Philosophical aspects of the abortion debate
Encyclopedia
The philosophical aspects of the abortion debate are presented in the form of a number of logical arguments which can be made in support of or opposition to abortion
.
are deontological or rights-based. The view that all or almost all abortion should be illegal generally rests on the claims: (1) that the existence and moral right to life of human beings (human organisms) begins at or near conception-fertilization; (2) that induced abortion is the deliberate and unjust killing of the embryo
in violation of its right to life; and (3) that the law should prohibit unjust violations of the right to life. The view that abortion should in most or all circumstances be legal generally rests on the claims: (1) that women have a right to control what happens in and to their own bodies; (2) that abortion is a just exercise of this right; and (3) that the law should not criminalize just exercises of the right to control one’s own body. Both sides of the debate would grant premise (3) of the central pro-life argument and premises (1) and (3) of the central pro-choice argument.
Although both sides are likely to see the rights-based considerations as paramount, some popular arguments appeal to consequentialist or utilitarian considerations. For example, pro-life advocacy groups (see the list below) sometimes claim that the abortion – breast cancer hypothesis, post-abortion syndrome, and other alleged medical and psychological are risks of abortion. On the other side, some pro-choice groups (see the list below) draw attention to the fact that criminalizing abortion will lead to the deaths of many women through ‘back-alley abortions’; that unwanted children have a negative social impact (or conversely that abortion lowers the crime rate
); and that reproductive rights
are necessary to achieve the full and equal participation of women in society and the workforce. Consequentialist arguments on both sides tend to be vigorously disputed, though are not widely discussed in the philosophical literature.
Another family of arguments (see the section on Thomson, below) relates to bodily rights—the question of whether the woman’s bodily rights justify abortion even if the embryo has a right to life. A negative answer would support claim (2) in the central pro-life argument, while an affirmative answer would support claim (2) in the central pro-choice argument.
Warren, however, thinks that 'human being' is used in different senses in (1) and (2). In (1), 'human being' is used in a moral sense to mean a 'person', a 'full-fledged member of the moral community'. In (2), 'human being' means 'biological human
'. That the embryo is a biologically human organism or animal is uncontroversial, Warren holds. But it does not follow that the embryo is a person, and it is persons that have rights, such as the right to life.
To help make a distinction between 'person' and 'biological human', Warren notes that we should respect the lives of highly intelligent aliens
, even if they are not biological humans. She thinks there is a cluster of properties that characterize persons:
A person does not have to have each of these, but if something has all five then it definitely is a person whether it is biologically human or not, while if it has none or perhaps only one then it is not a person, again whether it is biologically human or not. The fetus has at most one, consciousness (and this only after it becomes susceptible to pain
—the timing of which is disputed), and hence is not a person.
Other writers apply similar criteria, concluding that the embryo lacks a right to life because it lacks self-consciousness, or rationality and self-consciousness, or 'certain higher psychological capacities' including 'autonomy'. These writers disagree on precisely which features confer a right to life, but agree those features must be certain developed psychological features which the embryo lacks.
Arguments of this sort face two main objections. The comatose patient objection claims that as patients in a reversible coma
do not satisfy Warren's (or other) criteria—they are not conscious, do not communicate, and so on—therefore they would lack a right to life on her view. One response is that 'although the reversibly comatose lack any conscious mental states, they do retain all their unconscious [or dispositional] mental states, since the appropriate neurological configurations are preserved in the brain.' This may allow them to satisfy some of Warren’s criteria. Also, patients with global ischemia do not have any of these characteristics nor any brain activity, but to kill them would be considered wrong and legally considered murder. Finally, there are some post-natal humans who are unable to feel pain due to genetic disorders and thus do not satisfy all of Warren's criteria.
The infanticide objection points out that infants (indeed up to about one year of age, since it is only around then that they begin to outstrip the abilities
of non-human animals) have only one of Warren’s characteristics—consciousness—and hence would have to be accounted non-persons on her view; thus her view would permit not only abortion but infanticide
. Warren agrees that infants are non-persons (and so killing them is not strictly murder), but denies that infanticide is generally permissible. For, Warren claims, once a human being is born, there is no longer a conflict between it and the woman's rights, since the human being can be given up for adoption
. Killing such a human being would be wrong, not because it is a person, but because it would go against the desires of people willing to adopt the infant and to pay to keep the infant alive.
