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Ellen Willis Arguments Against Abortion

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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 …show more content…

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 …show more content…

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

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Don Marquis, on the other side of the abortion debate begins his essay “Why abortion is immoral” through the frustration of little support being given to the thought. This essay was written to show the falsified belief that an anti-abortion stance is nothing other than irrational religious dogma or a conclusion generated by a seriously confused philosophical argument. The argument is set forth throughout that abortion is, except in rare cases, seriously immoral. This essay sets forth the belief that abortion is in the same category as killing an innocent adult human being. Don Marquis argues with rare exceptions such as a life-threatening pregnancy, all cases of abortion are seriously wrong and are not much different than killing an adult

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For example, she addresses the assumption that a fetus has a right to life by arguing that this right cannot be absolute, since it would lead to ridiculous consequences. She writes: "If the right to life is absolute, then no woman has the right to remove a fetus from her body, even if it is threatening her life. Clearly, this is an unreasonable conclusion" (Willis, 2007) . By employing logical reasoning, Willis is able to highlight the weaknesses in the anti-abortion arguments, as well as expand the reasoning he utilizes when addressing abortion, as well as persuade his audience that a more nuanced and empathic approach to abortion is needed.

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