Defending Life
A Moral and Legal Case against Abortion Choice

Defending Life is the most comprehensive defense of the pro-life position on abortion ever published.

Francis J. Beckwith (Author)

9780521691352, Cambridge University Press

Paperback, published 13 August 2007

314 pages, 1 table
23.4 x 16.2 x 1.9 cm, 0.44 kg

'Beckwith offers an internally coherent and reasonably convincing case for the pro-life position.' Political Studies Review

Defending Life is arguably the most comprehensive defense of the pro-life position on abortion - morally, legally, and politically - that has ever been published in an academic monograph. It offers a detailed and critical analysis of Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey as well as arguments by those who defend a Rawlsian case for abortion-choice, such as J. J. Thomson. The author defends the substance view of persons as the view with the most explanatory power. The substance view entails that the unborn is a subject of moral rights from conception. While defending this view, the author responds to the arguments of thinkers such as Boonin, Dworkin, Stretton, Ford and Brody. He also critiques Thomson's famous violinist argument and its revisions by Boonin and McDonagh. Defending Life includes chapters critiquing arguments found in popular politics and the controversy over cloning and stem cell research.

Part I. Moral Reasoning, Law, and Politics: 1. Abortion and moral argument
2. The Supreme Court, Roe v. Wade, and abortion law
3. Abortion, liberalism, and the neutral state
Part II. Assessing the Case for Abortion-Choice and against Human Inclusiveness: 4. Science, the unborn, and abortion methods
5. Popular arguments: pity, tolerance, and ad hominem
6. The nature of humanness and whether the unborn is a moral subject
7. Does it really matter whether the unborn is a moral subject? The case from bodily autonomy
Part III. Extending and Concluding the Argument: 8. Cloning, bioethics and reproductive liberty
9. Conclusion - a case for human inclusiveness.

Subject Areas: Law & society [LAQ], Central government policies [JPQB], Public administration [JPP], Political structure & processes [JPH], Ethical issues: abortion & birth control [JFMA], Ethical issues & debates [JFM], Social & political philosophy [HPS], Ethics & moral philosophy [HPQ]