Complicating Conversations: English Anglican Perspectives on Abortion

Abstract

The question at the heart of the matter of abortion is who has the moral authority to decide whether, and under what circumstances, it is ethically justifiable for an abortion to be carried out. Public moral discourse about abortion rests moral authority in one of two poles—either legislators and/or medical professionals or the pregnant person. This article attempts to complicate this discourse through the English Anglican approach of moral discernment through conversation via the work of Rowan Williams. We offer an exploration of this approach whilst retaining first-person authority before turning to relational models of understanding pregnancy to demonstrate the potential of such a mode of moral discernment. Finally, we turn to Catherine Keller to articulate a vision of bodies as always in dialogue in order to argue that moral discernment through conversation might be particularly ontologically suitable for human beings.