El gradualismo de Lorenzo Peña como propuesta para flexibilizar el debate sobre el aborto

Abstract

This work addresses the debate on abortion from a moral perspective. In chapter 1, it reviews the philosophical discipline of ethics to establish the foundations, principles, and criteria by which the various arguments for and against the practice of abortion will be assessed. The second chapter presents the argumentation of those who believe abortion is equivalent to homicide and advocate for its prohibition in most or all cases, depending on the author. The third chapter unfolds the argumentation of proabortion advocates, who assert that the nasciturus is not a complete human being; therefore, abortion does not constitute a homicide and should not be criminalized, as it violates the rights of the pregnant woman. In the face of this polarization of positions, Lorenzo Peña's gradualist theory transcends the impasse in the abortion debate because its gradualist logic introduces flexibility in the kind of answer one can advance in the debate, overcoming the significant criticisms that standard logic cannot address. If the issue hinges on whether the nasciturus is or is not a human being with rights, Peña's stance is that it both is and is not. This explicit paradoxical response opens up a spectrum of degrees between the non-existence and existence of the human being, within which the practice of abortion can be more or less permissible depending on the stage of pregnancy and the reasons or justifications of the pregnant woman.