Intellectual stalemate in the abortion debate can be traced in part to its being framed as a standoff between religion and secular philosophy. While the former is thought to generate a broadly ‘pro-life’ position, the latter is associated with more ‘pro-choice’ thinking. This essay attempts to break free of this framing by criticising the philosophy informing ‘pro-choice’ positions, but not by resorting immediately to religious arguments but rather by drawing upon a rival philosophical tradition – the movement within twentieth and twenty-first Continental philosophy which was and is phenomenology. A phenomenological approach to human ‘emergence’, and in particular an application of the framework Heidegger developed in Being and Time (1927), leads to a radical questioning of whether contemporary English-speaking beginning-of-life ethics have adequately taken into account the way human beings come forth in the world.
The full paper is attached to this post as a PDF.
Note from administrator: Your SVS membership dues must be up to date in order to see the attached file.
This post has 1 attachment(s) that you cannot view or download. Please join SVS, and then try again.James Mumford. ‘To arrive where we started, and know the place for the first time’ - Heidegger, Phenomenology, the Way Human Beings First Appear in the World, and Fresh Perspectives on the Abortion Debate.pdf
