The Ethics of Abortion: Women's Rights, Human Life, and the Question of Justice
by Kaczor; ChristopherEdition: 1st
Format: Nonspecific Binding
Pub. Date: 2010-09-08
Publisher(s): Routledge
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Summary
Appealing to reason rather than religious belief, this book is the most comprehensive case against the choice of abortion yet published. The Ethics of Abortion critically evaluates all the major grounds for denying fetal personhood, including the views of those who defend not only abortion but also infanticide. It also provides several (non-theological) justifications for the conclusion that all human beings, including those in utero, should be respected as persons. This book also critiques the view that abortion is not wrong even if the human fetus is a person. The Ethics of Abortion examines hard cases for those who are prolife, such as abortion in cases of rape or in order to save the mother's life, as well as hard cases for defenders of abortion, such as sex selection abortion and the rationale for being 'œpersonally opposed' but publically supportive of abortion. It concludes with a discussion of whether artificial wombs might end the abortion debate. Answering the arguments of defenders of abortion, this book provides reasoned justification for the view that all intentional abortions are morally wrong and that doctors and nurses who object to abortion should not be forced to act against their consciences.
Author Biography
Dr. Christopher Kaczor is Professor of Philosophy at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles.
Table of Contents
| Acknowledgments | p. x |
| Introduction | p. 1 |
| How Should We Talk About Abortion? | p. 2 |
| Loaded Language | p. 6 |
| Women and Abortion | p. 8 |
| Moral Goodness and Human Flourishing | p. 11 |
| Does Personhood Begin After Birth? | p. 13 |
| Persons vs. Human Beings | p. 14 |
| Not All Human Beings Are Persons | p. 15 |
| Potentiality Is Irrelevant | p. 16 |
| When Does Personhood Begin? | p. 17 |
| Critical Responses to Justifications of Infanticide | p. 20 |
| Is Species Morally Irrelevant? | p. 20 |
| Potentiality and the Symmetry Principle | p. 23 |
| Curious Exceptions to the Rule | p. 27 |
| Defining Personhood | p. 27 |
| Seriously Ill Newborns | p. 33 |
| Arbitrary Limits? | p. 35 |
| Does Personhood Begin at Birth? | p. 38 |
| Distinguishing Humans from Persons | p. 38 |
| Abortion Yes, Infanticide No | p. 40 |
| Critiquing the Conventional View | p. 42 |
| Is Personhood a Matter of Location? | p. 48 |
| What is Partial Birth Abortion? | p. 51 |
| Reconsidering Warren's Account | p. 52 |
| Does Personhood Begin During Pregnancy? | p. 56 |
| What Characteristic Grants Personhood? | p. 56 |
| Conscious Desires/Interests | p. 57 |
| Viability | p. 68 |
| Quickening/Fetal Movement | p. 71 |
| Sentience | p. 74 |
| Human Appearance | p. 78 |
| Brain Development | p. 79 |
| Implantation | p. 81 |
| The Developmental View | p. 83 |
| A Critique of the Developmental View | p. 85 |
| Does Personhood Begin at Conception? | p. 91 |
| Are All Human Beings Persons? | p. 91 |
| Personhood as Endowment or Performance? | p. 93 |
| Humans are Rational Animals | p. 97 |
| The Lessons of History | p. 102 |
| When Do Humans Begin to Exist? | p. 102 |
| The Constitutive Property Argument | p. 105 |
| Does the Human Embryo Have Rights? | p. 121 |
| The Acorn Analogy | p. 122 |
| Size | p. 125 |
| Twinning | p. 127 |
| Embryo Fusion | p. 129 |
| High Embryo-Mortality Rate | p. 131 |
| Hylomorphism | p. 133 |
| Anti-Abortion, Anti-Contraception | p. 136 |
| Living Human Cells Are Not Persons | p. 137 |
| Embryo Rescue Case | p. 139 |
| The Bag of Marbles Analogy | p. 139 |
| Cost-Benefit Analysis | p. 142 |
| The Uncertainty Argument | p. 143 |
| Is it Wrong to Abort a Person? | p. 145 |
| The Violinist Analogy | p. 145 |
| The Burglar Analogy | p. 147 |
| The "No Worse Off" Argument | p. 150 |
| Critical Analysis of the Violinist Analogy | p. 150 |
| The Misunderstood Samaritan | p. 150 |
| The Bodily Integrity Objection | p. 151 |
| The Consistency Objection | p. 154 |
| The Intention/Foresight Objection | p. 157 |
| Critical Analysis of the Burglar Analogy | p. 162 |
| Special Duties to Care for Children? | p. 165 |
| The Comparative Burdens Objection | p. 168 |
| Does Killing Make a Being "Worse Off"? | p. 176 |
| Is Abortion Permissible in Hard Cases? | p. 177 |
| Hard Cases for Critics of Abortion | p. 178 |
| Difficult Circumstances | p. 178 |
| Fetal Deformity | p. 179 |
| Abortion for the Child's Good | p. 181 |
| Cases of Rape and Incest | p. 183 |
| Abortion to Save the Mother's Life | p. 185 |
| Cases of Conscience | p. 191 |
| Hard Cases for Defenders of Abortion | p. 193 |
| Murder of Pregnant Women | p. 193 |
| Sex Selection Abortion | p. 194 |
| Abortion for Frivolous Reasons | p. 200 |
| Safe and Legal, but Why Rare? | p. 200 |
| Why Personal Opposition? | p. 202 |
| Prenatal Bonding with "Our Baby" | p. 206 |
| Morally Permissible vs. Morally Objectionable | p. 209 |
| Intermediate Moral Worth of the Human Fetus | p. 210 |
| Could Artificial Wombs End the Abortion Debate? | p. 215 |
| Artificial Wombs and Ardent Defenders of Abortion | p. 215 |
| Artificial Wombs and Ardent Critics of Abortion | p. 219 |
| The Artificality Objection | p. 219 |
| The IVF Objection | p. 220 |
| The Deprivation of Maternal Shelter Objection | p. 220 |
| The Birth Within Marriage Objection | p. 222 |
| The Integrative Parenthood Objection | p. 223 |
| The Surrogate Motherhood Objection | p. 225 |
| The Wrongful Experimentation Objection | p. 226 |
| The Objection from the Right of a Child to Develop in the Womb of the Mother | p. 227 |
| An End to the Abortion Debate? | p. 230 |
| Bibliography | p. 231 |
| Index | p. 243 |
| Table of Contents provided by Ingram. All Rights Reserved. |
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