ktmeng/mec huggingface dataset:
Topic: abortion

How about being proud of those who sexually harass and abuse children because they decided that it was the best choice? No, we believe that abortion is totally different due to the fact that the mother gets to decide what to do with her baby. Therefore, if a mother loses her unborn child as a result of someone else’s purposeful actions, it’s considered manslaughter or murder just because she wanted the baby to live. However, if she decides that the pregnancy is an inconvenience, the baby automatically turns to something below human. Such thoughts are insane and beyond morality.
Topic: abortion

Therefore, the human population needs to change their thoughts and view abortion in a different perspective. The question about abortion comes down to the very same argument on when exactly does humanity begin. A fertilized egg that undergoes cell division and growth, which is what happens at conception, can be nothing but alive. To claim that human life begins at any other moment other than at conception is to deny a fundamental scientific reality. The majority of Americans know that a person’s existence begins at conception; however, some still try to argue that life begins at birth.
Topic: abortion

Therefore, Appel declares that according to the polls on embryonic stem cell research, many people believe that life begins after conception. However, he does not specify how long after conception does life begin. Nevertheless, his view about abortion pride implies that life does not exist before birth. Even uneducated pregnant mothers know their baby is alive when they hear the heartbeat, see the ultrasound, and feel the kicking inside their body. To deny this basic life principle is only a pathetic attempt to rationalize the basic evil of killing an innocent human being.
Topic: abortion

In fact, abortion rate has risen so high that it can now be characterized as a form of genocide, and that is no cause for pride. Genocide is a deliberate extermination or destruction of a certain group of people. Even though the unborn babies are not yet considered people, they are separate individuals in their mother’s womb that deserve a life. It’s proven that the child’s DNA is different from his mother’s; thus, the mother is only responsible for the child’s wellbeing and must act in the child’s best interest. Since the child is its owner, it has rights that are equal to those of the mother and everyone else.
Topic: abortion

According to Meredith Eugene Hunt, genocide is the most accurate term to describe abortion (Hunt 1). Hunt goes on to explain that the word “abortion” does not adequately convey the horrors of the action, since it’s a massive worldwide government-supported destruction of pre-born children which is approximately 55 million a year (Hunt 1). However, some people, such as Jacob M. Appel, argue that abortion is a brave and a wise choice. Brave and wise are not the right words to describe abortion; however, cruel and heartless would be the perfect characteristics.
Topic: abortion

It’s immoral to have such huge numbers of pre-born babies die every year and say that it was a wise choice. However, it’s important to make a wise choice and vote for pro-life. According to Jacob M. Appel, abortions should be as frequent or as infrequent as unwanted pregnancies. He stresses that if the child is unwanted, it’s better that he/she is not born at all. The offense must be just being created at the wrong place and at the wrong time. It’s as if saying, “Sorry Danny, you were just for screwing, not for living, and that’s my right. If people would be more responsible of their actions, there would be a great decrease of abortions. Pregnancy is not something that happens like the flu that you have no control of, so if conception occurs, it’s the mother’s responsibility to deliver the baby and raise him/her in a decent manner. Choosing abortion is an easy way out from the mistake that was made in life. There are some understandable reasons why women turn to abortion such as rape, incest and mothers life in jeopardy, but only a small percentage of all abortions happen for these three reasons.
Topic: abortion

Therefore, the majority of abortions take place because of an inconvenience. Abortion numbers are critical and should be decreased before more and more innocent pre-born babies have the fate to die without getting at least one breath of fresh air. Abortion has many negative aspects that can result in poor outcomes. We do not know what would have happened to all those unborn children if they had a chance to live. Maybe some of them would have grown up to be doctors to cure cancer or politicians to boost the economy. No one really knows; however, according to Jacob M.
Topic: abortion

Appel, we should not only show tolerance to those who had abortion but joy that they have made a decision for their own and for the collective good. Considering the number of abortions that occur in the United States every year, it’s impossible to imagine that 1. 5 million deaths of pre-born infants are for the collective good (Mathewes-Green 1). Furthermore, Appel goes on to declare that he dreams of the day when women will be walking around with pins and bumper stickers reading, “Thank me for having abortion when I wasn’t ready to be a parent. Abortion is not a joyous matter; therefore, even the most irresponsible woman would not be proud of killing her baby. Even though some women are indifferent to having had an abortion, it’s not something to be proud of. Therefore, abortion is not a wise choice nether for the mother or for the common good. There will probably never be a day when abortion becomes completely illegal, but it sure can be decreased if measures are taken to prevent unwanted pregnancies and assist women who slip through the cracks and get pregnant anyways (Mathewes-Green 1).
Topic: abortion

