ABORTION: WHY BIOETHICS CAN HAVE NO ANSWER- A PERSONAL PERSPECTIVE

Abortion is one of the great moral debates of the epoch. Is there a rational method by which the debate can be resolved? Can bioethics ' promise of such a method be fulfilled? Surely, a strictly rational approach can establish solid grounds for our beliefs once and for all. We would then be justified in deeming as unreasonable anyone who does not accept the perfectly rational conclusions. I present two scenarios to show that there can be no such philosophically grounded method and therefore no such facts to which every-one must agree. This does not mean that it is in fact impossible for people to reach agree-ment. It simply means that there is no incontrovertibly rational means by which they must do so. Disagreements Despite all the knowledge of theologians, lawyers, sociologists, politicians and moralists, disagreement about abortion persists. Perhaps the disagreement per-sists, in part, because of all this knowledge. When one has a disagreement it is nat-ural to look for a way, a definitive way, of reaching an agreement. There are some who think that the philosopher, in the guise of bioethicist, should be able to throw light on the disagreement in such a way as to lead reasonable people to a final resolution. Are they right in thinking this? I shall focus on this matter of finding a rationally definitive resolution in rela-tion to abortion. I will present a fairly ordinary disagreement between a mother, who takes the view that, except in extremis, it is always wrong to abort a preg-nancy, and her daughter, who considers that, under quite a wide range of condi-tions, it is not wrong to abort a pregnancy; but, first, is the concluding scene of the life of shipwrecked Captain Gulliver, who, it will become clear, represents us all in our search for understanding about disagreement