Paper 3: Abortion

Due Monday, April 20, in class and online via the Turnitin system.

NO EXTENSIONS AND NO LATE PAPERS WILL BE ACCEPTED.

This paper’s topic is abortion. You must argue for a view about when, if ever, abortion is morally permissible and when, if ever, it is morally wrong. The most important aspect of this paper is that you defend your views with reasons and respond to objections to your reasons. That is, you must explain why we should accept what you think about abortions and show us why you have good reasons for your views, better reasons than those who might disagree with you. You must be sure to not assume that your view about the morality of abortion is correct: you must argue for it! 

Your paper must have an introductory paragraph. It must have a thesis. Each paragraph should focus on one, and only one, main idea or topic. It must be free of grammatical and spelling errors. You must have a proper bibliography or works cited page and references (see Vaughn).

You must discuss at least five arguments, and you must discuss arguments – the main arguments – from Rachels, Marquis or Thompson, and arguments from the concept of personhood that were developed in class.

You must have at least one peer review. It should be stapled to your paper, which should be stapled as well.

This complete worksheet might be helpful:

http://aphilosopher.googlepages.com/abortion-worksheet.pdf

And this PowerPoint might be interesting:

http://aphilosopher.googlepages.com/abortion-talk.ppt

You should re-read your first paper on how to write a philosophy paper and make sure you follow all the advice there and intheir sources you summarized.