Essay/Term paper: An anti-abortion argument

Essay, term paper, research paper:  Abortion

Abortion in America is a controversial issue in which both
sides have valid arguments at face value. The pro-choice side has many
arguments to support it belief in keeping abortion legal. Many of these are
faulty, and argue points irrelevent to the issue as I will attempt to
illustrate, thereby eliminating the main pro-choice arguments.
The pro-life position has somewhat different ideas. The most
popular of these is: The unborn entity is fully human from the moment of
conception. Abortion results in the intentional death of the unborn entity.
Therefore, abortion can be defined the intentional killing of a human being.
This killing is in most cases unjustified, since the unborn human being has a
full right to life. If, however, there is a high probability that a woman's
pregnancy will result in her death (such as tubal pregnancy, for example),
then abortion is justified. For it is a greater good that one human should
live (the mother) rather than two die (the mother and her child). Or, in
such cases the intent is not to kill the unborn but to save the life of the
mother. With the exception of such cases, abortion is an act in which an
innocent human being is intentionally killed; therefore, abortion should be
made illegal, as are all other such acts of killing.
One argument made by people in favor of abortion is an
appeal to pity. When one fallaciously argues by appealing to pity, one is
arguing that certain actions should be permitted or tolerated out of pity for
those performing them when in fact the basis for showing them pity is not a
legitimate basis for the action. For example, a woman who argues that she
should not receive a parking ticket because her child was crying and she took
her child to a candy store to cheer her up is appealing to pity. The
following abortion rights arguments are examples.
Anyone who goes to pro-choice demonstrations in the United
States will see on pro-choice buttons a drawing of a coat hanger. This is the
symbol of the pro-choice movement representing the many women who were harmed
or killed because they either performed illegal abortions on themselves
(i.e., the surgery was performed with a "coat hanger") or went to physicians.
That means, if abortion is made illegal, then women will once again be
harmed. This argument does sound true. Although the thought of finding a dead
young woman with a bloody coat hanger dangling between her legs is
unpleasant,and powerful, it does not make a good argument.
The reason this argument doesn't work is because it is begging
the question. In fact, this lie hides behind a good percentage of the popular
arguments for the pro-choice position. One begs the question when one assumes
what one is trying to prove is correct.
The question-begging of the coat-hanger argument is very obvious: but only by
assuming that the unborn are not fully human does the argument work. If the
unborn are not fully human, then the pro-choicer has a legitimate concern,
just as one would have in overturning a law forbidding appendicitis
operations if countless people were needlessly dying of both appendicitis and
illegal operations. But if the unborn are fully human, this pro-choice
argument is the same as saying that because people die or are harmed while
killing other people, the state should make it safe for them to do so.
Even some pro-choicers, who argue for their position in other ways, admit
that the
coat hanger/back-alley argument is crap. Although statistics cant establish
a particular moral position, there has been arguments over both the actual
number of illegal abortions and the number of women who died as a result of
them before legalization. Prior to Roe vs Wade, pro-choicers used saying that
nearly a million women every year obtained illegal abortions performed with
rusty coat hangers in back-alleys that resulted in thousands of fatalities.
Given the seriousness of the issue at hand, these statements are more than
exaggerations, because several proven facts establish that the pro-choice
movement was lying.
Another argument by people in support of pro-choice say that
before abortion was legalized, rich pregnant women were able to travel to
other countries to get abortions. And this was unfair to the poor. This is
saying that Roe v. Wade has made the current situation fairer for poor women.
Therefore, if abortion is prohibited it will not prevent rich women from
having safe and legal abortions elsewhere.
This argument is false: it assumes that legal abortion is a moral good which
poor women will be denied if abortion is made illegal. But since the morality
of abortion is the point under question, the pro-choice supporter assumes
what he or she is trying to prove and therefore begs the question.
There are a number of examples to illustrate this point. For example, we
would consider it wrong if someone argued that the hiring of hit men to kill
one's enemies should be legalized, since the poor do not have easy economic
access to such "professionals."
In the abortion debate the question of whether abortion entails the death of
a being who is fully human must be answered before the question of fairness
is even asked. That means, since equal opportunity to eliminate an innocent
human being is rarely a moral good, the question of whether it is fair that
rich people will have access to abortion if it becomes illegal must be
answered after the question of whether abortion in fact is not the killing of
an innocent human life is answered. This is like saying the benefits of the
wealthy are virtues simply because the poor are denied them. Sounds like bs
to me.
Although the abortion argument will probably go on forever,
eliminating faulty arguments will help people reach a reasonable decision on
the issue. When the pro-choice side argues such points as the ones above, it
tricks many people by playing on such things as peoples sympathy and
compassion wrongly. If each side was represented fairly, it is likely people
would become in favor of a ban on abortion when facts are the issue instead
of a false play to people's emotion.