By: Richard Oxenberg
We are spiraling downward. The new Texas abortion law – which authorizes private citizens to sue anyone who provides aid to a pregnant woman seeking an abortion after a fetal heartbeat can be detected (around six weeks after conception) – is as much an assault on the U.S. Constitution and civil society as on women’s rights. That the Supreme Court has declined to prevent this patently unconstitutional law from going into effect undermines the integrity of the Court as an institution, which, in turn, places U.S. constitutional democracy itself in jeopardy.
These are dangerous times.
One question that arises is to what extent the law is motivated by a sincere concern over the morality of abortion and to what extent it is merely a foray in culture war politics, with little regard to the morality of anything.
The sinister nature of this law, which sets neighbor against neighbor, rather strongly suggests the latter. But it raises the question of what a real concern for the morality of abortion might look like, one that is sensitive to the moral sensibilities of sincere people on both sides of the issue.
The following is an attempt to sketch out a position on abortion that takes the views and concerns of both sides into account. I’ll call it a “whole life” position. It is my attempt to lift the issue out of the realm of culture war politics. I am all too aware, though, that when an issue is as polarized as this, any attempt to appeal to both sides runs the risk of being welcomed by neither. Nevertheless, with not a little trepidation, I offer the following reflections.
The Metaphysics of Abortion
Let’s begin with a simple question (a question simple to ask, that is, not at all to answer): When in the development of a fetus does it become a human self, deserving of moral respect?
Surely all would agree that at some point it does. No one believes we have the right to kill babies after they are born, however inconvenient their existence may be to us. What about five minutes before they are born? Ten minutes? At what point does the developing fetus become a being whose life should be viewed as sacrosanct?
The answer to this question is that no one has a definitive answer to this question. It is a question touching upon fundamental mysteries about the nature, the metaphysics, of the human self – mysteries that are beyond our sure knowledge. This is why this question is largely answered by appeal to religious faith, or lack of it.
Because we don’t know the answer to this question, we also don’t know the moral status of abortion. Is abortion the moral equivalent of killing a human being, or is it more the moral equivalent of getting a haircut? Does it become progressively more like killing a human being and progressively less like getting a haircut as the pregnancy continues? At what point does it become so like killing a human being that it becomes morally unacceptable?
We can’t answer these questions, at least not with any degree of certainty. That’s the predicament anyone who wishes to think seriously about this issue is in.
But precisely because we don’t know the answer to these questions, there is something we do know: We know that we don’t know. And we can craft a position on abortion around this not-knowing. Indeed, this is what we must do if we are to adopt a position in tune with the actual situation we find ourselves in.
A Woman’s Rights
A fetus grows in the womb of a woman. There are those who would say that, given this, a woman has a moral right to an abortion regardless of the moral status of the fetus. But this is a questionable proposition. Surely there are times in life when we are morally obliged to be respectful of the moral requirements of others, even when it may cause us considerable difficulty. One might well argue that pregnancy is one of these times – that is, to the extent that we regard the fetus as having the moral status of a human being.
But does it have this status? If so, when does it acquire this status?
Again, there is no definitive answer to these questions; those who hazard an answer mainly do so on the basis of religious faith (or lack of it).
So the next question becomes: In a society dedicated to freedom of religion, who is to be granted the authority to decide whether and when the fetus has this status?
We must consider this question carefully. Someone, after all, must be granted the authority to make this determination and this decision. Who but the woman should be granted this authority? It is, of course, a matter of the most intimate concern to the woman whose pregnancy it is; it is her life that may be altered profoundly depending on the decision made; it is her body in which the fetus is growing. There is no one else in a decision-making capacity whose interest and involvement in the matter is as compelling as that of the pregnant woman, and though we can’t say with certainty whether and when the fetus is to be regarded as having the status of a full-fledged human self, we do know with certainty that the woman has this status. On what grounds, then, might it be claimed that anyone else has the right to make this decision? In the absence of any definitive knowledge as to the fetus’s moral status one way or the other, we can find no such grounds. Therefore, we must regard it as the woman’s decision to make.
Nevertheless, precisely because we are dealing with a moral unknown, we might also recognize that it is not a decision to be made lightly. The choice about whether or not to have an abortion is not on a par with the choice, say, about what to have for dinner. It seems to me that the rhetoric of the left often fails to acknowledge the moral weight of what is at stake in the abortion issue, and this failure undermines its ability to make the morality of its own position clear to those with differing views.
