Philosophy Research Archives 11:181-195 (1985)
Authors |
|
Abstract |
The Silent Scream, a videotape which includes footage of a real time sonogram of an abortion in progress, has been receiving considerable attention in America as the anti-abortion movement’s latest argument. The tape has been enthusiastically endorsed by President Reagan and has been distributed to every member of Congress and to each of the Supreme Court justices. It is produced and narrated by Bernard N. Nathanson, a practicing obstetrician and gynecologist, and it includes a number of implicit and explicit claims which are highly controversial. Chief among these are: (1) the claim that since we can draw no morally significant line during the stages of fetal development, the fetusmust be recognized as a person from conception onward, (2) the claim that the film is a high tech, state of the art proof that abortion is the brutal murder of an innocent human being, (3) the claim that in abortion the fetus experiences terror and pain, and (4) the claim that as long as abortion is legal, showing this film (or one relevantly similar) must be made part of the informed consent procedure for abortion. My purpose in this paper is to examine these claims to see if The Silent Scream adds anything to the moral case for making abortion illegal. I give particular attention to two claims which are seldom addressed in the abortion debate, viz., that the fetus experiences terror and pain during an abortion, and that women have not had the information they need (but which this film provides) to give an adequately informed consent to abortion. Since there is so much confusion in the abortion debate, and since this film trades on that confusion, my broader purpose is to add some clarificationto the public discussion of this issue, which is daily becoming a more divisive issue of public policy
|
Keywords | Contemporary Philosophy History of Philosophy |
Categories | (categorize this paper) |
ISBN(s) | 0164-0771 |
DOI | 10.5840/pra19851110 |
Options |
![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() |
Download options
References found in this work BETA
No references found.
Citations of this work BETA
No citations found.
Similar books and articles
Creation and Abortion: A Study in Moral and Legal Philosophy.F. M. Kamm - 1992 - Oxford University Press.
Abortion, Society, and the Law.David F. Walbert - 1973 - Cleveland [Ohio]Press of Case Western Reserve University.
Abortion Rates: Is a Rough Estimate Better Than No Estimate at All?Zac Alstin - 2012 - Bioethics Research Notes 24 (2):32.
Abortion, Christianity, and Consistency.Richard Schoenig - 1998 - Philosophy in the Contemporary World 5 (1):32-37.
Abortion and Degrees of Personhood: Understanding the Impasse of the Abortion Problem.Hon-Lam Li - 1997 - Public Affairs Quarterly 11 (1):1-19.
Abortion Without Free and Informed Consent? An Austrian Case of First Impression.Erwin Bernat - 2001 - Journal of Medicine and Philosophy 26 (3):311 – 321.
Abortion and the Argument From Potential: What We Owe to the Ones Who Might Exist.A. Giubilini - 2012 - Journal of Medicine and Philosophy 37 (1):49-59.
Abortion and Protection of the Human Fetus: Religious and Legal Problems in Pakistan.Habib Ahmad Sajid Ul-Ghafoor & Muhammad Ilyas Mukhtar Alam - 2010 - Human Reproduction and Genetic Ethics 15 (2):55-59.
Abortion Counselling and the Informed Consent Dilemma.Scott Woodcock - 2011 - Bioethics 25 (9):495-504.
The Fetal Position: A Rational Approach to the Abortion Debate.Chris Meyers - 2010 - Prometheus Books.
Analytics
Added to PP index
2011-12-02
Total views
27 ( #384,859 of 2,410,082 )
Recent downloads (6 months)
1 ( #541,624 of 2,410,082 )
2011-12-02
Total views
27 ( #384,859 of 2,410,082 )
Recent downloads (6 months)
1 ( #541,624 of 2,410,082 )
How can I increase my downloads?
Downloads