There are many stances taken on whether abortion is moral. This paper will look at a multitude of arguments to see how abortion ties in with the moral principles that make up biomedical ethics. I support the legalization of abortion because any person, in this case a pregnant woman, has a right to their autonomy in personal matters of their own physical body only in the embryonic stage of pregnancy.
A woman’s right to her autonomy should never be curtailed unless for very important reasons. Is a fetus or embryo an important reason? Justice implies that all members of society receive what is fair or their due. Does that mean fetuses, since they are not apart of society, are not protected by justice? These questions only lead to more questions, and the only way to find answers to these questions is through defining what we know. What are human beings? Why is it wrong to kill humans? Are fetuses/embryos persons? The debate has gone back and forth, with good reason. Is it possible that we cannot classify fetuses and embryos as persons, because society itself may not have a commonly accepted definition?
Mary Ann Warren points out that fetuses do not have personhood by listing several traits observed by persons. “Consciousness and the capacity to feel pain, reasoning, self motivated activity, the capacity to communicate, the presence of self concepts and self awareness either individual or racial or both.” Warren defends her position by adding that not all of these traits are needed to identify if any being is a person, however, not possessing any of these traits leads to the conclusion that the being is indeed not a person. All of the criteria Warren provides are definitely those that define a person. However, are these the only ter...
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...e bad, it can be stated that by allowing for an abortion, the fetus is being saved for there ultimate good. The strongest argument is based off these facts, though fetuses will have a future like ours, they at the moment do not have a future like ours. So it can be expressed that the fetuses have a potential to have a future like ours. With that established, the rights of fetuses with a potential to life are outweighed by those of actual people.
There may be some opposition who state both parties here have a right to life and have inherent worth and it would be immoral to say one’s right to life is greater than the others. To give the opposition the satisfaction, even if fetuses do have a right to life that is equal to those of the mother, the right to life does not mean that they have a right to be given the bare minimum to survive or the right not to be killed.
In the US, 89% of abortions are performed during the first trimester of a woman 's pregnancy. Approximately 115,000 abortions are done per day in the US and at least 25 and younger women have a 50% of having an abortion. This paper will reflect on the moral status of abortion, a fetus having value to life, alternative options instead of abortion and rape being an exception. The conservative point feels a fetus should be given full moral status. They should be given full moral status because in the early weeks of development they are developing major organs. A fetus should be given the right to continue to fully develop so that they have the opportunity to contribute to society. If an abortion occurs, it does not give a fetus the opportunity
The argument for the moral rights of the unborn child against abortion still holds true because the child cannot be viewed as a virus that abortion presents a cure because the rights of a fetus is reserves in its identity as a member of the Homo sapien community. Therefore, any acts against an unborn child( or fetus), although presently legal, should be considered as morally unjust, which is equal to the act of murder because what is killed in an abortion is not simply, a housing of organ but a human being equal to any other. Furthermore, the idea of justifying an abortion, which essentially should be viewed as the forceful and unnatural death, of an unborn child based on the assumption that he or she cannot express thoughts, or desires therefore rendering their members to full moral rights . Thus, it negates the feeling of pain and hardships that are experience by a fetus as it is forcefully yank out the worm of his
Over the duration of the last century, abortion in the Western hemisphere has become a largely controversial topic that affects every human being. In the United States, at current rates, one in three women will have had an abortion by the time they reach the age of 45. The questions surrounding the laws are of moral, social, and medical dilemmas that rely upon the most fundamental principles of ethics and philosophy. At the center of the argument is the not so clear cut lines dictating what life is, or is not, and where a fetus finds itself amongst its meaning. In an effort to answer the question, lawmakers are establishing public policies dictating what a woman may or may not do with consideration to her reproductive rights. The drawback, however, is that there is no agreement upon when life begins and at which point one crosses the line from unalienable rights to murder.
George, the authors discuss about how abortion is morally wrong. According to the authors “human embryos and fetuses are complete (though immature) human beings”. Then they address counter arguments that human embryos are not the same a person because they are not conscious as a person is. The authors respond that human embryos have the “natural capacities” although less developed to reason, therefore according to the authors it makes no sense to say at which point an embryo becomes a person. And the authors conclude that the burden to carry out a pregnancy is less than “killing” the fetus. I also think that is not right to try to label an embryo as a human organism or not a person, it is a human person and it has a right to live. But you cannot force women to carry out a pregnancy they do not want, and no one should have a right to claim over their
Mary Anne Warren’s “On the Moral and Legal Status of Abortion” describes her justification that abortion is not a fundamentally wrong action for a mother to undertake. By forming a distinction between being genetically human and being a fully developed “person” and member of the “moral community” that encompasses humanity, Warren argues that it must be proven that fetuses are human beings in the morally relevant sense in order for their termination to be considered morally wrong. Warren’s rationale of defining moral personhood as showcasing a combination of five qualities such as “consciousness, reasoning, self-motivated activity, capacity of communication, and self-awareness” forms the basis of her argument that a fetus displays none of these elements that would justify its classification as a person and member of the morally relevant community (Timmons 386).
In order for the pro-life argument to be valid, it must have both a true premise and true conclusion. It falls short of validity by assuming that a fetus up to 22 weeks old is a person, and has its own rights independent of its host, or what we often refer to as its mother. First we must recognize the subtle, yet extremely important distinction between a human being and a person. It is obvious that a fetus is a member of the human ...
