To begin with, Jack and Jill, a newly married couple have had a horrible encounter. Jill, walking to her car one night, she was attacked and raped, and shortly thereafter, finds that she is pregnant. Already dealing with the fact that something so crazy could’ve happened, Jack and Jill now find themselves puzzled with the question of Jill’s unexpected and unwanted pregnancy. While Jill isn’t sure that she can deal with the stress of bringing the pregnancy to term, she has always believed that life begins at conception and isn’t sure that abortion would be the right choice for her to make. Jack is more adamantly opposed to Jill carrying the pregnancy to term, for every reminder of Jill’s pregnancy also reminds him of her attacker. Jack wants Jill to have an abortion. Although Jack and Jill have talked at length about their options, they have been unable to make a decision.
In this essay, I will quote and suggest what both authors Don Marquis and Mary Anne Warren, would do in this situation and what advice would be given to both Jack and Jill from the two. I will also include my own suggestions as to what I
…show more content…
Mary Anne Warren, a professor emeritus of philosophy at San Francisco State University, would encourage Jack’s thoughts and feelings about Jill getting an abortion. In her essay, ‘On the Moral and Legal Status of Abortion” she states that a fetus is in fact, not w person. In these special circumstances that Jack and Jill are in, Mary Anne Warren would reassure Jack that he is not wrong for feeling the way he feels about wanting Jill to abort the fetus before she gets too attached to the child. Warren would also inform Jack that ultimately, it is Jill’s decision to do what she wants with her body as she pleases. She would say this to Jack because Warren is also a women’s rights activist and she wouldn’t want him to pressure Jill into something she has complete say-so
This quote stood out to me because it offered a new perspective to the controversial issues on abortion. After reading this, I realized how abortion was always tied to the women, which not only isolates them in this problem but also unconsciously reduces them to their reproductive functions. The
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.
In Warren’s “On the Moral and Legal Status of Abortion,” she argues against the anti-abortionists argument. The anti-abortionist argument goes as follows:
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 our society, there are many ethical dilemmas that we are faced with that are virtually impossible to solve. One of the most difficult and controversial issues that we are faced with is abortion. There are many strong arguments both for and against the right to have an abortion which are so complicated that it becomes impossible to resolve. The complexity of this issue lies in the different aspects of the argument. The essence of a person, rights, and who is entitled to these rights, are a few of the many aspects which are very difficult to define. There are also issues of what circumstances would justify abortion. Because the issue of abortion is virtually impossible to solve, all one can hope to do is understand the different aspects of the argument so that if he or she is faced with that issue in their own lives, they would be able to make educated and thoughtful decisions in dealing with it.
Every day, an overwhelming amount of human beings’ lives are terminated. The culprit: unwanted pregnancies. Many woman are (not by choice), becoming pregnant as a result of unsafe sex, rape, and other things. So what is one to do when they discover that they’re pregnant? They have some alternatives: (1) have the child and raise it (2) have the child, then give it up for adoption (3) get an abortion. Sadly, many women choose alternative three, unaware of what they’re getting themselves into.
The murder of innocents or, a woman’s right to choose; the Pro-Life/ Pro-Choice Debate, Which side are you on? The issue of abortion has been a topic of interest not only in the medical world but also in the political and religious worlds as well. The pro-life argument states that at conception the fetus is a baby and terminating it is taking a life. The pro-choice argument states that the unborn fetus, not baby, is just a blob of tissue and your terminating a pregnancy not a child. Both sides of the argument will be discussed in this essay along with the views of the church, politicians, women who have had abortion, and even a women who use to worked for Planned Parenthood.
Over years and years of constant, back-and-forth debate, there are many people who strongly support as well as many who strongly oppose abortion. Those who state that abortion should be legalized, a lot of the time, claim that it is the mother’s body so it then is her ultimate choice whether or not she should go through with aborting her unborn baby. In contrast, those who oppose the procedures and very idea of abortion claim it is inhumane, plain murder and that the mother can go through many consequences in undergoing the abortion procedures as well as other arguments. In an article I found off of the website Mic.com titled “Yes, I’m Pro-Abortion”, writer Lauren Rankin explains her position on the abortion controversy.
