Hursthouse's Argument Analysis

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In this essay I wish to discuss what Hursthouse calls the argument for the Extreme Liberal View concerning the moral status of the human foetus – that is, the view that the foetus is in most if not all morally relevant respects like a piece of tissue or a bit of the human body.
The argument is an extension of all Libertarian philosophy. That is, that I as an individual have the ultimate right of what decisions happen to my own body, and that this right cannot be trumped by another. This right to bodily autonomy is thus extended to all pregnant woman. As the foetus is growing within them, and is nourishing itself from then, they have the right to remove said foetus at any point lest their bodily autonomy be denied.

Having identified the argument, I wish to discuss whether the argument is good or bad. To do this I need to ask myself whether the conclusion – that is, that denying women the right to an abortion denies them bodily autonomy – is morally sound.

Firstly, it’s worth examining the concept of bodily autonomy and deciding if the people who created the concept are moral. Bodily autonomy is enshrined within the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. Both documents were written, and ratified by various world Governments whom are part of the United Nations. In the case of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, it has 169 state party signatures. As both documents were created by and signed by most the worlds Governments, it follows that they are moral – that is, the world at large agrees with them – and that if they are moral, the concepts contained within are moral as well. As we know that guaranteeing bodily autonomy is moral, and we know that the argument for the Extreme Liberal View holds that the foetus is a part of the womans body, it follows that she should have the right to do with it as she wishes. However, the question then becomes one of at what point the foetus adopts its own bodily autonomy and thus has a right to itself. Hurthouse holds within her paper “The Oral Status of the Foetus” that the viability of the foetus cannot be used as the barometer for which we measure the ethics of the extreme liberal view, as viability is a moving boundary. However, I disagree with her as I feel the opposite is true. Viability is the point where a moral line can be drawn, with it’s movability being irrelevant to the argument. If there exists a woman who is currently pregnant and no longer wishes to be so; and we agree that she has the right to her own bodily autonomy and may do with the foetus inside of her as
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If the foetus in question is of any age where medical technology is able to guarantee a reasonable chance of survival away from the mother– I cannot go into further discussion on how we would define this due to word count issues – then it can no longer be seen as just an extension of her own body, for it has attained the potential to be autonomous. That is, it would be unethical for her to have an abortion as she would be denying another human their autonomy. Up until that point however, the woman may do with her foetus whatever she

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