Philosophy 1100:  Introduction to Ethics

1.  Discussing the Morality of Abortion

        Various obstacles often stand in the way of a fruitful discussion of the moral status of abortion.  But if one is aware of some of the main pitfalls, and brings philosophical techniques and concepts to bear upon the issues, very considerable progress can be made.

(1)  Many people appear to feel that their views on abortion are connected with some very general point of view to which they are deeply committed.  Thus many feminists, for example, believe that one cannot be a feminist without accepting abortion.  Similarly, many Catholics, and Protestant Fundamentalists, believe that one cannot be a Christian unless one rejects abortion.  In such cases, the person in question may find it difficult to consider dispassionately arguments dealing with abortion, since he or she may view such arguments as threatening his or her general world view.  It is important to determine, therefore, whether a person's position on abortion is seen by him or her as part of a broader religious or philosophical point of view, and if it is, it may be necessary to step back from the question of abortion itself, and challenge either the perceived connection, or the underlying system of beliefs.

(2)  Discussions of the morality of abortion are often emotionally highly charged.  This is perhaps not surprising, given what is at stake.  But it means that people often approach such a discussion with a very negative view of people on the other side of the issue.  It is important to get clear, therefore, whether the other person acknowledges that abortion is an intellectually difficult topic, or whether he or she thinks, on the contrary, that it is quite straightforward, and thus that those who hold a different view on the morality of abortion are grossly ignorant, or badly confused, or downright evil.  For such attitudes, while conducive to moralistic lectures and sermons, are not likely to generate open-minded and useful discussion.

(3)  Ethics has been a branch of philosophy at least since the time of Socrates, and the question of the morality of abortion is an ethical issue.  Moreover, it is one that has been intensely discussed by a large number of philosophers in recent years.  Philosophers typically feel, therefore, that the place to turn, if one wants to think seriously about the moral status of abortion, is to contemporary philosophical discussions.  Not everyone, however, shares this view.  Many people are completely unaware of the existence of philosophical discussions.  Others are aware of those discussions, but think that they are either worthless or dangerous.  It is important to determine, therefore, to what extent the other person is familiar with such discussions, and what his or her attitude is concerning their value.  If the person does not think that philosophy is of value, it is worth asking both why, and where that person thinks one should turn if one is puzzled about the problem of the morality of abortion, and would like some illumination.

(4)  If the person thinks that philosophy is not really relevant, one needs to ask what the person's basic approach is.  Often, as with many anti-abortionists, the ultimate appeal will be to religion, either as a source of the relevant moral principles, or in support of some theologically-oriented claim about the nature of human beings.  Some anti-abortionists, on the other hand, are anxious to distance themselves from religion, probably because they are aware that there is a problem about appealing to sectarian beliefs in support of legislation that will be binding upon people who do not share those beliefs.

        What approach does the latter sort of person follow - that is, a person who neither sees anything worthwhile in philosophical discussions of abortion, nor wishes to appeal to religion?  The answer is that such a person usually thinks that the relevant moral principles are obvious or self-evident principles which are accepted by virtually everyone, and which thus do not really stand in need of any support.  But then how does such a person explain the fact that people disagree about the morality of abortion?  Usually he or she attributes the disagreement to gross biological ignorance: if people only knew that life begins at conception, they would realize that abortion was seriously wrong.

(5)  Disagreement on a moral issue can, in general, have two different sources.  First, people may disagree on some moral issue because they disagree about whether some suggested, basic moral principle is in fact correct.  But secondly, moral disagreements often turn out to rest not upon disagreement about basic moral principles, but upon disagreements about non-moral facts that enter into the derivation of some moral conclusion. One of the first steps, then, in any discussion of the morality of abortion, is to get clear whether the disagreement on the issue reflects a disagreement about the correctness of some moral principle that may be thought to be basic - such as the principle that it is always seriously wrong to destroy members of the biologically defined species, Homo sapiens - or, instead, a disagreement about some matter of fact - such as whether human embryos have immaterial, rational souls.

(6)  If it turns out that there is a disagreement about basic moral principles, there are various techniques that one can use - such as the technique of counterexamples, which is one of the most important.  But, in addition, it will often be helpful to ask the other person how he or she thinks basic ethical principles are to be justified.  Does the person accept some sort of account that relates moral principles to interests?  Or does he or she appeal to the intuitions of people?  Or does the person hold that moral principles have a religious basis?  The answers to these questions will often point to useful areas of discussion.
 

