Mary Ann Warren’s paper, On the Moral and Legal Status of Abortion, presents a discussion of the justification of a woman’s right to abortion. The author begins by discussing how the main arguments of abortion rights advocates boil down to several things (Warren, 1973). They mention either the death rate from illegal abortions or the problems of women raising an unwanted child. People who oppose the legal and morally justifiable status of abortion say that a child can be considered a human being from the first days of fetal formation and that abortion is murder. Mary Ann Warren, in her article, sets out to investigate whether there is such an argument that justifies the moral legality of abortion yet is irrelevant to the biological controversy.
The author believes that when debating the topic of abortion, it is advisable to look for arguments other than the fact that a human being cannot be considered a human being in the fetal state. In the first section of the paper, Mary Ann Warren (1973) suggests that it is impossible to establish whether abortion is morally permissible, provided one accepts that the fetus is a being with a full right to life. With such a condition, there is not a strong enough argument for those skeptical about the morality of abortion compared to a discussion where the fetus is not taken as a human being. It is therefore impossible to avoid the question of whether a fetus has the same right to life as a more evolved human being.
Having found this out, the author answers this question by arguing that the fetus cannot be considered a member of the moral community, that is, a set of beings with full and equal moral rights. This is because the fetus is not a person who has no rights and freedoms or opinions (Warren, 1973). Personality, not genetic humanity, is the basis for membership in this community. On this basis, removing a fetus from a woman’s body cannot be called human murder. Thus, even though the biological question has not been avoided in the debate, arguments can still be found to prove that abortion is a morally legal act and a right of every woman.
Reference
Warren, M. A. (1973). On the moral and legal status of abortion. The Monist, 57(1), 43–61.