The best solutions are to make better sex education, create programs to curb sexual abuse and provide government support. It’s important to work toward reducing the number of unwanted pregnancies rather than trying to stop abortion. If there would be less unwanted pregnancies, abortion would not be necessary. Moreover, some people lose common sense when there are objections to morality. Such a case was observed when an anti-abortion zealot murdered an American abortion doctor who offered late-term abortions (Life v choice 1).
Topic: abortion

Even though the doctor was a “baby killer,” as some people called him, it’s not pro-life to murder someone (1). Humanity should focus more on preventing and decreasing abortion rather than using cruel and hurtful tactics to stop it. In order to prevent abortion, it’s necessary to decrease unwanted pregnancies. According to the Abortion Controversy, half of all pregnancies in our country are unintended, and of those, half end in abortion (Arons 1). Poor sexual education leads to lack of knowledge and inability to make wise choices. Therefore, many people are faced with the dilemma of an unwanted pregnancy and abortion.
Topic: abortion

Thus, the best solution is to improve sexual education, which would include medically accurate information on abstinence and contraception. Abstinence is a great way to avoid a pregnancy, but not many people choose to live without sex. Therefore, contraception is necessary to bypass conception. Even though we have a great variety of contraceptives and easier access to them now then 30 years ago, there are still countless number of unplanned pregnancies. Part of the problem is due to the over-sexualized media which has an attitude of casual sex with multiple partners being okay. The results of casual sex are ignorance, pregnancy and abortion.
Topic: abortion

Nevertheless, in order to prevent unwanted pregnancies, it’s necessary to improve sex education through schools, homes and media. The attitude of casual sex and irresponsibility are the leading origins of abortion; therefore, if they are eliminated, there will be a great decrease of unborn children in our country and all around the world. Another problem that leads to abortion is sexual abuse and lack of government support. It’s about time that the government would step in and make some permanent changes. Programs that curb sexual abuse and rape would decrease those pregnancies that result from someone’s cruel actions.
Topic: abortion

Even though it’s understandable why women choose to have abortion as a result of rape, it’s still no excuse to kill an innocent baby which took no part in the terrible crime. Therefore, it’s hard to make a choice in such a difficult situation; however, if programs to curb sexual abuse are formed, there will be fewer women facing such a dilemma. Government support should also be evident in providing financial benefits for pregnant mothers. According to Alan Guttmacher Institute, one of the most common reasons why women choose abortion is because then cannot afford another child (Arons 1).
Topic: abortion

By providing low-income, young women with career opportunities, health care, child care and other basic supports, many would have the resources they need to fulfill the obligations to become a parent. Therefore, the government plays a critical role in decreasing unwanted pregnancies and preventing abortion. Abortion is a huge mass destruction that takes thousands of pre-born babies each year. Most abortions result from the lack of sex education, sexual abuse or lack of financial support. If nothing is done in the next 20 years to decrease abortion, the percentage of unborn babies will become efficiently higher.
Topic: abortion

Today, the United States hospitals perform approximately 4,000 abortions each day; however, if nothing is done, there will be 6,000 in the next 20 years (Mathewes-Green 1). Thus, in order to prevent abortion, it’s important to decrease unwanted pregnancies. By eliminating the obstacles listed above, abortion rate will become much smaller. Unfortunately, even with all the programs and education, it’s impossible to completely discard abortion. Therefore, the goal is to make abortion safe, legal and rare rather than impossible and illegal. What is needed is leadership and commitment to reach a society in which all women have the information and resources necessary to prevent unwanted pregnancies, to carry healthy pregnancies to term and to raise their children with love, safety and dignity.
Topic: abortion

In today’s society every time a person turns on the television, goes on a computer, turns on a radio, passes a billboard, or picks up a newspaper that person is bombarded with debates. There are many different debates and each debate with two parties both of which have two very different and sometimes conversational opinions. Everywhere a person looks they are faced with arguments such as president Obama’s affordable healthcare act, gay rights, the matters of the death penalty being legalized or illegalized in all states, and many more.
Topic: abortion

Legal under any circumstances has a vote of twenty six percent, legal under certain circumstances fifty two percent, illegal in all circumstances twenty percent, and no opinion had two percent. Pro Life is a Christian based non- profit anti- abortion organization that was founded in the year 1980 by Joseph Scheidler with the organizations head quarters in Chicago Illinois. The goal of the organization is to protect and save unborn children and their mothers with non violent protests. The organization believes that women are being exploited by the abortion industry.
Topic: abortion

Also that the abortion industry is the main cause of what the organization believes is the murder of an human being. The members of Pro Life have many different tactics implemented to publically protest abortion. The Pro Life organization does not condone any violence in the protesting of abortion, but the organization does use graphic material in the “Face the Truth: Public Education Initiative”. This educational initiative uses graphic pictures of real aborted fetuses to show the aftermath of the procedure. This protest is described as “to show our fellow Americans the ugly truth about abortion”.
Topic: abortion

