By Puppetmaster
Abortion
Ethics
I will have to examine the issue of Sally and Tom on a couple different levels. After all, with each different view, either pro-life or pro-choice, and depending on each Philosopher, which I will be discussing Mary Anne Warren, Don Marquis, and Barbara Katz Rothman, each view will have different conclusions with different reasoning. Just as well as my view on the issue may agree and disagree with certain arguments each Philosopher has.
Abortion can have a different meaning and definition to each individual. Depending on that definition, one can examine Sally and Tom's issue of whether it was morally right or wrong to abort the abnormal fetus. According to Mary Anne Warren, abortion is defined as "the act a woman performs in deliberately terminating her pregnancy before it comes to term, or allowing another person to terminate it." (Pg. 79 of Ethics in Practice) As a pro-choicer, she believes that it is morally permissible and it should be neither hard to obtain, nor prohibited.
She also argues, "to deny a woman access to abortion is to deprive her of the right to control her own body." (Pg. 79 of Ethics in Practice) Advocates of choice argue that the fetus is in fact a person and has a right to life just as any other human being. Warren attacks this by providing her own definition and characteristics of what it is to be a "human being" and gives a concept of personhood. In order to have this personhood one must have: sentience, (the ability to experience pain and pleasure), emotionality, (the capacity to be happy sad, etc.), reason, (the capacity to solve complex problems), the capacity to communicate, self-awareness, and moral agency, (the capacity to be in charge of one's own actions through ideals). She believes...
Greekqueen
Good work, well done!, as a mum of three, and having more than a little bias towards the belief that every life is important; even a two week old foetus, I can still identify with all sides of the argument, just as you have. A well-written, non-biased essay.
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