At present in our society, neither side of the abortion issue speaks to the concerns of the other. The political right accuses the political left of disregarding the moral status of the fetus. The political left accuses the political right of disregarding the freedom, dignity, and welfare of women. Both sides talk past one another, and it is this talking past one another that makes the issue so politically divisive and so ripe for exploitation.
A “Whole Life” Position
Where does this leave us?
Some years ago, Hillary Clinton remarked that abortions should be “legal, safe, and rare.” This is the view I believe we should adopt, but with more emphasis on the ‘rare’ than it is generally given on the political left.
We should want abortions to be rare because they have moral weight and should be regarded as having such weight – if only because we can’t know with certainty what moral weight they have. We should want abortions to be rare because abortions terminate a potential human life, and given the sanctity of human life, it is not good for us as a society to regard this as an altogether trivial matter.
But precisely because of the sanctity of human life, it is not enough for us to strive to make abortions rare. We must strive to make poverty rare, unwanted pregnancy rare, racial discrimination rare, ignorance rare, lack of socio-economic opportunity rare, lack of access to health care rare, lack of access to quality education rare, and so on.
A “whole life” position on abortion is rooted in the belief that all of human life is sacrosanct, not just the life of the yet-to-be-born. And this is where the political right betrays its bad faith when it comes to the abortion question. If the opposition to abortion were truly rooted in a commitment to the sanctity of human life it would be part of a broader concern for the welfare of all human beings, including those in the agonizing position of being plagued with an unwanted pregnancy. A political movement concerned with the sanctity of human life would not oppose mask-wearing during a public health crisis, it would not employ repressive election laws to deprive others of their right to political representation, it most certainly would not rally behind the corruption and cruelties of Donald Trump and his deceitful cronies.
The Texas Law
And this brings us back to the Texas law.
The Texas law is an abomination, not just because it violates women’s rights, but because the egregious manner in which it does so also betrays any who might be troubled by abortion on truly moral grounds.
It is a law rooted in culture war politics, not moral concerns, and its effect will be the promotion of a more sinister and corrupt society, not a more morally sensitive one. And yet it is just such moral sensitivity that we require if we are going to caringly address abortion and other morally relevant issues.
And so the Texas law should be opposed, not only by abortion rights advocates, but by any who would hope to promote a morally attuned society. It is a law whose effect, and perhaps even aim, is to blunt our moral sensibilities and set our society at war with itself.
Richard Oxenberg received his Ph.D. in Philosophy from Emory University in 2002, with a concentration in Ethics and Philosophy of Religion. He currently teaches at Endicott College, in Beverly MA.
He is the author of the book, On the Meaning of Human Being: Heidegger and the Bible in Dialogue, published by Political Animal Press.
Image: Supreme Court rally after the decision on Whole Woman’s Health v. Hellerstedt Texas abortion case, Supreme Court, Washington, DC by Adam Fagen via flickr (CC BY 2.0)
Thanks for this discussion. I do wonder though about this: “When in the development of a fetus does it become a human self, deserving of moral respect?”
You basically say that nobody knows here and that many people appeal to religion with their answers.
For what it’s worth, most thoughtful anti-abortion people really don’t appeal to religion: they have secular arguments for their case against abortion.
Also, I think the “who knows?” attitude seems to not really fit the situation since we can rationally evaluate many of the arguments on these issues, with quite a bit of success. That many people don’t want to do this says more about them than the issues themselves.
Thanks for your comment, Nathan.
I don’t know what the secular argument against abortion might be. It seems to me that any secular argument would have to base itself in the claim that the fetus has the moral status we generally accord to full-fledged human beings. So to assess this argument we would first have to identify what it is that gives human beings this status. It can’t merely be the presence of living DNA, because each of the cells of our bodies contain living DNA, and yet we don’t consider it a problem if we shed some of these cells. It can’t be the presence of a hearbeat, because chickens have heartbeats, and yet, with the exception of vegetarians, people have little problem frying them up and eating them for dinner. It can’t be the abililty to feel pain because, once again, many animals we kill and eat can feel pain. What then?
It must be some quality of self-consciousness that makes human beings morally unique. But we can’t know when, or if, the fetus acquires this ‘human’ quality of self-consciousness. It does seem to me reasonable to believe that, as the pregnancy progresses, the likelihood that the fetus has acquired human-like self-awareness increases and thus abortion becomes more morally problematic. But no one can say with any degree of reliability just when (or if) this has occurred. .