2.  Approaching the Issues

        What is the moral status of abortion, and what should the legal status of abortion be?  In thinking about these issues, one should try to get clear about the main alternative views, and then consider what arguments can be offered for and against each alternative.
 

2.1  The Main Alternatives:  I. The Moral Status of Abortion

        As regards the moral question, there are essentially three options, though one of them comes in a number of different variations:

(1)  The Extreme Anti-Abortion Position

        Those who accept this view would often define it in terms of the following thesis:

                Abortion is always seriously wrong.

        But this formulation commits one to the proposition that the moral prohibition in question is an absolute one, and this exposes one to doomsday-style counterexamples.  So it may well be better to formulate the view as follows:

                Abortion is always prima facie very seriously wrong.

(2)  Extreme Liberal, or Pro-Abortion Positions

        This view comes in two importantly different forms.  The first can be characterized in terms of the following thesis:

                Abortion is never in itself even prima facie wrong.

        The second form, by contrast, accepts the thesis that abortion in itself may be prima facie wrong - and perhaps even seriously so - but then goes on to argue that acts of abortion also have a serious right-making characteristic, and one that is sufficiently strong to outweigh the wrong-making characteristic.  As a consequence, what is claimed is that the following thesis is true:

                Abortion is never wrong in itself, all things considered.

(3)  Moderate Views

        Moderate positions come in a wide variety of forms, but what they all share is acceptance of the following thesis:

                Sometimes abortion is prima facie seriously wrong, and sometimes not.

        What are some of the different positions that fall under the moderate label, and how do they arise?  The answer to the latter question is that there are a number of factors that moderates may hold are relevant to the moral status of abortion, of which the following are the most important:

(1)  The degree of development of the embryo/fetus at the time of the abortion;

(2)  The normality/abnormality of the embryo/fetus, and its prospects for a reasonable quality of life;

(3)  The likely impact of carrying the fetus to term upon the life and/or health of the woman;

(4)  Whether pregnancy resulted from a deliberate, uncoerced, and fully informed choice on the part of the woman.

        More specifically, moderates on abortion usually are so because they accept one or more of the following theses:

1.  Early abortions are not morally wrong, whereas late-term abortions typically are;

2.  Abortion is not morally wrong in the case of a defective embryo/fetus who has little chance of coming to enjoy a life that is worth living;

3.  Abortion is not morally wrong if carrying the embryo/fetus to term would be a serious threat to the life - or perhaps to the health - of the woman;

4.  Abortion is not morally wrong when pregnancy resulted from rape, or from a coercive incestuous relationship, or when it involves a young girl who was not really capable of making a responsible decision.
 

2.2  The Main Alternatives:  I. The Appropriate Legal Status of Abortion

        Paralleling these three positions on the question of the moral status of abortion are three positions on the appropriate legal status:

(1)  The Prohibitionist View

        This is the view that there should be a law that prohibits abortion in absolutely all circumstances.

(2)  The Pro Choice View

        This is the view that abortion should never be illegal.

(3)  Moderate Views

        These are views according to which some abortions should be legal, and some illegal.
 

2.3  The Relation between the Moral Question and the Legal Question

        How are these three views on the appropriate legal status related to the three views on the moral status?  The answer is that people generally - though not always - accept corresponding pairs of views:  extreme anti-abortionists are usually prohibitionists;  extreme pro-abortionists are almost always pro choice; and moderates on the moral issue tend to be moderates on the question of the appropriate legal status of abortion, though some accept the pro choice position.

        The reasons are as follows.  First, those who accept an extreme anti-abortion view usually hold that the reason that abortion is prima facie seriously wrong is that human embryos/fetuses have a right to life that is equal to that of a normal, innocent, adult human being.  Consequently, abortion should be illegal for the same reason that the killing of an innocent adult human is illegal: precisely the same very serious right is violated in both cases.

        According to the liberal view on the moral status of abortion, abortion is not even prima facie wrong.  So no violation of any right is involved, and, consequently, it would be surprising if one held that abortion should nevertheless be illegal.  Liberals, accordingly, are almost invariably pro choice on the question of the appropriate legal status of abortion.

