Singer's Argument On The Morality Of Abortion

One of the most frequently debated topics in bioethics is the morality of abortion, or the ending of a pregnancy without physically giving birth to an infant. Often times abortions are categorized into either spontaneous, a natural miscarriage; induced or intentional, which is premeditated and for any reason; or therapeutic, which albeit intentional, its sole purpose is to save the mother’s life. It seems however that moral conflicts on issue mainly arise when discussing induced abortions. In general, people universally agree it is morally wrong to kill an innocent person and in some people’s eyes induced abortions are the intentional killings of innocent persons, thus making them immoral. However not all individuals view fetuses as persons and consequentially argue it is not morally wrong to kill them.

While parts of both may be true, both cannot stand side by side as completely true when discussing abortion. As they stand today, fetus rights and female rights are incompatible in arena of abortion. Even the “other side” agrees that the two cannot stand shoulder to shoulder. In a chapter entitled “Abortion Does Not Violate Human Rights”, Christian Beenfeldt quotes Brian McKinely when claiming that female rights have a higher precedence than fetus rights: “It’s actually quite simple. You cannot have two entities with equal rights occupying one body. One will automatically have veto power over the other.” So one question remains, which more important, fetus rights or female rights? The winner of this question can be decided by one simple factor: is the fetus to be considered a true, living human being at the point of conception, or does true human life not begin until after birth? A clarification should be made here, however. In this paper it will be assumed that everyone involved in this debate considers a newborn child to be a human being. That is, at the moment of birth, a child either becomes a human being or continues to be a human being; regardless of the fetus’s life state before birth, it will be assumed that all agree that birth “confirms”, so to speak, the life and human existence of the newborn.

If all the following conclusions are acceptable then the conclusion of abortion being morally wrong is accepted. Each of these premises will be defended throughout this paper.

In his essay Why Abortion is Immoral Don Marquis attempts to argue that abortion is almost always wrong except for a few special circumstances such as when the life of the mother is being threatened by the pregnancy. In his thesis Marquis asserts that abortion is in the same moral category as killing an innocent adult human being and the ethics of abortion is solvable. The strongest argument that Marquis presents to defend his thesis is the claim that what makes killing wrong is the loss of the victim’s future. In this paper, I will argue that this argument fails because aborting a fetus is not in the same moral category as killing an innocent adult human being.

Will Singer expands his argument on a utilitarian idea in order to measure the ethical behavior in people. He believes that the ethical behavior shown towards people should not be less towards animals based on their knowledge and mental capabilities. However, I believe that when it comes to an abortion, it may depend. Singer briefly introduces an example with a disabled infant. He claimed that although the parents asked the doctor to painlessly kill the infant who has gone into an unrecoverable “vegetable” state, the doctor should not do as they ask due to the “sanctity of life.” Since Singer also believes that fetuses do not deserve to be killed since they already possess the right to life, especially at a late term. He also claimed that killing

In this article, Noonan discusses the controversial topic of abortion. He examines questions such as how do you determine the humanity of a being? His thesis is that abortion is always morally wrong with the exception of extreme circumstances such as a cancerous uterus or ectopic pregnancy. He uses the assumption that a fetus is always a person, from conception on as opposed to believing the fetus is not a person at any point. In this paper, I will show that Noonan proves his thesis that abortion is always morally wrong, based on proving opposing arguments to be unsound.

Thesis: Abortion is morally permissible in which a fetus is not a person which deprives the fetus to its right to life, circular reasoning is an ineffective to oppose abortion, abortion only risks the fetus not society, and deprivation from a fetus's future and suffering of a loved one has no affect on the argument towards anti-abortion.

