Infanticide Is The Killing Of An Infant

What is this world coming to? Some people truly believe it is right to kill an innocent fetus. Mothers’ who are old enough to conceive are old enough to support a baby, whether they are barely a teenager or coming to the end of their “golden years.” Regardless of the circumstance, a baby should never be aborted.

The fetus has a valuable future, just as we consider children, the retarded or mentally ill to have valuable futures, thus killing a fetus is not morally permissible. Another pro-choice argument is that the fetus has no desire to live and consequently there is no wrongness in killing. Marquis criticizes this viewpoint, as society believes it is morally wrong to kill those who have no desire to live, and those who are unconscious or suicidal (Gedge & Waluchow, 2012, p220).

In his essay Why Abortion is Immoral Don Marquis attempts to argue that abortion is almost always wrong except for a few special circumstances such as when the life of the mother is being threatened by the pregnancy. In his thesis Marquis asserts that abortion is in the same moral category as killing an innocent adult human being and the ethics of abortion is solvable. The strongest argument that Marquis presents to defend his thesis is the claim that what makes killing wrong is the loss of the victim’s future. In this paper, I will argue that this argument fails because aborting a fetus is not in the same moral category as killing an innocent adult human being.

From the time that Warren’s article. “On the Moral and Legal Status of Abortion”, was published she had gotten critiques that her argument “appears to justify not only abortion, but infanticide as well.”(Warren, 16) Warren claims that if her argument is valid then infanticide is not a form of murder, since you are not killing a person. A human being is a person if they have the previous characteristics of personhood introduced into her argument. According to Warren

There are methods in the justification of aiding in the death of an impaired infant. Engelhardt outlines that there is a distinction between aiding the death of adult and children. The question of status is also explored to determine that children are neither self-possessed nor responsible. The concept of Injury of Continued Existence is given to look at the potential person the infant might become if allowed to exist. These examples are provided to give a thorough evaluation of a child before the decision is made whether or not to prolong life.

Could the killing of an unborn disabled child be considered acceptable in today’s society? Selective infanticide is a very controversial topic that many have argued about over past years. In her article “Unspeakable Conversations” disabilities activist and lawyer Harriet McBryde Johnson demonstrates her viewpoint on this issue. She writes this article as a story, with herself being the narrator. It follows her journey as she feuds with Peter Singer, a Princeton University professor, who has an opposing perspective regarding the killing of unborn disabled children. With this in mind, Johnson reveals her point of view using the strategy of a Rogerian argument and the rhetorical elements of

Proponents of punishing pregnant women, who put their fetuses at risk, have highlighted some pertinent legal and ethical issues. One is that a viable fetus (fetus after 27 weeks gestation) has certain rights and privileges. They are of the opinion that as soon as the fetus is viable and can survive independently from it mother, it becomes a

If a fetus does not have a right to life because they do not possess a concept of self, then what is to be said about humans who are suffering from disease that makes them unable to have a concept of self? If a human is suffering from a disease that makes them unaware of themselves and their surroundings, then do they not have a right to life? Wouldn’t it be considered murder if one was to kill a human who didn’t possess a concept of self? Why isn’t a fetus considered a person from the moment of conception? They are after all developing organs and characteristics that make them a person. Shouldn’t it be considered murder to abort a fetus simply because one believes they do not possess a concept of self? It would seem contradictory to say that the person who is incapacitated has a right to life, but a fetus does not. A fetus is a living entity, which with a

Based on the view that the fetus is already a small baby, some extreme anti-abortionists would maintain that abortion is impermissible even to save the mothers life. The rationale behind this view would be that the child is innocent, and killing the child would be active, on the other hand, letting the mother die would be passive. This introduces two new concepts, the first being the mother’s rights in competition to those of the fetus and the second being the question of innocence and how we would define this (Langley).

When faced with the choice of life or death, most people would choose to live. In fact, most would not want someone else making that decision for them. They would claim that as a living and independent entity it is solely their choice as to whether they continue to live or not. While this concept may seem fairly straightforward, there seems to be some great debate when it is applied to abortion. For many, they will maintain that the fetus has the right to life no matter the situation. There are some who will argue that abortion is morally permissible in specific circumstances and there are even those that will claim that abortion is always permissible. Why is there such a great divide? A major factor that plays a part in this is whether abortion involves more than one life. Because determining the beginning point of life is such a complex and emotional debate, there will be the same allowance in this paper as there was in Judith Jarvis Thomson’s “A Defense of Abortion”. As she eloquently put it “I propose then, that we grant that the fetus is a person from the moment of conception” (p. 721). This will allow for a look into the moral debate of abortion from a more grounded stage. As discussed early in Thomson’s paper, most of the debate on abortion rests on whether the fetus is alive or not. Whereas the focus should be on the many other aspects of pregnancies that may lead to a mother wanting an abortion.

The universal mentality when it comes to defining homicide is similar in the way that homicide occurs when one human being kills another human being. There are a variety of subtypes of homicide, which include murder, manslaughter, euthanasia justifiable homicide, killing in war and execution, depending on the circumstances of the death. These different types of homicides are often treated very differently in today’s societies; some are considered crimes, while others are permitted or even ordered by the courts. A highly controversial issue is whether abortion is considered to be homicide and whether the fetus is considered a human being entitled to rights. This paper will discuss the various interpretations of homicide, the three types of culpable homicide and Durkheim’s theory of homicide.

Abortion is always argued with different cases and play a main role in medical ethics (blackwell.,p291).It is evidently reasonable for some to argue that in moral situation, abortion is a murder and it should be illegal, while others may claim that abortion is woman’s right when concerning on autonomy ( The abortion debate in Australia). Opponents of making abortion legal claim that abortion is a kind of murder on extend of moral situation. It is always regarded as a sin to kill a person who is no aggressor in most moral communities (new ethics 1). Fetus is a biologically human as it is not just a part of the mothers, such as a lung or a kidney. On the contrary, it is obvious that fetus is human due to he or she has genetic code of human and human parents as well (abortion myth p5). Moreover, it has potentiality to be a person with primary moral worth (text book p210-211). As Gillion (new ethics) pointed out, every person has his right to life, especially he is not an aggressor. This point is also been pointed by (Rebecca and john,Blackwell p204), “embryos has a right to life” .The fetus is innocent and

Abortion is one of the most controversial topics of all times. The definition most people associate with abortion is the termination of unwanted pregnancy. In their essay, “The Wrong of Abortion”, Patrick Lee and Robert P. George argue that intentional abortion is unjust and therefore objectively immoral no matter the circumstances. Also, they argue that “the burden of carrying the baby is significantly less than the harm the baby would suffer by being killed; the mother and father have a special responsibility to the child; it follows that intentional abortion (even in few cases where the baby’s death is an unintended but foreseen side effect) is unjust ” (24).

One of the most frequently debated topics in bioethics is the morality of abortion, or the ending of a pregnancy without physically giving birth to an infant. Often times abortions are categorized into either spontaneous, a natural miscarriage; induced or intentional, which is premeditated and for any reason; or therapeutic, which albeit intentional, its sole purpose is to save the mother’s life. It seems however that moral conflicts on issue mainly arise when discussing induced abortions. In general, people universally agree it is morally wrong to kill an innocent person and in some people’s eyes induced abortions are the intentional killings of innocent persons, thus making them immoral. However not all individuals view fetuses as persons and consequentially argue it is not morally wrong to kill them.

Even though the baby cannot speak or walk yet, it is still a life, and no one has the right to take another person’s life.