Is Abortion Morally Impermissible - Admission/Application Essay Example

Abortion is Morally Impermissible The question whether abortion is morally permissible or not essentially depends on the criteria that provides ground to the moral itself. If one’s moral and ethics are governed by one’s purposeful end, it will permit him or her to kill the fetus in the womb. But such morals are often person-specific. Though these moralists claim themselves to be universal they frequently become vulnerable to the refutation and counter-arguments of their opponents. Indeed these moralists, whether they are abortionists or antiabortionists, cannot come out of the periphery of their context-specific righteousness and cannot view the unified whole truth of abortion. Therefore, the debate between the two groups continues endlessly. Since either party fails to shake off the context-specificity of abortion, the groups on either side of abortion makes them vulnerable to each other’s critiques (Marquis 183-187). Personhood, right to life, and ethics are several recurring keywords in both the pro and contra abortion debate. Often these themes serve as the grand principles of the attempts to validate the arguments of either party on the issue of abortion. But unfortunately, these themes themselves have been contaminated by the context-specificity. In an article, “A Defense of Abortion”, referring to the permissibility of general abortion Jarvis Thompson argues that since an unexpected conception of a baby in its mother’s womb due to a rape or other cases is in direct conflict with its mother’s right to choose, the mother’s choice to abortion may proved to be mean and selfish according to the existing morals of a society, but she has the right to abort the baby. Indeed Thompson’s approach is to establish a person’s or a woman’s right to abortion from a pure ethical point of view. His success lies in drawing a clear dichotomy between morals and ethics on the issue of the abortion. According to him, a mother’s right to choose to deprive her unborn baby from its right to life through abortion should be based on ethics, whereas her choice to allow the baby to live in her womb is a question of her and her society’s morality. Thompson’s propounded ethics asserts that if one’s right to choice does not come into direct conflict with another’s right to life, he or she cannot be held responsible for the violation of another’s right to life. In this regard, he puts forth the example of the man whose kidneys have been plugged in with the artery vessels of the dying violinist and also the example of the raped mother who is bearing the unwanted child of the rapist. In both cases, both the mother’s and the man’s choice to abort the unborn baby and to unplug the violinist are the matters of their rights to choose. In such cases they cannot be held responsible with the charge of murder. Indeed though such ethical approach the issue of abortion seems to be rational, it appears to be a stringent one in the context of social welfare, order and harmony. Often the debates on the morality of abortion include the debates on the personhood of a fetus. A school of scholars including Thompson are reluctant to assign it any right to life, since they believe that fetuses are not endowed with sufficient features of personhood. The debates on the morality of abortion often pivot on a fetus’s personhood which is generally determined by a fetus’s alikeness with a human being. Since a society’s morals can be applied to all who can be classified as the society’s members, it is necessary for the antiabortionists to prove a fetus’s social membership, that is, its personhood in order to win the society’s moral support for a fetus’s right to life. ‘Since a fetus is not biologically-featured enough to be identified as a man, it has no right to life’ or ‘since a fetus at a certain stage assumes all the biological features of a man, it has the right to live and to be treated a man’ –such biological perspective on a fetus’s eligibility to have the right to live, in fact, denies to view a fetus’s personhood in a broader perspective. Such view ignores a fetus’s truth in its entirety. Indeed to determine a fetus’s right to live on the basis of a fetus’s personhood is ambiguous. A fetus’s eligibility to be a person simultaneously allows a fetus to have the right to live and a mother to have the right to abortion. According to Thompson, to view a man dying without helping her is not morally healthy but at the same time, it also is not unjust. In the same manner, not to let a fetus live in the womb is not ethically unjust, but may be morally bad. If the following situation happens to be such that killing a fetus becomes a fashion and, as a result, the society has faced a demographic havoc, such ethic of individual choice will further perpetuate the situation. Even a fetus’s personhood can be established easily. Some scholars argue that the fetuses also cannot be called persons, since it is weird to call an acorn an oak (Thompson 47). But they fail to pursue the essence of personhood. Though the acorns do not look like an oak tree, in its essence, an acorn is important enough to be personified as a person. Possibly these scholars are encouraged by the dissimilarity of a fetus with a man, but not by its essence. But personhood is indeed the essence of something whether it is a tree or an animal or a rational being like man. Since an acorn contains all the possibilities of an oak tree, in its essence it can be called an oak. In the same manner, a fetus is a person. One’s right to abortion is logically acceptable. Indeed it is for the same reason it cannot be applied to human society, since a society needs morals that are essentially a derivation of a society’s members’ logical choice of right and wrong. Moral may change from society to society and situation to situation. Descriptively morality refers to some codes of conducts such as social-personal interactions communications, interrelations etc that are maintained, obeyed and enforced by the authorities and members of a society. Morals are normally put forward by some persons, religions or some groups that are influential and efficient enough to handle social dilemmas such as individual or collective sufferings, personal or social anarchy, evils, etc (Baier 48). Every society in this world has some particular sets of behavioral codes, for its members, which define the dichotomy between right and wrong. Since moral changes, it is possible that some society may accept abortion as morally permissible. In the same way, abortion may be considered as immoral in another society. Also moral goes more closely with human life than ethics do. As well, the morals are more related human emotion and passion, whereas ethics are rational outcomes of human thoughts. To view a fetus as a person depending on the essence of person is a matter of morality, when the personhood of a fetus depending on its alikeness with an adult person is a matter of ethics. Since both ethics and morals may change from time to time and context to context, to rely on them too much may prove to be harmful. But depending on morals is less dangerous since it is less stringent that ethics are. Also the emotional attachments and utilitarian aspects of morals can be effective to avoid the dangers that ethics pose. For example, if a fetus poses a threat to its mother’s life, the moral propounding will assert that since the fetus is no more than a parasite cannot but live on the blood of its host, it should be aborted. Otherwise common moralist viewpoint will not permit the abortion since it is more inclined to view the essence of an adult’s personhood in the fetus. Now if it is the freedom of choice of a mother to not let the baby stay in her womb and enjoys the pleasures of the world in order to lessen her own sufferings, then she has no right to give birth to a child exposing it to the possible sufferings of the real, when having a baby is the utmost pleasure of a mother, but the baby’s exposure to possible dangers of the world. Therefore if a fetus has to face the possible adversary of this world at its mother’s individual choice, then it must have the right to enjoy the pleasures of life, whether her mother wants it or not. Therefore a fetus’s right is not subjected to the choice its mother. For the same reason, abortion is morally impermissible. Works Cited Marquis, Don, “Why Abortion is Immoral”, the Journal of Philosophy, Inc. Vol. 86, No. 4 (Apr, 1989), pp. 183-202 Thompson, Judith Jarvis, “A Defense of Abortion”, Philosophy and Public Affairs. Vol.1, No. 1 (Autumn, 1971), pp. 47-66 Read More