Nonetheless, Warren grants that her argument entails that infanticide would be morally acceptable under some circumstances, such as those of a desert island. Philosopher Peter Singer
similarly concludes that infanticide, particularly of severely disabled infants, is justifiable under certain conditions. And Jeff McMahan grants that under very limited circumstances it may be permissible to kill one infant to save the lives of several others. Opponents may see these concessions as a reductio ad absurdum
of these writers' views; while supporters may see them merely as examples of unpleasant acts being justified in unusual cases.
that, under the right conditions, actively develops itself to the point of exhibiting Warren's qualities at some point in its life, even if it does not actually exhibit them because of not having developed them yet (embryo, infant) or having lost them (severe Alzheimer's). Because human beings do have this natural capacity—and indeed have it essentially—therefore (on this view) they essentially have a right to life: they could not possibly fail to have a right to life. Further, since modern embryology
shows that the embryo begins to exist at conception and has a natural capacity for complex mental qualities, therefore the right to life begins at conception.
Grounding the right to life in essential natural capacities rather than accidental developed capacities is said to have several advantages. As developed capacities are on a continuum, admitting of greater and lesser degrees—some, for example, are more rational and self-conscious than others—therefore: (1) the 'developed capacities’ view must arbitrarily select some particular degree of development as the cut-off point for the right to life—whereas the 'natural capacities' view is non-arbitrary; (2) those whose capacities are more developed would have more of a right to life on the 'developed capacities' view—whereas the 'natural capacities' view entails we all have an equal right to life; and (3) the continuum of developed capacities makes the exact point at which personhood ensues vague, and human beings around that point, say between one and two years of age, will have a shadowy or indeterminate
moral status—whereas there is no such indeterminacy on the 'natural capacities' view.
Some defenders of Warren-style arguments grant that these problems have not yet been fully solved, but reply that the 'natural capacities' view fares no better. It is argued, for example, that as human beings vary significantly in their natural cognitive capacities (some are naturally
more intelligent than others), and as one can imagine a series or spectrum of species with gradually diminishing natural capacities (for example, a series from humans down to amoebae with only the slightest differences in natural capacities between each successive species), therefore the problems of arbitrariness and inequality will apply equally to the 'natural capacities' view. In other words, there is a continuum not only of developed but of natural capacities, and so the 'natural capacities' view will inevitably face these problems as well.
Some critics reject the 'natural capacities' view on the basis that it takes mere species membership or genetic potential as a basis for respect (in essence a charge of speciesism
), or because it entails that anencephalic infants and the irreversibly comatose
have a full right to life. Moreover, as with Marquis’s argument (see below), some theories of personal identity would support the view that the embryo will never itself develop complex mental qualities (rather, it will simply give rise to a distinct substance or entity that will have these qualities), in which case the 'natural capacities' argument would fail. Respondents to this criticism argue that the noted human cases in fact would not be classified as persons as they do not have a natural capacity to develop any psychological features.
argues that abortion is wrong because it deprives the embryo of a valuable future. Marquis begins by arguing that what makes it wrong to kill a normal adult human being is the fact that the killing inflicts a terrible harm on the victim. The harm consists in the fact that ‘when I die, I am deprived of all of the value of my future’: I am deprived of all the valuable ‘experiences, activities, projects, and enjoyments’ that I would otherwise have had. Thus, if a being has a highly valuable future ahead of it—a ‘future like ours’—then killing that being would be seriously harmful and hence seriously wrong. But then, as a standard embryo does have a highly valuable future, killing it is seriously wrong. And so ‘the overwhelming majority of deliberate abortions are seriously immoral’—‘in the same moral category as killing an innocent adult human being’.
A consequence of this argument is that abortion is wrong in all the cases where killing a child or adult with the same sort of future as the embryo would be wrong. So for example, if involuntary euthanasia
of patients with a future filled with intense physical pain is morally acceptable, aborting embryos whose future is filled with intense physical pain will also be morally acceptable. But it would not do, for example, to invoke the fact that some embryo's future would involve such things as being raised by an unloving family, since we do not take it to be acceptable to kill a five-year-old just because her future involves being raised by an unloving family. Similarly, killing a child or adult may be permissible in exceptional circumstances such as self-defense or (perhaps) capital punishment
; but these are irrelevant to standard abortions.
Marquis’s argument has prompted several objections. The contraception objection claims that if Marquis’s argument is correct, then, since sperm and ova (or perhaps a sperm and ovum jointly) have a future like ours, contraception
would be as wrong as murder; but as this conclusion is (it is said) absurd—even those who believe contraception is wrong do not believe it is as wrong as murder—the argument must be unsound. One response is that neither the sperm, nor the egg, nor any particular sperm-egg combination, will ever itself live out a valuable future: what will later have valuable experiences, activities, projects, and enjoyments is a new entity, a new organism, that will come into existence at or near conception; and it is this entity, not the sperm or egg or any sperm-egg combination, that has a future like ours.
