2500 words

For this assignment you need to have a total of 2 responses. Respond to two from the questions below:

1. According to the Gallup polling organization, in 2001, 45 percent of Americans believed abortion is morally wrong, but by 2009, the percentagehad risen to 56 percent. During the same period, the percentage of people who believe that it is morally acceptable to have a baby outside of marriage rose from 45 to 51 percent. However, the percentage who believe gay and lesbian relationships are morally wrong dropped from 53 to 47 percent1. 

Suppose that two of your friends are discussing the meaning of these statistics. One says, "The statistics mean that gay relationships and having children out of the wedlock used to be immoral but now they are moral.  On the other hand, abortion used to be moral but now is immoral."  The other responds, "That's ridiculous.  If an action was wrong a decade ago, it is still wrong today; and if it wasn't wrong then, it isn't wrong now."  

Settle your friends' dispute, applying what you learned in this chapter (2).

6. The great majority of people seem to find nothing objectionable about the use of commercials in children's television programming.  Yet a distinguished panel commissioned by the National Science Foundation found reason to disagree.  After reviewing twenty-one relevant scholarly studies, they concluded,

It is clear from the available evidence that television advertising does influence children. Research has demonstrated that children attend to and learn from commercials,  and that advertising  is at least moderately successful in creating positive attitudes toward and the desire for products advertised.  The variable that emerged most clearly across numerous studies as a strong determinant of children's perception of television advertising is the child's age. Existing research clearly establishes that children become more skilled in evaluating television advertising as they grow older and that to treat all children from 2 to 12 as a homogeneous groups masks important, perhaps crucial, differences.

Do you think the majority view is correct in this case?  Do you think the use of commercials in children's television programming raises any ethical questions?  Explain.

12. A 16-year old girl visits a birth control clinic and asks to be put on the pill.  Because she is a minor, the clinic doctor who writes the prescription for her notifies her parents of the action.  Possibly a majority of Americans would approve of the doctor's action.  Is the action ethical?