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“You Ain’t a Person, and We’ll Keep It That Way”: A Reply to Berkich

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  30 May 2013

Daniel Propson*
Affiliation:
Wayne State University

Abstract

Don Berkich has argued that the so-called Trajectory Argument for the moral impermissibility of abortion falls short because it fails to establish that an embryo that never becomes a person has the same rights as an embryo that becomes a person. I argue that Berkich’s argument fails to be convincing, since (1) aborting a particular embryo itself causes the embryo not to become a person, and (2) the premise that abortion would be wrong if it were done with the intention of preventing a particular person’s existence assumes that arbitrary killings are somehow better than targeted ones, which is implausible.

Don Berkich a défendu l’idée que «l’argument de la trajectoire», invoqué pour justifier l’inconvenance de l’interruption volontaire de grossesse, est invalide parce qu’il n’établit pas qu’un embryon qui n’est jamais devenu une personne a les mêmes droits qu’un embryon qui devient une personne. Je soutiens que les arguments de Berkich ne sont pas convaincants puisque (1) l’action même d’avorter empêche l’embryon détruit par cet avortement de devenir une personne, et (2) la démonstration de Berkich suppose implicitement que le meurtre arbitraire est meilleur que le meurtre ciblé, ce qui est invraisemblable.

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Philosophical Association 2012 

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References

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