The Morality Of Abortion

Submitted By Peter-Hussey
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Pages: 5
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The morality of abortion is a long debated dispute. The concept of taking a persons life has been an exhausting and relentless debate. Typically abortion is debated amongst politics and the law. It answers serious philosophical questions such as; is it right to take a human life or when does a human life begin? In this paper I am going to analyze when life begins and the legal parameters associated with this claim. According to Judith Jarvis Thomson's “A defense of abortion” she argues that the fetus has a right to life but does not have the right to a woman’s body. She argues that life does not begin at conception all though there are many characteristics of a human being the fetus can not live on its own. This raises the question who has more rights? Does the fetus have the right to live or does a woman have more right to what happens in her own body? She goes on to analyze how a third party has no right to intervene and take the life unless it threatens the life of the mother. Then it is deemed necessary to take the life to save the mother. This however is a complex situation and an extreme case. She goes on to ensure that her claims do not support murder but self defense. It must be the mothers life or the child's. If the mother is in danger and could lose her life then she has the right to take action for survival. She is saying that a mother has a right to an abortion if she will suffer loss of life. There are three extreme cases where where they demonstrate just and unjust killing of a fetus.(Thomson,2014) The first example is of a violinist who shares your kidneys. To unplug him would kill him and be unjust. The reason it is unjust is because they violinist has not attached himself to you willingly. Therefore for a third party to remove him it would be considered unjust. Another example they provide is a women being raped. She has no choice in the matter of conceiving a child and had no intention of having the child. Under this extreme circumstance the women should have the right to choose to have an abortion. (Thomson,2014) They compare the woman's body to a house and how the child is a tenant and the mother is is the owner. The mother has the ultimate right to decide what happens to her body but what right does the unborn child have? Another example is of an unjust circumstance is the example they provide of two children getting a box of candy. They are brothers and the chocolate was meant for both kids. The older brother was given the chocolate and told to share with his younger brother. He dose not want to share with his brother so this is considered unjust. We can not confuse indecency with injustice; just because someone should do something out of decency dose not mean they are obligated due to being unjust. The premises and conclusions offered are of extreme cases and can not be set as precedence in law. They go on to explain they support abortion for some circumstance but not for the unjust cause of murder. The context of the writing pretends that the fetus becomes a human being at the moment of conception. (Thomson,2014) I am going to argue that the fetus has no rights and is not considered a being until it is able to survive on its own. According to supreme court justice Blackmun in the decision of Roe V. Wade Black mun developed a three tear theory. We are going to look at the second tier where “Blackmun’s Framework encompassed the period from the end of the first trimester to the point of fetal viability – the point at which a fetus can survive outside the womb, either through natural or artificial means, which typically takes place between about 24 and 28 weeks into a pregnancy.”(U.S. Supreme Court, para, 9) So according to the law this is when the fetus becomes a being and woman shall not have an abortion unless the mother has life threatening complications. This would deny the theory that life begins at conception and would give the definition of the mother being a host and the fetus
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