title: Abortion: Three Perspectives (Point/Counterpoint)
author: Michael Tooley
description: Michael Tooley is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Colorado at Boulder. Celia Wolf-Devine is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Stonehill College. Philllip E. Devine is Professor of Philosophy at Providence College. Alison Jaggar is Professor of Philosophy and Women's Studies at the University of Colorado at Boulder.
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  [Dedication](The_Cider_House_Rules_split_021.html#filepos1672083)
  
  For David Calicchio
  
  
  
  
  
  [Epigraph](The_Cider_House_Rules_split_021.html#filepos1672235)
  
  > Conventionality is not morality. Self-righteousness is not religion. To
  > attack the first is not to assail the last.
  
  —CHARLOTTE BRONTË, 1847
  
  > For practical purposes abortion may be defined as the interruption of
  > gestation before the viability of the child.
  
  —H. J. BOLDT, M.D., 1906
  
  
  
  
  
  [1](The_Cider_House_Rules_split_021.html#filepos1672455)  
  [ The Boy Who Belonged to St.
  Cloud’s](The_Cider_House_Rules_split_021.html#filepos1672455)
  
  In the hospital of the orphanage—the boys’ division at St. Cloud’s, Maine—two
  nurses were in charge of naming the new babies and checking that their little
  penises were healing from the obligatory circumcision. In those days (in
  192_), all boys born at St. Cloud’s were circumcised because the orphanage
  physician had experienced some difficulty in treating uncircumcised soldi