2. The Ethics of Abortion.

(1) Upon first entering ethical discussion one must do tidying-up and specifying, more of the categories-game. But these categories are ethical ones, those of exclusion or inclusion in 'the moral universe': that set of things, not just objects, but moral agents, owing and being owed rights to each other. Having specified a moral universe one then produces or finds an ethical system (humanist, altruist, utilitarian), and then sets to work talking morality.

(2) People regard their pets and possessions, even institutions, as human in some degree, or they don't but treat them as if they figured importantly in the moral universe. If one includes the sygote-embryo-foetus (any or all) in this universe, then there are certain consequent obligations on one; if one doesn't, then perhaps other consequences. Let us consider the foetus is included. So, the killing of it amounts to homicide (murder or manslaughter). However, abortion as homicide is justifiable in various moral situations, depending on the ethical system; e.g. the principle of the lesser of two evils may be allowed in that system, the mother may have a precedence assigned by the system, the society may have rights (eugenic policies); even the child of later life too may have rights, protection from itself (as with some therapeutic abortions).

(3) The big question is not whether abortion is justifiable, it is depending on the system one uses; rather it is how many justifiable situations of abortion does one's system allow?

Of some groups of ethical systems:

—Humanist ethics, many situations are justifiable;

Christian ethics certainly regard many situations as justifiable (RC ethics as Christian also do—rather they could, many have inconsistent shorings-up to prevent this). For those systems not having the foetus in the moral universe, abortion is considered pragmatically, not morally.

If the foetus is included in the moral universe, it has absolute rights no more than do other moral agents. The rights it does have depend upon the ethical system with which one considers the situations of abortion.

(4) I hope it is reasonably clear what the sort of position any moral agent would be in if deciding, in terms of a system, about whether abortion is justified in some particular case. However, this is but a part of the ethical picture of abortion; the state, the society, is also involved with ethical things. From what one may do 'according to one's rights', to what one practically can or may do, is a leap into a broader area.