A Defense of Abortion
A Defense of Abortion
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为堕胎辩护
DOI：
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发表时间：
2003
期刊：
影响因子：
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通讯作者：
Rob Lovering
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文献类型：
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作者：
Rob Lovering
大多数反对堕胎的人都认为，胎儿从受孕的那一刻起就是一个人。这个前提是有争议的，但是，我认为，不好。举个例子，最常见的论点。我们被要求注意到，一个人从受孕到出生到童年的发展是连续的;然后有人说，画一条线，在这个发展中选择一个点，说“在这个点之前，这个东西不是一个人，在这个点之后，它是一个人”，这是一个任意的选择，一个选择，在事物的本质上，没有很好的理由可以给出。由此可以得出结论，胎儿从受孕的那一刻起就是一个人，或者无论如何我们最好说它是一个人。但这一结论并不成立。类似的事情也可以说是关于橡子发展成橡树，但这并不意味着橡子就是橡树，或者我们最好说它们是。这种形式的论点有时被称为“滑坡论点”--这个短语可能是自我毁灭的--令人沮丧的是，堕胎的反对者如此严重和不加批判地依赖它们。
Most opposition to abortion relies on the premise that the fetus is a human being, a person, from the moment of conception. The premise is argued for, but, as I think, not well. Take, for example, the most common argument. We are asked to notice that the development of a human being from conception through birth into childhood is continuous; then it is said that to draw a line, to choose a point in this development and say "before this point the thing is not a person, after this point it is a person" is to make an arbitrary choice, a choice for which in the nature of things no good reason can be given. It is concluded that the fetus is, or anyway that we had better say it is, a person from the moment of conception. But this conclusion does not follow. Similar things might be said about the development of an acorn into an oak trees, and it does not follow that acorns are oak trees, or that we had better say they are. Arguments of this form are sometimes called "slippery slope arguments"—the phrase is perhaps selfexplanatory—and it is dismaying that opponents of abortion rely on them so heavily and uncritically.