On Abortion, Dr. Arash Naraghi

The question is: Is a pregnant woman morally permitted to abort her fetus?

Many people answer this question in the negative. This opposition is, of course, based on various reasons and motives. In particular, religious reasons or motives have played a very significant role in shaping such a judgment. Many believers base their opposition to abortion on the authority of religious sources and references. That is, they claim that authoritative religious sources (such as the Quran or authentic hadith) have deemed abortion morally reprehensible and religiously forbidden (haram); therefore, a believer, by virtue of their religious commitment, must necessarily adhere to that religious ruling. Of course, there is an ambiguity in the concept of “religious ruling” as far as I understand it. In other words, sometimes what is meant by a religious ruling is a “legal” ruling for which we have, in some way, posited religious authority, and sometimes what is meant is a “moral” ruling to which the religious individual is, or should be, morally committed. In most cases, believers conflate these two aspects, or summarily believe that a religious obligation is both morally binding and law, in its legal sense. Of course, the deep connection between morality and law is undeniable, but I think it is good to distinguish between these two aspects and not apply the ruling of one to the other. In many cases, there are laws in society that, by virtue of being law, members of society are obliged to follow, but some individuals in that society reasonably consider those laws morally reprehensible, or the law may be silent on a matter, yet the moral conscience of society (or at least some social groups) considers it a condemnable act. Also, there are many things that are considered morally good, but the law does not oblige us to do them, and it should not. Therefore, one must distinguish between a moral and a legal ruling. I am not concerned here with the religious/legal aspects of the abortion issue; I am more inclined to emphasize its moral aspects. But in the domain of morality, the authority of religious sources must ultimately be grounded, directly or indirectly, in rational authority (this is a somewhat Mu'tazilite-leaning position, and I will not argue for it here). In this case, if a rational defense of a religious/moral ruling is not possible, then one must also doubt its religious authority. Therefore, to answer that initial question, that is, the moral ruling on abortion, believers, just as much as non-believers, must be sensitive and committed to the results of rational discussions and inquiries in this regard. Here, I wish to examine, from certain aspects, the rational arguments that opponents of abortion have put forward.

The main argument of opponents of abortion can be formulated in the following general form:

(1) The fetus is a human person. (2) All human persons are inviolable, that is, they have a right to life, and this right is morally inviolable and inalienable. Therefore: (3) Abortion is morally impermissible. Most of the debates that have taken place regarding the permissibility or impermissibility of abortion have been largely directed at and focused on the first premise. Proponents of abortion have tried to show that the fetus cannot be considered a human person (at least during the first several months of pregnancy), and opponents of abortion have tried to show that the fetus becomes a human person from the very beginning of its existence (or at least much earlier than proponents of abortion claim), and therefore its life is inviolable and inalienable. The fate of the disputes that have arisen over the first premise depends to a large extent on our conception of “person or human person.” That is, to settle that dispute, we must first clarify what the constituents of being a “human person” are, at what stage in its developmental process a being becomes a “person,” and how its realization can be determined. This discussion is exceedingly difficult and, in most cases, murky and obscure. So let us assume that the first premise, in its strongest reading, is true; that is, let us assume that the fetus is a “human person or soul” from the moment of conception. If we accept this claim, does the desired conclusion of the opponents of abortion follow? The answer to this question depends on our judgment regarding the second premise. If the second premise is true, the conclusion will follow (of course, the above argument, as formulated here, is not strictly formally valid, but rectifying this shortcoming is technically easy; to avoid unnecessary technical complexities, I assume it to be logically valid in this simple form.)

Is the second premise true?

The second premise can be read in several different ways. If we take this claim at face value, it seems to entail a general claim as follows:

(First reading): Human persons have an inalienable right to life, meaning that killing a person is never morally justified.

