Abstract

The philosophical debate concerning the morality of abortion revolves around two equally prominent traditional positions. First, there is the conservative position in which it is argued that our position on abortion must be determined with reference to the status of the fetus. Second, there is the liberal position inn which it is claimed that abortion is a matter exclusively of the rights of women. ;The arguments which have been presented on behalf of those two positions do not, however, when subjected to critical analysis prove fundamentally defensible. Those who have tried to establish a moderate position between the two traditional ones have fared no better. For this reason we are led to consider the grounding needed to secure a defensible position on abortion. ;We begin that enquiry with the argument that the question of whether one has a right to life at all, or how much of a right one has, must turn on the question of one's concept of human life. Opponents of abortion commonly assume that it is physiological life that we are concerned with here. But we may certainly define life in at least one other important sense; namely, in terms of experiential life or one's ability, as a member of the moral community, to experience the world as an autonomous moral agent. ;From such a basis and operating within the framework of a modified Kantian theory of moral self-development, we propose to show that there is room for a moral position on abortion which is personal and yet not subjective and which also serves two important purposes in the debate. First, it enables us, if necessary, to challenge the notion of the fetus as a truly human life. Second, and more important, it allows us to argue that all persons, regardless of sex, not only have a negative duty not to harm others but also a positive, albeit imperfect, duty to develop their own natures. With respect to women, such development must include the freedom to make responsible moral decisions about abortion