Abortion Rights And Wrongs

The Moral Community

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A pattern emerges from following the thread through questions about persons and from looking at the Catholic and Evangelical views. The same pattern will continue to hold when we look at the nature of moral rights. All of these approaches to the morality of abortion attempt to answer a basic question: What are the boundaries of the moral community? They attempt to define a criterion for membership in that community and to decide whether an embryo or a fetus or an infant falls inside or outside the community. If the embryo/fetus falls outside the moral community, it will be relatively easy to decide on the morality of abortion. If it falls inside the community, the question will be more complex.

In secular moral philosophy, this question takes the form of asking whether the embryo/fetus is a person or whether it has rights. In the Evangelical tradition, it takes the form of asking whether it bears the image of God. For Catholics it takes the form of asking whether it has been ensouled. For those who stress biological facts, it takes the form of asking whether the biological elements necessary for complete individualization are present. Each approach has a different criterion for determining the boundaries of the moral community, but they are all searching for an answer to the same question.

The moral community is the group of individuals to whom moral rules or considerations apply. Perhaps there are two levels of membership: (a) a lower level for those to whom moral protection applies but from whom moral responsibility is not required; and (b) A higher level at which individuals are protected but are also held morally responsible for their actions. Can you think of other levels, or perhaps a different way to think of divisions within the moral community? Can you relate your levels or divisions to the problem of abortion?

We do not ordinarily have to decide on the precise boundary of the moral community. That is one reason why the question of abortion is so difficult. Yet the boundary question arises more and more often in such cases as severe retardation and irreversible coma.

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