{"title":"Dignity and Abortion in Law, Philosophy, and Bioethics.","authors":"Eric Scarffe","doi":"10.1017/jme.2025.10179","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Dignity has been a notoriously elusive concept to philosophers. Nevertheless, in the realms of politics, law, and policymaking, appeals to dignity are frequent, and do not always align with the understandings most commonly endorsed by the philosophical literature. This paper considers how \"dignity\" is frequently appealed to in ethical arguments about the permissibility of abortion, and argues that the judicial decisions related to reproductive and LGBTQ+ rights over the past 30 years in the United States offer deep insights into the nature of \"dignity\" that philosophers and other theorists ought to pay attention to. These insights not only have profound implications for our understanding of the nature of \"dignity,\" but also for ethical analysis more broadly.</p>","PeriodicalId":50165,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Law Medicine & Ethics","volume":" ","pages":"1-7"},"PeriodicalIF":1.7000,"publicationDate":"2025-10-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Journal of Law Medicine & Ethics","FirstCategoryId":"3","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1017/jme.2025.10179","RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q2","JCRName":"ETHICS","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Dignity has been a notoriously elusive concept to philosophers. Nevertheless, in the realms of politics, law, and policymaking, appeals to dignity are frequent, and do not always align with the understandings most commonly endorsed by the philosophical literature. This paper considers how "dignity" is frequently appealed to in ethical arguments about the permissibility of abortion, and argues that the judicial decisions related to reproductive and LGBTQ+ rights over the past 30 years in the United States offer deep insights into the nature of "dignity" that philosophers and other theorists ought to pay attention to. These insights not only have profound implications for our understanding of the nature of "dignity," but also for ethical analysis more broadly.
期刊介绍：
Material published in The Journal of Law, Medicine & Ethics (JLME) contributes to the educational mission of The American Society of Law, Medicine & Ethics, covering public health, health disparities, patient safety and quality of care, and biomedical science and research. It provides articles on such timely topics as health care quality and access, managed care, pain relief, genetics, child/maternal health, reproductive health, informed consent, assisted dying, ethics committees, HIV/AIDS, and public health. Symposium issues review significant policy developments, health law court decisions, and books.
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