Given that no one does or can know this, there is no basis for anyone to claim to have more of a right to make this decision than the pregnant woman, whose life, after all, is the one that will be most profoundly affected. This is my argument. By the way, this more or less echoes Blackmun’s argument in Roe v Wade; my argument is just a very abbreviated version of that.
Thanks again for your remarks.
If you don’t know what “the secular argument against abortion might be” that’s a problem!
While many (most?) people who do argue against abortion are actually religious people (e.g., some of the commonly-cited thinkers here would be Robert George, Francis Beckwith, Christopher K., and many others), their arguments do not appeal to anything specifically religious: their core is typically something along the lines of “fetuses are biologically human organisms and they are the kind of beings that are ‘rational moral agents’ and so they are prima facie wrong to kill.” At the very least, this type of argument (which requires a LOT of explanation, and defenses of the core premise are typically extremely weak) isn’t religious in nature.
And, of course, there’s Marquis’s (secular) arguments, although his arguments have virtually zero influence on people who enthusiastically oppose abortion.
Both of these types of arguments are reviewed and critiqued here, in case you are interested!
https://www.abortionarguments.com/p/full-text.html#humanbeings
Thanks! Nathan
Thanks again for your comment, Nathan. I didn’t mean to say that I was not familiar with secular arguments against abortion (in fact I reference a few of the points they make in my response to you) but that they are not compelling. Whether an embryo can be regarded as a “rational moral agent,” for instance, is highly questionable. At what point a fetus develops into one, if it ever does, is also an unknown. Those who appeal to religious faith are basing their views in what they believe to be a supernal source of knowledge and authority, but secular arguments can’t make such an appeal. Hence, secular arguments are highly speculative at best and subject to endless dispute.
Thanks, Richard Oxenberg, for your article. And thanks, Nathan Nobis, for your comments.
I’m one of those people who set out secular moral arguments against abortion and think they’re pretty strong (after various intellectual knots have been untangled). But I won’t develop those thoughts here. On this topic I’ll simply point out, in case it’s of interest, that Nathan (pro-choice) and I (pro-life) have had some previous discussions about our differences, a history whose beginnings can be traced to our contributions to an August 2019 pro-con abortion forum here at Political Animal Magazine (links to our discussions can be found below in the postscript).
I agree with Richard that “We should want abortions to be rare because they have moral weight and should be regarded as having such weigh—if only because we can’t know with certainty what moral weight they have.” That’s important common ground, it seems to me.
The main purpose of my present comment is to challenge Richard’s additional claim that “abortions terminate a potential human life.” In so far as we are speaking about science, I think Richard’s claim is false—and we should be clear about this so we can improve our moral reasoning. It’s important to know what is aborted.
Science tells us the human fetus (i.e., what gets aborted) is already a human life.
The fetus’s material composition and behavioral properties (which we discern via science) indicate that the fetus is a genetically distinct, self-governing, whole living organism that belongs to the human species.
Moreover, conception marks the physical-spatial-temporal genesis of this genetically distinct self-governing, whole living organism. In the case of the union of human sperm and human egg, this organism marks the first stage of a new living human entity—a new living human being, a new human life.
Or think of it this way. The fetus is not a potential human being (not something that transitions to being a human being), rather it’s a living human being with potential. A potential human being is the sperm and egg before union. When the sperm and egg unite, there is, because of the change in material composition and behavioral properties, a new physical substance—a new actual living human being with potential to become its later stages. The fetus is a developmental stage of human being/human life, i.e., it’s a living human being that becomes the subsequent stages of human being such as infant, toddler, pre-teen, teenager, and adult (if no interference or malfunction occurs, and if a life-nourishing environment is in place).
So science tells us that the human fetus is a distinct human being, a living individual member of the human species, a distinct human life—not a potential human life.
This means, contrary to what Richard claims, abortion doesn’t terminate a potential human life; rather, abortion terminates a human life with potential. As I stated, it’s important to be clear on this.
Of course, this doesn’t settle the question of the fetus’s moral status or personhood, but it’s an important preliminary step, it seems to me.
At any rate, that’s my two cents. I hope it helps further the discussion.
Cheers!
P.S. Richard, if you like, I would be happy to send you a complimentary copy of my book Untangling Popular Pro-Choice Arguments: Critical Thinking about Abortion (I have a few extra hardcopies on hand). Perhaps I could mail it to you via your office at Endicott College?