The Pro Life members line the major road ways and intersection while showcasing the graphic images. Pro Life organization also uses less graphic forms of protesting such as sidewalk counseling, youth outreach projects, public, protest, 3 presence at abortion clinics, and confronting abortionists. The majority of protesting takes place at the abortion clinics. Pro Life members will stand outside of the clinics to perform prayer vigils, last minute consulting to women and couples with abortion alternatives, pregnancy resources, as well as confidential counseling. Pro Choice I organized by the National Abortion Federation.
Topic: abortion

It is the national association for professional abortion providers. The N. A. F provides training and services to qualified abortion providers in North America. The goal of the N. A. F is to ensure women’s safety when to comes to abortion whether it is elective or medically necessary. Pro Choice is centered around that women should be able to make private medical decisions with their healthcare providers and to have the right to chose what happens to their bodies. The N. A. F also supports the education for women and youth n different contraceptive methods to help prevent unplanned pregnancies.
Topic: abortion

Also the organization provides resources for women to make inform decisions when it comes to their choices. The organization helps to provide women with the education about abortion, adoption, and parenthood. The organization sets quality standards for abortion care and to make sure the medical providers such as Nurses, Physician Assists, Doctors, and Mid wives are qualified to provide high quality care. N. A. F also helps with legal legislations to keep abortion legal. The organization fears what ould happen to women if abortion was to made illegal.
Topic: abortion

Pro choice does protest to keep abortion legal in the United States. The Pro Choice advertisements are not as graphic as Pro Life’s. Though Pro Choice does have advertisements of what environments women may find themselves in if abortion were to be made illegal. Pro Life also uses education to teach women about what had happened in the 1950’s to the 1960’s before 4 abortion was legal in America. This is used to create awareness so that history will not repeat itself. According to Our Bodies Ourselves a Pro Choice website uses statics o show mortality rate in women to either tried to perform a self initiated abortion.
Topic: abortion

Between 1950 and 1960 before women were legal able to get an abortion 1. 2 million of those women did self performed abortions. In countries where abortion is still illegal unsafe abortion is the leading cause of maternal deaths. This accounts to 219 women dying daily worldwide. Both organizations use medical facts and statics for a large part of their demonstrations, however they both employ of use of a logical fallacy to make their cases. The logical fallacy that Pro Life and Pro Choice both use is appeal to emotion. Appeal to emotion is a fallacy to manipulate the recipients’ views by using an emotional trigger.
Topic: abortion

This means that the parties involved may not be using actual valid intormation to persuade a person. It is very clear botn ot the organizations are against the other. The names are the first thing I had noticed. The names are completely opposite from one another. For example is a person is Pro choice then they are against life or that person is for death or murder. Also if a person is Pro Life then that implies that person is anti-choice. For another example Pro Life members eb advertisement and That I have personally seen driving on 95 is a image of a baby with the saying “Endangered species. Obviously children are not a endangered species because human beings are not endangered. This is used to evoke a strong emotional response to gain Pro Life members and not using actual facts to prove a point. Pro Choice also use the appeal to emotion to gain members as well. In a advertisement for the Pro Choice Public Education Project it contains a picture of a dirty bathroom that’s covered in filth. Above what is the bathtub is a plaque that says ” Operating room”. A bathroom is not an operating room this once again used to invoke emotion. The 5 emotions of despair and fear.
Topic: abortion

This is used in the campaign for keeping abortion legal. Also someone the slogans each side uses appeal to emotions a well. For example Pro Life slogan “You might forgive yourself, but a dead baby sure can’t”. Whether the baby to speak of is dead or alive the said baby does not have the capability to comprehend forgiveness. Both side also use TV adds to discount the other side and to persuade the viewers. The internet video 180 shows how to change a person’s mind about abortion within seconds. The method that was used involved Hitler and his influence on the German people.
Topic: abortion

Ray Comfort is the interviewer in the movie. Comfort asks a few young people about their feeling regarding the killing of the Jewish people. All the participants agreed that what had happened was wrong and that killing a person was wrong. Comfort then moved into abortion after using emotional response to what happened in the holocaust and comparing that to abortion. Comfort put that abortion is America’s holocaust. In conclusion though both Pro Life and Pro Choice have valid points and information both of the rganizations use appeal to emotion to persuade potential followers.
Topic: abortion

The cause of their connection is based on the actions of a third party, in this case the Society of Music Lovers. The fact that the donor was kidnapped presents a distinguishing factor, allowing the analogy to be applied in cases such as pregnancy because of rape, where it is clear that the mother did not consent in any way to becoming pregnant. There are also dissimilarities. The kidnapping itself has not traumatized the donor, while in the case of a young girl being raped and becoming pregnant, the rape itself is very traumatic.
Topic: abortion