Is the second premise true in this reading? It seems there are several significant problems here:

First— Many opponents of abortion are advocates of the death penalty. That is, this group believes that, at least in some cases, killing is morally permissible. Therefore, someone who opposes abortion based on the first reading of the second premise, but at the same time defends the death penalty, has adopted a logically inconsistent position.

Second— Let us assume that no such inconsistency exists, meaning the opponent of abortion also opposes the death penalty. In that case, is accepting the second premise (according to the first reading) without problem?

It seems that, at least in one case, affirming this premise faces difficulties. Suppose a woman is pregnant, and for entirely justified reasons, doctors determine that continuing the pregnancy would seriously endanger the mother's life. In other words, either the fetus must be aborted, or the mother will certainly die. What can be said about this situation? Here, a conflict appears to arise between the fetus's right to life and the mother's right to life. According to the first reading, both mother and fetus apparently possess an equal, inalienable right to life, but here a conflict has occurred between the right to life of two respected persons (mother and fetus), and apparently, a choice must be made here between the mother's right to life and the fetus's right to life. Does one of the two, in relation to the other, have a greater right to life? Why? What is the basis for such a preference? It seems that we are often inclined, in this situation, to prioritize the mother's life over the fetus. For example, we believe that the mother is a fully developed human being, bears various social, familial, and other responsibilities, and the well-being of other humans (such as other children, spouse, her parents) is possibly tied to her life, whereas the fetus is still an unborn being, has not yet formed a connection with the external environment, and nothing of great importance in the outside world depends on its existence; therefore, the loss of the mother, unlike the loss of the fetus, is a far more harmful matter. Thus, if we look at this situation from a purely utilitarian standpoint, the mother, in comparison to the fetus, has a greater right to life, and therefore, at least in cases where the fetus's life seriously exposes the mother's life to destruction, preferring the mother, that is, abortion, is morally permissible.

But it seems that there are flaws hidden in this argument: Let us not forget that, according to the first premise, we have accepted that the fetus is a respected human person or soul; therefore, if we accept the above argument, we have apparently committed ourselves to something like the following claim:

Souls that provide greater benefit possess a greater right to life.

Firstly, providing a criterion by which we can rank the benefits that accrue from individuals is an extremely difficult task. Does a carpenter provide more benefit than a baker? (To whom? Society? Family? Orphans?…) Is a doctor's benefit greater than a gardener's? Now suppose the doctor is a capable professional, but morally an inconsiderate, cruel, and very greedy person, while the gardener, though his professional good does not extend beyond a few small gardens, is an extremely noble and morally elevated individual. What can be said in this case? Should the sum of benefits that others have received from them so far be the basis for judgment? If you were that gardener, would you truly grant that doctor a greater right to life compared to yourself?

Secondly, in calculating an individual's benefits, should we consider their actual good, or should we also take into account the individual's potential to realize benefits in the future? For example, the honorable brother of Vincent van Gogh was, perhaps, in comparison to the 25-year-old van Gogh, an extremely "more useful" individual in actual terms. That is, if the actual and realized benefits at that time were the basis for judgment, van Gogh's brother would surpass the young van Gogh in the utility test, but if we considered the benefits that could be realized in the future, perhaps van Gogh would emerge victorious from that test. Perhaps the mother's actual benefits are far greater than the fetus's, but who knows, maybe the fetus is a Moses in the mother's womb.

These difficulties may perhaps be resolvable. But in any case, the response of abortion advocates is not complete unless they also prepare an answer for difficulties of this kind. (All these disputes are based on the assumption that utility truly makes a difference in the fundamental rights of individuals, an assumption that is itself highly questionable.)

Opponents of abortion may perhaps consider abortion morally impermissible even when the mother's life is endangered by the pregnancy. But how can they justify this position?

One noteworthy way is to appeal to the important distinction between "killing a person" and "refraining from saving the life of a dying person." Suppose you are caught in a situation where you must inevitably choose one of the following two options:

Option one: you can inject a toxic substance into person A’s bloodstream, knowing that as a result, that person will die within 5 minutes. Option two: person A will die within 5 minutes unless you administer drug X, which is at his bedside, to him. But you refrain from doing so (that is, you do not give him the drug, and of course, 5 minutes later that person dies.)

