Is abortion ever justified? If not, why? If it depends, then on what?
It is not unreasonable to suggest that the vast majority of people consider it morally wrong to kill other persons. There may be examples of situations where the killing of a person may be justifiable, although they are by no means universally consented to, such as killing in self defence or as a form of capital punishment, but taken in isolation it is generally accepted that to kill is wrong. Therefore in the debate between pro and anti abortionists must centre around two essential questions: whether a foetus is a person, and if so when a foetus becomes a person; and whether abortion can be said to be self defence.
Possibly the deepest dilemma for an anti abortionist concerns the stage at which a foetus can be said to be alive, in the sense in which we would refer to a child after it is born. It seems absurd to think that in the relatively short time which the birth takes, the baby’s status will be so radically altered yet an almost mystical store is set by birth as for the first time we can distinguish a distinct personality, and directly interact with the infant . However, it is a largely unfounded significance in ethical terms as birth is often governed by contingent factors and the time of birth can be manipulated. Also to be considered is the fact that if the baby is ready to emerge from the womb, then surely it possesses enough properties for us to consider it in some sense a person. For example, if not than an eight month old foetus would not have the same claim to personhood as a two-month-old baby born prematurely at six months even though they are of similar developmental stages. Thus other stages of pregnancy are more commonly cited as the point in which personhood begins. John Grigg adopts the stance that there is a life that comes into existence as soon as conception occurs:
“To my mind life begins at the moment of conception… Conception is the magic moment.”
(John Grigg, in the Guardian, 29 October 1973)
This view may be problematic if we consider that life does not necessarily imply personhood. We may claim that the foetus is a human being but this merely implies that it is a member of our species, and not that of another. Yet it is at least true to say that a foetus, even in the earliest stages of pregnancy has the potential to be a person. This is slightly differe...
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...elf defence, even though the foetus has no intention to harm the woman, it is a sad situation in which both parties might be thought of as morally blameless. However, can any abortion said to be self-defence? The reaction to an intrusion in the home may be said to be defence, yet a house is worth far less than your own body.
The title question of this essay and the questions raised within it remain unconcluded. The problem is not that there are no answers, rather there are too many. The issue is complicated further by the fact that every single situation is different. Abortion is a very personal issue that effects many people in the world, the average Russian woman has twelve abortions in her life, it is also an especially emotional subject. Abortion is justified everyday, however whether it is a practice that can be morally justified with any universal consent is another issue. The only way I can see that abortion might receive the most moral acceptance, is that if it is presented on the grounds that we must all step back and respect that other moral agents have a right to make autonomous decisions, regardless of what we think about the way they choose to assert their autonomy.
In A Defense of Abortion (Cahn and Markie), Judith Thomson presents an argument that abortion can be morally permissible even if the fetus is considered to be a person. Her primary reason for presenting an argument of this nature is that the abortion argument at the time had effectively come to a standstill. The typical anti-abortion argument was based on the idea that a fetus is a person and since killing a person is wrong, abortion is wrong. The pro-abortion adopts the opposite view: namely, that a fetus is not a person and is thus not entitled to the rights of people and so killing it couldn’t possibly be wrong.
The late 18th century and early 19th century was a prominent time period in which the French Revolution and Haitian revolution occurred. Both revolutions were connected to each other such that they shared similar causes and consequences. Together, France and Haiti were angered by the inequality and unfair privileges that continued to appear in their societies. At the same time, they were inspired and hopeful of bringing the Enlightenment ideas into reality. Although they were able to accomplish most of what they fought for, such as the abolition of slavery, they still took part in bloody revolutions. However, one of the greatest differences in their outcomes was that France emerged as a new, firm government as Haiti staggered with its new independence.
The French Revolutions ideology of freedom and equality lead to the Haitian revolution in Saint Domingue. Saint Domingue was one of the richest colonies in the entire world during this time. It made a big profit for France, but the rules were also unfair. They favored only to the slave owners and whites. This is why many slaves wanted to revolt. Before the revolution, Saint Domingue was a major producer of coffee and sugar.
African Haitians completely did away with the social control that kept the racial hierarchy in place in Haiti. The institutions that the French held to control the slaves were attacked the very French army that was sent was defeated and the former slaves took control of the island and forever changed the colonial society they lived in. African slaves began to notice during the French revolution the ideals of liberty, citizenship, and voting come up but they were excluded due to the racial hierarchy that existed in the colony. Even the slave owners that were not white were not given access to the newfound rights of the French citizens. This revolution had a great impact on the rest of Spanish America, The United States and specifically the islands of Cuba and Jamaica. It grounded the growing abolitionist movements because of the drastic outcome of the slaves’ revolution and tightened the colonial control in the islands in the Caribbean who feared a similar revolution could occur. The Haitian revolution was not an eruption of recent discontent, it had been building as slaves frequently ran away and established Maroon
Victor Frankenstein serves as an instrument of suffering of others and contributes to the tragic vision as a whole in this novel. He hurts those surrounding him by his selfish character and his own creation plots against his master due to the lack of happiness and love. The audience should learn from Frankenstein’s tragic life and character to always remain humble. We should never try to take superiority that is not granted to us because like victor we shall suffer and perish. He had the opportunity to make a difference in his life and take responsibility as a creator but his selfishness caused him to die alone just like what he had feared.
