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Utilitarianism And Abortion Analysis

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Morality of Abortion in Extreme Cases A young woman in Ireland had to resort to giving birth at 25 weeks because her petition for abortion was denied. After the woman threatened to go on hunger strike to protest, local health authorities obtained a court order to deliver the baby prematurely to ensure its safety. This woman had been raped and discovered she was pregnant 8 weeks after. According to a source, she was not ready to have a baby and was too young to take care of a child. I believe it is not morally permissible to deny this woman an abortion because she did not give consent to have sex and get pregnant. I believe this is important because as a society we have to determine on what occasion and why abortion should be morally permissible, …show more content…

Utilitarianism is concerned with the outcome of decisions and to act to produce the best consequences possible. And in extreme cases choosing to have an abortion would be bringing the greatest good. Having an abortion due to rape, the future of the child, and medical conditions can be judged through and justified by means of hedonic calculus and figuring out the amount of pain and pleasure the action would bring. There is a traditional argument that life begins at conception, meaning as soon as the man’s sperm comes in contact with the woman’s egg. This argument states that as soon as conception happens, there is now human DNA inside the woman’s body therefore making it morally wrong to have an abortion. The criticism to this traditional argument is that as humans we don’t always protect all DNA. For example; we get haircuts, we trim our nails, and we attack cancer cells with chemotherapy. How can one determine when and why abortion should be morally permissible if mankind doesn’t always protect all …show more content…

Marquis’ ethical perspective asks the question of “What is wrong with killing someone?” which he answers that it is wrong because taking that life will deprive that person of a future good life. While Marquis has a good argument saying that every life is important because of the possibilities of the future, there is no actual way we have the ability to know if the baby will have a good life. However there are medical tests and ultrasounds we can do today to find out about the health of the fetus to figure out how the fetus will be health wise. Abortion under special circumstances can be done to help the mother to avoid the suffering and agony of infants with certain genetic or metabolic birth defects the can affect them for the worse in the future. The “good life” of the mother must also be considered. Sometimes women are not able to care for themselves financially, medically and even emotionally; that carrying and giving birth to a child would not be in the good interest of the mother. There is an approach to Ethics named Deontology that focuses on the rightness or wrongness of actions themselves, as opposed to the rightness or wrongness of the consequences of those actions. In order to decide if abortion in this case would be morally right, we would have to look at the action itself which would be what would be best

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943 Words | 4 Pages

Without the proper funds to support a child’s growth and development, it cannot be claimed that the mother is morally wrong for aborting the fetus when that fetus would not have the potential to have experiences and projects that would lead to a fulfilling life. Another point to be mentioned is that there could be outlying mental, or physical, discrepancies that the mother may face, making the potential future life of the fetus unable to support any form of experience or activity that allows for the future of the fetus to be fulfilling and provide happiness. He states,”The loss of one’s life deprives one of all the experiences, activities, projects, and enjoyments that would otherwise have constituted one’s future.” (Marquis 423). If unfortunate circumstances, like substance abuse, physical, or mental abuse, arise following the fetus being born, then it could be argued that the mother upholds the right to abort the fetus as it would not be able to have the potential life Marquis describes in

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1576 Words | 7 Pages

The woman, like the hero in the horror story, has the right to fight off her attacker. It is totally within her right to abort the fetus to save her life (and maybe even the life of others that may be heavily impacted by her death). This killing is in the defense of the mother. This right should be protected and it is morally acceptable. Our care should go to protecting the life that is already living instead of the life that

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705 Words | 3 Pages

Abortion follows the moral framework of utilitarianism. Utilitarianism, otherwise known as consequentialism, is the moral theory that holds than an action can be considered good or bad in relation to its end result (Burkhardt, M.A. & Nathanial, A.K., 2014). The only factors that makes actions good or bad is the outcomes, or the end results, that are derived from them. For example, imagine the story of a woman who is mother of four, is recently divorced, and works at McDonalds, then finds out she pregnant with her fifth child. If she knows that having a fifth child would put even more financial stress on herself and would take away time from her other children who she already feels distanced from, then having an abortion is a decision she

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1517 Words | 7 Pages

It was not her fault she got pregnant, and regardless of how the child was conceived, it is her body and should be her choice. Giving birth when conception was not desired can be very challenging. Everybody has their own opinions on what they would do if they were raped and got pregnant, so shouldn't people have the option to follow the path they please instead of someone saying that you don’t have any other option but to carry it to term? Our current government possesses the authority to say people don't have a choice, and they shouldn’t. As John Locke said “being all equal and independent…” means nobody has the right over anyone else because we are all equal.

