Religious, Philosophical and Ethical Studies in the Modern World: Theme 2: Issues of Life and Death: The origin and value of human life.

The View from the Classroom – Abortion

An abortion is a removal of a foetus.

A foetus is a developing unborn child.

So the law says about abortion that you have to have two doctors approval.

An abortion is only legal up to 24 weeks.

Personally, I believe it should be more like 5 to 10 weeks because, sort of at 24 weeks, the child's already started to properly develop into a person.

If a pregnancy is 40 weeks and then 24 weeks is just a bit over halfway, then a baby who's after that point will have developed most of the way and could be seen as a person.

I think it should be lengthened a bit because it's a really big decision. It's life changing and to me, 24 weeks in the grand scheme of things is nothing. So I think it should be lengthened to give people more time to think about what they really, really want and to consider different options.

But if it was longer, it might be more difficult for the person who is having the baby and it could hurt them more. The operation and stuff could be more difficult to do.

Well, at the core of it, just deciding that I don't want the child is essentially murder in a sense of that, you just deciding that you want to end the life of this child because it'd be an inconvenience to you.

I don't think abortion is murder as such. It's more like the baby hasn't been born, so if it can't survive out of the mother's womb, then you can't really be murdered, can it? Because the baby would die. Like anyway.

If you define as being life, I suppose you'd have to consider it being the same as a full a fully grown human. So I don't go as far as say it's murder, but it's, to me, you'd have to consider it to be the same thing.

I don't see it as killing personally, because it hasn't lived, it's not, it won't remember because the memory isn't developed then. So no, I don't see it as killing.

Well, but in the pregnancy, the baby is moving and you can kick and stuff, so it kind of is alive.

Is a foetus in the womb, a living thing, or is it, does it become alive when it's born?

Personally, I believe life starts when a baby is born.

I think life begins when, like the child is born, when it comes into the world.

That's when you can see the the child, hold the child, and then you can realise that that child is yours and then has its own rights.

I think really the life starts after you're born.

I think life begins when you have a heartbeat. Just because you're not born yet doesn't mean that you're not alive.

I think that life begins when, if, when the baby can survive without the mother's help, so it could, it could be born early and it could be like, maybe put in, like an incubator and it could survive.

I definitely don't think life starts right at conception where the sperm meets the egg. I think it's probably when the baby becomes self-aware and starts sucking its thumb.

If it can kick, that means it's alive.

To me, when that sperm touches the egg that is a baby, to me, that is a life to me already. Like, I believe in, like the body and the soul as two separate things, so that is a soul in there already, to me.

I believe life begins when the sperm meets the egg.

Even though it's not really breathing and everything on its own. It's still alive and it's still growing. And that's the living thing.

I think it's still life because you're still being created. You're in the process of becoming someone.

What makes the difference between a minute before it's born and a minute after it's born?

I would think a religious person would say that it's, it's a God's choice who's born and who's not. So, I can't just change God's decision.

Catholics believe sex is for procreation, and if you are to have sex, then you should allow whatever the outcome is. And have an abortion means that you're stopping, like, God's way.

Playing God is like someone does something and, like, it's like they're doing something that's not natural.

To me life comes from God, and he puts people on the Earth for reasons, to help other people, to make the world a better place.

We shouldn't get the choice to choose who lives and who dies, because ultimately it isn't up to us.

It's linked in with the sanctity of life. In essence, that life is so precious to us.

God created children like babies for a reason, and he created everyone for a reason.

What I believe is that life has a meaning behind it.

When we were growing up, we were taught that God is the one that gives us life, and God is the one that takes away life.

Islam thinks that abortions are murder most of the time. However, if it's for the greater good, for example, if the mother was to be ill, if she had the child, then it's allowed to have an abortion.

Usually Sikhs are pro-life and they would say to, go to not, um, abort.

Pro-Life is when someone believes that the woman should not have the choice to have an abortion because-

the foetus has the right to live.

Pro-Choice is when you think that a woman should have a decision in whether she has a child or not.

Abortion shouldn't be used as a form of contraception because there's already a living life form, whereas contraception is used to prevent a living life form from being created.

I feel like if you don't want to get pregnant, then try not to get pregnant. Don't just be like, oh, I'll have an abortion.

If a teenager or someone in a relationship get pregnant unplanned and they abort it, it's bad because they should have planned ahead instead of killing the, like, baby that's not even been born yet.

I think, like, abortion shouldn't be allowed. If you can't take care of your baby, then you should put them up for adoption.

I think it's a bit selfish for you to decide that you're going to abort a child just because you don't want it.

I think it's fundamentally wrong because it is killing a new life, and I don't think, I don't think that's okay, except in some cases you need to.

Such as in the cases of, um, incest, rape, or in the case of when the child will be born, it will either result in the death of the mother or the child.

I think it depends on the situation. Like if the, like, mother was too young or wasn't healthy to give birth, then it should be allowed to have an abortion.

I think that a woman should have the right to decide whether she wants to abort.

I think that abortion should be totally the woman's choice, because it's her that's going to have to carry it, her that is going to have to actually give birth to it.

I think most of the time, yeah, it should be the woman's choice because she's the one giving up her body and she's the one going through all these changes. And although a man might say that they can understand it, they really can't, and even other women can't understand it until they've been through it themselves.

I don't think anyone should be able to stop someone from doing it, because it's their decision and it's their body.

You shouldn't choose if other people should have an abortion. If you're against it, don't abort your own children. Simple as that.