A Rational Look at the Abortion ControversyOne of the most controversial issues inside and outside of biomedical ethics today today is abortion. The discussion received new impetus with the release of the controversial abortion drug RU-486, "a pill intended to increase access to abortion and allow women to obtain them privately from their own doctors instead of be confronted with shouting demonstrators in clinics. »2 As it is. In the face of all controversial issues, there are very passionate people on both sides of the fence. Unfortunately, a heated debate over abortion can easily and quickly turn into a battle of rhetoric rather than a dialectic of reason. But the common thread in such a discussion should always be reason, not rhetoric or other fallacies, because only reason can resolve this issue and judge which side is right. In this brief essay, I will attempt to clear up some of the confusion present in typical abortion debates by cooling the rhetoric with reason informed by scientific fact. Specifically, I will examine two common pro-abortion arguments made by Mary Anne Warren and Judith Jarvis Thomson and demonstrate that they cannot withstand rational scrutiny and therefore fail to justify abortion. I will also use a “quadrilemma” type argument similar to that of Peter Kreeft to show that apart from any specific argumentation, abortion cannot be morally justified. Before even beginning to discuss the issue of abortion, it is imperative to agree on a starting point. from which to reason. The fact that some people differ even on this very point tends to make the pro-abortion and anti-abortion paradigms somewhat "incommensurable," and this is probably one of the main reasons people are tempted to arrive at different conclusions on this... ... middle of paper ...... luring equates to unwanted pregnancy due to rape is just ridiculous. The sexual act tends by its nature towards pregnancy, that is to say, it is the natural aim of the sexual act, and any woman who voluntarily engages in this act, with or without contraception, is thus voluntarily opens to pregnancy.20 Wilcox, “Nature as Demonic,” 468.21 Wilcox, “Nature as Demonic,” 468f.22 M. LeRoy Sprang and Mark G. Neerhof, “Rationale for Banning Late-Term Abortions During Pregnancy », Journal of the American Medical Association 280, no. 8 (1998): 745.23 Sprang and Neerhof, “Ban Abortions”, 745.24 Cf. Peter Kreeft, Making Choices: Practical Wisdom for Everyday Moral Decisions (Ann Arbor, MI: Servant Publications, 1990), 119-21.25 One might object that "abortion is morally neutral" is another possibility, but what is morally neutral is morally permissible..