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Ethical issues surrounding abortions
Ethical issues surrounding abortions
Ethical issues surrounding abortions
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instances that before an embryo could survive outside the womb, medical tests could determine a possible serious health related issues and a person should have the opportunity to decide whether to bring that embryo further in term to attempt a life outside the womb. The examples of premature babies being born every day across the country that do not survive demonstrate that viability occurs later than conception. As such, I do not believe that we can say that an embryo from the moment of conception has all the rights of a mother and that we must say abortion is wrong in all situations.
In “On Moral and Legal Status of Abortion,” Mary Anne Warren defines abortion as “the act that a woman performs in voluntarily terminating, or allowing another
She begins by stating her own opinion that “the basis of this conviction… is the realization that a fetus is not a person, and thus does not have a full-fledged right to life.” She then goes on to point out that Noonan never questions the assumption if a fetus is human then abortion is wrong for exactly the same reason murder is wrong. Which is very odd considering that the majority of anti-abortionists hold so much weight to their arguments on the fact that abortion is murder to a fetus which they see as being a human being from conception. She calls into question Noonan’s stance again by bringing up the fact a fetus cannot be considered a member of the moral community, those existing with full and equal moral rights, for the basic reason it is not a person, and it is personhood, and not humanity given by the human genetic code as defined by Noonan, which is the basis for membership in this community. Noonan argues a fetus, in any stage of development, satisfies none of the criteria of personhood, and is not even enough like a person to be granted even some of the same rights due to this resemblance. A fetus’s possible personhood is not a threat to the morality of abortion, because whatever the rights of potential people may be, they are always disallowed in any conflict with the moral rights of actual people. Then, Warren declares Noonan needs to
That would depend on each individual person’s morals, since morals are primarily subjective. While the majority of society can all agree that murder is morally wrong, whether or not abortion is murder is, at this point, biased. I do not believe abortion is murder, at least up until a certain point. Even then, however, I see circumstances in which abortion could be justified depending on the situation of the mother.
There is nothing morally wrong in terminating a pregnancy. There is a very early time period where a doctor can perform the procedure in the very beginning of the forming of the baby when the fetus is not really a baby rather the two parts forming together. I do not believe abortion is killing a live breathing human being. A fetus does not technically independently breathe but does depend on the mother for survival. Biological life actually begins before conception with our deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) which is living tissue and the main component of chromosomes. Human life begins on earth upon birth. Terminating a live breathing baby who just began life on earth is murder, but not in the womb as a
Warren argues against a fetus being a human in the moral sense. She states we can say a fetus has moral sense to be a human but not in the genetic sense. In order for a fetus to be human in the moral sense it has to be a being in the genetic sense. Warren thinks a fetus does not have full moral status because they are not persons. To be a person you have to have equal moral rights. Warren feels a fetus at any stage will not resemble a person or have significant right to life. A fetus does not have the ability to make decisions or have memories, therefore making them have no right to life. Warren states that a fetus is not a person and should not have morally rights. Warren stated in Potential Personhood and The Right to Life that a fetus does not resemble a person in anyway. She asks about the potential that could develop if the fetus is given the chance to become a person. “It is hard to deny that the fact that an entity is a potential person is a strong prima facie reason for not destroying it; but we need not conclude from this that a potential person has a right to life, by virtue of that potential”(Warren, p.472). After analyzing the concept of a person Warren has come to the conclusion that a fetus at any stage of development does not resemble a person enough to have right to life or potential for being a
In her essay, “A Defense of Abortion,” Judith Jarvis Thompson outlines the most common arguments that people defend, and explains her views regarding each of these. She shares numerous examples and situations that she believes will support her views. One of her most prominent arguments is that of whether or not a fetus has moral standing as a “person.” She highlights the so called “battle” between an innocent life, the fetus, and the bodily rights of the mother. Within this argument, Judith outlines for us several situations which can provide people with a different outlook regarding abortion. Throughout Judith’s essay, she does not truly give a clear stance, but rather allows her readers to choose for themselves.
The standard argument against abortion claims that the fetus is a person and therefore has a right to life. Thomson shows why this standard argument against abortion is a somewhat inadequate account of the morality of abortion.