If singer’s argument would have implications for the moral (in)permissibility of abortion would depend on who is the one suffering. Singer argues that “If a being suffers there can be no moral justification for refusing to take that suffering into consideration.”(page 8). In other words, if the fetus is feeling pain at the moment of the abortion we have a moral obligation to either take the suffering away, or look for ways to stop the fetus from suffering, it does not matter if the fetus is in the body of the mother and the mother does not wish to lend her body to the fetus for few months. However, the same argument can be applied to the mother also, lets us supposed that the mother is in some kind of pain because of the fetus and the only

Abortion is one of the most controversial topics of all times. The definition most people associate with abortion is the termination of unwanted pregnancy. In their essay, “The Wrong of Abortion”, Patrick Lee and Robert P. George argue that intentional abortion is unjust and therefore objectively immoral no matter the circumstances. Also, they argue that “the burden of carrying the baby is significantly less than the harm the baby would suffer by being killed; the mother and father have a special responsibility to the child; it follows that intentional abortion (even in few cases where the baby’s death is an unintended but foreseen side effect) is unjust ” (24).

Singer attacks the argument by focusing on the first premise, ‘It is wrong to kill an innocent human being.’ None of the previous arguments questioned this premise, but instead focused on the second part or the conclusion that is formed. Singer describes ‘human’ being defined in two ways, either as a member of the Homo sapiens species or as being a person. If we define ‘human’ as being a person, then for a fetus to be categorized in the same way, Singer states that it would need to be rational or self-conscious, neither of which is possible. To categorize it as a Homo sapiens (Refer to P.117, Homo sapiens and why conservative argument based on moral significance). At this point we can see that whether it is categorized as a person or Homo sapiens, both fall short in showing relevance that it is wrong

However, there is no clear scientific evidence that determines the emergence of these characteristics, and therefore he suggests that abortion becomes morally wrong after the earliest point at which it can feel, which is at 18 weeks (Singer, Taking Life: Humans, 137) . Therefore, from weeks 0-18, it is considered morally permissible to have an abortion, whereas it isn’t from weeks 18-40. Although utilitarian notions can provide a clear criterion for the permissibility of abortion, this argument involves ambiguous notions that are not fully understood, and it would therefore be unwise to accept it.

Introduction: In this paper, I will argue that, in some cases, abortion is morally acceptable. To support my argument, which consists of two premises and a conclusion, I will provide an explanation of how my argument follows the rules of a good argument. Also, I will give some objections to my first and second premise. Lastly, I will conclude with my thoughts that contributed to the argument.

Abortion is always argued with different cases and play a main role in medical ethics (blackwell.,p291).It is evidently reasonable for some to argue that in moral situation, abortion is a murder and it should be illegal, while others may claim that abortion is woman’s right when concerning on autonomy ( The abortion debate in Australia). Opponents of making abortion legal claim that abortion is a kind of murder on extend of moral situation. It is always regarded as a sin to kill a person who is no aggressor in most moral communities (new ethics 1). Fetus is a biologically human as it is not just a part of the mothers, such as a lung or a kidney. On the contrary, it is obvious that fetus is human due to he or she has genetic code of human and human parents as well (abortion myth p5). Moreover, it has potentiality to be a person with primary moral worth (text book p210-211). As Gillion (new ethics) pointed out, every person has his right to life, especially he is not an aggressor. This point is also been pointed by (Rebecca and john,Blackwell p204), “embryos has a right to life” .The fetus is innocent and

Singer 's ideas on abortion are a reasonable and defensible set of positions that he shows to be both ethical and practical. Notably, the issue of abortion is currently one of the most heated and bitterly disputed of all the ethical issues. The debate has ongoing for the longest time neither of the

In an attempt to analyze both sides of the abortion debate, this essay will explain two fundamental arguments that drive both pro-choice and pro-life positions. In the article, “Review of H. Kuhse & P. Singer: Should the Baby Live? The Problem of Handicapped Infants,” the author George Barbaresi argues that abortion is not just a mother’s choice, but an ethical decision if the fetus is found to have severe birth defects. To further justify his pro-life perspective, Barbaresi urges that a child with birth defects would impose high