Despite Natural Law forbidding abortion, there is a doctrine of double effect that can be implemented. If the mother’s life is threatened as a result of the pregnancy, for instance during an ectopic pregnancy, then the destruction of the fallopian tube would be acceptable. Here, the primary aim is not the terminate the pregnancy but to save the mother’s life. The secondary effect is that the embryo is destroyed. Here, abortion would be permissible even by Natural law followers, who believe in the sanctity of life.
It can be seen as a good approach to morality as it does not allow people from different denominations such as cultures or where you are born or in different situation they may find themselves to build their own moral rules and framework to life, it is personal but is guided by these innate rules. Religious people also share natural law ideas as they argue that there is an eternal unchanging part of morality which remains unchanged regardless of personal opinions and preferences. They believe that God created them with a purpose and that all the rules guiding them from natural law help them to fulfil this purpose. Christianity has a great deal of support for the view that there is a natural law of morality. The Christian understanding of this concept is based largely upon the work of Thomas Aquinas as he explained that faith and reason are closely related.
Short Paper on A Defense of Abortion by J. J. Thomson In the article A Defense of Abortion, Judith Jarvis Thomson exposes the idea that fetuses are considered persons from the moment of conception and, therefore, they have the right to life. However, Thomson argues that abortion under certain circumstances can be morally permissible. Based on these ideas Thompson implemented thought experiments such as the analogies of the violinist and the “drifting seeds”, which doesn’t really give an adequate explanation for why abortion is sometimes permissible. Thus, based on my understanding of these analogies I believe that Thomson’s arguments are not convincing and, therefore, abortion should not be permissible. Thomson explains that the fetus is a person who has the right to life.
Aquinas considered that by using our reason to reflect on our human nature we could discover our specific end purpose. Aquinas used the ideas of Aristotle and the Stoics as an underpinning for Natural Law saying- human beings have an essential rational nature given by God in order for us to live and flourish. Aristotle said even without knowledge of god, reason can discover the laws that lead to human flourishing. The Stoics said Natural Laws are universal and unchangeable and should be used to judge of particular societies. We use this is help us choose the right moral action is situations.
Every abortion is tragic to that extent of ending a human life but given the option of choice is a gift from God and part of what makes being human worthwhile. To be politically pro-choice is to deny the freedom to some and grant it to others. Some liberals might say that this is an atrocity to God and his compassionate gift of choice. The Bible evidently teaches us that all humans are made in the image of God and grant us the freedom to choose. Unfortunately, there are several different reasons that conclude why abortions are appropriate in certain cases.
The final decision could be influenced by whether Sam and Marion would regard abortion as ethically acceptable if the baby were found to carry the Huntington's gene. Some people take a principled position that the unborn child has a right to life and that the parents are ethically wrong to choose abortion. Others take a utilitarian approach and consider that although abortion is always bad there are some
Thomson, though, thinks that reasoning in this way is misguided, or at very best is incomplete. In light of this, she begins by conceding the issue of personhood to her opponent; she assumes, for purposes of argumentation, that the fetus is a person from the moment of conception. She attempts to show that even if this concession is made, abortion is morally permissible in many
People are not merely a means to an end, but ends themselves. A woman treated as an incubator of a fetus by the law is simply a means to an end, therefore disregarded as a person. There are many misconceptions about abortion. These misconceptions can potentially lead to the loss of women's individual and necessary rights to choose for themselves whether or not they want to bear a child. Most of these common misconceptions can not only be easily identified, but also utterly refuted.
Though there are faults with both sides, everybody has their own reasons for supporting or not supporting artificial insemination. The reasons a person would have for opposing artificial insemination could be a number of different things. The most obvious of these reasons would be related to religion. Many churches teach their followers that “it is morally bad for a couple to generate human life by inseminating the wife with sperm provided by a man who is not her husband or by inseminating a woman other than the wife with sperm from the husband…(May, PhD).” This is because it is being done outside of the
He explained that everything has a purpose – “a good knife is one that cuts well, that is what it is designed to do”. Aristotle believed that it was universal and could be applied to all cultures, religions and genders. The Stoics were a group of Ancient Greek philosophers who further developed the concept of natural law. They stated that if we wanted to fulfil our purpose we must behave morally and “fit in with the overall plan of the universe”. The Roman lawyer Cicero also utilised the concept of natural law.