Abortion is a highly debated issue. For many years, civilizations have deliberated on its ethicality and legalization without ever achieving a unanimous agreement. Throughout time, several moral theories such as consequentialism, deontological ethics and virtue ethics have all attempted to advocate plausible interpretation of whether abortion should be an acceptable thing to do. Every single one of these philosophies shows compelling evidence that they might possess the ideal way to approach this difficult question. They although all seem to, to some extent, display weaknesses that can usually be answered by one of the other ideology mentioned above. In this essay, I will first discuss one of the arguments the utilitarian view defends. I will
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Deontology values the importance of the rightness and wrongness of the actions themselves, not the consequences these might yield, as opposed to consequentialism. With respect to abortion, the deontological position agrees more with the opposing view to the utilitarian one. That standpoint is often referred to as the pro-life point of view. Pro-life supporters are resistant to the pro-choice advocates because they regard abortion as wrong I most cases for the following reasons. They believe it is the duty of parents to care and to protect the child they have created. They do not accept the fact that parents shall put their happiness first and the fetus to be treated so trivially. Marquis explains: “It is possible that there exists a different species from another planet whose members have a future like ours. Since having a future like that is what makes killing someone wrong, this theory entails that it would be wrong to kill members of such a species.” (Marquis, 1989, p.191). In this excerpt, it not only points out the fact that fetuses have a potential future life, but also shows that being human should not necessarily be the only good reason to be eligible to be granted life. In other words “pro-lifers” question why the fetus may not be considered as an actual person even at the point of conception. They also argue that there are other facts that should …show more content…
A virtue ethicist would claim that an action is right if it is what a virtuous agent would do in the same circumstances. With this being said I think it is fair to assume that this approach have a less clear position on abortion. Despite providing its own set of justifications virtue ethics provides an alternative thought process to a few drawbacks from the previously two approaches mentioned. In her text on the subject, Hursthouse explains that neither should the status of the fetus nor women’s rights be what matters when tackling the issue of abortion. She believes these two points are irrelevant and put more emphasis on the common facts on abortion and the way it will affect people’s lives. Hursthouse believes “ [w]hen women are in very poor physical health, or worn out from childbearing, or forced to do very physically demanding jobs, they cannot be described as self-indulgent[…]”(Hursthouse, 1991, p.239). This statement agrees with the utilitarian point of view, but only to some extent where getting an abortion in almost any other case than one of rape would be called vicious since the woman is considering it inconvenient and doesn’t consider that her life might become more worthwhile. Since virtue ethics is concerned more with the agent I feel its fair to assume
Deontology values the importance of the rightness and wrongness of the actions themselves, not the consequences these might yield, as opposed to consequentialism. With respect to abortion, the deontological position agrees more with the opposing view to the utilitarian one. That standpoint is often referred to as the pro-life point of view. Pro-life supporters are resistant to the pro-choice advocates because they regard abortion as wrong I most cases for the following reasons. They believe it is the duty of parents to care and to protect the child they have created. They do not accept the fact that parents shall put their happiness first and the fetus to be treated so trivially. Marquis explains: “It is possible that there exists a different species from another planet whose members have a future like ours. Since having a future like that is what makes killing someone wrong, this theory entails that it would be wrong to kill members of such a species.” (Marquis, 1989, p.191). In this excerpt, it not only points out the fact that fetuses have a potential future life, but also shows that being human should not necessarily be the only good reason to be eligible to be granted life. In other words “pro-lifers” question why the fetus may not be considered as an actual person even at the point of conception. They also argue that there are other facts that should …show more content…
A virtue ethicist would claim that an action is right if it is what a virtuous agent would do in the same circumstances. With this being said I think it is fair to assume that this approach have a less clear position on abortion. Despite providing its own set of justifications virtue ethics provides an alternative thought process to a few drawbacks from the previously two approaches mentioned. In her text on the subject, Hursthouse explains that neither should the status of the fetus nor women’s rights be what matters when tackling the issue of abortion. She believes these two points are irrelevant and put more emphasis on the common facts on abortion and the way it will affect people’s lives. Hursthouse believes “ [w]hen women are in very poor physical health, or worn out from childbearing, or forced to do very physically demanding jobs, they cannot be described as self-indulgent[…]”(Hursthouse, 1991, p.239). This statement agrees with the utilitarian point of view, but only to some extent where getting an abortion in almost any other case than one of rape would be called vicious since the woman is considering it inconvenient and doesn’t consider that her life might become more worthwhile. Since virtue ethics is concerned more with the agent I feel its fair to assume