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Ethical issues surrounding abortions
Ethical issues surrounding abortions
Ethical issues surrounding abortions
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instances that before an embryo could survive outside the womb, medical tests could determine a possible serious health related issues and a person should have the opportunity to decide whether to bring that embryo further in term to attempt a life outside the womb. The examples of premature babies being born every day across the country that do not survive demonstrate that viability occurs later than conception. As such, I do not believe that we can say that an embryo from the moment of conception has all the rights of a mother and that we must say abortion is wrong in all situations.
In “On Moral and Legal Status of Abortion,” Mary Anne Warren defines abortion as “the act that a woman performs in voluntarily terminating, or allowing another
She begins by stating her own opinion that “the basis of this conviction… is the realization that a fetus is not a person, and thus does not have a full-fledged right to life.” She then goes on to point out that Noonan never questions the assumption if a fetus is human then abortion is wrong for exactly the same reason murder is wrong. Which is very odd considering that the majority of anti-abortionists hold so much weight to their arguments on the fact that abortion is murder to a fetus which they see as being a human being from conception. She calls into question Noonan’s stance again by bringing up the fact a fetus cannot be considered a member of the moral community, those existing with full and equal moral rights, for the basic reason it is not a person, and it is personhood, and not humanity given by the human genetic code as defined by Noonan, which is the basis for membership in this community. Noonan argues a fetus, in any stage of development, satisfies none of the criteria of personhood, and is not even enough like a person to be granted even some of the same rights due to this resemblance. A fetus’s possible personhood is not a threat to the morality of abortion, because whatever the rights of potential people may be, they are always disallowed in any conflict with the moral rights of actual people. Then, Warren declares Noonan needs to
That would depend on each individual person’s morals, since morals are primarily subjective. While the majority of society can all agree that murder is morally wrong, whether or not abortion is murder is, at this point, biased. I do not believe abortion is murder, at least up until a certain point. Even then, however, I see circumstances in which abortion could be justified depending on the situation of the mother.
There is nothing morally wrong in terminating a pregnancy. There is a very early time period where a doctor can perform the procedure in the very beginning of the forming of the baby when the fetus is not really a baby rather the two parts forming together. I do not believe abortion is killing a live breathing human being. A fetus does not technically independently breathe but does depend on the mother for survival. Biological life actually begins before conception with our deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) which is living tissue and the main component of chromosomes. Human life begins on earth upon birth. Terminating a live breathing baby who just began life on earth is murder, but not in the womb as a
Thomson starts off her paper by explaining the general premises that a fetus is a person at conception and all persons have the right to life. One of the main premises that Thomson focuses on is the idea that a fetus’ right to life is greater than the mother’s use of her body. Although she believes these premises are arguable, she allows the premises to further her explanation of why abortion could be
middle of paper ... ... To speak plainly, the issue of abortion is a slippery slope of morality. While siding with the Pro-Choice side myself, it felt necessary to examine Warren’s opinion so as to give constructive criticism and potentially help strengthen her argument for the future. Through Warren’s lack of sound consideration for what constitutes a personhood and numerous issues regarding potential personhood, it is clear that the conversation still has a long way to go.
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 the article 'A Defense of Abortion' Judith Jarvis Thomson argues that abortion is morally permissible even if the fetus is considered a person. In this paper I will give a fairly detailed description of Thomson main arguments for abortion. In particular I will take a close look at her famous 'violinist' argument. Following will be objections to the argumentative story focused on the reasoning that one person's right to life outweighs another person's right to autonomy. Then appropriate responses to these objections. Concluding the paper I will argue that Thomson's 'violinist' argument supporting the idea of a mother's right to autonomy outweighing a fetus' right to life does not make abortion permissible.
In Thomson’s article, “A Defense of Abortion,” Thomson argues that abortion is not impermis-sible because she agrees with the fact that fetus has already become a human person well before birth, from the moment of conception (Thomson, 268 & 269). Besides that, she also claims that every person has a right to live, does so a fetus, because a fetus is a person who has a right to live.