As this response makes clear, Marquis's argument requires that what will later have valuable experiences and activities is the same entity, the same biological organism, as the embryo. The identity objection rejects this assumption. On certain theories of personal identity (generally motivated by thought experiment
s involving brain
or cerebrum transplants), each of us is not a biological organism but rather an embodied mind or a person (in
John Locke’s sense) that comes into existence when the brain gives rise to certain developed psychological capacities. If either of these views is correct, Marquis’s argument will fail; for the embryo (even the early fetus, lacking the relevant psychological capacities) would not itself have a future of value, but would merely have the potential to give rise to a different entity, an embodied mind or a person, that would have a future of value. The success of Marquis’s argument thus depends on one’s favored account of personal identity.
The interests objection claims that what makes murder wrong is not just the deprivation of a valuable future, but the deprivation of a future that one has an interest in. The embryo has no conscious interest in its future, and so (the objection concludes) to kill it is not wrong. The defender of Marquis-style arguments may, however, give the counterexample of the suicidal teenager who takes no interest in his or her future, but killing whom is nonetheless wrong and murder. If the opponent responds that one can have an interest in one's future without taking an interest in it, then the defender of the Marquis-style argument can claim that this applies to the embryo. Similarly, if an opponent claims that what is crucial is having a valuable future which one would, under ideal conditions, desire to preserve (whether or not one does in fact desire to preserve it), then the defender may ask why the embryo would not, under ideal conditions, desire to preserve its future.
The equality objection claims that Marquis’s argument leads to unacceptable inequalities. If, as Marquis claims, killing is wrong because it deprives the victim of a valuable future, then, since some futures appear to contain much more value than others—a 9 year old has a much longer future than a 90 year old, a middle class
person’s future has much less gratuitous pain and suffering than someone in extreme poverty
—some killings would turn out to be much more wrong than others. But as this is strongly counterintuitive (most people believe all killings are equally wrong, other things being equal), Marquis’s argument must be mistaken. Some writers have concluded that the wrongness of killing arises not from the harm it causes the victim (since this varies greatly among killings), but from the killing’s violation of the intrinsic worth or personhood of the victim. However, such accounts may themselves face problems of equality, and so the equality objection may not be decisive against Marquis's argument.
The psychological connectedness objection claims that a being can be seriously harmed by being deprived of a valuable future only if there are sufficient psychological connections—sufficient correlations or continuations of memory, belief, desire and the like—between the being as it is now and the being as it will be when it lives out the valuable future. As there are few psychological connections between the embryo and its later self, it is concluded that depriving it of its future does not seriously harm it (and hence is not seriously wrong). A defence of this objection is likely to rest, as with certain views of personal identity, on thought experiments involving brain
or cerebrum swaps; and this may render it implausible to some readers.
, Judith Jarvis Thomson
argues that abortion is in some circumstances permissible even if the embryo has a right to life. Her central argument involves a thought experiment
. Imagine, Thomson says, that you wake up in bed next to a famous violinist. He is unconscious with a fatal kidney ailment; and because only you happen to have the right blood type to help, the Society of Music Lovers has kidnapped you and plugged your circulatory system into his so that your kidneys can filter poisons from his blood as well as your own. If he is disconnected from you now, he will die; but in nine months he will recover and can be safely disconnected. Thomson takes it that you may permissibly unplug yourself from the violinist even though this will kill him. The right to life, Thomson says, does not entail the right to use another person's body, and so in disconnecting the violinist you do not violate his right to life but merely deprive him of something—the use of your body—to which he has no right. Similarly, even if the embryo has a right to life, it does not have a right to use the pregnant woman's body; and so aborting the embryo is permissible in at least some circumstances. However, Thomson notes that the woman's right to abortion does not include the right to directly insist upon the death of the child, should the fetus happen to be viable, that is, capable of surviving outside the womb.
Critics of this argument generally agree that unplugging the violinist is permissible, but claim there are morally relevant disanalogies between the violinist scenario and typical cases of abortion. The most common objection is that the violinist scenario, involving a kidnapping, is analogous only to abortion after rape
. In most cases of abortion, it is said, the pregnant woman was not raped but had intercourse voluntarily, and thus has either tacitly consented to allowing the embryo to use her body (the tacit consent objection), or else has a duty to sustain the embryo because the woman herself caused it to stand in need of her body (the responsibility objection). Other common objections turn on the claim that the embryo is the pregnant woman's child whereas the violinist is a stranger (the stranger versus offspring objection); that abortion kills the embryo whereas unplugging the violinist merely lets him die (the killing versus letting die objection); or, similarly, that abortion intentionally causes the embryo's death whereas unplugging the violinist merely causes death as a foreseen but unintended side-effect (the intending versus foreseeing objection; cf the doctrine of double effect).
