PHI 1102 Lecture 8: Abortion III
11 Jul 2016
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Document Summary
Main conclusion: abortion is morally permissible and should not be legally prohibited or made needlessly dif cult to obtain. Main supporting assumptions: the moral community includes all persons, possibly only persons, rights should not be extended to non-persons at the cost of a person, the pregnant woman is a person and the fetus is not. Characteristics central to the concept of personhood are consciousness, reasoning, self-motivated agency, capacity to communicate, and presence of self-concepts and self awareness. It may not be necessary to have all of these to be a person. The more criteria satis ed, the more likely the concept applies and vice versa. Genetic humanity is neither necessary nor suf cient. Moral agency also matters to moral status, because it is moral agents who invent moral rights, and who can be obliged to respect them. Fetus is unlikely to qualify, mother is highly likely to qualify.
