Philosophy Term Paper: Abortion
Sometimes problems of mental disability and illness arise within a fetus during human development. Questions arise whether or not those fetuses should live or not (abortion). I believe that they do have a right to live. No one can play God and decided whether or not a being should live. We cannot judge whether or not a person is going to be mentally ill or not. We do not know the full potential of that person and we cannot predict whether or not he will always stay mentally challenged.
How do we know that person will not get better? How do we know that he really is mentally disabled? We have no right to take a life because we think that we may be are helping that individual by not bringing him into a life of hardship and complication. This can be compared to “ending the misery” of an old person because we think he is pain. This is absurd and wrong. I believe that the double effect principle is not in accordance to the catholic natural law. The catholic natural law states that evil may not be done that good come of it.
This means that you can never have something good come out from something evil. Hence, if the double effect states that it is ok to take the life of the baby to save the life of the mother, we are saying it is ok to kill the baby to save the mother; even though killing a person is unjustifiable. This goes against the natural law because the natural law says there is no good from something evil. So, if killing a person is evil there is nothing good that could come out of it. This is why the two ideas are not accordance.
In fact, they are completely contradictory- one justifies the abortion and the other doesn’t. I do agree with the both of his principles because he assumes the zygote and whatever comes after it a form of human life and will potentially becomes a person. Devine describes humanity as stages. The way kids turn into adolescent, adolescent into adult, adult into elder. This can also imply that there is development before infancy from zygote to fetus. This is a link in the stages of humanity that philosophers mention of.
Also, people do not realize how the infant is the same person in and out the mother’s tomb. The mother gives a name to the fetus and talks about him/her. She treats the fetus as if it was outside the womb, becoming attached to the baby. Looking at these to principles we can see why Devine talks about abortion as murder. We see the zygote being a link in the chain of humanity and the way it is perceived as an infant before delivery. Unless there is a reason for the abortion (mother’s health), abortion should be considered murder.
Warren states that the first two are enough to prove that a fetus is not a person, justifying the abortion. She expands her claim not only to infants but also to, “a man or woman whose consciousness has been permanently obliterated but who remains alive is a human being which is no longer a person; defective human beings with no appreciable mental capacity, are not and presumably never will be people; and a fetus is a human being which is not yet a person, and which therefore cannot coherently be said to have moral rights. So, not only does she deduce the fact that fetuses are not a person, but also the mentally challenged and ill. Warren also keeps in mind that the attributes that are relevant in determining whether or not moral rights are no different from those which are relevant. Hence, if there is signs of brain activity and resemblance this is not enough to prove the fetus as a person, justifying abortion.
To prove his point, he talks about how human cells are present but they lack the structure of a human organism. True human life is only recognizable to about three weeks and primitive brain function does not begin until about the eighth week. He also mentions how twins are not formed until the fourteenth day after conception. Since it takes two weeks to form twins, how can there be a soul in the beginning of conception and then divide into twins; you cannot divide the soul in half for each twin. For this reason I do not believe that the soul is put into the human zygote after conception. When after conception I do not know.
