ethical essay on abortion

Ethics and Morality

Ethics and abortion, two opposing arguments on the morality of abortion..

Posted June 7, 2019 | Reviewed by Jessica Schrader

Abortion is, once again, center stage in our political debates. According to the Guttmacher Institute, over 350 pieces of legislation restricting abortion have been introduced. Ten states have signed bans of some sort, but these are all being challenged. None of these, including "heartbeat" laws, are currently in effect. 1

Much has been written about abortion from a philosophical perspective. Here, I'd like to summarize what I believe to be the best argument on each side of the abortion debate. To be clear, I'm not advocating either position here; I'm simply trying to bring some clarity to the issues. The focus of these arguments is on the morality of abortion, not its constitutional or legal status. This is important. One might believe, as many do, that at least some abortions are immoral but that the law should not restrict choice in this realm of life. Others, of course, argue that abortion is immoral and should be illegal in most or all cases.

"Personhood"

Personhood refers to the moral status of an entity. If an entity is a person , in this particular sense, it has full moral status . A person, then, has rights , and we have obligations to that person. This includes the right to life. Both of the arguments I summarize here focus on the question of whether or not the fetus is a person, or whether or not it is the type of entity that has the right to life. This is an important aspect to focus on, because what a thing is determines how we should treat it, morally speaking. For example, if I break a leg off of a table, I haven't done anything wrong. But if I break a puppy's leg, I surely have done something wrong. I have obligations to the puppy, given what kind of creature it is, that I don't have to a table, or any other inanimate object. The issue, then, is what kind of thing a fetus is, and what that entails for how we ought to treat it.

A Pro-Choice Argument

I believe that the best type of pro-choice argument focuses on the personhood of the fetus. Mary Ann Warren has argued that fetuses are not persons; they do not have the right to life. 2 Therefore, abortion is morally permissible throughout the entire pregnancy . To see why, Warren argues that persons have the following traits:

• Consciousness: awareness of oneself, the external world, the ability to feel pain.
• Reasoning: a developed ability to solve fairly complex problems.
• Ability to communicate: on a variety of topics, with some depth.
• Self-motivated activity: ability to choose what to do (or not to do) in a way that is not determined by genetics or the environment .
• Self-concept : see themselves as _____; e.g. Kenyan, female, athlete , Muslim, Christian, atheist, etc.

The key point for Warren is that fetuses do not have any of these traits. Therefore, they are not persons. They do not have a right to life, and abortion is morally permissible. You and I do have these traits, therefore we are persons. We do have rights, including the right to life.

One problem with this argument is that we now know that fetuses are conscious at roughly the midpoint of a pregnancy, given the development timeline of fetal brain activity. Given this, some have modified Warren's argument so that it only applies to the first half of a pregnancy. This still covers the vast majority of abortions that occur in the United States, however.

A Pro-Life Argument

The following pro-life argument shares the same approach, focusing on the personhood of the fetus. However, this argument contends that fetuses are persons because in an important sense they possess all of the traits Warren lists. 3

At first glance, this sounds ridiculous. At 12 weeks, for example, fetuses are not able to engage in reasoning, they don't have a self-concept, nor are they conscious. In fact, they don't possess any of these traits.

Or do they?

In one sense, they do. To see how, consider an important distinction, the distinction between latent capacities vs. actualized capacities. Right now, I have the actualized capacity to communicate in English about the ethics of abortion. I'm demonstrating that capacity right now. I do not, however, have the actualized capacity to communicate in Spanish on this issue. I do, however, have the latent capacity to do so. If I studied Spanish, practiced it with others, or even lived in a Spanish-speaking nation for a while, I would likely be able to do so. The latent capacity I have now to communicate in Spanish would become actualized.

Here is the key point for this argument: Given the type of entities that human fetuses are, they have all of the traits of persons laid out by Mary Anne Warren. They do not possess these traits in their actualized form. But they have them in their latent form, because of their human nature. Proponents of this argument claim that possessing the traits of personhood, in their latent form, is sufficient for being a person, for having full moral status, including the right to life. They say that fetuses are not potential persons, but persons with potential. In contrast to this, Warren and others maintain that the capacities must be actualized before one is person.

The Abortion Debate

There is much confusion in the abortion debate. The existence of a heartbeat is not enough, on its own, to confer a right to life. On this, I believe many pro-lifers are mistaken. But on the pro-choice side, is it ethical to abort fetuses as a way to select the gender of one's child, for instance?

We should not focus solely on the fetus, of course, but also on the interests of the mother, father, and society as a whole. Many believe that in order to achieve this goal, we need to provide much greater support to women who may want to give birth and raise their children, but choose not to for financial, psychological, health, or relationship reasons; that adoption should be much less expensive, so that it is a live option for more qualified parents; and that quality health care should be accessible to all.

I fear , however, that one thing that gets lost in all of the dialogue, debate, and rhetoric surrounding the abortion issue is the nature of the human fetus. This is certainly not the only issue. But it is crucial to determining the morality of abortion, one way or the other. People on both sides of the debate would do well to build their views with this in mind.

https://abcnews.go.com/US/state-abortion-bans-2019-signed-effect/story?id=63172532

Mary Ann Warren, "On the Moral and Legal Status of Abortion," originally in Monist 57:1 (1973), pp. 43-61. Widely anthologized.

This is a synthesis of several pro-life arguments. For more, see the work of Robert George and Francis Beckwith on these issues.

Michael W. Austin, Ph.D. , is a professor of philosophy at Eastern Kentucky University.

• Find a Therapist
• Find a Treatment Center
• Find a Psychiatrist
• Find a Support Group
• Find Online Therapy
• United States
• Brooklyn, NY
• Chicago, IL
• Houston, TX
• Los Angeles, CA
• New York, NY
• Portland, OR
• San Diego, CA
• San Francisco, CA
• Seattle, WA
• Washington, DC
• Asperger's
• Bipolar Disorder
• Chronic Pain
• Eating Disorders
• Passive Aggression
• Personality
• Goal Setting
• Positive Psychology
• Stopping Smoking
• Low Sexual Desire
• Relationships
• Child Development
• Self Tests NEW
• Therapy Center
• Diagnosis Dictionary
• Types of Therapy

When we fall prey to perfectionism, we think we’re honorably aspiring to be our very best, but often we’re really just setting ourselves up for failure, as perfection is impossible and its pursuit inevitably backfires.

• Emotional Intelligence
• Gaslighting
• Affective Forecasting
• Neuroscience

Numbers, Facts and Trends Shaping Your World

Read our research on:

Full Topic List

Regions & Countries

• Publications
• Our Methods
• Short Reads
• Tools & Resources

Read Our Research On:

• America’s Abortion Quandary

2. Social and moral considerations on abortion

Table of contents.

• 1. Americans’ views on whether, and in what circumstances, abortion should be legal
• Public views of what would change the number of abortions in the U.S.
• A majority of Americans say women should have more say in setting abortion policy in the U.S.
• How do certain arguments about abortion resonate with Americans?
• In their own words: How Americans feel about abortion 
• 3. How the issue of abortion touches Americans personally
• Acknowledgments
• Methodology

Relatively few Americans view the morality of abortion in stark terms: Overall, just 7% of all U.S. adults say abortion is morally acceptable in all cases, and 13% say it is morally wrong in all cases. A third say that abortion is morally wrong in  most  cases, while about a quarter (24%) say it is morally acceptable most of the time. About an additional one-in-five do not consider abortion a moral issue.

There are wide differences on this question by political party and religious affiliation. Among Republicans and independents who lean toward the Republican Party, most say that abortion is morally wrong either in most (48%) or all cases (20%). Among Democrats and Democratic leaners, meanwhile, only about three-in-ten (29%) hold a similar view. About four-in-ten Democrats say abortion is morally  acceptable  in most (32%) or all (11%) cases, while an additional 28% say abortion is not a moral issue. 

White evangelical Protestants overwhelmingly say abortion is morally wrong in most (51%) or all cases (30%). A slim majority of Catholics (53%) also view abortion as morally wrong, but many also say it is morally acceptable in most (24%) or all cases (4%), or that it is not a moral issue (17%). And among religiously unaffiliated Americans, about three-quarters see abortion as morally acceptable (45%) or not a moral issue (32%).

There is strong alignment between people’s views of whether abortion is morally wrong and whether it should be illegal. For example, among U.S. adults who take the view that abortion should be illegal in all cases without exception, fully 86% also say abortion is always morally wrong. The prevailing view among adults who say abortion should be legal in all circumstances is that abortion is not a moral issue (44%), though notable shares of this group also say it is morally acceptable in all (27%) or most (22%) cases. 

Most Americans who say abortion should be illegal with some exceptions take the view that abortion is morally wrong in  most  cases (69%). Those who say abortion should be legal with some exceptions are somewhat more conflicted, with 43% deeming abortion morally acceptable in most cases and 26% saying it is morally wrong in most cases; an additional 24% say it is not a moral issue. 

The survey also asked respondents who said abortion is morally wrong in at least some cases whether there are situations where abortion should still be legal  despite  being morally wrong. Roughly half of U.S. adults (48%) say that there are, in fact, situations where abortion is morally wrong but should still be legal, while just 22% say that whenever abortion is morally wrong, it should also be illegal. An additional 28% either said abortion is morally acceptable in all cases or not a moral issue, and thus did not receive the follow-up question.

Across both political parties and all major Christian subgroups – including Republicans and White evangelicals – there are substantially more people who say that there are situations where abortion should still be  legal  despite being morally wrong than there are who say that abortion should always be  illegal  when it is morally wrong.

Asked about the impact a number of policy changes would have on the number of abortions in the U.S., nearly two-thirds of Americans (65%) say “more support for women during pregnancy, such as financial assistance or employment protections” would reduce the number of abortions in the U.S. Six-in-ten say the same about expanding sex education and similar shares say more support for parents (58%), making it easier to place children for adoption in good homes (57%) and passing stricter abortion laws (57%) would have this effect. 

While about three-quarters of White evangelical Protestants (74%) say passing stricter abortion laws would reduce the number of abortions in the U.S., about half of religiously unaffiliated Americans (48%) hold this view. Similarly, Republicans are more likely than Democrats to say this (67% vs. 49%, respectively). By contrast, while about seven-in-ten unaffiliated adults (69%) say expanding sex education would reduce the number of abortions in the U.S., only about half of White evangelicals (48%) say this. Democrats also are substantially more likely than Republicans to hold this view (70% vs. 50%). 

Democrats are somewhat more likely than Republicans to say support for parents – such as paid family leave or more child care options – would reduce the number of abortions in the country (64% vs. 53%, respectively), while Republicans are more likely than Democrats to say making adoption into good homes easier would reduce abortions (64% vs. 52%).

