Abortion

This article considers some of the ethical debates surrounding the practice of abortion. Some competing accounts of the moral status of the fetus are presented, particularly the ‘conservative’ and ‘liberal’ positions. Next, the appeal to fetal viability as a cutoff point for abortion is explored, as well as the influential arguments put forward by Judith Jarvis Thomson in her defense of abortion. This leads to a consideration of some more recent feminist approaches to abortion and finally to an account of the relationship between the ethics of abortion and the ethics and politics of disability