Freedom. New York: Random House.
4 George, Robert and Lobo, Gòmez (2002). “Personal statement.” In The President’s Council on Bioethics, Human Cloning and Human Dignity: The Report of the President’s Council on Bioethics. (2002, pp. 294–306). New York: Public Affairs.
5 Gilbert, Scott (2003). Developmental Biology, 7th edn. Sunderland, MA: Sinnauer Associates.
6 Larson, William J. (2001). Human Embryology, 3rd edn. New York: Churchill Livingstone.
7 Lee, Patrick (1996). Abortion and Unborn Human Life. Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press.
8 Little, Margaret Olivia (1999). “Abortion, intimacy, and the duty to gestate.” Ethical Theory and Moral Practice, 2: 295–312.
9 McDonagh, Eileen (1996). Breaking the Abortion Deadlock: From Choice to Consent. New York: Oxford University Press, 1996.
10 Moore, Keith, and Persaud, T. V. N. (2003). The Developing Human, Clinically Oriented Embryology, 7th edn. New York: W. B. Saunders.
11 Muller, Werner A. (1997). Developmental Biology. New York: Springer Verlag.
12 O’Rahilly, Ronan, and Mueller, Fabiola (2000). Human Embryology and Teratology, 3rd edn. New York: John Wiley & Sons.
13 Singer, Peter (1993). Practical Ethics, 2nd edn. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
14 Stretton, Dean (2004). “Essential properties and the right to life: a response to Lee.” Bioethics, 18/3: 264–82.
15 Thomson, Judith Jarvis (1971). “A defense of abortion.” Philosophy and Public Affairs, 1: 47–66; reprinted, among other places, in Joel Feinberg (ed.) The Problem of Abortion, 2nd edn. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth (1984, pp. 173–87).
16 Thomson, Judith Jarvis (1995). “Abortion.” Boston Review. Available at [http://bostonreview.net/archives/BR20.3/thomson.php]
17 Tooley, Michael (1983). Abortion and Infanticide. New York: Oxford University Press.
18 Warren, Mary Ann (1984). “On the moral and legal status of abortion.” In Joel Feinberg (ed.) The Problem of Abortion, 2nd edn. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth (1984, pp. 102–19).
Further reading
1 Bailey, Ronald, Lee, Patrick, and George, Robert P. (2001). “Are stem cells babies?” Reason Online. Available at https://reason.com/2001/07/11/are‐stem‐cells‐babies/
2 Beckwith, Francis (1993). Politically Correct Death: Answering the Arguments for Abortion Rights. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker.
3 Beckwith, Francis (2000). Abortion and the Sanctity of Human Life. Joplin, MO: College Press.
4 Chappell, T. D. J. (1998). Understanding Human Goods: A Theory of Ethics. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.
5 Finnis, John (1999). “Abortion and health care ethics.” In Helga Kuhse and Peter Singer (eds.), Bioethics: An Anthology (pp. 13–20). London: Blackwell.
6 Finnis, John (2001). “Abortion and cloning: some new evasions.” Available at http://lifeissues.net/writers/fin/fin_01aborcloneevasions.html
7 George, Robert (2001). “We should not kill human embryos – for any reason.” In The Clash of Orthodoxies: Law, Religion, and Morality in Crisis (pp. 317–23). Wilmington, DL: ISI Books.
8 Grisez, Germain (1990). “When do people begin?” Proceedings of the American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly, 63: 27–47.
9 Lee, Patrick (2004). “The pro‐life argument from substantial identity: A defense.” Bioethics, 18(3): 249–63.
10 Marquis, Don (1989). “Why abortion is immoral.” Journal of Philosophy, 86: 183–202.
11 Oderberg, David (2000) Applied Ethics: A Non‐Consequentialist Approach. New York: Oxford University Press.
12 Pavlischek, Keith (1993). “Abortion logic and paternal responsibilities: One more look at Judith Thomson’s ‘Defense of abortion’.” Public Affairs Quarterly, 7: 341–61.
13 Schwarz, Stephen (1990). The Moral Question of Abortion. Chicago: Loyola University Press.
14 Stone, Jim (1987). “Why potentiality matters.” Journal of Social Philosophy, 26: 815–30.
15 Stretton, Dean (2000). “The argument from intrinsic value: A critique.” Bioethics, 14: 228–39.
Notes
1 1 See, for example: Carlson (1994: chs. 2–4); Gilbert (2003: 183–220, 363–90); Larson (2001: chs. 1–2); Moore and Persaud (2003: chs. 1–6); Muller (1997: chs. 1–2); O’Rahilly and Mueller (2000: chs. 3–4).
2 2 For a discussion of the issues raised by twinning and cloning, see George and Lobo (2002).
3 3 Some defenders of abortion have seen the damaging implications of this point for their position (Stretton, 2004), and have struggled to find a way around it. There are two leading proposals. The first is to suggest a mean between a capacity and an actual behavior, such as a disposition. But a disposition is just the development or specification of a capacity and so raises the unanswerable question of why just that much development, and not more or less should be required. The second proposal is to assert that the historical fact of someone having exercised a capacity (say, for conceptual thought) confers on her a right to life even if she does not now have the immediately exercisable capacity. But suppose we have baby Susan who has developed a brain and gained sufficient experience to the point that just now she has the immediately exercisable capacity for conceptual thought, but she has not yet exercised it. Why should she be in a wholly different category than say, baby Mary, who is just like Susan except she did actually have a conceptual thought? Neither proposal can bear the moral weight assigned to it. Both offer criteria that are wholly arbitrary.
4 4 In arguing against an article by Lee, Dean Stretton claims that the basic natural capacity of rationality also comes in degrees, and that therefore the argument we are presenting against the position that moral worth is based on having some accidental characteristic would apply to our position also (Stretton, 2004). But this is to miss the important distinction between having a basic natural capacity (of which there are no degrees, since one either has it or one doesn’t), and the development of that capacity (of which there are infinite degrees).
5 5 David Boonin claims, in reply to this argument – in an earlier and less developed form, presented by Lee (1996: 122) – that it is not clear that it is impermissible for a woman to destroy what is a part of, or a continuation of, herself. He then says that to the extent the unborn human being is united to her in that way, “it would if anything seem that her act is easier to justify than if this claim were not true” (2003: 230). But Boonin fails to grasp the point of the argument (perhaps understandably since it was not expressed very clearly in the earlier work he is discussing). The unity of the child to the mother is the basis for this child being related to the woman in a different way from how other children are. We ought to pursue our own good and the good of others with whom we are united in various ways. If that is so, then the closer someone is united to us, the deeper and more extensive our responsibility to the person will be.
6 6 In some sense being bodily “occupied” when one does not wish to be is a harm; however, just as the child does not (as explained in the text), neither does the state