Summary
The recent ruling that the Supreme Court issued in regard to Roe v. Wade has affected the entire country, leaving women deprived of one of their basic rights. The court decision in question implied that the right to abortion should not be provided to all women on a countywide scale, but, instead, should be decided in each state individually (Judson & Harrison, 2019). The specified outcome has understandably led to the assumption that women’s rights to have an abortion will be immediately curtailed by a range of states. Thus, the law has left very few options for a woman to manage her reproductive rights and health (Judson & Harrison, 2019). Though the issue can be approached from different ethical perspectives, women’s right to bodily autonomy having been infringed upon cannot be doubted, which is why further legal action must be taken to address the situation.
Principles of Healthcare Ethics
The standards of ethics in healthcare are quite numerous and complex. However, among all concepts to be considered when evaluating the outcomes of Roe v. Wade repeal as it is represented by Suliman (2022), the notions of beneficence and nonmaleficence must be applied. Specifically, the principle of nonmaleficence dictates that the process of decision-making in the clinical setting must be defined by the need to minimize possible harm done to the patient or, if possible, avoid it completely. In turn, the notion of beneficence as an ethical standard implies that every decision of a healthcare expert in the clinical setting must be made with the patient’s best interests in mind (Judson & Harrison, 2019). The concepts of beneficence and nonmaleficence might seem similar enough to conflate or to assume one of them being redundant, yet the presence of both is vital for healthcare ethics. Specifically, while beneficence ensures that all decisions must be patient-oriented, nonmaleficence helps make these decisions devoid of any possible threats to the patient’s well-being. Therefore, both beneficence and nonmaleficence must be integrated into the framework of managing patients’ needs.
Theory Application
To understand the legitimacy of women’s plight in the case under analysis and the importance of introducing another policy that creates opportunities for reproductive health management for women, one should apply the technological value theory. The theoretical premise in question suggests that the outcome should become the core rationale for decision-making and the main premise on which legal standards should be built (Judson & Harrison, 2019). Applying the specified theoretical perspective to the case under analysis will demonstrate that the overturn of Roe v. Wade has removed essential healthcare protections from women, therefore, subjecting them to multiple adverse health-related outcomes.
Due to its infringement on the rights of women to bodily autonomy, the idea of forced birth introduced as a law implies inflicting extraordinarily negative outcomes on women. Justifications for the specified sentiment include the instances of complicated pregnancy where the life of a mother may be at risk and the situation in which a woman is unable to care for the child. Moreover, significantly more drastic scenarios such as pregnancy caused by rape must be taken into account. Therefore, from an ethnical standpoint, specifically, the technological value theory perspective, the Supreme Court’s decision as it is represented in the Washington Post article is completely misaligned with healthcare ethics and legal ethics (Markus & Wolfe, 2020). Thus, the current regulation needs to be addressed, with women’s protections as they are guarantee by law being reinstated.
References
Markus, S., & Wolfe, C. (2020). Managing bias and belligerence. In Legal and ethical issues in emergency medicine (pp. 97-104). Oxford University Press.
Judson, K., & Harrison, C. (2019). ISE law and ethics for the health professions (8th ed.). McGraw Hill.
Suliman, A. (2022). Texas Supreme Court blocks order that allowed abortions to resume. Washington Post. Web.