John Warren Abortion Analysis

The topic of abortion has been and more than likely will forever be an extremely controversial and typically heated debate. The Supreme Court made the landmark decision in 1972 in the Roe vs. Wade case making abortion legal and on demand for all American women. Throughout the years, however, new appointed Supreme Court judges say the abortion issue should be a decision for the individual state to decide and not a federal matter. The abortion debate houses two sides: pro-choice and pro-life. The group made up of pro-choicers decide to look back throughout history and the years of struggle women had to seek an abortion. They believe that the right to have an abortion should be equivalent to a constitutional right, almost like the right to vote. Pro-choice believers also consider what it takes to make a fetus as a person. Philosopher Mary Ann Warren claims that a being must have a consciousness and ability to feel pain, a developed capacity for reasoning, self- motivated activity, the capacity to communicate messages of an indefinite variety of types, and self-awareness in order to be considered as a person. With this reasoning, Warren believes that even the most developed fetus does not qualify as a person. Another philosopher named Judith Jarvis Thomson, who is slightly

The utilitarian concentrates on the consequences of abortion. The pro-choice utilitarian will seek justice for all the illegal and unsanitary abortions that will occur, while the pro-life will demand for rights of the unborn children. The deontological perspective deals mainly with the issue of rights. For example, the pro-life deontologist will defend the fetus’s life and rights while the pro-choice deontologist will claim that the woman’s right overcome the rights of the