Department of Philosophy, Classics, History of Art and Ideas, University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway
Faculty of Social Sciences, Tampere University, Tampere, Finland.
J Med Ethics. 2022 Feb;48(2):101-105. doi: 10.1136/medethics-2020-106938. Epub 2020 Dec 21.
Fetal reduction is the practice of reducing the number of fetuses in a multiple pregnancy, such as quadruplets, to a twin or singleton pregnancy. Use of assisted reproductive technologies increases the likelihood of multiple pregnancies, and many fetal reductions are done after in vitro fertilisation and embryo transfer, either because of social or health-related reasons. In this paper, I apply Joe Horton's to the ethics of fetal reduction in the case of a twin pregnancy. I argue that in the case of a twin pregnancy, there are two intuitively plausible claims: (1) abortion is morally permissible, and (2) it is morally wrong to abort just one of the fetuses. But since we should choose morally permissible acts rather than impermissible ones, the two claims lead to another highly implausible claim: the woman ought to abort both fetuses rather than only one. Yet, this does not seem right. A plausible moral theory cannot advocate such a pro-death view. Or can it? I suggest ways to solve this problem and draw implications for each solution.
胎儿减灭术是指减少多胎妊娠（如四胞胎）中的胎儿数量，使之成为双胞胎或单胎妊娠。辅助生殖技术的应用增加了多胎妊娠的可能性，许多胎儿减灭术是在体外受精和胚胎移植后进行的，这可能是出于社会或健康方面的原因。在本文中，我将乔·霍顿的观点应用于双胞胎妊娠中的胎儿减灭术伦理。我认为，在双胞胎妊娠的情况下，有两个直观上似乎合理的主张：（1）堕胎在道德上是允许的，（2）仅仅堕胎其中一个胎儿在道德上是错误的。但是，由于我们应该选择在道德上允许的行为而不是不允许的行为，这两个主张导致了另一个非常不合理的主张：该妇女应该堕胎两个胎儿，而不是一个。然而，这似乎并不正确。一个合理的道德理论不能主张这样一种赞成死亡的观点。或者它可以吗？我提出了解决这个问题的方法，并为每个解决方案引出了一些含义。