Defenders of Thomson's argument—most notably David Boonin—reply that the alleged disanalogies between the violinist scenario and typical cases of abortion do not hold, either because the factors that critics appeal to are not genuinely morally relevant, or because those factors are morally relevant but do not apply to abortion in the way that critics have claimed. Critics have in turn responded to Boonin's arguments.
Alternative scenarios have been put forth as more accurate and realistic representations of the moral issues present in abortion. John Noonan proposes the scenario of a family who was found to be liable for frostbite finger loss suffered by a dinner guest whom they refused to allow to stay overnight, although it was very cold outside and the guest showed signs of being sick. It is argued that just as it would not be permissible to refuse temporary accommodation for the guest to protect them from physical harm, it would not be permissible to refuse temporary accommodation of a fetus.
Other critics claim that there is a difference between artificial and extraordinary means of preservation, such as medical treatment, kidney dialysis, and blood transfusions, and normal and natural means of preservation, such as gestation, childbirth, and breastfeeding. They argue that if a baby was born into an environment in which there was no replacement available for her mother's breast milk, and the baby would either breastfeed or starve, the mother would have to allow the baby to breastfeed. But the mother would never have to give the baby a blood transfusion, no matter what the circumstances were. The difference between breastfeeding in that scenario and blood transfusions is the difference between gestation and childbirth on the one hand, and using your body as a kidney dialysis machine on the other.
Thomson's argument thus remains highly controversial; but arguably it does at least show that the moral impermissibility of abortion does not obviously and necessarily follow from the claim that the fetus has a right to life.
Abortion
Abortion is defined as the termination of pregnancy by the removal or expulsion from the uterus of a fetus or embryo prior to viability. An abortion can occur spontaneously, in which case it is usually called a miscarriage, or it can be purposely induced...
.
Overview
The central arguments in the abortion debateAbortion debate
The abortion debate refers to discussion and controversy surrounding the moral and legal status of abortion. The two main groups involved in the abortion debate are the self-described "pro-choice" movement and the "pro-life" movement...
are deontological or rights-based. The view that all or almost all abortion should be illegal generally rests on the claims: (1) that the existence and moral right to life of human beings (human organisms) begins at or near conception-fertilization; (2) that induced abortion is the deliberate and unjust killing of the embryo
Embryo
An embryo is a multicellular diploid eukaryote in its earliest stage of development, from the time of first cell division until birth, hatching, or germination...
in violation of its right to life; and (3) that the law should prohibit unjust violations of the right to life. The view that abortion should in most or all circumstances be legal generally rests on the claims: (1) that women have a right to control what happens in and to their own bodies; (2) that abortion is a just exercise of this right; and (3) that the law should not criminalize just exercises of the right to control one’s own body. Both sides of the debate would grant premise (3) of the central pro-life argument and premises (1) and (3) of the central pro-choice argument.
Although both sides are likely to see the rights-based considerations as paramount, some popular arguments appeal to consequentialist or utilitarian considerations. For example, pro-life advocacy groups (see the list below) sometimes claim that the abortion – breast cancer hypothesis, post-abortion syndrome, and other alleged medical and psychological are risks of abortion. On the other side, some pro-choice groups (see the list below) draw attention to the fact that criminalizing abortion will lead to the deaths of many women through ‘back-alley abortions’; that unwanted children have a negative social impact (or conversely that abortion lowers the crime rate
Legalized abortion and crime effect
The effect of legalized abortion on crime is the theory that legal abortion reduces crime. Proponents of the theory generally argue that since unwanted children are more likely to become criminals and that an inverse correlation is observed between the availability of abortion and subsequent crime...
); and that reproductive rights
Reproductive rights
Reproductive rights are legal rights and freedoms relating to reproduction and reproductive health. The World Health Organization defines reproductive rights as follows:...
are necessary to achieve the full and equal participation of women in society and the workforce. Consequentialist arguments on both sides tend to be vigorously disputed, though are not widely discussed in the philosophical literature.
Philosophical argumentation on the moral issue
Contemporary philosophical literature contains two kinds of arguments concerning the morality of abortion. One family of arguments (see the following three sections) relates to the moral status of the embryo—the question of whether the embryo has a right to life, is the sort of being it would be seriously wrong to kill, or in other words is a 'person' in the moral sense. An affirmative answer would support claim (1) in the central pro-life argument, while a negative answer would support claim (2) in the central pro-choice argument.Another family of arguments (see the section on Thomson, below) relates to bodily rights—the question of whether the woman’s bodily rights justify abortion even if the embryo has a right to life. A negative answer would support claim (2) in the central pro-life argument, while an affirmative answer would support claim (2) in the central pro-choice argument.
