Hostname: page-component-8448b6f56d-42gr6 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-24T02:38:55.425Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Justice and the Fetus: Rawls, Children, and Abortion

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 January 2011

DAVID M. SHAW
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

In a footnote to the first edition of Political Liberalism, John Rawls introduced an example of how public reason could deal with controversial issues. He intended this example to show that his system of political liberalism could deal with such problems by considering only political values, without the introduction of comprehensive moral doctrines. Unfortunately, Rawls chose “the troubled question of abortion” as the issue that would illustrate this. In the case of abortion, Rawls argued, “the equality of women as equal citizens” overrides both “the ordered reproduction of political society over time” and also “the due respect for human life.” It seems fair to say that this was not the best choice of example and also that Rawls did not argue for his example particularly well: a whole subset of the Rawlsian literature concerns this question alone.

Type
Special Section: Open Forum
Information
Cambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics , Volume 20 , Issue 1 , January 2011 , pp. 93 - 101
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2011

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1. Rawls, J. Political Liberalism. New York: Columbia University Press; 1993:243Google Scholar, fn. 32.

2. See note 1, Rawls 1993:243, fn. 32.

3. See note 1, Rawls 1993:243.

4. See note 1, Rawls 1993:243, fn. 32.

5. George, R. Public reason and public conflict: Abortion and homosexuality. Yale Law Journal 1997;106:2475–504, at p. 2488.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed

6. Freeman, S. John Rawls—An overview. In: Freeman, S, ed. The Cambridge Companion to Rawls. Cambridge, UK, Cambridge University Press; 2002:1–61CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at p. 42.

7. See note 5, Freeman 2002:40.

8. See note 1, Rawls 1993:243, fn. 32.

9. Reiman, J. Abortion, natural law, and liberal discourse: A response to John Finnis. In: George, R, Wolfe, C, eds. Natural Law and Public Reason. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press; 2000:107–24Google Scholar, at p. 112.

10. Macedo, S. In defense of liberal public reason: Are slavery and abortion hard cases? In: George, R, Wolfe, C, eds. Natural Law and Public Reason. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press; 2000:11–49Google Scholar, at pp. 32–3.

11. Rawls, J. Political Liberalism. New York: Columbia University Press; 1995:lvi–lvii.Google Scholar

12. Dworkin, R. Life’s Dominion: An Argument About Abortion, Euthanasia, and Individual Freedom. New York: Vintage; 1994:46Google Scholar.

13. See note 6, Freeman 2002:35.

14. Evers, W. Rawls and children. Journal of Libertarian Studies 1978;2:109–14Google Scholar, at p. 110.

15. See note 14, Evers 1978:111.

16. Rawls, J. A Theory of Justice. Oxford: Clarendon Press; 1972:509Google Scholar.

17. Rawls J, quoted by Evers; see note 14, Evers 1978:111.

18. Finnis, J. Abortion, natural law, and public reason. In: George, R, Wolfe, C, eds. Natural Law and Public Reason. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press; 2000:75–105Google Scholar, at p. 99, fn. 37.

19. See note 16, Rawls 1972:509.

20. See note 16, Rawls 1972:249.

21. See note 16, Rawls 1972:75.

22. See note 16, Rawls 1972:209.

23. Nuffield Council on Bioethics. Critical care decisions in fetal and neonatal medicine: Ethical issues. London: Nuffield Council on Bioethics; 2006:55; available at http://www.nuffieldbioethics.org/fileLibrary/pdf/CCD_web_version_8_November.pdfGoogle Scholar

24. See note 16, Rawls 1972:509.

25. Rawls, J. The idea of public reason revisited. In: Rawls, J. The Law of Peoples. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press; 1999:129–80Google Scholar, at p. 161.

26. See note 18, Finnis 2000:86.

27. See note 18, Finnis 2000:94, fn. 4.

28. Butler, S. Abortion by assault: Violence against pregnant women in thirteenth- and fourteenth-century England. Journal of Women’s History 2005;17:9-31, at p. 9CrossRefGoogle Scholar; available at http://muse.jhu.edu/login?uri=/journals/journal_of_womens_history/v017/17.4butler.html

29. See note 11, Rawls 1995:xliii.

30. Rawls, quoted by Finnis; see note 18, Finnis 2000:85.