This timely volume presents essays by leading legal theorists and ethicists on the volatile topic of abortion. In 1973 the Supreme Court ruled in Roe v. Wade that all then-existent laws restricting abortion violated a woman's right to privacy and were therefore unconstitutional. This ruling, however, left open not only the nature and scope of the right to privacy but also the extent of permissible state interest in the fetus. Of course, no Supreme Court ruling on abortion could resolve the attendant moral questions, such as those concerning the status of the fetus or the nature of the...