Department of Philosophy, University of Birmingham, Birmingham, UK.
Bioethics. 2019 Jul;33(6):723-724. doi: 10.1111/bioe.12576. Epub 2019 Apr 3.
In his recent article Perry Hendricks presents what he calls the impairment argument to show that abortion is immoral. To do so, he argues that to give a fetus fetal alcohol syndrome is immoral. Because killing the fetus impairs it more than giving it fetal alcohol syndrome, Hendricks concludes that killing the fetus must also be immoral. Here, I claim that killing a fetus does not impair it in the way that giving it fetal alcohol syndrome does. By examining the reason why giving a fetus this condition is wrong, I conclude that the same reasoning, on common pro-choice accounts, does not apply to killing the fetus. Accordingly, Hendricks's argument does not succeed in showing abortion is immoral.
在最近的一篇文章中，佩里·亨德里克斯（Perry Hendricks）提出了所谓的损伤论证，以表明堕胎是不道德的。为此，他认为，给胎儿造成胎儿酒精综合征是不道德的。由于杀死胎儿会使其受到比胎儿酒精综合征更大的损伤，因此亨德里克斯得出结论，杀死胎儿也必须是不道德的。在这里，我声称杀死胎儿并不会像给胎儿造成胎儿酒精综合征那样使其受到损伤。通过检查给胎儿造成这种情况为何是错误的原因，我得出结论，根据常见的支持选择的观点，同样的推理不适用于杀死胎儿。因此，亨德里克斯的论证并没有成功地表明堕胎是不道德的。