Arguments based on criteria for personhood
Mary Anne Warren, in her article arguing for the permissibility of abortion, holds that moral opposition to abortion is based on the following argument:- It is wrong to kill innocent human beings.
- The embryo is an innocent human being.
- Hence it is wrong to kill the embryo.
Warren, however, thinks that 'human being' is used in different senses in (1) and (2). In (1), 'human being' is used in a moral sense to mean a 'person', a 'full-fledged member of the moral community'. In (2), 'human being' means 'biological human
Human
Humans are the only living species in the Homo genus...
'. That the embryo is a biologically human organism or animal is uncontroversial, Warren holds. But it does not follow that the embryo is a person, and it is persons that have rights, such as the right to life.
To help make a distinction between 'person' and 'biological human', Warren notes that we should respect the lives of highly intelligent aliens
Extraterrestrial life
Extraterrestrial life is defined as life that does not originate from Earth...
, even if they are not biological humans. She thinks there is a cluster of properties that characterize persons:
- consciousnessConsciousnessConsciousness is a term that refers to the relationship between the mind and the world with which it interacts. It has been defined as: subjectivity, awareness, the ability to experience or to feel, wakefulness, having a sense of selfhood, and the executive control system of the mind...
(of objects and events external and/or internal to the being), and in particular the capacity to feel pain - reasoning (the developed capacity to solve new and relatively complex problems)
- self-motivated activity (activity which is relatively independent of either genetic or direct external control)
- the capacity to communicate, by whatever means, messages of an indefinite variety of types, that is, not just with an indefinite number of possible contents, but on indefinitely many possible topics
- the presence of self-concepts, and self-awarenessSelf-awarenessSelf-awareness is the capacity for introspection and the ability to reconcile oneself as an individual separate from the environment and other individuals...
, either individual or racial, or both
A person does not have to have each of these, but if something has all five then it definitely is a person whether it is biologically human or not, while if it has none or perhaps only one then it is not a person, again whether it is biologically human or not. The fetus has at most one, consciousness (and this only after it becomes susceptible to pain
Fetal pain
Neonatal perception is the study of the extent of somatosensory and other perceptual systems during pregnancy. In practical terms, this means the study of fetuses; none of the accepted indicators of perception are present in embryos....
—the timing of which is disputed), and hence is not a person.
Other writers apply similar criteria, concluding that the embryo lacks a right to life because it lacks self-consciousness, or rationality and self-consciousness, or 'certain higher psychological capacities' including 'autonomy'. These writers disagree on precisely which features confer a right to life, but agree those features must be certain developed psychological features which the embryo lacks.
Arguments of this sort face two main objections. The comatose patient objection claims that as patients in a reversible coma
Coma
In medicine, a coma is a state of unconsciousness, lasting more than 6 hours in which a person cannot be awakened, fails to respond normally to painful stimuli, light or sound, lacks a normal sleep-wake cycle and does not initiate voluntary actions. A person in a state of coma is described as...
do not satisfy Warren's (or other) criteria—they are not conscious, do not communicate, and so on—therefore they would lack a right to life on her view. One response is that 'although the reversibly comatose lack any conscious mental states, they do retain all their unconscious [or dispositional] mental states, since the appropriate neurological configurations are preserved in the brain.' This may allow them to satisfy some of Warren’s criteria. Also, patients with global ischemia do not have any of these characteristics nor any brain activity, but to kill them would be considered wrong and legally considered murder. Finally, there are some post-natal humans who are unable to feel pain due to genetic disorders and thus do not satisfy all of Warren's criteria.
The infanticide objection points out that infants (indeed up to about one year of age, since it is only around then that they begin to outstrip the abilities
Animal cognition
Animal cognition is the title given to the study of the mental capacities of non-human animals. It has developed out of comparative psychology, but has also been strongly influenced by the approach of ethology, behavioral ecology, and evolutionary psychology...
of non-human animals) have only one of Warren’s characteristics—consciousness—and hence would have to be accounted non-persons on her view; thus her view would permit not only abortion but infanticide
Infanticide
Infanticide or infant homicide is the killing of a human infant. Neonaticide, a killing within 24 hours of a baby's birth, is most commonly done by the mother.In many past societies, certain forms of infanticide were considered permissible...
. Warren agrees that infants are non-persons (and so killing them is not strictly murder), but denies that infanticide is generally permissible. For, Warren claims, once a human being is born, there is no longer a conflict between it and the woman's rights, since the human being can be given up for adoption
Adoption
Adoption is a process whereby a person assumes the parenting for another and, in so doing, permanently transfers all rights and responsibilities from the original parent or parents...
