Ellen Willis Arguments Against Abortion

Abortion, the ending of a pregnancy by removing the fetus before it is able to survive on its own. The topic of abortion is an ongoing touchy subject between those who believe it should be illegal and those who say it should be an option. There are many factors that play into the controversy of abortion. In the book Defending Life: A Moral and Legal Case against Abortion Choice by Francis J. Beckwith is an antiabortionist and believe abortion is not the answer. In this article the authors use argumentative strategies mainly being the rhetorical appeals, some subtle rebuttals are mentioned. Beckwith book uses a great amount of grounds to support their argument. Ellen Willis’ essay Putting Women Back into the Abortion Debate, contradicts Beckwith

Ellen Willis’ essay has many strengthens, but there is one very strong paragraph. Ellen Willis strongest support is stated when she says, “Opposing abortion, then, means accepting that women must suffer sexual disempowerment and a radical loss of autonomy to men: If fetal life is sacred, the self-denial basic to women’s oppression is also basic to moral order. Opposing abortion means embracing a conservative sexual morality, one that subordinates pleasure to reproduction” (pg. 760, para.2).I think this supports her overall argument well because she is saying that being against abortion effects a women morally. She is saying that being pro-life is allowing a woman with dreams, aspirations, and commitments put them off because she is pregnant no matter how important they were to her. Ellen states that if one is against abortion one is accepting that it is okay for men not to be tied down because of the child, but for women to lose a massive amount of freedom because of the child. I think it does a great job in supporting the argument because she says the truth of how women are effected by bearing a child they are not ready for. She also says that men can leave whenever they want to and women will always have to stay around. I find this ground to be supportive because her use of negative connotation allows the reader to understand that not all women are able to be put in such

Beckwith takes the opposite side and he opposes abortion. Beckwith states his claim in the introduction of his book. Francis Beckwith says, “The primary purpose of this book is to provide a thorough defense of the pro-life position on abortion and its grounding in a particular view of the human person, a view I will argue is the most rational and coherent one that is at the same time consistent with our deeply held intuitions about human equality” (pg., para.1). His argument is that abortion should be illegal because it is not fair to ‘murder’ a child. He continues by saying that that his book is about equality and that abortion is not humanly equal in any sense. In his book Beckwith touches on how abortion is not equal to humans, the political stance of abortion, and the philosophical view on