Majorities across both parties and other subgroups analyzed in this report say that more support for women during pregnancy would reduce the number of abortions in America.

More than half of U.S. adults (56%) say women should have more say than men when it comes to setting policies around abortion in this country – including 42% who say women should have “a lot” more say. About four-in-ten (39%) say men and women should have equal say in abortion policies, and 3% say men should have more say than women. 

Six-in-ten women and about half of men (51%) say that women should have more say on this policy issue. 

Democrats are much more likely than Republicans to say women should have more say than men in setting abortion policy (70% vs. 41%). Similar shares of Protestants (48%) and Catholics (51%) say women should have more say than men on this issue, while the share of religiously unaffiliated Americans who say this is much higher (70%).

Seeking to gauge Americans’ reactions to several common arguments related to abortion, the survey presented respondents with six statements and asked them to rate how well each statement reflects their views on a five-point scale ranging from “extremely well” to “not at all well.” 

The list included three statements sometimes cited by individuals wishing to protect a right to abortion: “The decision about whether to have an abortion should belong solely to the pregnant woman,” “If legal abortions are too hard to get, then women will seek out unsafe abortions from unlicensed providers,” and “If legal abortions are too hard to get, then it will be more difficult for women to get ahead in society.” The first two of these resonate with the greatest number of Americans, with about half (53%) saying each describes their views “extremely” or “very” well. In other words, among the statements presented in the survey, U.S. adults are most likely to say that women alone should decide whether to have an abortion, and that making abortion illegal will lead women into unsafe situations.

The three other statements are similar to arguments sometimes made by those who wish to restrict access to abortions: “Human life begins at conception, so a fetus is a person with rights,” “If legal abortions are too easy to get, then people won’t be as careful with sex and contraception,” and “If legal abortions are too easy to get, then some pregnant women will be pressured into having an abortion even when they don’t want to.” 

Fewer than half of Americans say each of these statements describes their views extremely or very well. Nearly four-in-ten endorse the notion that “human life begins at conception, so a fetus is a person with rights” (26% say this describes their views extremely well, 12% very well), while about a third say that “if legal abortions are too easy to get, then people won’t be as careful with sex and contraception” (20% extremely well, 15% very well).

When it comes to statements cited by proponents of abortion rights, Democrats are much more likely than Republicans to identify with all three of these statements, as are religiously unaffiliated Americans compared with Catholics and Protestants. Women also are more likely than men to express these views – and especially more likely to say that decisions about abortion should fall solely to pregnant women and that restrictions on abortion will put women in unsafe situations. Younger adults under 30 are particularly likely to express the view that if legal abortions are too hard to get, then it will be difficult for women to get ahead in society.

In the case of the three statements sometimes cited by opponents of abortion, the patterns generally go in the opposite direction. Republicans are more likely than Democrats to say each statement reflects their views “extremely” or “very” well, as are Protestants (especially White evangelical Protestants) and Catholics compared with the religiously unaffiliated. In addition, older Americans are more likely than young adults to say that human life begins at conception and that easy access to abortion encourages unsafe sex.

Gender differences on these questions, however, are muted. In fact, women are just as likely as men to say that human life begins at conception, so a fetus is a person with rights (39% and 38%, respectively).

Analyzing certain statements together allows for an examination of the extent to which individuals can simultaneously hold two views that may seem to some as in conflict. For instance, overall, one-in-three U.S. adults say that  both  the statement “the decision about whether to have an abortion should belong solely to the pregnant woman” and the statement “human life begins at conception, so the fetus is a person with rights” reflect their own views at least somewhat well. This includes 12% of adults who say both statements reflect their views “extremely” or “very” well. 

Republicans are slightly more likely than Democrats to say both statements reflect their own views at least somewhat well (36% vs. 30%), although Republicans are much more likely to say  only  the statement about the fetus being a person with rights reflects their views at least somewhat well (39% vs. 9%) and Democrats are much more likely to say  only  the statement about the decision to have an abortion belonging solely to the pregnant woman reflects their views at least somewhat well (55% vs. 19%).

Additionally, those who take the stance that abortion should be legal in all cases with no exceptions are overwhelmingly likely (76%) to say only the statement about the decision belonging solely to the pregnant woman reflects their views extremely, very or somewhat well, while a nearly identical share (73%) of those who say abortion should be  illegal  in all cases with no exceptions say only the statement about human life beginning at conception reflects their views at least somewhat well.

When asked to describe whether they had any other additional views or feelings about abortion, adults shared a range of strong or complex views about the topic. In many cases, Americans reiterated their strong support – or opposition to – abortion in the U.S. Others reflected on how difficult or nuanced the issue was, offering emotional responses or personal experiences to one of two open-ended questions asked on the survey. 

One open-ended question asked respondents if they wanted to share any other views or feelings about abortion overall. The other open-ended question asked respondents about their feelings or views regarding abortion restrictions. The responses to both questions were similar. 

Overall, about three-in-ten adults offered a response to either of the open-ended questions. There was little difference in the likelihood to respond by party, religion or gender, though people who say they have given a “lot” of thought to the issue were more likely to respond than people who have not. 

Of those who did offer additional comments, about a third of respondents said something in support of legal abortion. By far the most common sentiment expressed was that the decision to have an abortion should be solely a personal decision, or a decision made jointly with a woman and her health care provider, with some saying simply that it “should be between a woman and her doctor.” Others made a more general point, such as one woman who said, “A woman’s body and health should not be subject to legislation.” 

About one-in-five of the people who responded to the question expressed disapproval of abortion – the most common reason being a belief that a fetus is a person or that abortion is murder. As one woman said, “It is my belief that life begins at conception and as much as is humanly possible, we as a society need to support, protect and defend each one of those little lives.” Others in this group pointed to the fact that they felt abortion was too often used as a form of birth control. For example, one man said, “Abortions are too easy to obtain these days. It seems more women are using it as a way of birth control.” 

About a quarter of respondents who opted to answer one of the open-ended questions said that their views about abortion were complex; many described having mixed feelings about the issue or otherwise expressed sympathy for both sides of the issue. One woman said, “I am personally opposed to abortion in most cases, but I think it would be detrimental to society to make it illegal. I was alive before the pill and before legal abortions. Many women died.” And one man said, “While I might feel abortion may be wrong in some cases, it is never my place as a man to tell a woman what to do with her body.” 

The remaining responses were either not related to the topic or were difficult to interpret.

Sign up for our weekly newsletter

Fresh data delivery Saturday mornings

Sign up for The Briefing

Weekly updates on the world of news & information

• Christianity
• Evangelicalism
• Political Issues
• Politics & Policy
• Protestantism
• Religion & Abortion
• Religion & Politics
• Religion & Social Values

Majority of Americans continue to favor moving away from Electoral College

Americans see many federal agencies favorably, but republicans grow more critical of justice department, 9 facts about americans and marijuana, nearly three-quarters of americans say it would be ‘too risky’ to give presidents more power, biden nears 100-day mark with strong approval, positive rating for vaccine rollout, most popular, report materials.

901 E St. NW, Suite 300 Washington, DC 20004 USA (+1) 202-419-4300 | Main (+1) 202-857-8562 | Fax (+1) 202-419-4372 |  Media Inquiries

Research Topics

• Email Newsletters

ABOUT PEW RESEARCH CENTER  Pew Research Center is a nonpartisan, nonadvocacy fact tank that informs the public about the issues, attitudes and trends shaping the world. It does not take policy positions. The Center conducts public opinion polling, demographic research, computational social science research and other data-driven research. Pew Research Center is a subsidiary of The Pew Charitable Trusts , its primary funder.

© 2024 Pew Research Center

1000-Word Philosophy: An Introductory Anthology

Philosophy, One Thousand Words at a Time

The Ethics of Abortion

Author: Nathan Nobis Category: Ethics Word Count: 1000

Listen here

Abortion involves the killing of a fetus to end a pregnancy. These fetuses are human , biologically. 1 It seems that fetuses are beings , although completely dependent beings: what else would they be?

So, abortion involves the killing of a being that is biologically human . Killing human beings is often deeply wrong, so is abortion wrong? If so, when? And w hy ?

Here we will review some influential philosophical answers to these questions.

1. Human Organisms?

Fetuses are not just biologically alive. And they aren’t just biologically human either, like skin cells or organs. They are biologically human organisms .

Some thinkers argue that our being human organisms physically continuous with fetuses that were human organisms makes abortion wrong. 2 They seem to argue that since it is wrong to kill us  now , i.e., we have properties that make it wrong to kill us  now ( prima facie wrong to kill: wrong unless extreme circumstances justify the killing), it was wrong to kill us at any stage of our development, since we’ve been the same organism, the same being, throughout our existence.

While this argument is influential in some circles, it is nevertheless dubious. You are likely over three feet tall now, but weren’t always. You can reason morally, but couldn’t always. You have the right to make autonomous decisions about your own life, but didn’t always. Many examples show that just because we have some characteristic, including a moral right now, that doesn’t entail that we (or our bodies?) have always had that characteristic or right. This argument’s advocates need to plausibly explain why that’d be different with, say, the right to life. 3

2. (Human) Persons?

We, readers of this essay, are human organisms (unless there are any divine or extraterrestrial readers!), and it is prima facie wrong to kill us. Is the reason why it wrong to kill us  because we are human organisms?

Perhaps not. It is wrong to kill us, arguably, because killing us prevents us from experiencing the goods of our future: accomplishments, relationships, enjoying our lives and so on, which is distinct from being a human organism.

Many philosophers describe these capacities needed for experiencing our lives, present and future, in terms of us being persons . 4 A theory present from at least the time of John Locke can be expressed roughly as:  persons are beings with personalities : persons are conscious beings with thoughts, feelings, memories, anticipations and other psychological states. (When some people insist that fetuses aren’t human beings , they might be claiming that they are not human persons ). If we die or even become permanently comatose, we cease to be persons, since we permanently lose consciousness.

This theory of personhood has explanatory power: it helps us understand why we are persons and how we (or our bodies) can cease to be persons. It justifies a growing belief that some non-human animals are (non-human) persons. It explains why rational space aliens, if there are any, would be (non-human) persons. It explains why divine or spiritual beings are or would be (non-human) persons.

On this theory of personhood, beginning fetuses are not persons. This is because their brains and nervous systems aren’t sufficiently developed and complexly interconnected enough for consciousness and personhood. The medical and scientific research reports that this developmental stage isn’t reached until after the first trimester, or, more likely, until mid-pregnancy. 5 Nearly all abortions occur very early in pregnancy, killing fetuses that are not yet conscious, and so are not yet persons on this theory of personhood.