. Killing such a human being would be wrong, not because it is a person, but because it would go against the desires of people willing to adopt the infant and to pay to keep the infant alive.
Nonetheless, Warren grants that her argument entails that infanticide would be morally acceptable under some circumstances, such as those of a desert island. Philosopher Peter Singer
Peter Singer
Peter Albert David Singer is an Australian philosopher who is the Ira W. DeCamp Professor of Bioethics at Princeton University and Laureate Professor at the Centre for Applied Philosophy and Public Ethics at the University of Melbourne...
similarly concludes that infanticide, particularly of severely disabled infants, is justifiable under certain conditions. And Jeff McMahan grants that under very limited circumstances it may be permissible to kill one infant to save the lives of several others. Opponents may see these concessions as a reductio ad absurdum
Reductio ad absurdum
In logic, proof by contradiction is a form of proof that establishes the truth or validity of a proposition by showing that the proposition's being false would imply a contradiction...
of these writers' views; while supporters may see them merely as examples of unpleasant acts being justified in unusual cases.
The natural capacities view
Some opponents of Warren’s view believe that what matters morally is not that one be actually exhibiting complex mental qualities of the sort she identifies, but rather that one have in oneself a self-directed genetic propensity or natural capacity to develop such qualities. In other words, what is crucial is that one be the kind of entity or substanceSubstance theory
Substance theory, or substance attribute theory, is an ontological theory about objecthood, positing that a substance is distinct from its properties. A thing-in-itself is a property-bearer that must be distinguished from the properties it bears....
that, under the right conditions, actively develops itself to the point of exhibiting Warren's qualities at some point in its life, even if it does not actually exhibit them because of not having developed them yet (embryo, infant) or having lost them (severe Alzheimer's). Because human beings do have this natural capacity—and indeed have it essentially—therefore (on this view) they essentially have a right to life: they could not possibly fail to have a right to life. Further, since modern embryology
Embryology
Embryology is a science which is about the development of an embryo from the fertilization of the ovum to the fetus stage...
shows that the embryo begins to exist at conception and has a natural capacity for complex mental qualities, therefore the right to life begins at conception.
Grounding the right to life in essential natural capacities rather than accidental developed capacities is said to have several advantages. As developed capacities are on a continuum, admitting of greater and lesser degrees—some, for example, are more rational and self-conscious than others—therefore: (1) the 'developed capacities’ view must arbitrarily select some particular degree of development as the cut-off point for the right to life—whereas the 'natural capacities' view is non-arbitrary; (2) those whose capacities are more developed would have more of a right to life on the 'developed capacities' view—whereas the 'natural capacities' view entails we all have an equal right to life; and (3) the continuum of developed capacities makes the exact point at which personhood ensues vague, and human beings around that point, say between one and two years of age, will have a shadowy or indeterminate
Vagueness
The term vagueness denotes a property of concepts . A concept is vague:* if the concept's extension is unclear;* if there are objects which one cannot say with certainty whether belong to a group of objects which are identified with this concept or which exhibit characteristics that have this...
moral status—whereas there is no such indeterminacy on the 'natural capacities' view.
Some defenders of Warren-style arguments grant that these problems have not yet been fully solved, but reply that the 'natural capacities' view fares no better. It is argued, for example, that as human beings vary significantly in their natural cognitive capacities (some are naturally
Inheritance of intelligence
The study of the heritability of IQ investigates the relative importance of genetics and environment for variation in intelligence quotient in a population...
more intelligent than others), and as one can imagine a series or spectrum of species with gradually diminishing natural capacities (for example, a series from humans down to amoebae with only the slightest differences in natural capacities between each successive species), therefore the problems of arbitrariness and inequality will apply equally to the 'natural capacities' view. In other words, there is a continuum not only of developed but of natural capacities, and so the 'natural capacities' view will inevitably face these problems as well.
Some critics reject the 'natural capacities' view on the basis that it takes mere species membership or genetic potential as a basis for respect (in essence a charge of speciesism
Speciesism
Speciesism is the assigning of different values or rights to beings on the basis of their species membership. The term was created by British psychologist Richard D...
), or because it entails that anencephalic infants and the irreversibly comatose
Persistent vegetative state
A persistent vegetative state is a disorder of consciousness in which patients with severe brain damage are in a state of partial arousal rather than true awareness. It is a diagnosis of some uncertainty in that it deals with a syndrome. After four weeks in a vegetative state , the patient is...
have a full right to life. Moreover, as with Marquis’s argument (see below), some theories of personal identity would support the view that the embryo will never itself develop complex mental qualities (rather, it will simply give rise to a distinct substance or entity that will have these qualities), in which case the 'natural capacities' argument would fail. Respondents to this criticism argue that the noted human cases in fact would not be classified as persons as they do not have a natural capacity to develop any psychological features.