Thus, the primary question remains, is it morally permissible to disconnect yourself from a person, even if doing so will kill them? Thomson then takes the violinist scenario a step further, asking us to imagine that it turns out that supporting the violinist is putting additional strain on you, and if you continue to remain plugged into him, you will die. Some would say that it is still impermissible, because unplugging yourself would be directly killing the innocent violinist which is murder, and always wrong.
Topic: abortion

Thomson vehemently denies that you are obligated to sacrifice your own life in order to save the violinist, saying that in this case “if anything in the world is true, it is that you do not commit murder, you do not do what is impermissible, if you reach around to your back and unplug yourself from that violinist to save your life. ” (Vaughn, 175) Many of Thomson’s other analogies deal with the concept of a woman’s property rights to her body making a case for abortion being permissible. She gives the analogy of a young boy being given a box of chocolates, and eating them before his envious brother.
Topic: abortion

Of course the boy ought to share his chocolates with his brother, as most of us would agree. However, Thomson claims that if he doesn’t, he is simply being selfish and greedy, but not unjust. He is not unjust in denying his brother the chocolates simply because they were given to him, and thus are his property. If the box had been given to both of the brothers, it would be a different story. Distinguishing between what one ought to do and what one is morally obligated to do ties back to the violinist analogy.
Topic: abortion

Even if the violinist only required use of your body for one hour, while you ought to allow him to use your body, as it requires little effort on your part, you are not unjust if you refuse. You are perhaps callous and selfish, yes, but not unjust. As Thomson states “Except in such cases as the unborn person has a right to demand it-and we were leaving open the possibility that there may be such cases-nobody is morally required to make large sacrifices, of health, of all other interests and concerns, of all other duties and commitments, for nine years, or even for nine months, in order to keep another person alive. (Vaughn, 181)
Topic: abortion

The criticism I would make of this argument is that she does not specify in which cases the unborn person has a right to demand use of a mother’s body, only that they can occur. She does clearly state however, that having a right to life does not inherently give one the right to be given the use of or allowed continued use of another’s body, even if one needs it for life itself. (Vaughn, 178) Some who oppose abortion argue that because pregnancy is preventable, if one happens to become pregnant they must take responsibility, which gives the fetus special rights that a stranger, such as the violinist would not have.
Topic: abortion

Thomson points out that this theory only gives a fetus a right to a mother’s body if the pregnancy resulted in a voluntary act, leaving out instances of rape. She uses the people-seed analogy to further discuss the implications of holding women responsible for all pregnancies. She asks us to imagine people as seeds, innocently drifting around the world, sometimes even into your home, getting stuck to furniture and carpets. To prevent this from happening to you, you put the best screens on your windows you can buy.
Topic: abortion

As we all know, sometimes screens are defective, and a seed finds its way in and takes root, despite your preventative measures. Does that seed have a right to use your house to develop into a person? It is true that it could have been prevented from taking root if you lived your life in a house without furniture or carpeting, but this seems ridiculous. By the same token you could say that women who are raped have a responsibility to the fetus because rape could be prevented by never leaving home without a reliable army, or never leaving home at all.
Topic: abortion

This is far too high of a burden to put on individuals. When evaluating these analogies and the argument Thomson uses them to make, certain questions arise. For example, if I am not morally obligated to give my property to someone who depends on it for survival, is it morally permissible to let someone starve to death because I refuse to share my food that I bought earlier from the grocery store? Given her analogies, such as the instance of the boy who refuses to share his chocolate, it would seem that Thomson would say that it is permissible to let someone die of starvation.
Topic: abortion

After all, you are not morally obligated to share what is rightly yours. She would say you are selfish and greedy, like the little boy, but not unjust or immoral. However, letting an innocent person starve to death, when doing something as little as giving them some of our food, does not sit well with the average person. This is where Thomson’s concept of the Good Samaritan vs. the minimally decent Samaritan comes into play. In the biblical story, the Good Samaritan saw a man dying in the road, abandoned by others who passed. He cleaned the dying man’s wounds and took him to an inn, paying for his stay.
Topic: abortion

He went out of his way to help someone in need, at some cost to himself. Thomson illustrates the other extreme by using the case of Kitty Genovese, who was murdered while thirty-eight people stood by and did nothing to help. In this case the Good Samaritan would have rushed to her aid, putting his own life on the line in order to save a stranger’s. While Thomson seems to say that this is too much to ask of people, and they are not morally required to risk their own life to save another’s, she does say that the Minimally Decent Samaritan would have at least called the police.
Topic: abortion