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 ...
The island of Saint-Domingue was made up of a mixture of people including whites from France, creoles, free people of color, and slaves. Once sugar became a major cash crop on the island, an estimated half-million African slaves were brought in to work the land. These slaves outnumbered their white masters more than ten to one and made up the majority of the island inhabitants. Even so, the island had the most secure slave regime in the Caribbean because of the cooperation between masters and free men of color. Due to the difficult policing jobs given to the freed men with little reward, the communication between them and the white masters broke down. Now that the white slaveholders were on their own, it was only a matter of time before their brutal treatment of slaves would lead to an uprising. Once enslaved Africans received word of the revolution in France they too began demanding freedom. After years of civil unrest and vicious fighting, Haiti declared its freedom from France in January of 1804. What makes the Haitian Revolution more radical than the two before it is the fact that it was led by slaves. Throughout the previous revolutions, the main goal was for white men, essentially, to be free from oppressive government rule. There were few thoughts regarding the rights of slaves, even though they too were men. The fact that this group of people were able to remove the colonial authority and establish their own country during this period of time was particularly radical and unheard
A strong rhetorical move that Bassham uses throughout the article is the strong topic sentences. A topic sentence is “the first sentence of each paragraph- signal not only the main point of the paragraph but also the relationship of the point to the writer’s main point and to the points that precede and follow it” (Ward and Vander Lei 13). In the beginning of each of the paragraphs under the sub-sections, Bassham clearly states what the following paragraph is about and sets out a map for what will be discussed. In the “Christian Themes in The Matrix” section, he starts the first paragraph out with, “It was no accident that The Matrix was released on an Easter weekend” (Bassham 111). With that topic sentence, it is concluded that the following paragraph would pertain information about why the directors decided to release
2. My observation from the setting is that is taking place somewhere north. As the author describe the setting it reminded me of a fall day in Michigan. The boat ride assists me personally it reminds
The Age of Revolutions was a period of time in which many global revolutions took place, especially within America and Europe. A revolution is an overthrow of government or social order in favour of political change. There were many revolutions that took place between 1760 and 1840, most notable being the American Revolution from 1775 to 1783, and the French Revolution beginning in 1789 and ending in 1799. These, along with the Napoleonic Empire, which carried on from the French Revolution and lasted until 1815; all greatly transformed the Atlantic world. This occurred through these global revolutions, which inspired another revolution within the slave island of Haiti. The focus of this essay will be on the aforementioned revolutions,
Slave revolts are common events in history, the outcome is usually predictable, the slaves demand rights only to be decimated by their landowning counterparts. The Haitian revolution was the first successful large scale slave rebellion. From the early 1790’s to late 1800’s the Haitians fought against the French for control of Saint-Domingue. This revolution was noticed created a global stir due to its unique formulation, which was rooted in oppression from the French. The revolution itself fostering a new sense of nationalism, and ultimately it resulted in many new revolutionary thoughts from spectating countries and a newly found debt to Haiti itself.
The permissibility of abortion has been a crucial topic for debates for many years. People have yet to agree upon a stance on whether abortion is morally just. This country is divided into two groups, believers in a woman’s choice to have an abortion and those who stand for the fetus’s right to live. More commonly these stances are labeled as pro-choice and pro-life. The traditional argument for each side is based upon whether a fetus has a right to life. Complications occur because the qualifications of what gives something a right to life is not agreed upon. The pro-choice argument asserts that only people, not fetuses, have a right to life. The pro-life argument claims that fetuses are human beings and therefore they have a right to life. Philosopher, Judith Jarvis Thomson, rejects this traditional reasoning because the right of the mother is not brought into consideration. Thomson prepares two theses to explain her reasoning for being pro-choice; “A right to life does not entail the right to use your body to stay alive” and “In the majority of cases it is not morally required that you carry a fetus to term.”
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.
The balanced scorecard was introduced by Robert Kaplan, a professor at Harvard University, and David Norton in 1990. The concept was later adopted for a study on new methods to measure performance involving multiple organizations. The balanced scorecard enables organizations to measure performance by providing balance to the financial perspective. Organizations used to measure performance by measuring only the financial measurements and this did not reflect the true performance of the organization. The BSC methodology includes information about the operational measures which gives the management a clearer picture that makes it easier for organizations to plan for short and long term goals.
While the monster gains a feeling of hatred and a desire for revenge after he is abandoned and treated pitifully, Frankenstein continuing reinforces the suffering of his creation, and likewise the suffering of himself. Frankenstein is completely to blame for the misery that he endures. Victor creates a being only for his own fulfillment, and afterwards abandons the great responsibility that he bears for it. To make it worse, Frankenstein intentionally ruins the monster 's happiness and gives him the same horrendous treatment that the rest of mankind gives the monster. Victor 's selfish actions cost him his family, bring him to the brink of insanity, and make a terrible creature out of a loving and compassionate being. Victor Frankenstein is a true