Abortion Flashcards
The Continuum/Personhood Argument
Where do we draw the line for what is a person?
The supposed difference between
killing and letting die
What did the Supreme Court do when overturning Roe v. Wade?
The Supreme Court put abortion rights back to the states when overturning Roe v. Wade, not abolishing or permitting it as a federal right
Why are there different forms of the death penalty? Or none at all?
-A state can choose punishment based on reneged rights
○States can now choose their abortion policies
○The Constitution is limited, but provides citizens with inalienable rights, granting the rest to the state
Mary Anne Warren’s Personhood Argument
○To be a person one needs:
■Consciousness and capacity to feel pain
■Reasoning
■Self-motivated activity
■The capacity to communicate
■The presence of self-concepts and self-awareness
○One can be human, but not a person
○It is not potential, it is being
○Resemblance to persons is not a valid base
Stephen Schwarz Potentiality Argument:
○Persons can be of latent-1 and even latent-2 capacities
○Personhood doesn’t start for some time
○Fetuses have the potential for personhood to function
○Killing those with the potential to function as people is wrong
○Therefore, killing fetuses is wrong
Louis P. Pojman and the “line drawing fallacy” of the personhood argument
○All and only actual persons have a deontological moral right to life
○Persons may be defined as beings who have the capacity for reason and self-conscious desire (reason capacity)
○Fetuses and infants do not have reasoning capacities and so do not have a deontological right to life
○However, there are social rights that society may bestow on classes of beings for utilitarian reasons
○There are good utilitarian reasons for treating infants as persons, giving them social rights
○Therefore, we ought to bestow a social right on infants and perhaps viable fetuses
■This is about viability.
Don Marquis “Future Like Ours” Argument
○We cannot get through the personhood argument, it is a deadlock stalemate
○The solution is a different starting point
■Why is Killing Wrong?
■“It is wrong to kill because the loss of one’s life is one of the greatest losses one can suffer. It deprives one of all experiences, activities, projects, and enjoyments that would otherwise have constituted one’s future”
■Therefore, killing fetuses (abortion) is immoral in all but some circumstances because they have the potential for a future like ours
Peter Singer
parents should have the ability to terminate at any time based on their quality of life
Noonan’s Personhood at Conception Argument
○The killing of an innocent person is wrong
○The unborn is an innocent person from the moment of conception (main premise)
○Therefore, it is wrong to kill the unborn (abortion is immoral)
■Humans have an absolute value in history
●Whatever is deemed a human being has always been “special”
■Presume there’s a human based on probability (main point)
■The burden of proof is on the pro-choicer to prove a fetus is not a person, until then, we should presume it is
■At conception, the human genetic code is blended
■^“This is the only non-arbitrary line in human life”
■Then after conception, there becomes an 80% chance the fetus becomes a person
■Therefore if the fetus is a person, abortion is immoral
■If there is a “double effect”, triage to figure out who dies
■The Christian commandment is to love thy neighbor, if the fetus is a person, we should therefore love them so
Michael Tooley: in Defense of Abortion and Infanticide
Michael Tooley: in Defense of Abortion and Infanticide
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Basis: the interest principle: to have a right to life one must have interests
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Desires come from self-perception/consciousness/awareness
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Interests come from individual desires
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Things devoid of desires can have neither interests nor rights
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Fetuses and infants do not have desires
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Therefore, they do not have interests
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Therefore fetuses and infants do not have rights
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Therefore it is morally permissible to murder them
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Interest is the basis
Michael Tooley uses Moral Symmetry:
if it is the case with one entity, then it must be the case with all alike entities
Philip Devine: The Moral Rules Against Homicide and the Ones Protecting Human Rights
Humans are special for the following reasons using the following principles
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The Species Principle: solidarity amongst members of the same species
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The Present Enjoyment Principle: human beings assert their personhood by appeals or resistance
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The Potentiality Principle: uniquely right kinds of human action and experience capable of only humans and the severe loss suffered when human life is lost/frustrated
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Because humans are special in this aspect, the loss of their life is wrong when it is brought on by other humans
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Fetuses/Infants have interests/desires although they are not aware of them (potentiality)
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This makes them human
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Therefore, abortion is wrong as fetuses/infants are human beings and murder of other human beings is wrong
Baruch Brody
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Any line between conception and birth is arbitrary
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“There is no non-arbitrary point before or after conception”
Judith Jarvis Thomson; A Defense of Abortion
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A fetus does have a right to life (is a person)
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A fetus/person has a right not to be killed unjustly/without proper reason
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Just because the fetus has a right to life does not, in all instances, obligate the mother to give it/continue its life if she is not involved in the creation of its life (in cases of rape/incest)
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If the mother bears no responsibility in creating the life, she has no responsibility to sustain it
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Jarvis also touches on this further with birth control stating: if a woman engages in intercourse, taking all precautions not to create life, if life does spawn from it, she may still not have responsibility for its continuation of life
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She also states that there would be cases in which we ought to allow continuation of life, for fear of indecency, but that does not mean that we have to. Such as in regards to the Good Samaritan as presented by the Bible.