Any later abortions, affecting conscious and feeling fetuses who are persons or close to it, however, would likely be wrong on this theory unless done for a justifying medical reason.

3. Potential Personhood?

But just because something (or someone) is not a person, that doesn’t obviously mean that it is  not wrong to kill it.

If fetuses aren’t persons, they are still potential persons. (And merely potential persons  are never actual persons ).  Does that potential give fetuses, say, the right to life or otherwise make it wrong to kill them?

If potential things  have the rights of  actual things , then potential adults, spouses, criminals, doctors, and judges would have the rights of actual ones. Since they don’t, it is plausible that  potential personhood doesn’t yield the rights of actual personhood . At least, we are due an explanation of why it would, since potentiality never does that for anything else.

4. Valuable Futures?

Abortion might seem to prevent a fetus from experiencing its valuable future, just like killing us does, even if it is not yet a person. 6 But our futures might be valuable, in part, because we can, presently, look forward to them. Fetuses have no awareness of their futures whatsoever, and this is one important difference between their futures and our futures.

Further, an egg-and-a-sperm-that-would-fertilize-it  arguably has a future akin to that of a fetus. Contraception (even by abstinence!) keeps this future from materializing. 7 But contraception and abstinence aren’t wrong. Thus, it is not wrong to perform some action that prevents such a future from materializing.

5. The Right to Life?

Finally, suppose all fetuses are indeed persons with the right to life. Does that make abortion wrong?

Not necessarily, Judith Thomson famously argued in her 1971 “A Defense of Abortion.” 8 If I must use your kidney to stay alive, do I have a right to your kidney? No, and you don’t violate my rights if you don’t let me use it and I die. This shows that the right to life is not a right to the bodies of others, even if those bodies are necessary for our lives to continue .

Fetuses, then, might not have a right to the pregnant woman’s body and so she doesn’t violate their rights by not allowing a fetus to use it. If so, abortion wouldn’t violate any rights of fetuses and so it might be permissible.

6. Conclusion

The philosophical issue of the moral status of abortion is complex: these are just a few philosophical arguments on the issue. Each argument, and many others, are worthy of further discussion and reasoned debate. 9

1 Unless we are doing veterinary ethics and are thinking about aborting feline or canine or other non-human fetuses.

2  This argument is developed in Beckwith (2007), and in George and Tollefsen (2008). This presentation here is based on Beckwith’s emphasis that fetuses and the adults they often later become are the “same being.” These arguments, however, can be interpreted in a more complex way, in which we understand them as arguing that having rights, or the properties that result in having rights, is essential to living human organisms, and that we are, in essence, living human organisms (and not, in essence, say, either minds or souls), and so we have rights whenever living human organisms exist (and so since a fetus and the later adult are the “same being” they have rights whenever they exist). This more sophisticated argument is not discussed here. 

3 This response is developed in Boonin (2003) and in Nobis (2011)

4 This influential theory of personhood is developed in Warren (1973).

5 Lee, Susan J., et al. (2005) and Benatar and Benatar (2001)

6 This argument is developed in Marquis (1989).

7 For development of these arguments, see Norcross (1990).

8  Thomson (1971)

9 While abortion is, of course, a controversial issue, it is worth noting that 82% of professional philosophers surveyed “accept or lean towards” believing that first-trimester abortions are generally permissible, whereas 13% “accept or lean towards” believing they are impermissible. For philosophers who specialize in applied ethics, those numbers shift to 86% and 11%. See the 2020 PhilPapers Survey. A question is what explains these results: do philosophers tend to have these views about abortion because they better understand the issues and have trained abilities to rigorously evaluate ethical arguments? Or are these results better explained by something else? 

Beckwith, Francis J.  Defending Life: A Moral and Legal Case against Abortion Choice . Cambridge University Press, 2007

Benatar, David, and Michael Benatar. “A Pain in the Fetus: Toward Ending Confusion about Fetal Pain.”  Bioethics  15 (2001): 57-76

Boonin, David.  A Defense of Abortion . Cambridge University Press, 2003

George, Robert P. and Christopher Tollefsen. Embryo: A Defense of Human Life. Doubleday, 2008

Lee, Susan J., et al. “Fetal Pain: A Systematic Multidisciplinary Review of the Evidence.”  Jama  294.8 (2005): 947-954

Marquis, Don. “Why Abortion is Immoral.”  The Journal of Philosophy  86.4 (1989): 183-202

Nobis, Nathan. “Abortion, Metaphysics and Morality: A Review of Francis Beckwith’s Defending Life: A Moral and Legal Case Against Abortion Choice.”  Journal of Medicine and Philosophy  36.3 (2011): 261-273

Norcross, Alastair. “Killing, Abortion, and Contraception: A Reply to Marquis.”  The Journal of Philosophy  (1990): 268-277

Philpapers. (N.d.). Survey results: Philosophical questions 

Thomson, Judith Jarvis. “A Defense of Abortion.”  Philosophy & Public Affairs (1971): 47-66

Warren, Mary Anne. “On the Moral and Legal Status of Abortion.”  The Monist (1973): 43-61

Related Essays

Theories of Moral Considerability: Who and What Matters Morally? by Jonathan Spelman

The Doctrine of Double Effect: Do Intentions Matter to Ethics? by Gabriel Andrade

Personal Identity  by Chad Vance

Psychological Approaches to Personal Identity: Do Memories and Consciousness Make Us Who We Are?  by Kristin Seemuth Whaley

Animalism and Personal Identity: Are We Animals? by Kristin Seemuth Whaley

The Mind-Body Problem: What Are Minds? by Jacob Berger

Is Death Bad? Epicurus and Lucretius on the Fear of Death by Frederik Kaufman

The Badness of Death  by Duncan Purves

The Non-Identity Problem  by Duncan Purves

Applied Ethics  by Chelsea Haramia

Principlism in Biomedical Ethics: Respect for Autonomy, Non-Maleficence, Beneficence, and Justice  by G. M. Trujillo, Jr.

What Is Misogyny?  by Odelia Zuckerman and Clair Morrissey

Audio and Video

Pdf download.

Download this essay in PDF .

About the Author

Nathan Nobis is a Professor of Philosophy at Morehouse College, Atlanta, GA. He is the author of Animals & Ethics 101 , co-author of  Thinking Critically About Abortion , a co-author of  Chimpanzee Rights , and author or co-author of many other articles, chapters, and reviews in philosophy and ethics.  NathanNobis.com

Follow 1000-Word Philosophy on Facebook , Twitter and subscribe to receive email notifications of new essays at the bottom of 1000WordPhilosophy.com

Share this:.

Comments are closed.

Home — Essay Samples — Social Issues — Abortion — Argumentative Essay Outline On Abortion

Argumentative Essay Outline on Abortion

• Categories: Abortion

About this sample

Words: 665 |

Published: Mar 13, 2024

Words: 665 | Page: 1 | 4 min read

Table of contents

Introduction, thesis statement, paragraph 1: the right to bodily autonomy, paragraph 2: the health and safety of women, paragraph 3: reproductive freedom and economic justice.

Cite this Essay

To export a reference to this article please select a referencing style below:

Let us write you an essay from scratch

• 450+ experts on 30 subjects ready to help
• Custom essay delivered in as few as 3 hours

Get high-quality help

Prof. Kifaru

Verified writer

• Expert in: Social Issues

+ 120 experts online

By clicking “Check Writers’ Offers”, you agree to our terms of service and privacy policy . We’ll occasionally send you promo and account related email

No need to pay just yet!

Related Essays

3 pages / 1448 words

4 pages / 1940 words

3 pages / 1313 words

3 pages / 1345 words

Remember! This is just a sample.

You can get your custom paper by one of our expert writers.

121 writers online

Still can’t find what you need?

Browse our vast selection of original essay samples, each expertly formatted and styled

Related Essays on Abortion

Abortion has been a highly controversial and divisive issue in many societies worldwide. The legality of abortion varies from country to country, with some nations allowing it under certain circumstances and others prohibiting [...]

The question of whether a fetus should be considered a person is at the heart of a complex and deeply divisive debate. This debate encompasses legal, philosophical, and ethical dimensions, and it has evolved significantly over [...]

Abortion has been a controversial topic for decades, sparking heated debates and dividing societies. However, the legalization of abortion is crucial for women's rights, health, and autonomy. In this essay, we will explore the [...]

Abortion's been a hot topic for what feels like forever. It's usually this big argument between the pro-life folks and those who're pro-choice. On one side, you've got people saying abortion is totally wrong because it's [...]

The state of texas has passed some of the countries strictest laws restricting a woman’s right to get an abortion. Despide the landmark decision the supreme court made during Roe. v Wade in 1973, that legalized abortion [...]

Abortion can be defined as the deliberate causing of the death of a fetus, either by directly killing it or by causing its expulsion from the womb before it is “viable.” With “the killing of an innocent human being without [...]

Related Topics

By clicking “Send”, you agree to our Terms of service and Privacy statement . We will occasionally send you account related emails.

Where do you want us to send this sample?

By clicking “Continue”, you agree to our terms of service and privacy policy.

Be careful. This essay is not unique

This essay was donated by a student and is likely to have been used and submitted before

Download this Sample

Free samples may contain mistakes and not unique parts

Sorry, we could not paraphrase this essay. Our professional writers can rewrite it and get you a unique paper.

Please check your inbox.

We can write you a custom essay that will follow your exact instructions and meet the deadlines. Let's fix your grades together!

Get Your Personalized Essay in 3 Hours or Less!

We use cookies to personalyze your web-site experience. By continuing we’ll assume you board with our cookie policy .

