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Abortion is a complex issue that often causes heated disagreement. It brings out feelings of frustration, fear, anger and sadness in various different people for various different reasons. Because it is such an emotionally charged topic it is often difficult to discuss in a reasonable manner. It is understandable then why so many people avoid this issue when it comes to political and philosophical debates. However, I will attempt to address it and explain my views in a manner that, I hope, is sensitive to the feelings and beliefs of all persons.
I am opposed to abortion and believe that it should be illegal. My reasons for this stance are based on my belief that all person's lives are equal in value and that all persons should have their lives, safety and freedom protected by law. This may strike some of those who disagree with my position as odd as they believe that, to protect the equality and freedom and women, it is necessary that women be able to choose abortion and they will see any prohibition on abortion as being contrary to the interests of freedom and equality, not in support of them. However, I have my reasons for believing that a ban on abortion is necessary to preserve these fundamental rights and I will attempt to explain them. First, in order to understand my belief that the availability of abortion actually violates human rights and does not enhance them, we will need to examine the different vantage points the pro-life and pro-choice camps view the issue from.
Those who fall into the pro-choice camp see abortion as a woman exercising her right to control her own body and her reproduction. Historically patriarchal societies, such as those of Europe, Canada and the USA, have, to one degree or another, seen it as the duty of women to produce children and have given men control over how this "duty" has been carried out. The result has been that women were not permitted to control their own reproduction and sexual identities; a woman's freedom to make decisions over when to have sex, when to have children and how to raise them was infringed or denied completely. Over the years women have fought to free themselves from male control and managed to make significant gains, such as working to remove barbaric laws that interpreted a woman's marriage vows as permanent consent to intercourse and thereby making it impossible for a husband to be convicted of raping his wife. When the laws against abortion were loosened and, in Canada, entirely abolished, this was seen by many as another blow for female equality.
People who subscribe to the pro-life position on the other hand do not generally see abortion as an issue of female equality or liberation. Rather they either see it as a moral issue in that they believe it is simply immoral to terminate a pregnancy or they see it as an issue of protecting the rights of the unborn child. As I tend to dislike basing laws on purely moral grounds I do not personally see it as an issue of sexual morality but rather as a matter of human rights. Specifically, I believe that the issue raises a conflict of rights, that being between the rights of the mother to control her reproduction and the right of the child to life. In this conflict I beliee that the right of the unborn child to life must take precedence and so I count myself as a pro-life advocate.
Adherents to the pro-choice philosophy would disagree that the foetus has a right to life and the law in Canada would agree. Canadian law does not recognize the foetus as a person as the Criminal Code of Canada states that an unborn child becomes a person only after proceeding completely from the mother's body. Up until that moment of completed birth the child has no legal status or rights under the law. Legally no restrictions of any kind can be placed on the mother's ability to make decisions regarding the foetus. This means that, even wher the mother intends to give birth to the child, it is not permitted for anyone to prevent the mother from engaging in behaviour that will cause the child to be injured or disabled after birth. For example, attempts to prohibit pregnant mothers from drinkin excessively or using narcotics have been struck down by the courts because the foetus has no legal rights.
Though the law and pro-choicers do not see the foetus as a person I have trouble seeing it merely as an object or body part. Perhaps, at the very early stages, where it is merely an embryo, an unborn child could reasonably be seen as not a person but when the baby has matured to such a point that it has all those things that "real people" have (a beating heart, a functioning brain, etc.) how it can it not be a human being? How can it be that, just before the moment of birth, the child is merely an extension of the mother's body but, seconds later, it has become a person? I can understand that a line must be drawn somewhere to demarcate where life begins or someone might argue that even sperm and ova are humans but drawing the line so late in the game, right at the time of birth, seems illogical to me. Instead, it ought to be drawn somewhere earlier in the pregnancy - perhaps not at the moment of conception but at least by the time brain functions have developed.
