For Paula
lstoe2p
example_paper.pdf
Running head: ABORTION RIGHTS
Abortion Rights
Firstname Lastname
PHI 208 Ethics and Moral Reasoning
Prof. Phil Osipher
December 31, 1999
ABORTION RIGHTS
Example 1 (see below for another example that takes up a different question and different point
of view):
Abortion Rights
Should abortions be allowed in certain specific cases, such as when the mother’s life is at
risk, but not in other cases?
Introduction:
Since Roe vs. Wade struck down state laws banning abortion in 1971, the topic of
abortion has been perhaps the most consistently divisive issue in the United States. According to
the Center for Disease Control (2012), an “abortion” is “an intervention performed by a licensed
clinician (e.g., a physician, nurse-midwife, nurse practitioner, or physician assistant) that is
intended to terminate an ongoing pregnancy” (para. 2). Moreover, this is an issue that affects on
average well over a million women a year, according to the Center for Disease Control’s (2014)
statistics on women who either have an abortion or an unwanted pregnancy. Abortions may be
performed to save a mother’s life, because the mother did not intend to become pregnant and
does not want the child, because having the child would bring severe hardship, and for countless
other reasons as well. This makes the issue quite complicated and complex, which partly
accounts for its divisiveness as well as the need to consider the ethical dimensions carefully and
thoughtfully. In this essay, I will focus on cases in which continuing with a pregnancy would put
a pregnant woman’s life in danger, and whether abortions in those cases should be regarded as
morally different than ones in which her life is not at abnormal risk.
Position Statement:
ABORTION RIGHTS
3
A human fetus has equal dignity to other humans, and thus it should only be permissible
to intentionally kill it when the mother’s life is at risk.
Supporting Reason:
Human societies throughout history have often failed to recognize the full dignity of
other human beings as equal “persons” or to care for the weakest and most vulnerable, and thus
we should avoid making that same mistake with fetuses by applying the same laws against
intentional killing to them that we would to any other human being. However, when protecting
the life of the fetus means the mother’s life will be in severe danger, and they cannot both be
saved, it wouldn't necessarily violate the dignity of the fetus to abort it.
Opposing Reason:
Even though abortion involves taking the life of a biologically human creature, it lacks
the kind of self-understanding or self-awareness that we sometimes associate with personhood,
and it’s total dependency on another person’s body for life means it lacks the independence we
also associate with personhood.
ABORTION RIGHTS
4
References
Center for Disease Control. (2012). CDCs Abortion Surveillance System FAQs. Retrieved from
http://www.cdc.gov/reproductivehealth/data_stats/Abortion.htm
Center for Disease Control. (2014). Data and Statistics. Retrieved from
http://www.cdc.gov/reproductivehealth/Data_Stats/index.htm#Abortion
Reagan, L. (1997). When abortion was a crime: women, medicine, and law in the United States,
1867-1973. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
World Health Organization. (2007). Unsafe abortion: global and regional estimates of the
incidence of unsafe abortion and associated mortality in 2003. -- 5th ed. Geneva,
Switzerland: WHO Publications.
ABORTION RIGHTS
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Example 2:
Abortion Rights
Is restricting abortion rights an unjust restriction on a woman’s right to make her own
reproductive choices?
Introduction:
Since Roe vs. Wade struck down state laws banning abortion in 1971, the topic of
abortion has been perhaps the most consistently divisive issue in the United States. According to
the Center for Disease Control (2012), an “abortion” is “an intervention performed by a licensed
clinician (e.g., a physician, nurse-midwife, nurse practitioner, or physician assistant) that is
intended to terminate an ongoing pregnancy” (para. 2). Moreover, this is an issue that affects on
average well over a million women a year, according to the Center for Disease Control’s (2014)
statistics on women who either have an abortion or an unwanted pregnancy. Abortions may be
performed to save a mother’s life, because the mother did not intend to become pregnant and
does not want the child, because having the child would bring severe hardship, and for countless
other reasons as well. This makes the issue quite complicated and complex, which partly
accounts for its divisiveness as well as the need to consider the ethical dimensions carefully and
thoughtfully. In this essay, I will consider the rights women have to self-determination,
especially concerning reproduction, and how those rights pertain to the legal procurement of
abortion.
Position Statement:
ABORTION RIGHTS
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A pregnant woman has the right to determine for herself whether or not continuing a
pregnancy would present severe enough burdens to make having an abortion a moral decision.
Supporting Reason:
Most people, even those who think abortion is wrong or that a fetus has a right to life,
recognize that there might be circumstances in which aborting a fetus can be justified. However,
every woman’s circumstances are different, and thus only the pregnant woman herself can judge
how carrying a child to term would affect her life. Moreover, we almost always recognize that a
woman should have the right to determine for herself whether to get pregnant in the first place,
which might suggest that the same consideration would seem to apply to the choice as to whether
to continue a pregnancy.
Opposing Reason:
Rights of self-determination normally must not be exercised in a way that violates the
basic rights of other people, even when a certain decision might relive burdens. For example, we
don’t allow women to determine whether a child that has been born should continue living,
which might raise worries about why she should be able to make that determination simply
because the fetus has not yet been born.
ABORTION RIGHTS
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References
Center for Disease Control. (2012). CDCs Abortion Surveillance System FAQs. Retrieved from
http://www.cdc.gov/reproductivehealth/data_stats/Abortion.htm
Center for Disease Control. (2014). Data and Statistics. Retrieved from
http://www.cdc.gov/reproductivehealth/Data_Stats/index.htm#Abortion
Reagan, L. (1997). When abortion was a crime: women, medicine, and law in the United States,
1867-1973. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
World Health Organization. (2007). Unsafe abortion: global and regional estimates of the
incidence of unsafe abortion and associated mortality in 2003. -- 5th ed. Geneva,
Switzerland: WHO Publications.
