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How to respond the Classmates Your discussion question responses to other students must be substantive (i

Sociology

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How to respond the Classmates

Your discussion question responses to other students must be substantive (i.e., they must make a contribution to the discussion, rather than simply expressing your approval of their post). Here are some of the types of responses that are appropriate and will earn you fill credit: (p, q, & r are variables of statements)

You can post several types of replies to your classmates:

1) Clarification Request: You claim p, but I don't know what you mean by saying p. Please clarify. Do you mean by this q or r?

2) Argument Request: You claim p. I know what you mean by p. But why do you claim p? I don't see any argument for p, and I think you need to give an argument for it.

3) Objection: You claim p (and maybe you argue for it). However, I think that p, (or your argument for p), is problematic. Here's my objection to p (or to your argument for p): q. What do you say in response to q?

4) Assistance. You claim p. I agree with you that p, but i think the following additional reason (which you do not mention) can be given in support of p: q.

5) Competing Interpretation: You say that the reading claims that p. However, I don't think that this is exactly what it says. Instead, I think it says q (and here's why I think this).

6) Suggestion of Parallels: You claim p. P reminds me of so-and-so's claim that q. (But keep in mind: Are the two really similar? Does comparing p to q help illuminate p, or is it just misleading?)

Here are two comments from my classmates, which need to response following the ways above.

1. In “A Defense of Abortion,” Thomson suggests that although she may not think abortion is the right decision for all cases, abortion should still be allowed in some situations. Her writing displays a few different arguments as to why abortion should be permissible in certain occasions.

From my perspective, I found that two situations and arguments in particular in Thomson’s writing stood out to me. The first situation Thomson brings up in defense of abortions in the case of rape, where women should have the ability to choose whether or not they want to abort the child. Thomson shares that those who are strongly against abortion would feel great pity for the mother, but there would still be no exception to terminating the pregnancy. The second open-ended situation that Tomson proposed which stood out to me is if the mother were to die due to a pregnancy. Now to me, this argument was very interesting to read. Those who are against abortion typically argue that all people have the right to live. Thomson argues that if the mother were to face death due to her pregnancy, shouldn’t the mother have a right to life, too? And not only the fetus?

Another thought to consider- Do you think there are any extreme circumstances where those who typically are very against abortion may accept an abortion?

2. In “Why Abortion Is Immoral,” author Don Marquis argues for the immense immorality that abortion is attributed with. Initially Marquis addresses common arguments for and against abortion and shows a similar argument for both that involve defining what is considered to be a fetus with personhood. Marquis comments on these arguments and shows that their lack of a solid definition on what a fetus is during certain periods of pregnancy attribute to the generally faultiness of their claims. Instead, Marquis defines the ethics of killing a human in order to apply it to the killing of fetuses to solidify his argument against abortion. This theory of killing states that the moral wrongness of killing is attributed to taking the future value of a human’s life, that is the killing of a person is the most cruel punishment because it takes away the things a human loves and potentially can do. It is in this framework that one can see the morality of abortion. By aborting a fetus, whether it be defined as one with personhood or not, you are taking away the future value it has to itself and society. I agree and understand the logic behind the morality of killing and how it applies to fetuses. While I do agree that it is then morally wrong to kill a baby, I believe that there are still exceptions to this theory just as there are exceptions to the killing of certain people. In the situation of abortion I believe they are two people to consider in the argument of morality, the fetus and the mother. This inclusion leads to whether to view one person as more valuable than the other, something that I don’t see as easily decided.