Abstract

I appreciate all of the commentaries for their careful and thoughtful engagement with my article. Because of limited space, I can only focus on some criticisms and cannot develop my responses as fully as I would like. This is probably best for the reader anyway. John Keown worries about the ‘dualism’ of the third objection against expressivism. By this I think he means that critics of the expressivist argument at the beginning of life view a certain class of human beings as ‘non-persons’ and therefore not worthy of protection. Obviously, a pro-life stance will take issue with classifying the unborn as non-persons, as defenders of selective abortion and other biotechnologies do, but I did not think it relevant to get into the weeds on this issue. Keown claims that the worrisome dualism views those with intellectual disabilities, whether ‘newborns or adults’, as non-persons who lack a right not to be killed. However, I do not think defenders of either selective abortion or assisted suicide are committed to this. Many would insist that once you are born, you are a person and therefore cannot …