Overview

Of all the issues I've had the pleasure to ponder, abortion remains my favorite. Maybe because I enjoy helping folks see the humanity in the other side. Maybe because the thought experiments are especially creative. Or maybe because it's where I can do the most to ease political tensions and strengthen civic friendship. Download the first chapter to sample my style. But as far as I can tell, the traditional pro-this vs. pro-that paradigm is a grossly oversimplified myth. Designed by politicians and media types who profit from our division, we're taught to look at those who disagree with us as not only stupid, but evil. The result: we watch, spend and vote in ways that benefit them, yet harm us, splintering houses of worship, friendships and our polity itself. The (partial) solution: an honest, sober look at some of the best arguments professional ethicists have offered, and an earnest invitation to think through the issue anew, focused on win-wins and principled reconciliation. As every honest person admits, abortion is too complicated for one favored right to override all other concerns. Rather, several morally legitimate claims are in need of examination and balance, including the interests of the mother, the value of the potential person growing within her, the resulting child's expected quality of life, the father's autonomy, and even the impact on extended family and possibly society at large. This becomes apparent via a simple yet illuminating exercise in Chapter Four: Rate That Abortion. One bit of hope: artificial wombs may someday solve the traditional tension, simultaneously enabling choice and life. As ethicists Peter Singer and Deanne Wells put it, Abortions would in effect become early births, enabling sworn enemies from the decades-long abortion wars to embrace in happy harmony. But would such a medical miracle cause more problems than it eases? Find out. And enrich your own view with the power of some of the best arguments moral thinkers have had to offer, summarized and narrated by a laid-back philosopher. Find me at MattDeaton.com, and hope you enjoy, Matt

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9781951677060

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Reviews

Before any more time passes, I want to say how impressed I am by Abortion Ethics in a Nutshell. I appreciated your identification near the beginning of your discussion of 35 very possible different abortion issue scenarios. What more could anyone need to be dislodged from the idea that the abortion debate is straight up 'either/or'? I appreciated also your brief, but very cogent discussion in an early chapter of why the debate has to be understood as conducted appropriately only when done so in terms of public reasoning. Your discussion in chapters 11 and 12 of how and why development of workable artificial wombs could alter fundamentally the abortion debate introduced me to a dimension of which I wasn't aware -- very thought provoking. Above all, I'm in awe of the book's style and tone. It's not easy to write philosophically about abortion -- a subject that's both, and equally, deep from a conceptual standpoint and emotionally wrenching in real-life... You found an effective way to write about abortion that's accessible to undergraduates (and also, possibly to high school students). Your discussion not only is informed philosophically but also conveys to me a sense of supportive engagement of a kind one would experience if she/he had a good candid discussion, with a good friend, on a topic that's both emotionally difficult and intellectually challenging. Bravo. - Ethics Bowl Creator and Illinois Institute of Technology Philosophy Professor Emeritus, Dr. Bob Ladenson

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Ethics professor and ethics bowl enthusiast, enjoy all Dr. Deaton's titles also on audiobook and connect at MattDeaton.com.

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