3 9 6C H A P T E R 1 9 ■ M o r a l R e a s o n i n ga. “Common sense, experience, and linguistic usage point clearly to the
fact that we habitually consider, for example, a seven-week-old fetus to
be different from a seven-month-old one.... We have different language
for the experience of the involuntary expulsion of the fetus from the
womb depending upon the point of gestation at which the expulsion
occurs. If it occurs early in the pregnancy, we call it a miscarriage; if late,
we call it a stillbirth” (80).
b. “Our ritual and religious practices underscore the fact that we
make distinctions among fetuses. If a woman took the bloody
matter—indistinguishable from a heavy period—of an early miscarriage
and insisted upon putting it in a tiny coffin and marking its grave, we
would have serious concerns about her mental health. By the same
token, we would feel squeamish about flushing a seven-month-old
fetus down the toilet—something we would normally do with an early
miscarriage. There are no prayers for the matter of a miscarriage, nor do
we feel there should be. Even a Catholic priest would not baptize the
issue of an early miscarriage” (80).
c. “We must make decisions on abortion based on an understanding of
how people really do live. We must be able to say that poverty is worse
than not being poor, that having dignified and meaningful work is better
than working in conditions of degradation, that raising a child one loves
and has desired is better than raising a child in resentment and rage, that
it is better for a twelve-year-old not to endure the trauma of having a
child when she is herself a child” (81–82).
d. “It is possible for a woman to have a sexual life unriddled by fear only
if she can be confident that she need not pay for a failure of technology
or judgment (and who among us has never once been swept away in the
heat of a sexual moment?) by taking upon herself the crushing burden of
unchosen motherhood” (82).
e. “There are some undeniable bad consequences of a woman’s being forced
to bear a child against her will. First is the trauma of going through
a pregnancy and giving birth to a child who is not desired, a trauma
more long-lasting than that experienced by some (only some) women
who experience an early abortion. The grief of giving up a child at its
birth—and at nine months it is a child one has felt move inside one’s
body—is underestimated both by anti-choice partisans and by those for
whom access to adoptable children is important. This grief should not be
forced on any woman—or, indeed, encouraged by public policy” (84).
f. “We must be realistic about the impact on society of millions of
unwanted children in an overpopulated world” (84).
g. “Making abortion illegal will result in the deaths of women, as it has
always done. Is our historical memory so short that none of us remember
aunts, sisters, friends, or mothers who were killed or rendered sterile by
septic abortions?... Can anyone genuinely say that it would be a moral
good for us as a society to return to those conditions?” (84).97364_ch19_ptg01_383-422.indd 396 11/15/13 5:45 PM
some third party content may be suppressed from the eBook and/or eChapter(s). Editorial review has deemed that any suppressed content does not materiallyCopyright 201^3 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. Due to electronic rights,
affect the overall learning experience. Cengage Learning reserves the right to remove additional content at any time if subsequent rights restrictions require it.