In the first case, person A dies because of an action you perform, but in the second case, his death results from an action you refrain from performing. In the first case, you kill person A, but in the second case, you refrain from saving his life. If you were forced to choose one of these two options, which would you choose? Apparently, our moral intuition prefers the second option over the first. In other words, it seems that when we are faced with the choice between “killing” and “refraining from saving,” we morally prefer the latter over the former.

Now, assuming this moral intuition, opponents of abortion can argue that when the mother’s life is endangered by the pregnancy, we are faced with two options: (1) killing the fetus, (2) refraining from saving the mother’s life. If these are indeed the two options, then morally we must necessarily prefer the latter over the former, that is, instead of killing the fetus, we must refrain from saving the mother’s life.

What can be said about this argument?

This argument seems largely acceptable. Let us assume that this argument is indeed valid. Can we conclude based on this argument that abortion is generally morally impermissible? It seems the answer is negative. The maximum conclusion that can be drawn from this argument is that performing an abortion is morally impermissible for a third party. That is, for example, the physician consulted by the pregnant woman morally ought not to abort the fetus. For the third party (here, the relevant physician), the nature of the problem is more or less as depicted in the argument above; that is, he is faced with two options: killing the fetus, and refraining from saving the mother’s life. And if we accept the argument above, the only conclusion reached is that the third party (here, the relevant physician) must morally adhere to the result of that argument and refrain from performing the abortion. But does the mother herself have such a moral duty? The truth is that the mother is by no means in the situation depicted in that argument, meaning the mother is not at the moral crossroads of “killing” or “refraining from saving a life.” The mother’s situation is more akin to that of someone who has been attacked and whose life is in danger. In this case, performing an abortion, from the mother’s perspective, is an instance of self-defense. And if killing is morally permissible anywhere, it is killing the aggressor in the course of self-defense. It seems that if a person is attacked by another individual, and their life is endangered by this attack, and the only way to save them from the danger of death is to kill the aggressor, our moral intuition dictates that killing the aggressor is morally permissible. Therefore, when pregnancy seriously endangers the mother’s life, abortion from the mother’s perspective is an instance of self-defense and is morally permissible. Thus, as noted, the argument above, assuming its validity, is binding only for the third party, not the mother herself. (And of course, if we accept that the mother, in this situation, morally has the right to abortion, then it is unclear why she could not transfer this right to a third party, and for example, could not appoint a physician as an agent to exercise this right.)

Therefore, it seems that the first reading of the second premise is not defensible, meaning at least in circumstances where the pregnant woman’s life is endangered by the pregnancy, abortion is morally permissible.

It seems that many opponents of abortion are prepared to accept the above conclusion, that is, to consider abortion permissible in circumstances where the mother’s life is endangered by the pregnancy. Therefore, as far as the abortion debate is concerned, they can base their argument on a more moderate reading of the second premise:

(Second reading): Whenever a conflict arises between the right to life of two inviolable souls, killing the aggressor in defense of one's own soul is morally permissible. To put it more precisely, in certain cases, when the life of person A is exposed to an attack by person B, and person A has no way to preserve their own life except by killing the aggressor B, in this case, the right that person A has in defense of their own soul can override the right that person B has to life, and therefore, killing B by A will be morally permissible. (In fact, this reading should be considered a clause appended to the first reading.)

Based on this reading of the second premise, the claim of opponents of abortion is modified as follows:

Abortion is morally impermissible except in circumstances where the mother's life is at serious risk due to the pregnancy.

What can be said about this new formulation? Is abortion permissible only in one instance (that is, only when a serious conflict arises between the right to life of the mother and the fetus)?

