Abortion in The Universal Encyclopedia of Philosophy

Abstract

Abortion (Latin: abortio, abortus—miscarriage, including induced miscarriage, from: aboriri, abortire—to perish, to vanish) is the deliberate and immediate killing of a human being before birth (abortion must be distinguished from spontaneous miscarriage or a situation where the child is allowed to die without this being intended, where the death is the result of causes not dependent upon acting persons— abortus indirectus). This issue is especially important in the 21 century because of the availability of technologies that make it easier to perform abortions and because of the spread of a mentality approving abortion. The philosophical aspects of abortion concern in particular the moral evaluation of the act. The moral evaluation of abortion depends, on one hand, upon how the ontic status of the conceived human being is defined, and on the other hand, upon what kind of criteria one assumes for the moral evaluation.