Is Abortion Morally Permissible

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Abortion is the deliberate termination of human pregnancy resulting in the expulsion of the human fetus. Infanticide is the crime of killing a child within a year of birth. Abortion is legal in all states of America while infanticide is illegal, because it is considered an act of murder. Murder as defined by the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, is the crime of one person unlawfully killing another person. Murder is always seen as morally wrong. In America’s current society infanticide is considered immoral always because it constitutes as murder while abortion is debatable and accepted by many. Before determining whether abortion or infanticide is morally permissible or impermissible one must determine what renders something of being a person. As the definition stated, murder is when a “person” is killed by another person. Would it still be considered murder if something was not fully a person. This paper will discuss the question of the morality of …show more content…

These two words are often used interchangeably as if they are synonyms and have the same meaning. In this paper they do not have the same meaning. It is important to understand the differences between these two concepts before introducing my argument. Human beings can be any member of the genus, homo. This even includes members of Homo sapiens, Homo erectus and Homo neanderthalensis, and so on. A human is a psychosomatic union of human flesh, blood, and bones. Human being is more of a biological classification and because of this reason it differs from the term “person”. What makes something a “person” is when they have the ability to undergo mental processes that lead to decision making and rationality. Being a person means that you have the five intrinsic things that make up

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