Calum Miller recently argued that a commitment to a very modest form of egalitarianism—equality between non-disabled human adults—implies fetal personhood. Miller claims that the most plausible basis for human equality is in being human—an attribute which fetuses have—therefore, abortion is likely to be morally wrong. In this paper, I offer a plausible defence for the view that equality between non-disabled human adults does not imply fetal personhood. I also offer a challenge for Miller’s view.

Abortion restrictions are particularly good for black women—at least in the United States. This claim will likely strike many as outlandish. And numerous commentaries on abortion restrictions have suggested otherwise: many authors have lamented the effects of abortion restrictions on women, and black women in particular—these restrictions are bad for them, these authors say. However, abortion restrictions are clearly good for black women. This is because if someone is prevented from performing a morally wrong action, it’s good for her. For (...) example, it’s good for Sarah if she’s prevented from driving home drunk. However, since abortion is morally wrong, it follows that it’s good for women when they are prevented from getting an abortion. And since black women get abortions at disproportionately high rates, abortion restrictions are good in particular for black women. Indeed, this is an example of a positive effect of intersectionality. (shrink)

Miller has recently argued that the standard liberal and moderate positions on abortion are incapable of grounding the claim that ‘all non-disabled adult humans are equal’. The reason, he claims, is such accounts base the intrinsic moral worth of a human being on some property (or set of properties) which comes in degrees. In contrast, he argues that moral equality must reside in some binary property, such as the property of being human. In this paper, I offer three criticisms of (...) Miller’s position. (shrink)

Miller has recently argued that fetuses have the same inherent value as non-disabled adults. However, we do not need to postulate some property possessed equally by all humans, including fetuses, in order to explain the equality of non-disabled adults. It would suffice if there were some property possessed by all non-disabled adults, but not by fetuses.

I have recently offered a defence of human equality, and consequently an argument against abortion. This has been objected to by Bozzo, on the grounds that my account of human equality is unclear and could be grounded in utilitarian or Kantian ethics, that my account struggles to ground the permissibility of therapeutic abortions, and that my proposed foundation for human equality itself is parasitic on a scalar property which generates the same difficulties I am attempting to solve. I provide an (...) account of human equality which cannot easily be grounded in utilitarianism or Kantianism, offer a variety of defences of therapeutic abortion consistent with treating the mother and child equally, and show that even if the value of humanness is ultimately grounded in a scalar quality, my argument succeeds. (shrink)

In a recent article, I argued that all humans are morally equal, and that this generates an argument against abortion. Here, I defend my argument against two objections from Räsänen: that it is possible to ground equal human value in the ability to flourish in a particular kind of way, and that being human is not, in fact, a binary property in the way needed for the argument to work. I show that this proposed criterion for grounding human value falls (...) prey to my original argument, and that Räsänen’s attempt to conceive of subhuman entities fails. (shrink)