Because no one even called the police, they are not even minimally decent Samaritans, and their actions are monstrous. While the Good Samaritan gives aid they are not obligated to give, the Minimally Decent Samaritan fulfills their minimal obligations. Just as watching a person be murdered and doing absolutely nothing to help is falling below the standard of minimally decent Samaritan, I would have to believe that watching a person starve and doing nothing to help is also monstrous.
Topic: abortion

After all, using Thomson’s analogies we could say that the people who watched Kitty Genovese get murdered ought to have used their cell phones to call the police at the very least, but being that their cell phones are their property, they can use them as they wish, and are not morally obligated to use them to save a life, even if the cost it would bring to them seems extremely insignificant. Thomson seems to distinguish between situations such as letting someone starve to death because you refuse to share your food, or letting someone be murdered because you refuse to use your phone, and aborting a fetus.
Topic: abortion

She claims that many laws prohibiting abortion compel women to be Good Samaritans (Vaughn, 181) as opposed to minimally decent. This claim suggests that she believes that harboring a fetus is an act of a Good Samaritan, not a minimally decent one. Furthermore, by calling the people who watched Kitty Genovese die “monstrous” it suggests that she does in fact believe that watching a person die and doing nothing to help is immoral. By these tokens, it seems that she would in fact view letting another starve as immoral, suggesting that her argument of property rights is inconsistent.
Topic: abortion

Thomson somewhat accounts for these inconsistencies in her closing argument, simply by conceding that the analogies she uses are not fool proof or meant to be applied to all cases. She states “while I do not argue that abortion is not impermissible, I do not argue that it is always permissible. There may well be cases in which carrying the child to term requires only minimally decent Samaritanism of the mother, and this is a standard we must not fall below. ” (Vaughn 182) For example, she believes it would be immoral for a woman to abort her child late in the pregnancy because she had a vacation planned.
Topic: abortion

Mohammed 2 egalized abortion would have been 50% more likely than average to live in poverty. ” This statistic that researchers discovered reinforced the belief that if a woman did not want to have a child because of personal reasons or because she was not ready and if there was an abortion ban, the child would most likely grow up in a poor household and have a higher risk of engaging in criminal activity once they reached adulthood. It is reasoned that because abortion was legalized twenty years before, an entire generation of children with a higher risk of becoming criminals were not born and that’s why the crime rate dropped.
Topic: abortion

Abortion, it’s not a choice that any woman would ever want to have to make, but it’s a decision that she should have the right to make. If it comes down to the possibility of her and her baby losing their lives, she should be able to stop this possibly fatal pregnancy. The body is hers, the baby is hers, and the choice should be hers. If you disagree, make the choice for your own body. Abortion should be legal.
Topic: abortion

For example, teen girls aged around 15-19 years old have bodies that are not yet ready for childbirth. These girls are five times more likely to die, with around 70,000 of them dying annually. Their babies that do survive still have a 60% higher chance of dying than normal babies. With so much uncertainty, why shouldn’t they have the option to prevent themselves and their own parents the pain of losing a child. Many people believe that women are using abortion as a form of birth control.
Topic: abortion

That they believe that they no longer need to be cautious because they can go pop over to the doctors to get an abortion whenever. However, this isn’t the case and, more often than not, women who get abortions were on some sort of birth control. Though, with any birth control there is almost always a chance of it not working properly and you becoming pregnant. Only less than one in ten women getting abortions weren’t on any sort of birth control.
Topic: abortion

Making abortion illegal forces women who may have taken many precautions to not become pregnant to have a child that they don’t want and makes it so that an unwanted child is born into this world. This would not be fair to the woman or the child. Something that many people who oppose to abortion believe is that abortion, spontaneous or induced, raises the risk of breast cancer or any other type of cancer. There have been many, many studies done studies by various people such as the National Registry of Induced Abortions, the Danish Cancer Registry, Harvard researchers, and The California Teachers Study.
Topic: abortion

The large size of most of the studies and the manner in which they were done provide good evidence that induced labor does not affect a woman’s risk of developing breast cancer. In 2003, the U. S. National Cancer Institute had a workshop with more than 100 of the world’s leading experts who study pregnancy and breast cancer risk. They all found that neither induced or spontaneous abortion are linked to an increase in breast cancer risk; the level of scientific evidence for these findings was considered the highest level, ‘well established’.
Topic: abortion

Abortion should be legal because it saves many women’s lives from unsafe abortion, it can save families from lifelong poverty and it may save the lives of women who are unable to safely give birth to children. In a country that is based on freedom; freedom of speech, freedom of religion, individual freedom, why should this situation be any different? A law based off of a religious belief isn’t something that this country stands for, a law that prevents women from making decisions about her own body should not be a law in this country.
Topic: abortion

