The moral significance of spontaneous abortion.
Spontaneous abortion is rarely addressed in moral evaluations of abortion. Indeed, 'abortion' is virtually always taken to mean only induced abortion. After a brief review of medical aspects of spontaneous abortion, I attempt to articulate the moral implications of spontaneous abortion for the two poles of the abortion debate, the strong pro-abortion and the strong anti-abortion positions. I claim that spontaneous abortion has no moral relevance for strict pro-abortion positions but that the high incidence of spontaneous abortion is not (as some claim) eo ipso any sort of justification for voluntarily induced abortion. Secondly, I show that if the strict anti-abortionist position is to be taken seriously in its insistence that prenatal life has a right to be protected by virtue of its being conceived, then it seems necessary to take measures to prevent spontaneous abortion and its presumptive causes, and this as a matter of moral obligation.
D000022:Abortion, Spontaneous / Q000209:etiology; D033421:Beginning of Human Life; D004989:Ethics; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D019369:Life; D028681:Moral Obligations; D028723:Personhood; D010684:Philosophy; D011247:Pregnancy; D037841:Pregnant People