Introduction with thesis statement

Henrietta Mouse

6th October, 2018

PHI 2604 – Critical Thinking Ethics

Professor Sarah Jacob

The Right to Become: An Argument in Defense of Stronger Abortion Restrictions

Abortion has always been a contentious issue but today this “contention” is minimized by arguments that presuppose that a woman’s lifestyle and rights to choose trumps that of a fetus’s right to fulfill its potential, that is: to become a human. The questions I seek to explore here are quite simple: 1) Does the ethicizing of abortion produce the best outcomes for society? and 2) Is it ethical to degrade the right of the fetus to being secondary to what is convenient for the woman who finds herself pregnant in all cases? My answer to both questions are “No.” My thesis is in accordance with Don Marquis[footnoteRef:1] and distances itself from standard pro-life arguments which often end up fighting over word application.[footnoteRef:2] Instead, I intend to show that the fetus is not necessarily human yet, but at the same time regardless, it will become human and ought to be considered as such. In the following paper I will consider that 1) in general abortion is wrong in a similar way that murder is wrong: because it robs us from what is rightfully ours – our unknown future, 2) that the ethicizing of abortion has negative consequences upon our respect and regard for human life, and in conclusion, 3) that a great many abortions are unethical because according to social norms a great many murders are unethical. [1: “Why Abortion is Immoral,” by Don Marquis, Readings in Moral Philosophy, ed. Jonathan Wolff, W.W. Norton & Company, New York: 2018] [2: The standard Pro-Life/Pro-Choice arguments surround the definition of what it means to be human. Pro-Life arguments assume there is humanity from conception and Pro-Choice do not. Instead of coming to a solution we end up at an impasse.]

Works Cited

Abortion: The Supreme Court Decisions, 1965-2007, edited by Ian Shapiro, Hackett Publishing