Most people agree that abortion should be a rare procedure. To accomplish that ideal, our society must proactively, by providing resources and support, offer pregnant women the hope that carrying their babies to term is not the end of their plans and dreams. Then their difficult decisions would really be true choices vice acts of desperation. After all, it is just as much “pro-choice” for a woman to take charge of her life and courageously carr...
Abortion is a widely arguable issue that begs the question whether a mother has the right to abort her child or if the child has the right to life. Abortion is the deliberate removal of a fetus from the womb of the mother, resulting in the death of the child. Abortions are said to be morally permissible after a certain number of months after the mother is pregnant because of the development of the embryo to have a brain. The other side of the argument is that right when the mother is pregnant, it is wrong for the mother to abort because the embryo has a right to life as soon as the mother is pregnant. This is a primary concern for anti-abortion supporters. Mary Warren takes this pro-life stance to defend the life of the fetus by not allowing abortions under any circumstance in her case, “On the Moral and legal status of Abortion”, 1973. Warren argues whether abortion is morally permissible at any stage of pregnancy and under any circumstances. Warren’s argument for her stance on abortion is stated as 1) It is wrong to kill human beings. 2) Fetuses are innocent human beings. 3) Therefore it is wrong to kill fetuses. She claims that the credit for her argument lies in the definition of the term ‘human being’. The definition of human is a member of the biological species Homo Sapien. This includes adults, children, and also fetuses that are unborn in the mother’s womb. This is the argument for why abortion is not morally permissible in any case because fetuses are innocent human beings with an inherent right to life as a biological organism. Along with a moral sense of community, human is being a member of the moral community o...
“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.
Before women had rights to decide whether they could keep their baby, some states didn’t allow abortion, therefore requiring women to give birth to their child. In today’s current issues, abortion is still a controversial subject with millions of people supporting it or not supporting it. Every woman has the right to make changes to her own physical body, and those rights should not be taken away, according to the constitution. In the very famous case in 1973, “Roe v. Wade”, the United States Supreme Court legalized abortion throughout the first trimester of pregnancy. In the article, “Roe’s Pro-Life Legacy”, it is explained how after this movement, the right to abortion, lives have changed and led to lower abortion rates (Sheilds 2013.) After Roe v. Wade gave women the right to an abortion, women felt that their rights have been restored. The act of aborting is a woman’s choice, in which women should not be taken their rights away because many women need their own rights protected in cases where they doesn’t want to feel obligated to carry the child of a rapist, go through pregnancies that could end up in death of the mother, give birth to a babies who will suffer their whole life because of a severe physical and mental dysfunctions, they’re not financially fit, or they don’t have the support from the father because he left the wife and baby.
Throughout the story it is evident that the woman is not sure if she wants to have the abortion—shown in her hesitation to agree. The woman feels that people gain freedom through experiences. "And we could have all of this, and every day we make it more impossible" (466).
In conclusion, women have the right to have abortions and to not have abortions. They have the right because it’s their body and it’s unfair to deny any woman that right without knowing the circumstances or situation. At the end of the women have to do what’s best for them and that unborn child and if they don’t have the necessary tools and lifestyle for them and the baby. Advocates of abortion believe that abortion is seriously wrong but it’s the women’s the decision not theirs, they have the right.
Abortion is an extremely controversial issue and one that is continually on the forefront of debates. Those who oppose the idea (Pro-lifers), thinks it is an act of woman playing “God” who live from who dies. Yet, whether an unborn baby constitutes a normal person is questionable; a pregnant woman, on the other hand, has the undeniable right to choose whether she wants to have a child or not. Therefore, the decision to have an abortion is the personal choice and responsibility of the woman, because prohibiting abortion impedes freedom of choice and endangers the physical and mental health of women.