Essay On Abortion Rights

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Recommended: Rawls’s Fairness Principles of Distributive Justice

The state can not interfere with a women’s right to control her own body, as this would be interfering with her own basic rights to equal freedom and liberty. Abortion laws are unconstitutional as they take away a women’s basic autonomy through allowing for state interference in personal, bodily decision-making. Justice is only obtained when women have the right to their own body, and their own choices. John Rawls defined justice in two principles. First, that each person is to have an equal right to the most extensive scheme of equal basic liberties compatible with a similar scheme of liberties for others; and second, that social and economic inequalities are to be arranged so that they are both reasonably expected to be to everyone’s advantage, and so that they are to be attached to positions and offices open to all. Madam Justice Wilson is known to have taken a strong stand with judgment founded directly on the value of autonomy. Wilson believes that an aspect of the respect for human dignity is the right to “make fundamental personal decisions without interference from the state. ” Women’s liberty is denied through laws that interfere with these decisions; she is not free within society from restrictions imposed by the state’s political views. Drawing on Rawls’ theory of justice and Justice Wilson’s view on the value of autonomy as justice, it will be proven that abortion laws are unjust as they go against a women’s basic right to liberty, autonomy, and security of person The argument of whether or not a woman should have an abortion is not the focus in this paper, but rather the focus is on whether abortion laws restrict a woman’s right to justice or not.
The question of equal rights as a form of justice is addressed immed...

... middle of paper ...

...ic liberties includes the right to choice, which Justice Wilson supports with her value of autonomy. The right to human dignity and fundamental justice is founded in the rights guaranteed in the Charter, specifically Section 7. She uses this is a foundation of her justice theories, believing that these rights infringed in the Charter erect an invisible fence around each individual, one in which the state should not be allowed to trespass. Justice Wilson states that liberty, in her view, “grants the individual a degree of autonomy in making decisions of fundamental personal importance.” The termination of a pregnancy is a decision that the woman should be free to make, as her own personal values, emotions, religious beliefs and circumstances may dictate. Abortion laws are unjust as they go against a women’s basic right to liberty, autonomy, and security of person.

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