Name:______
ABORTION
A very complicated issue for which much rational inquiry and discourse and reflection is needed before decision-making.
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There are different types of issues involved: Factual, Conceptual, Ethical
Factual: such issues include "viability" for those who use Natural Law Theory and the measurement of acceptability or approval by society for those that use the Utilitarian Theory
Conceptual: issues such as what is a "person" and what is "abortion"
Ethical: Main issues include should abortion be permitted? Required? Forbidden?
Abortion: What is it? There are several possible meanings:
- The termination of a pregnancy
- The accidental termination of a pregnancy: miscarriage
- The natural termination of a pregnancy prematurely: spontaneous abortion or miscarriage
- The deliberate termination of a pregnancy
- The deliberate termination of a pregnancy for the purpose of saving a life: therapeutic abortion
- The deliberate termination of a pregnancy for the purpose of terminating fetal development
SOCIAL CONTEXT:
General Ambivalence in the US
Middle position: Abortion should be safe, legal and rare
Late Term/ Partial Birth Abortion Controversy
CASES:
A. Parents' rights vis a vis their pregnant daughter(12 years old) threat to life of daughter, refusal on religious grounds COURT rules for daughter
B. RU-486 PILL: the "morning after pill"
C. Thalidomide: abnormal fetus
Pregnancy Tests: 7 to 10 days after fertilization
Status of the Fetus:
- person
- non-person
- potential person
Rights of Women
Therapeutic abortion
Ethical Traditions:
A. IF a fetus is a non-person
- Utilitarian: persons are rational and autonomous and have a right to control their bodies
- Kant: persons are rational and autonomous and have a right to control their bodies
- Ross: persons are rational and autonomous and have a right to control their bodies
- Rawls: persons are rational and autonomous and have a right to control their bodies
- Natural law- No deliberate termination of a pregnancy for the purpose of termination of a viable healthy life (person) is permissible.
B. IF a fetus is a person
Utilitarian: persons are rational and autonomous and have a right to control their bodies and an abortion is morally acceptable if it produces more utility than not doing so
Kant: permits therapeutic abortions and termination of abnormal fetuses
Ross: permits therapeutic abortions and termination of abnormal fetuses
Rawls: permits therapeutic abortions and termination of abnormal fetuses
Natural law- No deliberate termination of a pregnancy for the purpose of termination of a viable healthy life (person) is permissible.
ARTICLES:
John T. Noonan: An Almost Absolute Value in History
Judith Jarvis Thompson: A Defense of Abortion
self defense: rape, incest, failed birth control
Mary Anne Warren: On the Moral and Legal Status of Abortion
fetus is similar to a "guppy" for a person to be a member of a moral community there must be 5 traits:
consciousness, reasoning, self motivating, communicative and possessed of self concept
Don Marquis: Why Abortion is Immoral-it deprives value of the future
US Supreme Court: Row vs Wade
Susan Sherwin: Abortion through a Feminist Lens
fetal existence is relational- feminist politics of liberation
Sidney Callahan: Pro life Feminism
Joan Carpenter: partial birth abortions: " Let's be reasonable!"
CASES:
1. Late term abortion
2. Rape of 16 year old girl
3. Poverty and Birth Control
4. Mental Defect and a 22 year old female
5. Uterine Cancer
6. Selective Abortion-One of twins Fetus with Trisomy 21(Downe's Syndrome)
7. Trisomy 21
8. Life Style choice and decision for late term abortion