Against the impairment argument: A reply to Hendricks

In an article of this journal, Perry Hendricks makes a novel argument for the immorality of abortion. According to his impairment argument, abortion is immoral because: (a) it is wrong to impair a fetus to the nth degree, such as causing the fetus to have fetal alcohol syndrome (FAS); (b) it is wron...

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Bibliographische Detailangaben
1. VerfasserIn: Räsänen, Joona (VerfasserIn)
Beteiligte: Hendricks, Perry (VerfasserIn des Bezugswerks)
Medienart: Elektronisch Aufsatz
Sprache:Englisch
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Veröffentlicht: Wiley-Blackwell [2020]
In: Bioethics
Jahr: 2020, Band: 34, Heft: 8, Seiten: 862-864
IxTheo Notationen:NCH Medizinische Ethik
weitere Schlagwörter:B Killing
B Ethics
B Harm
B Impairment
B Pro-life
B Fetus
B Abortion
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Zusammenfassung:In an article of this journal, Perry Hendricks makes a novel argument for the immorality of abortion. According to his impairment argument, abortion is immoral because: (a) it is wrong to impair a fetus to the nth degree, such as causing the fetus to have fetal alcohol syndrome (FAS); (b) it is wrong to impair a fetus to the n+1 degree (to cause the fetus to be more impaired than to have FAS); (c) killing the fetus impairs the fetus to the n+1 degree (causes it to be more impaired than to have FAS); (d) abortion kills the fetus; (e) therefore, abortion is immoral. The impairment argument is a promising account for the wrongness of abortion because it does not rely on the controversial metaphysical premise that a fetus is a person. This article aims to show, that despite some immediate advantages over the rival theories of the immorality of abortion there is a reason to believe that the impairment argument is untenable. That is because there are goods that can be achieved by abortion but that cannot be achieved by impairing the fetus.
ISSN:1467-8519
Bezug:Kritik von "Even if the fetus is not a person, abortion is immoral (2019)"
Enthält:Enthalten in: Bioethics
Persistent identifiers:DOI: 10.1111/bioe.12720