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WARNING: IF THIS TOPIC UPSETS YOU, DON'T READ THIS RANT!!! Abortion is a very touchy subject. But philosophy never turned away from sensitive subjects, and I am not about to either. So, enough explanation about the sensitivity of this topic; lets rant! Abortion has been around as long people have known how to perform one. It has always been an option for people who, for various reasons, decide not to carry a birth to term. What lead to the contraversy over abortion is when is a fertilized egg considered a living being and just a group of cells. Some say at the moment of fertilization, some say after the first trimester, others second, other not until the birth occurs. Viewed from a religious perspective, it is sometimes viewed as the moment of conseption is when those cells are a living being. Catholicism supports this viewpoint. Some denominations say that it is a living being when it becomes a fetus. Taking a philosophical standpoint one philosophy absolutely begs to be applied here. That philosophy is the categorical imperative. Kant's philosophy is entirely based on whether or not what the philosophy is being applied to a rational being, which his definition of a human being. So that brings up the question of when is that group of cells growing in a woman considered a rational being. This would mean that it has the ability to distinguish between right and wrong. So the first requirement is brain stimulation. Without a brain you can't think and thus you can't make any ethical decisions. Next is that you can make the distinction between right and wrong. This is where there is a interpretation problem. It has always been debated at what point we know right from wrong. Some say it is instinctive. Others say that it is learned from our environment. Obviously if you choose environment you can easily justify that abortion is ethical under the categorical imperative throughout the entire pregnancy. You could probably even justify ending the life of a newborn until it learned right from wrong. Now if you believe that ethics is inherent and thus instinctive, you must decide at what point during the pregnancy it is genetically activated in the brain. Once that point is released, abortion is unethical under the categorical imperative. All of this, though, is taking a materialist approach. Obviously using an idealist, interactionist, or a theory of agency philosophy. All of these philosophies have some non-materialistic part to the world or at least to mankind. This leaves open the door for ethics to come into affect at any time during a pregnancy. As for how other philosophies affect abortion, that can usually be figured out, but they are not always very clear-cut about it. The categorical imperative just happens to work quite well with what is often debated about on abortion. As always, this rant is provided to help you apply philosophical thought to current events and problems. Always make your own conclusions. |