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Contemporary Moral Problems (Course Guide)

Course Materials - Instructor: Douglas Weidenbach

Issue: Abortion

Abortion

icon medical procedure

Key Questions
  • What makes a person?
  • Is there is any morally relevant point during the biological process of the development of the fetus from its beginning as a unicellular zygote to birth itself that may justify not having an abortion after that point?
Key Terms
  • Zygote
  • Embryo 
  • Fetus
  • Quickening
  • Viability 
  • Personhood
  • Potentiality
  • Utilitarians
  • Hippocratic oath
  • Laws
    • English Common Law and US Law 
    • Roe v. Wade (1973)
    • Doe v. Bolton (1973)
    • Webster v. Reproductive Health Services (1989)
    • Planned Parenthood v. Casey (1992)
    • Partial Birth Abortion Act
    • Gonzales v. Carhart (2007)
    • Dobbs v. Jackson (2022)
Key People
  • Harry Blackmun, Supreme Court Justice
  • William Rehnquist, Supreme Court Justice
  • Byron White, Supreme Court Justice
  • Harold Noonan, Philosopher
  • Immanuel Kant, Philosopher
  • Don Marquis, Philosopher
  • Judith Jarvis Johnson, Philosopher
  • Eugene Mills, Philosopher
  • Mary Anne Warren, Philosopher

Additional Course Documents

pie chart gestational age of induced abortion - 92 percent is less than 13 weeks

Watch Video: Judith Jarvis Johnson - Defense of Abortion

Watch Video: Don Marquis on Why Abortion is Wrong

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