Mary Anne Warren on abortion

Abortion: right or wrong? In determining the moral status of abortion, we must first decide, “How we are to define the moral community, the set of beings with full and equal moral rights” (Warren 156)? According to John Noonan, a pro-life conservative, the presence of human chromosomes in the fetus’s cell nuclei from the point of conception is sufficient evidence to prove that a fetus is human. Mary Anne Warren however, refers to this description …

…term changes meaning in premise two, then one can no longer have confidence in the conclusion drawn from its use. The premises, even though they are true, fail to prove the conclusion. This objection to the conservative argument doesn’t help us answer the question of “how do we define the moral community”, but it does help us determine who is not part of that community, and who doesn’t merit our consideration or respect.