A. Jonathan Glover, in his article Matters of Life and Death casts dispersions on both pro-abortion and anti-abortion debates citing them as too knee-jerk emotional reactions diminishing the inherent complexity of the other side (1. Glover, CC2006, p. 0110). Glover comprehensively addresses the key points of both sides of the abortion debate and evaluates their inherent virtues, especially for those who hold these opinions, then methodically points out its flaws. Ultimately, Glover comes to the conclusion that though a fetus is a human at the moment of conception, the right to abort lies with the mother and her own self-determination.
Glover begins his article by claiming that the status of the fetus, historically, has been solely discussed by and been determined by men and it has only been in relative recent history that women entered the debate and claimed the bearing of children was so intrinsic to the life women that the fetus was essentially controlled by women and to deny them decisions over their fetuses was a grave injustice (2. Glover, CC2006, p. 0105-6). This argument will later frame Glover's view that abortion is solely a woman's choice and that the moral underpinnings are up to her to decide. Elaborating on the idea of how linked women are to pregnancy, Glover points out the grim reality of however awful the nine months of unwanted pregnancy is pales to the state of a family throughout the lifetime of having to rear an unwanted child (3. Glover, CC2006, p. 0106). Glover espouses the virtues of abortion in maintaining functional families, preventing terrible physical afflictions and curbing world overpopulation and how these benefits are being usurped by the restrictive views and politics of abortion (4. Glover, CC2006, p. 0114). The consideration of the wholesomeness of family is often overlooked by the one-dimensional anti-abortion arguments who seem only to care about bringing the child into the world rather than how to make the child's