• Instructions Followed To The Letter
• Deadlines Met At Every Stage
• Unique And Plagiarism Free

The Hastings Center

• Bioethics and Policy—A History Daniel Callahan
• The Hastings Center Bioethics Timeline
• Abortion Bonnie Steinbock
• Aging Daniel Callahan
• Brain Injury: Neuroscience and Neuroethics Joseph J. Fins
• Clinical Trials Christine Grady, RN, PhD
• Climate Change David B. Resnik
• Conflict of Interest in Biomedical Research and Clinical Practice Josephine Johnston, Bethany Brumbaugh
• Conscience Clauses, Health Care Providers, and Parents Nancy Berlinger
• Disaster Planning and Public Health Bruce Jennings
• End-of-Life Care Kathy L. Cerminara, Alan Meisel
• Enhancing Humans Cristina J. Kapustij, Mark S. Frankel
• Environment, Ethics, and Human Health David B. Resnik, Christopher J. Portier
• Family Caregiving Carol Levine
• Genomics, Behavior, and Social Outcomes Daphne O. Martschenko, Lucas J. Matthews
• Law Enforcement and Genetic Data James W. Hazel, Ellen Wright Clayton
• Medical Aid-in-Dying Timothy E. Quill, Bernard Sussman
• Nature, Human Nature, and Biotechnology Gregory E. Kaebnick
• Neonatal Care Jennifer McGuirl, Alan R. Fleischman
• Newborn Screening Mary Ann Baily
• Organ Transplantation Arthur Caplan, Brendan Parent
• Pandemics: The Ethics of Mandatory and Voluntary Interventions
• Public Health Ethics and Law Lawrence O. Gostin, Lindsay F. Wiley
• Quality Improvement Methods in Health Care Mary Ann Baily
• Racism and Health Equity Keisha Ray
• Research in Resource-Poor Countries Voo Teck Chuan, G. Owen Schaefer
• Sports Enhancement Thomas H. Murray
• Stem Cells Insoo Hyun
• Torture: The Bioethics Perspective Steven H. Miles

From Bioethics Briefings

• Abortion remains controversial.
• In recent years, several states, including Texas and Oklahoma, have passed abortion bans early in pregnancy.
• For nearly 50 years, there was a Constitutional right to abortion in the United States, established by the Supreme Court in Roe v. Wade in 1973
• The Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in June 2022, eliminating the Constitutional right to abortion.
• A central ethical question in the abortion debate is over the moral status of the fetus.
• Opinions range from the belief that the fetus is a human being with full moral status and rights from conception to the belief that a fetus has no rights, even if it is human in a biological sense. Most Americans’ beliefs fall somewhere in the middle.
• Moral philosophers from various perspectives provide nuanced examinations of the abortion question that go beyond the standard political breakdowns.

Framing the Issue

Abortion has been one of the most divisive and emotionally charged issues in American politics. At one end of the debate are those who regard abortion as murder, a despicable and heinous crime. At the other end of the spectrum are those who regard any attempt to restrict abortion as an egregious violation of women’s rights to make their own decisions about their bodies and what is best for them and their families. Most Americans are somewhere in the middle.

A central philosophical question in the abortion debate concerns the moral status of the embryo and fetus. If the fetus is a person, with the same right to life as any human being who has been born, it would seem that very few, if any, abortions could be justified, because it is not morally permissible to kill children because they are unwanted or illegitimate or disabled. However, the morality of abortion is not settled so straightforwardly. Even if one accepts the argument that the fetus is a person, it does not automatically follow that it has a right to the use of the pregnant woman’s body. Thus, the morality of abortion depends not only on the moral status of the fetus, but also on whether the pregnant woman has an obligation to continue to gestate the fetus.

Ethical Considerations Around Abortion

Public opinion on abortion falls into three camps—conservative, liberal, and moderate (or gradualist)—each of which draws on both science and ethical thinking.

Conservative

Conservative opposition to abortion stems from the conviction that the fetus is a human being, with the same rights as any born human being, from the beginning of pregnancy onward. Some conservative groups—such as the Catholic Church—consider the fetus to be a human being with full moral rights even earlier than the beginning of pregnancy, which occurs when the embryo implants in the uterus. The Church regards the embryo as a full human being from conception (the conjoining of sperm and egg). This is because at conception the embryo receives its own unique genetic code, distinct from that of its mother or father. Therefore, Catholic doctrine regards conception, not implantation, as the beginning of the life of a human being.

Although conservatives concede that the fetus changes dramatically during gestation, they do not accept these changes as relevant to moral standing. Conservatives argue that there is no stage of development at which we can say, now we have a human being, whereas a day or a week or a month earlier we did not. Any attempt to place the onset of humanity at a particular moment—whether it be when brain waves appear, or when the fetus begins to look human, or when quickening, sentience, or viability occur —is bound to be arbitrary because all of these stages will occur if the fetus is allowed to grow and develop.

A secular antiabortion argument given by Don Marquis in 1989 differs from the traditional conservative view in that it is not based on the fetus’s being human, thus avoiding the charge of “speciesism.” Rather, Marquis argues that abortion is wrong for the same reason that killing anyone is wrong—namely, that killing deprives its victim of a valuable future, what he calls “a future like ours.” It is possible that some nonhumans (some animals or aliens) have a future like ours. If so, then killing them is also wrong.

This raises two questions about what it is to have a future like ours. First, what precisely is involved in this notion? Does it essentially belong to rational, future-oriented, plan-making beings? If so, then killing most nonhuman animals would not be wrong, but neither would killing those who are severely developmentally disabled. Second, at what point does the life of a being with a future like ours start? Marquis assumes that we are essentially human animals, so our lives start with the beginning of our organisms. But Jeff McMahan denies this, arguing that we are essentially embodied minds, and not human organisms. On McMahan’s view, our lives do not start until our organism becomes conscious, probably some time in the second trimester. Early abortion, on his view, does not kill someone with a future like ours, but rather prevents that individual from coming into existence – in much the way contraception does.

The pro-choice position on abortion is often referred to as the liberal view. Mary Anne Warren provides a classic statement of the liberal view. Warren does not dispute the conservative’s claim that the fetus is biologically human, but she denies that biological humanity is either necessary or sufficient for personhood and a right to life. She argues that basing moral standing on species membership is arbitrary, and maintains that it is the killing of persons , not humans, that is wrong. Indeed, Warren thinks that the conservative is guilty of a logical mistake: confusing biological humans and persons. Persons are beings with certain psychological traits, including sentience, consciousness, the capacity for rational thought, and the ability to use language. There may be some nonhuman persons (e.g., some animals, extraterrestrial aliens), and there may be biological humans that are not persons, including early gestation fetuses, who have no person-making characteristics. By the end of the second trimester, fetuses are probably sentient, but even late gestation fetuses are less personlike than most mammals who are not considered to be persons.

In 1971, Judith Thomson gave a completely different pro-choice argument from the classic liberal one, in which she maintained that even if the personhood of the fetus were granted, for the sake of the argument, this would not settle the morality of abortion because the fetus’s right to life does not necessarily give it a right to use the pregnant woman’s body. No one, Thomson says, has the right to use your body unless you give him permission—not even if he needs it for life itself. At least in the case of rape, the pregnant woman has not given the fetus the right to use her body. (Thus, Thomson’s argument, somewhat ironically for an article entitled “A Defense of Abortion,” provides those who are generally anti-choice with a rationale for making an exception in the case of rape, as do many pro-lifers—though not the Catholic Church.) Thomson maintains that whether a woman has a moral obligation to allow a fetus to remain in her body is a separate question from whether the fetus is a person with a right to life, and depends instead on the amount of sacrifice or burden it imposes on her.

In 2003, Margaret Little argued that while abortion is not murder, neither is it necessarily moral. A pregnant woman and her fetus are not strangers; she is biologically its mother which provides her with some reason to protect its life. However, she may have duties of care to others, such as her existing children, which would be more difficult to fulfill if she has another child. The typical abortion patient is already a mother, single, and low-income or poor. Although Little does not regard the fetus as a person, it is a “burgeoning human life,” and as such is worthy of respect. But abortion does not necessarily conflict with respect for human life. Many women regard bringing a child into the world when they are not able to care for it properly as itself disrespectful of human life.

The moderate, or gradualist, agrees with the classic liberal that an early fetus, much less a one-celled zygote, is not a person, but agrees with the conservative that the late-gestation fetus merits some moral concern because it is virtually identical to a born infant. Thus, the moderate thinks that early abortions are morally better than late ones and that the reasons for having one should be stronger as the pregnancy progresses. A reason that might justify an early abortion, such as not wanting to become a mother, would not justify an abortion in the seventh month to the moderate.

Fetal Development Timeline (pdf)

The Legal Perspective

In Roe v. Wade , the Supreme Court based its finding of a woman’s constitutional right to abortion prior to fetal viability on two factors: the legal status of the fetus and the woman’s right to privacy. Concluding that outside of abortion law, the unborn had never been treated as full legal persons, the Court then looked to see if there were any state interests compelling enough to override a woman’s right to make this momentous personal decision for herself. It decided that there were none at all in the first trimester of pregnancy. In the second trimester, the state’s interest in protecting maternal health allows for some restrictions, so long as these are actually related to maternal health and not the protection of the life of the fetus. The state’s interest in protecting potential life becomes “compelling,” and trumps the woman’s right to privacy only after the fetus becomes viable, which in 1973 was somewhere between 24 and 28 weeks. Today, some premature infants are being saved as early as 22 weeks. However, it appears that, absent development of an artificial placenta, 22 weeks represents an absolute lower limit on viability. After viability, states may prohibit abortion altogether if they choose, unless continuing the pregnancy would threaten the woman’s life or health.

Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v. Casey (1992) pitted the Justices who wanted to reverse Roe against those who wished to preserve it. Neither side prevailed and the result was a compromise written by Justices O’Connor, Kennedy, and Souter. It upheld Roe’s central finding, that women have a constitutionally protected right to choose abortion, prior to viability, while rejecting the trimester framework. Casey held that the State’s profound interest in protecting potential life existed at all stages of pregnancy, not just after viability. States may enact procedures and rules reflecting its preference for childbirth over abortion, so long as these rules and procedures do not constitute an “undue burden” on the woman’s choice.

The Court interpreted the undue burden standard as permitting a requirement that required doctors to provide information about the abortion procedure, the relative risks of abortion and childbirth, embryonic and fetal development, and available resources should the woman choose to carry to term, provided the information given to the woman is truthful and not misleading. This qualification has not always been followed. In several states, doctors are required to tell women seeking abortions that having an abortion increases their risk of breast cancer. While not exactly a lie, this is certainly misleading. Having a full term pregnancy can reduce the risk of breast cancer, but having an abortion does not increase a woman’s risk of developing breast cancer. The Court also upheld a waiting period of 24 hours, as its intent is to make the abortion decision more informed and deliberate. Yet the actual effect of waiting periods is often to make abortion access much more difficult, especially in places where women have to travel long distances to find an abortion provider.

After attempts to overturn Roe failed, a new strategy of restricting abortions was developed. This strategy included outlawing particular methods of abortion, such as partial-birth abortion, imposing time limits based on claims of fetal sentience, and imposing restrictions on clinics and doctors who perform abortions in the name of protecting maternal health.

Fetal Sentience

In 2010, Nebraska banned all abortion after 20 weeks, on the ground that the fetus at that stage can feel pain. Subsequently, more than a third of states passed similar laws. In 2015, the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act passed the House of Representatives; the motion to consider the bill in the Senate was withdrawn. The bill prohibited a physician from performing an abortion after 20 weeks, except where necessary to save the life of a pregnant woman (excluding psychological or emotional conditions) or in cases of rape or incest against a minor.

