Test 3

Question 1

Zygote

Answer 1

Responds to its environment, 4 in a 5 chance of growing and becoming a human being.

Question 2

Viability

Answer 2

A fetus is no longer dependent on mothers body, so its a separate person, can live successfully.

Question 3

The most common method of abortion in the U.S. today

Answer 3

Medication abortion

Question 4

A person in the moral sense

Answer 4

Apart of the moral community and has human rights

Question 5

Right to life – how Noonan and other traditionalists apparently understand it, vs. how Thomson understands it

Answer 5

Noonan
1. thinks the fetus is a human at conception
2. He thinks abortion is wrong except in self defense
3. Ppl against abortion thinks right to life is the right to not be killed
4. You cant kill it under any circumstance. (Bc it needs the mothers body than she cant kill it bc the right to life )
Thomson
1. Also thinks a fetus is a human at conception
2.“Right to life”- ppls right to life is to not be killed unjustly
3.”right to life” is not having your life in somebody else hands, but if you need to live off of them and they refuse than its not unjust if you decide to kill/not let them live off of you

Question 6

Noonan’s standard of personhood (or moral status)

Answer 6

Human genetic code
-an objection: warren something by genetic code means biologically they’re a human but not a person
- you can also have a tumor that has human DNA

Question 7

Potential person – what that means, its moral status according to Warren

Answer 7

1. develope the capacity to have conscious experiences (most important)
2. Emotionality: to feel emotion
   3.Reason: problem solve, complex problems
3. Communication: many types and forms of communication
4. Self awareness: knowing who you/ having the ability to do so
5. Moral agency to have your own ideas, moral compass etc
   (Don’t have to be all of them and don’t have to be particular ones either)
   -Also potential people have some rights but actual people rights override potential people’s rights

Question 8

An FLO – what Marquis means by it. FLO= future like ours

Answer 8

It means a future that will be valued by that being when it becomes to be. (Valuing a potential person life because they have a future of being a person).

Question 9

The two different concepts of gestation (pregnancy) identified by M. Little.

Answer 9

1.Gestation is in a room and not doing anything, passive carriage. The women isn’t doing anything (incorrect)
2. Women is constantly aided the fetus, the body is always making decisions and the women herself is choosing to go to her doctor appointments

Question 10

One objection to John Noonan’s criterion of moral status

Answer 10

1. Doesn’t explain why experiences make you a human being
2. Excludes adults who have lost their memory
3. Embryos and fetuses do have experiences like touch

Question 11

The difference between a biological human being and a person, according to Mary Anne Warren

Answer 11

Biological being- has human genetic code
Person- moral status, experience, sentient (conscious)

Question 12

The point of Judith J. Thomson’s analogy with being connected to a famous violinist

Answer 12

If a person/ fetus/ etc have to use another body to live than you are not morally obligated to let it live off of you or sustain it’s life and it wouldn’t be unjust/ wrong.

Question 13

The point of Thomson’s analogy with deciding not to give your candy to a stranger child.

Answer 13

It would be nice to let the kid have some (nice to let the fetus live off of you) but it wouldn’t be wrong if you denied the child chocolate because you gave the chocolate to your cousin (wouldn’t be wrong to have an abortion because you denied the access of your body etc)

Question 14

The point of Thomson’s analogy with opening a window for air and an intruder getting into your house

Answer 14

Just because you open the window doesn’t mean you’re inviting the burglar in. You know burglars exist but you opened the window for solely your purpose. You have the right to let the burglar stay or not. But it is not wrong to kick the burglar in because you never said they could stay in the first place. (Same with fetus, just because you have sex doesn’t mean you did it for pregnancy, you did it for pleasure, that didn’t mean you invited something into your body, and it would not be wrong to abortion it).

Question 15

Mary Anne Warren’s six criteria of personhood – know at least four, and which is most important

Answer 15

1. develope the capacity to have consious experiences (most important)
2. Emotionality: to feel emotion
   3.Reason: problem solve, complex problems
3. Communication: many types and forms of communication
4. Self awareness: knowing who you/ having the ability to do so
5. Moral agency to have your own ideas, moral compass etc
   (Don’t have to be all of them and don’t have to be particular ones either)
   -Also potential people have some rights but actual people rights override potential people’s rights

If they don’t feel any of the criteria then they are NOT a person.

Question 16

How to know for sure when some being is NOT a person, according to Warren

Answer 16

Potential people have certain rights but actually human beings rights overrides theres (still don’t know why not ask)…

Question 17

The infanticide objection to Warren’s criteria of moral status, and her reply.

Answer 17

Infanticide objection- newborns lack the criteria list, so warren’s argument will justify killing newborns.
Warrens reply- it’s wrong to kill newborns because they are close to being persons as its going to get, a need would justify Killy newborns such as self defense. Also, a newborn doesn’t pose a threat to the mother’s life or health because they’re a separate person now. (No longer receiving aid from the mothers).

Question 18

One other objection to Warren’s criteria of moral status (Marquis is one source)

Answer 18

Warren doesn’t say why experience, emotions, and others on the list determine moral rights. The class of beings that have the right to life is too small, (leaves out mentally disabled humans, people in a comma).

