Abortion: Should Be Illegal & Is Immoral

Abortion: Should be illegal & is immoral Many people believe that abortions should be legal because women should have the right to choose whether or not they want to bring a baby into the world. They believe a woman should have property rights which include the body and the fetus. They also believe a woman should have privacy rights which means the state should not interfere with private matters. These people are called pro choice.

At the same time many people are anti-abortion because they believe “Life is present from the moment of conception” (526). In Don Marquis’s essay, “Why Abortion is Immoral” he takes the position that abortion is “morally unjustified” (525). The purpose of the essay is to go against the belief that “The anti-abortion position is either a symptom of irrational religious dogma or a conclusion generated by seriously confused philosophical argument” (525). Abortions should be illegal because they are morally wrong except, in cases beyond our control.

Many insightful writers on the ethics of abortion believe that whether or not abortion should be morally allowed depends on whether or not a fetus is the sort of being whose life it is seriously wrong to end. Marquis’s essay is based “on a major assumption” (525). The argument of the essay assumes that the writers on ethics of abortion are correct. Marquis believes that abortion is “morally unjustified” (525). His argument is that “it is wrong to kill us because such killing deprives us of all the value of our futures” (525).

He also argues that fetuses are close enough to being like us and that is it just as wrong to kill them as it is to kill us. The conclusion of his argument is that not all abortions are wrong since there may be other conditions in some cases such as “abortion before implantation, when the life of the woman is threatened by a pregnancy or abortion and abortion after rape” (525). The article tells us that the anti-abortionist will support her argument by using moral principles such as “It is always prima facie seriously wrong to take a human life” or “It is always prima facie seriously wrong to end the life of a baby” (526).

Since she believes these are accepted moral principles then to her they can never be wrong. The pro choice claim that her position is supported by reasonable moral principles such as “Being a person is what gives an individual intrinsic moral worth” or “It is only seriously prima facie wrong to take the life of a member of the human community” (526). Therefore the moral principles accepted by the pro choice can not be wrong. Therefore the beliefs of the anti-abortionists and the pro choice will always conflict because neither of them finds anything wrong with their beliefs.

Mary Ann Warren also writes about abortion in her essay “On the Moral and Legal Status of Abortion”. When it comes to abortion she opposes Don Marquis’s position. She defends abortion rights. She believes a person is someone who has “consciousness, reasoning, capacity to communicate and self awareness” (519). She feels if you do not have any of these characteristics then you are not a person therefore a fetus is not a person. I find her to be kind of harsh on the subject.

She feels that the “resemblance of the fetus to a person, nor the fact that it may become a human person” (516) are good enough reasons to look at the fetus as a human whose rights can go against a pregnant woman’s rights. Abortion is an issue that stirs up many strong feelings, judgments and very heated discussions. There are many people who are anti-abortion and many who are pro choice so of course this is going to cause many arguments between the two sides. I agree with Marquis that abortion is “morally unjustified” except in certain cases (525).

Abortion is also a horrible sin and should be illegal. If people do not want children they should consider their options before consenting to having sex. Otherwise it is a possibility that nine months later you will have a little baby running around. By allowing abortions you are allowing an innocent life to be taken away. Once a baby is conceived it should have the right to a life. The fetus begins to develop a heart beat, eyes and ears, ability to move and breathe just like us. People do not understand the value of life and take it for granted.

Most of time women get abortions because the pregnancy is inconvenient for them. They never consider the baby whose future they are taking away. Being raped is a different situation because it is against the woman’s will. I can understand if the woman wants to terminate the pregnancy. I believe having a child is a miracle. If you do not want to conceive and have the options not to then use them because if you do not want to bring a baby into this world then you do not deserve to have a baby.

There are so many women out there today who would love to have a little baby to hold but cannot for certain reasons and here you have many selfish women giving up the chance to be a mother. When a woman decides to terminate a pregnancy she is forced to live with knowing she took an innocent child’s life. I do not understand how women can live with that. It usually hits them after the procedure is done. Even though abortion may have been the right choice for the woman at the time, many years later she may regret it because she knows in her heart what the right thing to do was.

If you think about it abortion is always wrong from the child’s perspective. Don Marquis questions what exactly is wrong with killing? Killing is wrong because of the effect it has on the victim. Marquis’s main point is that it prevents the fetus from having a valuable future which means that there are “consequences for the ethics of abortion” (529). The future of a fetus includes the same things adults and young children go through. This is used to explain why it is wrong to kill human beings after birth and also fetuses. Making abortion “morally wrong” (529).