The differentiation argument: If newborns outrank animals, so do fetuses.

Abstract

Common-sense morality seems to dictate that newborn babies strictly outrank non-human animals on an ordered list of subjects of moral consideration. This is best described as the view that newborn babies have a higher moral status than any non-human animal. In this article, I will argue that this common-sense claim about the special moral status of newborn babies makes it hard to avoid the conclusion that fetuses, including pre-conscious fetuses, also have a higher moral status than any non-human animal-indeed, as high as newborn babies. While this conclusion does not quite entail that abortion is generally seriously immoral, it does seem to follow that it would be no less difficult to justify (even relatively early) abortion than it would be to justify killing a newborn.