Children are the most vulnerable members of our society and require our protection more than any others. This is why I am so concerned with what I view as an inadequate safeguarding of children's rights. In the case of the unborn child the law not only fails to adequately protect their human rights but even denies they are human beings, denies that they are persons. This disturbs me and reminds me of a time when the law classed another group of people as being not full persons and decreed they were not entitled to the full rights of citizens, only then the persons whom the law was speaking of were women not children. Just as it was wrong for the law to treat women as lesser beings so do I believe it is wrong for it to treat the unborn child as such.
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Posted by hairytoad2005 on 2007-11-29 00:24:47 | Rating: | Views: 88
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I did a debate on bioethics and one of my topics was abortions. So here is my insight on pro-choice.
Being pro bioethics means being pro-choice for abortions. This means that a woman should have complete and utter control over her fertility and pregnancy. People are pro-choice believe that woman should have access to safe and legal abortion as well as they should be protected from forced abortions. Abortions became legal in 1973, before this, unsafe and “home abortions” were performed which usually led to infection, damaged organs and sometimes death. Woman had many gruesome methods of self-inducing an abortion such as continuous blows to the abdominal area; attempted piercing of the fetus with objects such as knitting needles and woman even went as far as to use coat-hangers for attempted removal of the fetus. A study concluded in 1968 determined that over 1.2 million illegal abortions were performed every year. Since abortions are now legal woman not only have the choice, they do not have to worry about the risks of unsafe abortions. People who believe in pro-life argue that abortion is killing a human, and that you are killing a potential person. It is said by philosopher Baruch Brody that a fetus is not a human until after 6 weeks because it does not have conscious experience. To fully further the fetus’ conscious experience it must feel pain but a fetus does not feel pain until about 22 – 24 weeks. Thus, Brody’s claim is correct, if the capacity for conscious experience is a necessary condition of humanity than the fetus is not human until the end of the second trimester when an abortion is illegal and cannot be performed. A newborn does have pleasurable experiences but by contrast fetuses and embryos do not have lives that they value. Accordingly, zygotes, embryos and early fetus’ do not suffer from being aborted neither does death deprive them. Another philosopher named Don Marquis argues that “why should beings who are potentially just like us be entitled to the same things as we are? Only beings that have begun to experience their lives have an interest in continuing it. As a result abortions should be available to woman and it should be their decision.
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Posted by miserybusiness
on 2007-11-29 01:17:45
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You present some interesting arguments, miserybusiness. I guess it comes down to the question: What is a person? Does intelligence make someone a person? Does the ability to experience pain? I'm not sure of the answer. It is interesting to note that late term abortions are illegal in the USA but, in Canada, abortion is legal at any time up until the point of birth.
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Posted by hairytoad2005
on 2007-11-29 17:07:51
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Awsome post!!!!
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Posted by Independent
on 2007-11-30 15:09:11
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A person is a human so if a fetus is a human than it is not a person.
so we really do not need to identify what a person is.
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Posted by miserybusiness
on 2007-12-10 22:42:34
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Hm, afraid I don't follow the logic there. It appears from your sentence that you're postulating that person = human and then that fetus = human so, consequently, that would mean that fetus = person. So, are you conceding the point that a fetus is a person and arguing that it is irrelevant? Because if that is the case I would have to disagree. Personhood is where rights derive from. At least in my opinion. Some would also argue that animals have inherent rights but I am not yet convinced of that argument. I think that animals should be treated humanely and should even have protections under the law but I don't agree that they have inherent rights in the same way persons do. If you are a person you have certain fundamental rights - if you are not a person then you do not have those rights. This has been an issue of contention throughout history where various factions argued over whether certain individuals qualified as real "persons" in one way or another (i.e. the argument in the Church during the 1500's/1600's whether aboriginals had souls and qualified as persons, the argument in the early twentieth century in Canada over whether women were "persons" under the law qualified to be members of the Senate, etc.
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Posted by hairytoad2005
on 2007-12-11 21:43:14
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Hm.. unless you're attempting to use the old faulty logic example of 'All horses have four legs therefore everything with four legs is a horse'? Just because all horses necessarily have four legs doesn't mean that all things with four legs necessarily are horses... Is your argument that a fetus may be a human but not all humans are necessarily persons? Again, that's an argument have some difficulty accepting.
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Posted by hairytoad2005
on 2007-12-11 22:13:32
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