ABSTRACT
In “Rethinking Abortion, Ectogenesis, and Fetal Death”, Christine Overall reverses her 1987 position that the right to an abortion does not entail a right to the death of the developing human. Even if reliable ectogenesis were available, women have a right to abortion-as-killing as an expression of their reproductive autonomy and bodily autonomy. I argue that this position leads Overall into several dilemmas. Reproductive autonomy only justifies abortion-as-killing—and also filicide—if merely biological motherhood generates a mother’s moral duties; otherwise, abortion-as-killing is excessive. Respecting bodily autonomy only justifies abortion-as-killing if it is coercive to require people to make medical decisions with an eye toward the good of others as well, but this would entail that most medical practices—especially in public medicine—are “coercive”. Lastly, given her 2009 analysis of conjoined twins, the norms of conjoined bodily autonomy are different from the norms of singleton bodily autonomy; to import singleton bodily autonomy into the context of pregnancy is inappropriate. The norms of conjoined bodily autonomy require making decisions regarding the shared body for the good of both conjoined persons; thus, while prematurely ending pregnancy might be permissible at times, abortion-as-killing cannot be justified.
