Describe which of English and Marquis’ philosophical stances on the morality of abortion you believe to be the strongest, or contrast your own opinion with theirs. Make sure to clarify the author’s (English or Marquis) argument(s) whose viewpoint is most comparable to your own. What arguments could be made against the view you favor, as put forward by English or Marquis? How could you answer those criticisms?
Overview
Professor of philosophy Don Marquis teaches at the University of Kansas. He argues that abortion is gravely wrong, excepting exceptional circumstances.
This essay’s goal is to present evidence to support the thesis that abortion is, generally speaking, gravely immoral. The elimination of circumstances whose ethical examination should be contentious and in-depth for rational opponents of abortion is one rationale for these exceptions. These situations include abortions carried out following rape and those carried out within the first 14 days of conception when there is a contention that the fetus is not unquestionably a human being. Another justification for these exceptions is to accommodate circumstances where the legality of abortion is consistent with the thesis of this article.
These situations include abortions when a woman’s life is in risk during a pregnancy and when the fetus is anencephalic. Readers should assume the aforementioned credentials whenever I discuss the wrongness of abortion in my essay. A procedure intended to cause the death of a fetus for the benefit of the mother carrying it is what I mean by an abortion. (Therefore, following convention in the literature on this topic, I take spontaneous abortions out of consideration.) When I refer to a fetus, I mean a growing human being from p.755 from the time of conception till delivery. (Thus, following convention, I refer to embryos and zygotes as fetuses.)
The thesis of this article will demonstrate that killing a reader of this essay is also wrong, just as abortion is. Instead of making the case for why killing you is morally wrong, I’ll just assume it is. I won’t try to provide a comprehensive ethics of killing. Finally, I won’t make an effort to answer certain really important and challenging general philosophical concerns that may arise from our consideration of the ethics of abortion.
