Morality Paper

[RedFireDiamonds]

I have one last paper to do for my Ethics class and I have to expand one of my previous papers. I'm doing the abortion paper - arguing why abortion is moral and I need to extend it about two pages. Everyone here is just a plethora of opinions and thoughts, so where better to gain ideas?

So, anyone have any thoughts on why abortion is moral? This is a tough one for me because my pro-choice stance comes from the whole choice thing so I either need to make the freedom of choice a moral right or find another way to argue it.

[Vincardog]

1. There is the whole child of rape or incest thing.

Would it be moral to force a 13 year old child who is pregnant as a result of rape to endure the health risks to bear her victimizer's child?

But the truth is it is a privacy issue. This is a private decision to be made by a woman in consultation with whom ever she chooses. Roe V Wade decided it on the privacy issue why mess with what works?

[iverglas]

3. remember not to confuse two issues

on edit: oops; most of this was of course meant for the original poster.


"Abortion" and "choice" are not the same.

Whether abortion itself is moral is a completely separate issue from whether outlawing/permitting abortion is moral.

And of course "whether abortion is moral" is not an issue that can be answered with a flat yes or no.

Is killing moral? Well, killing in order to acquire property isn't moral; not by most people's moral definition.

Killing in self-defence? Killing to prevent some other killing? Killing to prevent genocide? Killing to alleviate intractable suffering?

Whether any particular abortion is "moral" will depend on the circumstances, regardless of what definition of "moral" is used. An abortion to save a woman's life? An abortion that a woman is compelled, by force or threat of force, to have?

But whether it is "moral" to outlaw abortion, or to permit abortion, is still another and separate issue. There are many things that many people regard as "immoral" (adultery is widely regarded as immoral, e.g.) that are not outlawed.

This is a private decision to be made by a woman in consultation with whom ever she chooses.

That's something I consider pretty much a nonsense, unfortunately -- both when it comes to law and, of course, when it comes to morality. Adultery is a "privacy issue"; it can still be defined as "immoral" pretty easily. And there are all sorts of things that people could decide to do, in consultation with whomever they chose, that arguably involve "privacy", that could easily and justifiably be outlawed.

Reproductive rights are an element of the right not to be deprived of life or liberty without due process. That seems to me to be the only reasonable way of defining them. Pregnancy and childbirth and child-rearing (or child relinquishment) jeopardize women's lives and well-being in a host of ways, and restrict women's liberty. Compelling women to accept those risks and restrictions without due process is wrong by human rights / constitutional standards, and immoral by my standards. (The point being that there is no "fair trial" that could ever be held that would result in compelling a pregnant woman to engage in a course of action that could lead to her death, at worst, to a range of physical and mental problems during pregnancy and long after, and to the loss of liberty that is inherent in pregnancy).

My suggestion is that you clarify whether you are addressing the morality of abortion or the morality of outlawing/permitting abortion. The morality of doing (or not doing) something and the morality of forcing someone to do (or not do) something are virtually always separate questions.

You might find some of Joyce Arthurs' writings interesting:
http://mypage.direct.ca/w/writer/writing.html

[RedFireDiamonds]

5. Wow. Thanks.

[TalkingDog]

2. Never a black or white issue, but

Say you are in a situation where you know that there will not be enough food to support you while you nurse (which takes a LOT of calories) so your newborn would starve to death. Which is the more humane (read: moral) choice?

Some women understand that they are not in a position to care for a child. Neither financially, emotionally, physically or in any other capapcity. Perpetuate the cycle of damaging a child or abort a fetus?

But what about adoption? Well, healthy white babies are in high demand. But newborns without that particular brand of luck often end up in situations where their long term care is little better (and sometimes worse) than what the mother could provide.

Am I saying this is in any way fair or right? No, but there is an ideal reality and then there is the one we live in.

Moral choices are difficult precisely because they require the ability to see that there are always extenuating circumstances and accounting for those circumstances within the choice.

I am pro-choice, but anti-abortion. I do not believe a fetus is a child. But I do believe that abortion is forwarded by society as a way of controlling women.

If women were wholly supported by society in their decision to have children and if motherhood/childrearing was actually treated as importantly as "family values" types pretend it to be, more women would not put off motherhood for careers. They would not put off childbearing to go to school or to work 2 jobs in order to buy material goods. They would have access to socialized healthcare, socialized child care and whatever support they needed. The word Choice would actually take on substantial meaning.

Jesse Helms of NC fame was a rabid conservative and racist. Yet he supported abortion on demand in NC. His politicking kept it alive in this state against all odds. Why? His logic was that if there was readily available abortion, it would reduce the number of women and children on state and federal aid. Abortion as a way to control women who already have too few choices. If women were able to freely choose what they wanted, rather than have free market values and societal pressures affect their choices, then I would have no problem with abortion as a procedure.

[Warpy]

4. To face full term pregnancy and childbirth is to face death

and there is no way to get around that. A valid argument in favor of keeping abortion legal is that it is a woman's form of self defense. A visit to the library and a check of an OB-Gyn textbook will leave you wondering how the hell we all managed to get here with our mothers' lives intact. It is the most dangerous "normal" condition that human beings face.

Another aspect is bringing unwanted children into the world to face halfhearted upbringings, poverty, and a lack of what we as human beings need socially in order to cope with the world.

Then there is the fact that a woman is a living, thinking human being, whilst a fetus is not capable of either. Whose rights should be paramount, especially considering the fetus threatens the woman's health, finances, sanity and LIFE if she does not want to be pregnant. Should a potential be valued over the actual? Is this ever moral, justifying an end that may not be reached by the unconscionable means of enslaving another human being to it?

Then there's the Buddhist perspective on the whole thing. A delightful talk on the subject can be found at http://www.bswa.org/audio/audio_by_author.php It's near the top, called "A Buddhist Response to Euthanasia and Abortion."

The combination of all this stuff will be a good place to start on your paper. Good luck.

(and yes, I survived Ethics and remember how long those papers were)

[TXlib]

6. I am as pro-choice as they come

But I can't argue that abortion is a moral thing.

Necessary, yes. Not necessarily immoral, yes.

But i can't think of an argument that it is a good thing, only necessary.

[Warpy]

7. I find I have the same view regarding gallbladder surgery

It hurts, nobody wants it, but it is sometimes necessary if we want to keep on living.