Quiz on abortion Question 1-12

1) Please go to p. 234 of the eText, and using the ‘Outline of Moral Approaches to Abortion” on that page, state your tentative position (where you are at this moment of your life on the issue of abortion) make sure you have read the ‘thesis’, ‘corollaries and expectations’, ‘connections with moral theory’ for every position/approach before stating your position. Do you stand with radical pro-choice, moderate (pro)choice, or pro-life? What are your reasons at this stage in your life? If your position is not exactly any of these, describe your own position. If you are ‘undecided’, explain why. 2) Make some key terms that come up in abortion debates clear to yourself (pull out quotes from the eText ONLY! No need to explain in your own words for this item.) a) When pro-life advocates argue that ‘life begins at conception,’ what does the term ‘conception’ mean? When does it begin? b) When pro-choice advocates argue that the fetus does not have rights yet or rights equal to those of the mother, what does the term ‘fetus’ mean? c) When is there a ‘heart’ in the fetus? d) When, most likely, can the fetus begin to feel pain? e) What is ‘viability’ and around when is the fetus ‘viable’? 3) Go to the subsection ‘Abortion and the Law’ (eText, p. 237). Sometimes, it is assumed that if abortion is immoral, it ought to be illegal. Why is this assumed equivalence of law and morality questionable? 4) A Review of Abortion-related Laws (Go to the section ‘Abortion and Law’ for answers) Which statements are true and which are false: (You could just type ‘T’ or ‘F’ at the end of each statement. All of these are based on the eText.) a) Before Roe vs. Wade, abortion was illegal in most US states except in cases of life-or-health-threatening pregnancy and pregnancy resulting from rape or incest. b) The 5-4 Supreme Court decision that weighed in favor of Jane Roe in the 1970’s ruled that states can no longer ban abortion based on the right to privacy , which is the right to keep things secret. c) The 5-4 Supreme Court decision that weighed in favor of Jane Roe in the 1970’s ruled that states can no longer ban abortion based on the right to privacy , which is freedom from restraint in decisions as to how to live and enjoy one’s life. d) The states were not allowed to ban abortion beginning in 1973 based on the 14th e) Since Casey vs. Planned Parenthood, the Supreme court ruled that abortion cannot be banned before the fetus has a heartbeat. f) States are allowed to impose restrictions for minors seeking abortions. g) Since Gonzalez vs. Carhart, ‘partial birth abortion’ or ‘intact dilation and extraction’ can no longer be banned, because banning them involves ‘undue’ burden. h) Recent Supreme Court decisions on abortion have been unanimous. i) What makes abortion a moral matter is it involves questions about rights, happiness, well-being, and the status and value of human life. j) More than half of the US states have enacted laws that make it a crime to cause harm to the fetus, thus, attacking a pregnant woman and harming the fetus in the process can be guilty of murder or manslaughter. INSTRUCTIONS FOR THE NEXT SIX ITEMS: Respond thoughtfully to the following claims and arguments (# 5 to #11 below) in the abortion debate. Here are the questions: What do you think? Do you find any difficulties with or weakness in the reasons given or do you think it overlooks certain very difficult situations? Why? (Answer these three questions for each item below-- #5, #6, #7, #8, #9, #10, #11 Answers need not be long but they should be well-thought out.) 5) Go to p. 240 of the eText and explain the kind of ‘act utilitarian’ reasonings there in support of abortion. And then answer the required three questions in ‘Instructions’. 6) [Pro-life] Appealing to classic natural law ethical theory, there are pro-lifers who insist that all life—especially innocent human life has absolute value and should be preserved and protected in all cases—without exception. The right over one’s body is challenged by the fact that in any pregnancy, there are two bodies, two lives. And the body and life of one body did not just show up one day like a pimple on one’s face. The fetus is a person from conception and terminating it is murder. Respond to the three questions in ‘Instructions’ 7) [Pro-life] Don Marquis in “Why Abortion is Immoral” tries to find a way to avoid or “surmount” the standoff between pro-life and pro-choice advocates. There is a ‘standoff’ (like a checkmate in chess, no one is a clear winner!) because both sides focus on the wrong things. Pro-lifers say: the fetus is human life, because it already has some human characteristics such as the genetic code. Pro-choicers say: the fetus