Diacritica 25-2_Filosofia.indb - cehum - Universidade do Minho

16
BERIL SÖZMEN IDEMEN
When a female determines she is pregnant, she has the freedom to decide
if she has the maturity level to undertake the responsibilities of motherhood, if
she is fi nancially able to support a child, if she is at a place in her career to take
the time to have a child, or if she has other concerns precluding her from carrying
the child to term. Aft er weighing her options, the female may choose abortion.
Once she aborts the fetus, the female’s interests in and obligations to the
child are terminated. In stark contrast, the unwed father has no options. His
responsibilities to the child begin at conception and can only be terminated
with the female’s decision to abort the fetus or with the mother’s decision to
give the child up for adoption. Th us, he must rely on the decisions of the female
to determine his future. Th e putative father does not have the luxury, aft er the
fact of conception, to decide that he is not ready for fatherhood. Unlike the
female, he has no escape route (McCulley 1998: 2).
McCulley argues that in the current state of legislation it is not only the
putative father who is harmed but also the child. She claims that by forcing
the father to pay child-support, the courts regard only the fi nancial interests
of the child while disregarding her emotional interests. By recognising the
right of the putative father to terminate his parental rights and obligations
she argues, the best interest of the child will be served as well as the procreative
rights of the father (McCulley 1998: 16).
Different approaches to the question of moral status
the fi rst question thus turns to the moral status of those involved; those of
the mother and the foetus having been the most commonly discussed. In a
deontological framework a central question is the personhood of the foetus.
In a sense it is the strictest position that can be taken in the debate over
abortion since personhood can be regarded as absolute and does not allow
of degrees. [4] One either is a person or one isn’t; a person has a claim to all
postulated rights whatever else he, she or it may be. Specifi cally a person
has a right to life, it is argued and if a foetus is a person then it follows that a
foetus has a right to life. Th omson questions whether the premise that a foetus
is a person leads to the conclusion that abortion is morally impermissible
(Th omson 1986: 38). Her analogy with the well-loved violinist in need
of sharing someone else’s body for nine months aims to demonstrate that
4 Th e potential to become a person is sometimes brought forward as an argument to treat foetuses
and infants as persons, regardless of the phase of development of faculties.
Diacritica 25-2_Filosofia.indb 16 05-01-2012 09:38:18