Mary Anne Warren Abortion Summary

The topic of abortion will continue to be a controversial issue, which will always cause an ongoing debate. In this paper, I will refute Mary Anne Warren’s argument on the idea that fetuses don’t have full moral status because they are not classified as people, which she claims makes abortion morally permissible. Mary-Anne Warren states in her article “On the Moral and Legal Status of Abortion” that there are two senses of “Human” one in moral sense, which is a human who is a complete member of the community, and one in a genetic sense, which she describes as a human that is merely just a member of the biological species. Warren argues that the fetus is only human in the genetic sense. She goes on to elaborate on the idea that

She uses a space traveler thought experiment to motivate this; she states that a space traveler is captured and each of his cells is injected with a chemical which endows them with the potential to develop into persons. If the space traveler does not drink the antidote, then he will die and 1 trillion new persons will come into existence, developing out of each of his cells, but the space traveler has the right to drink the antidote because the life of full-fledged people overrides the thoughts of potential ones. Her notion is that even if a potential person has the right to live, their right won’t outweigh the right of the woman to have an abortion since the rights of an actual person outweigh the ones of a potential one. She believes it is not a woman’s duty to be responsible for preserving the life of a baby she doesn’t want. Although I understand the basis of her thought experiment, it can easily be disputed because the space traveler never asked to be captured. If he knew of the risks beforehand, as pregnant women who weren’t impregnated by rape or predicaments along that line do; then he has no right to drink the antidote, so her experiment and argument aren’t very compelling. From fertilization it is the mother’s job to make sure the baby is living and healthy, the mother has the right to her body but she gave that right up when she decided to perform the act

“It does not have an outside builder, it directs its own internal growth and maturation, and this entails continuity of being.” (Wilcox, Wilcox and profile, 2018) He states that suppose we were back in the pre-digital photo days and you take a picture that you believe is very valuable and unique, like a Jaguar running out from a Mexican jungle. The jaguar disappears and you realize that you won’t be able to get a picture like that ever again, and you really care about the picture. (He says that by trying to make this example comparable to a human being because we see all human beings as individually valuable). You pull the tab for the camera out as you are waiting for the image to develop, and someone grabs it from you, destroying the image. You get really angry at the person and they tell you “You’re crazy, that was just a brown smudge, I can’t understand why anyone would care about a stupid brown smudge” Then Stilth ends the scenario by asking “wouldn’t we think that person was the insane one?” The photo was already there we just were unable to see it. This is a great analogy because it sheds light on my argument that once fertilization occurs, that becomes a significant landmark because a new genetically distinct human is formed. The unborn are distinct, living and should be considered persons as well as any other