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Abortion legal and ethical issues
The relationship between democracy and human rights
Abortion legal and ethical issues
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On December 10th in 1948, the general assembly adopted a Universal Declaration of Human Rights. This declaration, although not legally binding, created “a common standard of achievement of all people and all nations…to promote respect for those rights and freedoms” (Goodhart, 379). However, many cultures assert that the human rights policies outlined in the declaration undermine cultural beliefs and practices. This assertion makes the search for universal human rights very difficult to achieve. I would like to focus on articles 3, 14 and 25 to address how these articles could be modified to incorporate cultural differences, without completely undermining the search for human rights practices.
Article 3, of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, states “everyone has the right to life, liberty and the security of person” (Goodhart, 379). This article creates cultural discrepancies that are rooted in interpreting undefined and ambiguous language. For example, there are cultural disputes concerning the definition of a “person”. In many monotheistic cultures abortion is considered a crime. Advocates of this opinion support that a fetus is a human being from conception. Under these pretenses it is the right of a fetus to live, and any women who commits abortion, regardless of the circumstances, is in violation of the fetus’s human rights. To eliminate this cultural disagreement, it is necessary to succinctly define the terms in the article. For example, the article could read: “every breathing human has the right to life, liberty and the security of a person”. Under these changes, the definition protects the life of all breathing human; eliminating the cultural discrepancy of what constitutes a life. In due course, the ...
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...stern ideology is the supreme law would be an ethnocentric ideology, undermining the concepts of diversity and acceptance. Furthermore in a globalized society, it is important to respect and understand other cultures. For this reason, major cultural difference need to be taken into account when generating a security system to ensure a cohesive global society. I believe the best way to account for major cultural differences, without completely undermining the search for a universal declaration of humans, is through the democratic majority.
Works Cited
Friend, Celeste. "Social Contract Theory [Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy]." Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Hamilton College, 15 Oct. 2004. Web. 01 Oct. 2011. .
Goodhart, Michael, ed. Humanrights: Politics and Practices. Oxford: Oxford University Pres, 2009. Print.
Thou shalt not kill; one-tenth of what may arguably be the most famous guidelines of morality in the western culture, and also the main driving force for pro-life advocates. The argument supporting their beliefs typically starts with the premises that a fetus is a person, and to destroy or to kill a person is unethical. Therefore abortion, the premeditated destruction of a human being, is murder, and consequently unethical. I deny the fact that the fetus, what I will refer to as an embryo up to 22 weeks old, has the right to live. The opposing argument is invalid because a fetus, although perhaps a part of human species, is not formally a person. This leaves it simply to be a part of the woman?s body, whose fate lies solely in the hands of the pregnant woman alone, no different from a tumor she might have. By proving this, the abortion debate then becomes an issue of women?s rights, something that is most controversial indeed. Furthermore, it is fair to question the credibility of many people against abortion because of obvious contradictions in the logic of their belief systems. The fact that this debate is relevant in modern society is ludicrous since there is a simple and plausible solution to this problem that could potentially end the debate for good, leaving both sides satisfied.
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.
Abortion, which is defined as a deliberate termination of a human pregnancy, is one of the most controversial issues in society. Many people believe that abortion is unethical and morally wrong, while others believe that it is a woman’s right to decide what to do with her body. According to www.census.gov, “the number of abortions performed annually in the U.S. has leveled off at 1.2 million a year” (1). This statistic supports how many women are choosing abortion. Although abortion is legal in the United States, many people continue to voice their opinions on how it is a human rights violation and should be illegal everywhere.
As one knows, some unwanted pregnancies could often be harmful and distressing for a woman. Women should have the right over their body to choose to sustain the fetus or not. In the past decades, women did not have their freedom of abortion in many countries of the world. There have always been controversies going on about abortion. Each individual has dissimilar views on the legality of abortion. Some people are against abortion for personal religious purposes and beliefs. For those who don’t believe in abortion, it is because they see it as killing a fetus, which is a human being. Others support abortion because they believe in women’s rights. Laws of abortion vary in each country, and abortion is not legal all over the world. It is illegal under any conditions but only permitted to save woman’s life if in countries such as Brazil, Nigeria, United Arab Emirates, and Ireland. However, abortion is legal without any restrictions in countries like Canada, Albania, and Italy. It the past decades Abortion was considered as criminal act in Canada. “If an abortion was carried out without such approval, the woman was liable for imprisonment for 2 years, an...
