ABSTRACT
The hard cases of abortion, such as fetal deformity, rape, incest, and life of the mother, deserve careful consideration because many people who are otherwise in favor of protecting human life in utero make exceptions in such cases and because for many people, abortion, in these cases, seems so obviously permissible, perhaps even obligatory. However, it would be a mistake to believe that hard cases exist only for critics of abortion. Defenders of abortion also fi nd some cases, such as sex selection abortion or abortion for other trivial reasons, quite diffi cult to reconcile with common moral intuitions. This chapter will consider fi rst hard cases for critics of abortion, and second, hard cases for defenders of abortion.
