THE CASE AGAINST THE 
IMMORALITY OF ABORTION

I. The Moral Status of the Fetus

A. Noonan: a person at every stage of development

1. Slippery slope problem—need a clear objective criterion
2. The only objective discontinuity in the slope is the point of conception.

B. Warren: a person at no stage of development

1. Persons are defined by a “cluster” of the following features:
a. consciousness and the capacity to feel pain
b. reasoning
c. self-motivated activity
d. capacity to communicate
e. self-awareness
2. To be a person, a being must have “enough” of this cluster of features.
3. The fetus has none of these features at any stage of development
4. Therefore, the fetus is a person at no stage of development.

C. English argues against both of these extremes.  

1. The issue is not at what point the fetus becomes a person.  The concept of 
person is not sharp enough for that.  
2. Rather: a gradualist approach.  Even if the fetus is not a “full-fledged” 
person, it becomes increasingly more “person-like.”  Its moral standing, 
the weight of the moral claims it makes on us, increase as it develops.
3. A moderate position:
a. “Abortion is justifiable early in pregnancy to avoid modest harms, and
b. seldom justifiable late in pregnancy except to avoid significant injury 
or death.”

II. The arguments considered so far have focused on:

A. The moral status of the fetus
B. The loss the fetus would suffer: a “future-like-ours”
C. Suppose the fetus is a person, i.e., it has a “moral status like ours” and its loss 
is a “future like ours.”  Does it follow that abortion is always, or perhaps even 
usually, wrong?

III. Thomson makes a famous argument that it does not.  Abortion can be morally 
permissible, even if the fetus is a person.

A. To see how this might be so, consider cases when killing fully adult persons 
might be morally justified.
B. Self-defense against a malign threat to life.
C. Self-defense against an innocent threat to life. 
1. Suppose someone having fallen off a twelve-story building is headed right 
for you.  May you move?
2. If yes, does that show that abortion is justified to save the woman’s life?
3. Not necessarily.  The Doctrine of Double Effect claims that it makes a 
difference what you are intending (trying) to do.  In the first case, you are 
not trying to kill the falling person, only to step out of his way.  However, 
in the abortion case, the death of the fetus is what the doctor is aiming to 
accomplish.
4. Thomson’s case of the “quickly growing child,” by whom you will be 
crushed if you don’t kill it.  May you kill it?
D. Self-defense against innocent threat, not to life, but to significant components 
of the value of one’s life. 
1. Thomson’s “famous violinist” case.  Would it be wrong to unplug yourself 
from the violinist?  Suppose it would not be.  Why would it not be wrong?

IV. Some possible morals of Thomson’s case.

A. A difference between 
1.  the right not to be killed unjustly vs.
2.  the right to conditions necessary to support life.
B. Even if the fetus is a person, it may not be able to claim 2 against the woman 
in whose body it is growing.  Such a right is held, if at all, only against society 
as a whole or against individuals who:
1. could provide the requisite life support without “unreasonable burden,” or
2. bear some special responsibility (e.g., by intentionally or negligently 
bringing the fetus into existence)

V. This might suggest the following matrix.


Very Little
Very Great
Fetus’s Moral Status


Woman’s Responsibility


Woman’s Hardship



The moral case against abortion increases as the fetus’s moral status and the woman’s 
responsibility increase and as the hardship she would bear decreases.

The case for an abortion’s moral permissibility increases as the fetus’s moral status and 
the woman’s responsibility decrease and as the hardship she would bear increases.

VI.  Abortion, Gender, and Justice as Fairness