Let us consider another case in which the mother's life is not at risk due to the pregnancy. Suppose a woman is raped and becomes pregnant as a result. In circumstances where the woman's pregnancy results from rape, is abortion still morally impermissible?

Let us assume that some answer this question in the negative, that is, they say that abortion is also permissible in this situation, meaning that at least one more clause must be added to the modified claim of staunch opponents of abortion, as follows:

Abortion is morally impermissible except in circumstances where either the mother's life is at serious risk due to the pregnancy, and/or when the fetus is conceived as a result of rape.

What can opponents of abortion say about this new clause? I believe they can rightly claim that this new clause morally entails an unpleasant assertion. That is, proponents of this new clause implicitly claim that human souls do not enjoy an equal right to life; some human souls are more inviolable than others, and for example, a human being brought into existence as a result of their father's inhumane act has a lesser right to life than others. It is true that the rapist is morally deserving of blame and punishment, but the child produced in the process is, in every respect, an innocent and blameless being. Is it morally permissible to sentence a person to the punishment of death because of a grave offense committed by their father? If the answer to this question is negative, then it seems that the new clause added by proponents of abortion to the opponents' modified claim lacks moral validity, and is more or less like executing an innocent person for a crime committed by their father.

What can be said about this claim by opponents of abortion? Apparently, a fundamental right has been neglected in all these discussions: the right that the mother has over her own body. It seems that every human being (at least to a large extent) has the right to make autonomous decisions about what happens in and to their body, and the mother, as a human individual, enjoys this right as well. But how can the mother's right over her own body morally justify abortion in this case?

To explain this meaning, an analogy can be used:

Suppose one morning when you wake up, to your utter astonishment you find yourself in a hospital bed, with all sorts of medical equipment attached to you. An apparently unconscious man is also lying in the next bed, connected to the same equipment. At this point, the hospital doctor arrives and gives you the following explanation: “Last night, the Society of Poetry and Literature Enthusiasts abducted you from your home in your sleep and brought you here. The person next to you is a very eloquent and renowned poet who was dying, but we have now connected his circulatory system to you, and the toxins in his body are being eliminated through your healthy kidneys. If we disconnect him from your body now, he will undoubtedly die, but there is no cause for worry; in nine months he will recover, and we can safely disconnect him from you.” What would your reaction be to this action? Are those individuals morally permitted to force you to accept this situation? Perhaps you are a compassionate person and a lover of poetry and literature, and therefore, despite the fact that this situation has been imposed on you without your consent, you endure this temporary hardship and save the poet's life. In that case, of course, your action would be highly commendable, but are you morally obligated to do this? If you said, “This is my body, and you had no right to impose such a burden on me without my consent, and now you must immediately disconnect that poet from my body,” would you have committed a moral error? It seems that here our moral intuition dictates that accepting this situation is morally supererogatory, not obligatory. That is, if you accept this situation and save the poet's life, you are morally praiseworthy, but if you refuse to do so, you are not morally blameworthy.

If this is the case, at least in circumstances where the fetus is conceived as a result of rape, abortion is not morally prohibited, because in this situation, pregnancy has been imposed on the woman against her will, and therefore, by virtue of the right she has over her own body, the woman is morally permitted to have an abortion. In other words, in the case of pregnancy resulting from rape, the mother's right over her own body can override the fetus's right to life, and provide an acceptable moral basis for the permissibility of abortion.

So, up to this point, the fetus's right to life can be overridden by (at least) two other rights: the mother's right to life (in circumstances where the mother's life is endangered by the pregnancy), and the mother's right over her own body (especially in circumstances where the pregnancy results from rape). And therefore, at least in these two cases, abortion is morally permissible.

Are the cases of permissible abortion limited to just those two? I imagine staunch opponents of abortion will not go any further than this. And truly, once we move beyond the bounds of these two more or less clear cases, judging the permissibility or impermissibility of abortion becomes exceedingly difficult. But it seems that in the interval between the relatively clear cases and the extremely obscure ones, there are also intermediate cases, the discussion of which can lead to somewhat illuminating results. Here, I would like to examine one of those cases.