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 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 standard argument against abortion claims that the fetus is a person and therefore has a right to life. Thomson shows why this standard argument against abortion is a somewhat inadequate account of the morality of abortion.
“On the Moral and Legal Status of Abortion” by Mary Anne Warren is an in depth analysis of what, in Warren’s opinion, is exactly what defines a person and human being, the moral community, fetal development and the right to life, potential personhood and the right to life, and infanticide. Warren believes that emotion and morality should be entirely separate, and that abortion should be legal for all women, as denial would strip women of basic human rights, the rights that a woman holds over an unborn fetus. I personally agree with her arguments on these topics as I agree that women should be allowed to have abortions on their own terms, without subjection of authority or society telling her what she can and cannot do, as well as I agree for the most part on her view of what a person is, potential personhood not outweighing the choice of abortion, and her reasoning on what defines a person in the moral community. Warren insists that the “moral” sense of human and “genetic” sense of human must be kept separate in this observation. As she defines the two, she goes on to say that the confusion of the two “results in a slide of meaning, which serves to conceal the fallaciousness of the traditional argument that since (1) it is wrong to kill innocent human beings, and (2) fetuses are innocent human beings, then (3) it is wrong to kill fetuses.
This essay examines and critiques Judith Jarvis Thomson’s, A Defense of Abortion (1971). Thomson sets out to show that the foetus does not have a right to the mother’s body and that it would not be unjust to perform an abortion when the mother’s life is not threatened. For the sake of the argument, Thomson adopts the conservative view that the foetus is a person from the moment of conception. The conservative argument asserts that every person has a right to life. The foetus has a right to life.
As defined by the Merriam- Webster dictionary, abortion is “the termination of a pregnancy after, accompanied by, resulting in, or closely followed by the death of the embryo or fetus as a spontaneous expulsion of a human fetus during the first 12 weeks of gestation- miscarriage, the induced expulsion of a human fetus, or the expulsion of a fetus by domestic animal often due to the infection at any time before completion of pregnancy” (“Abortion”).
In abortion, the ethical question rests whether the right of the mother or the fetus should take precedence? Abortion is the deliberate termination of a human pregnancy, most often performed during the first 28 weeks of pregnancy and the expulsion of a fetus from the uterus by natural causes before it is able to survive independently. Abortion has become one of the largest social debates world wide being such a moral issue. Ethics in abortion involves constitutional and human right, personal beliefs, the other options, state laws, pro-life, and pro-choice.
Do you consider something with a beating heart a living creature? A babies heart forms and starts beating in the fifth week of pregnancy, therefor, that would make abortion murder. The baby that is growing inside of you is depending on you, so when you make the choice to end that life, you are making the choice to murder another person.
Some may argue that it is morally wrong to have an abortion and a crime. It is considered to be murder. A few years back, it was considered a crime for a woman to have an abortion. Since this was considered a crime many women would seek out “back alley” doctors to perform an abortion. These were done in unsanitary conditions, sometimes the “back alley” doctor would mess up the procedure and the woman would either die from this or be unable to conceive later in life. Some would even consider drinking a mixture that would induce a miscarriage, and would end up dying from the mixture. Some women would even cause injury to themselves to induce a miscarriage of the unwanted pregnancy, with metal and wooden objects.
To begin, according to the Merriam Webster dictionary, “abortion is the spontaneous or induced termination of a pregnancy after, accompanied by, resulting in, or closely followed by the death of the embryo or fetus.” Frankly speaking, abortion is the deliberate act or termination of a life (pregnancy). Most often the abortion is performed during the first twenty-eight (28) weeks of the pregnancy. Life begins upon the sperm and egg culminating/conception, whether this implantation/merging is called an embryo or fetus, it is in fact a human being. To abort a life is a heinous crime and should be considered and prosecuted as murder, unless the mother’s life would be in danger, if the fetus, embryo, baby, or child was carried to full term.