Abortion: Philosophical Issues

1
Abortion Philosophical Issues
2
Marquis

• Abortion is immoralWhat is his reasoning?
• Killing is wrong
• b/c it deprives a person of their
  future-like-ours
• For this reason abortion is wrong, because it
  deprives a being of its futurelike-ours
• Consciousness is not the issue.
• Not whether the fetus is a person.
• (p,400 fetus is not yet an individual)
• Not an ovum, doesnt have a future like ours
• Sufficient, not necessary condition not absolute

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Judith Jarvis Thomson

• Even if fetus is a person, abortion is still
  permissible under some circumstances
• Reasoning A fetuss right to life may not
  override a womans right to make choices about
  her body.
• Does the fetus right to life imply a right to
  use a womans body?
• We only have particular obligations to other
  people
• Examples
• Violinist
• Henry Fondas cool hand on her fevered brow
• People seeds
• Unintended obligations to others
• Others having a right to your body

4
Susan Sherwin

• Abortion should be a womans choice Her
  reasoning
• Women have abortions for many different reasons
• Women are the best judges of whether they ought
  to have an abortion, They may make mistakes, but
  since they are the main people affected, they
  should make these moral decisions
• Many accounts focus only on fetus, but this
  removes the context of the issue, and distorts
  it.
• Doctors treat womens bodies as passive they are
  not active beings, they are just vessels the
  maternal environment
• Personhood is determined by a capacity to form
  relationships.
• The fetus has a relational status, and a
  relational value The fetus is part of a womans
  body. The only way to have a relation with a
  fetus is by means of a womans body. Treating
  people as means, not ends in themselves.