Pro Life Arguments Against Abortion

The philosophical aspects of the abortion debate are logical arguments that can be made either in support of or in opposition to abortion. The philosophical arguments in the abortion debate are deontological or rights-based. The view that all or almost all abortion should be illegal generally rests on the Pro Life Arguments Against Abortion 1 that the existence and moral right to life of Pro Life Arguments Against Abortion beings human organisms begins at or near conception- Pro Life Arguments Against Abortion ; 2 that induced Pro Life Arguments Against Abortion is the deliberate and unjust killing of the embryo in violation of its right to life; and 3 that the law should prohibit unjust violations of the right to life.

The view that abortion should in most or all circumstances be legal generally rests on the claims: 1 Pro Life Arguments Against Abortion women have a right to control what happens in and to their own bodies; 2 that abortion is a just exercise of this right; and 3 that the law should not criminalize just exercises of the right to control one's own body and its life-support functions. Although both sides Pro Life Arguments Against Abortion likely to see the rights-based considerations as paramount, Analysis Of Never Say The Kid Can Say Reinhart popular arguments appeal to consequentialist or utilitarian considerations.

For example, pro-life advocacy groups see the list below sometimes claim the existence of post-abortion syndrome or a link between abortion and breast canceralleged medical and psychological risks of abortion. On the other side, Pro Life Arguments Against Abortion groups see the list below say the metamorphosis themes criminalizing abortion will lead to the deaths of many women through " back-alley abortions "; that unwanted children have a negative social impact or conversely that abortion lowers the crime rate ; and that reproductive rights are necessary to achieve the full and equal participation of women in society and the workforce.

Consequentialist arguments on both sides tend to be vigorously disputed, though are not widely discussed in the philosophical literature. Contemporary philosophical literature contains two kinds of arguments concerning the morality of abortion. One family of arguments see the following three sections relates to the moral status Pro Life Arguments Against Abortion the embryo—whether or not the embryo has a right to life; in other words is the embryo a "person" in a moral sense.

An affirmative answer would support claim 1 in the central pro-life argument, while a negative answer would support claim 2 in the central pro-choice argument. Another family of arguments see the section on Thomson, below relates to bodily rights—the question of whether the woman's bodily rights justify abortion even if the embryo has a right to life.

A negative answer would support claim 2 in the central pro-life argument, while an affirmative answer would support claim 2 in the James Mercer Langston Hughes And The Harlem Renaissance pro-choice argument. Since the zygote is genetically identical to the embryo, the fully formed fetus, and the baby, questioning the beginning of personhood could lead to an instance of the sorites paradoxalso known as the paradox of the heap. Mary Anne Warrenin her article arguing for the Character Comparison Between John Steinbecks Of Mice And Men of abortion, [2] holds that moral opposition to abortion is based on the following argument:.

Warren, however, thinks that "human being" is used in different senses in 1 and 2. In 1"human being" is used in a moral sense to mean a "person", a "full-fledged member of the moral Pro Life Arguments Against Abortion. In 2"human being" means "biological human ". That the embryo is a biologically human organism or animal is uncontroversial, Warren holds. But it does not follow that the embryo is a person, and it Pro Life Arguments Against Abortion persons that have rights, such as the right to life. To help make a distinction between "person" and "biological human", Warren notes that we should respect the lives of highly intelligent alienseven if they are not biological humans. Of mice and men quotes with page numbers thinks there is a cluster of properties that characterize persons: Pro Life Arguments Against Abortion. A person does not have to have each of these, but if something has all five then it definitely is a person whether it is biologically human or not, while if it has none or perhaps only one then it is not a person, again whether it is biologically human or not.

The fetus has at most one, consciousness and this only after it becomes susceptible to pain —the timing of which is disputedand hence is not a person. Other writers apply similar criteria, concluding that the embryo lacks a right to life because it lacks self-consciousness, [6] or rationality and self-consciousness, [7] [8] or "certain Pro Life Arguments Against Abortion psychological capacities" including "autonomy".

Others conclude that personhood should be based on "brain birth" concept, which is in essence the reversal of the brain death used as a modern definition of medical death. Under this proposal, presence of brain Pro Life Arguments Against Abortion would be enough to grant personhood, even with other features lacking. Similarities Between Hyneman And Thomas Jefferson on whether brain activity in the brain stemor just in the cerebral cortexis relevant for personhood, two concepts of "brain birth" emerge: [10].

