Warren, Moral status of abortion Flashcards
What are the two stages Warren uses to evaluate the morality of abortion?
(1) Evaluate abortion assuming the fetus has full moral rights; (2) Assess whether the fetus is a person, and thus has moral rights.
Which key assumption does Warren challenge in anti-abortion arguments?
That being biologically human (genetic humanity) is sufficient for moral personhood.
What is Warren’s main conclusion?
A fetus is not a person and thus does not have full moral rights; abortion is morally permissible.
What are the two meanings of “human being” Warren distinguishes?
(1) Genetic sense—belonging to the species Homo sapiens; (2) Moral sense—being a person with full moral rights.
What is Warren’s definition of a person?
A person must meet one or more of these five criteria:
Consciousness
Reasoning
Self-motivated activity
Capacity to communicate
Self-awareness
Why does Warren argue a fetus is not a person?
It satisfies none of the five criteria of personhood.
What is Warren’s criticism of the traditional anti-abortion argument?
It equivocates between the genetic and moral senses of “human being,” making it logically invalid or question-begging.
What does Warren say about potential personhood?
Potential personhood does not grant current moral rights, especially when those rights conflict with the rights of actual persons (e.g., the pregnant woman).
What is Judith Jarvis Thomson’s violinist analogy?
Being forced to support a fetus is like being kidnapped and connected to a violinist who needs your body to survive—morally praiseworthy to help, but not obligatory.
How does Warren evaluate this analogy?
Effective only in rape cases; less applicable when the woman is responsible for the pregnancy (e.g., failed contraception).
What issue arises when extending Thomson’s analogy?
Responsibility: In non-rape cases, the woman’s partial responsibility could imply an obligation to carry the pregnancy—thus weakening the analogy.
According to Warren, how should fetal rights be weighed against women’s rights?
The rights of actual persons (women) always override any potential rights of fetuses.
What about the emotional discomfort with late-term abortions?
Emotional reactions are not sufficient for legal restrictions; moral reasoning should prevail.
What does Warren’s space explorer example show?
Even the rights of many potential persons (e.g., clones) do not outweigh the rights of one actual person.
What conclusion does this support?
A woman’s right to liberty and bodily autonomy outweighs the fetus’s potential to become a person.
How does Warren respond to the objection that her argument permits infanticide?
Infanticide is generally wrong due to practical and emotional reasons (e.g., adoptability, public interest), not because infants are full persons.
What moral distinction does Warren maintain between abortion and infanticide?
Birth ends the woman’s right to determine the infant’s fate, even if the infant is not yet a person.