The birth of a child is usually a wonderful and priceless occasion. However, on June 5, 2015, an eleven-year-old girl gave birth to a newborn girl. Approximately a year before she gave birth, her 40-year-old father repeatedly sexually assaulted her. In this case, the unprepared eleven-year-old child decided to have the baby. This is a prime example that illustrates that the right to abortion should always be vested in the woman. Abortion, which has been debated for centuries and will continue to be fought upon for centuries to come, is a hot issue among social, political, and religious entities. This research paper will inform the reader about abortion using scholarly journals to define abortion, specifically when a fetus becomes a human being,
Over the duration of the last century, abortion in the Western hemisphere has become a largely controversial topic that affects every human being. In the United States, at current rates, one in three women will have had an abortion by the time they reach the age of 45. The questions surrounding the laws are of moral, social, and medical dilemmas that rely upon the most fundamental principles of ethics and philosophy. At the center of the argument is the not so clear cut lines dictating what life is, or is not, and where a fetus finds itself amongst its meaning. In an effort to answer the question, lawmakers are establishing public policies dictating what a woman may or may not do with consideration to her reproductive rights. The drawback, however, is that there is no agreement upon when life begins and at which point one crosses the line from unalienable rights to murder.
The American Anthropological Association in its 1947 “statement on human rights” situated its advice on the principle of the social context of the individual and the significance of including the sociocultural values of his/her society into consideration when drafting an inclusive non Western-Euro/American-centric “UN declaration of human rights”. It holds that each group of people would perceive its culture as the most benevolent and thus the inherent goodness of their values should be sufficient in regulating their affairs and protecting their rights. It disregards the historical fact that the “white man burden” was not limited to the Europeans and North Americans, but many nations have engaged in imperial expansionism around the world before
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights--Document E-- is just that, a statement of all rights a human should have to make them feel safe and protected; moreover, these rights were adopted by the UN in 1948, after World War 2, to help establish what rights everyone is entitled to as humans. Many of my opponents may argue that this
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.”
Among the Nations leading controversy’s, the bilateral issue of abortion seems to be a popular yet, contentious debate. For several decades, abortion has been a never ending conflict that has caused a division among society. This bitter political brawling has created a pointless stalemate that has left the abortion issue unresolved. What is right and what is wrong? Should a woman be allowed to have an abortion and deprive a child from life or should she be forced to forfeit her right to make her own decisions? Society is caught in the middle of this controversial topic because a portion of individuals believe that it should be a woman’s choice whether she has an abortion while others consider it to be murder.
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights is a document that outlines the basic rights for all humans on Earth. However, a few fundamental rights are still being denied in certain countries even though the document has been released since 1948. For instance, Article five claims that “no one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.” Yet, the American military has flirted on the line of committing “inhuman or degrading treatment” of prisoners on Guantanamo Bay detention center. The US Supreme Court claimed that the prisoners had certain rights but refused to directly state the limit of torture of the prisoners up until four of them committed suicide. Another surprising right is Article 16: “Men
There is such a thing as universality of human rights that is different from cultural relativism, humanity comes before culture and traditions. People are humans first and belong to cultures second (Collaway, Harrelson-Stephens, 2007 p.109), this universality needs to take priority over any cultural views, and any state sovereignty over its residing citizens.
Social contract theory is a philosophy about the nature of morality and the origins of society. Its adherents believe “social organization rests on a contract or compact which the people have made among themselves” (Reese, 533). This concept was first articulated by the Sophists, who said societies are not natural occurrences but rather the result of a consensus of people (Reese 533). Plato expresses these ideas in The Republic when he says that society is created to meet human needs (Encyclopedia 1). Various other philosophers, including Thomas Aquinas, William of Ockham, Marsilius of Padua, and Richard Hooker, incorporated the concept of a social contract in their applications to political theory (Encyclopedia 1). None of these philosophers, however, made the social contract their primary focus. They included the theory as just one component of their main philosophies. It wasn’t until much later that social contract theory was developed as a unique and separate philosophy.
The doctrine of human rights were created to protect every single human regardless of race, gender, sex, nationality, sexual orientation and other differences. It is based on human dignity and the belief that no one has the right to take this away from another human being. The doctrine states that every ‘man’ has inalienable rights of equality, but is this true? Are human rights universal? Whether human rights are universal has been debated for decades. There have been individuals and even countries that oppose the idea that human rights are for everybody. This argument shall be investigated in this essay, by: exploring definitions and history on human rights, debating on whether it is universal while providing examples and background information while supporting my hypothesis that human rights should be based on particular cultural values and finally drawing a conclusion.
The role that globalization plays in spreading and promoting human rights and democracy is a subject that is capable spurring great debate. Human rights are to be seen as the standards that gives any human walking the earth regardless of any differences equal privileges. The United Nations goes a step further and defines human rights as,