Ethics

Ethics Study Guide In one of the most controversial decisions in United States Supreme Court history, Roe v. Wade (1973) established that most laws against abortion violate a constitutional right to privacy. This opinion written by Justice Blackmun overturned all state laws restricting or outlawing abortion. Roe v. Wade prompted a continuing national debate over whether a state can deem terminating pregnancies illegal if it chooses to do so. Roe v. Wade has reshaped national politics, dividing the nation and inspiring activism. Pro-life supporters are people who are against abortion completely. Some are opposed for religious reasons, possessing beliefs about the personhood of fetal human life. Others view the court’s decision as illegitimate because they feel it strayed too far from the text and history of the Constitution. The pro-choice side is comprised of those individuals who believe it is the woman’s right to choose whether to have an abortion. Support for Roe v. Wade comes from those who view the decision as necessary to preserve women’s equality and personal freedom, and those who believe in the privacy of an individual over collective rights. The Constitution protects “persons” by granting them rights the states must respect. A core conflict in this debate is the question of when does a new human being exist with full civil rights. One reason for this conflict is the lack of consensus of the exact timing of the beginning of human personhood. It appears impossible for philosophers, religious leaders, medical professionals, or the public to reach a consensus about when personhood begins. Judith Jarvis Thomson’s A Defense of Abortion is one of the most influential papers in all of applied ethics, and several of the arguments Thomson makes have become a standard part of the discussion. She believed a fetus is a person and abortion is not presumptively wrong. Her argument is that the burdens of pregnancy are too great of a demand on the rights of a human. A pregnant woman should not be required to act as a “Good Samaritan” to the fetus. Some legal precedents and public opinion support Thomson’s conclusion; however, the Good Samaritan reasoning is missing from the Supreme Court’s decision about abortion. Thomson created an analogy to illustrate the moral question. A person wakes up one morning to find that while he was sleeping, someone attached a famous violinist to him, connected by various tubes. The person’s body is now the sole support of life for the violinist. If the tubes were to be disconnected, the violinist would die. In order to heal, the violinist needs to stay attached to the person for nine months. During that time the person’s body will supply the violinist with all the nutrients and fluids he needs to live, at considerable risk to the person’s health. Thomson’s violinist scenario implies that the major moral question is whether or not unplugging the violinist is direct killing (where the killing is an end or a means to an end), or self-defense (protecting oneself from physical harm). Mary Anne Warren, an American writer and philosophy professor, states that a fetus is not a person and abortion is not presumptively wrong. Warren discussed criteria for moral personhood such as consciousness, the ability to reason, the capacity for communication, the ability to have motives and goals, and the ability to have a sense of self. According to Warren, a being doesn’t need to exhibit all of these criteria to qualify as a person with a right to life, but if a being exhibits just one or none of ©2018 Achieve Page 59 of 116