Material Detail

This book introduces readers to the many arguments and controversies concerning abortion. While it argues for ethical and legal positions on the issues, it focuses on how to think about the issues, not just what to think about them. It is an ideal resource to improve your understanding of what people think, why they think that and whether their (and your) arguments are good or bad, and why. It's ideal for classroom use, discussion groups, organizational learning, and personal reading. 

. .   we use basic critical thinking skills to argue that abortion is typically not morally wrong. We begin with less morally-controversial claims: adults, children and babies are wrong to kill and wrong to kill, fundamentally, because they, we, are conscious, aware and have feelings. We argue that since early fetuses entirely lack these characteristics, they are not inherently wrong to kill and so most abortions are not morally wrong, since most abortions are done early in pregnancy, before consciousness and feeling develop in the fetus.  

Furthermore, since the right to life is not the right to someone else’s body, fetuses might not have the right to the pregnant woman’s body—which she has the right to—and so she has the right to not allow the fetus use of her body. This further justifies abortion, at least until technology allows for the removal of fetuses to other wombs. Since morally permissible actions should be legal, abortions should be legal: it is an injustice to criminalizing actions that are not wrong.

In the course of arguing for these claims, we:

1. discuss how to best define abortion;

2. dismiss many common “question-begging” arguments that merely assume their conclusions, instead of giving genuine reasons for them;

3. refute some often-heard “everyday arguments” about abortion, on all sides;

4. explain why the most influential philosophical arguments against abortion are unsuccessful;

5. provide some positive arguments that at least early abortions are not wrong;

6. briefly discuss the ethics and legality of later abortions, and more.

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