Summary Of Abortion And Infanticide By Michael Tooley

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In being a woman, abortion is a very real moral dilemma within me. I often consider what would my life become should there ever be an accident and I end up pregnant. I would have to drop out of school. I would have to give up my dreams of traveling to every state in America. I would be faced with problems and financial situations that I would not be prepared for until later in life. Can I live with going through the pregnancy? Or would I be better off just ridding myself of the fertilized embryo? While personally I would not be able to have an abortion, I do believe that it should be choice for what goes on to a woman and her body.
One of the biggest problems with deciding whether or not to legalize abortion is determining when or if a fetus is a person. Michael Tooley is the author of the article “Abortion and Infanticide”, and in this article he addresses the question “what properties must someone have in order to be considered a person, i.e., to have a serious right to life?” Tooley states that in order to be a person you must possess some type of consciousness. He claims that since the fetus has no way of desiring consciousness and life it does not have the right to it, and therefore does not know it is being deprived of said right. Tooley also begs the question of “at what point in the development of a member of the species Homo Sapiens does the organism possess the properties that make it a person?” If you asked some people they would say it is right at the point of fertilization. Others my say it isn’t until the fetus develops a brain or a heart that the fetus becomes a person. And the other end of the spectrum is not until birth. According to the national law of America, the fetus is a person when it hits its third trimes...

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...different results. If we make abortions illegal, we are entering into an endless spiral of insanity and we embark on the path of history repeating itself.
I believe woman should be given a right to their bodies and what they put it through. If a woman choses to have an abortion, she should be able to have safe and effective abortion legally, instead of risking her life running through the black market. A woman should not have her rights taken away and forced into a commitment they never wanted just because not everyone agrees. Forcing them into such circumstances can result in mental as well as emotional trauma on not only the mother but the baby that was forced upon it. We could save women and children heartache if we simply allow them to produce their own morals and principals. As a country founded on freedom we should not force our views and beliefs on others.

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