Abstract

In this dissertation I discuss three positions on abortion. The conservative theory claims that almost all abortions are wrong. The liberal theory claims that all abortions per se are permissible. The moderate theory claims that there is a significant range of permissible as well as impermissible abortions. ;The conservative theory is based in arguments dealing with the value of human life, potential life, and/or an explication of religious doctrine. I argue that each of these arguments is seriously defective, hence the conservative position ought to be rejected. ;The liberal theory claims that only persons have a right to life. The liberal defines personhood in terms of the possession of various cognitive capacities and makes the empirical assertion that fetuses lack these capacities. Therefore, the fetus is not a person, has no right to life, and killing it is never wrong per se. I show that the liberal argument fails because it takes insufficient account of the value of potential persons. ;I argue for a version of the moderate position that relies substantially upon a theory of the fetus's membership in the moral community. According to this account, abortion is always permissible in the early stages of pregnancy, almost never so in the latter stages. Reasonable people may disagree with respect to the permissibility of abortion in the middle stages. I base these distinctions upon fetal brain development as a hallmark of the value of potential personhood