        Similarly, since moderates hold that abortion is sometimes morally unproblematic, it would be surprising if a moderate held that all abortions should be illegal.  But what about those cases of abortion that a given moderate holds are morally wrong?  Wouldn't one expect that a moderate would hold that such cases should be illegal?  The answer is that it depends upon what account the moderate gives of the wrongness of abortion in such cases.  If he or she holds that abortion in such cases is wrong because it involves violating a right to life that the embryo or fetus has, then the moderate will presumably hold that such actions should be legally prohibited.  But it is possible to hold that the wrongness of abortion in some cases is not a matter of a violation of any right, and so it is possible to be a moderate on the moral question while accepting a pro choice position on the question of the appropriate legal status of abortion.
 

3.  The Arguments

        What arguments can be offered for and against different views, and which arguments are sound ?  That is a big question, and, consequently, I shall not attempt here to provide a complete answer.  What I shall do instead is to focus upon a type of argument in support of an extreme anti-abortion position which is, I would claim, by far the most important argument for that position.  An examination of different versions of that argument, and corresponding objections, will then give us a reasonably good grasp, I think, of the lines along which one might argue for either a moderate or a liberal view.
 

3.1  An Initial Formulation of a Central Argument for an Anti-Abortion Position

        If one asks someone who thinks that abortion is always at least prima facie seriously wrong why he or she holds that position, a very common answer would be as follows:  "Abortion is prima facie very seriously wrong because all innocent human beings have a serious right to life."

        How might this remark be expanded into an explicit, step by step argument?  Given the inference indicator "because", one can see, first, that one of the premises in the argument is

        (l) All innocent human beings have a serious right to life;

and secondly, that the conclusion is

        (*)  Abortion is at least prima facie very seriously wrong.

        But how does one get from that single premise to the conclusion?  What are the implicit premises, and how does the reasoning go?

        The premise talks about a right to life, whereas the conclusion talks about an action being prima facie seriously wrong.  Since actions that violate rights are prima facie wrong, one could introduce a premise that formulates that general connection, such as:

        It is at least prima facie wrong to violate any right that anything possesses.

        But it would seem that this general claim is not exactly what one needs, since it says merely that a violation of a right is prima facie wrong, and not that it is very seriously wrong.  The conclusion, by contrast, does claim that a certain type of action is very seriously wrong.  So perhaps what one needs to do is to introduce a principle that, rather than being about rights in general, concerns the right to life.  Perhaps what one wants, then, is the following:

        (2) It is at least prima facie very seriously wrong to kill anything that possesses a serious right to life.

        Given (2) together with (1), something that immediately follows is

        (3) It is at least prima facie very seriously wrong to kill an innocent human being.

        The question then becomes how one might move from (3) to the desired conclusion - that is, the claim that abortion is at least prima facie very seriously wrong.  This question can be answered by applying the mechanical method of locating missing premises discussed earlier, if one formulates both the premise and the conclusion as "all" statements.  This can be done as follows:

        (3)  All acts of killing innocent human beings are prima facie very seriously wrong

        (*)  Therefore, all acts of abortion are prima facie very seriously wrong.

        One can then see that the middle term must be the expression "acts of killing innocent human beings", and that the other term in the missing premise must be the term in the conclusion that is not in statement (3) - namely, "acts of abortion".  Consequently, the missing premise must be

        (4)  All acts of abortion are acts of killing innocent human beings.

        The upshot is that we now have the following expansion of the original remark into an explicit, step by step argument:
 
 

(l) All innocent human beings have a serious right to life;

(2) It is at least prima facie very seriously wrong to kill anything that possesses a serious right to life.

(3) Therefore, it is at least prima facie very seriously wrong to kill an innocent human being.

(4)  Abortion involves the killing of an innocent human being.

(5)  Therefore, abortion is always prima facie very seriously wrong.
 

3.2  Expanded Versions of the Initial Formulation of a Central Argument for an Anti-Abortion Position

        The argument can, however, undergo further expansion.  In particular, one can ask why one should accept the premise introduced at (4), and if that question is raised, the following is a very natural answer:

        Any human fetus, embryo, or zygote is itself an innocent human being.

        Abortion involves the killing of a human fetus, embryo, or zygote.

        Therefore abortion involves the killing of an innocent human being.

        The upshot is the following argument, given some appropriate renumbering:

(l) All innocent human beings have a serious right to life.