Here is some information about my book (which has links to Nathan’s and my previous discussions in the section “Replies to critics”):
http://apologiabyhendrikvanderbreggen.blogspot.com/2020/12/untangling-popular-pro-choice-arguments.html
Hello Hendrick,
Thank you for your very thoughtful comment, and apologies for my rather late reply. I didn’t see your comment until now.
Of course, the question at issue is whether the fetus is to be regarded as a fullfledged human person from a moral point of view. Everyone understands that the fetus has human DNA and will develop into a fullfledged human person (from a moral perspective) if left unhindered. So your argument here, it seems to me, skirts the critical issue, as you seem to concede when you write, “Of course, this doesn’t settle the question of the fetus’s moral status or personhood.” But perhaps you develop your argument more completely in your book, which I would be happy to see.
I’m also not sure what you mean when you say that the fetus is “self-governing.” Only a self-aware being can be self-governing. Indeed, a case could be made that self-awareness is a necessary but not a sufficient condition for ‘self-governance.’ Kant, I believe, would say that only a rational being can be self-governing in any meaningful sense. So the attribution of self-governance to the fetus seems to me highly questionable.
But, again, perhaps you develop these points more fully in your book. I would be happy to receive a copy of it. If you could send me an email with your email address, I could email you my home address. I am teaching off campus this semester and so my home address would be the best one to use.
My email address is: Roxenberg@live.com
And thanks again for your comment.
Richard,
You are welcome—and thank you for your reply! I will send an email to you, for sure. As I stated previously, I’d be happy to send you a copy of my book, which I will do as soon as I receive your home address.
In the meantime, I would like to address briefly a couple points you set out, for clarity’s sake.
First, my argument in my previous comment isn’t an attempt to skirt a critical issue about human personhood. I merely wanted to get clear on your claim that “abortions terminate a potential human life.” As I pointed out, it seems to me that, biologically, your claim is false. Abortions terminate a human life with potential, not a potential human life. (Sperm and egg prior to fusion are a potential human life; sperm and egg after fusion are a human life with potential.) I think it’s important to have accuracy concerning what’s in fact aborted. That’s a critical issue, too, it seems to me.
My point: If we want to think clearly about an action’s moral status, it’s good to get clear on what’s involved in that action. In abortion, what is being terminated or killed? We should get clear on the biological facts before we move onto moral judgments having to do with the fetus’s moral status or personhood. I just want to be clear on that, since some people (perhaps some of our readers) think what’s aborted is merely a “clump of cells” or a “parasite.”
Second, here is some clarity (I hope) about my claim that the fetus is “self-governing.” I’m talking about a living biological organism here. This organism has the intrinsic biological resources to grow itself (by using and directing nutrients delivered to it in the mother’s womb) into the later developmental stages of the kind of thing (physical substance) it is. This physical substance/organism has, as discerned by science, a material composition and behavioral properties that propel and guide its growth. Like a self-guided missile, the fetus’s material composition and behavioural properties guide it from within (though, unlike a self-guided missile, the composition and properties are not due to a human intelligence, neither its own or another’s, nor are its resources or fuel carried internally). So the fetus is in this sense “self-governing,” even though in the early stages it isn’t self-aware. That’s what I mean when I wrote that the fetus is a genetically distinct, self-governing, whole living organism that belongs to the human species—a human being.
(I think self-awareness or consciousness is a sufficient but not necessary condition for personhood. I argue for this thesis in my book. Even if you don’t end up agreeing with me on this matter, I think we’re pretty much on the same page in thinking that the human fetus has at least some significant moral weight and that the “whole life” view you recommend in your above article, which includes but is not limited to making abortions rare, is the way forward.)
I hope my clarifications are helpful. Thanks for the conversation! And thanks to Political Animal Magazine for promoting such conversation!
I look forward to hearing back from you via email.
Best regards,
Hendrik
Hello Hendrick,
I just saw your response to mine here, although I haven’t yet received an email from you, so I’ll just make a few further comments.
Is the fetus a “human life with potential” or a “potential human life”?
I suppose this is a matter of definition. Some would say, and I would agree, that a zygote is not engaged in living what we generally understand as “a human life,” although biologically it has the potential to develop into one who will live such a life. But if we want to define a human life as an organism that, left undisturbed, will develop into one who will live what we generally mean by “a human life,” then I suppose we can speak of the zygote as “a human life with potential.”