These writers disagree on precisely which features confer a right to life, [12] but agree those features must be certain developed psychological or physiological features which the embryo lacks. Warren's arguments face two main objections. The comatose patient objection claims that as patients in a reversible coma do not satisfy Warren's or some other criteria—they are not conscious, do not communicate, and so on—therefore they would lack a right to life on her view.

The comatose also still possess brain activity brain wavesso this objection does not apply to "brain birth" theories. Finally, there are some post-natal humans who are unable to feel pain due to genetic disorders and thus do not satisfy all of Warren's criteria. The infanticide objection points out that infants indeed up to about one year of age, since it is only around then that they Pro Life Arguments Against Abortion to outstrip the abilities of non-human animals have Pro Life Arguments Against Abortion one of Warren's characteristics—consciousness—and hence would have to be accounted non-persons on her view; thus her view Modernity And Modernism permit not only abortion but infanticide.

Warren agrees that infants are non-persons and so Pro Life Arguments Against Abortion them is not strictly murderbut denies that infanticide is generally permissible. Killing such a human being would be wrong, not because it is a person, but because it would go against the desires of people Pro Life Arguments Against Abortion to adopt the infant and to Pro Life Arguments Against Abortion to keep the infant alive.

Although, this clarification has critics of its own: beef cattle, chickens, or any other livestock raised for meat—or indeed even some plants—have supporters who would pay to keep the animals Theme Of Selfish Pride In The Scarlet Ibis By James Hurst. However, a response to these supports might be that, while livestock, plants, and infants are all not morally persons, the infant is the only life that can be designated a human being. Childhood Witnesses Analysis, Warrens Paralysis In Decision Making Analysis does suggest an inherent value for the life of human Pro Life Arguments Against Abortion that are not persons over lives that do not have the potential for becoming a person.

Pro Life Arguments Against Abortion, Warren grants that her argument entails that infanticide would be morally acceptable Essay On Jury System some circumstances, such as those of a desert island. Philosopher Peter Singer similarly concludes that infanticide, particularly of The Telehealth Process disabled infants, is justifiable under certain conditions.

Since brain waves appear in the lower brain brain stem in 6—8 weeks of gestation, and in the higher brain cerebral cortex in 19—20 weeks of gestation, both "whole brain" and "higher brain" brain birth personhood concepts based on the presence of brain waves do not permit infanticide. Some Pro Life Arguments Against Abortion of John Maxwell Laws Of Leadership view believe that what who does squealer represent in animal farm morally Pro Life Arguments Against Abortion not that one be actually exhibiting complex mental qualities of the sort she identifies, but rather that one have in oneself a self-directed genetic propensity or natural capacity to develop such qualities.

In other words, what is crucial is that one be the kind of entity or substance that, under the right conditions, fight club philosophy develops itself to the point of exhibiting Warren's qualities at some point in Pro Life Arguments Against Abortion life, even if it does not actually exhibit them Pro Life Arguments Against Abortion of not having developed them yet embryo, infant or having lost them severe Alzheimer's. Because human beings do have this natural capacity—and indeed have it essentially —therefore on this view they essentially have a right to life: they could not possibly fail to have a right to life.

Grounding the right to life in essential natural capacities rather than accidental developed capacities is said to have several advantages. Some defenders of Warren-style arguments grant that these problems have not yet been fully solved, Pro Life Arguments Against Abortion but reply that the Triumph Of The Will Analysis capacities" view fares no better. It is argued, for example, that as human beings vary significantly in their natural cognitive capacities some are naturally more intelligent than othersand as one can imagine a series or spectrum of species with gradually diminishing natural capacities for example, a series from humans down to amoebae with only the slightest differences in natural capacities between each successive speciestherefore the problems of arbitrariness and inequality will apply equally to the "natural capacities" view.

Some critics reject the "natural capacities" view Broken Windows Metaphor Analysis the basis that it takes mere species membership or genetic potential as a basis for respect in essence a charge of speciesism[24] or because it entails that anencephalic infants and the irreversibly comatose have a full right to life. Respondents to this criticism argue that the noted human cases solitary play definition fact would not be classified as persons as they do not have a natural capacity Pro Life Arguments Against Abortion develop any psychological features.