The deprivation argument
A seminal essay by Don MarquisDon Marquis (philosopher)
Don Marquis is an American philosopher whose main academic interests are in ethics and medical ethics. Marquis is currently Professor of Philosophy at the University of Kansas....
argues that abortion is wrong because it deprives the embryo of a valuable future. Marquis begins by arguing that what makes it wrong to kill a normal adult human being is the fact that the killing inflicts a terrible harm on the victim. The harm consists in the fact that ‘when I die, I am deprived of all of the value of my future’: I am deprived of all the valuable ‘experiences, activities, projects, and enjoyments’ that I would otherwise have had. Thus, if a being has a highly valuable future ahead of it—a ‘future like ours’—then killing that being would be seriously harmful and hence seriously wrong. But then, as a standard embryo does have a highly valuable future, killing it is seriously wrong. And so ‘the overwhelming majority of deliberate abortions are seriously immoral’—‘in the same moral category as killing an innocent adult human being’.
A consequence of this argument is that abortion is wrong in all the cases where killing a child or adult with the same sort of future as the embryo would be wrong. So for example, if involuntary euthanasia
Euthanasia
Euthanasia refers to the practice of intentionally ending a life in order to relieve pain and suffering....
of patients with a future filled with intense physical pain is morally acceptable, aborting embryos whose future is filled with intense physical pain will also be morally acceptable. But it would not do, for example, to invoke the fact that some embryo's future would involve such things as being raised by an unloving family, since we do not take it to be acceptable to kill a five-year-old just because her future involves being raised by an unloving family. Similarly, killing a child or adult may be permissible in exceptional circumstances such as self-defense or (perhaps) capital punishment
Capital punishment
Capital punishment, the death penalty, or execution is the sentence of death upon a person by the state as a punishment for an offence. Crimes that can result in a death penalty are known as capital crimes or capital offences. The term capital originates from the Latin capitalis, literally...
; but these are irrelevant to standard abortions.
Marquis’s argument has prompted several objections. The contraception objection claims that if Marquis’s argument is correct, then, since sperm and ova (or perhaps a sperm and ovum jointly) have a future like ours, contraception
Contraception
Contraception is the prevention of the fusion of gametes during or after sexual activity. The term contraception is a contraction of contra, which means against, and the word conception, meaning fertilization...
would be as wrong as murder; but as this conclusion is (it is said) absurd—even those who believe contraception is wrong do not believe it is as wrong as murder—the argument must be unsound. One response is that neither the sperm, nor the egg, nor any particular sperm-egg combination, will ever itself live out a valuable future: what will later have valuable experiences, activities, projects, and enjoyments is a new entity, a new organism, that will come into existence at or near conception; and it is this entity, not the sperm or egg or any sperm-egg combination, that has a future like ours.
As this response makes clear, Marquis's argument requires that what will later have valuable experiences and activities is the same entity, the same biological organism, as the embryo. The identity objection rejects this assumption. On certain theories of personal identity (generally motivated by thought experiment
Thought experiment
A thought experiment or Gedankenexperiment considers some hypothesis, theory, or principle for the purpose of thinking through its consequences...
s involving brain
Brain
The brain is the center of the nervous system in all vertebrate and most invertebrate animals—only a few primitive invertebrates such as sponges, jellyfish, sea squirts and starfishes do not have one. It is located in the head, usually close to primary sensory apparatus such as vision, hearing,...
or cerebrum transplants), each of us is not a biological organism but rather an embodied mind or a person (in
John Locke’s sense) that comes into existence when the brain gives rise to certain developed psychological capacities. If either of these views is correct, Marquis’s argument will fail; for the embryo (even the early fetus, lacking the relevant psychological capacities) would not itself have a future of value, but would merely have the potential to give rise to a different entity, an embodied mind or a person, that would have a future of value. The success of Marquis’s argument thus depends on one’s favored account of personal identity.
The interests objection claims that what makes murder wrong is not just the deprivation of a valuable future, but the deprivation of a future that one has an interest in. The embryo has no conscious interest in its future, and so (the objection concludes) to kill it is not wrong. The defender of Marquis-style arguments may, however, give the counterexample of the suicidal teenager who takes no interest in his or her future, but killing whom is nonetheless wrong and murder. If the opponent responds that one can have an interest in one's future without taking an interest in it, then the defender of the Marquis-style argument can claim that this applies to the embryo. Similarly, if an opponent claims that what is crucial is having a valuable future which one would, under ideal conditions, desire to preserve (whether or not one does in fact desire to preserve it), then the defender may ask why the embryo would not, under ideal conditions, desire to preserve its future.
