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The Moral Significance of Birth

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 March 2020

Mary Anne Warren
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Abstract

Does birth make a difference to the moral rights of the fetus /infant? Should it make a difference to its legal rights? Most contemporary philosophers believe that birth cannot make a difference to moral rights. If this is true, then it becomes difficult to justify either a moral or a legal distinction between late abortion and infanticide. I argue that the view that birth is irrelevant to moral rights rests upon two highly questionable assumptions about the theoretical foundations of moral rights. If we reject these assumptions, then we are free to take account of the contrasting biological and social relationships that make even relatively late abortion morally different from infanticide.

Type
Research Article
Information
Hypatia , Volume 4 , Issue 3: Special Issue: Ethics and Reproduction , Fall 1989 , pp. 46 - 65
Copyright
Copyright © 1989 by Hypatia, Inc.

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