People have been fighting over the ethic of abortion in the past several decades. Different philosophical approaches have their own explanations. In this paper I shall defend one of Peter Singer’s consequentialism argument for abortion that it’s not wrong to kill a potential human being. Then, offer a deontological reply from Don Marquis’ point of view that killing is wrong because it deprives victims’ future life. Lastly, show how Rosalind Hursthouse using virtue ethics approach avoids the weakness of the two preceding traditional approaches about the argument, the uncertainty of the status of fetus and the intangibility of acting right or wrong.
The argument against abortion that Singer denied. (138):
First Premise: “It is wrong to kill a potential human being.”
Second Premise: “A human fetus is a potential human being.”
Conclusion: “Therefore, it is wrong to kill human fetus.”
Singer is standing at the utilitarianism angle to judge abortion. From the argument above, he thinks the second premise is strong …show more content…
First of all, the status of fetus that whether it is a person and whether it possesses right is not concerned in the virtue theory because of the ambiguity of the boundary of the fetus growth, the only thing matters is the “familiar biological fact” (having sex, 9-months pregnancy, painful and uncomfortable feeling during childbearing, etc) (Hursthouse 236-237). Additionally, it is necessary to take into account that there is deepest emotion from the parents to their offspring and the change of emotions to the fetus as it develops. The longer the baby stay in mothers’ body, the greater grief of the loss of the baby. (Hursthouse 236-238) Thus, it prevents the problem of the uncertainty of the status of fetus by looking at the emotion and character
The argument against abortion that Singer denied. (138):
First Premise: “It is wrong to kill a potential human being.”
Second Premise: “A human fetus is a potential human being.”
Conclusion: “Therefore, it is wrong to kill human fetus.”
Singer is standing at the utilitarianism angle to judge abortion. From the argument above, he thinks the second premise is strong …show more content…
First of all, the status of fetus that whether it is a person and whether it possesses right is not concerned in the virtue theory because of the ambiguity of the boundary of the fetus growth, the only thing matters is the “familiar biological fact” (having sex, 9-months pregnancy, painful and uncomfortable feeling during childbearing, etc) (Hursthouse 236-237). Additionally, it is necessary to take into account that there is deepest emotion from the parents to their offspring and the change of emotions to the fetus as it develops. The longer the baby stay in mothers’ body, the greater grief of the loss of the baby. (Hursthouse 236-238) Thus, it prevents the problem of the uncertainty of the status of fetus by looking at the emotion and character