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Questions in Abortion
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The common pro-life argument against abortion is that the killing of an innocent person is always murder, and that all fetuses are innocent people; therefore, all abortions are murder…but who’s ...
October 13, 2009
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While I don't have a firm opinion on the issue, I never understand many pro-life positions that state they are against abortion except in the case of rape or incest. ...
September 10, 2009
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Why is viability used as a standard to decide whether a fetus can be aborted?
August 22, 2009
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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 ...
July 27, 2009
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Hello, my name is Conner and I’m a political science major here in Oklahoma. It is my personal opinion that abortion should be illegal except in cases of rape, in ...
July 22, 2009
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Let's accept that women have the right to abortion. Now consider the case of several states before 1973. Persons who provided abortions could be prosecuted under the law, but women ...
July 9, 2009
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Suppose a woman hates to fold laundry and is some sort of embryological neuroscientist. The woman conceives a child and takes a potion she has developed at an early stage ...
May 12, 2009
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A friend of mine recently gave me a copy of an official report released by the United States Senate Subcommittee. Apparently they invited medical and scientific officials from all across ...
April 17, 2009
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I've noticed that most comments on abortion ignore the question of foetal conciousness and the stage at which the foetus becomes sensitive to pain, and is susceptible to suffering in ...
March 5, 2009
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Why do so many people feel that abortion is not a major issue? Regardless of what end of the field you stand on, you’re either defending human rights or you’re ...
February 8, 2009
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Your problem is a bit different, and more interesting. You are wondering if the seemingly attractive premise "killing innocent people is always murder, and therefore is always wrong" is actually worth much.
All of your examples seem to be cases of killing innocents by accident. (Whether war is ever an accident is a question we can [sigh] leave aside.) I think it is reasonable to say that killing someone by accident is not murder, though it may be grossly negligent and blame-worthy. You want to define murder as killing another, with the malicious intention of killing the victim. This definition seems fine to me. We can therefore reject the premise as too general and in need of more limitations.
But this move won't get you very far in the abortion debate. The woman who has an abortion is not doing so by accident. The fetus is not 'hit,' as the pedestrian out of the crosswalk is. Abortions are deliberate and planned. Abortion opponents would say abortion qualifies as murder by your own definition of killing another on purpose. Now we are back where we started: should a fetus count as another person, as a real victim? Until that premise can be justified this will remain a poorly constructed argument.