Ethical Argument Cover Letter Essay

This is my submission for the Ethical Argument writing assignment. I was asked to choose a topic to write and I chose to write about the Ethical Arguments against Abortion. Initially, I had many choices but I landed on this mainly because this is a broad topic as it covers science, religion, and human rights. Since this is a broad topic, it was also difficult to choose which part of abortion is suitable for this argument and which part of abortion I can write without injecting my personal views and opinion. Thus, I decided to write to focus on why abortion is acceptable for the case of life endangerment and why it can’t be accepted in rape cases. The purpose of this essay is to show arguments about the legalization of abortion with regards to life endangerment against rape case. Perhaps, the most difficult part of writing this paper is to weigh objectively the stand of abortion in the two cases given in this essay. However, the parallel or example I gave helped me arrive to the argument I presented. I hope that this writing will meet your requirements and I would be glad to receive some feedbacks from you. Respectfully Yours, Student’s Name Student’s Name Professor’s Name Subject 29 April 2009 Ethical Arguments against Abortion For years, we have heard a lot of arguments against abortion; arguments as to why or why not abortion should be legalized. It seems to be a never-ending debate especially when taken from a pro-life perspective. Arguments against abortion often range from objections based on the USA’s constitution protection of the rights to human life to biblical belief that human life starts at conception. However, more arguments and objections arise when a law justifying abortion for mothers whose lives are endangered because of pregnancy has been approved, whereas others are questioning that if this is permissible, why can’t rape cases be? This essay offers arguments and responses as to why it is morally illegitimate to have abortion in the event of rape, while it is fairly acceptable to commit abortion when the mother’s life is endangered. Let’s look at the rape issue first. One of the fundamental beliefs of person’s rights regarding any system concerning the use of disciplinary force is that is to be applied only against those individuals responsible for the initiation of force. In this situation, the guilty party is the rapist and not the fetus. Moreover, in this case, the law might legally grant its authority to terminate the rapist, since rape is considered as an abominable crime, but not the child, even if the child’s dependence on his mother was the result of the rape. Let me give you a parallel. Imagine that there are two mutually unfriendly people living in the same building during the bombing raids of Hitler in 1940. A bomb is thrown into the building and this causes all possible exits to collapse while destroying all the walls that separate the neighbors. In effect, they are forced to share the same space and work with each other in the hopes to channel themselves out despite a mutual dislike. Does the given scenario justify one of the two unfriendly neighbors killing the other because of the inconvenience caused by the other, even though none of them had really caused it, or wouldn’t it be proper to demand justice from the Nazi air marshal who had originally commanded the bombing raids? Although the bombing and rape are two immensely unlikely scenarios, both are possible and the possible circumstances here are parallel to that of a pregnancy caused by rape. Going to the mother’s life endangerment issue, no individual is really obliged to his or her own life to save another person’s life. Therefore, when it can be proved medically that the mother’s life is in fact significantly endangered by a pregnancy, then, an abortion may be undertaken as a final resort and an only situation where it is possible to support legal abortion and to remain loyal to the individual rights’ principle; however, it is not an ordinary situation. Rather, it is considered an emergency, or a sort of situation as addressed in â€Å"The Ethics of Emergencies† written by Ayn Rand as part of her essay collection â€Å"The Virtue of Selfishness†. An emergency is an unchosen, unexpected event, limited in time that creates conditions under which human survival is impossible – such as a flood, an earthquake, a fire, a shipwreck. It is only in emergency situations that one should volunteer to help strangers. For instance, a man who values human life and is caught in a shipwreck, should help to save his fellow passengers (though not at the expense of his own life). But this does not mean that after they all reach shore, he should devote his efforts to saving them from poverty, ignorance, neurosis or whatever other troubles they might have. Nor should he spend his life sailing the seven seas in search of shipwreck victims to save. (The Virtue of Selfishness) From this definition alone, the situation of a mother whose life is endangered because of pregnancy is considered as an emergency as long as the mother has no idea that her pregnancy would put her life into danger. However, if from the start, the mother already knew about her medical condition that pregnancy will do her no good, it must be her responsibility to avoid becoming pregnant and must do her best to protect her health. Should she decide to face the risk, aborting the baby must not be done. In addition, Rand writes in her essay that emergencies are always exempted from the rule. They are not the normal state of ethical human relations or of human existence. To say that such extreme action may be allowed in emergencies is simply not to extend the acceptability or tolerability to the realm of human existence as dealt with by the basics or fundamentals of ethics. So, just because abortion may be justified as a final resort in some unexpected circumstances, this does not mean that the general legalization of abortion may be justified, especially with the fact that most cases of abortion occur because a woman has gone through indiscriminate sexual relations and has never wished to bring upon herself the objective consequences of such actions which are the pregnancy and the responsibility and obligation of bringing up a child. Work Cited Rands, Ayn. â€Å"The Virtue of Selfishness† 28 December 2008. Glyn Hughes’ Squashed Philosophers. 29 April 2009. Annotated Bibliography Rands, Ayn. â€Å"The Virtue of Selfishness† 28 December 2008. Glyn Hughes’ Squashed Philosophers. 29 April 2009. Rand’s essay collection â€Å"The Virtue of Selfishness† offers the basic or fundamental social principle of Objectivist ethics that life is simply an end itself, which simply means that every human being is an end himself. This also explains that man must live only for his own self and neither to sacrifice himself for others, nor having others to sacrifice themselves for him. The chapters in this essay collection could be easily included in the ethical argument writing especially when the topic is about sacrificing oneself or sacrificing others for the benefit of the other just like the topic in this argument.