Within the context of politics, the abortion debate is usually framed as having two sides: pro-life and pro-choice. Those who are pro-life believe that abortions are immoral. Pro-choice is the view that a woman should have the right to decide the outcome of the fetus, and that at least some abortions are morally permissible. Note that the pro-life view seems to make an absolute claim about abortion, namely, that it is always objectionable, though, some who consider themselves pro-life allow for a few exceptions to the rule (e.g. rape, incest). The pro-choice view is committed to a far weaker claim; there are some instances of morally acceptable abortions. Making broad moral generalizations about the practice of abortion would require one to ignore the fact that abortions involve a highly diverse set of circumstances that may make a difference to the moral evaluation of any given procedure. In order to make a well-informed moral evaluation of abortion, as a practice, one must consider all of the morally relevant details. I will argue that the vast majority of abortions (in the United States) are morally acceptable but that some late-term abortions are morally objectionable.
I think there are at
least three broad kinds of moral difference makers when it comes to abortion.
First, there is the fetal stage of development. Second, there is the type of
procedure (relevant in how much harm it involves). Lastly, the health and well-being
of the fetus and the mother. I must first set some groundwork defending the,
perhaps, most controversial claim, that the stage of fetal development is
morally relevant.
Human life is said to
have intrinsic moral worth. That is to say, human lives have a certain kind of
moral value that a rock or chair does not. Some believe that God bestowed souls
or moral qualities upon us that give us a natural right to life. This is known
as the sanctity of life view. On this view, all humans—no matter what stage of
development—have equal moral value. Humans have a right to life, and it is
simply wrong to kill them. An alternative view, which I shall call the
developmental approach, argues that humans have moral worth because of certain
mental capacities and features, and that these features emerge at different
stages of development. At perhaps the earliest stage, creatures acquire the
capacity to feel pain and to experience pleasure. It is at this stage where
creatures begin to have interests (e.g. avoid pain and suffering) and when it
becomes wrong to harm them. Later on in development, creatures acquire more
complex psychological traits such as self-awareness, the capacity to form life
narratives and long-term goals, the formation of complex social bonds, and an understanding
of morality. Philosophers call creatures that possess such features persons. Persons have a far greater number of
interests than do creatures lacking personhood, making it morally worse to do
them harm. For instance, persons may have an interest in self-survival and in
cultivating one’s abilities.
The sanctity of life
view is not plausible because it is overcommitting and too restrictive. While
it may sound intuitive to say that ‘it is always wrong to kill or end the life
of an innocent human being’ there are some widely agreed upon exceptions to the
rule. Anencephalic infants—which are born missing most of their brain—are not
conscious beings. Their life
expectancy is typically between several hours to a few days; at
most, a few months. Few—on both sides of the debate—accept that it is wrong to
end the life of a human with anencephaly. A second exception is the case of an
adult human who lapses into a permanent vegetative state. It is commonly
believed that a fully formed adult human that permanently loses all of their
mental capacities, also loses their moral worth. It is not wrong to end the
life of an individual in a vegetative state because there is no person to harm
or stream of consciousness to end. The only subjects of harm would be their
close family members, and even they, in most cases, decide to end their loved
one’s life.
The sanctity of life
view is also limited, as it seems to apply only to humans. It is implicitly
speciesist (analogous to sexist or racist views). After all, there may be other
kinds of creatures that are have as much moral worth as humans. Adult
chimpanzees seem to be self-aware, possess a rudimentary sense of fairness and
morality, and engage in long-term planning and complex sociality. If we were to
ever run into any, we would be probably be inclined to attribute moral
qualities to intelligent extra-terrestrials as well (e.g. ET, Spock).
Bearing in mind the developmental stage is relevant for making moral judgments because each stage comes with its own measure of moral worth based upon the capacities present. Personhood, I think, unfolds gradually. That is just to say that I do not think that all of the morally relevant capacities emerge at the same time. It is also the case that many of the features fall on a continuum, rather than being all-or-nothing. For instance, 10-month old children seem to possess a rudimentary understanding of moral norms and punishment. But the 10-month old’s understanding is nowhere as sophisticated as, say, a five or six year old’s understanding of moral norms. Exactly when the personhood features emerge is an empirical matter. Hence, one should take my estimations with a grain of salt. I think most would agree that it is more wrong to end the life of an adult than a young child; a young child than newborn; a newborn than 6-week old fetus. Those who hold the sanctity of life view might be inclined to agree with this, but would likely reject the idea that a fetus before 6 months lacks moral worth altogether. They might argue that while fetuses lack the features and capacities that are morally relevant, they have the potential to acquire them later in life. There is a lot more to be said about this point and I plan to take up it up in a future post. For now, the developmental view still seems to capture our intuitions about the value of human life at differing stages.