Let us suppose a woman willingly and voluntarily engages in sexual relations, and is fully aware that this act could lead to her pregnancy, so she observes all necessary precautions to avoid becoming pregnant; for example, she uses the best available contraceptive pills (or other reliable and accessible methods of preventing pregnancy), but despite these measures, she becomes pregnant. Is abortion permissible under these circumstances?

Opponents of abortion might say that in this situation the woman is in some way responsible for the pregnancy and the creation of the fetus. She knew full well that in sexual relations there is always a possibility of pregnancy, and methods of contraception are always accompanied by an unavoidable margin of error; therefore, any woman who enters into sexual relations has implicitly accepted the probable consequences of this decision. For example, whenever you drive on the streets, you know full well that there is a possibility of an accident. Therefore, you always drive very cautiously and observe all traffic signs and rules. But by bad luck, you suddenly collide with a pedestrian, and as a result, that person is killed. Under these circumstances, can one claim that I observed all customary precautions, and therefore I bear no responsibility in this matter? If you have truly been a good and cautious driver, then what occurred will not be an instance of intentional homicide, but this does not negate your responsibility for the unintentional killing of that pedestrian (I am not concerned here with the legal-juridical aspects of this event; my intention is to refer to the moral intuition that lies behind this type of legislation). In other words, observing customary precautions does not necessarily absolve an individual of responsibility for the probable consequences that follow from their actions. By the same analogy, opponents of abortion can claim that although the mother observed customary precautions to prevent pregnancy in this case, this does not absolve her of responsibility for creating the fetus, and therefore, in a sense, when the fetus is formed in the mother's body, the mother has implicitly granted it permission to use her body; in other words, the mother has relinquished the right she had over her own body. Hence, the mother's situation here does not resemble that of a person who finds themselves suddenly and involuntarily connected to that poet. Here, the mother, albeit implicitly, has granted the fetus permission to use her body, and therefore, she cannot (unlike in the case of pregnancy resulting from rape) deprive the fetus of the right to life by invoking the right she has over her own body.

What can be said about this claim? Let us examine the claim of this group of opponents of abortion once more, and see what its implications are. Their claim involves several important components:

First, abortion, in circumstances where the woman enters into sexual relations willingly, is morally impermissible, even if the woman had previously observed all customary precautions to prevent pregnancy.

Second, entering into sexual relations is always accompanied by the possibility of pregnancy, because conventional methods of contraception are always accompanied by an unavoidable margin of error.

It seems that by accepting these two premises, women are inevitably morally obligated to choose one of the following two paths:

(1) Either engage in sexual relations only when they desire a child. (2) Or, before engaging in sexual relations, do something to reduce the probability of pregnancy to zero; for example, have their fallopian tubes tied, or have their uterus surgically removed.

The first option imposes a severe restriction on women's sexual lives. Assuming this option is accepted, women must either bear a large number of children, or engage in sexual relations no more than a few times during their sexually active lives, or forgo healthy and natural sexual relations. (These restrictions are imposed only on women, not on men. Imposing sexual restrictions on women may ultimately lead to greater sexual freedom for men.)

The second option, at least in circumstances where conventional and accessible methods of contraception are always accompanied by an unavoidable margin of error, inevitably compels women to resort to methods that may well lead to irreparable physical harm.

But let us suppose that a woman wishes to live morally and is prepared to pay the costs of living morally. This woman might express her inclination in the form of the following conditional statement:

If the requirement of living morally is choosing one of the two options above, I am prepared to choose one of them and live accordingly.

Now the important question for this woman is: Is the antecedent in the above conditional statement true? That is, does morality permit us to impose such costs on women? In the absence of one-hundred-percent effective methods of preventing pregnancy, is it morally permissible to call upon women to abandon sexual life, or severely restrict it, or undergo a form of temporary or permanent mutilation? (All of these questions are based on the assumption that the cost women must pay to ensure complete certainty against pregnancy is very high.)