Animals are sentient beings.

Question 19

What Warren’s space explorer (alien cloners) argument intends to show about the value of potential persons

Answer 19

Potential people dont really have rights

Question 20

What Don Marquis thinks about the permissibility of killing beings who are not genetically human.

Answer 20

He thinks its wrong if they have an FLO.

Question 21

What value an early fetus has, according to Margaret Little

Answer 21

Early abortion can be morally permissible and honorable. It seems crazy to view an embryo as an person will full human rights. This doesn’t mean that embryos aren’t valuable, they are but not in a since that they have human rights etc. We should have respect for embryos but in a different respect.

Question 22

Little’s conception of what it is to abort a pregnancy

Answer 22

Intentionally stopping and giving life preserving and developmental aid to a fetus.

Question 23

Some of the biological and social risks of pregnancy, according to Little.

Answer 23

Biological risks
-physical/medical risks, vomiting, consistently needing hospitalization
Social risk
-abandonment from family and community
-domestic violence/ need to stay in abusive relationship

Question 24

Little’s idea of the intimacy of pregnancy

Answer 24

-you’re allowing another living being to live off of your body for 9 months
-your physical system is being shaped by its needs instead of making your own decisions
-you share your body in intimated and unpredicted ways

Question 25

Little’s idea of authorship of our own lives, what this has to do with gestation.

Answer 25

Authorship- pregnancy and parenthood are intimate transformation in life and women should have the option to decline because she is in charge of her own life. This pertains to gestation because you should have the right to autonomy and your own body and as Little said the fetus in not just in a empty room sitting there. The women is constantly aided it and your body is involuntary aiding it and you also choose to aid it but because it’s you body you should have the authority of your body and life to decline something that will transform the rest of your life.

Question 26

Explain John Noonan’s basic argument that abortion is nearly always wrong. Why does he make an exception for pregnancies that are likely to end the mother’s life?

Answer 26

Noonan
-1. The fetus is a human being from the moment conception
2. (Abortion causes death of the fetuses)( implict)
Therefore, abortion is never right except in self defense

He makes this exception because mothers have the right to her own life, she is not obligated to sacrifice her life for the to save the fetus. In this case, this would be self defense and she would have a legitimate excuse to have an abortion, according to him.

Question 27

Mary Anne Warren objects to Noonan’s argument by accusing him of equivocation. Explain that objection.

Answer 27

The objection to Noonans arguement is Noonan is assuming the fetus is a person
The equivocation is human beings doesn’t not have the same definition in the premises…

-It is wrong to kill persons.
– A fetus is genetically human.
– Therefore it is wrong to kill fetuses.

Question 28

What is one of Noonan’s reasons for rejecting viability as the point at which a fetus comes to have a right not to be killed?

Answer 28

Little kids wouldn’t be considered humans because they’re still dependent on their mothers and that’s why we he rejected viability.

Question 29

What does Judith Thomson assume, for argument’s sake, about the status of the fetus? Using this assumption and her violinist analogy, how does she argue that abortion is not wrong? What is an objection that Mary Anne Warren makes to this argument?

Answer 29

Shes assumes that the fetus is a person from conception. Her violinist analogy is, the person is needing your body to survive and you wouldn’t be wrong to stop treatment, abortion wouldn’t be wrong either because you wouldn’t allow something to live off your body.

Question 30

How does Thomson argue that it is not wrong to abort a pregnancy that results from contraceptive failure?

Answer 30

The women has not assumed responsibility for keeping the fetus alive and because of this she has no obligation to do so (keep the fetus alive).

Question 31

How does Mary Anne Warren argue that early abortion is not wrong?

Answer 31

Early fetuses does not fit the criteria, therefore the fetus is not a person or a part of the moral community.

Question 32

What is one argument that Don Marquis gives to support his claim that what is wrong with killing an adult or a child (killing someone like us) is that the killer deprives the individual of an FLO?

Answer 32

-victim is deprived of a future( they life they would have lived)
-depriving them of a future conscious life that is worth living for the person who has it
-killing anyone is wrong because it deprives them of a future of value to that being

Question 33

How does Marquis apply his idea of loss of an FLO to the abortion issue? That is, what is his argument that abortion is wrong?

Answer 33

-depriving any being of a FLO is morally wrong and this is what makes it wrong to kill an adult or fetus
-abortion deprives a being (fetus) of an FLO
-therefore abortion is wrong

Question 34

What is the contraception objection to Marquis’s FLO-based argument that abortion is wrong?

Answer 34

-Whenever a couple uses contraceptions there will be 1 less FlO
-Whenever a couple choose not to have sex and could have sex, that’s one less FLO
-Both would suggest contraceptives are wrong/bad
His Response
- using contraception or practicing abstinence, no individual would be made in the first place to have an FLO

Question 35

How does Margaret Little argue that even though an early fetus has some value, a woman may rightly choose not to let it use her body for its sustenance? What do intimacy and authorship have to do with this?

Answer 35

Pregnancy is a life changing/transformation and women you should be able to decide that for themselves, authorship, ethics of gestation