Dialogues on the Ethics of Abortion

<p>What happens when two intelligent and highly informed fictional college students one strongly pro-choice and the other vigorously pro-life are asked to put together a presentation on abortion? Their conversations over five days – friendly but lively charitable but clear – are captured in this book. </p><p>Through these dialogues students and other interested readers are introduced to the difficult moral issues of abortion. In Chapter 1 readers learn about <i>Roe v. Wade</i> and other relevant legal cases. Chapter 2 covers basic philosophical issues such as: What is a person? Are fetuses persons? Is fetal potential morally relevant? How shall we define the moral community? Chapter 3 introduces students to Don Marquis’s Why Abortion is Immoral and also the metaphysical issues of personal identity and its relevance to abortion. Chapter 4 covers Judith Jarvis Thomson’s A Defense of Abortion including objections and responses to the argument from bodily autonomy. Finally Chapter 5 looks at abortion in hard cases such as in cases of rape fetal disability non-viable pregnancies and sex-selection; the chapter also includes a conversation on fathers and abortion. </p><p>With a Foreword by Laurie Shrage topics headings in the margins and an annotated bibliography <i>Dialogues on the Ethics of Abortion</i> is an easy-to-use volume and valuable resource for anyone interested in a fair and clear-headed approach to one of the most contentious moral issues of our time.</p>