Argument Against Abortion

Why Abortion is Not Impermissible
The legal status of abortion is regarded as one of the most long disputed and controversial ethical issues in the world of politics, presumably because of the moral dilemmas that it is thought to present. Many of those who oppose of the right to abort may do so from a theistic standpoint, which leads to more debates regarding the separation between church and state. But abortion is not something that should be forbidden by law. All adult human beings have the right to autonomy and so it should be the woman’s choice, not the government’s, to deem whether or not the execution of abortion would be a viable option for herself. “Pro-Life” advocates tend to centralize their arguments around the premise that the
Far too much focus on is put on the premise that a fetus is a human being. Carol Gilligan conducted a study on the language of the public abortion debate, finding that “The connection between the fetus and the pregnant woman becomes the focus of attention and the question becomes whether it is responsible or irresponsible, caring or careless, to extend or end this connection.” (Gilligan, 281) The dilemma is that the people tend to sidetrack off the actual abortion topic and the argument shifts to become more care ethics oriented. Thomson avoids this issue by seeing no obligation whatsoever to pay regards to the state of the fetus as it is irrelevant in proving that an abortion is not impermissible. Yes, the fetus is a person, and yes, both the mother and the unborn fetus have equal rights to live. But, keep in mind that a fetus is merely a tenant in a small house that the mother owns called her body. We can now establish without impartiality that the mother is more deserving of her body than the fetus because she is the rightful owner of it. This extra right she has is called autonomy, which means she is entitled to have complete control over her own body. The principle of autonomy goes to prove that the determinant of the choice to abort should be the choice of none other than the woman who is pregnant herself. Even if a fetus is entitled to life, it is not entitled to force a mother to use her body in a way that she does not want to. We can very well argue this principle for the legality of abortion as well. See, the government does not have control over a woman’s body and cannot force her to proceed with the pregnancy if she does not wish to. Therefore, it is she, the owner of her own body, who is allowed to make the autonomous choice to undergo an abortion.May it be noted that Thomson only argues that abortion should not be impermissible, not that it is always permissible, as there are