...ther’s sovereignty over her body outweigh the right of an unborn child to live. The answers to these questions are very diverse as a result of the diversity of the American society. With the issue of abortion, one’s attitude toward it is going to be based on many things such as religious background and personal morals. There is no black and white answer to the abortion issue. Luckily we live in a country where we are able to decide for ourselves whether something is morally right or wrong. Thus, ultimately, the choice is ours. As with the many other ethical issues which we are faced with in our society, it is hard to come to a concrete answer until we are personally faced with that issue. All we can do is make an effort to know all of the aspects which are involved so that we may be able to make a sound decision if we were faced with this problem in our own lives.
Caplan, A., & Arp, R. (2014). The deliberately induced abortion of a human pregnancy is not justifiable. Contemporary debates in bioethics (pp. 122). Oxford, West Sussex: Wiley.
The criterion for personhood is widely accepted to consist of consciousness (ability to feel pain), reasoning, self-motivation, communication and self-awareness. When Mary Anne Warren states her ideas on this topic she says that it is not imperative that a person meet all of these requirements, the first two would be sufficient. We can be led to believe then that not all human beings will be considered persons. When we apply this criterion to the human beings around us, it’s obvious that most of us are part of the moral community. Although when this criterion is applied to fetuses, they are merely genetic human beings. Fetuses, because they are genetically human, are not included in the moral community and therefore it is not necessary to treat them as if they have moral rights. (Disputed Moral Issues, p.187). This idea is true because being in the moral community goes hand in hand w...
In a pluralistic culture of unwanted pregnancy, there exists a contradiction between a relative sense of morality and the democratic ideal of free choice. Aristotle provided the first written record of this irresolvable contradiction in his book Politics, saying, "When couples have children in excess, let abortion be procured before sense and life have begun; what may or may not be lawfully done in these cases depends on the question of life and sensation." (1) The controversy has always consisted of two sides: "Pro-Lifers", who believe that abortion is morally wrong and should not be allowed, and "Pro-Choicers", who support the woman's right to choose the outcome of her pregnancy in all cases. There is also a large group of people who fall somewhere in between, believing that abortion should only be allowed under certain circumstances. To this day, abortion continues to be a topic of dispute, with each side offering many of the same arguments that have been offered for several millennia. Those concerned with the issue saw this played out most recently in the presidential election, a very close race in which abortion was a key factor in many citizens' votes.
Abortion is a widely arguable issue that begs the question whether a mother has the right to abort her child or if the child has the right to life. Abortion is the deliberate removal of a fetus from the womb of the mother, resulting in the death of the child. Abortions are said to be morally permissible after a certain number of months after the mother is pregnant because of the development of the embryo to have a brain. The other side of the argument is that right when the mother is pregnant, it is wrong for the mother to abort because the embryo has a right to life as soon as the mother is pregnant. This is a primary concern for anti-abortion supporters. Mary Warren takes this pro-life stance to defend the life of the fetus by not allowing abortions under any circumstance in her case, “On the Moral and legal status of Abortion”, 1973. Warren argues whether abortion is morally permissible at any stage of pregnancy and under any circumstances. Warren’s argument for her stance on abortion is stated as 1) It is wrong to kill human beings. 2) Fetuses are innocent human beings. 3) Therefore it is wrong to kill fetuses. She claims that the credit for her argument lies in the definition of the term ‘human being’. The definition of human is a member of the biological species Homo Sapien. This includes adults, children, and also fetuses that are unborn in the mother’s womb. This is the argument for why abortion is not morally permissible in any case because fetuses are innocent human beings with an inherent right to life as a biological organism. Along with a moral sense of community, human is being a member of the moral community o...
Warren, Mary Anne , and Mappes and D. DeGrazia. "On the Moral and Legal Status of Abortion." Biomedical Ethics 4th (1996): 434-440. Print.
Abortion is one of America’s most controversial subjects. The participants in this debate have fixed beliefs on the matter at hand. On one side of the debate are people who believe in pro- choice. They argue that choice of a woman is more important than an unborn fetus. They point out that an unborn child is not on the same level of importance as the mother. Also, the pro-life group declares that choice is the sole purpose behind their argument. They believe that if a woman cannot chose to abolish a pregnancy, then she looses one of her basic human rights. The other side of the debate is the pro-life group. Their main concern is that the fetus is a person; therefore, having the same human rights as the mother. As a result, when states pass laws that enable abortions, these states are legalizing murder. When considering an individual’s ethics and values, killing is morally wrong. Therefore, the termination of unborn children is wrong, as well. Abortion, the unethical expulsion of an embryo or fetus, in order to purposely end a pregnancy, should be forbidden because human life begins at conception, economics is not a justification for abortion, and an unwanted child does not justify abortion.
Abortion has been a method since at least ancient history. Abortion is the deliberate termination of a human pregnancy, most often performed during the first 22 weeks of pregnancy. There are multiple ways a woman can have an abortion, however the one most commonly used is the suction abortion. The suction dismembers the baby while sucking their body parts through a tube. I feel strongly that abortion should be illegal because it can result in medical complications, psychological trauma, the fetus can feel pain, and abortion is murder.
Abortion is an extremely controversial issue and one that is continually on the forefront of debates. Those who oppose the idea (Pro-lifers), thinks it is an act of woman playing “God” who live from who dies. Yet, whether an unborn baby constitutes a normal person is questionable; a pregnant woman, on the other hand, has the undeniable right to choose whether she wants to have a child or not. Therefore, the decision to have an abortion is the personal choice and responsibility of the woman, because prohibiting abortion impedes freedom of choice and endangers the physical and mental health of women.