Termination of fetus before death of the child can be defined as Pro-abortion. In the case of Roe Vs Wade, the Supreme Court had given its decision allowing the abortions in the first six months of pregnancy of period. Pro-abortion is a right of the women. The abortion is legalized from January 22, 1973 in all fifty states of Unites States. The Rose Vs Wade is foundation for pro-abortion in United States. The women rights groups and pro-abortion supporters welcomed the decision. But some of the opponents started the pro-life movement demanding abortion restrictions.
Topic: abortion

To become pregnant due to a rape or incest act is a horribly violent crime but abortion can never be justified. the unborn entity is not when its presence does not endanger its mother’s life as in the case of a tubal pregnancy .it is the rapist who is the aggressor. the unborn entity is just as much an innocent victim as it is the mother. for that reason abortion cannot be justified on the basis that the unborn is an aggressor.
Topic: abortion

She speaks of real life situations when the decision of the mother is taken into consideration; thus providing us an example of the care ethic. I like that Thomson spoke about a territory that not many writers want to speak about. Speaking about the right of life and a mother’s feelings and futures is important to me. The article by Margaret Olivia Little entitled “The Morality of Abortion” is by far the one that I agree with the most! Philosopher Little believes that the moral status of the fetus is only one aspect of the morality of abortion. She speaks of the relationship in motherhood and the process of creation. The line that I loved the most was “The pregnant woman has not made the fetus more vulnerable than it would otherwise have been: absent her procreative actions, it wouldn’t have existed at all.”
Topic: abortion

This line alone really explains to me what she is trying to say to people. I am happy that she wrote such a powerful article. While examining the care ethic, it is important to note that if complications are present, a whole new set of ethical issues are opened up. Yet, abortion has been a controversial subject among everybody whether they are involved directly or indirectly, whether they are for it or against it. It is nearly impossible to find someone who doesn’t have an opinion about abortion. Both those who favor or oppose abortion make superior arguments to defend their beliefs and views. Personally, I think every last person is entitled to his or her own opinions, beliefs, thoughts, and rights. And yes, women have rights too, and denying women the right to choose abortion in the early stages of fetal development is denying her rights as a US citizen.
Topic: abortion

Most arguments concerning the abortion issue hinge on the moral status or standing of the fetus with respect to the rights it possesses and the obligations that are directly owed to it. These arguments typically fall into two commonly termed categories: pro-life and pro-choice. Pro-life advocates tend to place the status of the fetus first. They argue human beings including a fetus, have an intrinsic value that confers them the right not to be unjustly killed. Conversely, some pro-choice advocates argue the fetus lacks a virtuous characteristic that affords it any rights or significant morals, this is usually termed the ‘personhood’ argument.
Topic: abortion

So within this essay we will asses what Judith Jarvis Thomson’s (1978) ‘famous violinist scenario’ was supposed to show. Assessing whether the scenario is analogous to cases of (1) unwanted pregnancies, (2) abortion. Critic from both sides of the debate will be woven into the evaluation to provide a rounded view, for determining whether the analogy was successful with its intent. A summary will follow with the findings.
Topic: abortion

Most standardized pro-life arguments concerning the abortion issue start as follows: It is wrong intentionally to take the life of an innocent human being. The unborn is an innocent human being. It is wrong intentionally to take the life of the unborn. Opponents of the pro-life view typically tend to attack this syllogism from the second premise, ‘the unborn is an innocent human being’, questioning the notion of humanity and personhood of the unborn. Judith Jarvis Thomson however attacks the conclusion ‘it is wrong intentionally to take the life of the unborn’. Thompson challenges the idea that one can argue effectively from this premise to the conclusion, that sometimes abortion is morally permissible. She argues that the standard pro-life argument cannot justify the notion that all abortion is morally impermissible. Thompson’s argument is well illustrated in her ‘famous violinist’ analogy.
Topic: abortion

Thomson writing at a time when the status of the fetus was a great debate grants the opposition for the sake of argument, the premise that the fetus is a unborn person. Thomson then asks the reader to imagine a scenario where they have been kidnapped and involuntarily hooked up to a famous violinist for nine months, in order to save the violinist from a fatal disease. The reader has then to make a conscious choice as to how they would react. Thompson expects the readers moral intuition – there sense of justice to arise to the surface, when the reader considers being kidnapped and attached to the violinist (1) against their will (2) to support the life of a stranger. So would the reader consider it to be moral or immoral to unplug oneself from the violinist under these circumstances?
Topic: abortion

Thomson assumes, most people would not argue that (1) the violinist is not a valuable being with a right to life, (2) their moral intuitive and sense of justice would confer that they are under no moral obligation to use their body to support a stranger for nine months. With this being said, Thomson then asks the reader to consider if having a abortion is a meaningful analogy to unplugging the violinist? Both circumstances (1&2) catch the reader (a kin to a woman) by surprise, both the violinist and the fetus are attached to her body, which both need to survive; and both will release her in nine months. Here Thomson assumes that both scenarios will reveal the same conclusion. Just as the reader (1) is under no moral obligation to use his body to support the violinist, a woman (2) is under no obligation to support a human fetus. So Thomson’s analogy has directed the reader to the conclusion, that abortion as in the case of unhooking oneself from the violinist is sometimes morally permissible.
Topic: abortion

