Response to #3 Abortion

Michelle Horner
Week 6 Blog
22 June 2007
Abortion Ban
I believe that the propositions in question, “(a) a woman has no right to an abortion, (b) a human embryo or fetus has an inviolable right to life, and (c) a woman may have an abortion if it is necessary to save her own life” (Barnet 453), can be consistent. From my own personal opinion, I do believe that all three of these contentions are true. It is difficult but I do believe that it is consistent for them to be believed concurrently. As with any topic on abortion, the views are difficult to explain. I will explain why these three propositions can be believed to be true concurrently without being inconsistent.
The first contention is held by many people; however, it is also discounted by a strong number of people as well. To say that a woman has no right to an abortion is a strong view. The wording of these contentions is important to the view that they can be consistent with one another. If this contention said that a woman has absolutely no right to an abortion, these views could not possibly be consistently held. This contention doesn’t state an absolute; it does state simply that she has no right to an abortion. This can mean that she has no legal, moral, justifiable right, among many other things. In my view, I believe that a baby’s life begins at conception because without going through the stages before live birth, none of us would be here. The stages of pregnancy are vital to producing human life. If we are given the option to do as we please with that life, we could, potentially, cease to exist.
The second contention also has vital wording, wording that is important to not only the contention, but also in connecting the three contentions. Stating that an embryo has an inviolable right to life is essentially saying that a woman has no right to an abortion. Fetal life is sacred and is a life that must be protected. From the moment of conception, a mother’s actions can severely alter the life of the child that is born from her. For example, one of my good friends has a sister that just had an unplanned pregnancy. We were all worried because she is a heavy drinker and smoker. I believe that she was able to cease drinking, but she still smoked about two and a half packs of cigarettes a day. Her baby was just born yesterday; one of the first questions I asked my friend was if the baby was healthy. I found out that the baby was taken away for his first six hours because he was born with low oxygen levels in his blood due to her heavy smoking. The effects on a baby during pregnancy are so vital to that baby; it should be given the right to life.
The third contention is the most important to distinguish when deciding if these three contentions can be consistent. The best way that I know how to explain this contention to give reasons why it can be consistent with the previous two is to compare this situation to that of self-defense. In self defense, a person has the right to defend their life from a person threatening that life. This right does not mean that the person must choose to take the life of the other; they may have a strong belief that killing is wrong and let the other person kill them. It is the same situation with pregnancy. When the baby inside is threatening the life of the mother, she should be given the opportunity, as with self defense, to save her own life. If she believes in the life of her child more, she should also be given the right to die in order to save her baby’s life. With the issue of self defense, our society believes that we do not have the right to kill another, but we may in self defense. With these contentions a mother does not have the right to an abortion because the embryo has the right to life, but if necessary to save her own life, she may have an abortion.