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Abortion
Ethics

My cousin recently gave birth to her first child. There were some complications, however, and the baby had to be delivered through a cesarean section four weeks early. At first she seemed healthy, but within seconds of the delivery the effort of crying was apparently too much for the premature baby and they had to put her on a special machine. Now, what interested me about K. (that’s her first name,) is that even though she was working her way to be two months early she still seems completely human. K. even smiled and giggled whenever they played with her. As far as I can tell she’s completely human. She laughs, cries, reacts to pain, even seems to have formed a bond with her mother who she’s only seen a few times. Recently there was a great outcry because late term abortion doctor George Tiller was assassinated by pro-life extremists. (Doesn’t that seem ironic?) Anyway, he apparently aborted fetuses within days of the delivery date. 32, 33, 34 week old fetuses. Now, what caught me about this is that K....

There are a few points that may be relevant to your thinking: 1) There is a substantial difference between 32 weeks and 36 weeks in terms of development, long term prognosis, etc. It is also uncommon for a newborn to be as responsive to social cues as you suggest. Typically "social smiling" doesn't occur until a full term baby is four to six weeks old. It is a mistake, I think, to generalize even about healthy fetuses from the vivid example you've just witnessed. 2) The cases of abortion Tiller performed were typically cases in which the fetus or mother faced significant medical complications. Would you feel differently if your cousin (once removed) was born to live with a disability that would cause constant and untreatable pain? How would you feel if your cousin's life was in danger, or if she faced a permanent and profound disability if she continued her pregnancy? Are there no cases in which you can imagine a late term pregnancy justifiably terminated? 3) It might be interesting...
Abortion

The moral question of whether abortion is wrong is whether or not it is a person. Well, I don't understand why people say that a fetus is not a person. How are a fetus and an infant any different. An infant doesn't understand the future just the way a fetus doesn't. At 14 weeks a fetus begins to move and "explore" the womb and itself. That shows some curiosity and some sort of "thinking". On a genetic level or the form of the fetus also at 14 weeks it is "a person". So then at the very least shouldn't abortion be illegal after that? If we should not kill an infant, which is very illegal, why can we kill a fetus which in many instances is on the same level as the infant? If anything we should not kill the fetus because it is innocent and the infant is not. An infant cries just to be held where it should cry because it needs something. Just as a small example.

In addition to Allen's points, it should be noted that not everyone agrees that the issue of abortion boils down to the issue of whether the fetus is a person. Judith Thomson has famously argued that other persons do not have a right to use my body, even if preventing them from such use would cause their death. For example, if I had a rare blood type and was taken into custody an hooked up to someone who needed blood of my type, this would be a violation of my rights and I would be permitted to resist, or unplug myself. Because a fetus is using the pregnant woman's body, sometimes against her will (think of rape especially, but also contraception failure), she does not have a moral obligation to allow such use. In some cases it would be very kind of me to allow such use, e.g., if it wasn't at great cost to me, but even if we count the fetus as a ful person, it doesn't have a right to such use. See: Judith Jarvis Thomson : A Defense of Abortion . Philosophy & Public Affairs , Vol....