Abstract
Ectogestation involves the gestation of a fetus in an ex utero environment. The possibility of this technology raises a significant question for the abortion debate: Does a woman’s right to end her pregnancy entail that she has a right to the death of the fetus when ectogestation is possible? Some have argued that it does not Mathison & Davis (Bioeth 31:313–320, 2017). Others claim that, while a woman alone does not possess an individual right to the death of the fetus, the genetic parents have a collective right to its death Räsänen (Bioeth 31:697–702, 2017). In this paper, I argue that the possibility of ectogestation will radically transform the problem of abortion. The argument that I defend purports to show that, even if it is not a person, there is no right to the death of a fetus that could be safely removed from a human womb and gestated in an artificial womb, because there are competent people who are willing to care for and raise the fetus as it grows into a person. Thus, given the possibility of ectogestation, the moral status of the fetus plays no substantial role in determining whether there is a right to its death.
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Notes
For a discussion of these issues, see Di Stefano et al. (2020).
For a discussion of this point, see Mathison and Davis (2017), pp. 313–314.
It should be noted that I am assuming that the fetus is not a person for the purpose of this argument. There are likely a number of morally relevant issues one could investigate regarding whether a fetus gestating in an artificial womb counts as being born (see Romanis (2018) and Colgrove (2019)). For a discussion of physiological differences between fetuses and newborns that one might think are morally relevant, see Kingma and Finn (2020). For a discussion of birth as a morally relevant point in the development of a fetus, see Burin (2014) and Bermúdez (1996).
The term “in most cases” is a ceteris paribus clause, insofar as there may be some exceptions, e.g., in the case of rape or if in cases where it is clear that the fetus would suffer and live a short life. There may be other important exceptions, e.g., if there is no way to identify competent individuals willing to care for the fetus.
What if we cannot identify anyone willing to care for and raise the fetus as it grows? This is a fair question, insofar as it suggests that there may be practical and legal problems entailed by this view. But if there is no one willing to care for the fetus, this would not show that there is a right to its death, since Warren's Conditional would be trivially true.
For a discussion of these issues from a feminist perspective, see Horn (2020).
For a discussion of this point, see Blackshaw and Rodger (2019), pp. 77–78.
For a discussion of this point, see Blackshaw and Rodger (2019), p. 78
There is some dispute about how to formulate this argument. Kaczor (2018) (p. 637) argues that Räsänen’s formulation is invalid and proposes this formulation as a suitable replacement.
For a discussion of this point, see Mathison and Davis (2017), p. 318.
There may be important differences between cryopreserved embryos and fetuses. For example, there are biological differences between, say, a fetus before zygotic twinning occurs and a fetus moments before birth. But it is not clear that any of these are morally significant. For a discussion of this issue, see Mathison and Davis (2017), pp. 317–318.
For a discussion of this response, see Mathison and Davis (2017), pp. 317–318.
For a discussion of these issues, see Kingma and Finn (2020), pp. 358–359.
I want to thank and give credit to an anonymous reviewer for bringing the importance of this point to my attention.
For a discussion of this claim, see Langford (2008), p. 265.
For a discussion of this claim, see Räsänen (2017), pp. 698–699.
There is some dispute about how to formulate this argument. Kaczor (2018) (p. 635) argues that Räsänen’s formulation is invalid and proposes this formulation as a suitable replacement.
Mathison and Davis (2017) (p. 315) go on to argue that even if there are some harms caused by attributional parenthood, they are not sufficiently great to warrant killing the fetus.
There is some dispute about how to formulate this argument. Kaczor (2018) (p. 636) argues that Räsänen’s formulation is invalid and proposes an alternative formulation as a suitable replacement. To avoid confusion, I use the term ‘ectogestation’ in this formulation of the argument.
For a discussion of this issue, see MacKay 2020, p. 347.
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Stratman, C.M. Ectogestation and the Problem of Abortion. Philos. Technol. 34, 683–700 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13347-020-00427-2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13347-020-00427-2