The Argument of Abortion (Essay Sample)

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The argument on abortion
Introduction
The debate on whether or not abortion should be legalized continues to induce different ideologies from different scholars, proponents who support the idea of abortion and opponents who are against abortion. Those in support of abortion identify themselves as pro-choice; they argue that doing an abortion is a right that should not be limited to religious or governmental authority and that it outweighs the right of a fetus or an embryo. Moreover, they add that pregnant women will seek unsafe and illegal abortion alternative if there is no lawful option. On the other hand those against abortion identify themselves as pro-life; they argue a person’s life starts at inception and that practicing abortion is the unethical and immoral killing of an innocent person. There are different variations on both sides of the argument. Proponents argue that abortion should be the last resort and advocate unlimited access to abortion services. Whereas, the pro-life opponents oppose the practice under any given circumstances except in situations such as incest or rape or when the life of the woman is at risk. This essay paper seeks to enunciate on a charitable reconstruction of the abortion argument. The analysis will be based on the arguments of Marquis, who is a strong advocate for pro-life and Judith Jarvis Thomson, who is a proponent of pro-choice.
Pro-life Proponents- Marquis Argument
Except rare situations or cases, Marquis argues that practicing abortion is very wrong. He is a strong advocate for pro-life and to affirm his arguments against abortion he develops a strategy to ascertain that abortion is unethical, inhuman and immoral. Marquis argues that determining the primary reasons why killing is wrong and immoral will help in shading some light in the abortion debate. He states that abortion is wrong as it deprives the fetus of a future value of any other person. He got to the conclusion via various steps; first that abortion is killing that inflicts a premature demise on the agent depriving him or her of a future life. He states that a valuable future is depicted by future goods of consciousness and not the goods one will experience. Therefore, inflicting a premature death is immoral as it robs the agent or the fetus of the future goods of consciousness. Abortion is wrong as it robs us of an impending valuable future and killing is wrong as it divests the fetus a future just like ours or FLO. His argument is favored by the worst of crimes judgment, the considered judge argument, the appeal to cases argument and the analogy with animals ideology where the inflicting pain is wrong whether an animal or human and does not consider the developmental status or age of the individual.
Furthermore, if the pregnancy is due to the mother’s carelessness that is she did not take any precautions to prevent the unplanned pregnancy, then she should be in a position to deal with the consequences as it’s their sole responsibility to take care of the unborn. Moreover, if society could freely accept the abortion, then most people would use it as a measure of birth control. Typically, abortion is prohibited by many religious groups as they believe that sex is meant for procreation and that children born in marriage are God’s children. Aborting a child, therefore, is considered a moral sin. Besides all children have great potential and can grow to be useful persons in the society. Also, the practice can result in some medical complications in the future life of the woman. For instance the chances of having pelvic inflammatory disease or miscarriage increases as well the risks of having ectopic pregnancy also double. Therefore, women who want to prevent unplanned or unwanted pregnancy should abstain or use contraceptives.
Objections and possible responses
Marquis faces three main objections that potential reader might raise. First, the potentiality opposition where he argues that every person has a lawful right to life, then potential individuals have a rightful choice to live. This is considered false. However, this can be responded to base on his FLO theory that incorporates potentiality from inception that is people do not have to infer from the perception that ‘real A’s have B’s’ to get to an agreement that ‘potential A’s do also have B’s.'
Secondly he might be objected from the argument from interest a fetus becomes sentient after twenty weeks from the day of intimacy. Even though fetuses can be argued to have a future value just like us, while still non sentient fetuses are considered to have no moral base since they do not have interests. A counter argument to the objection, it can be stated to be a falsehood perception since unconscious individuals have moral interests.
Thirdly, the contraception objection can easily be raised. Use of contraceptives is immoral as it results in depriving of a future value of an agent. Marquis’s conclusion would be termed as absurd based on this argument. However, a response to the argument would be that when contraceptives are being used there is always no particular person who has a future value like ours.
Pro-choice opponents- Judith Jarvis Thomson
Thomson was a strong advocate of pro-choice. She denies the ideology that fetus is an individual from the time of conception. However, to some extent she agrees with the opponents of abortion fetus finally becomes an individual before birth. Thompson contends that despite the fetus being essentially considered as a person does not provide a strong foundation to dismiss the practice abortion. Furthermore, he argues that he does support of making some exceptions such as incest or rape because the issue of how the baby was conceived is not relevant if we perceive it as having a right to life. He also refutes situations where the mother might have bedridden for nine months as an exception. Moreover, Thomson argues that a pregnant mother should be given the right to protect and defend her life when threatened. She is against the opponent argument that women should not undertake and abortion even if their life is at risk justifying that it is similar to killing the baby, she feels that refusing to act when the mother’s life is in danger is simply allowing the mother to die.
Moreover, she argues that planned children usually get better upbringing ...