Pro-life apologist Gregory Koukl (2003) declared when first hearing the argument “it shock me up so much I almost had to pull over” he continued “The reasoning in the violinist illustration is very tight” prima facie “Thompson accurately represents firstly the pro-life position and then offers a scenario for consideration. Thompson’s analysis also employs two powerful techniques of argumentation: a moral example followed by a logical slippery slope. The logical slippery slope works like this. When one thing is immoral, and the second is logically similar in a morally relevant way, the moral quality of one slips over into the other. For example, it is immoral to murder and some think that capital punishment is similar enough to murder to make capital punishment immoral too”. Thomson’s analogy aimed for the response that Koukl conferred. Thomson aimed to sway, if only for a brief moment, the moral intuition of the reader, the hardened pro-life advocate. The analogy brings to the surface a persons instinctive attachment to their own personal autonomy.
Topic: abortion

This is not to say that the violinist analogy was the straw that broke the camels back. As it received rounded criticism from both sides of the abortion debate for various reasons. Mary Anne Warren (1978) an advocate of the personhood proponent and herself accused of lending support of the practise of infanticide and by no means pro-life, points out that Thomson’s analogy is “initially quite plausible…in the initial case of an unwanted pregnancy” however the analogy is less strong in cases of consensual sex and its consequences.
Topic: abortion

Warren says, “we cannot claim that the woman is in no way responsible…she could have remained chaste, or taken pills more faithfully, or abstained on dangerous days…if x behaves in a way (involving)…, say a 1% chance of bringing into existence a human being with the right to life…then it is by no means clear (that) x is free of any obligation… to keep that human being alive.” she continues “My own intuition is that x has no more right to bring into existence, either deliberately or as a foreseeable result of action he could have avoided, a being with full moral rights (y) and then refuse to do what he knew beforehand would be required to keep that being alive …” (Warren cited by P.J. McHugh 2006)
Topic: abortion

So, in this instance the analogy does not directly address Warren’s concerns as Thomson is asking a different question: “whether the interests of woman triumph over those of the fetus” (Cottingham, ‘Philosophers on abortion’ 10’20”-10’50”). Speculatively, if Thomson were to reply directly to Warren she might claim, well if (x) consented to sex and took the relevant precautions, the precaution illustrates that she does not commit to the consequences of an action (y), if (y) appears out of a contraceptive mishap, (x) still has a moral right to her own autonomy. (Y) autonomous in itself, has also a right, however as (y) in this instance is dependant on (x) for survival, the rights of (x) in accordance with the rule of autonomy, triumph over the rights of (y). So it follows that (x) must consent to host ‘(y)’ in her womb.
Topic: abortion

Another critic of Thomson’s violinist analogy comes from a advocate on the opposite side of the abortion debate. In the audio recording ‘Philosophers on abortion’ Jennifer Saul a pro-life advocate pointed out a dis-analogy between unplugging the violinist and the direct killing of the fetus. However, the scenario was analogous to cases of indirect killing, preserving the woman’s health (self-defence). Jenny argued that “it is generally widely accepted that acts of murder committed in self-defence are moral” furthermore “You don’t need a violinist analogy to point this out”. But maybe one does need the analogy to illustrate a logical slippery slope here. As, Koukl pointed out earlier if killing is moral in one sense, logically on the slippery slope, it has to follow that killing must always be moral.
Topic: abortion

Dan Marquis a general pro-life thinker (who side-steps complex cases such as those in Thomson’s analogy) illustrates the logic in the ‘future like ours argument’. In this argument the fetus is held in the same regard as adult humans. Marquis examines why people ordinarily regard it as immoral prima-facie to take the life of an adult human being, he claims the reason to be one of value. Depriving something which has the capacity to have a future like ours – a future of value is always immoral. Therefore, as a fetus has the potential for these capacities killing a fetus would be to deprive it of a future like ours – a future of value, so it is always immoral to kill a fetus. So it follows that killing something (whether indirect or directly) is always immoral if it deprives it of a future of value like ours. A claim which no doubt (1) challenges the view of Saul’s and other’s in respect to self-defence and in some cases permitting abortions; (2) invites her to either bite the bullet or find a morally relevant difference. In most cases those on either side of the debate will offer a morally relevant difference rather than bite the bullet and settle with the consequences.
Topic: abortion

