Essay about Perspective of Mary Anne Warren on Keeping Abortion Legal

The goal of Judith Jarvis Thomson in her defense of abortion is to sway the ideas of those who are against abortion by challenging the arguments they give for thinking so. She begins by stating a premise. “For the sake of the argument” a human embryo is a person. This premise is one of the arguments most opponents of abortion use, but as she points out, isn’t much of an argument at all. These people spend a lot of their time dwelling on the fact that the fetus is a person and hardly any time explaining how the fetus being a person has anything to with abortion being impermissible. In the same breath, she states that those who agree with abortion spend a lot of their time

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.

In Judith A. Thomson’s article, ‘A defense of abortion’ Thomson defends her view that in some cases abortion is morally permissible. She takes this stance even with the premise that fetuses upon the moment of conception are in fact regarded as persons. However one criticism of her argument would be that there is a biological relationship between mother and fetus however there is no biological relationship between you and the violinist. Having this biological relationship therefore entails special responsibility upon the mother however there is no responsibility in the case of the violinist. Thomson argues against those who are opposed to abortion with her violinist thought experiment.

Mary Anne Warren (p.195-196) points out the exceptional circumstances of pregnancy; where one human is entirely biologically reliant on another and where it is impossible for complete personhood rights to not be in conflict between the foetus and the mother. Consider the following case. A mother and an expecting mother both express an intent to kill their child or unborn child respectively. Services are available to take the postnatal children from their mother without affecting her body. Yet to protect the foetus, one would have to imprison the mother until birth, or worse, force a caesarean on her. Warren (193) points out that forced caesareans are not merely a hypothetical

The general argument made from Warren is (1) If a person, they have the right to life, (2) The fetus is not considered a person, and (3) Therefore, since the fetus is not a person they do not have a right to life. Also, (4) A human being needs all the morals of personhood to be considered a person, (5) An infant does not have morals, and (6) Therefore, an infant is not a person because the do not have the morals to be considered a person.

Mary Anne Warren’s argument on the legal status of abortion stands on a concrete understanding and realization of an individual’s personhood. Now Mary Anne Warren’s unyielding argument on the basis of personhood is that, “If we assume that an entity is a person just because it happens to belong to our favored biological classification, we stand convicted of speciesism, close cousin to racism. There are properties that do qualify an entity as a person, but simply being human is not one of them” (124). To first be able to argue why the abortion of a fetus is permissible she needs to give a clear distinction of what can be established a decisive factor of personhood. To distinguish a line between a fetus and a human and if abortion is to be morally permissible there needs to be an understanding of when this cut off between the two officially happens. In an example of the potential personhood and a right to life Mary Ann Warren uses a hypothetical scenario of a space explorer who lands on an unknown plant. While on this plant he encounters a race of aliens. Now since he is on another plant in the presence of these alien beings how should he act towards these beings. He must first determine if they have the capability of morality or if it is acceptable to consume these aliens for food. To determine if these aliens are in fact part of a moral personhood maybe he can notice works of art, forms of tools, and communication. However, even without evidence of these things they could

Warren, Thomson, and Hursthouse would agree that Sister McBride and St Joseph’s Hospital were correct in prescribing and performing the abortion. All three authors have varying views on abortion itself, but all held the common view that if the fetus is killing the mother it can be morally aborted. Warren specifically believes that a fetus is not a person and therefore does not have rights equal to a person, if it has rights at all. This belief allows a mother to undergo an abortion whenever she pleases because she is the only one with rights. Although Thomson agrees with Warren she states that a fetus is a person. She comes to the same conclusion as Warren though, that an abortion can be performed whenever, with a somewhat similar thought

In Mary Anne Warren’s “The Abortion Issue,” children are not persons in the empirical sense. Warren believes that prior to a certain point in a pregnancy, the child does not have “the capacity to understand” the ramifications of what an abortion would be, therefore the abortion does not infringe upon the rights of the unborn fetus. She states that: “…in the ways that matter from a moral point of view, human fetuses are very unlike human persons, particularly in their early months of development”(152). In essence, personhood as defined by Warren can only come after the first trimester. Before that time, the fetus does not have the sentience that would make it a person. Warren’s main criteria for

Warren and Thomson might even counter some of my arguments too. They might explain that they might possess the DNA for the next Rockefeller or Gates, but they also might have the potential for the next evil criminal like Hitler and because the child won’t be raised properly the chances are more likely that they turn out evil rather than good. Therefore, by allowing the parents to commit an abortion, society would be safer and crime rate would go down. I also, counter that argument by saying that if this were the case then the police would get to them and if it turns out to be the next Gates society benefits from them anyhow.

In the article 'A Defense of Abortion' Judith Jarvis Thomson argues that abortion is morally permissible even if the fetus is considered a person. In this paper I will give a fairly detailed description of Thomson main arguments for abortion. In particular I will take a close look at her famous 'violinist' argument. Following will be objections to the argumentative story focused on the reasoning that one person's right to life outweighs another person's right to autonomy. Then appropriate responses to these objections. Concluding the paper I will argue that Thomson's 'violinist' argument supporting the idea of a mother's right to autonomy outweighing a fetus' right to life does not

In Warren’s article concerning infanticide and her view on the issue, she makes it clear to make a distinct separation from her stance regarding abortion since people have thought that her article on abortion led to a similar belief about infanticide. Because abortion and infanticide are so closely related, Warren wanted to discuss how they should be treated as morally different situations. She explains that infanticide is not the same as abortion, since the fetus has already been born. Thus, once the infant is born, it no longer is violating any rights against the mother since she does not have the physical connection to the baby as she did when it was inside of her. The baby would not technically need its birth-mother to survive if she

When I think back to the beginning of the semester, an entirely different ethical theory that I think relates to this topic on abortion is Kantian Moral theory. When applying this theory to this situation, I believe it undermines Mary Warrens argument, rather than support it, and I will explain why. First, I am going to describe what Kant’s moral theory is all about:

Now, in this situation, yes, a fetuses rights would be outweighed and over ran by the mother’s rights because hers are far more important and clear. A grown adult clearly has a right to life while a fetuses may be questioned. However, this cannot possibly be enough to justify a growing fetus to have or not to have a right to life. All Warren says is “the more like a person” you are “the stronger its right to life is”. This does not say a fetus is not human nor does it say a nonhuman animal is not a human. It just says, the more you resemble a human, the stronger your right is, which is also not a solid bases to claim that a fetus or nonhuman animal does or does not have a significant right to

When it is said that abortion is just a woman's issue, we forget that there are two people involved in creating a child. Fathers are continually overlooked and disregarded in situations involving abortion. Many would say that a father is not affected by the woman's choice to have an abortion.

The second half of the XX century has given the world a new political phenomenon - a kind of a breakthrough of women in the highest echelons of power. In several countries of Western Europe, Southeast Asia, Latin America, they took power into their own hands. The process flow of women into politics thoroughly shake the stereotype: the policy - for men, family, children - for women. But this stereotype is not broken. Overall, the proportion of women in decision-making in most countries remains low and far below their proportion in the population and labor force. Over the past thirty years the representation of women in public office has substantially increased. Although women have yet to reach parity with their male counterparts, women have