I defend the right to an abortion at any stage of pregnancy by drawing on a Kantian account of consent and innate right. I examine how pregnant women are positioned in moral and legal debates about abortion, and develop a Kanitan account of bodily autonomy in order to pregnant women’s epistemic authority over the experience of pregnancy. Second, I show how Kant's distinction between innate and private right offers an excellent legal framework for embodied rights, including abortion and sexual consent, (...) and I draw on the legal definition of sexual consent in order to show how abortion discourse undermines women's innate right. I then explore Kant’s treatment of the infanticidal mother, and draw out the parallels between this case and contemporary abortion rights in order to develop a distinctly Kantian framework of reproductive rights in non-ideal conditions. Finally, I explore the implications of this non-ideal approach for contemporary abortion discourse, arguing that debates about the legality of abortion should more broadly engage the barbaric conditions of reproductive injustice. (shrink)

Most Act-Utilitarians, including Singer are Permissivists who claim that their theory usually permits abortion. In contrast, a minority, including Hare and Tännsjö, are Restrictionists who assert that Act-Utilitarianism usually limits abortion. I argue that both Permissivists and Restrictionists have misunderstood AU’s radical implications for abortion: AU entails that abortion is, in most cases in the economically developed world, morally obligatory. According to AU, it is morally obligatory for A to do F in circumstances C if and only if A’s doing (...) F in C produces at least as much total net value as any other action that A could do in C. As mentioned above, AU has generally been seen to be fairly permissive about abortion. A little more exactly, AU is usually thought to hold that abortion is morally permissible in most cases, even during the second and third trimester. But not all AUs are Permissivists. Restrictionists maintain that the value of the future good that the fetus will experience over an entire life is likely to often outweigh the value of the good that its female parent will lose if the fetus is not aborted. Neither Permissivists nor Restrictionists have understood AU’s implications for abortion, at least as it concerns those living in economically developed countries today. First, Restrictionists have failed to recognize the marginal costs that a person in the developed world incurs on future people. One life lived now in the developed world consumes more resources than a life lived in the developing world, and in the process makes the prospects of future people considerably worse. Restrictionists ignore these costs when they claim that it is often morally impermissible to abort fetuses. Second, Permissivists have not gone far enough when they have claimed that abortion is morally permissible. Singer and others have argued that we in the developed world ought to redirect much of our wealth to the underdeveloped world because its marginal value is much higher there than here. But the average cost of raising a child in the United States is almost $13,000 per year. Hence, by forgoing a child one can save and maintain, on average, between 6 and 65 people per year. Thus, AU entails that almost everyone in the developed world who is financially capable of supporting a child should not do so, even if that means aborting a fetus. (shrink)

This paper examines the issue of abortion from a Kantian perspective. More specifically, it focuses on Kant’s Formula of Humanity of the Categorical Imperative and the prohibition against treating humanity merely as a means. It has been argued by feminists that forcing a woman to continue a pregnancy against her will is treating her as a mere means for sustaining the fetus, a mere “fetal incubator”. Accordingly, feminists believe, this constitutes an assault on her humanity, the capacity for rationally setting (...) and pursuing her own ends. On the other hand, the woman who aborts her fetus can be seen as treating a being which has the potential for humanity merely as a means for her own ends. The Kantian discussion of abortion gives rise to a number of important questions: Does respecting the pregnant woman’s humanity, and hence enabling her to have an abortion if she chooses that way, go against appropriately respecting the fetus? What does it really mean to respect a fetus’ potential for humanity? Attempting to answer these questions helps us to see the Kantian prohibition against treating humanity merely as a means from a different, less familiar perspective, and puts out some new challenges to Kant’s theory. At the same time, it gives us new and useful insights on the much-discussed issue of the fetus’ status in the abortion debate. (shrink)

Next SectionI challenge the idea that the argument from potential (AFP) represents a valid moral objection to abortion. I consider the form of AFP that was defended by Hare, which holds that abortion is against the interests of the potential person who is prevented from existing. My reply is that AFP, though not unsound by itself, does not apply to the issue of abortion. The reason is that AFP only works in the cases of so-called same number and same people (...) choices, but it falsely presupposes that abortion is such a kind of choice. This refutation of AFP implies that (1) abortion is not only morally permissible but sometimes even morally mandatory and (2) abortion is morally permissible even when the potential person’s life is foreseen to be worth living. (shrink)

The formula of universal law (FUL) is a natural starting point for philosophers interested in a Kantian perspective on the morality of abortion. I argue, however, that FUL does not yield much in the way of promising or substantive conclusions regarding the morality of abortion. I first reveal how two philosophers' (Hare's and Gensler's) attempts to use Kantian considerations of universality and prescriptivity fail to provide analyses of abortion that are either compelling or true to Kant=s understanding of FUL. I (...) then turn to some recent interpretations of Kant=s FUL contradiction in conception (CC) and contradiction in will (CW) tests. I argue that none of the interpretations of the CC testBincluding the practical interpretation favored by KorsgaardBdoes much to reveal moral problems with maxims of abortion. The CW test (as developed by Herman) is more helpful. Nevertheless, I argue that neither by considering abortion maxims as a subset of maxims of convenience killing, nor by considering such maxims as maxims of refusing to aid, can the CW test generate a general prohibition of abortion. At best, the CW test illuminates the abortion issue because by forcing us to think about how killing a fetus differs from killing other human beings, what attitudes we may reasonably have toward a fetus, and whether Kant's moral theory must be amended to do justice to the problem of abortion. But to pursue these questions, we must look beyond FUL; Kant’s formula of humanity and doctrine of virtue may well have more to offer. (shrink)

Medical stem cell research is currently the cause of much moral controversy. Those who would confer the same moral status to embryos as we do to humans consider that harvesting such embryonic cells entails sacrificing embryos. In this paper, the author analyses critically the arguments given for such a perspective. Finally, a theory of moral status is outlined that coherently and plausibly supports the use of embryonic stem cells in therapeutic research.

Abortion is largely accepted even for reasons that do not have anything to do with the fetus' health. By showing that (1) both fetuses and newborns do not have the same moral status as actual persons, (2) the fact that both are potential persons is morally irrelevant and (3) adoption is not always in the best interest of actual people, the authors argue that what we call ‘after-birth abortion’ (killing a newborn) should be permissible in all the cases where abortion (...) is, including cases where the newborn is not disabled. (shrink)

Professor Foot's Hart Lecture, now published (1995), is largely devoted to an attack on people she calls ‘subjectivists’ and ‘noncognitivists', among whom she includes myself, although she is so good as to allow me, in a footnote, to reject thenames.She seems to imply thereby that this is a mere matter of nomenclature or terminology. But in truth her use of these terms makes one suspect that she has not fully understood either the issues or what I have said about them.It (...) may therefore be useful to explain yet again why I reject these descriptions. I have done so already in a paper to a conference in Moscow which she heard, and to which she kindly refers (Hare 1993a). These explanations would not be important if she were the only person to be confused about this matter; but the confusions are so widespread, even among professional philosophers who should know better, and are so often taught to succeeding generations of students, that it is worth while to make yet another attempt to clear them up - though the confusions are so insidious that I have not much hope that they will ever be eradicated. (shrink)