If a pro-choice person you’re talking to understands the distinction between the question of biological humanity and philosophical personhood, he/she will undoubtedly attempt to find some property/properties that persons must possess in order to be a person. Some common ones are consciousness, self-awareness, sentience (meaning the ability to sense and feel pain), and desires. While the […]
[Esta publicación está disponible en español aquí.] I’ve had a few Christian pro-life friends of mine (kindly) tell me they don’t really understand how a secularist can defend the pro-life position. Sure, they get that we don’t need religion to understand fetal development, and we don’t need to believe in a god to recognize that […]
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 […]
[Today’s post by guest author Prayson Daniel is part of our paid blogging program.] Is it possible to make a case for the prima facie wrongness of killing a human foetus that does not depend on theological premises? In 1989 atheist philosopher Donald Marquis introduced a philosophical case for immorality of abortion that neither depended […]
For part one of this series, go here. For part two, this is the place to be. And for part three, mosey on over this way. So far Thomson’s essay has suffered from many critical errors. None of her analogies have helped establish that a woman has a right to abort for any reason, except […]
For part one of this series, go here. For part two of this series, go here. Section 4. Is abortion unjust killing? Thomson begins this section by considering that “in the most ordinary sort of case, to deprive someone of what he has a right to is to treat him unjustly.” She illustrates this with […]
For part one of this series, click here. Section 1. The “extreme” pro-life view. [1] I agree with Thomson that the view that abortion is impermissible even to save the mother’s life is an extreme pro-life view. I believe that abortions are justified if the mother’s life is in immediate jeopardy. [2] She does wonder […]
Probably the most famous argument against the pro-life position is Judith Jarvis Thomson’s Violinist Analogy, in which you are attached, against your will, to a famous unconscious violinist to prevent his dying from a kidney ailment. I have already responded to the violinist analogy in previous articles. But within the original essay where the violinist […]
It’s an uncontroversial fact of science that the preborn conceived of a human male and human female are human beings (biologically) from fertilization. But does this mean that just because they’re human beings we can’t kill them? There are times when it’s almost universally accepted that it’s acceptable to kill a human being, such as […]
[Today’s post is reprinted from “Yeah, but…”] Philosophers have proposed, and studies have suggested, that people form opinions based on their emotions first, and after the opinion is formed they find a way to rationalize it. Emotion —> Opinion! —> Rationalization We may like to believe we first carefully think about the logic behind ideas, then form our opinions, and then let our […]
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