Ronald Dworkin’s Life’s Dominion has set the tone of jurisprudential discourse on the ethics of abortion. Dworkin, addresses the basis of the debate over the morality of abortion. However, he does so from an uncommon lens. He is not concerned with whether abortion should be morally permissible or not. Instead Dworkin asks, ‘Why does a large section of society vehemently oppose abortion?’. Dworkin claims that abortion is opposed because it violates the intrinsic value or ‘sacredness’ bestowed in any living being, fetus or adult. This is significant because our understanding of the moral-ethical basis of the abortion debate greatly influences abortion laws all over the world which allow or prohibit it. In this context, I deconstruct Dworkin’s theory. Dworkin’s account of what makes things sacred fails to explain why human life is special. He fails to distinguish the sacredness of human life as something more than the life of a tree or caterpillar. Specifically, I propose that a better way of understanding opposition to abortion is to acknowledge the potential personhood of the fetus which illicit strong protective sentiments in individuals, who then go on to oppose abortion.
Barclay L, ‘Rights, Intrinsic Values And The Politics Of Abortion’ (1999) 11 Utilitas.
Douglas-Scott S, ‘BOOK REVIEWS’ (1994) 2 Medical Law Review.
‘Dworkin And His Critics: With Replies By Dworkin’ (2005) 42 Choice Reviews Online.
Dworkin R, Life’s Dominion (Harper Collins Publishers 1995).
Finnis J., The Rights and Wrongs of Abortion: A Reply to Judith Thomson, 2 Philosophy and Public Affairs, 1972-3.
Greasley K, ‘Prenatal Personhood and Life’s Intrinsic Value: Reappraising Dworkin on Abortion’ (2016) 22 Legal Theory.
Kamm FR Dworkin, ‘Abortion And The Value Of Life: A Discussion Of “Life’s Dominion”‘ (1995) 95 Columbia Law Review.
Nikolai Lazarev, ‘The Intrinsic Value of Human Life: A Critique of Life’s Dominion’ [2005] MurUEJL 7.
Rakowski E, ‘Ronald Dworkin, Reverence For Life, And The Limits Of State Power’ (2001) 13 Utilitas (Reprinted as Dworkin & His Critics, including Dworkin’s Replies to his Critics).
Richard Stith, On Death and Dworkin: a Critique of His Theory of Inviolability, 56 Md. L. Rev. 289 (1997).
As contended in Kate Greasley, ‘Prenatal Personhood and Life’s Intrinsic Value: Reappraising Dworkin on Abortion’ (2016) 22 Legal Theory, p. 127.
2 n. 1, p. 11.
3 n. 1, p. 25.
4 n. 1, p. 11.
5 n. 1, p. 71.
6 Dworkin uses ‘money’ and ‘medicine’ as examples of instrumental value, n. 1, p. 71.
7 n. 1, p. 78.
8 n. 1, p. 74
9 R. Hurthouse, Beginning Lives, (1987, New York) p. 134.
10 n. 1, p. 70.
11 n. 1, p. 73-74.
12 In fact, overpopulation concerns may lead us to consider more human beings as a detriment, rather than a benefit.
13 n. 1, p. 25, “But sacred does have ineliminable religious connotations for many people, and so I will sometimes use inviolable instead to mean the same thing…”
14 Finnis J., The Rights and Wrongs of Abortion: A Reply to Judith Thomson, 2 Philosophy and Public Affairs, 1972-3.
15 n. 1, p. 78-79.
16 Justine Burley, Dworkin And His Critics (John Wiley & Sons 2007), p. 221.
17 Ibid.
18 Ibid.
19 Ibid.
20 n. 2, p. 128.
21 n. 1, p. 96.
22 n. 1, p. 96-97.
23 Footnote in n. 1, p. 248.
24 Frances M. Kamm and Ronald Dworkin, ‘Abortion And The Value Of Life: A Discussion Of “Life’s Dominion” (1995) 95 Columbia Law Review, p. 180.
25 J Rachels review of Dworkin in Bioethics, vii (1994).
26 Nikolai Lazarev, ‘The Intrinsic Value of Human Life: A Critique of Life’s Dominion’ [2005] MurUEJL 7.
27 Linda Barclay, ‘Rights, Intrinsic Values And The Politics Of Abortion’ (1999) 11 Utilitas, p. 2.
28 ‘Valuable’ in terms of intrinsic value, which is worthy of protection. It is conceded, that bombs may be considered ‘commercially’ valuable.
29 n. 1, p. 83.
30 Richard Stith, On Death and Dworkin: a Critique of His Theory of Inviolability, 56 Md. L. Rev. 289 (1997), p. 332.
31 Ibid.
32 n. 1, p. 80, “We [value] human artistic effort because it can produce marvelous things like great paintings of beauty [etc]…we [value] nature because it has produced striking geological formations and majestic plants and living creatures we find extraordinary, including us”.
33 See n. 28, p. 223 in support of this view.
34 See n. 27
35 n. 1, p. 74.
36 n. 1, p. 385.
37 n. 1, p. 74, 78.
38 n. 1, p. 74.
39 n. 1, p. 76.
40 n. 1, p. 99
41 Suggested by Nikolai Lazarev, see n.27.
42 n. 1, p. 215.
43 n. 2, p. 136.
44 n. 1, p. 4.
45 n. 2, footnote [28].
46 n. 2, p. 138.
47 n. 2, p. 140.
48 n. 2, p. 152.
49 Ibid.
50 n. 1, p. 10.
51 n. 2, p. 146.
2 Email: n.desai.16@ucl.ac.uk.
(2019). What makes abortion morally impermissible? A Dworkinian perspective on abortion rights and the intrinsic value of life.. Legal issues Journal, 7 (1), https://www.legalissuesjournal.com/article/07-01-12012019/