is not a human person, because it is not a rational agent or it is not a social being. Both are saying true things but inadequate to justify the fetus’s right to life (for pro-lifers) or the absence of that right (for pro-choicers). They will just keep talking past each other because of differences in basic definitions. Pro-lifer’s definition of human life is too broad because it wants to include earliest stages of the fetus, but that would include living human cancer cells. Don’t we justifiably kill those human cancer cells? Pro-choicer’s definition is too narrow ('persons' are rational and social beings) because it wants fetuses to be excluded from the description 'wrongfully killed' when aborted, but that would imply that it could be justified to kill infants, young children, the severely retarded (who do not fit in that definition). This is just one of the ‘standoffs’ explained by Don Marquis. So his reason for supporting pro-life no longer turns on what kind of being the fetus is—human or not yet human, person or not yet person. He does not focus on these divisive distinctions. He supports his position—that the overwhelming majority of abortions is seriously immoral—by saying that killing a fetus is wrong for the same reason that killing any innocent adult human being is. What makes both wrong is they deprive a being of the value of a future. It deprives a being of all the experiences, projects, enjoyments, and contributions that would otherwise have constituted its future (p. 256). Respond to the three questions mentioned above in ‘Instructions…’ 8) [Pro-Choice] Mary Ann Warren: [A person is a being ‘with moral status’ and thus has rights.]The fetus may have potential moral status and thus rights but simple ‘potentiality’ is not enough. Actual moral status and rights require high-level reasoning. Although the fetus, the newborn infant , and very young child are biologically human beings, they are not yet persons. (What makes a being a person is not just a biological make-up.) There may be good reasons to treat them well and treat them with respect but not because they are full persons with rights. The mother is a full person with rights to choose. Respond to the three questions mentioned above in ‘Instructions…’ 9)[Moderate Pro-Choice] Judith Jarvis Thomson in “In Defense of Abortion” (See p 264 and p. 270 of our eText). Pro-lifers argue that because the fetus is a person from the moment of conception, abortion is the killing of a person. Thomson answers back: even if the the fetus is a person from the moment of conception, abortion can still be morally permissible “because no person’s life entails that another person can be compelled to use her body for continued sustenance.” She continues: “the fetus cannot be given this right.” One point she raises to support this is about “organ transplants” (Make sure you read that on p. 270, column on the right). Note that while Thomson says that aborting a fetus is an exercise of a right that is never unjust, but abortions done for frivolous reasons are indecent. Respond to the three questions mentioned above in ‘Instructions…’ 10) [Pro-Choice With Restrictions] A position not against abortion but against partial-birth or late-term abortions: While the potential value of fetuses do not count as much as actual value, fetuses have evolving value; their moral status grow as they advance in fetal development. The early-term fetus has less moral status than late-term one. Moderately serious interests of the pregnant woman or of society can override the interests or claims of the early-term fetus. But it would take more serious interests of the pregnant woman or of society to override the interests and claims of the late-term fetus.’’ Respond to the three questions mentioned above in ‘Instructions…’ 11) [IT DEPENDS!] Rosalind Hursthouse (whose position I, your instructor, am inclined towards, for the most part) represents a ‘virtue ethics’ response to the issue of abortion. The emphasis is neither on the act/practice or its consequences but on the character of the one acting. Hursthouse holds that women may have the rights to abort a fetus. But the moral dimension of this action includes the further question: Are all women exercising this right viciously or virtuously? In other words, what judges whether a woman’s abortion is right or wrong is whether or not she decided responsibly and with care instead of callously or frivolously. If a woman has an abortion only to avoid the responsibilities that would prevent her from ‘having a good time’ or because she pursues some false vision of freedom and self-realization, then her abortion is immoral. Not all abortions are. Respond to the three questions mentioned above in ‘Instructions…’