Is Abortion Morally Acceptable to Save the Life of the Mother? – Prof. Steven Jensen
The Thomistic Institute
The Thomistic Institute
4.8 • 873 Ratings
🗓️ 15 April 2026
⏱️ 54 minutes
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Summary
Prof. Steven Jensen presents several arguments in favor of the conclusion that the life of a fetus has intrinsic human dignity on account of what a human being is and not merely as an effect of psychological or cognitive capacity, ultimately concluding that the intentional killing of a fetus as a means to save a mother's life is morally impermissible.
This lecture was given on February 19th, 2026, at North Dakota State University.
For more information on upcoming events, visit us at thomisticinstitute.org/upcoming-events.
About the Speakers:
Steven J. Jensen holds the Bishop Nold Chair in Graduate Philosophy at the University of St. Thomas, Houston, where he teaches in The Center for Thomistic Studies. His fields of research include bioethics, moral psychology, the philosophy of Thomas Aquinas, human nature, and natural law. He is the author of several books, including the following: Living the Good Life: A Beginner’s Thomistic Ethics, The Human Person: A Beginner’s Thomistic Psychology, The Natural Law: A Beginner’s Thomistic Guide.
Keywords: Abortion, Double Effect, Ectopic Pregnancy, Fetus, Human Dignity, Medical Ethics, Mother’s Life, Personhood Theory, Principle of Double Effect, Pro-Life Ethics
Transcript
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| 0:24.3 | All right, so we're interested tonight in the topic of abortion when the life of the mother is |
| 0:30.2 | in danger. |
| 0:31.9 | And to understand the arguments here, I like to lay out sort of a standard argument. |
| 0:38.5 | I should say at the get-go that I have a lot to say. |
| 0:42.1 | Hopefully I won't speak too quickly. |
| 0:44.7 | But I might go over some material fairly quickly. |
| 0:49.0 | But a standard argument against abortion runs as follows that killing an innocent human being is wrong |
| 0:55.2 | and the fetus is an innocent human being and so that therefore killing the fetus is wrong. |
| 1:02.8 | Now one standard way to argue against this is to question that second premise that the fetus |
| 1:10.2 | is an innocent human being. So it would be to question that second premise, that the fetus is an innocent human being. |
| 1:13.2 | So it would be to say that in the womb, what you have is something that isn't a human |
| 1:20.0 | being, something pre-human or potentially human, or so on. |
| 1:27.0 | And this I think still might be a fairly popular way to attack this argument, |
| 1:31.6 | but at the academic level it's not, because the biological evidence that a fetus is a human |
| 1:40.1 | being is pretty much overwhelming. So you don't find people questioning this premise so much. |
| 1:47.0 | Instead, what you find is people questioning the premise that killing an innocent human being is wrong. |
| 1:54.0 | And it's called into question by something called personhood theory. And the idea behind this is human beings are not what has value in the |
| 2:06.5 | world. It's rather persons that have value. Now the idea here is that not all human beings |
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