Classic pro‐choice thought experiments and African communitarianism

Abstract

I analyse two classic pro‐choice thought experiments in the Anglo‐American philosophical literature in Thomson's Violinist Case and Tooley's Kitten Serum Case, in light of two prominent African normative theories. Though each of these cases is designed to generate pro‐choice intuitions, I suggest they do not do so nearly as clearly when African normative theories are in view. Furthermore, even where they might yield a pro‐choice verdict, they do so for very different reasons. That African ethics, which is often labelled communitarian, differs from what one typically finds in the Anglo‐American normative tradition is hardly a new insight. However, that these differences might undermine the universality of pro‐choice thought experiments about abortion in Anglo‐American bioethics has yet to receive significant attention.