Abortion

I think the author’s point on women’s rights being irrelevant to the discussion of abortion with regard to virtue theory was surprising, and at the core of virtue theory. Women’s rights are often brought up in the context of abortion because regardless of what any law of nation or state might say, it is a woman’s body, and therefore she has a right to choose what to do with her body. But virtue ethics is not concerned with what a woman, or any person for that matter, has a right to. It only concerns the virtue theorist if an act propagates one’s flourishing. It’s not one people are used to, or I am. But in that vein, ones shouldn’t lie, not because of some inherent moral wrong, but because honesty is a virtue that will promote one’s on life, and dishonesty is a vice that will hinder it. Now while the author says she is not trying to convince anyone of how to sway on the issue, she thinks that once her thought process is laid out in the virtue theory fashion, the answers should all become self-evident. Have an abortion, if it will truly lead to your eudaimonia. And in this regard, it takes much of the vitriol and partisanship out of the debate. Was a woman raped? Then it probably isn’t in her wellbeing to continue the pregnancy. Is it a woman’s fifth abortion? There may be nothing wrong with proceeding with it, but there may be some actions further up the road that could be unvirtuous, leading to this abortion, which in itself may be fine. The author states, this is a tricky doctrine to adhere to because there is no, “what would Socrrates/Jesus/any influential person do in my situation?” It is up to the morally informed and experienced person to address the abortion on a case by case basis. This is not easy, but I think the author makes a powerful case for it.