ABSTRACT
If every human fetus is a person, is abortion always wrong? It would seem so. Since having others respect one’s right to life is a necessary condition for the possibility of enjoying all other rights (including the right to privacy and bodily integrity), it has a necessary priority over all other rights (Spitzer 2000, pp. 240–242). To undermine someone’s right to life is also to undermine all his or her other rights. As Martha Nussbaum notes about the right to abortion,
The standard argument in favor of such a right has been an argument grounded in the notion of privacy. This argument is highly vulnerable to the metaphysical issue. If the fetus is a full-fledged person, then an appeal to privacy does not help us to defend abortion rights, just as privacy would not help us to justify infanticide, or child abuse.
(2008, p. 342, emphasis in the original) So, if the human fetus is a person, does this mean that abortion is always wrong?