Topics Abortion

Question Suppose a woman decided, for whatever reason, to put a pregnancy 'on hold' indefinitely, even for the rest of her life, while the fetus was at a stage of development in which it is currently permissible to abort it. That is, the woman takes a potion and stays pregnant, but the fetus remains insider her and dependent on her, and it never develops any further than it already has. I think many people would find this morally problematic in ways in which they don't find abortion problematic. But where is the moral difference?

Accepted:
October 10, 2007

Comments

For what it's worth, I find it obscure why someone would wish to pursue this course of action, but I don't find it obviously to be morally objectionable in any way I don't find abortion morally objectionable.

Suppose the woman instead removed the fetus without its being killed, and put it in some kind of suspended animation. Perhaps she thinks, "Well, maybe later I'll be ready for a child, and then I'll continue the pregnancy." It's not obvious why this would be any more objectionable than abortion, and I certainly don't see a difference between this case and the one in the question. Indeed, one might wonder whether, at certain very early stages of pregnancy, there is very much of a difference between this and what routinely happens in fertility labs.