39. Those implications have been expressly defended, in particular by Michael Tooley and Peter Singer. See Tooley, M. Abortion and infanticide. Philosophy & Public Affairs 1972;2:37–65 Google Scholar and Singer, P. Discussion infanticide. Journal of Medical Ethics 2013;39:260 CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed. See also Warren`s later essay “The Moral Significance of Birth” on this point, in which she attempts to argue for childbirth because it marks a pivotal moment in which some kind of moral status is conferred. See Warren, MA. The moral significance of birth. Hypatia 1989;4:46–65 CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Significantly, in her 1982 Postscript and Moral Status, Warren does not consider the killing of newborns to be murder because of its impersonal status and continues to defend infanticide as being in principle compatible with what she calls the “principle of human rights.” Finally, she insists that “a tolerant attitude towards homicide in early childhood is kinder and fairer than persecuting parents who choose it as a lesser evil.” See note 3, Warren 1997, p.

165. 63. Beckwith, F. Personal Body Rights, Abortion and Playing the Violinist. International Philosophical Quarterly 1992;125:105–6CrossRefGoogle Scholar. 19. Allen, C, Bekoff, M. Species of Mind: The Philosophy and Biology of Cognitive Ethology. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press; 1997 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Griffin, Dr. Animal Minds: Beyond Cognition to Consciousness.

2nd ed. Chicago: University of Chicago Press; 2001 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Korsgaard, C. Medical research on animals and the question of moral position. Harvard Journal of Bioethics 2019;5:1–27 Google Scholar. Section 2 – The question is: “How should we define the moral community, the set of beings with full and equal moral rights, so that we can decide whether a human fetus is a member of that community or not?” Two questions arise: 1) What is a human being (genetic sense of man) and 2) What is a human being (moral sense of man)? 55. In his 1982 postscript to MLSA, Warren, while reluctantly acknowledging this concern, continues to insist that infants resemble fetuses rather than “full-fledged” persons in some crucial respects. Sometimes the tension is palpable in the epilogue and in her later work Moral Status, as it seems that she wants to grant them some sort of average moral status, but she realizes that this would undermine her argument for all members of the moral community who have equal rights. I will show that the fetus is not a person and is therefore not worthy of all moral rights. Most anti-abortion arguments do not, but rather defend abortion by 1) highlighting the negative consequences of restricting access; or 2) claim that the woman controls her body.

42. See Brugger, EC. The problem of fetal pain and abortion: towards an ethical consensus for appropriate behavior. Kennedy Institute of Ethics Journal 2012; 22:263–87CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed and Derbyshire, S, Bockman, JC. Reconsider fetal pain. Journal of Medical Ethics 2020;46:3–6 CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed. 5. See Beauchamp, TL. The failure of personality theories.

Kennedy Institute of Ethics Journal 1999;9:309–24CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed; Nelson, L, Meyer, M. Confronting deep disagreements: The President`s Council on Bioethics, Moral Status and Human Embryos. American Journal of Bioethics 2005;5:33–42 CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed; and Beckwith, F, Thornton, AK. The moral status and architects of the principle. Journal of Medicine and Philosophy 2020;45:504–20CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed. Section 1 – She argues that we cannot conclusively prove that abortion is permitted if the fetus has a right to life. Thomson`s argument fails to the extent that the opponent of abortion can argue that one is responsible for the child, except in cases of rape. If we change the story of the violinist – who, in Thomson`s story, binds himself to a woman`s body to save her life – it seems that we are still obliged to save the violinist. Therefore, we must deal with the ontological status of the fetus.

In her important and well-known discussion “On the Moral and Legal Status of Abortion,” Mary Anne Warren laments that “it is not possible to satisfactorily defend a woman`s right to abortion without demonstrating that the fetus is not a human being in the morally relevant sense.” Unlike some more cautious philosophers, Warren believes we can definitely show that the fetus is not a person. This article critically examines Warren`s argument, with particular emphasis on the question of the basis and limits of the moral community. The basic thesis of the article is that Warren`s approach is flawed for at least four reasons: (1) that it is not as obvious to be a person to have all moral rights as Warren assumes, (2) that his exclusivism in terms of moral status has questionable moral consequences regardless of the abortion issue. (3) that it is not clear. that a fetus is not a person, even by Warren`s own criteria, and (4) its personality criteria are themselves suspect. 1. Warren, MA. On the moral and legal status of abortion.