Philosopher Toby Ord wrote an article called “The Scourge: Moral Implications of Natural Embryo Loss” (The American Journal of Bioethics, 8(7): 12-19, 2008). This is an argument that comes up somewhat regularly, but Ord concocted a thought experiment to illustrate the argument. The argument usually goes as follows: Some 50% of pregnancies end in miscarriages, […]
Dean Stretton imagines a case in which an emergency arises and a person is faced with the choice of rescuing ten frozen human embryos or five adult patients. Since virtually everyone would choose to save the adult patients rather than the embryos, this indicates that the patients have a higher moral status than the frozen […]
I would like to write a follow-up to my recent article about an event that happened while I was at College of the Sequoias for a pro-life outreach, which was picked up at LifeNews. So I wanted to take a moment to explain exactly why I believe that asking questions is so important to having good discussion. The […]
I have spent four parts in this series responding to Warren’s argument that the unborn cannot be considered persons. Warren wrote her essay in 1973 in a publication called The Monist, but in 1982 she re-published the essay with an added postscript. One of the objections she was receiving to her paper is that it would also justify infanticide as […]
I spent the weekend of August 24th speaking and mentoring at a seminar in Visalia, CA, then at two days of pro-life outreach at College of the Sequoias. I am a mentor and speaker through Right to Life of Central California‘s (RLCC) Justice For All (JFA) program. RLCC is the organization that holds the seminars and puts […]
In part one, I examined Warren’s claim about humanity, in part two I examined Warren’s qualifications for personhood and showed why the unborn qualify, and in part three I examined Warren’s two questions about personhood and showed that her position fails to disqualify the unborn from personhood. In this article, I will examine her argument […]
In part one of this series, I examined Warren’s definition of humanity, and in part two I examined her argument about what a person is and showed why the unborn certainly qualify. This article will be the third part of five, in which I’ll examine Warren’s claims about the right to life. 3. Fetal Development […]
In part one of this examination, I showed that the pro-life position is not logically incoherent in considering the unborn to be human beings, both in the genetic sense and the moral sense. In this article, I’ll examine Warren’s criteria for personhood and show how the unborn certainly qualify. 2. Defining the moral community. Warren […]
I recently gave an in-depth critique of one of the most important articles ever written on the abortion issue. I would like to turn my attention now to another popular essay written by Mary Anne Warren called On the Moral and Legal Status of Abortion. Whereas Thomson argued that pro-choice people can assume the unborn […]
I would like to address an issue I see as rampant in the abortion issue, the question of what a parent is and who qualifies as a parent. This question is an important one because parents have special obligations to their offspring that strangers don’t have, including the obligation to provide the basic necessities they […]