Ontology of Roe v. Wade

The Canadian philosophy George Grant viewed Roe as “poison” to liberalism because of its “unthought ontology.”

He elaborates: “In adjudicating for the right of the mother to choose whether another member of her species lives or dies, the judge is required to make an ontological distinction between members of the same species. The mother is a person; the foetus is not. In deciding what is due in justice to beings of the same species, he bases such differing dueness on the ontology. By calling the distinction ontological I mean simply that the knowledge which the judge has about mothers and foetuses is not scientific. To call certain beings ‘persons’ is not a scientific statement.”