Abortion, Intimacy, and the Duty to Gestate

In this article, I urge that mainstream discussions of abortion are dissatisfying in large part because they proceed in polite abstraction from the distinctive circumstances and meanings of gestation. Such discussions, in fact, apply to abortion conceptual tools that were designed on the premiss tha...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Ethical theory and moral practice
Main Author: Little, Margaret Olivia (Author)
Format: Electronic Article
Language:English
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Published: Springer Science + Business Media B. V 1999
In: Ethical theory and moral practice
Further subjects:B Reproduction
B Intimacy
B Abortion
Online Access: Volltext (JSTOR)
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Description
Summary:In this article, I urge that mainstream discussions of abortion are dissatisfying in large part because they proceed in polite abstraction from the distinctive circumstances and meanings of gestation. Such discussions, in fact, apply to abortion conceptual tools that were designed on the premiss that people are physically demarcated, even as gestation is marked by a thorough-going intertwinement. We cannot fully appreciate what is normatively at stake with legally forcing continued gestation, or again how to discuss moral responsibilities to continue gestating, until we appreciate in their own terms the goods and evils distinctive of gestational connection. To underscore the need to explore further the meanings of gestation, I provide two examples of the difference it might make to legal and moral discussions of abortion if we appreciate more fully that gestation is an intimacy.
ISSN:1572-8447
Contains:Enthalten in: Ethical theory and moral practice
Persistent identifiers:DOI: 10.1023/A:1009955129773