More precisely, she argues for the conclusion that abortion is sometimes permissible; she grants that there are scenarios in which obtaining an abortion would be immoral. What is especially novel is the manner in which Thomson constructs her argument. She begins the essay by pointing out that the debate over abortion seems to many people to hinge on whether or not the fetus is a person. Most feel that if we could only determine the answer to that puzzle, the implications for abortion would be clear; namely, that if fetuses are persons then abortions must be impermissible, and that if fetuses are not persons then abortions must be permissible. Thomson, though, thinks that reasoning in this way is misguided, or at very best is incomplete.
Abortion is murder. Murder is illegal. Abortion should be made illegal. In 1973 the Roe vs. Wade trial, one that is to this day one of our most controversial topics, was concluded (“Feminist”). This trial brought forth the idea that laws in the country of the United States against abortion were also against a woman’s right to privacy, which she was protected by in the United States Constitution under the fourteenth amendment.
These people are referred to as “pro-life advocates”. They believe in the life of the baby over the woman’s right to choose. There are groups such as Human Life International (HLI), The Christian Coalition, and many others support the right of the human life. Their main argument is that one is murdering an unsuspected life. They have several other reasons why they do not support abortions.
Intention Charges of murder and voluntary manslaughter require an intention to kill or harm on the part of the accused. It could be argued that a nurse has such an intention if he or she is responsible for certain actions, for example switching off a ventilator, or omissions, such as not attempting to resuscitate a patient. One way the law is sometimes said to address this problem is by invoking the doctrine of double effect (Cavanaugh 2006). The idea behind this doctrine is that some decisions made have both good
Thomson creates three hypothetical analogies that further explain why an abortion is permissible for each case. For the sake of argument, Thomson’s initial premise for all cases is that a fetus is a person. The debate with Thomson’s claim is whether or not her hypothetical analogies work to conclude that abortions are permissible in certain cases. Thomson argues abortions are permissible in rape cases by using a hypothetical situation where an individual has been kidnapped against their will and awakens medically attached to a famous violinist, allowing him to survive only through the use of your kidneys. If you detached yourself from the violinist, he will certainly die; therefore, to continue the analogy, you have to lie there for the nine months it will take to rehabilitate his kidneys.
Constitutionality of Pre-Abortion Procedures Few words can carry out the shivers and shakes that the word “abortion” can. It means to stop, to terminate. With this word comes judgment regardless of the situation. In the conservative political realm, it translates to murder. Abortions are performed for many reasons, varying from rape and incest to teenage and fatalistic pregnancies.
Well as been said before, abortion has to occur when researching human embryonic stem cells. Where abortion is such a hot topic that politicians are hesitant to take either side, the process of searching for the next big cure has encountered many problems. Scott Kusendorg, author of Moral Objections to Embryonic Stem Cell Research, clearly describes the hard truth about Embryonic stem cell research. "First, you must kill the embryo to harvest its stem cells. If the embryo is a human person, killing it to benefit others is a clear-cut evil.
This will be the topic addressed in this paper. Physician-assisted suicide has its proponents and its opponents. Among the opponents are some physicians who believe that doctors should not assist in suicides because to do
Ashley Schilling Dr. Clewis PHL 2000 28 April 2009 Abstract Abortion is a controversial issue in which people choose to be either pro-choice or pro-life. Pro-choice supporters argue that the woman has a right to control what happens to her body and it is morally permissible to abort an unborn child if the woman wishes to. Pro-life supporters believe that the unborn child has rights to life and that it is wrong to abort a human being. I am pro-life and believe that abortion is morally wrong, because the unborn child is still a human and has the same rights to life as any other human. There are other choices a woman can make besides abortion that are morally right.
For example, if I hold the view that killing is wrong then I cannot be expected to fight in a war as it would undermine my views and conscience. This view is also universally recognised in Libertarianism, so much so that if a doctor is asked to carry out an abortion they are completely entitled to deny it if it goes against their own individual conscience. John Stuart Mill is an influential figure in Libertarianism and argued that the erosion of conscience from state or social pressure is wrong. If we are crushed by the majority then our free will is taken away. For instance, Mill argued that the way the government mislead and mistreated its society in Nazi Germany crushed the dignity and free will and forced them to do certain things that they may have believed to be