Dilemma for appeals to the moral significance of birth

Journal of Medical Ethics (12) (2020)
  Copy   BIBTEX

Abstract

Giubilini and Minerva argue that the permissibility of abortion entails the permissibility of infanticide. Proponents of what we refer to as the Birth Strategy claim that there is a morally significant difference brought about at birth that accounts for our strong intuition that killing newborns is morally impermissible. We argue that strategy does not account for the moral intuition that late-term, non-therapeutic abortions are morally impermissible. Advocates of the Birth Strategy must either judge non-therapeutic abortions as impermissible in the later stages of pregnancy or conclude that they are permissible on the basis of premises that are far less intuitively plausible than the opposite conclusion and its supporting premises.

Other Versions

No versions found

Similar books and articles

Does birth matter?Walter Veit - 2022 - Journal of Medical Ethics 48 (3):194-195.
Birth, meaningful viability and abortion.David Jensen - 2015 - Journal of Medical Ethics 41 (6):460-463.
The Viable Violinist.Michael Hawking - 2015 - Bioethics 30 (5):312-316.
Abortion, infanticide and moral context.Lindsey Porter - 2013 - Journal of Medical Ethics 39 (5):350-352.
The Ethics of Abortion.Marc Alan Gellman - 1981 - Dissertation, Northwestern University

Analytics

Added to PP
n/a

Downloads
771 (#27,544)

6 months
194 (#15,630)

Historical graph of downloads
How can I increase my downloads?

Author Profiles

Adam Omelianchuk
Baylor College of Medicine
Christopher A. Bobier
Central Michigan University

Citations of this work

Does birth matter?Walter Veit - 2022 - Journal of Medical Ethics 48 (3):194-195.

Add more citations

References found in this work

After-birth abortion: why should the baby live?Alberto Giubilini & Francesca Minerva - 2013 - Journal of Medical Ethics 39 (5):261-263.
Virtue Theory and Abortion.Rosalind Hursthouse - 1991 - Philosophy and Public Affairs 20 (3):223-246.
Fetuses, Newborns, and Parental Responsibility.Prabhpal Singh - 2020 - Journal of Medical Ethics 46 (3):188-193.
If Abortion, then Infanticide.David B. Hershenov & Rose J. Hershenov - 2017 - Theoretical Medicine and Bioethics 38 (5):387-409.
The Moral Significance of Birth.Mary Anne Warren - 1989 - Hypatia 4 (3):46 - 65.

View all 11 references / Add more references