Other moral difference
makers include how the abortion is performed, and the reasons for why it is
performed.
When we hear of
abortions, we tend to think of rather graphic surgical procedures. Those only
make up 1% of abortions performed. About 25% of abortions come in the form of a
pill. RU-486 is a common form of medical abortion,
effective up until the second trimester. The most common form of abortion
is surgical vacuum aspiration, a procedure performed
when the fetus weighs less than an ounce and is only two inches tall. According
to the CDC, the vast majority of abortions (92%)
occur before the thirteenth week, and only 1% of
abortions occur after week 22. Neuroscientists have
determined that fetuses probably don’t develop the capacity to feel pain until week 26. They have determined this by
looking at the development of the fetal brain. Most neuroscientists think the
neocortex is involved in the processing and sensation of pain, and fetuses do
not start developing neocortical regions until around week 26. Therefore,
fetuses probably lack the capacity to feel pain until that time. Even if
scientists are off by a wide margin (say 13 weeks), it would still be true that
a majority of abortions would be morally permissible on this view. After all,
if the procedure involves no fetal pain or suffering, the fetus is not harmed.
One may argue that there may be other sources of harm (e.g. to society), but it
is implausible to suggest that there is harm in killing the 13 week old fetus
in itself.
Why do most women have
abortions? A study conducted by the Guttmacher Institute found the following
answers:
Rape
|
0.3 % (0.1-0.6 %)
|
Incest
|
0.03 % (0.01-0.1 %)
|
physical life of mother
|
0.1 % (0.01-0.2 %)
|
physical health of mother
|
0.8 % (0.1-3 %)
|
fetal health
|
0.5 % (0.1-1.0 %)
|
mental health of mother
|
?? (0.1-8 %)
|
elective
--too young/immature/not ready for
responsibility
--economic
--to avoid adjusting life
--mother single or in poor
relationship
--enough children already
--sex selection
--selective reduction
|
98.3% (87-99 %)
--? (32 %)
--30% (25-40 %)
--? (16 %)
--? (12-13 %)
--? (4-8 %)
--0.1% (<0.1-? %)
--0.1% (<0.1-0.4 %)
|
(Johnston 2016)
Most agree that certain
circumstances absolve the mother from blame. This is true when a rare genetic
abnormality is detected late (e.g. huntington’s disease, microcephaly),
potential harm or death to the mother is likely, and when the pregnancy
resulted from rape or incest. But it turns out that 98% of abortions are
performed for elective reasons, rather than for reasons related to the health
of the fetus or mother. Based on such results, one may think that most
abortions are morally objectionable. But on the developmental view, this would
be a mistake. We need to also consider when most of these procedures take
place. As stated earlier, 99% of abortions are carried out before a fetus has
the capacity to feel pain. There is limited data to draw from when determining
why most late-term abortions are carried out. But Professor Diane Foster, a researcher at the Bixby
Center for Reproductive Health, suspects that fetal anomalies “make up a small
minority of later abortions,”. If we assume that most late term abortions are
morally objectionable, we still end up with a fairly low figure for morally
objectionable abortions. Put in terms of numbers, there would be approximately
7000 morally objectionable abortions carried out each year in the US. On the
developmental view, these 7000 abortions would not be the moral equivalent of
killing 7000 adults. It might be more like killing 7000 non-human animals (e.g.
cows, chickens) a year, or 20 a day. One might object that this comparison
between human and non-human fetuses is illegitimate. It may be argued that only
human fetuses have the potential to realize personhood and other morally
relevant properties. Therefore, human fetuses have more moral worth than
non-human animals. I will not take a stand on this issue here and will simply
leave it to the reader to dwell over.
In this post, I’ve
defended a developmental stance on abortion against the sanctity of life
doctrine. On the developmental view, the moral permissibility of an abortion
depends largely on when the procedure is carried out, but there are other
morally relevant factors (e.g. procedure, health of fetus/mother). Given that
most abortions occur before the fetus develops any of the morally relevant
features, I have argued that most abortions are morally permissible. While the
sanctity of life doctrine may be popular amongst laypeople (especially those
who are religious), it is not the most sophisticated anti-abortion view to hold.
In a future post, I will return to the subject of abortion to take on what I
take to be the strongest positions.
Further reading:
The philosopher Michael Tooley's influential article on
abortion (highly recommended)
Videos:
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