"Sacred Mountains and Beloved Fetuses"

A work in progress by NYU philosophy prof Elizabeth Harman has been posted on the Legal Theory blog.  In the paper, Harman argues that attitudes that attribute moral status do not endow moral status.  Why then should we respect the wishes of members of an indigenous tribe who believe that a particular mountain is sacred and is harmed by hiking, but not the wishes of abortion clinic protesters who believe that protecting a fetus is of vital moral importance?  Her explanation: "the anti-abortion protesters' love of [the woman's] fetus does not bring the fetus's death to be bad for the protesters, while by contrast the hikers' hiking on the mountain is bad for the tribe members in virtue of their worship of the mountain."   

Rob