Are 20-week old fetuses sentient? This claim is rejected by the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, which says it knows of no legitimate scientific information that supports the claim that a 20-week old fetus can feel pain. Other researchers think that while we do not know when fetuses become sentient, it might occur as early as 17 weeks. Utah became the first state to require doctors to give anesthesia to women having an abortion at 20 weeks or later. The law, which went into effect in May 2016, would not apply to women having abortions needed to save their lives, or in cases of rape or incest. An obstetrician-gynecologist in Utah, who spends half of a Saturday each month in an abortion clinic, protested, “You’re asking me to invent a procedure that doesn’t have any research to back it up. You want me to experiment on my patients.”

Protecting Women’s Health

Casey allowed states to restrict abortions based on a concern for women’s health, so long as the restrictions did not impose an undue burden on the choice. A key issue raised by the Supreme Court case Whole Woman’s Health v. Hellerstedt, decided in 2016, was how judges should evaluate such health-justified restrictions. The case concerned a 2013 Texas law that required any physician performing an abortion to have admitting privileges at a hospital not further than 30 miles from the abortion facility, and required any abortion facility to meet the minimum standards for ambulatory surgical centers. The District Court said that the law was unconstitutional because of its impact on access to abortion in Texas. Many abortion facilities would be unable to meet these requirements and would be forced to close, thereby severely limiting access to abortion. Moreover, the law’s provisions were unnecessary to protect women’s health. Abortion is an extremely safe medical procedure with very low rates of complications and virtually no deaths. In fact, although childbirth is 14 times more likely than abortion to result in death, Texas law allows a midwife to oversee childbirth in the patient’s own home. Thus, the new law was a solution to which there was no problem.

The Fifth Circuit reversed the District Court decision. One of its more startling claims was that states are entitled to impose health-justified restrictions, which are not subject to judicial review. In a 5-3 decision, the Supreme Court roundly rejected this claim. Writing for the majority, Justice Breyer said, “. . . the Court, when determining the constitutionality of laws regulating abortion procedures, has placed considerable weight upon evidence and argument presented in judicial procedures.” In other words, states may not simply assert that the restrictions are necessary, but must have factual evidence to show that they are. Moreover, the Court has an independent constitutional duty to review factual findings where constitutional rights are at stake.

Despite new restrictions on abortion, the core principle of  Roe  and  Casey– that the right to abortion is protected by the Constitution — was upheld. But that was soon to change.

The Change in the Composition of the Supreme Court

Between 1991 and 2020, five Justices openly hostile to abortion (Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Barrett) were appointed to the Court, making the 6-3 decision to reverse Roe possible.

The change in the Court’s composition emboldened several states to pass abortion bans much earlier than viability. One of the most restrictive, signed into law by Texas Governor Greg Abbott in May  2021, prohibits abortions after a fetal heartbeat is detected, usually after six weeks of pregnancy. About a year later, Oklahoma adopted a similar restriction and made illegal abortion a felony punishable by up to 10 years in prison. A bill introduced in Louisiana (House Bill 813) in May 2022 allowed criminal charges for murder to be brought against those who perform or have abortions. Its sponsor, Republican Danny McCormick, justified the bill by saying, “it is actually very simple: Abortion is murder.” Louisiana Right to Life did not support the bill, since their policy is that “abortion-vulnerable women” should not be treated as criminals. The group also called the bill unnecessary since Louisiana already had a trigger law that would outlaw abortion, except when necessary to save the life of the mother, if Roe were overturned. An amended version of HB 813, which removed the language about charging women having abortions with murder and exempted birth control from being outlawed, did pass the House.

Overturning Roe and Casey

Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health (June 2022) .  The case concerned a Mississippi law banning all abortions after 15 weeks gestational age except in medical emergencies and in the case of severe fetal abnormality. Characterizing the decisions in Roe and Casey as “egregiously wrong,” the majority held that:

“. . . Roe and Casey must be overruled. The Constitution makes no reference to abortion, and no such right is implicitly protected by any constitutional provision, including the one on which the defenders of Roe and Casey now chiefly rely — the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. That provision has been held to guarantee some rights that are not mentioned in the Constitution, but any such right must be “deeply rooted in this Nation’s history and tradition” and “implicit in the concept of ordered liberty.”

With the overturning of Roe and Casey , the matter of abortion has been returned to the states. Most abortions are banned in 14 states, while protected by state law or constitution in 21 states. (For updates, see Kaiser Health News Abortion Policy Tracker .) Abortion providers and advocates have challenged abortion bans in many states as violating the state constitution or another state law. In Georgia, on Sept. 30, 2024,  a state judge struck down Georgia’s six-week abortion ban , saying it violated the state constitution. One week later, the Georgia Supreme Court stayed the lower court’s decision , while the case is being appealed. This means that abortions after six weeks of pregnancy are again illegal in Georgia.

In his concurrence, Chief Justice Roberts said that while he agreed with the majority’s conclusion to uphold Mississippi’s law, he would have preferred a narrower approach based on the principle of judicial restraint. Instead of “repudiating a constitutional right we have not only previously recognized, but also expressly reaffirmed applying the doctrine of stare decisis “, the Court could simply have rejected viability as the point at which the state’s interest in protecting potential life outweighed the woman’s right to terminate her pregnancy, and upheld Mississippi’s right to ban abortions after 15 weeks. The majority rejected this approach, in part because it “would only put off the day when we would be forced to confront the question we now decide. The turmoil wrought by Roe and Casey would be prolonged. It is far better–for this Court and the country–to face up to the real issue without further delay.”

Abortion After Dobbs

The claim that Dobbs will end the turmoil over abortion is dubious. Abortion rights activists have challenged trigger bans in a dozen states. Some have already been rejected by judges, but other cases continue. Most of the legal challenges nationwide seek to establish that state constitutions protect a right to abortion. President Biden signed an executive order designed to ensure access to abortion medication and emergency contraception, leaving the details up to the secretary of health and human services.

Court cases have challenged the availability of medication abortion . Another issue likely to result in lawsuits is whether states can prevent their residents from traveling to other states to have abortions. Nor are legal battles necessarily limited to the states. Some anti-abortion activists are pushing for a federal ban on abortion, while some pro-choice advocates are pushing for a federal law to protect the right to abortion. Neither side has the 60 votes necessary, but that could change in the future.

The Supreme Court expressly noted that its opinion “is not based on any view about if and when prenatal life is entitled to any of the rights enjoyed after birth.” That leaves open the question whether states may confer legal personhood on embryos. May they punish women who have abortions under their homicide statutes, even executing them in death penalty states?

The extreme conservative position, taken by the official teachings of the Roman Catholic Church, regards even abortions necessary to save the life of the pregnant woman as illicit, since it is forbidden to kill one innocent human being in order to save the life of another. As of July 2022, all of the state anti-abortion laws and proposed laws make an exception for “medical emergencies,” but nothing in Dobbs requires states to make this exception. Moreover, the determination of what counts as a medical emergency can be extremely subjective. A pregnant woman may develop a condition that might be, but is not definitely, life-threatening. May a doctor perform an abortion in that case? Five women in Texas have filed a lawsuit saying that they were denied medically necessary abortions. Joined by two ob-gyns, they are seeking to clarify when abortion is permissible under state law.

Questions abound. How close to death must a woman be for doctors to act? Will doctors be willing to take the risk of possible jail time if they make a call that is later questioned?

Complications can arise in any pregnancy, but the inability to get an abortion for medical reasons is likely to impose particular burdens on pregnant patients with chronic illnesses and disabilities, including psychiatric conditions, diabetes, and heart conditions. Pregnancy may take years off their lives, but this would not be enough for them to get an abortion in states that provide an exemption only in the case of a “medical emergency” that “necessitate[s] the immediate performance or inducement of an abortion.”

Thus, Dobbs has had a deleterious impact on the ability of doctors to care properly for their pregnant patients, with two confirmed deaths and others likely . In Georgia, Amber Nicole Thurman and Candi Miller, died as a result of the restrictive abortion law in their state. The AMA condemned the Dobbs decision as “an egregious allowance of government intrusion into the medical examination room, a direct attack on the practice of medicine and the patient-physician relationship, and a brazen violation of patients’ rights to evidence-based reproductive health services.” In the weeks after the Dobbs decision, there were reports of profound changes in other medical care, including for ectopic pregnancies and for women with lupus, which is treated with a medicine that can cause miscarriage.

There are no exceptions for pregnancies that result from rape or incest in Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Kentucky, Louisiana, Missouri, Oklahoma, Ohio, South Dakota, Tennessee, or Texas. The rationale is that it is unjust to end a pregnancy because its father is a rapist. Those who favor exceptions for rape and incest regard it as equally unjust to force women to continue a pregnancy for which they have no responsibility.

The Impact of Dobbs Beyond Abortion

The loss of abortion rights is real and of great concern to many Americans, not only because of the impact this will have on the lives of women and their families, but also because a rejection of the constitutional right to privacy and substantive due process could have effects beyond abortion. On the face of it, the analysis in Dobbs applies to other rights that the Supreme Court has upheld, including the right of both married and unmarried couples to use contraceptives ( Griswold v. Connecticut , 1965, and Eisenstadt v. Baird , 1972), the right to marry a person of a different race ( Loving v. Virginia , 1967), the right to engage in private, consensual sexual acts ( Lawrence v. Texas , 2003), and the right to marry a person of the same sex ( Obergefell v. Hodges , 2015). None of these rights are mentioned in the Constitution, nor are they deeply rooted in this Nation’s history and tradition. This means, in the words of the dissenters (Breyer, Sotomayor, and Kagan) that “one of two things must be true. Either the majority does not really believe in its own reasoning. Or if it does, all rights that have no history stretching back to the mid-19th century are insecure. Either the mass of the majority’s opinion is hypocrisy, or additional constitutional rights are under threat. It is one or the other.”

The majority insisted that its decision “concerns the constitutional right to abortion and no other right. Nothing in this opinion should be understood to cast doubt on precedents that do not concern abortion.” But if other precedents fail the test for determining constitutional rights provided in Dobbs , why aren’t these cases also wrongly decided?

Same-Sex Marriage

In his separate concurring opinion, Justice Thomas forthrightly accepted this implication, saying, “in future cases, we should reconsider all of this Court’s substantive due process precedents, including Griswold , Lawrence , and Obergefell .” Thomas, unsurprisingly, did not mention Loving , perhaps because he assumes that discrimination based on race is prohibited by the Fourteenth Amendment’s guarantee of equal protection. The dissenters, however, note that the right to marry someone of a different race was not protected at the time of the adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment any more than the rights to abortion, contraception, to engage in private, consensual acts, or to marry a person of the same sex.

