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Partnership between religion and ethics
Essay on bioethics
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Abortion is the action of deliberately terminating a pregnancy, resulting in the death of the fetus. For years, people around the world have been divided on this issue. Bioethicists have been debating on the morality and permissibility of such act as it raises many questions concerning the parties involved in it. Even though finding clear answers to these questions raised could be difficult and might need hours of reflection, comparing and contrasting the views and principles of philosophers John Finnis and Judith Jarvis Thomson on specific cases might lead to a better understanding of the issue.
Finnis believes that all humans are persons and that every innocent person has the right not to be directly killed. He thinks that the one thing common to all who are regarded as persons is that they are living human individuals (17). For him, refusing this assumption and trying to demonstrate another notion of person would be “arbitrary discrimination” (17). Like Finnis, Thomson chooses to assume that humans are persons from conception even though she might not believe it. She declared herself “inclined to think that we have to agree that the fetus has already become a human person before birth” (40). Also as finnis did, she assumes that distinguishing the moment a fetus becomes a person is “dim” (40). They both discuss the case of rape and involve the presence of a third party in the discussions about abortion. However, Thomson assumes the first two premises of Finnis argument to be true to later make the difference.
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Finnis thinks that it is always wrong to kill an innocent person thus the fetus. He believes that a just law and a decent medical ethic forbidding the killing of the unborn cannot admit an exception “to sa...
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...t results in killing innocents persons which means that they consider the fetus to be one. On the other hand, they are for it because they do not consider the fetus to be a person thus it does not have the right to life. Knowing whether a fetus is a person or not will always create blurred lines. Maybe the focus should be shifted on the different cases that can emerge. The compromise for this problem might be found between these discussions about personhood.
Works Cited
Eckholm, Erik. “Push for ‘Personhood’ Amendment Represents New Tack in Abortion Fight.” The New York Times. New York Times, 27 Oct. 2011. Web. 03 February 2014.
Finnis, John. “Abortion and Health Care Ethics.” Kuhse and Singer 17-24.
Thomson, Judith Jarvis. “A Defense of Abortion.” Khuse and Singer 40-50
Kuhse, Helga, and Peter Singer, eds. Bioethics an Anthology. Malden: Blackwell, 2006. Print.
“I intend to judge things for myself; to judge wrongly, I think, is more honorable than not to judge at all.” What author Henry James meant by this was that it is better to make up one’s mind and have an opinion than to remain complacent, such as the case of Mary Anne Warren. Warren’s arguments for abortion’s possible permissibility are lacking in substance. The aim of my paper is to discuss Warren’s insufficient criteria for personhood and address the problem with her concept of potential personhood. “I argue that it is personhood, and not genetic humanity, which is the fundamental basis for membership in the moral community” (Warren 166).
Thompson believes that the fact of whether of not a fetus is a person is completely irrelevant towards the issue of abortion. This is mainly because she has found the point of becoming a person cannot be proved with complete confidence. Judith does not seem to understand why people think that just because a fetus may actually be a person that it ...
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.
Patrick Lee and Robert P. George’s, “The Wrong of Abortion” is a contentious composition that argues the choice of abortion is objectively unethical. Throughout their composition, Lee and George use credibility and reason to appeal the immorality of abortions. The use of these two methods of persuasion are effective and compels the reader to consider the ethical significance. Lee and George construct their argument by disputing different theories that would justify abortions. They challenge the ontological and evaluation theories of the fetus, as well as the unintentional killing theory. This article was obtained through Google, in the form of a PDF file that is associated with Iowa State University.
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).
Abortion may be one of the most controversial topics in America today. Abortion is defined as “the termination of a pregnancy after, accompanied by, resulting in, or closely followed by the death of the embryo or fetus” (cite dictionary). There are really only two sides on people’s opinion on abortion; pro-life which means abortion should be outlawed and pro-choice which means a woman should be able to decide whether she wants to keep her baby. Thousands of protests and riots have begun due to the fact pro-life activists believe abortion should become illegal. Both sides bring valid points to support their decision that could sway any person’s thoughts. The Roe v. Wade law has allowed abortion to be legal in the U.S since 1973 (Chittom & Newton, 2015). The law “gives women total control over first trimester abortions and grants state legislative control over second and third trimester abortions” (Chittom & Newton, 2015). Ever since the law was put in place, millions of people have tried to overturn it and still
Choice, what is choice? Choice is the right, power, or opportunity to choose. Everybody in society has a choice and these choices have many outcomes. A woman’s right to choose to have an abortion or not, is her fundamental right. If society outlaws abortion, society is interfering with the woman’s right to make decisions related to her own body. Many theorists believe that sexuality is what divides women from men and makes women less valuable than men; keeping this concept in mind it can be said that gender plays an immense role in social inequality. In one of Thomas Jefferson’s speeches, he explains how we should never put at risk our rights because our freedom can be next. (lp. org 2007) Roe.V .Wade is believed to have been the United States Supreme Court’s decision that resulted in the dawn of the abortion controversy between pro-choice and pro-life advocates, and whether what the woman is carrying is simply just a fetus or a life, the debate is endless. The social-conflict theory reflects the inequality women face regarding abortion in society which brings about a negative change. If a woman’s right to choose would be taken from her then this would cause social inequity. Taking a women’s right to choose would mean taking her freedom and taking freedom away from any human being would imply inequality.
In order for the pro-life argument to be valid, it must have both a true premise and true conclusion. It falls short of validity by assuming that a fetus up to 22 weeks old is a person, and has its own rights independent of its host, or what we often refer to as its mother. First we must recognize the subtle, yet extremely important distinction between a human being and a person. It is obvious that a fetus is a member of the human ...
Caplan, A., & Arp, R. (2014). The deliberately induced abortion of a human pregnancy is not justifiable. Contemporary debates in bioethics (pp. 122). Oxford, West Sussex: Wiley.
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.”
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
...e open to all women at any point of pregnancy, and that the woman reserves the right as a fully conscious member of the moral community to choose to carry the child or not. She argues that fetuses are not persons or members of the moral community because they don’t fulfill the five qualities of personhood she has fashioned. Warren’s arguments are valid, mostly sound, and cover just about all aspects of the overall topic. However much she was inconsistent on the topic of infanticide, her overall writing was well done and consistent. Warren rejects emotional appeal in a very Vulcan like manner; devout to reason and logic and in doing so has created a well-written paper based solely on this rational mindset.
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.
Judith Jarvis Thomson successfully discusses and outlines in many cases that an abortion performed when the mother’s life is not threatened by the pregnancy would be not unjust. As some believe that the foetus is not an independent creature as it is inseparable from the mother’s body and the morality of abortion until the mother is part of the situation and being properly recognised. Thomas does recognise this as she believes that the mother’s rights over her body are key considerations. Thomson does not accept the conservative view as to the moral status of the foetus. But she additionally argues that abortion would be morally permissible even if the foetus were a person. In her article “A Defence against Abortion” she accepts the conservative view for the purpose of the discussion, and from there proceeds to argue in defence against abortion. Thomson successfully discusses and critiques the conservative position on the moral status of the foetus in relation to defence against abortion and continues to make frequent references to science.
"Abortion." Current Issues: Macmillan Social Science Library. Detroit: Gale, 2010. Opposing Viewpoints in Context. Web. 4 Feb. 2014.