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... e stay overnight, however humanity imposed that they do so because of his condition (6. Noonan, CC 2005, p 0182). By presenting this court case he suggests that what the judge determined was what humanity is required to do in a real life situation because he used his own human perception and moral judgment to decide on the case. He states that this case is much more similar to abortion than the violinist analogy because Depue was a poor defenseless sick man who needed the Flateaus home and kindness for shelter and survival. As a fetus is poor and defenseless needing a mothers womb for protection and survival.
The Flateaus throwing Depue out into the cold where he was frost bitten and lost his fingers is similar to a mother aborting her pregnancy leaving the fetus defenseless and out in the cold. A mother that would do that to her fetus is unacceptable and inhumane because she is obligated to keep this fetus alive and well inside her womb because she can and is required to do so (7. Noonan, CC 2005, p 0182). But what if keeping the fetus in her womb would threaten the life of the mother? How can perception or sense experience solve this problem when the values at stake are both the lives of the mother and the fetus?
Noonan would look at the situation and determine what is at stake such as the mothers choice and how the fetus was conceived and how far along the fetus is. Does the mother want to go through with the pregnancy risking her own life? Of course pro-life mothers would choose to go through with the pregnancy despite their death. They would think of it as giving life since the fetus is the base of life they would be prepared to die. Then that would solve the problem of who to save and who knows there might be a chance that the mother will survive and there wouldnt have to be a loss of either lives. That is how he would validate his belief.
He feels it is a mistake to abort a fetus in any situation be it rape or a physical deformity. It is all emotion that is stopping this fetus from living life. It may be hard to go through having a child that will forever be a product of rape or is physically deformed. It is still tougher on the fetus if the fetus were a person too; aborting would not solve any problem but would solely result in the death of the fetus (8.
Noonan, CC 2005, p 0182). If the mother, whose life is at risk if she went through with the pregnancy, decides to abort at what point can we draw the line? When is it ok to abort a fetus? Noonan states that there are too many stages at which people adopt it as a line.
When they do draw a line at a certain stage they are asked why draw it there and not earlier or why not a little later? The fact that there is never one real answer to where the line is to be drawn is because someone would only draw the line where they see fit; where the line would be most convenient to them. For instance Judith Boss, author of Analyzing Moral Issues, would draw the line at the first trimester because after that the fetus will develop a brain and later become viable (9. Noonan, CC 2005, p 0196).
But then someone could argue that even though there is a brain is the fetus a person yet? Or a woman who was raped and took 4 months to decide whether or not she would abort the pregnancy decides she will abort now could set the line at 4 months. Since she has no connection with the fetus and it will just remind her of a traumatic experience she would draw the line the moment she made her decision no matter how far along the pregnancy is because she feels she has no relation to the fetus. To her it is still medically possible and she doesnt think that a fetus has reached personhood yet. Therefore the concept of where to draw the line just distracts a mother from naturally making the moral decision by her own perception (10.
Noonan, CC 2005, p 0185). Jonathan Glover, author of Matters of Life and Death, criticizes both Thomson's and Noonan's methods of reasoning abortion by saying that both are too one dimensional. He believes that the reasoning a pregnant woman should use for abortion would be her own free-will and self-determination. She has every right to do what she wants with her body. Glover agrees with Noonan that we should draw the line at the moment of conception because the other stages are so subtle it is hard to tell when the fetus is actually a person.
For those who draw the line at viability, that isnt a stable boundary because it changes with the progress of technology. He states that two fetuses of the same stage of development at two different hospitals might have different outcomes depending on the level of technology provided by the hospital. One might die because of lack of sufficient technology while the other would live (11. Glover, CC 2005, p 0002). However he disagrees with Noonan's method of using perception to justify personhood.
He states that it is wrong to link personhood with being self-conscious because even newborns are not self-conscious. But fetuses are accepted as an entity in the human community from the moment of birth. Babies dont become self-conscious until they learn to want and realize a sense of self and that doesnt happen until a great while after birth. That is what Glover defines as personhood. To think that they are lifeless matter before that moment of personhood is irreconcilable because that would mean a newborn could be killed and that would justify infanticide (12. Glover, CC 2005, p 0003).
Noonan would counter Glover saying that he has drawn the line at the beginning and that from the beginning the fetus is a person, a life. It is true the self-realization defines a person but that doesnt mean that we can disregard the fact that the embryo is the foundation of this self and without it we would never reach that point. Therefore by considering the embryo a person at the point of conception is perceived by human judgment.
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