Acknowledging Woman's Right over Her Body

Acknowledging Woman's Right over Her Body

Paper 1 The second exceptional circumstance that she supported for abortion is when a woman needs to abort on the act of saving her own life. She gave us an example of the “Expanding Child”. Suppose that I find myself living in a tiny house with a rapidly growing child, I will be crushed to death in a few minutes and the child won’t be crushed to death. Do I have the right to act in self-defense to kill the child in order to save my own life? Thomson used this as analogy to the abortion problem. The mother can be thought to be the house, and the fetus the growing child. The woman owns the house, meaning both the body of the woman and the fetus belong to the mother. She states that the mother of course has the right to act in a way to protect her from the threat. By acknowledging the woman’s right over her on body, it is morally acceptable to abort the child to save the woman’s life. The debate over the moral status of abortion often raises a question about the definition of human. So what is a human being, and how do you determine it? Based on Christian view, John Noonan, likewise, first argues that the fetus is fully human, that humanity begins at the moment of conception. By which, he means that the fetus or zygote should be recognized as a man because he has man’s potential. But people often argue that the fetus should not be considered as a person with humanity, but rather, a living being without memory, emotions, and consciousness. Noonan rejects such view and examines five criteria for humanity, and those are viability, experience, sentiment, sense experience, and social visibility. Since the life of the fetus depends on the mother, it is not viable. Noonan argues that even a child of two or even six years of age is absolutely dependent on another’s care for survival, thus viability is a distinction which makes no difference. And since the fetus is responsive to touch, it is experiencing in a way that is morally important. When the fetus dies, the...

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