As you say, the choice of which phrase to use is not insignificant because it pertains to the question of the moral status of what is being aborted. But just for this reason, we should use the phrase that best reflects the moral situation as we know it (or don’t know it). When we use the phrase “a human life” most people understand by this a life to which we have moral obligations. But the question of whether a zygote is one to whom we have moral obligations is the very question at issue. So to speak of the zygote as “a human life with potential” is, in effect, to beg the question.
As for your second point, all life forms, including plants, are “self-governing” in the sense in which you are using the term. But few would regard it to be morally wrong to kill a plant. On the other hand, the phrase “a self-governing being” conjures up the Kantian notion of a rational being to whom we do have moral obligations. So, again, you seem to be trying to make your argument through an equivocal use of language. When we disambiguate the terms, the argument fails.
But, again, perhaps your book resolves these difficulties. I’ll be happy to receive a copy.
My email address, once more, is Roxenberg@live.com.
And thanks once again for the engaging dialogue.
Richard
Richard,
I sent you an email on October 19 (and resent it a few days ago). I double-checked your email address and I’ve got it right, so I don’t know what’s going on. Maybe my message is in your spam folder? Or maybe things aren’t working properly with my computer? Perhaps, if you wouldn’t mind, you could send an email to me, and then (if it gets through) I could respond directly to your message—and hopefully we can get in touch that way! Here is my email address: hendrikvanderbreggen@mymts.net
In the meantime, at risk of me becoming a bore—or, worse, a pain in the neck—I’m happy to continue our dialogue with a couple brief responses.
1. Is the zygote/fetus a “human life with potential” or a “potential human life”?
I think our goal is to use language that describes physical reality accurately. If we’re going to kill something, the first question should be: What is it? We should be clear on what’s being killed. Biologically, if we use language that accurately describes reality, then the zygote is a human life (i.e., is a living biological being/entity that belongs to the human species) which has the potential to become its subsequent developmental stages (fetus, newborn infant, toddler, etc.). This is not to beg any moral questions, because we’re not talking morals here. We’re merely talking about what is in fact aborted.
2. About “self-governing.” Yes, you are correct: All life forms, including plants, have the “self-governing” characteristic in the biological sense that I’m using the term. I’m glad we agree! But I am not making any moral judgments here, as you seem to think. I’m merely trying to describe physical reality accurately. An accurate description of physical reality is this (as I’ve stated previously): The fetus’s material composition and behavioral properties (which we discern via science) indicate that the fetus is a genetically distinct, self-governing, whole living organism that belongs to the human species. The fetus is an early developmental stage of a human life, biologically speaking.
I am not making any moral argument here, so I am not, as you claim, “trying to make [my] argument through an equivocal use of language.” I’m merely describing—accurately and unequivocally—the physical facts at hand. Biologically, the fetus is a living human being, an instance of a human life.
3. Once we’re clear on the physical facts about abortion, then we should start our moral reasoning. The physical facts are these: The fetus is a human life, biologically; it’s a genetically distinct, self-governing, whole living organism that belongs to the human species (it’s not merely a clump of cells, as some have said); it’s a human life that has the potential to become the subsequent stages of human life.
Now, in later stages of biological development we believe (correctly) that a human life has deep moral significance/ great mora weight. So we should ask: Does or should that deep moral significance/ moral weight also apply to the earlier stages of human life? Why, or why not? (There’s no question-begging going on here.)
That’s the kind of reasoning I think we should do once we’ve gotten clear on what in fact is aborted.
Thanks to you, too, for the engaging dialogue.
Hendrik
Hello Hendrick,
Thanks for your reply, and sorry for the long delay on my part in responding to it.
Since you say you are not making any moral arguments, and since the question at issue is a moral one, there is not much for me to comment on in what you’ve written. We can debate whether it is more appropriate to speak of a zygote as a “a human life with potential” or “a potential human life,” but since you say that you are not drawing any moral conclusions from the term one way or the other, it may not be all that important.
I would say, though, that your use of language does lead to moral confusion. It suggests the following syllogism:
It is morally wrong to deliberately terminate an innocent human life.
A zygote is an innocent human life.
Therefore, it is morally wrong to terminate the life of a zygote.
Now, from what I gather from what you say, this is not your argument. But I’m sure you can see how your language suggests it. To the extent it does, the language is misleading.