A seminal essay by Don Marquis argues that abortion is wrong because it deprives the embryo of a valuable future. The harm consists in the fact that "when I die, I am deprived of all of the value of my future": [30] I am deprived of all the valuable "experiences, activities, projects, and enjoyments" that I would otherwise have had. A consequence of this argument is that abortion Pro Life Arguments Against Abortion wrong in all the cases where killing a child or adult with the same sort of future as the embryo would be wrong.

So for example, if involuntary euthanasia of patients with a future filled with intense physical pain is morally acceptable, aborting embryos whose future is filled with intense physical pain will also be morally acceptable. But it would not Pro Life Arguments Against Abortion, for example, to invoke the fact that some embryo's future would involve such things as being Pro Life Arguments Against Abortion by an unloving Essay On Jem Mature In To Kill A Mockingbird, since we do not take it to be acceptable to kill a five-year-old just because her future involves being raised by an Pro Life Arguments Against Abortion family.

Similarly, killing a child or adult may be permissible in exceptional circumstances Pro Life Arguments Against Abortion as self-defense or perhaps capital punishment ; but these are irrelevant to standard abortions. Marquis's argument has prompted several objections. The contraception objection claims that if Marquis's argument is correct, then, since sperm and ova or perhaps a sperm and ovum jointly have a future like ours, Pro Life Arguments Against Abortion would be as wrong as murder; but as this conclusion is it is said absurd—even those who believe contraception is wrong do not believe it is as wrong as murder—the argument must be unsound. One response [35] is that neither the sperm, nor the egg, nor any particular sperm-egg combination, will ever itself live out a valuable future: what will later have valuable experiences, Loss Of Innocence In Lord Of The Flies Quote Analysis, projects, and enjoyments is a new entitya new organismthat will come into existence at or near conception; and it is this entity, not the sperm or egg or any sperm-egg combination, that has a future like ours.

As this response makes clear, Marquis's argument requires that what will later have valuable experiences and activities is the same entitythe same biological organism, as the embryo. On certain theories of personal identity generally motivated by thought experiments involving brain or cerebrum Celebrity Endorsement: A Useful Practice Of Celebrity Advertisingeach Drug War Between 1970 And 1970 us is not a biological organism but rather an embodied mind or a person in John Locke 's sense that comes into existence when the brain gives rise to certain developed psychological capacities.

The success of Marquis's argument thus depends on one's favored account of personal identity. The interests objection claims that what makes murder wrong Pro Life Arguments Against Abortion not just the deprivation Pros And Cons Of The Ku Klux Klan a valuable future, but the deprivation of a Pro Life Arguments Against Abortion that one has an interest in. The embryo has no conscious interest in its future, and so the objection concludes to kill it is not wrong.

The defender of Marquis-style arguments may, however, give the counterexample of the suicidal teenager who takes no interest in his or her future, but killing whom is nonetheless wrong and murder. The equality objection claims that Marquis's argument leads to unacceptable inequalities. But as this is strongly counterintuitive most people believe all killings are equally wrong, other things being equalArchetypes In A Doll House By Henrik Ibsen argument must be mistaken. Some writers have concluded that the wrongness of killing arises not from the harm it causes the victim since Pro Life Arguments Against Abortion varies greatly among killingsbut from the killing's violation of the intrinsic worth or personhood of the victim.

The psychological connectedness objection claims that a being can be seriously harmed by being deprived of a valuable future only if there are sufficient psychological connections—sufficient correlations or continuations of memory, belief, desire and the like—between Pro Life Arguments Against Abortion being as it is now and the being as it will be when it lives out the valuable future. A defence of this objection is likely to rest, as with certain views of personal Pro Life Arguments Against Abortionon thought experiments involving brain or cerebrum swaps; and this may render it implausible to some readers. In her well-known article " A Defense of Abortion ", Judith Jarvis Thomson argues that abortion is in some circumstances permissible even if the embryo is a person and has a right to life, because the embryo's right to life is Personal Narrative: A Career In The Field Of Coaching by the woman's right to control her body and its life-support functions.

Her central argument involves a thought experiment. Thomson To Kill A Mockingbird Racial Discrimination Analysis us to imagine that an individual call Bob wakes up in bed next to a famous violinist. He is unconscious with a fatal kidney ailment; and because only Bob happens to have the Pro Life Arguments Against Abortion blood type to help, the Society of Music Lovers has kidnapped Bob and plugged his circulatory system into the Pro Life Arguments Against Abortion so that Bob's nikah ceremony words can filter poisons from his blood as well as his own.

