Abortion
When does life actually begin? When, if ever, is it right to terminate
a
pregnancy? These are some of the moral dilemmas that are faced when dealing
with
the issue of abortion. Abortion is the termination of a pregnancy. There
are
many different stands held on the issue of abortion. For those holding
a
conservative view on abortion, abortion is never acceptable except
when
necessary to save the life of a pregnant woman. In contrast, the liberal
view
believes that abortion is always ethically acceptable at any point of
fetal
development, and for any reason. Finally, there are those in the
middle, that
hold the moderate view. They believe that abortion is ethically
acceptable up to
a certain point of fetal development and that some reasons
are acceptable. Mary
Anne Warren’s Argument for Abortion Mary Anne
Warren’s stand on abortion is
that of a liberal one. In her article, On the
Moral and Legal Status of
Abortion, she concludes that "...a women’s
right to protect her health,
happiness, freedom, and even her life, by
terminating an unwanted pregnancy,
will always override whatever right to
life it may be appropriate to ascribe to
a fetus, even a fully developed
one." (pg.16, Mappes) Warren believes that
abortion is permittable because
the fetus is not a fully developed person with
moral characteristics; they
are human beings that are not yet a person. She
contends that in order to be
considered a human, we must satisfy five traits.
These five traits are: 1
consciousness (of objects and events external and/or
internal to the being),
and in particular the capacity to feel pain: 2 reasoning
(the developed
capacity to solve new and relatively complex problems); 3
self-motivated
activity (activity which is relatively independent of either
genetic or
direct external control); 4 the capacity to communicate, by whatever
means,
messages of an indefinite variety of types, that is, not just with
an
indefinite number of possible contents, but on indefinitely many
possible
topics; 5 the presence of self-concepts and self-awareness, wither
individual or
racial, or both. (pg.12, Mappes) And since a fetus does not
possess these five
characters, she believes that they are not entitled to
have full moral status,
and may be terminated during any stage of pregnancy.
To support her conclusion
she uses creative stories, such as a story about if
we landed on a planet how
would we be able to distinguish the aliens as those
holding morals such as
ourselves, or things in which we could eat. She also
uses another story about if
we were captured by aliens who wanted to make
genetic copies of ourselves, by
which we would actually loose our life. She
says that no matter how many lives
would be made out of us, we should not
have to give up our freedom for others.
These stories are also the main
strengths in her argument because it makes the
reader look at the issue of
abortion in a different light. By using these
stories, the reader is
convinced to take a deeper look into his or her opinion.
The weaknesses
to her argument is that if we were to support her argument, that
pregnancy
should be able to be terminated at any stage, then we could fall into
a
slippery slope. Another weakness to this argument is that abortion could
end
up being another form of birth control for those who are irresponsible.
Instead
of it being for those who actually have valid reasons, it becomes
available to
anyone for any reason, therefore simply becoming another form of
birth control.
Finally, she fails to mention that abortions can be
damaging to a women’s
health. She talks about how it is our bodies and that
we have a right to do what
we want to, to keep them healthy, but fails to
bring to our attention that
abortions are not healthy for us. Don Marquis’
Argument against Abortion In
contrast to Marry Anne Warren, Marquis holds a
conservative view on abortion. In
the article, "Why Abortion is Immoral,"
Marquis concludes that "This essay
sets out an argument that purports to
show...that abortion...is seriously
immoral, that it is in the same moral
category as killing an innocent adult
human being."(pg.27, Mappes) The main
reasons backing up his argument are, for
one, simply that it is wrong to kill
us. When we are killed we suffer the
greatest loss of all, our life. Second,
killing us deprives us of our future
experiences; depriving us of our future
deprives us of more than perhaps any
other crime. And third, since a fetus
possess a property, the possession of
which in adult beings is sufficient to
make killing an adult human being wrong,
then abortion is also wrong.
Marquis’ main strength in his argument against
abortion is that it sets up a
strong stand that killing of any kind, especially
of those that are our
future is always wrong. There are also weaknesses to the
argument as well.
For one, he compares the killing of us to the killing of
animals, therefore
basically implying that we are at the same moral status as
animals, which I
think many would not agree with and look down upon. As well,
the article
itself was not all that clear or interesting; the author seemed to
jump
around a bit, and not express his opinion very strongly. I was not
as
convinced by his argument as I was for Warren’s argument, not that I am
for
either one’s argument, merely that Warren’s argument was much stronger.
My
Argument on Abortion Abortion is a very serious and complicated issue.
I would
have to say that I am firm on my stand that abortion is a women’s
choice to a
certain degree; therefore I feel that I hold the moderate view on
abortion. The
reasons for my opinion being more to the middle of the extreme
views is that the
destruction of any life should not be merely up to
ourselves to decide. Abortion
should not be a solution to our irresponsible
actions, nor should it not be
allowed to those really needing to terminate
their pregnancy. If abortion were
available to all women for any reason, at
any stage of pregnancy, we would
become desensitized to the fact that a life
is actually being destroyed.
Likewise, if abortion was only available to
those in order to save their lives,
or because they were raped, then there
would be a lot of unwanted infants in
this world being neglected and not
being cared for.
Bibliography
Mappes, Thomas A. and Jane S.Zembaty
1997 Social Ethics – Morality and
Social Policy. New York: The
McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.