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• Main Authors: MEI-HSUEH TSENG, 曾美雪
• Other Authors: NONE
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2006
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/7buba9

碩士 === 國立中央大學 === 哲學研究所碩士在職專班 === 94 === This essay looks at the maternal-fetal relationship and abortion, first, from the feminist, that is, liberal feminist and care ethics point of view. In abortion, the key relation is what between the mother and the fetus, however, this relation is not always the focus of abortion discussion and no correct description is readily available. Liberal feminist follows the basic ideas of liberalism and emphasize that woman has the right to control the use of her body. Therefore, liberal feminists stress that we should respect the right of woman for the use of her body and that woman has the absolute right to choose to abort or not, no matter what causes the pregnancy. They regard the mother and the fetus as two independent entities and in case of conflict, the autonomy of the mother overrides the right to life of the fetus. However, this view of maternal-fetal relationship is not quite fit into our common moral experience and thus could not justify the morality of abortion. Care ethics establishes duty from relationship and tries to define the duty of the mother and fetus in terms of relation. If we take maternal-fetal relation as one between a single living entity to itself, there would be no real maternal-fetal conflict at all and the criterion of duty relies solely on the feeling that the mother has towards the fetus. Basing the maternal-fetal rights and duties completely upon the identity of mother’s feelings towards the fetus could not guarantee the acts of the mother are always moral. Such conception of maternal-fetal relationship is not up to our moral feeling. Seymour proposes three sorts of maternal-fetal relationship, and his not-one-and-not-two maternal-fetal relationship is the one that conform best to our moral experience. Confucian would take the maternal-fetal relationship as a not-one-and-not-two model. I conclude finally that the Confucian conception of maternal-fetal relationship, together with Confucian conceptions of moral personhood and social personhood, would give a new horizon on abortion, and that some of the controversies could be resolved.