Ursinus Intro Ethics Blog - Section A

Ridiculous, not-quite-close-enough analogies aside, does Judy Thomson have a point? What kinds of responsibilities does another person's right to live impose upon us? How demanding is morality? What are we required to sacrifice for another person's life? In any case (not just abortion, but in other real-life cases where it requires some sort of sacrifice of or burden upon another person to save or improve the life of another), how much of oneself is one required to give? Where is the line to be drawn that says "I am morally required to give this up to help this person, but I am not morally required to give that up to help that person"? These are the questions we have been trying to answer in class, and we seem to be at a stalemate with no one right answer.

In the specific case of abortion, however, (not some general case of "How much am I required to sacrifice of my own time, energy, resources, and health to help the suffering of another person?") I believe there is a very, very important distinction. Rape excluded, two people choose to engage in sexual activity. Everyone who makes this choice (with the possible exception of the twelve-year-old who "doesn't know any better" or the mentally-impaired person who is actually incapable of understanding) knows that there is a possibility of conceiving a child when you have sex. Ignorance is not a plausible excuse for your average person. Sex causes pregnancy. That's what it does. I mostly agree with what Joanna and Chris said in class-- that that is its main purpose. Obviously it has other very important uses as well, but the lack of intent to procreate does not take away the possibility of conception.

Therefore, I believe the average person (and by "average person," I mean someone who understands cause and effect, and who also has not been raised by wolves, but rather in the presence of some degree of civilization) cannot deny the possiblity of pregnancy as a result of sex and should not avoid responsibility for this direct consequence of their actions/conscious choices by just blipping it out of existence. I think it is irresponsible to murder/remove a child/embryo/clump-of-cells and dismiss it as an unfortunate consequence of a conscious decision that was made on the part of the parents/DNA-donors. (I'm trying to cater to both pro-life and pro-choice terminology so bear with the choppiness of that sentence please. I hope you could follow it all right.)

I'm going to be completely honest with you. Before reading these pieces and talking about them in class, I was pro-choice. I didn't think that it was the government's place to put restrictions on what a woman can and cannot do with her own body. I still stand by that belief that it is NOT the government's place to take a definitive stand on this issue and outlaw abortion or make it so readily available that anybody who just doesn't feel like dealing with thinking about it can get an abortion. This is not an issue for the government to decide. However, this is most certainly an issue for morality to decide. Or at least that's what I think...