I believe it is questions of this sort that have made the moral debates about abortion so crucial for women's liberation movements. In a society nurtured on a patriarchal mentality, imposing sexual restrictions on women (which is usually accompanied by granting extensive sexual freedoms to men) appears entirely digestible and acceptable. Therefore, especially in a patriarchal society, one cannot simply rely on the moral intuitions of the community to discover the answers to those questions. It is entirely possible that the community's moral intuitions, where women's rights are concerned, have been distorted in favor of men. Changing such beliefs and feelings, deeply entrenched in the collective-historical mentality of a people, requires far more than rational and theoretical discussion and inquiry. But of course, this fact in no way diminishes the importance of persistent rational critique and inquiry. So, let us first call upon our moral intuition to testify in a case other than the issue of women, and then apply it to the subject under discussion (though, of course, knowing in advance the context in which the result of the discussion is to be applied may to some extent distort our natural intuitive judgment.)

Suppose the air in your room has become very polluted and heavy. You open the window to let fresh air in. At that very moment, a burglar climbs up the wall and pulls himself in through the window. In this situation, do you say: "Because I was the one who opened the window, therefore, I am partly responsible for that burglar's presence in this room; that is, by opening the window I implicitly granted him the right to enter my room, and now that he has come in, he has the right to stay"? When you opened the window, you knew there was a possibility of a burglar entering your room, and you opened the window with knowledge of this fact. But if you do not wish to accept that burglar in your room and drive him out, have you committed a morally wrong act? It seems that here our moral intuition judges in favor of the homeowner and to the detriment of the uninvited newcomer. If this is so, why do we not recognize the same right for women in the case of unwanted pregnancy? Opponents of abortion might say that this situation differs from the position of a woman who has experienced an unwanted pregnancy. When you drive the burglar from your room, this action does not cost the burglar his life, but when a mother expels the fetus from her body, her action takes the fetus's life from it. The life of the fetus is dependent on the mother, and therefore the mother has a duty towards her fetus that you do not have towards that burglar.

This claim seems largely correct. It appears that the mother truly has a moral duty toward her fetus that we do not have toward that thief. But is this duty alone sufficient to justify the wrongfulness of abortion? The answer seems to be negative. The mere fact that I have a moral duty toward something does not make performing that act morally obligatory upon me. To clarify this claim, we must distinguish between two types of moral duties: morally obligatory duties, and morally supererogatory duties. A supererogatory duty is an act whose performance is morally praiseworthy, but if someone refrains from performing it, they have not violated anyone's moral right. In contrast, an obligatory duty is an act whose refusal is morally blameworthy, and disobedience to it constitutes the violation of a right that another or others hold against you. For example, suppose you are walking down the street, and a poor person asks you for money. If you help this needy individual, you have done something morally praiseworthy. But suppose that for whatever reason you decide not to help that person. Have you, in this case, violated a right of that person? Is that person morally permitted to grab you by the collar and forcibly take money from you? Compare the situation of this street beggar with someone from whom you borrowed money long ago but have refused to repay. It seems that if you do not give money to that street beggar, you have not deprived them of a right; they cannot morally grab your collar and demand money from you. But if you do not pay the money you owe to that creditor friend, you have violated a right of theirs, and they are morally permitted to grab your collar and demand their violated right. Your duty toward that street beggar is a supererogatory duty, but your duty toward that creditor friend is an obligatory duty.

In the discussion concerning abortion, it seems that opponents of abortion correctly point to the mother's duty toward the fetus (a duty we do not have toward that thief), but to reach their desired conclusion, they need something more than this; they must show that under the circumstances in question (that is, in circumstances where the woman has become pregnant despite the precautions she took), her duty toward the fetus is of the obligatory type, not the supererogatory. For if that duty is of the supererogatory type, the woman can refrain from performing that duty (i.e., continuing the pregnancy) without being morally blameworthy. But is the mother's duty toward the fetus of the obligatory or the supererogatory type?

