Abortion Rights And Wrongs

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Not all philosophers believe that our concept of personhood is clear enough to allow us to deduce whether the embryo or the fetus is a person. It was never developed to do so.

Jane English, for example, has argued that our ordinary concept of a person includes many different elements: biological, psychological, rational, social, and legal. The way we mix the elements is subtle and does not fall neatly into lists of necessary and/or sufficient conditions. As a result, we cannot deduce an answer to our question about the embryo/fetus.

English believes that in the abortion debates we tend to emphasize elements that include or exclude the fetus depending on our view of abortion.


Reference: English's article is included in the anthologies edited by Baird and Feinberg.

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