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Why Abortion Is Immoral-Don Marquis: Pro Choice Vs Pro Life
Why Abortion Is Immoral-Don Marquis: Pro Choice Vs Pro Life
Immoral-Don Marquis
Pro Choice vs Pro Life
Foundations of the Two Sides
- Anti- abortionists believe life is present from moment of conception and that
fetuses look like babies or fetuses possess a trait such as genetic code that is
both necessary and sufficient for being human, which makes abortion akin to
murder.
- Pro- choicers advocate that fetuses are not persons and arent rational
agents or social beings which would prove the opposite, that abortion is not
wrongful killing.
- From here there is a standoff, but which side do you agree with?
The Gravity of Killing
- Loss of life is the greatest loss one can suffer because it takes away and robs
one of of experiences, activities, projects, and events in ones future.
- When you are killed or die you are deprived of what I know now value which
would be part of your future personal life and what I would come to know value.
- What is so sad about people with AIDS, cancer, or any terminal illness is the
very loss of their future and life ahead.
- It is argued that standard fetuses possess these and have these futures, almost
equivalent to very young children.
- Do you think this applies to abortion and why it could be morally wrong?
Discontinuation/Desire Account
- Killing is wrong because it interferes with fulfillment of strong, fundamental
desire to live.
- Maybe the fetus lacks desire to live but dont we view it as wrong to kill a
suicidal individual or a patient begging for death?
- Maybe these people do have a future like ours, so it would be wrong to kill
them.
Value needs a Valuer
- Tooley: Since fetuses have no desire for continued existence, it lacks a right
to life
- John C. Stevens: One may have the right to be treated by a procedure but
perhaps cant conceive of the nature of it.
- Again: Maybe a suicidal person has no desire, but should we kill them? There
have been depressed or suicidal people who have gone on to recover or have
meaningful lives.
- Mere metabolism not mentation, cant be victimized- how about those that
are unconscious? Quinlan Case.
- View shows how someone being a victim involves empathy like flood, famine,
abuse victims.
- But how about the author with low standards of his work, wouldnt it still be
wrong to destroy his work? He would still be a victim.
Moral Status of the Fetus
- Wrongness of abortion subject to permissibility standing or falling on the
moral status of the fetus.
- The fetus has properties and possessions of which in adult beings makes
killing them wrong.
- Clearly wrong to kill adults but not some arbitrarily chosen cell. Some
respects fetuses are cells and others like adult beings.
She also states that we have to agree that the fetus has already become a
human person well before birth.
By the tenth week, it already has a face, arms and legs, fingers, and toes;it
has internal organs, and brain activity is detectable at this time.
Knowing this now, Does it change your view on abortion?
A Defense of Abortion
Suppose a woman becomes pregnant, and now learns that she has a
cardiac condition such that she will die if she carries the baby to term.
The Fetus, being a person, has a right to life, but as the mother is a person
too, so she has a right to life
How is it supposed to come out that an abortion may not be performed?
Does this women have a good enough reason to get an abortion, and
what would you do if you were placed in this situation?
Abortion is Morally
Permissible
Mary Anne Warren
Two Types of Humanity
Genetic Humanity
Moral Humanity
The sense in which any member of
Some human beings are not people,
the species is a human being, and no
and there may well be people who
member of any other species could
are not human beings
be
According to Warren, a man or
Fetuses have genetic humanity due to
woman in a coma has lost
the presence of the full genetic code
personhood
Potential capacity for rational thought
Defective human beings with no
appreciable mental capacity are not
people
Do you believe humanity is circumstantial?
Moral Humanity Citizens of the future should
be prepared to recognize
self-aware robots, and
intelligent inhabitants of
other worlds, as people in
the fullest sense
To ascribe full moral rights
to an entity which is not a
person is as absurd as to
ascribe moral obligations
and responsibilities to such
an entity
Defining the Moral Community
Traits most central to the concept of personhood/humanity in the moral sense
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 (messages of many types and on many topics)
5. The presence of self-concepts, and self-awareness, either individual or racial,
or both