An Alternative Perspective to the Debate on Abortion: A Discussion on Pregnancy, Biological Individuality, Moral Status, and Women’s Reproductive Autonomy

Indiana Franks

The current debate on abortion is typically characterised by a black-and-white ‘prolife’ versus ‘pro-choice’ dichotomy. This dichotomy rests on the implicit assumption that two distinct individual beings are present during a human pregnancy. This may open the door to pregnant women, and potentially even women in general, having their reproductive autonomy limited. Restrictions on abortions and related reproductive health care practices may be enforced due to the implicit assumption that the foetus is a separate patient with potentially separate interests. My research aims to provide an alternate perspective to the debate on abortion by integrating and bringing into dialogue the different metaphysical theories, containment, parthood, overlap, underlap and process, that attempt to determine how many individuals may be present during a human pregnancy. These theories are derived from the ‘Better Understanding the Metaphysics of Pregnancy (BUMP)’ project. Considering the metaphysical status of the foetus and pregnant woman then has implications for the moral status of the foetus and pregnant woman and implications for women and contemporary society. I conclude that the parthood theory, or its close relative, the overlap theory, which suggests a foetus is not an individual separate from the pregnant woman, are firstly, the most plausible metaphysical theories of human pregnancy and, secondly, appear to allow for greater arguments to protect women’s reproductive autonomy. Suppose the foetus is not recognised as an individual distinctly separate from the pregnant woman but rather a part or further extension of her. In that case, the former may, in turn, have a lesser moral status in comparison to that of the pregnant woman, thus allowing the latter greater autonomy over her own reproductive choices. Therefore, abortion may not be viewed as the killing of an individual human being, as a foetus would not be considered as an individual separate from the pregnant woman, but instead as the severing of a part or extension of one's own body.

An Alternative Perspective to the Debate on Abortion: A Discussion on Pregnancy, Biological Individuality, Moral Status, and Women’s Reproductive Autonomy

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