Abstract

The author first examines the usefulness of argument by analogy in moral discussions, the way argument by analogy works and three ways in which it can miscarry. He then uses this understanding of argument by analogy to see if the conceptionalists' position on the emergence of the value of life, on which rests their opposition to virtually all direct abortion, can be illumined and strengthened by analogies drawn from our other experiences of the emergence of value. The fact that no such analogies can be located is presented as a significant, but not necessarily fatal obstacle to the understanding and the acceptance of the conceptionalist position.