4 - The Good Samaritan Argument

Summary

OVERVIEW

The rights-based argument against abortion turns on two claims: that the fetus (at least in typical cases of abortion) has the same right to life as you and I, and that if this is so, then abortion (at least in typical circumstances) is morally impermissible. In Chapters 2 and 3, I considered the first of these claims in some detail and argued that it should be rejected on the critic of abortion's own terms. The fetus should instead be understood as acquiring a right to life only after its brain reaches a certain level of maturity, a development that occurs well after the vast majority of abortions are performed. If this analysis is correct, then the rights-based argument fails for most, but not all, cases of abortion. But let us now suppose that I have been mistaken about this, and that the fetus acquires a right to life at the moment of its conception. This concession will vindicate the rights-based argument against abortion only if we also accept the argument's second claim, the claim that if the fetus has this right, then abortion (at least in typical circumstances) is morally impermissible. I will argue in this chapter that this second claim should also be rejected on the abortion critic's own terms.

The argument I will defend against this claim turns on the thesis that cases of a woman's carrying a pregnancy to term should be subsumed under the broader category of good samaritanism.