Good day,
I apologize for the delay in my post I am always busy with work and school! I will go back to the OP. That the innocent killing of human being is morally wrong. I believe we all would agree on that front and if not than, well, all ethical conversations are unfortunately meaningless.
There are two ways to argue against my position of, (fetus' are innocent human beings and should not be killed) they are either
A: Deny the fetus' humanity or
B: Establish that even if the fetus is human womans bodily rights hold precedence
Many of you, for the sake of argument (or by conceding the point) chose not to argue against the humanity of a fetus, but rather establish that even if a fetus is human the woman still has the right to abort. Since most of you have rebutted using B, I shall for the most part be referencing those arguments in this post. This argument is established via a womans bodily rights. The argument many of you have been referencing dates back to Judith Jarvis Thomsons 1971 article, "A Defense of Abortion," published in Philosophy and Public affairs. Specifically, you have been using a variation of the sickly violinist argument. In this argument a women wakes up to find a man who is dying of kidney trouble hooked up to your own body in order to survive. Thomson reasons a woman has the ability or right to simply opt out of such a venture because of her autonomy in regards to her own body. This analogy is often used to support the idea that abortion, to is like the sickly violinist situation and thus should be morally and legally permissable. An analogy is successful if the situation can be shown to have a one-to-one correspondence with the relevant situation. I will attempt to show Thomson's analogy to be a false analogy, and not at all like the act of abortion or having any bearing on the discussion.
To begin with, in the sickly violinist example, the man intentionally violates her body in order to survive. This muddles the situation that is abortion in that in the violinists case we are only concerned with her violation which in abortion if carried out, also violates the fetus' rights. It also gives the fetus no choice or control of the situation while the mother willfully forces the fetus to cease to exist. Since in both situations bodily rights are being violated somethings got to give. Not only is the woman violating the fetus' rights it is also killing an innocent human therefore, ethically abortion is immoral.
Furthermore, in the sickly violinist case, the man is the intruder. The intentional agressor who off his own volition is using the womans body who she has no connection or moral obligation towards. However, we can see that this situation is vastly different! Intentional or not, heterosexual sex often can lead to pregnancy. Some philosophers have likened pregnancy to, a woman who knowingly signs up for a social experiment where she may or may not be trapped in a cabin for nine months with an infant and the infant would need her body to survive for this time. Lets say she is picked, is she now knowing full well she is responsible for bringing about the situation and the dependance of the fetus, should she not be morally and legally held responsible for the child? I believe the answer is a resounding yes. Similarly, in the violinist example, the woman has no responsibility nor connection to the sick man who is hooked up to her body. He is hooked up there because he, (or in her paper she uses "The Society for Music Lovers,") intentionally hooks himself up to her. But why is the fetus hooked up to the woman in the first place? Ninety-nice percent of the time, it is because she engaged in an action (sexual intercourse) that is known to create dependant people(unborn children). The analogy false and misconstrued indeed, in the case of pregnancy the mother and father resemble "The Society of Music Lovers," more than the kidnapped kidney donor in causing an innocent child and using that child to be dependant on a womans body to live. If I am responsible, or freely engaged in an activity that I knew had the possibility of creating a dependent, helpless human life, than I owe that human whatever assistance she needs to survive. A further analogy, shows this in a car-crash scenario. Comparing unwanted pregnancy to that of a car crash. Here, a car crashes into one car propelling it into another car. Now we find out that the owner of the third car also was the driver and instigator of the first car and started the chain reaction. Since she is the owner of both cars, she can only fault herself and indeed the car in the middle can fault her too. Now lets call a pregnant woman A(the father was also involved) the child B and the womans body C. A conceives B thus causing B to inhabit C. Plainly put, C is A, the mother. The child B, the one caught in the middle is innocent. Therefore, the mother has no no reason to evict or indeed kill her child. The metaphysical principle in all of this is,
"If one puts another in a situation without their consent, that situation can not be worse than they would have been in otherwise, and that consent to put someone in a dependent situation, includes the responsibility of caring for that person.
This means that:
If causing someone to exist and then killing that person, does more harm than not causing such a person to exist, abortion is not permissible.
Also,
If one consents to a situation where another is dependent upon them, and that it would have been otherwise true that the person was not dependent upon them, the person consenting is obligated to provide for the other."
To conclude, an analogy is useful if it can be shown to have a one to one corespondance with the sitatuion in reference. I have argued, I believe successful that these situations do not have a one to one correspondance with one another and are indeed a false analogy and a gross misinterprataion of the abortion phenomena. And since abortion is still the intententional killing of an innocent human being it is not only immoral, but should be illegal.