(2) It is at least prima facie very seriously wrong to kill anything that possesses a serious right to life.

(3) Therefore, it is at least prima facie very seriously wrong to kill an innocent human being.                                         [From (1) and (2)]

(4)  Any human fetus, embryo, or zygote is itself an innocent human being.

(5)  Abortion involves the killing of a human fetus, embryo, or zygote.

(6)  Therefore abortion involves the killing of an innocent human being.

                                                   [From (4) and (5)]

(7)  Therefore abortion is at least prima facie very seriously wrong.

                                                   [From (3) and (6)]

        Alternatively, one could use exactly the same premises, but recast the argument slightly in the following form - where, after the first two premises, one always introduces only one premise at a time, and then immediately draws a conclusion from that premise together with the preceding premise or intermediate conclusion:

(l) All innocent human beings have a serious right to life.

(2) It is at least prima facie very seriously wrong to kill anything that possesses a serious right to life.

(3) Therefore, it is at least prima facie very seriously wrong to kill an innocent human being.                                                                      [From (1) and (2)]

(4)  Any human fetus, embryo, or zygote is itself an innocent human being.

(5) Therefore it is at least prima facie very seriously wrong to kill a human fetus, embryo, or zygote.                                                                     [From (3) and (4)]

(6) Abortion involves the killing of a human fetus, embryo, or zygote.

(7) Therefore abortion is at least prima facie very seriously wrong.
                                                                                [From (5) and (6)]
 

3.3  Common Arguments for Moderate or Liberal Positions on Abortion

        What sorts of arguments does one typically encounter on the other side - that is, in support of either a moderate position on the morality of abortion, or an extreme liberal position?  There are, I think, four main ones - two associated with moderate views on abortion, and two associated with extreme liberal views.

3.3.1  The First Type of Argument for a Moderate Position:  Special Cases

        The thrust of this first sort of argument is that there are special cases where abortion is either not even prima facie wrong in itself, or else not wrong all things considered.  The following are some of the more important cases that the moderate has in mind here:

(1)  Cases of Anencephalic Embryos and Fetuses, or Severely Brain-Damaged Ones

        An anencephalic human being is one where there is something approximating the complete absence of any brain.  Such a human being, consequently, can never come to have the psychological states and capacities that distinguish humans from at least most other species.  Indeed, such humans will never enjoy any mental life at all, even the most rudimentary consciousness.  The idea, accordingly, is that such humans do not possess any rights at all, let alone a right to life.

        There can, however, also be less extreme cases, where a brain is present, but so severely damaged that either the human in question will never be conscious, or else where, while rudimentary consciousness will be present, there will not be any higher mental functioning of the sort - such as self-consciousness, or the ability to think, or the ability to communicate - that distinguish humans from at least most non-human animals.

        The general idea, in short, is that some humans can never possess the psychological traits, capacities, or potentialities that are the basis of one's having a right to life, and so abortion in such cases is not even prima facie wrong.

(2)  Less Extreme Cases of Severely Defective Embryos and Fetuses

        A quite different type of case, but one often confused with the first, involves severely defective embryos and fetuses who may develop, at least in a limited way, some of the traits that are relevant to having a right to life.  Thus such an individual might come to have, for example, a limited ability to think, and to communicate.

        Given the presence of those traits, albeit in a limited degree, the moderate may very well concede in this sort of case - in contrast to the first sort of case - that abortion is prima facie wrong.  But he or she will argue that abortion is not wrong all things considered, in such cases, on the grounds that not having an abortion may very well have very serious negative consequences for the parents who will then be raising a severely defective child, and upon other children that they may have - given how much of their time and energy will have to be devoted to the severely defective child.

        In addition, in arguing for this conclusion, the moderate may also appeal to the idea that the right to life is a matter of degree, and thus maintain that such extremely defective embryos and fetuses have a less serious right to life than normal humans.

(3)  Cases of Rape

        Many moderates hold that abortion is permissible in the case of rape.  The best way of supporting this claim involves an argument advanced by Judith Jarvis Thomson in her paper "A Defense of Abortion" - an argument that we'll be considering later.  Thomson's argument is directed, in effect, against step (6) of the anti-abortion argument set out above.