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385 Words | 2 Pages

The differences in utilitarianism and Kantian approaches to the abortion question is utilitarianism would be indifferent about abortion whereas Kantian ethics would be against abortion. Utilitarianism looks at the happiness and suffering caused by an action to determine the rightness and wrongness of an action (CITATION). Based on this, utilitarianism would be indifferent about abortion based on the circumstances that surround it. For example, if the fetus will be healthy, expected to live a long life, and the parents want the child then abortion would be wrong. This is due to the fact that the parents would be happy to have the fetus live and grow with them.

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1132 Words | 5 Pages

She may have family and or financial problems preventing her from being able to properly care for the child. Women are forced to hear both sides of the debate and feel the intensity of a decision. Abortion is the said woman’s private decision and should not be stopped by any law. Only the woman herself knows her body, so abortion is a choice based solely on her feelings. The court case of Roe vs Wade established that

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872 Words | 4 Pages

When hearing about abortion it normally has something to do with politics. It is a debate whether it should be against the law or if it should stay legal. A utilitarian’s view on abortion can go either way. They could view it has morally wrong by saying to does not cause an overall happiness. It could also be viewed morally right, because it could cause an overall happiness.

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920 Words | 4 Pages

People seem to want to have perfectly healthy babies, so, some people, if they find out that there is something wrong with the baby think straight to abort it. They want the easiest way, this isn’t true for everybody, but at least for a select few. There seems to be a lack of optimism in that the baby may be fine, or that the baby may still live its life to the fullest. In conclusion, the ethical dilemma of abortion is a common problem in modern society.

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1277 Words | 6 Pages

In this speech I hope to present a persuasive moral argument that abortion is akin to murder and should be avoided, even if the child is unplanned or unwanted or the women would be in danger by the consequences of abortion. (Transition: Let’s look more closely at the health risks posed by cell phones.) Body I. Abortion is a murder. It is the intentionally killing of a human being and it is also can be considered as a war on the unborn which are obviously defenseless and voiceless. A. Abortion denies the right of the eternal being to have a mortal experience and also learning experience in this world.

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It seems difficult to count every individual that could possibly be affected by an abortion. It could be few or many depending on the size of the family. It seems like not having an abortion, the greatest happiness for the greatest number occurs. Putting utilitarian thought aside, killing seems inarguably wrong and that is what an abortion is. It could not be possible for killing an innocent child to be right.

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1189 Words | 5 Pages

According to the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (2011) “philosophers have turned their attention to the ethics of reproduction, they have mostly focused on abortion.” There are other ethical issues that exist as it relates to pregnancy, birth and medicine but abortion has been an age old topic that has been debated over and over again, regarding whether or not it is ethical. Abortion is defined by NHS Choices as the “medical process of ending a pregnancy so it does not result in the birth of a baby.” There are also a few reasons as listed by NHS Choices, as to why women may choose to have an abortion which are; “personal circumstances – including risk to the wellbeing of existing children, a health risk to the mother as well as a high

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992 Words | 4 Pages

A second reason why abortion is wrong is because it deprives the fetus from his future. When we decide to kill a fetus then we are taking away from him a future like ours. The argument is as follows : (1) it is impermissible to kill humans, who if lived, would have a future like ours, (2) if abortion is not done, the fetus would have future as we do have, (3) so it is wrong to kill the fetus (4) therefore abortion is impermissible. A similar argument was given by Don Marquis in his article “Why Abortion is Immoral”. He stated that what makes killing wrong is neither the effect on the murder, nor the effect on the victim’s relatives or friends, but the effect is on the victim himself.

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863 Words | 4 Pages

For example, if there is a complication in pregnancy and the mother can suffer because of the child, I think it is ok to do abortion. It is important to understand the various ideas that go behind abortion. The right of an abortion for a mother should be left on her own decision as the mother knows best about her condition. She is going to be the 'host body ' for the baby, even though her own, for nine months and according to Thompson, the mother should have the right to decide if she wants to foster and go through with the ordeal. But still, there are also a strong debate going on about the human rights of the child:

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1722 Words | 7 Pages

For example, finds out whether continuing or terminating a pregnancy cause greater physical or psychological harms and risks to the mother. On the other hand, Bonevski & Adams (2001) further added that abortion may expose the mother to grief and regret. As such, it is important to gain mother’s consent before making the decision. Apart from that, in resolving slightly similar case study of 18 years old student was referred in view of her request for termination of pregnancy. She was gang-raped and found out she is pregnant.

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2044 Words | 9 Pages

Abortion has been a controversial issue in our society. The options are which path to take in life. The two paths we have to take or to choose from are give the child a chance to live or to be a teenage parent or having an abortion. In the young age of a pregnant women will be the hardest part of her life and when she doesn’t think that she can deal with the fact that she will having a child in young age the only way that she will take would be to get an abortion. The fetus will be decide to abort by their mother resulting in or caused by its death.

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