Whether or not a zygote is properly charracterized as “a human life” will depend upon how we define a “human life,” and this itself is a debateable question. But we should probably strive to use language in the least misleading ways.
I don’t know why I haven’t received your emails, and it’s possible that they went to my spam folder and were automatically deleted. I’ll go ahead and send an email to the address you provide.
Thanks, Hendrick.
Richard,
Sorry for taking so long to reply. I got busy with other things, especially Christmas. Thank you for your email. I have put a copy of my book in the mail so (hopefully) you should be receiving it soon.
In the meantime, here are a couple of clarifications concerning your last comments.
You write: “you [Hendrik] say that you are not drawing any moral conclusions from the term [‘human life with potential’].” No, I’m pretty sure I’m not saying that. But maybe I wasn’t clear. What I’m saying (and have been saying) is that we’ve first got to get clear on what is in fact aborted before we start our moral reasoning. Yes, the question before us is a moral one (i.e., Is abortion moral?), but that means we’ve got to get clear on the facts of the case first (i.e., What is in fact aborted?). We need first to know what’s going on physically/biologically so we can evaluate morally. I hope that’s clear now.
Also, yes, I agree that, as you say, “we should probably strive to use language in the least misleading ways.” We should definitely strive to do this! As I’ve been arguing, I think that whether a zygote is properly characterized as a “human life” depends on the characteristics of the zygote itself. As I’ve pointed out, the zygote is, biologically, a human life. That is, as I’ve also pointed out, it’s a genetically distinct, self-governing, whole living organism that belongs to the human species (it’s not merely a clump of cells, as some have said); it’s a human life that has the potential to become the subsequent stages of human life (so, if we’re talking science, it is not a mere “potential human life,” which is the language you used in your article, which prompted me to respond to your article in the first place).
By the way, according to a 2019 global survey, 95% of academic biologists hold that individual human life begins at fertilization, and medical textbooks and peer-reviewed scientific literature substantiate this (see references in my book). So I’m pretty sure that my use of language is not, as you assert, “misleading.”
Now, as I also pointed out (and I’ll repeat here), in later stages of biological development we believe (correctly) that a human life has deep moral significance/ great moral weight. So we should ask: Does or should that deep moral significance/ moral weight also apply to the earlier stages of human life? Why, or why not?
My point is (and has been) merely this: First let’s get the physical facts clear (and use language to accurately describe the physical facts), then let’s do moral reasoning. That’s the approach I’m recommending.
Maybe think of my approach this way: If my sons (when they were young children) walked into my office while I was busy working, and stood behind me, and asked, “Dad, may we kill this?”, I should first ask, “What is it?”
I hope my book will help answer the moral questions I ask above: Does or should the deep moral significance/ moral weight that we believe the later stages of biological development have also apply to the earlier stages of human life? Why, or why not?
Best regards for 2022! I hope you had a good Christmas. Please consider my book a late Christmas gift! 🙂
Hendrik
Thanks for your reply, Hendrick.
By this reasoning, every cell in our body would count as a distinct “human life” given that, under the right circumstances, each could develop into a fullfledged human being.
Aristotle defines the human being as “rational animal,” where by “rational” he means self-aware and capable of making choices. A zygote is clearly not that. So, I do think it is misleading in a somewhat question-begging way to speak of a zygote as “a human life.” We might split the difference and say that it qualifies as what is generally meant by “a human life” in some (very limited) respects but not in others.
I might note that this kind of question-begging takes place on both sides of the abortion issue. The popular abortion rights slogan, “My body, my choice” also begs the question by implicitly denying that the zygote or fetus is another life that demands moral respect.
The hard question in all of this is: What exactly makes killing a human person wrong and at what point, if ever, does the zygote or fetus develop into a person whom it is wrong to kill?
From what you’ve written, I imagine we’ll agree on this last point.
Thank you for sending me your book. I’ll look forward to reading it.
And a belated Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to you!
yooo this is so based omg (as opposed to abased) 😛
i love your nuanced take on this ! as a leftist who is strongly pro-choice (but i do take into consideration such moral weight) it was so refreshing to hear my exact thoughts expounded so clearly (and so eloquently at that!)
Thank you so much for writing this.
Hi there, this article does leave me confused about two things. One being the strong scientific argument that makes it most likely that human lives begin at conception and, as to avoid discriminations on the basis of ableism or eugenics, personhood should always coincide with human life. This is basically ignored because, as you state, “we don’t know” although it’s pretty clear now that we do, in fact, know.
