Paper 3: Abortion
Suppose a woman has gotten pregnant due to voluntary intercourse (i.e., she was not raped). She is early in pregnancy, in the first month. She has no reason to believe that her fetus is unhealthy, or will become unhealthy, or that if she has the baby that he or she will have a troubled life. Would it be morally permissible for her to have an abortion? Present and evaluate at least five arguments on this issues, including at least two out of three arguments presented by Warren, Marquis and/or Thompson. The arguments should be presented and evaluated in valid premise-conclusion format. Like all philosophy papers, you must raise objections to your views and arguments and respond to them.
Your paper should have a short introduction ending in a thesis statement and be well-organized throughout. There should be no grammatical or spelling errors. You need to find at least one peer reviewer and put his or her comments and suggestions at the end of the paper.You must use a proper citation method.
Note: a challenge for this paper is to NOT merely give a list of conditions or situations where you think abortion might be permissible or impermissible, e.g., "Abortion is wrong in these circumstance but not in these," or "Abortion is permissible except in these circumstances." The challenge is to explain why -- with reasons -- your claims about the moral status of abortion are correct or incorrect, and to defend your views from objections. You need to think carefully about what someone who disagreed with you might say, what your critics' strongest objections would be, and respond to those.
4-5 pages.
Due Monday, November 23 through the Turnitin System