So is Thomson’s argument sound? Yes, the argument is sound for the particular theory and rights she choose. In this instance Thomson adopts, a theory of “rights and obligations” (a rather libertarian approach) that allows we as human beings to justify our actions independently of the consequences. In this respect the analogy was able to illustrate that we as human beings (subconsciously, without external influences) instinctively value our autonomy. However, it is generally understood as a rule that we ‘ought’, where we can, extend our actions to attend to the needs of others. When in fact within a rights based theory we are in no means obliged to adhere this rule for our individual rights, freedoms and personal autonomy take prevalence over the needs of other beings.
Topic: abortion

A second success in Thomson’s argument was whether is it permissible to kill? The analogy showed, if the reader instinctively replied that it was morally acceptable to unplug the violinist, then they should also agree that in some cases abortion is permissible; so logically it has also to be true that abortion is permissible in all cases as Marquis’s theory illustrates. Conversely, if the reader instinctively replied that is was immoral to unplug oneself from the violinist then they should also agree that abortion in some cases is immoral; so again logically it has also to be true that abortion is immoral in all cases.
Topic: abortion

The Republic Act No.10354 or Responsible Parenthood and Reproductive Health Act of 2012, better known to all as the “RH Bill”, is probably one of the most controversial and most debated topic of 2012. After many years of bickering in the congress and among senators, which even lead to some tearful telenovela-like scenes as witnessed in senate proceedings, it was finally signed into a law by President Benigno Aquino III last December 21, 2012.
Topic: abortion

This bill or law is to provide the poor with reproductive health services, including access to contraceptives, and sex education to school children. That is why the priests and the church officials are not in favour of this bill because for them it is against the law of GOD, and some people disagree to use it because there is a rumours that after you use contraceptives you’ll get sick. In my point of view, I thought this argument is unnecessary for me to know because I’m just a student and I thought at first this bill is useless to the people after I read it, it is useful to the Philippines.
Topic: abortion

Poverty, the main problems that the Philippine is facing today and they say that the primary factors that lead to poverty is due to overpopulation, the Philippines has a population of 64,318,120 in 1990. Today the population is ballooning and estimated to over 94 million according to latest census and the top 12 the country having the most population. The population is growing by about 2 percent a year, giving the Philippines one of the world’s highest population-growth rates. This is one of the reasons of the creation of the Reproductive Health bill to give a solution to poverty by eradicating the overpopulation problem, by implementing family planning, sex education and prevent the sexually transmitted disease.
Topic: abortion

The average population density in the Philippines is 311 persons per sq km (805per sq mi). However, the distribution of the population is uneven; some areas are virtually uninhabited, while others are densely populated. The percentage of the population living in rural areas has steadily declined in recent decades. It decreased from 68 percent in 1970 to 57 percent in 1990. By 2000 urban dwellers outnumbered rural residents, with only 42 percent of the population living in rural areas.
Topic: abortion

Now, women have access to more information about their reproductive health, thus giving them a choice to limit the number of children without having to resort to drastic measures such as abortion. It is empowerment for women while also allowing children their basic human rights. If we do not implement this now, the quality of life of the poor will steadily deteriorate. It is very evident in most slum areas that we find more children, most of them living in severe poverty and inhumane conditions. What future does our country hold if the future generation, the so-called “hope of our nation”, cannot even be properly fed and clothed, much more, educated well? It is as simple as that, yet it is a truth that sadly, some people fail or choose not to realize.
Topic: abortion

The day after the Presidential Election, my girlfriend Amanda and I discussed how we felt the next four years might go for our country. Due to our slightly opposing views (I say that very lightly), the discussion quickly turned heated. One issue that was brought up in the conversation was abortion. I am very Pro- Life, whereas Amanda is wishy-washy when it comes to the subject. Whilst beginning our excruciatingly draining chat about a touchy subject, I naturally went on my “defense mode” and used Position #1: “I’m right you’re wrong”.
Topic: abortion

Although this issue is still extremely important to me, I decided that I was not going to get so heated to the point that I was going to let opposing views ruin my closest friendship. Lastly was Position #5, “There is truth in all perspectives”. No matter where I go, I have learned that there is always going to be someone with a different view than I. While being passionate about standing up for what I believe in, it is also important for me to respect the opinions of others around me, and walk away in a civil manner. In conclusion, Amanda and I agreed to disagree, and found something we were both in favor of; chick flicks and ice cream.
Topic: abortion

A. Attention Grabber: rhetorical question, story, quote, shock, scare, stats, allusion, etc.: Did you know that teenage girls are more than 24 times more likely to die from childbirth than from first trimester legal abortion? B. Why audience should care: Every girl is at risk of getting pregnant, and if parental consent is the reason for childbirth the effects hurt mother and father. C. Background Info. According to the encyclopedia of American law fertility rate went down bc. of abortion and birth control-> By the 1870s, a woman’s right to make decisions about REPRODUCTION was restricted by federal and state laws.