Abortion Debate: Defending a Stated Position

The task is narrower than it looks. You are not asked what you believe about abortion; you are asked to explain why you agree with a specific position that has already been written down for you. That means reading Option C as an argument and reconstructing it before defending it. Its structure is visible: a premise about the moral status of the fetus, grounded in capacities it does not yet have — the ability to feel pain, a sense of itself as a being with an identity; a conclusion that it therefore lacks the moral rights of a self-aware adult; and a supporting consideration about the concrete consequences of forced continuation for the woman's economic prospects, education and mental health. Set those out separately, because a defence that never distinguishes the moral-status premise from the consequentialist support cannot be assessed and usually collapses into assertion. Number them if it helps, because the defence has to address each one separately.

Then defend it properly, which means engaging with the strongest objection rather than the weakest. The strongest objection to a capacity-based account of moral status is that capacities develop gradually and the argument therefore has to say where the line falls and why — and that the same reasoning, applied consistently, produces uncomfortable conclusions about newborns and about adults with severe cognitive impairment. A defence that answers that objection is worth ten that ignore it, and there are real answers available: potentiality arguments, the significance of birth as a bright line, and the bodily-autonomy argument that grants fetal moral status and still concludes that no one is obliged to sustain another's life with their own body. Use Pence as required and name your ethical framework, since the same position looks different defended by a consequentialist and by a rights theorist. Say plainly whether your defence needs the fetus to lack moral status, or survives granting it.