Abortion has been one of the topics of hot debate for the last three decades in our nation. Since the Roe v/s Wade decision in 1973, some Americans feel the need to ponder whether aborting fetuses is a moral action. On the one hand, some people feel that abortion should be legal because a woman has a right to choose whether she wants to continue a pregnancy or not. It's her body. On the other hand, some feel that fetuses have no advocates and deserve a right to live, so it is immoral to abandon their rights and kill them. This issue is not only at the center of political debate, but philosophical debate as well. In this paper, I will examine and critique Mary Anne Warren's On the Moral and Legal Status of Abortion, where she examines the moral humanity of the fetus and its right to life.
Mary Anne Warren describes how abortion should be kept legal without any restrictions on it. She states that the pro-abortion argument should center around the moral status of the baby, not simply on the rights of the mother. Yet, she does criticize those who defend abortion as the right to control one's body, "…it would be very odd to describe, say, breaking a leg, as damaging one's property, and much more appropriate to describe it as injuring oneself" (Warren, 314). She uses this analogy to show the inappropriateness of a woman's body being her property.
She continues her work by using Judith Thomson's paper, A Defense of Abortion as a tool to navigate her idea that abortion is morally permissible, even if a fetus has moral rights. Judith Thomson, according to Warren, says, "…a woman is under no moral obligation to complete an unwanted pregnancy" (Warren, 315). Warren uses one of Thomson's analogies to help state further rationalize her hypothesis. The analogy is this: What if you found yourself in bed next to a famous violinist with your kidneys hooked up to his body. He will remain unconscious while he shares your kidneys for nine months. No one else can save him because you have the same blood type. If you don't continue this act of sharing for a period of nine months, he will die. If you do continue the procedure willingly, he will live. The question becomes, if you are an anti-abortionist will you stay consistent and feel obligated to save his life? Warren says that it is absurd to feel as though it would be murder...
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...r of pro-lifers that are pro-welfare reform or who are against giving money or simply helping organizations that help to insure the stable well-being of an unwanted infant. I don't recall hypocritical advocacy being on the list of a fetus' hierarchy of needs.
In the beginning of her article she says:
…we cannot hope to convince those who consider abortion a form of murder, of the existence of such a right unless we are able to produce a clear and convincing refutation of the traditional antiabortion argument, and this has not, to my knowledge, been done" (Warren, 314)..
Well, to my knowledge she herself has not done this. Mary Anne Warren has written a very detailed and understandable article, however, her claims are not consistent or convincing and may seem a bit heartless, but nonetheless she presents them concisely with charisma, keeping the reader on a philosophical seesaw, anxiously agreeing and disagreeing throughout her piece.
In Judith Jarvis Thompson’s article “A Defense of Abortion” she explores the different arguments against abortion presented by Pro –Life activists, and then attempts to refute these notions using different analogies or made up “for instances” to help argue her point that women do have the right to get an abortion. She explains why abortion is morally permissible using different circumstances of becoming pregnant, such as rape or unplanned pregnancy.
Over the course 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 regard to her reproductive rights.
Twemlow, Stuwart W., and Frank C. Sacco. "Why School Anti-Bullying Programs Don't Work." Google Books. N.p., n.d. Web. 13 May 2014.
Abortion is an issue which separates the American public, especially when it involves the death of children and women. When an abortion occurs, the medical doctor removes the fetus from the pregnant woman. This particular act has separated the public. Many believe that abortion is not morally and ethically correct. On the other hand, some people believe that carrying and delivering the unborn child will hinder the safety of the mother, then an abortion is needed. Each view has its own merit in the debate. This debate has separated the public into two sections: pro-life and pro-choice. A pro-lifer opposes abortion, whereas, a pro-choicer believes that the decision to abort the child should be left to the mother because she is the one carrying the child. In this paper, there will be topics that will be discussed concerning pro-life and pro-choice. I hope at the end of this paper, the reader is able to gain more knowledge concerning each topic. Every woman has the right to control her own body.
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).
Judith Jarvis Thomson, in "A Defense of Abortion", argues that even if we grant that fetuses have a fundamental right to life, in many cases the rights of the mother override the rights of a fetus. For the sake of argument, Thomson grants the initial contention that the fetus has a right to life at the moment of conception. However, Thomson explains, it is not self-evident that the fetus's right to life will always outweigh the mother's right to determine what goes on in her body. Thomson also contends that just because a woman voluntarily had intercourse, it does not follow that the fetus acquires special rights against the mother. Therefore, abortion is permissible even if the mother knows the risks of having sex. She makes her points with the following illustration. Imagine that you wake up one morning and find that you have been kidnapped, taken to a hospital, and a famous violist has been attached to your circulatory system. You are told that the violinist was ill and you were selected to be the host, in which the violinist will recover in nine months, but will die if disconnected from you before then. Clearly, Thomson argues, you are not morally required to continue being the host. In her essay she answers the question: what is the standard one has to have in order to be granted a right to life? She reflects on two prospects whether the right to life is being given the bare minimum to sustain life or ir the right to life is merely the right not to be killed. Thomson states that if the violinist has more of a right to life then you do, then someone should make you stay hooked up to the violinist with no exceptions. If not, then you should be free to go at a...
