The analytical paper below presents a discussion about abortion. Abortion is the act that a woman performs in voluntarily terminating, or allowing another person to terminate her pregnancy. It continues with the discussion of the supporters of pro-choice and pro-life as well as where the conflict arises concerning the issue. Different perspectives such as the moderate, conservative as well as the liberal pertaining to the matter is discussed. Later, the opinion of Mary Anne Warren is noted down.
Thesis statement
Abortion should not be down at the indiscriminate wish of the mother without a permissible reason.
Pro-choice vs Pro-life
The two arguments have been conflicting each other especially concerning as to whether to conduct the abortion so as to protect the mother endangered in her pregnancy or subject both the mother and the baby to dangers that might arise as a result of the bad pregnancy as long as no abortion is carried out. The pro-life movement argues that even a non-viable, undeveloped human life is sacred and the government must take up the mandate of protecting it. The pro-choice on the other side argues that as long the baby is not ready to be conceived and it is anticipated that he/she can’t live outside the mother’s womb the government cannot impede the mother’s decision to terminate the pregnancy . Funny enough is that both movements have a similar goal of reducing the number of abortions but only their difference lies with respect to degree and methodology.
I am of the position of those who are pro-life because its ethic conflict with the personal autonomy as in the case of the abortion unlike the pro-choice that persons have the unlimited autonomy concerning their choice of productive systems as long as they don’t breach the autonomy of others. As with the pro-life, it means no individual can just wake up and decide to carry out the abortion herself or convince another person to assist her to do the abortion without a solid reason that is permissible by law. In reference to the “European Journal of Social Sciences- Volume 27, Number 4 (2012)”, there are two main approaches to pro-life: one of moral perspectives and the second of religious perspectives. Concerning the moral perspectives, there is abundant literature related to the abortion. Pro-life authors often compare the views of its opposition as very individualistic and centered on personal preferences; comparing the choice of choosing vanilla ice cream or chocolate ice cream with having or not having an abortion (Beckwith, 2007). The religious perspective has very little to be debated considering it embraces the belief in a supernatural almighty entity and thus very little literature discussing the logics of religion.
Despite the cultural background of an individual, abortion is generally unacceptable as it is wrong just as killing is wrong and stealing is wrong in any society, regardless of the cultural values. There is a heated debate among scholars concerning the perception of those who fall under the category of pro-life and pro-choice whether the unborn entity should be given full rights and moral status or not. The pro-choice supporters do agree that the unborn is not intrinsically valuable because of a lack of ability to reason and self-awareness.
It is reasonable to agree that if an unborn is a human, the unborn is entitled to rights; and if a human is entitled to rights, it must have moral values. This statement appears to make abortion unethical from the standpoint that the unborn entity is being deprived from the right of choosing live, considering someone else is making the choice; and, therefore, society should ban the practice of abortion (Boonin, 2003).
Moderate Perspectives
The supporters of moderate perspective according to card (2006), face the following questions: How far within the pregnancy is abortion acceptable? What are morally justifiable reasons for an abortion? The majority of moderate supporters believe that abortion is justifiable if the pregnant woman was victim of rape or incest, the pregnancy is life threatening to the woman and doctors concluded that severe and long-lasting physical damage will occur to the pregnant woman.
Conservatives as well as liberals think differently almost in all aspects and abortion to be specific has not been left out. Conservatives usually refer the liberals as moral relativists but they see themselves as moral absolutists. However, many of the liberals’ stance do not come from a lack of morality, but seeing more gray areas , more complexity, and being more comfortable with ambiguity. Often a conservative will talk about how they wish things to be, and make policy as if the ideal were already reality. Liberals think of how things are, and the inherent problems, and then envision a better future and how to get there. Conservatives emphasize the sex education to persons for them to abstain from sex which by itself is not effective as such. Liberals on the other side appreciate that there are more social problems which are complex and requires a variety of solutions so as to handle them. This include the sex education as well as extending to them forms of birth control for those who decide to have sex. Liberals try to reason through the complexity appreciating that the horniest of moral problems may need more creative thinking to find workable solutions.
Mary Anne Warren looks on the moral and legal status of abortion
It is evident from her writings that she took a look at what many writers talked about abortion. The writers here includes, Judith Thomson as well as John Noonan. Thomas was trying to challenge that even if the fetus was assumed to be a human being, she could still demonstrate that in at least some and perhaps most cases, a woman is under no moral obligation to complete an unwanted pregnancy. Thomson who looked the issue in two steps i.e. determination of the moral status of the fetus if it has any and the rights of a woman to have an abortion regardless of the rights the fetus has. Warren inquiry also had two stages. In section I, she considers whether or not it is possible to establish that abortion is morally permissible even on the assumption that the fetus is an entity with a fully-fledged right to life. She argued that it cannot be established, at least not with the conclusiveness which is essential to convincing those who are skeptical about the morality of abortion. In section II, she narrates that a fetus cannot be considered as a member of moral community just because of the simple reason that it is not a person. According to her arguments she conclude that that neither abortion nor the killing of neonates is properly considered as a form of murder. She continues to say that a law should classify infanticide as a murder or homicide, since there is no other existing legal category which adequately or conveniently express the force of our society’s disapproval of this action.
Conclusion
Abortion should not be allowed at whatever cost unless the mother’s life is endangered and the only way to save the life of the mother is to carry out abortion. Sex education should be carried out as well as allowing persons other forms of preventing birth control such as use of condoms, for the unwanted pregnancies. This is because every heart that is silenced is one voice never heard.
Works cited
www.thoughtco.com/pro-life-vs-pro-choice-721108
www.semanticscholar.org/bbdc/b17b6616460d58ecb0efab1e31da8507329a.pdf
www.douglasficek.com/teaching/phil-2222/warren.pdf
G Skelton - Los Angeles Times, 1989
