Abortion and a Short Reaction to Metions About Fetuses

About Abortion in General

It is mentioned many times that virtue theory cannot accurately explain what is the correct choice with abortion based on women's rights and stages of the fetus. It was hard to follow, but the gist of the argument was that abortion is fine under the right conditions that do not make apparent of deficiencies or excesses. Which is tough to do because it is said that a woman who becomes pregnant always faces the fact that they cannot deal with a child because they lack "strength, independence, resoluteness, decisiveness, self-confidence, responsibility, serious-mindedness, and self-determination" (243) and think they lack one of the aforementioned character traits which leads to them convincing themselves that a virtue of theirs is deficient and thus cannot be a parent. This situation was called to be a moral failing, in that the woman was to blame for being deficient in one of the virtues and being problematic. It is tough to disagree based on virtue theory because if you DO lack one of those virtues, and you are convinced you lack one of those virtues, you ultimately decide you need an abortion and it'd be the right choice, but you would fail on a moral standing because you were deficient in a sense that prevented you from being able to have a child. Its a win lose situation where the woman is in fact doing the right thing, but morally is on bad footing due to her inability to be a parent. I would have to agree, but hesitantly because in such a case if you feel you are not up for being a parent because you current person is not prepared to manage a child, then you shouldn't really have an abortion. However, virtue theory doesn't sympathize and says you are morally wrong for doing so. When are you morally right?? Tough to say because virtue theory doesn't particularly make strong cases for what is right and wrong about abortion based off of Hursthouse's arguments. I believe that the mother should have a indisputable right to have an abortion if for the right reasons. It was mentioned that "one cannot have the right or correct attitude to something if the attitude is based on or involves false belief" (235) meaning if you say you are doing this because you cannot bare a child, but your intentions are selfish and want to do what you want without being ball and chained by a child, that's where I start to disagree with abortion and I would then agree with Hursthouse when he says, "some others who say "I am not ready for parenthood yet" are making some sort of mistake about the extent to which one can manipulate the circumstances of one's life so as to make it fulfill some dream that one has" (242). There are various situations that call for deeper analysis, and simple conclusions cannot be made with virtue theory, excluding rape which seems to be an easy decision by Hursthouse to give full decision to the mother. It is said various times that abortion is a very sticky situation due to the misconceptions by many people nowadays and due to dangerous arguments pertaining to women's rights and the stage of the fetus. I am not sold on one side for abortion, but the many arguments and the few I stated from Hursthouse I agree with based mainly on the level of selfishness or selflessness of the mother. Its a situation varying opinion I have on abortion and so does Hursthouse, but in the end it seems that the mother has tough luck with virtue theory because she seems to be morally wrong most of the time due to a deficient virtue, and I can't help by sympathize with her if she is in a tough situation and doesn't intend to be selfish. That is an area where I am upset at Hursthouse, but more so at the virtue theory, and I can't help but agree because I myself agree that you need to have good intentions when contemplating abortion.

About Fetuses

 "This is really difficult to analyze with virtue theory", Hursthouse said but not verbatim and I am one to agree that the fetus should be aborted because itself is a being only at a certain point and on. If it gets 6 months into the pregnancy or late to a point where the fetus is basically a conscious being in the making, then abortion cannot be validated. The mother had 6 months to make a decision, failed to do so, and should accept it. Anytime less than that, then the mother has the decision. They are innocent, they will lose out on life, but ultimately the woman is always making the decision on whether to have the child or not. Its a very controversial area, but the fetus should be aborted based on choice as long as the mother has the right attitude with true intentions that are not centered around selfishness.