While anti-miscegenation laws are unlikely to garner much public support, the same may not be true for LGBTQ rights protected by Lawrence and Obergefell . Some far-right Republicans have expressed an interest in ending same-sex marriage . Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has said that he would defend the state’s defunct sodomy law if the Supreme Court were to follow Thomas’s suggestion and revisit Lawrence .

Contraception, IVF

It seems unlikely that there would be much enthusiasm in the states for banning contraceptives in general, although some conservatives might favor rolling back the sexual revolution that stemmed from the Pill. Presumably, that would satisfy the rational-basis test that the Court identified as the standard for abortion restrictions or prohibition. Moreover, some forms of contraception, such as IUDs, that prevent a fertilized egg from implanting, might be prohibited under laws like Oklahoma’s that define persons as human beings from conception onwards.

IVF could also be adversely affected by Dobbs , because of the routine practice of discarding embryos. This occurs for two reasons. First, the creation of excess embryos enables fertility doctors to implant only one or two embryos per cycle, and to freeze the remainders for future use. This protects women from having to go through the onerous process of egg retrieval in future pregnancies. Freezing embryos has also facilitated single embryo transfer for good-prognosis patients, which has resulted in fewer twins and higher-multiple births, which are riskier for both mothers and babies than singleton births.

Second, it is now routine in IVF to test embryos for chromosomal defects and to discard affected embryos. This improves the chances for a successful pregnancy since embryos with chromosomal defects are less likely to implant and to miscarry. At this point, embryos created in labs are not explicitly targeted by state laws that ban abortion. Trigger laws in most states are aimed at preventing the termination of pregnancy, not regulating IVF embryos. That could change. A spokeswoman for Students for Life Action, a large national anti-abortion group, says that they are looking at IVF : “Protecting life from the very beginning is our ultimate goal, and in this new legal environment we are researching issues like IVF, especially considering a business model that, by design, ends most of the lives conceived in a lab.”  Ironically, laws intended to prevent the termination of pregnancies might deprive infertile couples from having a successful pregnancy.

On February 16, 2024, the Supreme Court of Alabama held that frozen embryos are children with respect to Alabama’s wrongful-death statutes. Some have claimed that this will disallow the discard of embryos by IVF clinics, but that is not obvious. Wrongful-death suits must demonstrate negligence, not simply causing death. Nevertheless, the implications of the court’s decision are unclear, creating anxiety among IVF providers and patients. The University of Alabama health system is pausing in vitro fertilization treatments while considering the implications of the court’s decision.

Care for Miscarrying Patients

Another area of concern is the medical care given to women with wanted pregnancies who miscarry. In what is known as a “missed miscarriage,” the fetus dies in the womb but is not expelled from the woman’s body. In an “incomplete miscarriage,” not all of the fetal tissue is expelled. These situations can cause infection that poses a threat to the woman’s life. The medical options are waiting and hoping that the woman miscarries naturally or intervening medically with either a surgical procedure (D&C) or abortion medication to remove the fetus or fetal tissue. Because these interventions are also used in abortion procedures, outlawing abortion could have a chilling effect on what doctors are willing to do.

In states with abortion bans, there are reports of doctors declining to perform any procedure that could be seen as an illegal abortion. In some cases, women have had to wait to miscarry, which could take weeks. Not only does this impose added emotional stress on women who have lost a wanted pregnancy, but it could even cost their lives. This happened in Ireland in 2012. Savita Halappanavar, 17 weeks pregnant, was admitted to hospital after a miscarriage was deemed inevitable. When she did not miscarry after her water broke, she discussed having a termination with the attending physician. This was denied because Irish law at the time forbade abortion if a heartbeat was still detectable. While they waited for the fetus’s heart to stop, Savita developed sepsis and died. The case was instrumental in getting abortion legalized in Ireland.

ProPublica has determined that restrictive abortion laws in the U.S. have resulted in at least two deaths of women who were denied appropriate medical care after a miscarriage.

The first happened in September 2021. Josseli Barnica , a 28-year-old mother of a daughter, began to miscarry at 17 weeks. Standard care would have been to speed up the delivery or empty her uterus to stave off an infection. Her doctors at a Houston hospital told her husband that Texas law prevented them from intervening while the fetus’s heart was still beating. During the 40 hours it took for the fetus to emerge, Barnica’s uterus was exposed to bacteria. Three days after she delivered, Barnica died of an infection.

The second occurred in October 2023. Nevaeh Crain , age 18, feverish and vomiting after her baby shower, had gone to two different emergency rooms in Texas within twelve hours, returning home worse off than before.  At the first hospital, they didn’t even investigate her severe abdominal cramps, and diagnosed her with a strep throat. At the second hospital, she tested positive for sepsis, but doctors said that her six-month-old fetus had a heartbeat and that she was fine to leave. At the third hospital, an obstetrician insisted on two ultrasounds to confirm fetal demise before moving her to intensive care. By then, more than two hours after her arrival, her blood pressure had plummeted. She died hours later.

Texas law requires that doctors record the absence of a fetal heartbeat before intervening with a procedure that could end a pregnancy. Doctors can make exceptions to save a woman’s life, but many fear that they could be prosecuted for performing an illegal abortion, lose their medical license, and even go to jail. Texas law essentially requires doctors to commit malpractice.

Landmark cases like Quinlan (1976) and Cruzan (1990) relied on a constitutional right of privacy and substantive due process. The rejection by the Court of these principles could threaten well-established rights of patients to refuse life-saving care and to stipulate their wishes in that regard in advance directives.

At this point, it is impossible to predict all of the effects of overturning Roe and Casey . This much is clear: the battle over abortion rights is far from over.

Bonnie Steinbock , PhD, a Hastings Center fellow, is professor emeritus of philosophy at The University at Albany/State University of New York.

• Symposium: Seeking Reproductive Justice in the Next 50 Years. The Journal of Law, Medicine & Ethics, 51 (Fall 2023): 455.
• Linda Greenhouse and Reva Siegel, “Casey and the Clinic Closings: When ‘Protecting Health’ Obstructs Choice,” Yale Law Review 125 (2016): 1428-1531.
• Bonnie Steinbock, Life Before Birth: The Moral and Legal Status of Embryos and Fetuses, 2nd edition (Oxford University Press, 2011).
• Ronald Dworkin, “The Court and Abortion: Worse Than You Think,” New York Review of Books, May 31, 2007.
• Margaret Olivia Little, “The Morality of Abortion,” in Christopher Wellman and R.G. Frey, eds., A Companion to Applied Ethics (Blackwell Publishing, 2003).
• David Boonin, A Defense of Abortion (Cambridge University Press, 2002).
• Jeff McMahan, The Ethics of Killing: Problems at the Margins of Life (Oxford University Press, 2002).
• Susan Dwyer and Joel Feinberg, eds. The Problem of Abortion (Wadsworth Publishing Co., 1996).
• Sidney Callahan and Daniel Callahan, eds. Abortion: Understanding Differences (Plenum, 1984).
• Kristin Luker, Abortion and the Politics of Motherhood (University of California Press, 1984).
• Don Marquis, “Why Abortion Is Immoral,” Journal of Philosophy, April 1984.
• Donald H. Regan, "Rewriting Roe v. Wade." Michigan Law Review, August 1979.
• Mary Anne Warren, “On the Moral and Legal Status of Abortion,” The Monist, January 1973.
• Judith Thomson, “A Defense of Abortion,” Philosophy and Public Affairs, Winter 1971.
• Ethics and Abortion Resources from The Hastings Center
• Bonnie Steinbock, PhD Hastings Center Fellow and professor emeritus of philosophy at The University at Albany/State University of New York [email protected]
• Thomas H. Murray, PhD President Emeritus and Fellow, The Hastings Center [email protected]
• Maggie Little, BPhil, PhD Director, The Kennedy Institute of Ethics; Hastings Center Fellow [email protected]
• What Is Bioethics?
• For the Media
• Hastings Center News
• Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion
• Hastings Center Report
• Hastings Bioethics Resources
• Ethics & Human Research
• Focus Areas
• Hastings Bioethics Forum
• Bioethics Careers & Education
• Bioethics Briefings
• Books by Hastings Scholars
• Special Reports
• Ways To Give
• Why We Give
• Gift Planning

Upcoming Events

Previous events, receive our newsletter.

