Mary Anne Warren Abortion Summary

In her essay, On the Moral and Legal Status of Abortion, Mary Anne Warren argues that abortion is always permissible and invades the conservative argument that is based on a vague use of the term human being arguing that the word has both a biological and moral sense. What is important in this article is her argument of the moral sense, which assumes that the unborn do not possess particular characteristics such as consciousness and reasoning and therefore are not human beings. Under the presumption that a fetus is a human being in the moral sense, the traditional argument of (1) it is wrong to kill innocent human beings, and (2) fetuses are innocent human beings, then (3) it is wrong to kill fetuses, ensues. Warren argues that if both of the senses of human beings are implied, as in a moral sense and a biological sense, one of the premises becomes

What is important in this article is her argument of the moral sense, which assumes that the unborn do not possess particular characteristics such as consciousness and reasoning and therefore are not human beings. Under the presumption that a fetus is a human being in the moral sense, the traditional argument of (1) it is wrong to kill innocent human beings, and (2) fetuses are innocent human beings, then (3) it is wrong to kill fetuses, ensues. Warren argues that if both of the senses of human beings are implied, as in a moral sense and a biological sense, one of the premises becomes questionable. Much of Warren’s essay is in response to John T. Noonan’s essay, “Deciding Who is Human”, as she disputes the argument of a human being having the full genetic code. In this essay, I present several objections to Warren’s argument from a pro-life