Peter Singer Should Legalize Abortion

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In his article, “The Choice of a Pregnant Woman Always Outweighs the Life of a Fetus,” Peter Singer makes interesting points defending his stance on maybe one of the most controversial topics to ever be known. He thinks that abortions should remain legal for different and, in his eyes, good reasons. He believes that a “woman’s interests always outweigh any supposed interests of a fetus.” Singer uses different scenarios and statistics to further explain why illegalizing abortion may make matters worse. One point that Singer makes in his article is that, if abortion were illegalized, the amount of abortions would still remain high. “Although a majority of countries in Africa and Latin America have laws prohibiting abortion in most circumstances,” Singer states, “ official bans do not prevent high abortion rates.” It is simple to understand Singer’s reasoning- whether or not it is legal, the people that want the abortion will get it someway somehow. Going by the statistics he has gathered, Singer explains that, even though abortions may be illegal, official bans will not stop the amount of abortions that will still occur. His opinion that abortions will still remain common, even if they are illegal, leads directly to his second point- if legal, abortions would be a much safer procedure. In his article, he mentions a report by the World Health Organization stating, “unsafe abortions lead to the deaths of 47,000 women every year…” and “a further five million women are injured each year, sometimes permanently.” This statistic is not hard to believe. If abortions were illegal, there will always be people who want to meet their need of receiving one either way, even if it means going through a dangerous procedure that could cause more harm than good. According to Singer’s research, “the legalizing of abortion on request in South Africa in 1998 saw abortion-related deaths drop by 91%.” There are dangerous ways to get an abortion, but a legal and medical procedure, from a doctor, would most likely be the safest and best way to do so. Singer’s third argument as to why abortion should remain legal is that women should have the “right to choose.” In Singer’s eyes, it seems absurd to value the life of a fetus over, or even as much as, the life and rights of the woman. Singer states, “it is also true that we cannot invoke a woman’s ‘right to choose’ in order to avoid the ethical issues of the moral status of the fetus.” He shows why the moral status of a fetus is not equivalent to that of a woman’s, or any human being in that instance. Singer believes that women should not have their rights taken away from them. According to him, the moral status of the fetus is not greater than a woman’s; therefore, women should be given the “right to choose” in the situation of whether to get an abortion or not. His third point is also defended by his final observation, stating that the fetus does not necessarily have the “right to life.” In addition to not having the moral status of a human being, he also argues that even though the fetus is a part of the Homo sapiens species, it “is not enough to confer a ‘right to life’ on a being.” Although a member of Homo sapiens is a living individual, it does not have the capacity of rationality or self-awareness. Singer also states, “we have no obligation to allow every being with the potential to become a rational being to realize that potential.” In his eyes, if the choice is between …show more content…
He mentions that the abortion related death rate would remain lower if abortions remained legal. Once again, however, I do not think that just because some people are idiotic enough to seek potentially harmful methods of abortion it should remain legal. If abortions were to be illegalized and one wants to disobey that law, then let them have at it; they will pay for their stupidity. My idea may seem very careless to some people, but the “fetus,” which will eventually become a human being who matters just as much as the woman carrying it, should not be able to kill freely for the convenience of the

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