Mary Warren's Argument Against Abortion

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Recommended: Mary Anne Warren on the moral and legal status of abortion

Introduction
Warren (1984)'s argument on abortion is hinged on the moral status of the fetus and if fetuses can be considered as fully-fledged members of the moral community and thus have a right to life. She seeks to disapprove Noonan (1967)’s traditional anti-abortion argument that assumes that a fetus is a human being in the moral sense, instead claiming that the moral community consists only of people and not human beings. Therefore, abortion is permissible since, according to Warren, the fetus does not have full moral status. In a bid to defend her permissive view on moral and legal status of abortion, Mary Warren takes to task the anti-abortionist argument that it is wrong to kill innocent human beings, fetuses are innocent human beings, …show more content…

To elaborate on this, she defines two senses. First is the moral sense where a human being is a fully-fledged member of the moral community with full moral rights and consists exclusively of persons. The second is the genetic sense of being a member of the biological species homo sapiens. This includes not only functioning people but also fetuses. Warren states that 'human beings' when used in the moral sense refers to persons and thus personhood should be the basis for membership in the moral community. Warren sets out five attributes that she deems central to the personhood concept (Warren, 1984). These are consciousness, the ability to reason, self-motivated activity, capacity to communicate, and …show more content…

Hence, cannot be entitled to the full moral rights such as the rights of life and happiness. Schwartz (1990) does not agree with Warren's assertion, instead pointing out that the real reason that fetuses, and children by extension, do not display the traits that Warren proposes is because their capacity to do so has not fully developed. Persons in the moral community were afforded time to develop that capacity, it should not be different with fetuses.
According to Warren, the fact that a fetus has potential to be a personal does not in any way make it an actual

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