This essay examines and critiques Judith Jarvis Thomson’s, A Defense of Abortion (1971). Thomson sets out to show that the foetus does not have a right to the mother’s body and that it would not be unjust to perform an abortion when the mother’s life is not threatened. For the sake of the argument, Thomson adopts the conservative view that the foetus is a person from the moment of conception. The conservative argument asserts that every person has a right to life. The foetus has a right to life.
As defined by the Merriam- Webster dictionary, abortion is “the termination of a pregnancy after, accompanied by, resulting in, or closely followed by the death of the embryo or fetus as a spontaneous expulsion of a human fetus during the first 12 weeks of gestation- miscarriage, the induced expulsion of a human fetus, or the expulsion of a fetus by domestic animal often due to the infection at any time before completion of pregnancy” (“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).
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.”
In abortion, the ethical question rests whether the right of the mother or the fetus should take precedence? Abortion is the deliberate termination of a human pregnancy, most often performed during the first 28 weeks of pregnancy and the expulsion of a fetus from the uterus by natural causes before it is able to survive independently. Abortion has become one of the largest social debates world wide being such a moral issue. Ethics in abortion involves constitutional and human right, personal beliefs, the other options, state laws, pro-life, and pro-choice.
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
In the article 'A Defense of Abortion' Judith Jarvis Thomson argues that abortion is morally permissible even if the fetus is considered a person. In this paper I will give a fairly detailed description of Thomson main arguments for abortion. In particular I will take a close look at her famous 'violinist' argument. Following will be objections to the argumentative story focused on the reasoning that one person's right to life outweighs another person's right to autonomy. Then appropriate responses to these objections. Concluding the paper I will argue that Thomson's 'violinist' argument supporting the idea of a mother's right to autonomy outweighing a fetus' right to life does not make abortion permissible.
In Thomson’s article, “A Defense of Abortion,” Thomson argues that abortion is not impermis-sible because she agrees with the fact that fetus has already become a human person well before birth, from the moment of conception (Thomson, 268 & 269). Besides that, she also claims that every person has a right to live, does so a fetus, because a fetus is a person who has a right to live.
“On the Moral and Legal Status of Abortion” by Mary Anne Warren is an in depth analysis of what, in Warren’s opinion, is exactly what 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 strip 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 in the moral community. Warren insists that the “moral” sense of human and “genetic” sense of human must be kept separate in this observation. As she defines the two, she goes on to say that the confusion of the two “results in a slide of meaning, which serves to conceal the fallaciousness of the traditional argument that since (1) it is wrong to kill innocent human beings, and (2) fetuses are innocent human beings, then (3) it is wrong to kill fetuses.
Do you consider something with a beating heart a living creature? A babies heart forms and starts beating in the fifth week of pregnancy, therefor, that would make abortion murder. The baby that is growing inside of you is depending on you, so when you make the choice to end that life, you are making the choice to murder another person.
Some may argue that it is morally wrong to have an abortion and a crime. It is considered to be murder. A few years back, it was considered a crime for a woman to have an abortion. Since this was considered a crime many women would seek out “back alley” doctors to perform an abortion. These were done in unsanitary conditions, sometimes the “back alley” doctor would mess up the procedure and the woman would either die from this or be unable to conceive later in life. Some would even consider drinking a mixture that would induce a miscarriage, and would end up dying from the mixture. Some women would even cause injury to themselves to induce a miscarriage of the unwanted pregnancy, with metal and wooden objects.
To begin, according to the Merriam Webster dictionary, “abortion is the spontaneous or induced termination of a pregnancy after, accompanied by, resulting in, or closely followed by the death of the embryo or fetus.” Frankly speaking, abortion is the deliberate act or termination of a life (pregnancy). Most often the abortion is performed during the first twenty-eight (28) weeks of the pregnancy. Life begins upon the sperm and egg culminating/conception, whether this implantation/merging is called an embryo or fetus, it is in fact a human being. To abort a life is a heinous crime and should be considered and prosecuted as murder, unless the mother’s life would be in danger, if the fetus, embryo, baby, or child was carried to full term.