Explain the Ways in Which the Answer to the Question Whether Fetuses Are Persons Might Affect, or Fail to Affect, the Answer to the Question Whether Abortion Is Generally Morally Permissible.

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If fetuses are considered to persons with the same moral status as typical adult humans, opponents of abortion would tend to make the argument that “Every person has a right to life. A fetus is a person, therefore it has a right to life.” With this taken into account, opponents of abortion also believe that since the fetus is a person with the right to life, its right to life outweighs the mother’s right to decide what happens in her body. Therefore the fetus should the be killed and an abortion should not be preformed as it is often considered morally impermissible to kill another person with the same moral status as typical adult humans. However, we should consider a case in which the mother will die if an abortion is not preformed. Despite the fact that both she and the fetus has the equal right to life, opponents of abortion would still consider it wrong to preform an abortion with reasons ranging from killing an innocent person is always wrong and is murder to one must always prefer letting a person die to killing a person. J.J. Thomson would respond to say that these reasons are all false if we consider that the mother is only preforming an abortion in order to save her own life and not for personal interests. Hence abortion should be considered morally permissible in such situations when the life of the mother is threatened by the fetus. In order to determine whether abortion is permissible in cases where the mother’s life is not in immediate danger, we should analyse whether the fetus truly has the right to live. Take for example, rape. In cases of pregnancy due to rape, the mother does not give the fetus the right to use her body. Similarly in non-rape cases, it is not exactly clear that the mother has given her consent to the right for the fetus to use her body either. Knowing the risk of pregnancy due to voluntary sex is not the same as giving the

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