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Abortion Rule Utilitarianism

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The issue of abortion has been a widely disputed debate over the past twenty years. Abortion was and still is the most controversial of all the current contemporary social issues. Many ethical issue arise from abortion, but the main issue to be discussed are in regards to whether or not abortion is considered the taking of a human life, and whose decision is it to determine whether or not they should be permitted. Abortion is defined as “a fatally premature expulsion of a fetus from the womb.” The procedure is performed in many different ways. Abortion can even date back to B.C. times. Ancient abortions usually consisted of mildly poisoning a pregnant mother. The poison was hoped to be just strong enough to kill the fetus, yet mild enough …show more content…

When “rule-utilitarianism” is applied to abortion, it could be argued that abortion is a completely ethical entity that will provide the most amount of happiness for the majority of people. For example, if a 16-year old drug addict were pregnant would it or would it not be in the best interest for the unborn child to be protected from any physical and/or psychological abuse that may occur. Individuals that are Pro-life view the situation concerning the fetus, where an abortion causes pain to the fetus and results in killing. However, a utilitarian viewpoint is different, they believe the focus on the fetus is unnecessary because it’s believed that the suffering involved can be avoided be an early abortion, before the fetus can develop the capability to undergo pain. In contrast, the population size would be a concerning factor. If the population decreases, utility would prescribe reproduction in order to increase the population. This would cause a shift and will create the greatest of happiness to most people. In this case, utility …show more content…

This is the belief that an act is considered to be moral solely because it adheres to a rule, therefore creating some sort of moral authority. A relative aspect of this theory concerns killing another human being. According to Kant, a person cannot kill another person being without violating a moral absolute. Therefore, killing is immoral and contradicts the Categorical Imperative because the meaning of life is to live. When Kant’s Categorical Imperative is applied to abortion, it is looking for the moral authority. And according to this theory, Kant would state that, “abortion is murder,” rather than “if you have an abortion, you are committing

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