Abstract

This essay deals with the question of the morality of abortion and infanticide. The fundamental ethical objection traditionally advanced against these practices rests on the contention that human fetuses and infants have a right to life, and it is this claim that is the primary focus of attention here. Consequently, the basic question to be discussed is what properties a thing must possess in order to have a serious right to life. The approach involves defending, then, a basic principle specifying a condition living things must satisfy to have a serious right to life, and the answer given makes it unlikely that this condition is satisfied by human fetuses and infants, though this tentative conclusion could be altered by future scientific studies of the development of the human brain. As things stand at the moment, however, it seems unlikely that developing humans acquire the physical basis of the psychological capacities on which the right to continued existence rests, and therefore unless there are other substantial objections to abortion and infanticide that undercut the above line of thought, the conclusion is that such practices are not intrinsically wrong.