Ethics of Abortion and Over-the-Counter Drugs Essay

The argument for the impermissibility of abortion

The widely disputed argument about abortion being wrong has been a subject of heated debates. Still, an agreement between the opponents and the proponents of the position has never been reached. According to the argument made by Don Marquis, abortion is seriously wrong in a moral sense because it involves killing a human being that has a right to life, which means robbing that human being of his or her future that so many people value. However, this argument can be objected to the statement that abortion is a tool that protects women from ill-conceived childbearing (Tarico) and allows men and women to create families that they want to create. While abortion may be wrong from a physical point of view (killing an underdeveloped human being), it allows people to make choices, which is a necessary right to have. Because deciding whether to bring a new life to the world is the most significant decision one could ever make, forcing people in one direction or another is a counter-productive measure for society as a whole.Ethics of Abortion and Over-the-Counter Drugs Essay

The following two formulas can explain why abortion is not wrong: X has a right to live if and only if X is a fully-developed biological human being; X has a right to live if and only if X has formed a set of psychological characteristics that make X a human being. In almost all cases of abortion, the mentioned characteristics are not developed. To counter these formulas, the following formula can be proposed: Killing X is wrong in a moral sense because X potentially has a future like all other human beings, and killing X is equal to depriving X of the future.Ethics of Abortion and Over-the-Counter Drugs Essay