Is the unborn human less than human?

(continued)

REFERENCES AND NOTES

  1. The facts in this section are taken from the following: F. Beck, D. B. Moffat, and D. P. Davies, Human Embryology, Second edition (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1985); Keith L. Moore, The Developing Human: Clinically Oriented Embryology, Second edition (Philadelphia: W. B. Saunders, 1977); Andre E. Hellegers, “Fetal Development,” in Biomedical Ethics, editor, Thomas A. Mappes and Jane S. Zembaty (New York: Macmillan, 1981), pp. 405-409; and Stephen M. Krason, Abortion: Politics, Morality, and the Constitution(Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1984), pp. 337-349.
  2. Subcommittee on Separation of Powers, report to Senate Judiciary Committee S-158, 97th Congress, 1st Session, 1981, as quoted in Norman L. Geisler, Christian Ethics: Options and Issues (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1989), 149.
  3. James J. Diamond, M.D., "Abortion, Animation and Biological Hominization," Theological Studies 36 (June 1975): 305-42.
  4. Stephen M. Krason, Abortion: Politics, Morality, and the Constitution(Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1984), p. 341.
  5. John T. Noonan, “The Experience of Pain by the Unborn,” in The Zero People, Jeff Lane Hensley, editor (Ann Arbor, Michigan: Servant, 1983), pp. 141-56.
  6. Ibid., pp. 151-52.
  7. See Mortimer Rosen, "The Secret Brain: Learning Before Birth," Harper's, April 1978, pp. 46-47.
  8. See Michael Tooley, Abortion and Infanticide (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1983); and Peter Singer and Helga Kuhse, “On Letting Handicapped Infants Die,” in The Right Thing to Do, James Rachels, editor (New York: Random House, 1989).
  9. John Warwick Montgomery, Slaughter of the Innocents(Westchester, IL: Crossway, 1981), p. 37. For more on quickening,see ibid., pp. 103-119; and David W. Louisell and John T. Noonan,“Constitutional Balance,” in The Morality of Abortion, pp. 223-26.
  10. Robert Wennberg, Life in the Balance: Exploring the Abortion Controversy (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1985), p. 77.
  11. Peter Singer and Helga Kuhse, “On Letting Handicapped Infants Die,” in The Right Thing to Do, James Rachels, editor (New York: Random House, 1989), p. 146.
  12. Robert Wennberg, Life in the Balance: Exploring the Abortion Controversy (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1985), pp. 77-78.
  13. Baruch Brody, Abortion and the Sanctity of Human Life: A Philosophical View (Cambridge, MA: M.I.T. Press, 1975).
  14. Ibid., p. 102.
  15. Andrew Varga, The Main Issues in Bioethics, Second edition (New York: Paulist Press, 1984), pp. 61-62.
  16. Ibid., 62.
  17. Baruch Brody, Abortion and the Sanctity of Human Life: A Philosophical View (Cambridge, MA: M.I.T. Press, 1975), pp. 113-114.
  18. A. Chadwick Ray, "Humanity, Personhood, and Abortion," International Philosophical Quarterly 25 (1985), p. 238.
  19. Ibid.
  20. Ibid.
  21. Andrew Varga, The Main Issues in Bioethics, Second edition (New York: Paulist Press, 1984), pp. 62-63.
  22. Ibid., p. 63.
  23. Jane English, “Abortion and the Concept of a Person,” in Biomedical Ethics, Thomas A. Mappes and Jane S. Zembatty, editors (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1981), p. 430.
  24. Webster v. Reproductive Health Services (1989) in United States Law Week 57 (July 1989): p. 5040.
  25. For a defense of this view, see Richard Werner, "Abortion: The Ontological and Moral Status of the Unborn," Social Policy and Practice 3 (1974): pp. 201-202.
  26. See Joel Feinberg, “Grounds For Coercion,” in Ethical Theory and Social Issues, David Theo Goldberg, editor (New York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, 1989), pp. 307-315.
  27. A. Chadwick Ray, "Humanity, Personhood, and Abortion," International Philosophical Quarterly 25 (1985), p. 240.
  28. Peter Kreeft, “Human Personhood Begins at Conception,” in Journal of Biblical Ethics in Medicine 4 (Winter 1990), p. 11.
  29. Michael Tooley, Abortion and Infanticide (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1983).
  30. Mary Anne Warren, “On the Moral and Legal Status of Abortion,” in Biomedical Ethics, pp. 417-423.
  31. James Rachels, The End of Life (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986). For a critical analysis of this book, see J. P. Moreland's review in The Thomist 53 (Oct. 1989), pp. 714-722.
  32. Virginia Ramey Mollenkott, "Reproducive Choice: Basic to Justice for Women," Christian Scholar's Review 17 (March 1988), pp. 286-293.
  33. See Michael Tooley, Abortion and Infanticide (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1983).
  34. Virginia Ramey Mollenkott, "Reproducive Choice: Basic to Justice for Women," Christian Scholar's Review 17 (March 1988), p. 291.
  35. Michael Tooley, Abortion and Infanticide (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1983), p. 167. In rebuttal, see David Clark, "An Evaluation of the Quality of Life Argument for Infanticide," Simon Greenleaf Law Review 5 (1985-86), pp. 104-108; and Richard A. McCormick, S.J., How Brave a New World? Dilemmas in Bioethics (Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, 1981), pp. 157-59.
  36. Jane English, “Abortion and the Concept of a Person,” in Biomedical Ethics, Thomas A. Mappes and Jane S. Zembatty, editors (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1981), p. 429.
  37. Ibid., p. 430.
  38. Some philosophers, such as Tooley (Abortion & Infanticide), “bite the bullet” and say that infanticide is not a form of murder since the newborn is not a person.
  39. John Jefferson Davis, Abortion and the Christian (Phillipsburg, NJ: Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Co., 1984), p. 57.
  40. A. Chadwick Ray, "Humanity, Personhood, and Abortion," International Philosophical Quarterly 25 (1985), pp. 240-241.
  41. Daniel Callahan, Abortion: Law, Choice, and Morality (New York: Macmillan, 1970); and Robert Wennberg, Life in the Balance: Exploring the Abortion Controversy (Grand Rapids, MI: Williams B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1985).
  42. Philip Devine, The Ethics of Homicide (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1979); Robert E. Joyce, “Personhood and the Conception Event,” The New Scholasticism 52 (Winter 1978), pp. 104-109; J. P. Moreland and Norman L. Geisler, The Life and Death Debate: Moral Issues of Our Time (Westport, CT: Praeger Books, 1990), pp. 31-34.
  43. See Moreland and Geisler, The Life and Death Debate; and Francis J. Beckwith and Norman L. Geisler, Matters of Life and Death: Calm Answers to Tough Questions about Abortion and Euthanasia (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1991), part 2.
  44. Justice Harry Blackmun, in "The 1973 Supreme Court Decisions on State Abortion Laws: Excerpts from Opinion in Roe v. Wade," in The Problem of Abortion, Second edition, Joel Feinberg, editor (Belmont, California: Wadsworth, 1984), p. 195.

Author: Francis J. Beckwith. Part of a 4-part series that originally appeared in the Christian Research Journal, Spring 1991. Provided with permission by Summit Ministries. Minor editing for this publication by Paul S. Taylor, Christian Answers.

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