But my second issue is with how you deal with the unknown. While yes, a pregnant person’s say and decision would be incredibly important in a scenario when we have no clue what is growing inside of their body, you fail to consider if what the fetus could or could not be may weigh more importantly than this person’s decision.
For example, if a tumor is growing inside of someone, a doctor may recommend to get the tumor removed due to, after some testing, it being clear that it is cancerous. However, there is a chance that it is benign and that it may not be necessary or very beneficial in removing it. In this case, the doctor’s opinion may weigh just as much, if not more, than the patient’s because the doctor can recommend treatment that will keep the patient safe when the patient is unsure which course of action to take.
In that example, what was growing really impacted the decision. The fetus question presents us with two scenarios. In one, the fetus is not a human life, therefore not a person. In this scenario, the woman should have all the say. In the second, the fetus is a life and thus a person, therefore the fetus should have a say. All persons do have legal rights that are true and defended even if the individual cannot defend themself, such as those who are under anesthetic in surgery still have their usual rights and protections from theft or assault even though they are “unavailable” at the moment. In this same vein, a fetus that is alive (which, by medical definition, a fetus is alive) would reserve the protection and defense from murder, which an abortion would bring the end of the life of a fetus, if it is alive.
Now it’s a math game, so it is important to look at type one and type two errors (statistics). If scenario one is true and we treat it like scenario two, then the worst evil is avoided: a life ended unjustly. If scenario one is true and we treat it like scenario two, then a lesser evil occurs: a woman’s right to medical decisions in regards to a pregnancy is temporarily disbanded.
In the event that there is a statistical unknown, every statistician knows that one must minimize damages. This happens in the medical field all the time with false positive and false negatives. One option is clearly worse than the other, but since both are going to happen, it is only just that we maximize prevention of the worst of two evils. The same should be held true in abortion of both the law and of moral argument, as well as sound logic arguments.
A common metaphor used by the pro-life for this is something along the following: You are driving out late at night and it is very dark. You see something on the road. Since it’s so dark, you’re not sure if it’s a dog or a kid or something else, but it looks like it could be a person, you’re not sure. Do you hit it? Most people say no to err on the side of caution in the chance that it is a kid. After all, it looks like it could be, so you have reason to believe it might be. Even if you didn’t hit have reason and you hit this kid anyway, it would be a shame to speak in court that the only reason you didn’t brake was out of the inconvenience of braking. And that’s what abortion really is, no? A convenient decision for an inconvenient situation.
Hi Simone,
It’s been a long time since I looked at the comments to my article and I just noticed your comment (over a year after you posted it). Given how long ago you posted your comment, you probably won’t see this response, but I thought I’d write one anyway, for anyone else who might come along and read it.
First of all, I can’t agree that the question of whether a fetus should count as a full-fedged human being for moral purposes is at all settled. I went back and forth with Hendrick about this in response to his comments, so I won’t belabor this here.
On the other hand, I do think your ‘lesser of the evils’ argument has some cogency. As you express it, given that we don’t know whether the fetus should be granted the moral status of a human being, we should err on the side of caution and attribue this moral status to the fetus lest we run the risk of violating a fundamental moral principle: that an innocent human being should not be deliberately killed.
I think this would certainly be a strong argument if granting this status didn’t involve – not just ‘inconvenience,’ as you put it – but a major disruption to the life of the pregnant woman. The problem I see with your argument is that it doesn’t give sufficient weight to a woman’s right to control, not only what she will do with her body, but, in many cases, what sort of life she will be able to live. Having a child is not just an “inconvenient situation,” but, for most people who have children, a life altering event. It’s not at all comparable to braking when you see an unknown object on the road up ahead.
Given this, it’s not exactly clear which interpretation of the fetus’ status constitutes ‘the lesser of the evils.’ A case can be made that to err on either side would be devastating.
How, then, should we decide this difficult issue?
As I note in my article, I believe the most reasonable course is to adopt the ‘legal, safe, and rare’ position with regard to abortion, but with an emphasis on ‘rare.’ Given the unknowns, the final decision should be in the hands of the pregnant woman. However, given these same unknowns, society should do what it can to make unwanted pregnancies rare, and to provide emotional, and, if needed, material support for pregnant women who decide to carry their children to term.
This is not a perfect solution. Given the unknowns, there is no perfect solution. But I believe it is the most reasonable approach, taking all factors into consideration.
Thanks again for your thoughtful comment.