Sharlene Espinosa
Professor Schwartzberg
Philosophical Ethics
February 20, 2014
Paper 1
Infanticide
Infanticide, or the practice of deliberately killing a child within a year of birth, has been practiced by cultures throughout history and all over the world. It is still considered acceptable in some countries today, especially in areas experiencing extreme poverty and overpopulation. Female infanticide is practiced more, given cultural beliefs about gender, particularly in China and India. Infanticide is also practiced when parents are aware their child will experience suffering if he/she remains alive. Although Infanticide is considered to be morally wrong because it is an act of killing, overall, there are several cases instances where Infanticide would be morally right.
Many argue that Infanticide is morally wrong. Infanticide is the act of killing an infant. Killing an infant deprives it of all the experiences and enjoyments that would otherwise have constituted the infant’s future. An infant is considered a person. Since an infant is considered a person, Infanticide is the act of killing a person. Killing an innocent person is universally considered to be morally wrong. Therefore, Infanticide is considered to be morally wrong. However an objection to this argument arises when defining what is considered to be an individual. A person is defined as a being with some awareness of who they are, existing simply beyond the physical body. The child is not a person until they are capable of understanding they are a being that can experience. Until the child realizes this, the interests of actual people override the interest of merely potential people, thus making Infanticide acceptable. Infants are then humans who are not pe...
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... In conclusion, Infanticide is acceptable because an infant isn’t considered a person because it is not conscious of its existence, thus making it not a person. The interests of actual people are more important than potential peoples which makes it acceptable for a mother to choose what’s best for herself. Also infanticide is morally right in cases where Infanticide reduces suffering for parents and infants, and also in situations where people do not have abortion technology.
Marquis’ argues that like adult humans, fetuses have the ability to experience a future and by preventing them from experiencing that future through abortion is the same as killing an adult human.
“I argue that it is personhood, and not genetic humanity, which is the fundamental basis for membership in the moral community” (Warren 166). Warren’s primary argument for abortion’s permissibility is structured around her stance that fetuses are not persons. This argument relies heavily upon her six criteria for personhood: A being’s sentience, emotionality, reason, capacity for communication, self-awareness, and having moral agencies (Warren 171-172). While this list seems sound in considering an average, healthy adult’s personhood, it neither accounts for nor addresses the personhood of infants, mentally ill individuals, or the developmentally challenged. Sentience is one’s ability to consciously feel and perceive things around them. While it is true that all animals and humans born can feel and perceive things within their environment, consider a coma patient, an individual suspended in unconsciousness and unable to move their own body for indeterminate amounts of time. While controversial, this person, whom could be in the middle of an average life, does not suddenly become less of a person
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,
In contrast to a socially constructed society, I deem abortion, and neonaticide (the act of killing a newborn), to be an immoral act. People in our society are prosecuted for murder every day, yet turn a blind eye to the murder that is promoted politically, economically, and socially by institutions and the individuals who run them. Although he silently favors a women’s choice, Steven Pinker conducted a piece, that originally debuted in The New York Times, over two decades ago called, “Why They Kill Their Newborns.” This essay is the motive behind Michael Kelly’s response piece that I summarized in part one. In Pinker’s essay, he provides an in-depth description to what might drive a mother to kill her newborn. His essay goes beyond the concept
Infanticide is associated with aiding the death of an infant and infant euthanasia. Jim Holt, contributing author for the New York Times, writes that, “Infanticide is the deliberate killing of newborns with the consent of the parents and society. This concept has been common throughout most of history. In some cultures it served as a form of birth control when food supplies were limited. In others, it was a way of getting rid of malformed offspring. Judaism, Christianity and Islam all condemned infanticide as murder holding that only God has the right to take innocent human life. Consequently, the practice has long been outlawed in every Western nation.” (Euthanasia).
Singer first points out that the different opinions on abortion come from the debate on when a human life actually begins. He formulates the common argument against abortion as follows: it is wrong to kill an innocent human being; a human fetus is an innocent human being; therefore, it is wrong to kill a human fetus. It is because killing a human being is undoubtedly wrong and immoral that the opposition instead attempts to deny the second part of the argument “a human fetus is an innocent human being”. By doing so, critics argue that the fetus does not have the status of a human being. This debate results in focusing on whether, or when, the fetus can be considered a human being, and therefore given the same rights against being killed as another human being. Singer however claims that it is difficult to find a moral dividing line between a fetus and a human being because the development of the human egg to a child is gradual. To prove his point, he describes four commonly proposed moral lines (birth, viability, quickening, and consciousness), which he then denies with strong arguments.