(4)  Cases of Threats to the Woman's Life or Health

        In some cases, a pregnancy may be a threat to a woman's life, or to her health, and in such cases the moderate will typically argue that abortion also possesses a right-making property - namely, that of saving the woman's life, or of preserving her health.  If the moderate on abortion is to argue that such right-making properties are sufficient to make abortion morally permissible, all things considered, in such cases, he or she must argue that the right-making property in question outweighs - or at least counterbalances - the wrong-making property of killing a human with a right to life.  The case where the woman's life is at risk is the case where the argument will be least problematic, since if the threat is only a threat to the woman's health, one might wonder how it could counterbalance the fetus's right to life.  But in the latter case the moderate may also appeal to the impact of damage to the woman's health upon other people - such as the husband, and any children that she may be raising.

(5)  Cases of Extreme Hardship and Deprivation

        Finally, some moderates hold that abortion may be justified in the case of extreme economic hardship.  Here the thought is that it may be virtually impossible for the parents to care for another child, and that the attempt to do so may have serious impact upon the well being of the children that they already have.  The crucial question, of course, is whether one can show that such negative consequences are sufficiently serious to counterbalance a violation of a right to life.
 

3.3.2  The Second Type of Argument for a Moderate Position:  Personhood and Early Development

        The second type of argument for a moderate view does not focus upon special cases.  Instead, it focuses upon the question of exactly what properties give something a right to life, and a moderate who advances this response argues that neither species membership in itself, nor mere potentialities, give something a right to life.  To have a right to life, an entity must possess, or have possessed, certain psychological capacities - such as the capacity to think - or it must already have enjoyed a certain sort of mental life.  The moderate then argues that neither embryos, nor, perhaps, fetuses in early stages of their development, possess the relevant capacities.  Nor have they enjoyed the relevant sort of mental life - or, in the case of embryos, any mental life at all.  The moderate therefore concludes that humans in early stages of development lack the properties that give something a right to life, and, therefore, that the killing of humans in such stages of development is not prima facie wrong.
 

3.3.3  The First Type of Argument for a Liberal Position:  An Appeal to a Woman's Rights Concerning her own Body

        How do liberals on abortion argue in support of an extreme pro-abortion position?  Liberals will often agree with the points that moderates make.  But the liberal holds that abortion is always morally permissible, and so he or she needs some more general line of argument.

        One very popular liberal line of argument involves arguing that there is another right involved, besides any right to life that the embryo or fetus may have - namely, the woman's right to control what happens inside her own body.  The situation, accordingly, is one where there is a conflict of rights, and so one can attempt to argue that abortion is not wrong all things considered, because the woman's right to control what happens insider her own body counterbalances any right to life that the embryo or fetus may have.

        The difficulty that this argument faces is that it is far from clear that the right to determine what happens inside of one's own body is at least as serious a right as the right to life.  Imagine, for example, that there is a small transmitter inside of one's body that one is not aware of, that is not a threat to one's future health, that cannot be removed without being destroyed, and whose existence is necessary to maintain the life of someone outside of one's body.  (Perhaps it transmits signals to a pacemaker inside that person.)  Is it clear that it is morally permissible for one to remove that transmitter from one's body?
 

3.3.4  The Second Type of Argument for a Liberal Position:  Appeal to a Personhood Criterion

        The argument just considered for an extreme liberal view attempts to show that, even if abortion is in itself prima facie wrong - even seriously so - it is not wrong all things considered, because of the woman's right to control what takes place inside her own body.  The second type of argument for a liberal position maintains, by contrast, that abortion is not in itself prima facie wrong at all, let alone seriously so.

        The idea behind this second type of argument for a liberal view is essentially the one involved in the second argument for a moderate reposition - that is, it is claimed that neither species membership in itself, nor mere potentialities, give something a right to life, and that to have a right to life, an entity must possess, or have possessed, certain psychological capacities, or it must already have enjoyed a certain sort of mental life.  But the liberal then goes on to argue, not merely that embryos and perhaps some fetuses fail to satisfy this condition, but that no human embryos or fetuses  acquire the relevant psychological capacities - such as the capacity for thought - or enjoy the relevant sort of mental life - such as a mental life that involves thinking - prior to birth.

        The view, in short, is that abortion never in itself violates a right to life, and so it is not in itself prima facie wrong, since neither species membership in itself, nor mere potentialities, give something a right to life:  to have a right to life, an entity must possess, or have possessed, certain psychological capacities, or it must already have enjoyed a certain sort of mental life.