Secular World View Of Abortion

1968 Words4 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Sociological imagination on abortion

In the 1974 ‘Declaration on Procured Abortion’, the Vatican acknowledged that it does not actually know when the foetus becomes a person. Neither St. Augustine nor St. Thomas Aquinas considered the foetus in the early stages of pregnancy to be a person and these men are two of the most important theologians in the Catholic tradition.
Many catholics world wide have rejected the church’s ban on contraception. Only 14% of Catholics agree with the Bishops that abortion should be illegal. Such a low percentage shows a want and maybe a need for change or acceptance on the issue of abortion. Times are changing and Catholics are changing in their traditionally strict views on many issues, to go forward with perhaps a more positive view of the Lord …show more content…

The secular arguments are quite straight forward as to why abortion is right or still may be wrong. Within the secular world, abortion is still widely thought of as a wrongful act but in certain circumstances it is accepted; it is not morally right but abortion may be ok in certain circumstances. The Secular worldview believes there is no stage of foetal development at which a foetus resembles a person enough to have a significant right to life. I don’t believe this to be absolutely correct. I believe after 12 weeks the foetus has started to develop into a human baby, limbs are forming and a heart is beating so this should be the latest you are allowed to get an abortion. There is no doubt the embryo is genetically human from conception, but it is not a fully developed being at all.
A foetus’s potential for developing into a person does not provide a basis for the claim that it has a significant right to life. Even if a potential person has some right to life, that right should not outweigh the right of a woman to obtain an abortion, as I believe the rights of any actual person invariably outweigh those of any potential …show more content…

A petition seeking a law change that would require parents to be informed before their daughter has an abortion, is deemed unnecessary and potentially dangerous, says an abortion rights advocate. Abortion Law Reform New Zealand spokeswoman Annabel Henderson Morell said most teenagers did tell their families when they needed an abortion, and those who did not, did so for their own wellbeing. "Almost always it's because they know that would lead to a situation of coercion where they would be forced to carry through with a pregnancy they don't want to have," she said. "There's also horrible instances of family violence, incest or sexual

Show More
Related

  • Summary Of Why Abortion Is Immoral By Dan Marquis

    1145 Words  | 3 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • Argumentative Essay On Abortion

    1629 Words  | 4 Pages

    What does it mean to be Pro-Life or Pro-Choice? Pro-Life means those who oppose abortion for any reason, In contrast, Pro-Choice means those who argue everybody has the right to decide if they wish to seek an abortion or not. Glenn I. Cohen, Professor of Law at Harvard Law School, argues that Pro-Life advocates firmly stand on the concept of, “Fetuses are persons and get some of the rights of persons from early on in their development, particularly the right of inviolability” (88). Christian and other religious groups confidently believe an embryo transforms into a human being as soon as conception occurs. What this means is that once the male sperm connects with the female egg, that is when the embryo becomes a living person and any abortion that takes place is killing a human being. In contrast, scientifically the newly founded embryo is not a human at all, but just a bunch of cells dividing. 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

    Read More

  • Benchmark Assignment: Ethical Dilemmas Of Abortion

    1213 Words  | 3 Pages

    Abortion has been a political, social, and personal topic for many years now. The woman’s right to choose has become a law that is still debated, argued and fought over, even though it has been passed. This paper will examine a specific example where abortion is encouraged, identify the Christian world views beliefs and resolution as well as the consequences of such, and compare them with another option.

    Read More

  • Judith Jarvis Thomson A Defense Of Abortion Analysis

    860 Words  | 2 Pages

    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)

    Read More

  • Sallie Tisdale's Article: We Do Abortion

    1874 Words  | 4 Pages

    Like Kaposy, Peter addresses a debate between a few different sources. Seipel introduces us to Charles C. Camosy, a professor of ethics and theology and an author of several articles for the Bioethics journal. Seipel quotes Camosy saying, “… a fetus is not an ‘actualized person’ in the sense that it has ‘the actual capacities for personhood,’ namely, ‘rationality and self awareness in time.’ Nonetheless,… fetuses have moral standing as persons because they are what he calls ‘potential persons.’ What are potential persons?… beings that have the potential to be rational and self-aware” (518). Seipel and Camosy are absolutely right. Because of the fact that a fetus is a “potential person,” it is therefore just as valuable and morally unjustifiable to kill as a comatose individual (who also has the potential to be rational and self-aware, but is not either within their current state). Seipel then introduces us to a view held by Jeff McMahan, a professor of moral philosophy at Oxford University who has produced many works regarding the issue of abortion. McMahan presumes that the right to life is dependent on the “psychological continuity” of the individual. As a rebuttal to this idea, Seipel proposes, “Alzheimer’s victims lack such continuity. Thus, the implication is that just as the death of a fetus is not all that tragic,

    Read More

  • Abortion, Pope John Paul II and Peter Singer

    1564 Words  | 4 Pages

    Abortion is one of the most controversial issues today. It has become a question of not only ethics, but morals. In the 1973 case of Roe v Wade the Supreme Court ruled that a woman has the right to terminate a pregnancy by abortion within the first six months of the pregnancy. However, conservative Presidents have changed the legislation enough to allow states to restrict abortion in various ways (Practical Ethics, Peter Singer). In the following paper, I will summarize the views on abortion of Pope John Paul II and philosopher, Peter Singer. These two men have very conflicting opinions about abortion.

    Read More

  • Abortion, Public Policy, & Texas

    1028 Words  | 3 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • Mary Anne Warren's On the Moral and Legal Status of Abortion

    1467 Words  | 3 Pages

    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).

    Read More

  • Pro-Choice Argument

    3494 Words  | 7 Pages

    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 ...

    Read More

  • Ethical Dilemmas Surrounding Abortion

    1432 Words  | 3 Pages

    ...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.

    Read More

  • The Debate Of The Permissibility Of Abortion

    1114 Words  | 3 Pages

    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.”

    Read More

  • Summary Of A Defense Of Abortion By Judith Jarvis Thomson

    1559 Words  | 4 Pages

    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

    Read More

  • Abortion Is Morally Permissible

    2044 Words  | 5 Pages

    It is almost unanimously agreed upon that the right to life is the most important and sacred right possessed by human beings. With this being said, it comes as no surprise that there are few issues that are more contentious than abortion. Some consider the process of abortion as immoral and consisting of the deprivation of one’s right to life. Others, on the opposite end of the spectrum, see abortion as a liberty and a simple exercise of the right to the freedom of choice.

    Read More

  • Mary Anne Warren Defense Of Abortion

    1000 Words  | 2 Pages

    Similar to Mary Anne Warren, I believe that abortions should always remain legal because there is no stage in fetal development in which a fetus resembles a person. Warren does make the distinction that a fetus may resemble a human being because they have a full genetic code and potential of become a person, however, Warren defines a person as someone with the capacity for rational thought, therefore a fetus might resemble a human but doesn’t resemble a person. (Warren, 11). While it is hotly contested, a fetus doesn’t have rational thought. For the most part, people would not consider a fet...

    Read More

  • Life Begins at Conception

    554 Words  | 2 Pages

    “How far along in a pregnancy is it until the unborn child is considered human? At what point does it receive basic rights?” These propositions have been the topic of one the most controversial discussions of the century. Based on the research I have completed on this topic, it has been made indisputable to me that life begins at the moment of conception.

    Read More

More about Secular World View Of Abortion

Open Document