
Defending Life
A Moral and Legal Case against Abortion Choice
Francis J. Beckwith(Author)
Cambridge University Press
Published on 13. August 2007
Book
Hardback
314 pages
978-0-521-87084-9 (ISBN)
Description
Defending Life is arguably the most comprehensive defense of the pro-life position on abortion - morally, legally, and politically - that has ever been published in an academic monograph. It offers a detailed and critical analysis of Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey as well as arguments by those who defend a Rawlsian case for abortion-choice, such as J. J. Thomson. The author defends the substance view of persons as the view with the most explanatory power. The substance view entails that the unborn is a subject of moral rights from conception. While defending this view, the author responds to the arguments of thinkers such as Boonin, Dworkin, Stretton, Ford and Brody. He also critiques Thomson's famous violinist argument and its revisions by Boonin and McDonagh. Defending Life includes chapters critiquing arguments found in popular politics and the controversy over cloning and stem cell research.
Reviews / Votes
'Beckwith offers an internally coherent and reasonably convincing case for the pro-life position.' Political Studies ReviewMore details
Language
English
Place of publication
Cambridge
United Kingdom
Target group
Professional and scholarly
College/higher education
Illustrations
1 Tables, unspecified
Dimensions
Height: 240 mm
Width: 161 mm
Thickness: 21 mm
Weight
637 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-521-87084-9 (9780521870849)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions

E-Book
10/2007
1st Edition
Cambridge University Press
€26.49
Available for download

E-Book
08/2007
Cambridge University Press
€24.49
Available for download
Person
Francis J. Beckwith is Associate Professor of Church-State Studies, Baylor University, Texas, where he teaches in the departments of philosophy and political science and the J. M. Dawson Institute of Church-State Studies. A 2002-3 Madison Research Fellow in the Politics Department at Princeton University, New Jersey, he is a graduate of Fordham University, New York (Ph.D., philosophy) and the Washington University School of Law, St. Louis (M.J.S.), where he won the CALI Award for academic excellence in the Reproductive Control Seminar. His more than a dozen books include Is Statecraft Soulcraft? Christianity and Politics (forthcoming); To Everyone an Answer: A Case for the Christian Worldview (2004); Law, Darwinism, and Public Education: The Establishment and the Challenge of Intelligent Design (2003); Do the Right Thing: Readings in Applied Ethics and Social Philosophy, Second Edition (2002); and The New Mormon Challenge: Responding to the Latest Defenses of a Fast-Growing Movement (2002), which was a finalist for the Gold Medallion Award in theology and doctrine. With interests in jurisprudence, politics, philosophy of religion, and public policy, Professor Beckwith has published in a wide variety of academic journals including the Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy, the Journal of Social Philosophy, International Philosophical Quarterly, Hastings Constitutional Law Quarterly, the Journal of Medicine and Philosophy, the American Journal of Jurisprudence, the Journal of Medical Ethics, Public Affairs Quarterly, the Notre Dame Journal of Law, Ethics and Public Policy, Social Theory and Practice, the Southern Baptist Journal of Theology, Christian Bioethics, the Nevada Law Journal, the Journal of Law and Religion, and Philosophia Christi. His website is http://www.francisbeckwith.com.
Content
Part I. Moral Reasoning, Law, and Politics: 1. Abortion and moral argument; 2. The Supreme Court, Roe v. Wade, and abortion law; 3. Abortion, liberalism, and the neutral state; Part II. Assessing the Case for Abortion-Choice and against Human Inclusiveness: 4. Science, the unborn, and abortion methods; 5. Popular arguments: pity, tolerance, and ad hominem; 6. The nature of humanness and whether the unborn is a moral subject; 7. Does it really matter whether the unborn is a moral subject? The case from bodily autonomy; Part III. Extending and Concluding the Argument: 8. Cloning, bioethics and reproductive liberty; 9. Conclusion - a case for human inclusiveness.