• Terms of Use

• Search Menu

Sign in through your institution

• Browse content in Arts and Humanities
• Browse content in Archaeology
• Anglo-Saxon and Medieval Archaeology
• Archaeological Methodology and Techniques
• Archaeology by Region
• Archaeology of Religion
• Archaeology of Trade and Exchange
• Biblical Archaeology
• Contemporary and Public Archaeology
• Environmental Archaeology
• Historical Archaeology
• History and Theory of Archaeology
• Industrial Archaeology
• Landscape Archaeology
• Mortuary Archaeology
• Prehistoric Archaeology
• Underwater Archaeology
• Urban Archaeology
• Zooarchaeology
• Browse content in Architecture
• Architectural Structure and Design
• History of Architecture
• Residential and Domestic Buildings
• Theory of Architecture
• Browse content in Art
• Art Subjects and Themes
• History of Art
• Industrial and Commercial Art
• Theory of Art
• Biographical Studies
• Byzantine Studies
• Browse content in Classical Studies
• Classical History
• Classical Philosophy
• Classical Mythology
• Classical Numismatics
• Classical Literature
• Classical Reception
• Classical Art and Architecture
• Classical Oratory and Rhetoric
• Greek and Roman Epigraphy
• Greek and Roman Law
• Greek and Roman Papyrology
• Greek and Roman Archaeology
• Late Antiquity
• Religion in the Ancient World
• Social History
• Digital Humanities
• Browse content in History
• Colonialism and Imperialism
• Diplomatic History
• Environmental History
• Genealogy, Heraldry, Names, and Honours
• Genocide and Ethnic Cleansing
• Historical Geography
• History by Period
• History of Emotions
• History of Agriculture
• History of Education
• History of Gender and Sexuality
• Industrial History
• Intellectual History
• International History
• Labour History
• Legal and Constitutional History
• Local and Family History
• Maritime History
• Military History
• National Liberation and Post-Colonialism
• Oral History
• Political History
• Public History
• Regional and National History
• Revolutions and Rebellions
• Slavery and Abolition of Slavery
• Social and Cultural History
• Theory, Methods, and Historiography
• Urban History
• World History
• Browse content in Language Teaching and Learning
• Language Learning (Specific Skills)
• Language Teaching Theory and Methods
• Browse content in Linguistics
• Applied Linguistics
• Cognitive Linguistics
• Computational Linguistics
• Forensic Linguistics
• Grammar, Syntax and Morphology
• Historical and Diachronic Linguistics
• History of English
• Language Acquisition
• Language Evolution
• Language Reference
• Language Variation
• Language Families
• Lexicography
• Linguistic Anthropology
• Linguistic Theories
• Linguistic Typology
• Phonetics and Phonology
• Psycholinguistics
• Sociolinguistics
• Translation and Interpretation
• Writing Systems
• Browse content in Literature
• Bibliography
• Children's Literature Studies
• Literary Studies (Asian)
• Literary Studies (European)
• Literary Studies (Eco-criticism)
• Literary Studies (Romanticism)
• Literary Studies (American)
• Literary Studies (Modernism)
• Literary Studies - World
• Literary Studies (1500 to 1800)
• Literary Studies (19th Century)
• Literary Studies (20th Century onwards)
• Literary Studies (African American Literature)
• Literary Studies (British and Irish)
• Literary Studies (Early and Medieval)
• Literary Studies (Fiction, Novelists, and Prose Writers)
• Literary Studies (Gender Studies)
• Literary Studies (Graphic Novels)
• Literary Studies (History of the Book)
• Literary Studies (Plays and Playwrights)
• Literary Studies (Poetry and Poets)
• Literary Studies (Postcolonial Literature)
• Literary Studies (Queer Studies)
• Literary Studies (Science Fiction)
• Literary Studies (Travel Literature)
• Literary Studies (War Literature)
• Literary Studies (Women's Writing)
• Literary Theory and Cultural Studies
• Mythology and Folklore
• Shakespeare Studies and Criticism
• Browse content in Media Studies
• Browse content in Music
• Applied Music
• Dance and Music
• Ethics in Music
• Ethnomusicology
• Gender and Sexuality in Music
• Medicine and Music
• Music Cultures
• Music and Religion
• Music and Media
• Music and Culture
• Music Education and Pedagogy
• Music Theory and Analysis
• Musical Scores, Lyrics, and Libretti
• Musical Structures, Styles, and Techniques
• Musicology and Music History
• Performance Practice and Studies
• Race and Ethnicity in Music
• Sound Studies
• Browse content in Performing Arts
• Browse content in Philosophy
• Aesthetics and Philosophy of Art
• Epistemology
• Feminist Philosophy
• History of Western Philosophy
• Meta-Philosophy
• Metaphysics
• Moral Philosophy
• Non-Western Philosophy
• Philosophy of Science
• Philosophy of Language
• Philosophy of Mind
• Philosophy of Perception
• Philosophy of Action
• Philosophy of Law
• Philosophy of Religion
• Philosophy of Mathematics and Logic
• Practical Ethics
• Social and Political Philosophy
• Browse content in Religion
• Biblical Studies
• Christianity
• East Asian Religions
• History of Religion
• Judaism and Jewish Studies
• Qumran Studies
• Religion and Education
• Religion and Health
• Religion and Politics
• Religion and Science
• Religion and Law
• Religion and Art, Literature, and Music
• Religious Studies
• Browse content in Society and Culture
• Cookery, Food, and Drink
• Cultural Studies
• Customs and Traditions
• Ethical Issues and Debates
• Hobbies, Games, Arts and Crafts
• Natural world, Country Life, and Pets
• Popular Beliefs and Controversial Knowledge
• Sports and Outdoor Recreation
• Technology and Society
• Travel and Holiday
• Visual Culture
• Browse content in Law
• Arbitration
• Browse content in Company and Commercial Law
• Commercial Law
• Company Law
• Browse content in Comparative Law
• Systems of Law
• Competition Law
• Browse content in Constitutional and Administrative Law
• Government Powers
• Judicial Review
• Local Government Law
• Military and Defence Law
• Parliamentary and Legislative Practice
• Construction Law
• Contract Law
• Browse content in Criminal Law
• Criminal Procedure
• Criminal Evidence Law
• Sentencing and Punishment
• Employment and Labour Law
• Environment and Energy Law
• Browse content in Financial Law
• Banking Law
• Insolvency Law
• History of Law
• Human Rights and Immigration
• Intellectual Property Law
• Browse content in International Law
• Private International Law and Conflict of Laws
• Public International Law
• IT and Communications Law
• Jurisprudence and Philosophy of Law
• Law and Politics
• Law and Society
• Browse content in Legal System and Practice
• Courts and Procedure
• Legal Skills and Practice
• Legal System - Costs and Funding
• Primary Sources of Law
• Regulation of Legal Profession
• Medical and Healthcare Law
• Browse content in Policing
• Criminal Investigation and Detection
• Police and Security Services
• Police Procedure and Law
• Police Regional Planning
• Browse content in Property Law
• Personal Property Law
• Restitution
• Study and Revision
• Terrorism and National Security Law
• Browse content in Trusts Law
• Wills and Probate or Succession
• Browse content in Medicine and Health
• Browse content in Allied Health Professions
• Arts Therapies
• Clinical Science
• Dietetics and Nutrition
• Occupational Therapy
• Operating Department Practice
• Physiotherapy
• Radiography
• Speech and Language Therapy
• Browse content in Anaesthetics
• General Anaesthesia
• Browse content in Clinical Medicine
• Acute Medicine
• Cardiovascular Medicine
• Clinical Genetics
• Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics
• Dermatology
• Endocrinology and Diabetes
• Gastroenterology
• Genito-urinary Medicine
• Geriatric Medicine
• Infectious Diseases
• Medical Toxicology
• Medical Oncology
• Pain Medicine
• Palliative Medicine
• Rehabilitation Medicine
• Respiratory Medicine and Pulmonology
• Rheumatology
• Sleep Medicine
• Sports and Exercise Medicine
• Clinical Neuroscience
• Community Medical Services
• Critical Care
• Emergency Medicine
• Forensic Medicine
• Haematology
• History of Medicine
• Browse content in Medical Dentistry
• Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery
• Paediatric Dentistry
• Restorative Dentistry and Orthodontics
• Surgical Dentistry
• Browse content in Medical Skills
• Clinical Skills
• Communication Skills
• Nursing Skills
• Surgical Skills
• Medical Ethics
• Medical Statistics and Methodology
• Browse content in Neurology
• Clinical Neurophysiology
• Neuropathology
• Nursing Studies
• Browse content in Obstetrics and Gynaecology
• Gynaecology
• Occupational Medicine
• Ophthalmology
• Otolaryngology (ENT)
• Browse content in Paediatrics
• Neonatology
• Browse content in Pathology
• Chemical Pathology
• Clinical Cytogenetics and Molecular Genetics
• Histopathology
• Medical Microbiology and Virology
• Patient Education and Information
• Browse content in Pharmacology
• Psychopharmacology
• Browse content in Popular Health
• Caring for Others
• Complementary and Alternative Medicine
• Self-help and Personal Development
• Browse content in Preclinical Medicine
• Cell Biology
• Molecular Biology and Genetics
• Reproduction, Growth and Development
• Primary Care
• Professional Development in Medicine
• Browse content in Psychiatry
• Addiction Medicine
• Child and Adolescent Psychiatry
• Forensic Psychiatry
• Learning Disabilities
• Old Age Psychiatry
• Psychotherapy
• Browse content in Public Health and Epidemiology
• Epidemiology
• Public Health
• Browse content in Radiology
• Clinical Radiology
• Interventional Radiology
• Nuclear Medicine
• Radiation Oncology
• Reproductive Medicine
• Browse content in Surgery
• Cardiothoracic Surgery
• Gastro-intestinal and Colorectal Surgery
• General Surgery
• Neurosurgery
• Paediatric Surgery
• Peri-operative Care
• Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery
• Surgical Oncology
• Transplant Surgery
• Trauma and Orthopaedic Surgery
• Vascular Surgery
• Browse content in Science and Mathematics
• Browse content in Biological Sciences
• Aquatic Biology
• Biochemistry
• Bioinformatics and Computational Biology
• Developmental Biology
• Ecology and Conservation
• Evolutionary Biology
• Genetics and Genomics
• Microbiology
• Molecular and Cell Biology
• Natural History
• Plant Sciences and Forestry
• Research Methods in Life Sciences
• Structural Biology
• Systems Biology
• Zoology and Animal Sciences
• Browse content in Chemistry
• Analytical Chemistry
• Computational Chemistry
• Crystallography
• Environmental Chemistry
• Industrial Chemistry
• Inorganic Chemistry
• Materials Chemistry
• Medicinal Chemistry
• Mineralogy and Gems
• Organic Chemistry
• Physical Chemistry
• Polymer Chemistry
• Study and Communication Skills in Chemistry
• Theoretical Chemistry
• Browse content in Computer Science
• Artificial Intelligence
• Computer Architecture and Logic Design
• Game Studies
• Human-Computer Interaction
• Mathematical Theory of Computation
• Programming Languages
• Software Engineering
• Systems Analysis and Design
• Virtual Reality
• Browse content in Computing
• Business Applications
• Computer Security
• Computer Games
• Computer Networking and Communications
• Digital Lifestyle
• Graphical and Digital Media Applications
• Operating Systems
• Browse content in Earth Sciences and Geography
• Atmospheric Sciences
• Environmental Geography
• Geology and the Lithosphere
• Maps and Map-making
• Meteorology and Climatology
• Oceanography and Hydrology
• Palaeontology
• Physical Geography and Topography
• Regional Geography
• Soil Science
• Urban Geography
• Browse content in Engineering and Technology
• Agriculture and Farming
• Biological Engineering
• Civil Engineering, Surveying, and Building
• Electronics and Communications Engineering
• Energy Technology
• Engineering (General)
• Environmental Science, Engineering, and Technology
• History of Engineering and Technology
• Mechanical Engineering and Materials
• Technology of Industrial Chemistry
• Transport Technology and Trades
• Browse content in Environmental Science
• Applied Ecology (Environmental Science)
• Conservation of the Environment (Environmental Science)
• Environmental Sustainability
• Environmentalist Thought and Ideology (Environmental Science)
• Management of Land and Natural Resources (Environmental Science)
• Natural Disasters (Environmental Science)
• Nuclear Issues (Environmental Science)
• Pollution and Threats to the Environment (Environmental Science)
• Social Impact of Environmental Issues (Environmental Science)
• History of Science and Technology
• Browse content in Materials Science
• Ceramics and Glasses
• Composite Materials
• Metals, Alloying, and Corrosion
• Nanotechnology
• Browse content in Mathematics
• Applied Mathematics
• Biomathematics and Statistics
• History of Mathematics
• Mathematical Education
• Mathematical Finance
• Mathematical Analysis
• Numerical and Computational Mathematics
• Probability and Statistics
• Pure Mathematics
• Browse content in Neuroscience
• Cognition and Behavioural Neuroscience
• Development of the Nervous System
• Disorders of the Nervous System
• History of Neuroscience
• Invertebrate Neurobiology
• Molecular and Cellular Systems
• Neuroendocrinology and Autonomic Nervous System
• Neuroscientific Techniques
• Sensory and Motor Systems
• Browse content in Physics
• Astronomy and Astrophysics
• Atomic, Molecular, and Optical Physics
• Biological and Medical Physics
• Classical Mechanics
• Computational Physics
• Condensed Matter Physics
• Electromagnetism, Optics, and Acoustics
• History of Physics
• Mathematical and Statistical Physics
• Measurement Science
• Nuclear Physics
• Particles and Fields
• Plasma Physics
• Quantum Physics
• Relativity and Gravitation
• Semiconductor and Mesoscopic Physics
• Browse content in Psychology
• Affective Sciences
• Clinical Psychology
• Cognitive Psychology
• Cognitive Neuroscience
• Criminal and Forensic Psychology
• Developmental Psychology
• Educational Psychology
• Evolutionary Psychology
• Health Psychology
• History and Systems in Psychology
• Music Psychology
• Neuropsychology
• Organizational Psychology
• Psychological Assessment and Testing
• Psychology of Human-Technology Interaction
• Psychology Professional Development and Training
• Research Methods in Psychology
• Social Psychology
• Browse content in Social Sciences
• Browse content in Anthropology
• Anthropology of Religion
• Human Evolution
• Medical Anthropology
• Physical Anthropology
• Regional Anthropology
• Social and Cultural Anthropology
• Theory and Practice of Anthropology
• Browse content in Business and Management
• Business Strategy
• Business Ethics
• Business History
• Business and Government
• Business and Technology
• Business and the Environment
• Comparative Management
• Corporate Governance
• Corporate Social Responsibility
• Entrepreneurship
• Health Management
• Human Resource Management
• Industrial and Employment Relations
• Industry Studies
• Information and Communication Technologies
• International Business
• Knowledge Management
• Management and Management Techniques
• Operations Management
• Organizational Theory and Behaviour
• Pensions and Pension Management
• Public and Nonprofit Management
• Social Issues in Business and Management
• Strategic Management
• Supply Chain Management
• Browse content in Criminology and Criminal Justice
• Criminal Justice
• Criminology
• Forms of Crime
• International and Comparative Criminology
• Youth Violence and Juvenile Justice
• Development Studies
• Browse content in Economics
• Agricultural, Environmental, and Natural Resource Economics
• Asian Economics
• Behavioural Finance
• Behavioural Economics and Neuroeconomics
• Econometrics and Mathematical Economics
• Economic Systems
• Economic History
• Economic Methodology
• Economic Development and Growth
• Financial Markets
• Financial Institutions and Services
• General Economics and Teaching
• Health, Education, and Welfare
• History of Economic Thought
• International Economics
• Labour and Demographic Economics
• Law and Economics
• Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics
• Microeconomics
• Public Economics
• Urban, Rural, and Regional Economics
• Welfare Economics
• Browse content in Education
• Adult Education and Continuous Learning
• Care and Counselling of Students
• Early Childhood and Elementary Education
• Educational Equipment and Technology
• Educational Research Methodology
• Educational Strategies and Policy
• Higher and Further Education
• Organization and Management of Education
• Philosophy and Theory of Education
• Schools Studies
• Secondary Education
• Teaching of a Specific Subject
• Teaching of Specific Groups and Special Educational Needs
• Teaching Skills and Techniques
• Browse content in Environment
• Applied Ecology (Social Science)
• Climate Change
• Conservation of the Environment (Social Science)
• Environmentalist Thought and Ideology (Social Science)
• Management of Land and Natural Resources (Social Science)
• Natural Disasters (Environment)
• Pollution and Threats to the Environment (Social Science)
• Social Impact of Environmental Issues (Social Science)
• Sustainability
• Browse content in Human Geography
• Cultural Geography
• Economic Geography
• Political Geography
• Browse content in Interdisciplinary Studies
• Communication Studies
• Museums, Libraries, and Information Sciences
• Browse content in Politics
• African Politics
• Asian Politics
• Chinese Politics
• Comparative Politics
• Conflict Politics
• Elections and Electoral Studies
• Environmental Politics
• Ethnic Politics
• European Union
• Foreign Policy
• Gender and Politics
• Human Rights and Politics
• Indian Politics
• International Relations
• International Organization (Politics)
• International Political Economy
• Irish Politics
• Latin American Politics
• Middle Eastern Politics
• Political Methodology
• Political Communication
• Political Philosophy
• Political Sociology
• Political Behaviour
• Political Economy
• Political Institutions
• Political Theory
• Politics and Law
• Politics and Religion
• Politics of Development
• Public Administration
• Public Policy
• Qualitative Political Methodology
• Quantitative Political Methodology
• Regional Political Studies
• Russian Politics
• Security Studies
• State and Local Government
• UK Politics
• US Politics
• Browse content in Regional and Area Studies
• African Studies
• Asian Studies
• East Asian Studies
• Japanese Studies
• Latin American Studies
• Middle Eastern Studies
• Native American Studies
• Scottish Studies
• Browse content in Research and Information
• Research Methods
• Browse content in Social Work
• Addictions and Substance Misuse
• Adoption and Fostering
• Care of the Elderly
• Child and Adolescent Social Work
• Couple and Family Social Work
• Direct Practice and Clinical Social Work
• Emergency Services
• Human Behaviour and the Social Environment
• International and Global Issues in Social Work
• Mental and Behavioural Health
• Social Justice and Human Rights
• Social Policy and Advocacy
• Social Work and Crime and Justice
• Social Work Macro Practice
• Social Work Practice Settings
• Social Work Research and Evidence-based Practice
• Welfare and Benefit Systems
• Browse content in Sociology
• Childhood Studies
• Community Development
• Comparative and Historical Sociology
• Disability Studies
• Economic Sociology
• Gender and Sexuality
• Gerontology and Ageing
• Health, Illness, and Medicine
• Marriage and the Family
• Migration Studies
• Occupations, Professions, and Work
• Organizations
• Population and Demography
• Race and Ethnicity
• Social Theory
• Social Movements and Social Change
• Social Research and Statistics
• Social Stratification, Inequality, and Mobility
• Sociology of Religion
• Sociology of Education
• Sport and Leisure
• Urban and Rural Studies
• Browse content in Warfare and Defence
• Defence Strategy, Planning, and Research
• Land Forces and Warfare
• Military Administration
• Military Life and Institutions
• Naval Forces and Warfare
• Other Warfare and Defence Issues
• Peace Studies and Conflict Resolution
• Weapons and Equipment