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).
Even though many argue a fetus is not yet a person, Marquis does not think it makes a difference at what stage a person is in life, that fetus will eventually be a person who will eventually live a life and to take that away before it even starts would be unethical.... ... middle of paper ... ... This idea, he argues, does not withstand the argument of suicide because it challenges his theory of having the desire to live.
A baby, from conception is a human being. So it is only logical to think that when you decide to take the life of a baby, even if it’s barely visible to the human eye, you are deciding to murder a person. Life begins at the moment of conception, so the argument that a newly conceived human life doesn’t have the ability to feel doesn’t hold a lot of weight. Rather, a person should think of it as the baby doesn’t have a choice and by most standards in society when a person doesn’t have a choice, the act is usually considered wrong, especially if the action results in death.
There are many limitations valued when it comes to the right of abortion. The news media still outlines the pros and cons of anti-abortion rights in certain-states-to soon, the entire country. My perspectives on the issue of abortion have been entitled from it to never be banned among citizen’s rights. The reproduction of pregnancy has been emphasized heavily on a mother’s decision to abort their child, but the father of the child plays an active role since he considers to that particular title. Through this current issue, majority of the people against abortion do not seem to have an open mind to how much it primarily affects the decision of the mother amongst her own views of considering abortion.
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.
One moral argument is that the fetus is an innocent person and it is wrong to kill an innocent person therefore it is wrong to kill a fetus (Roth, 2005). The opposite argument can also be made. The fetus ...
Abortion is the termination of a pregnancy by the removal or expulsion of a fetus or embryo from the uterus before viability (dictionary.com). Those who disagree with abortion think that this is not right, mid evil and a form of murder. All of those thoughts are correct; abortion is the act of removing a fetus from the protection of the mother’s uterus. However, is it not the duty of the mother to protect her unborn child? In this day in age, we are still allowing this barbaric method of ending a pregnancy to happen despite the many alternatives. If an unexpected pregnancy should occur, abortion should not the only option. There are many reasons why abortion should not be illegal in all parts of the world, and people need to know the options available. Adoption is certainly a strong option in a world wanting for children. Abortion is not a method of birth control and people need to be educated on pregnancy prevention and take on some responsibilities.
Infant Mortality Rate can be defined as death of an infant before his or her first birthday. These rates often help the nation to assess underlying factors such as maternal care, social & economic conditions, and individual’s access to medical care. With a world of 195 countries and estimated population of 7 billion people the chances of death are marginal. Living in the United States of America have sought out to be one of supreme beings when it comes to Infant Mortality Rate, the laws have declared it to be a crime. While looking at other countries in the Asian continent which Infant deaths are treated as sustainable way of life. The continent of Asia holds together countries that posses very high infant mortality rates. Some countries
If the mother is completely healthy, and if the unborn baby is totally healthy as well, then there is absolutely no reason to have an abortion and kill an innocent child. But overall, if the mother wants to abort the baby, just because she doesn’t want it, then it is 100 percent her choice (Borgmann 20-26). Ultimately it is her body, so therefor, it is her choice. It’s hard to tell when abortion is acceptable because it can be hard to tell when the fetus becomes alive. At 11 weeks, internal organs are present and functioning (Beeke, “Is Abortion Really so Bad?”). God’s word clearly treats personhood as commencing at conception. God forbids murder, and abortion is murder (Slick, “Is Abortion Wrong?”). Some people believe that when the male sperm and female egg combine, life begins (Beeke, “Is Abortion Really”). “This throws in the question of whether it is okay to have the abortion because the fetus isn’t even alive yet or it is not okay because the fetus is alive and it has become a baby” (“When is The Fetus ‘alive’?”). Instantly after conception the child is obviously already growing, and so therefor, it is alive (Sanders 15-19). It’s just whether someone wants to accept that or not. According to a student organization, since the legalization of abortion in 1973, over 56 million unborn children have been killed, that is more than the entire population of Spain. That is 155 babies per hour, about every 24 seconds (TFP Student. . .). That is a lot of dead kids. According to Andrew Napolitano who wrote about abortion, “a society that prefers death to life, not only cannot prosper: in cannot survive. The baby in the womb is a person” (“Is Rape Moral”).The point thrown out here is pretty plain to see. If our society as a whole prefers to kill people, not only people but children, because they don’t want to give birth to them, which is pretty selfish by the way, how can we fully prosper? The practice of abortion in