When does human life begin? This is the question that is fundamental to the issue of abortion. Whether or not an abortion should be legal needs to be based on the answer to the question of if, and at what point a foetus becomes person. Do the rights of the mother ever override the foetus’s right? Does a foetus have the same right to life as an adult person? If a foetus is given this right to life then is abortion the same as killing? When, if ever, is it right to terminate a pregnancy?
To begin to address these questions I will examine some of the main reasons for and against the view that abortion is a form of killing most notably by examining the conservative position, and the liberal position.
I would like to present my examination of abortion by looking firstly at the
Liberal Argument. This approach claims that in almost all cases the mother has the right to terminate a pregnancy, at any time and for any reason. The foetus is no more human than an appendix or liver.
Mary Anne Warren’s Argument for Abortion is that of a liberal one. In her article, On the Moral and Legal Status of Abortion, she writes that
“…A women’s right to protect her health, happiness, freedom, and even her life, by terminating an unwanted
