It’s a child, not a fetus
Susan Schneider broadcasted her myopic and unbiblical views on abortion in a 1981 article for The New York Times. She made illogical claims about the value of a mother, regarding her individual rights, versus that of a child. Also, she said rape justifies abortion because no one would want to love and raise a child from that situation. Her statements say people should abort babies with birth defects, however, she does not take the further implications of that practice into account. Babies carry the image of God, so no one, not even the mother, has the right to kill a baby that God brought into existence.
Both a mother and her child have immense intrinsic value to God because he loves them as his creations. However, Schneider claims a mother has more value than her child and should bear no responsibility for conceiving that child, therefore a mother has the right to dispose of her unwanted child. She wrote with distaste, “under this ‘new’ law a fetus would be declared a person with full constitutional rights from the moment of conception, but the mother would forfeit all rights and privileges as an individual” (Schneider 13). Her statement claimed that mothers have more value their baby due to autonomy. If a woman has not
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Schneider asks “who is supposed to raise and love this child once he is born?” (Schneider 11). None can visualize the terrible agony caused by rape, but how much worse would a burden of murder weigh? God loves that baby so much he sent his son Jesus to die for it. No amount or degree of mental pain justifies a murder of what God loves. Rather than kill her baby, a mother could put her baby up for adoption. If the mother gets called by God to raise her child herself, she would have a struggle, but God makes all things possible. Despite bad heritage, that child may have salvation by Jesus and experience God’s
In Dan Marquis’ article, “Why Abortion is Immoral”, he argues that aborting a fetus is like killing a human being already born and it deprives them of their future. Marquis leaves out the possible exceptions to abortion that include: a threat to the mom’s life, contraceptives, and pregnancy by rape. First, I will explain Marquis’ pro-life argument in detail about his statements of why abortion is morally wrong. Like in many societies, killing an innocent human being is considered morally wrong, just like in the United States. Second, I will state my objection to Marquis’ argument by examining the difference between a human being’s already born future compared to a potential fetus’s future.
I also see that it may not be immoral for a woman to abort if she has made the most effort to avoid pregnancy using contraceptives. However, as Thompson states, I think in this situation a mother “ought” not to have an abortion. A fetus should have the right to life, however, the mother should also have the right to determine how to use her own body. So I too find it difficult to determine a solid stance on this issue. I’ve always believed that a fetus is a person, but I’ve also always struggled to discern when it is that the fetus becomes a person.
According to St. Thomas Aquinas, Catholic priest and philosopher, a fetus is not a human being because it does not possess language or articulated thought - one of the defining aspects of human nature (qtd. in Eco 51). Theoretically speaking, a fetus is not a human until it can think and talk. With that being clarified, the rest of the essay will first include arguments for, and then arguments against, abortion. Karen Pazol, et al.
The conservative argument asserts that every person has a right to life. The foetus has a right to life. No doubt the mother has a right to decide what happens in and to her body. But surely a person’s right to life is stronger than the mother’s right to decide what shall happen to her body, and so outweigh it. So the foetus may not be killed and an abortion may not be performed (Thomson, 1971)
Many arguments in the abortion debate assume that the morality of abortion depends upon the moral status of the foetus. While I regard the moral status of the foetus as important, it is not the central issue that determines the moral justifiability of abortion. The foetus may be awarded a level of moral status, nevertheless, such status does not result in the prescription of a set moral judgement. As with many morally significant issues, there are competing interests and a variety of possible outcomes that need to be considered when making a moral judgement on abortion. While we need to determine the moral status of the foetus in order to establish the type of entity we are dealing with, it does not, however, exist in a moral vacuum. There are other key issues requiring attention, such as the moral status and interests of the pregnant woman who may desire an abortion, and importantly, the likely consequences of aborting or not aborting a particular foetus. Furthermore, I assert that moral status should be awarded as a matter of degree, based upon the capacities of sentience and self-consciousness an entity possesses. In a bid to reach a coherent conclusion on the issue, the moral status of both foetus and woman, along with the likely results of aborting a particular foetus, must be considered together. Given the multiple facets requiring consideration, I assert that utilitarianism (Mill 1863) offers a coherent framework for weighing and comparing the inputs across a variety of situations, which can determine whether it is ever morally justifiable to have an abortion.
