This book has two main concerns. The first is to isolate the fundamental issues that must be resolved if one is able to formulate a defensible position on the question of the morality of abortion. The second is to determine the most plausible stand on those issues. The issues are intellectually difficult and many of them have been more or less ignored in public debate on abortion. Tooley argues, however, that plausible answers can be advanced, and that they support a liberal position on the morality of abortion.

The book has two main concerns. The first is to isolate the fundamental issues that must be resolved if one is to be able to formulate a defensible position on the question of the morality of abortion. The second is to determine the most plausible stand on those issues.

This book is the first work to look at the full range of three centuries of the early modern period in regards to infanticide and abortion, a period in which both practices were regarded equally as criminal acts. Faced with dire consequences if they were found pregnant or if they bore illegitimate children, many unmarried women were left with little choice. Some of these unfortunate women turned to infanticide and abortion as the way out of their difficult situation. This book explores the legal, social, cultural, and religious causes of infanticide and abortion in the early modern period, as well as the societal reactions to them. It examines how perceptions of these actions taken by desperate women changed over three hundred years and as early modern society became obsessed with a supposed plague of murderous mothers, resulting in heated debates, elaborate public executions, and a media frenzy. Finally, this book explores how the prosecution of infanticide and abortion eventually helped lead to major social and legal reformations during the age of the Enlightenment.

During its first two years of publication, Philosophy & Public Affairs contributed to the public debate on abortion a set of remarkable and brilliant articles which examine the basic philosophical issues posed by this controversial subject: whether the fetus is a person, whether it has a right to life, whether a woman has a right to decide what happens in and to her body, whether there is an ethical connection between abortion and infanticide, whether there is any point after conception where it is possible to draw the line beyond which killing is impermissible. These five essays, together here for the first time in a single volume, offer radically differing points of view; they provide the best sustained discussion of these philosophical issues available anywhere. Contents: Judith Jarvis Thomson, "A Defense of Abortion"; Roger Wertheimer, "Understanding the Abortion Argument"; Michael Tooley, "Abortion and Infanticide"; John Finnis, "The Rights and Wrongs of Abortion"; and Judith Jarvis Thomson, "Rights and Deaths."

Patrick Lee surveys the main philosophical arguments in favor of the moral permissibility of abortion and refutes them point by point. In a calm and philosophically sophisticated manner, he presents a powerful case for the pro-life position and a serious challenge to all of the main philosophical arguments on behalf of the pro-choice position.