Kantian Moral Theory On Abortion

Abortion is defined as an early termination of a pregnancy, willingly. It is one of the most controversial issues that is brought up because there are so many different views. This ethical issue today is usually split in two groups, one of these views being pro-choice, giving the option to have an abortion to the family of the fetus. The other main view today is pro-life, which states under no circumstance may a life be taken away. There are many concerns with abortion, the biggest being is the fetus an actual person yet? Many of us will never know the answer to that question. Two views I will go deeper into is the view of Immanuel Kant and the view of a Utilitarian.

Still, many people believe that women should not be given this right. They argue that the fetus growing inside her also has rights and that they should be protected.

There are many factors that are taken into consideration when determining if abortion is morally permissible, or wrong including; sentience of the fetus, the fetuses right to life, the difference between adult human beings and fetuses, the autonomy of the pregnant woman, and the legality of abortion. Don Marquis argues that abortion is always morally wrong, excluding cases in which the woman is threatened by pregnancy, or abortion after rape, because fetuses have a valuable future. Mary Anne Warren contends that late term abortions are morally permissible because birth is the most significant event for a fetus, and a woman’s autonomy should never be suspended.

In On the Moral and Legal Status of Abortion, Mary Anne Warren discusses a few arguments against abortion, namely bringing into play whether the fetus is actually a person, or “not a member of the moral community”. She

Warren felt that a fetus can meet none of the cases for personhood and therefore abortion should be legal without

Mary Anne Warren (p.195-196) points out the exceptional circumstances of pregnancy; where one human is entirely biologically reliant on another and where it is impossible for complete personhood rights to not be in conflict between the foetus and the mother. Consider the following case. A mother and an expecting mother both express an intent to kill their child or unborn child respectively. Services are available to take the postnatal children from their mother without affecting her body. Yet to protect the foetus, one would have to imprison the mother until birth, or worse, force a caesarean on her. Warren (193) points out that forced caesareans are not merely a hypothetical

The general argument made from Warren is (1) If a person, they have the right to life, (2) The fetus is not considered a person, and (3) Therefore, since the fetus is not a person they do not have a right to life. Also, (4) A human being needs all the morals of personhood to be considered a person, (5) An infant does not have morals, and (6) Therefore, an infant is not a person because the do not have the morals to be considered a person.

Proponents of punishing pregnant women, who put their fetuses at risk, have highlighted some pertinent legal and ethical issues. One is that a viable fetus (fetus after 27 weeks gestation) has certain rights and privileges. They are of the opinion that as soon as the fetus is viable and can survive independently from it mother, it becomes a

By arguing that the fetus has rights, it is implied that the fetus has a right to be in its mother?s womb regardless of her consent. This is obviously false, considering the mother has only let it be there by some form of her authorization. A fetus does not invade a woman?s body against her will, there was an act that the mother took part in, willingly or not, which allowed for a condition in which her egg was fertilized and began to mutate into a larger clump of her cells in her body and subsequently formed a fetus. If the fetus exists in a woman?s body only by her permission, how could we argue that it has a right to be there against her will? We can?t. It would be

One of the more vulnerable parts of her arguments centers on the consideration of whether sentient fetuses are persons. While they may not have the ability to act upon their sentience, that does not mean that they are not persons. Here is where she brings up the reasons why infants are persons, and thus somehow morally above even sentient fetuses, and especially fetuses not beyond the first trimester. Her words are that: “not all sentient beings are persons with full and equal moral rights”(146). The difference between moral and empirical rationale behind how we act towards people is significant for Warren.

Likewise, what criteria dictate whether the fetus’ right to life prevails over any rights the mother has to bodily autonomy?

Mary Anne Warren is one of the top advocates for keeping abortion legal without any restrictions on it. She states that the morality of abortion is dependent on the moral status of the baby, not simply on the rights of the mother. She criticizes those who defend abortion as the right to control one's body: "it is at best a rather feeble argument for the permissibility of abortion. Mere ownership does not give me the right to kill innocent people whom I find on my property…" (The Monist, pg. 44) Using this analogy she shows that just because the fetus is inside us it does mean we have a right to terminate it.

“On the Moral and Legal Status of Abortion”, an essay written by Mary Anne Warren, defend abortion in any stage of a woman’s pregnancy (pg 468). Warren argues that the potential to become a human being is not the same as being human and deserving the same right to life (pg. 468-472). This essay asserts that in order to be human, one must possess five particular traits (pg. 470). These trait are consciousness, reasoning, self-motivated activity, the ability to communicate, and awareness of oneself (pg. 470). Warren claims that since a fetus has not yet acquired all of the traits, then that fetus is not human and therefore does not have the right to life (pg. 470).

The following essay will examine the morality of abortion with specific reference to the writings of Don Marquis, Judith Jarvis Thompson, Peter Singer and Mary Anne Warren. I will begin by assessing the strength of the argument provided by Marquis which claims that abortion is impermissible because it deprives a being of a potential “future like ours,” and then go on to consider the writings of Singer, Thomson and Warren to both refute Marquis claims and support my assertion that abortion is morally permissible primarily because of the threat to the freedom and bodily autonomy of women extending the right to life to a foetus in utero would pose.

Kant developed the categorical imperative which is based on Kant’s belief that morality is derived from rationality. The categorical imperative is an absolute moral law to be upheld regardless of circumstances. He was a deontologist, meaning that he believed that moral judgement is contained in the action alone. His categorical imperative is broken down into three maxims. The first is universality which means that for an action to be moral in your circumstances, it must be okay for everyone else in the world to do also. The next maxim is to always treat people as an end rather than a means to an end. This means that someone can never lie or manipulate someone for any reason. The third maxim is that everyone should behave as if they are the absolute