Abortion

Created by: Phoebe
Created on: 08-05-13 17:35

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Abortion
- In the UK the law is that an abortion can take place up to 24 weeks and after if there is grave risk to the life of the women or evidence for severe foetal abnormality at birth
  - Severely abnormal poorly defined
  - Scientific advances show that a baby can survive after 23 weeks
- When does life begin?
  - Natural Law
    - At Conception
      - Abortion is against nature
      - cant fulfill natural teleos
  - Utilitarianism
    - Peter Singer - Human potentiality
      - Allowable to abort
      - Many have potential to be Olympic athletes but not all achieve
  - Kantian Ethics
    - At Conception
      - Dont treat people as a means to an end
- Personhood
  - John Locke 17th/18th century
    - Human being are sentient
      - The princaple of reciprocity
      - Foetus is not raitional
      - Is somebody with severe disability any less of a person?
      - Do people in a Coma have sentience
  - Utilitarianist Peter Singer and Tooley
    - Humans have self-consciousness whereas Foetuses only have consciousness
      - cannot rationalise pain and pleasure
    - Princaple of Moral equivalence
      - Animas have similar characteristics to a foetus but we still kill/expirement on them
- The Status of the Human body
  - Does it belong to the Women or God
  - John Locke
    - God gave us ownership of our body
    - The foetus is part of the body
- Abortion and rights
  - Judith Jarvis Thomson
    - Abortion may not be morally good but it is a right
  - Dpoes the Foetus have a right to life?
- Quality of life theory
  - Whos quality of life?
Natural Law
- Protection of life
  - Abortion is ending life
- Eductaion
  - No child to educate
- God
  - Sancity of Life
- Society
  - What impact would the child have on society
- Real and apparent goods
  - Abortion is an appareent good
- Eudaimonia
  - Unable to reach

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Abortion

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