to what extent is utilitarianism the most useful method for making decisions about abortion

Utilitarianism is based around the principle of bringing the greatest happiness to the greatest number and it can be used to make decisions about abortion by using the principle of utility and preference utilitarianism.

Firstly, the principle of utility is used to measure the pain or pleasure of an action. This is vital for abortion as you can predict the consequences of abortion by using this. This could be used to justify abortion if you say that abortion would bring greater happiness than pain. For example, if the baby would hinder the mother’s life as she would not be able to continue her studies and she would be financially unstable if she had the child then abortion would be acceptable as life without the baby would be much better. Furthermore, if the mother has a life threatening condition the principle of utility could argue that there would be more pleasure from seeing a human survive than an unborn baby as if the mother dies whilst giving birth it will cause pain due to attachment people have to…