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Added by: Sara PeppeAbstract:
In this paper, I urge feminists to re-center fetal moral status in their theorizing about abortion. I argue that fundamental feminist normative commitments are at odds with efforts to de-emphasize fetal moral status: The feminist commitment to ensuring care for dependents supports surprising conclusions with regard to the ethics of abortion, and the feminist commitment to politicizing the personal has surprising conclusions regarding the politics of abortion. But these feminist insights also support the conclusion that, conditional on fetal moral status, care for unwanted fetuses would be a social obligation that only derivatively falls to women who are unwillingly pregnant.
Purdy, Laura. Are Pregnant Women Fetal Containers?1990, Bioethics 4(4): 273–291.-
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Added by: Carl Fox
Content: Purdy offers a strong argument against overriding the decisions of pregnant women and tries to reconcile the significance of the dependence of the fetus on the mother with the mother's right to control her own body.Comment: Very useful as introductory or further reading on reproductive rights and/or abortion.
Barclay, Linda. Genetic Engineering and Autonomous Agency2003, Journal of applied philosophy 20(3): 223–236.-
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Added by: Simon Fokt
Abstract: In this paper I argue that the genetic manipulation of sexual orientation at the embryo stage could have a detrimental effect on the subsequent person's later capacity for autonomous agency. By focussing on an example of sexist oppression I show that the norms and expectations expressed with this type of genetic manipulation can threaten the development of autonomous agency and the kind of social environment that makes its exercise likely.Comment: Useful mainly in the context of (the limitations of) reproductive rights and as a further reading on the ethics of genetic engineering and human enhancement.
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Schouten, Gina. Fetuses, Orphans, and a Famous Violinist: On the Ethics and Politics of Abortion
2017, Social Theory and Practice 43 (3): 637-665
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Comment: Best discussed alongside Judith Thomson's "A Defense of Abortion" and Liam Murphy's "The Demands of Beneficence." Challenges a widely accepted intuition about the ethics of abortion and can be used to illustrate the vulnerabilities of thought experiments that appeal to intuitions. Demonstrates the useful argumentative move of assuming premise P for the sake of argument (even if you don't endorse P) in order to examine the implications that follow from P.