Moral Status Phần 9 pdf

The morality of abortion is often discussed as though it were en￾tirely a matter of the correct moral status to ascribe to the human

foetus. Conservative abortion opponents maintain that, once a

human ovum has been fertilized, the conceptus is a human being

with the same right to life as any other. From this, they conclude

that the intentional termination of a human pregnancy is a form of

homicide, and thus generally impermissible. Some would permit

abortion when the pregnancy was caused by rape or incest, or when

the woman would otherwise die; others would permit no such ex￾ceptions.1 Moderates argue that a foetus does not have an equal

right to life until it has passed some developmental milestone, such

as the first occurrence of detectable brain activity,2 the emergence of

sentience,3 or viability—the capacity to survive if born immediately.

In their view, abortion is morally permissible before that stage, but

not thereafter—except perhaps under special circumstances, such as

when the pregnancy threatens the woman’s life or health, or the foe￾tus is severely abnormal. And liberals argue that it is only at birth,

or possibly somewhat later, that a human individual begins to have

a strong right to life; and that therefore abortion can be morally per￾missible even in the later stages of pregnancy.4

There are two weaknesses inherent in approaches to the ethics of

abortion that focus exclusively upon the nature of the foetus, and

the moral status this is thought to imply. In the first place, the moral

status of embryos and foetuses cannot be determined solely through

9

Abortion and Human Rights

1 John Noonan, ‘An Almost Absolute Value in Human History’, in Joel Feinberg

(ed.), The Problem of Abortion (Belmont, Calif.: Wadsworth, 1984), 9–14. 2 See Baruch Brody, Abortion and the Sanctity of Human Life (Cambridge, Mass.:

MIT Press, 1975). 3 See Sumner, Abortion and Moral Theory, and Steinbock, Life Before Birth. 4 See Tooley, Abortion and Infanticide; and Mary Anne Warren, ‘On the Moral

and Legal Status of Abortion’, The Monist, 57, No. 1 (Jan. 1973), 43–61.

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a consideration of their intrinsic properties, as most of the uni￾criterial approaches require. Their unique relational properties are

also relevant; in particular, their location within and complete

physiological dependence upon the body of a human being who is

(usually) both sentient and a moral agent. These relational proper￾ties have to be considered in determining the moral status that may

reasonably be ascribed to foetuses.

The second, and closely related, problem with the exclusively

foetus-centred approaches to the ethics of abortion is that the moral

status of foetuses is not all that is relevant to the moral permissibil￾ity of abortion. The moral status of women is also at stake, as is the

ability of the human species to maintain population levels that can

be sustained, and that will not deprive posterity of the resources ne￾cessary for good lives. But, while the discussion cannot end with the

intrinsic properties of foetuses, it is useful to begin there, since it is

these properties that are most often thought to confer upon foetuses

a moral status that precludes abortion—and since on any account

these properties are important.

9.1. Life, Biological Humanity, and Sentience

In the industrialized world, the large majority of abortions take

place in the first ten weeks of pregnancy.5 Foetuses at this stage are

obviously not moral agents, and thus are not accorded full moral

status by the Agent’s Rights principle. Nor, at this early stage, are

they capable of sentience; thus neither the Anti-Cruelty principle

nor the Human Rights principle apply. They are, however, alive, and

thus have moral status based upon the Respect for Life principle.

Since they are regarded by some people as having full moral status,

they may gain some moral status through the Transitivity of Respect

principle. However, unless they have full moral status for some other

reason, the status that they can be accorded on the basis of the

Transitivity of Respect principle is limited by the moral rights that

202 Selected Applications

5 In the United States, the figure is roughly 88 per cent; see Grimes, ‘Second

Trimester Abortions in the United States’, Family Planning Perspectives, 16 (1984),

260, cited by Nan D. Hunter, ‘Time Limits on Abortion’, in Sherrill Cohen and

Nadine Taub (eds.), Reproductive Laws for the 1990s (Clifton, NJ: Humana Press,

1989), 149.

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