PT - JOURNAL ARTICLE AU - Simon Cushing TI - Why the wrongness of intentionally impairing children <em>in utero</em> does not imply the wrongness of abortion AID - 10.1136/jme-2022-108583 DP - 2022 Sep 05 TA - Journal of Medical Ethics PG - jme-2022-108583 4099 - http://jme.bmj.com/content/early/2022/09/05/jme-2022-108583.short 4100 - http://jme.bmj.com/content/early/2022/09/05/jme-2022-108583.full AB - Perry Hendricks’ ‘impairment argument’, which he has defended in this journal, is intended to demonstrate that the generally conceded wrongness of giving a fetus fetal alcohol syndrome (FAS) shows that abortion must also be immoral, even if we allow that the fetus is not a rights-bearing moral person. The argument fails because the harm of causing FAS is extrinsic but Hendricks needs it to be intrinsic for it to show anything about abortion. Either the subject of the wrong of causing FAS is a person who does not exist in the case of abortion or the wrong is negligible.