What happens when two intelligent and highly informed fictional college students, one strongly pro-choice and the other vigorously pro-life, are asked to put together a presentation on abortion? Their conversations over five days – friendly but lively, charitable but clear – are captured in this book. Through these dialogues, students and other interested readers are introduced to the difficult moral issues of abortion. In Chapter 1, readers learn about Roe v. Wade and other relevant legal cases. Chapter 2 covers basic, philosophical issues such as: What is a person? Are fetuses persons? Is fetal potential morally relevant? How shall we define the moral community? Chapter 3 introduces students to Don Marquis’s "Why Abortion is Immoral" and also the metaphysical issues of personal identity and its relevance to abortion. Chapter 4 covers Judith Jarvis Thomson’s "A Defense of Abortion", including objections and responses to the argument from bodily autonomy. Finally, Chapter 5 looks at abortion in hard cases, such as in cases of rape, fetal disability, non-viable pregnancies, and sex-selection; the chapter also includes a conversation on fathers and abortion. With a Foreword by Laurie Shrage, topics headings in the margins, and an annotated bibliography, Dialogues on the Ethics of Abortion is an easy-to-use volume and valuable resource for anyone interested in a fair and clear-headed approach to one of the most contentious moral issues of our time.

Civil Dialogue on Abortion provides a cutting-edge discussion between two philosophy scholars on each side of the abortion debate. Bertha Alvarez Manninen argues for her pro-choice view, but also urges respect for the life of the fetus, while Jack Mulder argues for his pro-life view, but recognizes that for the pro-life movement to be consistent, it must urge society to care more for the vulnerable. Coming together to discuss their views, but also to seek common ground, the two authors show how their differing positions nevertheless rest upon some common convictions. The book helps to provide a way forward for a divide that has only seemed to widen the aisle of public discourse in recent years. This engaging book will prove essential reading for students across multiple disciplines, including applied ethics, medical ethics, and bioethics, but will also be of interest to students of religious studies and women’s studies.

"The issues she takes on are crucial -- not solely the subject areas of reproductive rights and law, or public policy lenses and judicial impact in women's and children's lives, but also the more difficult and fundamental questions of how these 'hot topics' can be approached so as to make the most of the good will of all and the force of free discussion for social learning.... she brings a strong, evolving and distinctive perspective to the discussion." -- Emily Fowler Hartigan In Abortion and Dialogue, Ruth Colker argues that the state falsely views the woman and the fetus as having conflicting needs when it intervenes in decisions regarding preganancies. Colker's feminist-theological perspective on reproductive health issues encourages both pro-choice and pro-life advocates to consider how the value of life is implicated in discussions of reproduction. Colker argues that theology can contribute to our understanding if we apply the concepts of love, compassion, and wisdom to problems identified by feminist theory and to actual concrete situations: the impact of abortion regulations on poor female adolescents; the judicial treatment of abortion regulations; state intervention into women's decision-making during pregnancies carried to term. Colker concludes by examining effective and respectful family-planning strategies that truly help women in making reproductive choices.

What happens when two intelligent and highly informed fictional college students, one strongly pro-choice and the other vigorously pro-life, are asked to put together a presentation on abortion? Their conversations over five days – friendly but lively, charitable but clear – are captured in this book. Through these dialogues, students and other interested readers are introduced to the difficult moral issues of abortion. In Chapter 1, readers learn about Roe v. Wade and other relevant legal cases. Chapter 2 covers basic, philosophical issues such as: What is a person? Are fetuses persons? Is fetal potential morally relevant? How shall we define the moral community? Chapter 3 introduces students to Don Marquis’s "Why Abortion is Immoral" and also the metaphysical issues of personal identity and its relevance to abortion. Chapter 4 covers Judith Jarvis Thomson’s "A Defense of Abortion", including objections and responses to the argument from bodily autonomy. Finally, Chapter 5 looks at abortion in hard cases, such as in cases of rape, fetal disability, non-viable pregnancies, and sex-selection; the chapter also includes a conversation on fathers and abortion. With a Foreword by Laurie Shrage, topics headings in the margins, and an annotated bibliography, Dialogues on the Ethics of Abortion is an easy-to-use volume and valuable resource for anyone interested in a fair and clear-headed approach to one of the most contentious moral issues of our time.

Vigorously demonstrating the relevance of reasoning to important moral problems, the participants in this dialogue resist the temptations of strident emotional appeal in an effort to present the most honorable and intellectually sophisticated sides of their arguments. This effort leads them to consideration of ante-bellum slavery, to a comparison of the notions of absolute truth in ethics versus mathematics, and to constructive discussions of genetics, artificial intelligence, euthanasia, personal identity, human sexuality, and Roe v. Wade.

This book features opening arguments followed by two rounds of reply between two moral philosophers on opposing sides of the abortion debate. In the opening essays, Kate Greasley and Christopher Kaczor lay out what they take to be the best case for and against abortion rights. In the ensuing dialogue, they engage with each other's arguments and each responds to criticisms fielded by the other. Their conversational argument explores such fundamental questions as: what gives a person the right to life? Is abortion bad for women? What is the difference between abortion and infanticide? Underpinned by philosophical reasoning and methodology, this book provides opposing and clearly structured perspectives on a highly emotive and controversial issue. The result gives readers a window into how moral philosophers argue about the contentious issue of abortion rights, and an in-depth analysis of the compelling arguments on both sides.

Although Roe v. Wade identified abortion as a constitutional right over 40 years ago, it bears stigma - a proverbial scarlet A- in the United States. Millions participate in or benefit from an abortion, but few want to reveal that they have done so. Approximately one in five pregnancies in theUS ends in abortion. Why is something so common, which has been legal so long, still a source of shame and secrecy? Why is it so regularly debated by politicians, and so seldom divulged from friend to friend, or loved one to loved one? This book explores the personal stigma that prevents many fromsharing their abortion experiences with friends and family in private conversation, and the structural stigma that keeps it that way. It argues persuasively that America would benefit from working to reverse such stigma, providing readers with tools that may help them model ways of doing so.Our silence around private experience with abortion has distorted our public discourse. Both proponents and opponents of abortion's legality tend to focus on the extraordinary cases. This tendency keeps the public discourse polarized and contentious, and keeps the focus on the cases that occur theleast. Katie Watson focuses instead on the remaining 95% of abortion cases. The book gives the reflective reader a more accurate impression of what the majority of American abortion practice really looks like. It explains why this public/private disjuncture exists, what it costs us, and what can begained by including ordinary abortion in public debate.As Scarlet A explains, abortion has been a constitutional right for nearly 45 years, and it should remain one. What we need now are productive conversations about abortion ethics: how could or should people decide whether to exercise this right? Watson paints a rich, rarely seen picture of howpatients and doctors currently think and act, and ultimately invites readers to draw their own conclusions.