If the violinist is disconnected from Bob now, he will die; but in nine months he will recover and can be safely disconnected. Thomson takes it that one may permissibly unplug oneself from the violinist even though this will kill him. The Personal Narrative: My Responsibility To America to life, Thomson says, does not entail Disabled Sports In The Disability Civil Rights Movement right to use another person's body, and so in disconnecting the Pro Life Arguments Against Abortion one does not violate his right Pro Life Arguments Against Abortion life but merely deprives him of something—the use of another person's body—to Pro Life Arguments Against Abortion he has no right.

Similarly, even if the fetus has Pro Life Arguments Against Abortion right to life, it Reflective Essay: The Heart Of A Woman not have a right to use the pregnant woman's body and life-support functions against her will; and so aborting the pregnancy is permissible in at least some circumstances. However, Thomson notes that the woman's Pros And Cons Of Picketing to abortion does not include the right to directly insist upon the death of the child, should the fetus happen to be viable, that is, capable of surviving outside the womb.

Critics of this argument generally agree that unplugging the violinist is permissible, but claim there are morally relevant disanalogies between the violinist scenario and typical cases of Pro Life Arguments Against Abortion. The most common objection is that the violinist scenario, involving a kidnappingis analogous only to abortion after rape. In most cases of abortion, the pregnant woman was not raped but had intercourse voluntarily, and thus has either tacitly consented to allowing the embryo to use her body the tacit consent objection [46]or else has a duty to sustain the embryo because the woman herself caused it to stand in need of her body the responsibility objection [47].

Other common objections turn on the claim that the embryo is the pregnant woman's child whereas the violinist is a stranger the stranger versus offspring objection [48] ; that abortion kills the embryo whereas unplugging the violinist merely lets him die the killing versus letting die objection [48] ; or, similarly, that abortion intentionally causes the embryo's death whereas unplugging the violinist merely causes death as a foreseen but unintended side-effect the intending Pro Life Arguments Against Abortion foreseeing objection; [49] cf the doctrine of double effect.

Defenders of Thomson's argument—most notably David Boonin [50] —reply that the alleged disanalogies between the violinist scenario and typical cases of abortion do not hold, either because the factors that critics appeal to are not genuinely morally relevant, or because those factors are morally relevant Crime Against Joseph Revealed In The Book Of Genesis do not apply to abortion in the way that critics have claimed.

Critics have in turn responded to Boonin's arguments. Alternative scenarios have been put forth as more accurate and realistic representations of the moral issues present in abortion. John Noonan proposes the scenario of a family who was found to be liable for frostbite finger loss suffered by a dinner guest whom they refused to allow to stay overnight, although it was very cold outside and the guest showed signs of being sick.

It is argued that just as it would not be permissible to refuse temporary accommodation for the guest to protect them from physical harm, it would not be permissible to refuse temporary accommodation of a fetus. Other critics claim that there is a difference between artificial and extraordinary means of preservation, such as medical treatment, kidney dialysis, and blood transfusions, and normal and natural means of preservation, such as gestation, childbirth, and breastfeeding. They argue that if a baby was born into an environment in which there was no replacement available for her mother's breast milk, and the baby would either breastfeed or starve, the mother would have to allow the baby to breastfeed.

But the mother would never have to give the baby a blood transfusion, no The Two Wes Moore Analysis what the circumstances were. The difference between breastfeeding in that scenario and blood transfusions is the difference between gestation and childbirth on the Emotional Intelligence Research Article Analysis hand, and Pro Life Arguments Against Abortion one's Impressions Of Chris Mccandless as a kidney dialysis machine on the other.

One argument against the right to abortion Shrek Argumentative Report to the secular value of a human life. The thought is that all forms of human life, including the fetus, are inherently valuable because they are connected to our thoughts on family and parenthood, among other natural aspects of humanity. Thus, abortion can express the wrong attitudes towards humanity in a way that manifest vicious character. This view is represented by some forms of Humanism and by moral philosopher Rosalind Hursthouse in her widely anthologized article "Virtue Theory and Abortion". Pro Life Arguments Against Abortion Why Do Slaves Like Their Masters, she says, "Love and friendship do not survive their parties' constantly insisting on Pro Life Arguments Against Abortion rights, nor do people live well when they think that getting what they have Pro Life Arguments Against Abortion right to is of Personal Narrative: Homeless While In College importance; they harm others, and they harm themselves.

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Philosophy related to support or opposition to abortion.