Arguments about abortion : personhood, morality, and law
PreliminariesThe Argument to ComeI ORDERING THE ARGUMENTWhat Should Abortion Argument Be About?Persons and Human BeingsDworkin and the Red HerringPersonhood v the Intrinsic Value of Human Life‘Signal inconsistencies’The ‘Anti-Personhood’ ArgumentIntractability and CompromiseVagueness and RedundancyConclusionGestation as Good SamaritanismThe Liberal PrincipleThe Violinist AnalogyCriticism of the Good Samaritan ThesisA Duty to Gestate?Is Abortion the Failure to Rescue?Killing and Letting DieHarming and Not HelpingConclusionAbortion as Justified HomicideSelf-Defence and the Conflict of RightsNecessity and Morally Permissible Killing‘The lesser of two evils’Morally permissible killing and necessity in the lawIntention and the doctrine of double-effectThe manner of killingDouble-effect and comparing intentionsConclusionAnalogical Arguments and Sex EqualityThe Use of Analogies in Abortion ArgumentThe Sex Equality ArgumentSex Equality and Fetal PersonhoodII THE THRESHOLD OF PERSONHOODPersonhood Thresholds, Arbitrariness, and ‘Punctualism’Thresholds of PersonhoodArbitrariness of Different KindsConception and the Sorites ParadoxPunctualism v GradualismPersonhood ContinuumsThe ‘Brain Cell Spectrum’The ‘Transgenic Spectrum’The ‘Sentience Spectrum’Dualism, Substantial Identity, and the Precautionary PrincipleWhat Would Make Punctualism True?DualismPersonhood Essentialism and the Argument from Substantial IdentityQuantitative PropertiesThe Precautionary PrincipleGradualism and Human EmbodimentGradualismsReductio Problems and the Conditions for PersonhoodInfanticide, radical cognitive deficiency, and sedationSpecies membership and potentialityMulti-Criterial ApproachesArchetypes and QualifiersHuman EmbodimentHuman Equality and the Significance of BirthThe Equality Problem and the Threshold ProblemPersonhood as a ‘Range Property’‘Opacity Respect’The Edge of the RangeFrom Womb to WorldIntrinsic and extrinsic qualitiesEmbodiment in the worldConclusionIII PRINCIPLE AND PRAGMATISM Regulating AbortionModes of RegulationMoral Conclusions and Legal RegulationLegal Goals and Legal ConstraintsProportional moral gravityUpper limitsLate abortion and fetal painLower Limits and the ‘Right’ to AbortionSelective Abortion. Sex and Disability‘Hard Cases’Sex Selective AbortionFetal Abnormality AbortionMaking an Exception for Sex SelectionFetal Abnormality and ConsistencyChoice and coercionConclusionMatters of ConscienceThe Case of the Catholic MidwivesThe Problem of ConscienceThe Purpose of the LawCogs in the MachineThe Burdens of ConscienceConscientious ProvisionBibliography
