Abortion (user search)
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Author Topic: Abortion  (Read 6594 times)
Redalgo
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« on: February 19, 2012, 12:51:40 PM »

Explain to me why I should be against it in secular terms in my personal life so I don't have to come off as a monster anymore when I say that I'm personally "pro-abortion" in many circumstances. I don't really want to have this view but I've found no convincing moral argument as to why abortion is immoral. Let's see if you guys can give me one.

I am a virtue ethicist, but to avoid rambling about subjective attributes of character I think one is best off making a habit of and internalizing, I would say from a secular standpoint most abortions are not morally objectionable until sometime early in the third-trimester of a pregnancy - at which point one would do well to take into account that a developing fetus/baby/whatever can begin to feel pain, and perhaps to some extent experience emotions and think. Until a human life is viable, however, it seems dubious to me to regard it as having full personhood for non-spiritual reasons.

Incidentally, one might also have moral reservations about abortion for reasons concerning why a particular abortion is being performed. Depending on ones political convictions, there may come a point at which a woman's privilege to choose conflicts with foundational principles of society. There is not necessarily a good or bad direction to err in when it comes to such conflicts of conscience, but it is worth bearing in mind that some of the concerns that come into play are secular in nature.
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Redalgo
Sr. Member
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Posts: 2,681
United States


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« Reply #1 on: February 22, 2012, 10:28:27 AM »

Do you remember who I might be thinking of in my post on the first page? A female virtue ethicist who has written on abortion. I think it's something like Rosetta Hurst, maybe.

I am afraid not - sorry.

Most of my readings on the subject have been on Aristotle, whose ideas I adjusted quite a bit to mesh with my other views and compensate for flaws I see in deontological and consequencialist alternatives. Alasdair MacIntyre has wrote on virtue ethics, incidentally, but I imagine you are probably thinking of somebody else.
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