The relentless support of abortion is always contradicting the moral and good teachings of the Church. Through passed laws, pro-choice supporters have made it possible for many women to have abortions. In some countries, including the United States, there does not have to be a reason for a woman to have an abortion early in the pregnancy. The Supreme Court in the United States ruled that the fetus’s ability to live was between about twenty four weeks to twenty-six weeks (Glendon 22). These laws show that supporters of abortion do not believe that life begins at conception. This is contrary to the teachings of the Church. “Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you” (Jeremiah 1:5). God knew us before we were conceived. He made us accord...
In America abortion is one of the most heavily debated topics in recent years. Pro-life or pro-choice? Many people believe it is immoral and even consider abortion to be murder. The definition of abortion states “The termination of pregnancy by the removal or expulsion from the uterus of a fetus or embryo prior to being capable of normal growth” Did you know that 1 in 3 women in the U.S. will have an abortion in their lifetime? (Baker, Aspen. "A Better Way to Talk about Abortion." Aspen Baker:. N.p., n.d. Web. 25 Aug. 2016.) When first researching this topic I wondered, “What’s the big deal? Why would it matter if someone who was never even born, died?” And I realized that babies that would have been born due to abortion,
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).
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 ...
...ther’s sovereignty over her body outweigh the right of an unborn child to live. The answers to these questions are very diverse as a result of the diversity of the American society. With the issue of abortion, one’s attitude toward it is going to be based on many things such as religious background and personal morals. There is no black and white answer to the abortion issue. Luckily we live in a country where we are able to decide for ourselves whether something is morally right or wrong. Thus, ultimately, the choice is ours. As with the many other ethical issues which we are faced with in our society, it is hard to come to a concrete answer until we are personally faced with that issue. All we can do is make an effort to know all of the aspects which are involved so that we may be able to make a sound decision if we were faced with this problem in our own lives.
But, there are many differences between an actual person and a fetus. First of all, a fetus is completely dependent on the mother. Fetus’s need their mothers in order to be fed correctly, to live in a stable environment, and to grow and expand among many other things. Because the fetus cannot survive on its own, then it does not qualify as a human being. In addition, a fetus that is still inside the womb is only a potential person. The fetus resides inside of the mother, and thus is part of the mother herself until it is born. Another difference between a fetus and a person is that a person can feel pain. Anti abortionist commonly argue that abortion is wrong because it would cause pain to the fetus. But, according to Mark Rosen, an obstetrical anesthesiologist at the University of California at San Francisco, “the wiring at the point where you feel pain, such as the skin, doesn’t reach the emotional part where you feel pain, in the brain.” Furthermore, the thalamus does not form until week 28 of the pregnancy. So, no information, including pain, can reach the cortex in the brain for processing. These facts prove that a fetus would not be affected by the mother’s choice of having an abortion, thus proving Marquis and all other anti-abortionists wrong.
The criterion for personhood is widely accepted to consist of consciousness (ability to feel pain), reasoning, self-motivation, communication and self-awareness. When Mary Anne Warren states her ideas on this topic she says that it is not imperative that a person meet all of these requirements, the first two would be sufficient. We can be led to believe then that not all human beings will be considered persons. When we apply this criterion to the human beings around us, it’s obvious that most of us are part of the moral community. Although when this criterion is applied to fetuses, they are merely genetic human beings. Fetuses, because they are genetically human, are not included in the moral community and therefore it is not necessary to treat them as if they have moral rights. (Disputed Moral Issues, p.187). This idea is true because being in the moral community goes hand in hand w...
middle of paper ... ... 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. Although she was inconsistent on the topic of infanticide, her overall writing was well done and consistent.
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.
Not many people realize that the death of a child is NOT in accordance to God’s NORMAL scheme of things. It is unnatural. God did not mean for a child to go first. A child buries the parent. Not the parent buries the child.