Abstract
The status of the fetus cannot be easily set aside, however much we prefer to focus on the woman. Arguments that the fetus has its own claim to life, even its own rights, chip away at support for women’s reproductive choice. They unsettle many politicians and policy makers, and make some doctors—even those who are willing to provide abortion to the limits of the law—feel uneasy.
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Notes
- 1.
Ronald Dworkin (1993). Life’s Dominion: An Argument about Abortion, Euthanasia, and Individual Freedom. London: HarperCollins, p. 82.
- 2.
See Robert Edwards (1989). Life Before Birth. London: Hutchinson, pp. 113–123.
- 3.
Robert E. Joyce (1978). Personhood and the conception event. The New Scholasticism, 52(Winter), 106, 113 cited in Frances J. Beckwith (2007). Defending Life: A Moral and Legal Case Against Abortion Choice. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, p. 134.
- 4.
David S. Oderberg (2000a). Applied Ethics: A Non-Consequentialist Approach. Oxford: Blackwell, p. 21.
- 5.
Robert George and Christopher Tollesfen (2011). Embryo: A Defense of Human Life. Princeton: The Witherspoon Institute, p. 20.
- 6.
Paul Ramsey (1968). The morality of abortion. In Edward Shils et al. (Eds.), Life or Death: Ethics and Options. Portland: Reed College, pp. 61–62.
- 7.
He repeats this dismissal on pp. 95, 97, 99, 100, 101, 103, 104 and 106.
- 8.
Helge Kuhse and Peter Singer (1985). Should the Baby Live? The Problem of Handicapped Infants. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
- 9.
See Roseanne Cecil (Ed.) (1996). The Anthropology of Pregnancy Loss: Comparative Studies in Miscarriage, Stillbirth and Neonatal Death. Oxford: Berg, pp. 1–11 and Jacqueline Vincent Prija (1992). Birth Traditions and Modern Pregnancy Care. Shaftesbury, Dorset: Element, Chaps. 3 and 4.
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US Central Intelligence Agency (Ed.) (2015). .World Fact Book.. Washington, DC: Potomac Books.
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K. L. Costeloe, E. M. Hennessy, S. Haider and F. Stacey (2012). Short term outcomes after extreme preterm birth in England: Comparison of two birth cohorts in 1995 and 2006: the EPIcure studies. British Medical Journal, 345, e7976.
- 12.
Jessica Eisen (2010). Liberating animal law: Breaking free from human-use typologies. Animal Law, 59, 60–75; Peter Singer (1995). Animal Liberation, 2nd ed. London: Thorsons.
- 13.
Helga Kuhse and Peter Singer (1985). Should the Baby Live? The Problem of Handicapped Infants. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
- 14.
This is fully explored in John Harris (1985). The Value of Life: An Introduction to Medical Ethics. London: Routledge, Chap. 1.
- 15.
John Locke (1689). An Essay Concerning Human Understanding.
- 16.
Aristotle. Nicomachean Ethics. I.13, De anima III 1.1.
- 17.
M. S. Komrad (1983). A defence of medical paternalism maximizing patient autonomy. Journal of Medical Ethics, 9, 38–44.
- 18.
John Harris (1985). The Value of Life: An Introduction to Medical Ethics. London: Routledge.
- 19.
See Ronald Dworkin (2013). Religion Without God. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
- 20.
Ronald Dworkin (1993). Life’s Dominion: An Argument about Abortion,Euthanasia, and Individual Freedom. London: HarperCollins, p. 84.
- 21.
Ronald Dworkin (1993). Life’s Dominion: An Argument about Abortion,Euthanasia, and Individual Freedom. London: HarperCollins, p. 15.
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Furedi, A. (2016). It Is Human? Do We Care?. In: The Moral Case for Abortion. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-41119-8_5
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