More handpicked essays just for you.
Religion views on abortion all over the world map
Pro choice vs pro life debate
Pro choice vs pro life debate
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
Abortion: Pro and Con
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.
Pro-Life Arguments
* Religion - Pro-Lifers often argue that God is on their side (ie. the Pope says abortion is wrong, so it must be).
* Fetus as Living Entity - They look at the fetus and see a tiny human, who quickly develops feet, hands, and other human appendages, as well as rudimentary forms of all the systems that you find in a fully developed human. Not to mention the fact that the fetus is capable of movement. Clearly, this small being must be "alive". Perhaps the most compelling testaments to this theory are the rare ca...
... middle of paper ...
...ch appeals equally to both Pro-Lifers and Pro-Choicers. Instead, we should simply accept the decisions made by whoever is in political power at any given time. After all, these people are elected, so their views should, theoretically, coincide with those of the majority of the population. By acknowledging the fact that compromise will never be reached, we will be able to move on to issues that really can be resolved.
If, however, we are unable to accept some sort of policy on abortion while addressing deeper issues, we will continue to be faced with an alarmingly high incidence of unwanted pregnancy (about 1/2 of all pregnancies in 1996 were unintended), which, in turn, will continue to generate controversy over how to deal with these pregnancies.
(1) Aristotle. Politics (B. Jowett, Trans.). <http://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/politics.2.two.html>
As to any argument, there are two opposing sides when it comes to the matter of abortions. These two opposers usually refer to themselves as “pro-life” and “pro choice”. Pro-life supporters maintain that abortion is wrong and pro-choice believe that it is a woman’s freedom to choose her pregnancy decisions. When it comes to the topic of abortions, most of us will readily agree that it’s a woman’s choice to decide what her reproductive decisions are, i.e. pro-choice. Where this agreement usually ends, however, is in the question of whether or not abortion is a fundamental right granted to women by the Constitution. Whereas some are convinced that a fetus is considered alive at conception, usually citing the word of God, others maintain that
Piggy spots a conch shell, and tells Ralph how to use it to make a noise. Ralph does so, and calls all of the other boys on the island who crashed down with the plane. Jack and his Choir, Simon, Sam and Eric, and many other characters join in an assembly (including the littl'uns, which are the youngest kids at about 6 or 7 years old). Rules are set down, and Ralph is to be chief. There is no one else on the island but the young boys, so Jack decides to take his choir out to hunt for wild pigs, although he is unsuccessful in killing a small pig with his knife.
Lord of the Flies The Lord of the Flies had 4 main characters: Ralph, Simon, Jacky, and Piggy. All of the boys had a profound impact on the book but one boy was very intense and amazing. That boy was Simon. Simon was the kind of person who kept to himself and looked at the world from a different point of view.
The first two boys to meet each other were Ralph and another boy who although he protested, reluctantly accepted the nickname “Piggy”. The boys romped around, having fun swimming and running around until they chanced upon a conch. Piggy suggested to Ralph that he blow the conch to call the others. Ralph figured out how to blow the conch and proceeded to call the others. Slowly but surely, all the remaining survivors started trickling in to the cove where Ralph and Piggy had found the conch. Ralph proposed that they vote for a chief, and the all the boys except for the choir, voted for Ralph. Ralph’s first matter of business is to go on a hunt to make sure that this really is an island. He takes Jack and another boy, Simon and goes to the highest point on the island to scout out their newfound home. The trio confirms their theory that this is an island and they are indeed the sole inhabitants.
In 1952, Golding wrote a classic novel, Lord of the Flies and shows people are born evil. In this novel William Golding proves his point in writing this novel, while Jean Jacques Rousseau thinks the opposite of Golding. Rousseau thinks that people are born naturally good and pure, but society is what makes and turns some into evil. The novel Lord of the Flies starts out with a planes crashing and young boys being the only ones to survive. They are to start their own “government and rules” and the boys need to make their own society and survive until someone comes to rescue them. For a while they all behave, but then it becomes chaos and stop their society and do not follow their own rules. In my opinion, I would have to agree with Rousseau, because he thinks man is naturally good and pure and that society corrupts man.
The littluns: The littluns are basically the younger boys and ride the bandwagon. The two boys Ralph and Piggy meet each other in a thick jungle and discover that they crashed in an airplane and are stranded. They also learn that there are no adults present on the island and that none of the adults survived the crash. As they approach a beach, they find an enormous conch shell. Piggy gives the conch a little toot and summons the rest of the boys on the island to the beach. The boys assemble and elect Ralph as the leader.
Looking at Lord of the Flies by William Golding, readers may notice both good and evil in each character. Golding wrote this novel to demonstrate that humans are evil and requires the constraints of society to maintain social order but Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s philosophy states that a person is naturally good but is corrupted by society. Taking place during World War II, Golding’s novel is centered around a group of British boys between the ages of six and twelve whose plane was shot down and were left to survive on an island. While on this island – away from the laws of England and the rules of the school – the boys had the freedom to act however their hearts desired but most of the boys became savage and violent proving Golding’s belief, that the evil of a person is kept in order by the restrictions of society, to be true. Rousseau’s belief is defined by the term the state of nature, which in this case, is hypothetical.
Golding believes that all people are selfish, wanting to satisfy their own requirements and desires before considering others. Jack, the leader of the choir, has a selfish desire for power. With “simple arrogance” Jack says, “I ought to be chief because I'm chapter chorister and head boy. I can sing C-sharp” (22). His motives for wanting to become leader are ultimately egocentric as he mentions nothing about his utility or his contribution to the group of boys. However, Jack's wish to become leader is partially granted when he leads a hunting expedition. As a result, the boys' unattended signal fire burns out, but when Ralph mentions this, Jack becomes “vaguely irritated by this irrelevance” (69) but is also “too happy to let it worry him” (69). The self-absorbed boy has no desire to be rescued and even wants to stay on the island, thus he puts his desire to hunt before everything else and endangers everyone by not tending to essential chores. The boys who hunted with Jack also seem enjoy the experience selfishly, albeit not without regret (some hunters agree that the signal fire should not have been let out) – this i...
