Moderate views of abortion

Adv Bioeth. 1997:2:203-26.

Abstract

PIP: This essay offers a moderate view of abortion that imposes a time limit for unrestricted abortion and specific indications for later abortions. The introduction notes that the discussion will provide a defense for this policy based on a moral analysis but that other options for moderates, especially options provided by freestanding views (the defense of which does not rest on any prior commitment about the morality of abortion), will also be considered. The next section considers the moral status of the fetus grounded in a criterion of moral standing that stipulates the necessary characteristics to achieve moral standing. This discussion concludes that a fetus acquires moral standing only when it becomes sentient. Section 3 moves the argument from ethics to politics to prove that a moderate policy must place no limitations on abortion before the time the fetus becomes sentient because before that time the fetus has no interest for the state to protect. The final section notes that some pro-choice advocates may be happier with the moderate policy proposed than with its controversial defense based on the moral status of the fetus and that another defense of a moderate policy could be based on a finding that the ethical issue can not be decided and that no view about abortion ethics is more reasonable than any other. The essay concludes that the ethical debate is ultimately unavoidable.

MeSH terms

  • Abortion, Induced*
  • Ethics*
  • Family Planning Services
  • Philosophy*
  • Politics*