My Sister's Keeper and Morality

The choice to have a child is life changing. Parents are given nine months to prepare for their lives to change completely. All of a sudden they are not the only person they are responsible for. Reitha and Ken Lakeberg’s circumstance was a bit more complex than the usual change in responsibilities. Instead of the one child to make decisions for, there were two, and they happened to be conjoined. Instead of having to consent for one baby they had two. This is the first ethical issue in this story. Autonomy is the right to make decisions for yourself, although with children the informed consent has to come from their parents. Yes it makes sense that children do not always fully understand and need guidance from parents. But when it is a life or death situation and there is no way to tell what they want circumstances become complicated. What gives parents or doctors the right to decide which twin should try to be saved and which twin should be sacrificed. “Mercifully, Reitha and Ken had been spared a Sophie’s Choice of selecting which of their offspring would die. Doctors made the decision strictly on medical grounds—which twin had the

She then reconstructs the initial argument to state that it is morally impermissible to abort a fetus if it has the right to life and has the right to the mother's body. The fetus has the right to life but only has the right to a mother's body if the mother voluntarily gives that right to the fetus. Therefore it is only in the case of voluntary pregnancy is abortion impermissible.

The American Library Association, ALA, is an organization that, among other things, compiles a list every year of the most frequently challenged books. “The American Library Association actively defends the right of library users to read, seek information, and speak freely as guaranteed by the First Amendment.” (ALA) Many times, the books on this list are challenged by parents with the want to protect their children from things they don’t believe to be appropriate. “Only parents have the right and responsibility to restrict the access of their children” (ALA) Even with these good intentions, by challenging a book, they are trying to challenge the authors’ thoughts and words, their First Amendment rights. These books usually contain

There are many factors that are taken into consideration when determining if abortion is morally permissible, or wrong including; sentience of the fetus, the fetuses right to life, the difference between adult human beings and fetuses, the autonomy of the pregnant woman, and the legality of abortion. Don Marquis argues that abortion is always morally wrong, excluding cases in which the woman is threatened by pregnancy, or abortion after rape, because fetuses have a valuable future. Mary Anne Warren contends that late term abortions are morally permissible because birth is the most significant event for a fetus, and a woman’s autonomy should never be suspended.

One of the first moral issues addressed by both sides of the abortion debate concerns a pregnant woman’s so-called natural “right” to make “reproductive choices.” (“The Rights of Pregnant Women”) Anti-abortion advocacy groups claim that “the only way to actually protect the mother’s rights will be by enforcing laws that secure her child’s right to life,” (“Argument 2”) whereas pro-abortion groups contend that these laws “create a dangerous precedent for wide-ranging government intrusion into the lives of all women.” (“The Rights”) With two fundamentally contrasting viewpoints at odds with each other, it is apparent that one of the core issues concurrent with abortion is a woman’s rights versus the rights of her unborn fetus.

In the article, “A Defense of Abortion” by Thomson, the author states the two points that contradict the most the right of a fetus and the right of a mother. The authors main stance, is there are abortions that are morally permissible and impermissible under certain circumstances. Thomson, makes the assumption that a fetus is a person so she can prove abortion is permissible in some situations. The author states, under three cases abortion is permissible and she further elaborates on the premise with analogies she presents. The first case is rape. She proposes an analogy, that you have been kidnapped and wake up in the hospital and they plugged you in with a violinist because it needs a kidney for nine months and if you decide to unplug it,

From the time Anna was born, whenever Kate fell ill and needed a donor, Kate and Anna’s parents did not hesitate to use Anna’s body without asking her. Parents should not harm one child to save another. Anna decides to go to a lawyer and sue her parents for the rights of her own body. The lawyer makes an ethical decision to be a

An ethical dilemma is a debate between two moral principles, where two sides can dispute about what is wrong or what is right. However, there is no real answer to an ethical dilemma. Is it a “simple” matter of what one believes in? The best answer would be, in ethics, it is not always simple. Ethics have a propensity to engage in moral reasoning, performing critical examination of different beliefs, in order to determine whether they should be accepted or rejected. Abortion is considered an ethical dilemma. It is examined by two different groups, which have two different perspectives; Pro-Life versus Pro-Choice.

The author argues that abortion can be done to save a mother’s life. For example, if a mother has a health problem that will not allow her to carry the pregnancy then abortion should be done in order to save her life (Feinberg and Shafer-Landau 28, 29). Furthermore, she argues that even though abortion is presumed as killing a child, the refusal to perform an abortion to an ill mother similarly results in the death of the mother. So it is unfair to the mother as both of them have equal rights to life and no one is inferior to the other (Feinberg and Shafer-Landau 642). In addition, the author states that the extreme view that abortion is killing/murdering an unborn child is false (Feinberg and Shafer-Landau 30). In a like manner, if a pregnancy poses a death risk to a mother, she has the right to defend herself even if in doing so involves killing the unborn child.

Pro-life versus Pro-choice stands as the most prominent bioethical issue in American Society today. This ongoing argument of whether an woman has the right to her body and potential child has been previously rigously debated for decades. The arguemental topic of pro life versus pro choice often dances along the topic that the government has been attempting to become callous in women’s rights as a total. I stand with women on their choice of their body, and fully believe that the government dictating the right of a female to their body is not only both morally and ethically wrong, yet also extremely contradictory.

The most obvious conclusion is that as the owner of the house, the mother has the right to do with her body as she wishes. In this example, this can mean that no woman should ever have to sacrifice her own body for the sake of another individual. As the owner of her body, the mother should be the one who decides what is to be done with the fetus inside her body. However, I must point out that there is a very fine line in regards to this analogy and it is important to put limitations on where a woman can leverage this idea. In doing so, there is a certain degree of ambiguity in this example that makes the situation slightly

Then she proposes that if we grant that a fetus is a person from the moment of conception, every person has a right to life and that also includes the fetus. But also, the mother is also a person, and has a right to decide what happens to her and to her

For hundreds of years women have been deciding if they were ready to take the step into motherhood or not. Others have had the choice to extend their families or keep it the same. Either way the option of abortion has been around for hundreds of years whether it is done legally or outlawed. People are quick to say that abortions are morally wrong and can’t be justified. Being that we are in “The Land of the Free” shouldn’t the final decision be up to the woman contemplating the idea. With abortions being in place for women with medical conditions, vile acts, and just not being prepared, that right is being put in jeopardy with abortion bans popping up around the United States. No matter how someone feels

In our society, there are many ethical dilemmas that we are faced with that are virtually impossible to solve. One of the most difficult and controversial issues that we are faced with is abortion. There are many strong arguments both for and against the right to have an abortion which are so complicated that it becomes impossible to resolve. The complexity of this issue lies in the different aspects of the argument. The essence of a person, rights, and who is entitled to these rights, are a few of the many aspects which are very difficult to define. There are also issues of what circumstances would justify abortion. Because the issue of abortion is virtually impossible to solve, all one can hope