Abortion and the Beginning and End of Human Life

Defining the Beginning and the End of Human Life: Implications for Ethics, Policy and Law, presented at the Thomas A. Pitts Memorial Lectureship, Medical University of South Carolina, September 10–11, 2004.

Roe v. Wade, Supreme Court of the United States, 410 U. S. 113 (1973).

Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v. Casey, Supreme Court of the United States 505 U. S. 833 (1992).

See Roe , supra note 2, at 159.

See Roe , supra note 2, at 160.

See Roe , supra note 2, at 161–162.

See Roe , supra note 2, at 162.

See Casey , supra note 3, at 871–872.

See Casey , supra note 3, at 872.

President's Commission for the Study of Ethical Problems in Medicine and Biomedical and Behavioral Research, Defining Death: A Report on the Medical, Legal and Ethical Issues in the Determination of Death (Washington, DC: U. S. Government Printing Office 1981): at 2.

Savulescu J. , “Abortion, Embryo Destruction and the Future of Value Argument,” Journal of Medical Ethics 28 (2002): 133–135, at 134.

Brody B. , “On the Humanity of the Foetus,” in Perkins R. ed., Abortion: Pro and Con (Cambridge, MA: Schenkman 1974): 69–90, at 88.

Rana M. W. , Human Embryology Made Easy (Amsterdam: Harwood Academic Publishers, 1998): at 319; and Gilbert S. , Pictorial Human Embryology (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1989): at 111.

See President's Commission, supra note 10, at 33.

Veatch R. , “The Impending Collapse of the Whole-Brain-Oriented Definition of Death,” Hastings Center Report 23 (July-August 1993): 18–24.

Shewmon D. A. , “The Brain and Somatic Integration: Insights into the Standard Biological Rationale for Equating ‘Brain Death’ with Death,” Journal of Medicine and Philosophy 26 (2001): 457–478; and McMahan J. , The Ethics of Killing: Problems at the Margins of Life (New York: Oxford University Press, 2002): at 426–439.

See President's Commission, supra note 10, at 35.

Shewmon D. A. Capron A. M. Peacock W. J. , “The Use of Anencephalic Infants as Organ Sources: A Critique,” JAMA 261 (1989): 1773–1781; and Peabody J. L. Emery J. R. and Ashwal S. , “Experience with Anencephalic Infants as Prospective Organ Donors,” The New England Journal of Medicine 321 (1989): 344–350.

Kant I. , Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals, at Third Section AK 447.

Steinbock B. , Life Before Birth: The Moral and Legal Status of Embryos and Fetuses (New York: Oxford University Press, 1992); Dworkin R. , Life's Dominion: An Argument about Abortion, Euthanasia, and Individual Freedom (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1993).

McMahan J. , supra note 16, at 242–265.

Warren M. A. , “On the Moral and Legal Status of Abortion,” The Monist 57, no. 1 (1973): 43–61.

Tooley M. , “A Defense of Abortion and Infanticide,” in Feinberg J. , ed., The Problem of Abortion (Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Publishing Company, 1973): 51–91; and Singer P. , Practical Ethics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1973): at 82.

Jeremiah 1:5.

Psalms 127:3, Psalms 139:13, Psalms 71:6, Isaiah 46:3, Job 10: 8–12, Psalms 22: 10–11, Luke 1: 39–45.

Marquis D. , “Why Abortion is Immoral,” The Journal of Philosophy 86 (1989): 183–202.