The story begins as if it is any mundane workday at the A&P. Sammy is a typical teen, making sarcastic comparisons of the customers in the grocery store. He calls one of his customers a "witch" and says the other customers are "house slaves" and "sheep." Sammy obviously dislikes the job, but finds ways of passing the day. However, from the moment the three girls enter the A&P to their exit from the store, you can see dramatic changes in Sammy. Sammy lusts for the young girls, and nicknames the most attractive to him as “Queenie”. The young girls dressed in bathing suits fascinate him, and although he is staring at them excessively, he negatively comments on the others for doing the same. As the girls walk past the older employee, McMahon, Sammy notices how he ogled the girls and pats his mouth. Sammy appears disgusted by his gesture and begins to sympathize for the girls. “Poor kids, I began to feel sorry for them, they couldn’t help it" (Upd...
Risky Theme: The topic of Lolita remains one of the most disputable novels in Literature. Though the sexual scenes are not very explicit, the implications of the content can be very disturbing. Especially since the readers are practically lured into Humbert’s eloquently-worded account that all of his actions were justified by his genuine love for Lolita...
Those who adamantly oppose abortion are regarded as pro-life and those who are supporters of abortion are considered pro-choice by contemporary standards. Even among those who advocate abortion, there are discrepancies in their views such as up until what point in the pregnancy is abortion morally permissible. In my opinion, abortion is morally permissible at any stage in a woman’s pregnancy. This is ethically acceptable because a woman should have the right to control what goes on within her body. Along with this, fetuses are still far from personhood (having the qualities of a human being); therefore, we cannot liken abortion to any variety of murderous activity.
Vladimir Nabokov, one of the 20th century’s greatest writers, is a highly aesthetic writer. Most of his work shows an amazing interest in and talent for language. He deceptively uses language in Lolita to mask and make the forbidden divine. Contextually, Lolita may be viewed as a novel about explicit sexual desire. However, it is the illicit desire of a stepfather for his 12-year old stepdaughter. The novel’s subject inevitably conjures up expectations of pornography, but there in not a single obscene term in Lolita. Nabokov portrays erotic scenes and sensual images with a poetic sensibility that belies the underlying meaning of the words. The beautiful manipulation of language coerces one to understand Humbert’s interdict act of pedophilia. By combining erotic and poetic desire in the context of the forbidden, Nabokov challenges the immorality of pornography, as illicit desire becomes masked in sensuous language. Nabokov carefully tailors the language Humbert Humbert uses to tell the world of his love for the forbidden nymphet, urging sympathy and innocence from the reader. However, the deeper meaning of the forbidden sexual desire is clearly seen in the use of only slightly veiled metaphor alluding to Humbert's own obsession.
The interpretation of Lolita still consisted on the ideas of sex and the book as well as the character became a scandal. Nabokov has rebuffed sex themes since the beginning of the book’s publishing. In his famous interview with Playboy, Nabokov rejects the interviewer bringing up America’s sexual mores with “Sex as an institution, sex as a general notion, sex as a problem, sex as a platitude—all this is something I find too tedious for words. Let us skip sex.” (Toffler). His refusal to even talk sex proved how little his tolerance was when it came to humoring the audience about sex themes and sex related questions. In an interview with CBC during the early 1960s, Nabokov is quoted agreeing with an interviewer that believes “sex has become such a cliche, so that people can’t recognize anything else.” (...) which further shows how 1960’s mentalities could see nothing else outside of the realm of sex. In the same CBC interview, Nabokov disputes sex themes more openly and admits that his writing of the book has more to do with Humbert’s artistic nature and how that alienates him and creates unattainable love (...). While Nabokov wrongly uses a young girl’s abuse as a tool of illustrating a man’s “misfortunes” of being an artist, the novel is more than what the 1960’s audience perceived it to be. Nabokov did not intend to write a book about a fetish, nor did he, according to Playboy, wish to satirize American culture. The text included more substinance than what people perceived it to be and as did the character Lolita herself, who was more than a teen temptress. His writing of the book has nothing to do about sex, although his initial theme is flawed and an important example of men’s inability to write books featuring authentic female characters, unless they are being used as tools or over sexualized. And much like Humbert Humbert, no matter how hard Nabokov tried to manipulate the text, feelings of empathy still is evoked
According to Judith Thomson in her book “A Defense of Abortion”, a human embryo is a person who has a right to life. But, just because the human fetus has the right to life does not mean that the mother will be forced to carry it (Thomson, 48). Naturally, abortion may be seen as the deliberate termination of a pregnancy before the fetal viability. Though people have understood this, the topic of abortion has remained a controversial issue in the world. Individuals are divided into “Pro-choice” and “Pro-life” debaters depending on their opinion on the morality of the action. "Pro-life," the non-consequentialist side, is the belief that abortion is wrong, generally because it equates to killing. "Pro-choice," the consequentialist view, however,
All things considered, abortion will always be a controversial issue in which there will always be a debate on; however, it is crucial for women to have other options rather than to only be able to have children that they cannot afford, or to allow more children to be placed in an adoption system that can essentially prevent them from having a full and happy life. It is atrocious to keep forcing people to endure unwanted pregnancies that may cause them to turn to unsafe abortion methods if their reproductive rights are abolished.