title: The Viable Violinist.
abstract: In the aftermath of the Kermit Gosnell trial and Giubilini and Minerva's article 'After-birth abortion', abortion-rights advocates have been pressured to provide an account of the moral difference between abortion, particularly late-term abortion, and infanticide. In response, some scholars have defended a moral distinction by appealing to an argument developed by Judith Jarvis Thomson in A defense of abortion. However, once Thomson's analogy is refined to account for the morally relevant features of late-term pregnancy, rather than distinguishing between late-term abortion and infanticide, it reinforces their moral similarity. This is because late-term abortion requires more than detachment - it requires an act of feticide to ensure the death of the viable fetus. As such, a Thomsonian account cannot be deployed successfully as a response to Giubilini and Minerva. Those wishing to defend late-term abortion while rejecting the permissibility of infanticide will need to provide an alternative account of the difference, or else accept Giubilini and Minerva's conclusion.
authors.forename: Michael
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Hawking
mesh_terms: D000028:Abortion, Induced / Q000941:ethics*; D000300:Adoption; D033421:Beginning of Human Life; D005260:Female; D005328:Fetal Viability; D006801:Humans; D007231:Infant, Newborn; D007237:Infanticide / Q000941:ethics*; D028681:Moral Obligations; D028723:Personhood; D011247:Pregnancy; D026712:Value of Life
keywords: abortion; ethics; fetal viability; fetus; infanticide