...es presented, and disregarded the fetuses right to a valuable life. Warren also briefly discussed the morally permissible options, such as adoption but failed to include how much more beneficiary putting a child up for adoption is rather than aborting the fetus. Marquis article is more convincing even to those who are pro-choice as it is less easy to criticize.
... Although, the media and the government often try to convince women otherwise, the only person who has a right to your body is yourself, not a baby nor a man. Pro-life advocates use guilt to convince women that a fetus, which is nothing more than a lump of cells, takes precedent and has a greater right to your body than you do. Thompson’s many examples throughout her paper provide strong evidence towards proving her stance and have convinced me to have an elevated understanding of a woman’s right to her body.
In her article Thomson starts off by giving antiabortionists the benefit of the doubt that fetuses are human persons. She adds that all persons have the right to life and that it is wrong to kill any person. Also she states that someone?s right to life is stronger than another person?s autonomy and that the only conflict with a fetuses right to life is a mother?s right to autonomy. Thus the premises make abortion impermissible. Then Thomson precedes to attacks the premise that one?s right to autonomy can be more important to another?s right to life in certain situations. She uses quite an imaginative story to display her point of view. Basically there is a hypothetical situation in which a very famous violinist is dying. Apparently the only way for the violinist to survive is to be ?plugged? into a particular woman, in which he could use her kidneys to continue living. The catch is that the Society of Music Lovers kidnapped this woman in the middle of the night in order to obtain the use of her kidneys. She then woke up and found herself connected to an unconscious violinist. This obviously very closely resembles an unwanted pregnancy. It is assumed that the woman unplugging herself is permissible even though it would kill the violinist. Leading to her point of person?s right to life is not always stronger than another person?s right to have control over their own body. She then reconstructs the initial argument to state that it is morally impermissible to abort a fetus if it has the right to life and has the right to the mother?s body. The fetus has the right to life but only has the right to a ...
“On the Moral and Legal Status of Abortion” by Mary Anne Warren is an in depth analysis of what, in Warren’s opinion, it is exactly that defines a person and human being, the moral community, fetal development and the right to life, potential personhood and the right to life, and infanticide. Warren believes that emotion and morality should be entirely separate, and that abortion should be legal for all women, as denial would be stripping women of basic human rights, the rights that a woman holds over an unborn fetus. I personally agree with her arguments on these topics as I agree that women should be allowed to have abortions on their own terms, without subjection of authority or society telling her what she can and cannot do, as well as I agree for the most part on her view of what a person is, potential personhood not outweighing the choice of abortion, and her reasoning on what defines a person of the moral community.
Each day school children learn valuable skills and lessons from their teachers as well as through in- tractions with their peers. Although school, undoubtedly, is beneficial to America’s youth, there are some ex- periences, such as bullying, that may negatively affect and stick with these children for the rest of their lives.
Abortion in the United States is a legal form of murder. Each and every year over a million babies are murdered and it must be stopped now before it will continue to get out of hand each and every day. We have discussed in this essay that a fetus is a living humans and not something that can just be thrown away. An unborn child is still a child and he or she needs an opportunity to grow and live a long successful life just like the rest of us have gotten the privilege to do. Abortion cannot go on any longer. More and more live are lost every day.
Procrastination is the art of either postponing or delaying a task. Procrastination is that little voice that appears in our heads which tell us to choose momentary pleasure versus completing important tasks at hand. Often times seen in a negative connotation, procrastination carries around a counterproductive reputation amongst individuals. Despite the inauspicious stigma regarding procrastination, recent studies have displayed procrastination to be beneficial to upcoming tasks at hand. Procrastination not only sparks creativity but also promotes focus and productivity.
Throughout the years, many adolescents have gone through bullying in school. A child starting at the age of five to about eighteen has either been bullied or was the bully. Schools should have a bullying awareness program to prevent dangerous acts upon themselves and the other humans surrounding them. Victims in these situations often belittle themselves and do not want to attend school. While these targets work together in the program they will create a bond between each other as a community. All schools should have bullying awareness programs because it would decrease teenage suicide rates; bring unity between students, help the bully overcome their reasons of bullying and let adolescents feel comfortable in a school environment.
Bullying has become a serious problem in public schools systems. Being a victim of bullying is a daily struggle for some students. The issue continues to grow, but the question is how to stop bullying from occurring. Many ways have been attempted to stop bullying, but some are more effective than others. Having the students get involved seems to have the most positive effect on the bullying issue in public school systems.