I wanted to share with you the following paper I wrote for my ethics class. What is your opinion on the subject?

A Right to Abortion

The country is split down the middle one side is pro the other is against, what do our nations possible feature leaders think of abortion? In the article Democrats `re-thinking’ their stance on abortion (CentreDaily.com) the author Mike Dorning talks about the democratic view of abortion and why they are starting to second guess their stance.

Many Americans today are in the middle of the road, according to Dorning. The Democrats understand this, but their stance has always been pro-choice. They have always believed that a women should choose her own fate no matter what the circumstances. Now however, many democrats are starting to rethink this, realizing that many Americans are stuck in the middle. Presidential candidates are not sure what to do, as this part of the article explains;

Despite many Americans’ opposition to a late-term procedure called by opponents “partial-birth abortion,” have any of the leading candidates embraced the federal ban on the procedure. (Dorning) Instead, none of the major Democratic presidential hopefuls is wavering in his or her allegiance to the core document of the abortion rights movement, the Supreme Court’s 1973 Roe vs. Wade decision guaranteeing the right to an abortion. (Dorning)Many of the democratic candidates have come up with other ways to they hope to keep the conversation off of abortion but at the same time address the issue. This was in evidence during a forum last week before Planned Parenthood, a group that strongly supports abortion rights. Sen. Hillary Clinton, stressed contraception and sex education, delivering a blistering attack on the Bush administration and congressional Republicans for policies she said limited access to both.(Dorning)In this same meeting Clinton stated “They don’t just want to wage a war on choice. They want to wage a war on contraception. They are against family planning. In the 21st Century, they want to prevent women from having access to the tools they should have to determine their own reproductive futures.” (Dorning)Another front runner, Sen. Barack Obama, offered a vision of equal opportunity for women through an “updated social contract” that tied together better access to contraception and sex education with initiatives that could help two-income families, such as paid maternity leave and longer school days. (Dorning)John Edwards on the other had takes an extreme liberal view, his wife Elizabeth promoted her husband’s health-care initiative because it would include abortion coverage for all American women. She described her husband as “pro-choice - not pro-choice reluctantly, not pro-choice usually, he is simply pro-choice.”(Dorning) This shows that when it comes to Democratic candidates they are all in support of abortion, but on varying levels.This article I believe shows just how much it is going to take to finally figure out a solution to the legality of abortion. It seems that both sides are fixed on what they believe in and neither wants to budge. Then you have the middle ground which is most of America, they believe in a choice, but only under certain circumstances, unfortunately they can not agree on what those are. (Wall)The author of this article tried to keep it to one point of view, he really did not discuss the pro life side or the republican side as that was not the point of the article. The author does reference a few things that were said about republicans by the democrats which shows that in our government there are still many different views on the subject, not just between Democrats and Republicans, but within the parties themselves.

Clinton’s moderate view on the lack of education for women on birth control and options for pregnancy is a great example of why abortions may be so popular. If women were given this information at a young age, they may know that there are other ways to keep from having to make a decision on abortion, such as contraception, abstinence and general family planning. Her ideas would make it seem that she has more of a liberal view, being she believes that a unborn is a person at viability and that abortion is morally acceptable up to viability and immoral after viability. (Wall)

Obama also makes a great point and takes a more moderate stance as well. He figures allowing women to be paid for maternity leave and having the children stay longer in school would make it easier for women to want to keep there children as it wouldn’t hurt their lives as much. He would have the same beliefs as Clinton.

According to the author, Dorning. John Edwards is in complete agreement with liberals and agrees that women should choose. Since he does want to provide coverage for abortions to women, he agrees that the unborn are not people yet, that they have no rights, and that it is always morally acceptable. (Wall)

Using the quotes and information the author used, it would seem this would really helps the reader to see all sides of the story, the author does cover some of each side and give you some great information. The reader may well use there reasoned judgment to decide how they feel not only about abortion, but about the candidates as well.

The problem with these assumptions is that we do not know all of the facts from this article. Information such as why these candidates have these views is left out of this report. The reader could start the critical thinking process and try to take a position, but they will not be able to finish this process without outside information. Unfortunately many Americans don’t have the time to do research on the subject and will probably decide what they believe or do not believe from this article as it is. The author did a good job in making points for the right to abortion, but failed to supply us with the details needed to make a informed choice on the matter.

References

Dorning M. (2007). Democrats `re-thinking’ their stance on abortion. Retrieved August 18, 2007 from http://www.centredaily.com/living/story/183360.html

Wall, T. (2003). Thinking critically about moral problems. United States: Thomson

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