To clarify the answer to this point, it is helpful to employ another analogy. Suppose you live in a strange city. In this city, “human-producing spores” are floating in the air, and whenever you leave the windows of your room open, one of these spores may find its way into your room and take root and grow among the fibers of the carpet or the crevices of your furniture. You do not want to have a child, so you buy the best screens available in the city and install them in front of your room's windows. But as it happens, one of these screens has a slight defect, and as a result, one of those spores finds its way in and takes root in the corner of the room's carpet (and the situation is such that if you uproot it, it will die). In this case, you have opened the window of your own accord, you have knowingly covered the floor of your room with a carpet, and you also knew perfectly well that screens sometimes lack the claimed quality. Under these circumstances, does the human being growing in the corner of your room have the right to use your house? It seems the answer would be negative. Of course, someone might claim that you yourself are responsible for this matter, because you could have completely sealed and blocked your room's doors and windows, or you could have lived without furniture and carpets. Is this not an unreasonable and overly burdensome duty to place upon your shoulders? If your moral intuition here answers in the affirmative, then it must also recognize the mother's right to abortion in the case of unwanted pregnancy. On the other hand, if your moral intuition here answers in the negative, and therefore, by analogy, does not recognize the mother's right to abortion under similar circumstances, apparently this logic does not stop there: one could deem abortion in pregnancy resulting from rape impermissible based on this same logic, because whenever women leave the house, they should know that there is a possibility of being raped, and therefore, the very act of leaving the house signifies their implicit consent to being raped. Furthermore, they could, for example, preclude pregnancy resulting from rape by having their uterus removed, or never leave the house, or be accompanied by an armed battalion whenever they leave the house. Therefore, according to that logic, even in the case of pregnancy resulting from rape, women are somehow responsible for their pregnancy, and thus have no right to abortion. (Perhaps in the mental atmosphere of a traditional and patriarchal society, some would view these conclusions with approval.) But it is unlikely that these unreasonable and inhumane conclusions would be compatible with the mind and conscience of a moderate and moral human being. In this case, it seems our moral intuition is more inclined to consider the mother's responsibility toward the fetus, in situations of unwanted pregnancy (at least under the conditions we have assumed here), as being of the supererogatory type rather than obligatory. In this case, if the mother keeps the fetus within herself and nurtures it, she has done something morally praiseworthy, but if she refuses to continue the pregnancy and aborts the fetus, she has not committed a morally blameworthy act.

From these discussions, one can never conclude that abortion is morally permissible under any circumstances. If any conclusion is to be drawn from these discussions, it is merely that abortion is morally permissible in some cases (even when we consider the fetus a human person from the very earliest stages of its formation), but of course, the scope of those cases is perhaps far broader than what staunch opponents of abortion claim.

 

Arash Naraghi

California – Santa Barbara October 18, 2004

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In this essay, I have made particular use of the following article:

1. Judith Jarvis Thomson, “A defense of Abortion”. Philosophy and Public Affairs 1(1971): 47-66.

The following articles also contain useful discussions on this subject:

2. Mary Anne Warren, ” On Moral and Legal Status of Abortion”. The Monist, Vol.57, no. 1(January 1973). 3. Jane English, “Abortion and the concept of a Person”. Canadian Journal of Philosophy, vol.5,no.2 (October 1975), pp. 233-243. 4. Don Marquis, “Why Abortion Is Immoral”. Journal of Philosophy, vol. 86 (April 1989).

And also the following very useful books:

4. The Right and Wrongs of Abortion, Marshall Cohen, Thomas Nagel, and Thomas Scanlon, eds. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1974. 5. The Problem of Abortion, Joel Feinberg, ed. Belmont, Calif,: Wadsworth, 1973.