Kindest Regards,
I apologize for the delay in my post I am always busy with work and school! I will go back to the OP. That the innocent killing of human being is morally wrong. I believe we all would agree on that front and if not than, well, all ethical conversations are unfortunately meaningless.
There are two ways to argue against my position of, (fetus' are innocent human beings and should not be killed) they are either
A: Deny the fetus' humanity or
B: Establish that even if the fetus is human womans bodily rights hold precedence
Many of you, for the sake of argument (or by conceding the point) chose not to argue against the humanity of a fetus, but rather establish that even if a fetus is human the woman still has the right to abort. Since most of you have rebutted using B, I shall for the most part be referencing those arguments in this post. This argument is established via a womans bodily rights. The argument many of you have been referencing dates back to Judith Jarvis Thomsons 1971 article, "A Defense of Abortion," published in Philosophy and Public affairs. Specifically, you have been using a variation of the sickly violinist argument. In this argument a women wakes up to find a man who is dying of kidney trouble hooked up to your own body in order to survive. Thomson reasons a woman has the ability or right to simply opt out of such a venture because of her autonomy in regards to her own body. This analogy is often used to support the idea that abortion, to is like the sickly violinist situation and thus should be morally and legally permissable. An analogy is successful if the situation can be shown to have a one-to-one correspondence with the relevant situation. I will attempt to show Thomson's analogy to be a false analogy, and not at all like the act of abortion or having any bearing on the discussion.
To begin with, in the sickly violinist example, the man intentionally violates her body in order to survive. This muddles the situation that is abortion in that in the violinists case we are only concerned with her violation which in abortion if carried out, also violates the fetus' rights. It also gives the fetus no choice or control of the situation while the mother willfully forces the fetus to cease to exist. Since in both situations bodily rights are being violated somethings got to give. Not only is the woman violating the fetus' rights it is also killing an innocent human therefore, ethically abortion is immoral.
Furthermore, in the sickly violinist case, the man is the intruder. The intentional agressor who off his own volition is using the womans body who she has no connection or moral obligation towards. However, we can see that this situation is vastly different! Intentional or not, heterosexual sex often can lead to pregnancy. Some philosophers have likened pregnancy to, a woman who knowingly signs up for a social experiment where she may or may not be trapped in a cabin for nine months with an infant and the infant would need her body to survive for this time. Lets say she is picked, is she now knowing full well she is responsible for bringing about the situation and the dependance of the fetus, should she not be morally and legally held responsible for the child? I believe the answer is a resounding yes. Similarly, in the violinist example, the woman has no responsibility nor connection to the sick man who is hooked up to her body. He is hooked up there because he, (or in her paper she uses "The Society for Music Lovers,") intentionally hooks himself up to her. But why is the fetus hooked up to the woman in the first place? Ninety-nice percent of the time, it is because she engaged in an action (sexual intercourse) that is known to create dependant people(unborn children). The analogy false and misconstrued indeed, in the case of pregnancy the mother and father resemble "The Society of Music Lovers," more than the kidnapped kidney donor in causing an innocent child and using that child to be dependant on a womans body to live. If I am responsible, or freely engaged in an activity that I knew had the possibility of creating a dependent, helpless human life, than I owe that human whatever assistance she needs to survive. A further analogy, shows this in a car-crash scenario. Comparing unwanted pregnancy to that of a car crash. Here, a car crashes into one car propelling it into another car. Now we find out that the owner of the third car also was the driver and instigator of the first car and started the chain reaction. Since she is the owner of both cars, she can only fault herself and indeed the car in the middle can fault her too. Now lets call a pregnant woman A(the father was also involved) the child B and the womans body C. A conceives B thus causing B to inhabit C. Plainly put, C is A, the mother. The child B, the one caught in the middle is innocent. Therefore, the mother has no no reason to evict or indeed kill her child. The metaphysical principle in all of this is,
"If one puts another in a situation without their consent, that situation can not be worse than they would have been in otherwise, and that consent to put someone in a dependent situation, includes the responsibility of caring for that person.
This means that:
If causing someone to exist and then killing that person, does more harm than not causing such a person to exist, abortion is not permissible.
Also,
If one consents to a situation where another is dependent upon them, and that it would have been otherwise true that the person was not dependent upon them, the person consenting is obligated to provide for the other."
To conclude, an analogy is useful if it can be shown to have a one to one corespondance with the sitatuion in reference. I have argued, I believe successful that these situations do not have a one to one correspondance with one another and are indeed a false analogy and a gross misinterprataion of the abortion phenomena. And since abortion is still the intententional killing of an innocent human being it is not only immoral, but should be illegal.
Kindest Regards,