Arguments about Abortion: Personhood, Morality, and Law

• Cite Icon Cite
• Permissions Icon Permissions

Does the morality of abortion depend on the moral status of the human fetus? Must the law of abortion give an answer to the question about exactly when personhood begins? Can a law which permits late abortion but not infanticide be morally justified? These are just some of the questions this book sets out to address. An extended analysis of the moral and legal status of abortion, the book offers an account of abortion which keeps philosophical disagreement about ‘personhood’ at the centre of the debate. Structured in three parts the book considers the relevance of prenatal personhood for the moral and legal evaluation of abortion; traces the key features of the conventional debate about when personhood begins; and explores the most prominent current problems in abortion ethics literature, including the human equality problem and the difference between abortion and infanticide. It examines approaches abortion law and regulation as well as the differing attitudes to selective abortion on grounds of sex and fetal disability. The book concludes with a snapshot into the current controversy surrounding the scope of the right to conscientiously object to participation in abortion provision.

Signed in as

Institutional accounts.

• GoogleCrawler [DO NOT DELETE]
• Google Scholar Indexing

Personal account

• Sign in with email/username & password
• Get email alerts
• Save searches
• Purchase content
• Activate your purchase/trial code
• Add your ORCID iD

Institutional access

Sign in with a library card.

• Sign in with username/password
• Recommend to your librarian
• Institutional account management
• Get help with access

Access to content on Oxford Academic is often provided through institutional subscriptions and purchases. If you are a member of an institution with an active account, you may be able to access content in one of the following ways:

IP based access

Typically, access is provided across an institutional network to a range of IP addresses. This authentication occurs automatically, and it is not possible to sign out of an IP authenticated account.

Choose this option to get remote access when outside your institution. Shibboleth/Open Athens technology is used to provide single sign-on between your institution’s website and Oxford Academic.

• Click Sign in through your institution.
• Select your institution from the list provided, which will take you to your institution's website to sign in.
• When on the institution site, please use the credentials provided by your institution. Do not use an Oxford Academic personal account.
• Following successful sign in, you will be returned to Oxford Academic.

If your institution is not listed or you cannot sign in to your institution’s website, please contact your librarian or administrator.

Enter your library card number to sign in. If you cannot sign in, please contact your librarian.

Society Members

Society member access to a journal is achieved in one of the following ways:

Sign in through society site

Many societies offer single sign-on between the society website and Oxford Academic. If you see ‘Sign in through society site’ in the sign in pane within a journal:

• Click Sign in through society site.
• When on the society site, please use the credentials provided by that society. Do not use an Oxford Academic personal account.

If you do not have a society account or have forgotten your username or password, please contact your society.

Sign in using a personal account

Some societies use Oxford Academic personal accounts to provide access to their members. See below.

A personal account can be used to get email alerts, save searches, purchase content, and activate subscriptions.

Some societies use Oxford Academic personal accounts to provide access to their members.

Viewing your signed in accounts

Click the account icon in the top right to:

• View your signed in personal account and access account management features.
• View the institutional accounts that are providing access.

Signed in but can't access content

Oxford Academic is home to a wide variety of products. The institutional subscription may not cover the content that you are trying to access. If you believe you should have access to that content, please contact your librarian.

For librarians and administrators, your personal account also provides access to institutional account management. Here you will find options to view and activate subscriptions, manage institutional settings and access options, access usage statistics, and more.

Our books are available by subscription or purchase to libraries and institutions.

• About Oxford Academic
• Publish journals with us
• University press partners
• What we publish
• New features  
• Open access
• Rights and permissions
• Accessibility
• Advertising
• Media enquiries
• Oxford University Press
• Oxford Languages
• University of Oxford

Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University's objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide

• Copyright © 2024 Oxford University Press
• Cookie settings
• Cookie policy
• Privacy policy
• Legal notice

This Feature Is Available To Subscribers Only

Sign In or Create an Account

This PDF is available to Subscribers Only

For full access to this pdf, sign in to an existing account, or purchase an annual subscription.