Mary Anne Warren

Mary Anne Warren (born August 17, 1946^[1] — died August 9, 2010) was an American writer and philosophy professor, noted for her writings on the issue of abortion.

Her essays have sometimes been required readings in academic courses dealing with the abortion debate and they are frequently cited in major publications like Peter Singer's The Moral of the Story: An Anthology of Ethics Through Literature^[2] and Bernard Gert's Bioethics: A Systematic Approach^[3] She was sometimes described as a feminist, largely due to her pro-choice writings.

Warren also wrote on the implications of sex selection^[4] and about animal treatment. She was a professor of philosophy at San Francisco State University for many years.

Death

Mary Anne Warren died on August 9, 2010 from undisclosed causes, aged 63.

Criteria of Personhood

In response to whether fetuses can be said to be persons, Warren suggested the following criteria:

1. Consciousness (of objects and events external and/or internal to the being), and in particular the capacity to feel pain;
2. Reasoning (the developed capacity to solve new and relatively complex problems);
3. Self-motivated activity (activity which is relatively independent of either genetic or direct external control);
4. The capacity to communicate, by whatever means, messages of an indefinite variety of types, that is, not just with an indefinite number of possible contents, but on indefinitely many possible topics;
5. The presence of self-concepts, and self-awareness, either individual or racial, or both.

She stated that these at least some of these are necessary, if not sufficient criteria for personhood. She argued that fetuses don't meet any of these criteria, therefore they cannot be persons (and hence abortion is acceptable).^[5]

Selected publications

Books

• Warren, Mary Anne, Gendercide: The Implications of Sex Selection; Rowman & Littlefield Publishers (1985) ISBN 978-0847673308
• Warren, Mary Anne, Moral Status - Obligations to Persons and Other Living Things ; Oxford University Press (2000) ISBN 978-0198250401

Essays

• Warren, Mary Anne, On the Moral and Legal Status of Abortion. Monist 57:1 : 43-61. Reprinted in Mappes and DeGrazia 2001: 456-463, (1973)
• Warren, Mary Anne, Do Potential People Have Moral Rights? In R Sikora and B Barry, eds. Obligations to Future Generations. Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press,: 14-30, (1978)
• Warren, Mary Anne, Postscript on Infanticide. Reprinted in Mappes and DeGrazia 2001: 461-463, (1982)
• Warren, Mary Anne, "The Moral Difference Between Infanticide and Abortion: A Response to Robert Card" . Bioethics, Vol. 14, pp. 352-359 (October 2000)
• Warren, Mary Anne, "The Nature of Woman: an encyclopedia and guide to the literature"; EdgePress (1980)

See also

• American philosophy
• List of American philosophers

References

1. ^ Date of birth per the Social Security Death Index
2. ^ Singer, Peter. The Moral of the Story: An Anthology of Ethics Through Literature; Oxford: Blackwell Publishing (2005); ISBN 1405105844
3. ^ Gert, Bernard/ Culver,Charles M./Clouser,K. Danner (2006); Bioethics: A Systematic Approach; Oxford University Press. ISBN 0195159063
4. ^ Darnovsky, Marcy (January 1, 2004). "High-Tech Sex Selection: A New Chapter in the Debate". Center for Genetics and Society. http://www.genetics-and-society.org/resources/cgs/200401_genewatch_darnovsky.html. 
5. ^ Warren, Mary Anne. Biomedical Ethics (4th ed.). pp. 434–440. http://instruct.westvalley.edu/lafave/warren_article.html. 

External links

• Notice of Mary Anne Warren's death
• Mary Anne Warren's bibliography
• Tribute to Mary Anne Warren and David Lee Hull

Persondata
Name	Warren, Maryanne
Alternative names
Short description
Date of birth	August 17, 1946
Place of birth
Date of death	August 9, 2010
Place of death