The equality objection claims that Marquis’s argument leads to unacceptable inequalities. If, as Marquis claims, killing is wrong because it deprives the victim of a valuable future, then, since some futures appear to contain much more value than others—a 9 year old has a much longer future than a 90 year old, a middle class
Middle class
The middle class is any class of people in the middle of a societal hierarchy. In Weberian socio-economic terms, the middle class is the broad group of people in contemporary society who fall socio-economically between the working class and upper class....
person’s future has much less gratuitous pain and suffering than someone in extreme poverty
Poverty
Poverty is the lack of a certain amount of material possessions or money. Absolute poverty or destitution is inability to afford basic human needs, which commonly includes clean and fresh water, nutrition, health care, education, clothing and shelter. About 1.7 billion people are estimated to live...
—some killings would turn out to be much more wrong than others. But as this is strongly counterintuitive (most people believe all killings are equally wrong, other things being equal), Marquis’s argument must be mistaken. Some writers have concluded that the wrongness of killing arises not from the harm it causes the victim (since this varies greatly among killings), but from the killing’s violation of the intrinsic worth or personhood of the victim. However, such accounts may themselves face problems of equality, and so the equality objection may not be decisive against Marquis's argument.
The psychological connectedness objection claims that a being can be seriously harmed by being deprived of a valuable future only if there are sufficient psychological connections—sufficient correlations or continuations of memory, belief, desire and the like—between the being as it is now and the being as it will be when it lives out the valuable future. As there are few psychological connections between the embryo and its later self, it is concluded that depriving it of its future does not seriously harm it (and hence is not seriously wrong). A defence of this objection is likely to rest, as with certain views of personal identity, on thought experiments involving brain
Brain
The brain is the center of the nervous system in all vertebrate and most invertebrate animals—only a few primitive invertebrates such as sponges, jellyfish, sea squirts and starfishes do not have one. It is located in the head, usually close to primary sensory apparatus such as vision, hearing,...
or cerebrum swaps; and this may render it implausible to some readers.
The bodily rights argument
In her well-known article A Defense of AbortionA Defense of Abortion
A Defense of Abortion is a moral philosophy paper by Judith Jarvis Thomson first published in 1971. Granting for the sake of argument that the fetus has a right to life, Thomson uses thought experiments to argue for the moral permissibility of induced abortion. Her argument has many critics on both...
, Judith Jarvis Thomson
Judith Jarvis Thomson
Judith Jarvis Thomson is an American moral philosopher and metaphysician, best known for her use of thought experiments to make philosophical points.- Career :...
argues that abortion is in some circumstances permissible even if the embryo has a right to life. Her central argument involves a thought experiment
Thought experiment
A thought experiment or Gedankenexperiment considers some hypothesis, theory, or principle for the purpose of thinking through its consequences...
. Imagine, Thomson says, that you wake up in bed next to a famous violinist. He is unconscious with a fatal kidney ailment; and because only you happen to have the right blood type to help, the Society of Music Lovers has kidnapped you and plugged your circulatory system into his so that your kidneys can filter poisons from his blood as well as your own. If he is disconnected from you now, he will die; but in nine months he will recover and can be safely disconnected. Thomson takes it that you may permissibly unplug yourself from the violinist even though this will kill him. The right to life, Thomson says, does not entail the right to use another person's body, and so in disconnecting the violinist you do not violate his right to life but merely deprive him of something—the use of your body—to which he has no right. Similarly, even if the embryo has a right to life, it does not have a right to use the pregnant woman's body; and so aborting the embryo is permissible in at least some circumstances. However, Thomson notes that the woman's right to abortion does not include the right to directly insist upon the death of the child, should the fetus happen to be viable, that is, capable of surviving outside the womb.
Critics of this argument generally agree that unplugging the violinist is permissible, but claim there are morally relevant disanalogies between the violinist scenario and typical cases of abortion. The most common objection is that the violinist scenario, involving a kidnapping, is analogous only to abortion after rape
Rape
Rape is a type of sexual assault usually involving sexual intercourse, which is initiated by one or more persons against another person without that person's consent. The act may be carried out by physical force, coercion, abuse of authority or with a person who is incapable of valid consent. The...
. In most cases of abortion, it is said, the pregnant woman was not raped but had intercourse voluntarily, and thus has either tacitly consented to allowing the embryo to use her body (the tacit consent objection), or else has a duty to sustain the embryo because the woman herself caused it to stand in need of her body (the responsibility objection). Other common objections turn on the claim that the embryo is the pregnant woman's child whereas the violinist is a stranger (the stranger versus offspring objection); that abortion kills the embryo whereas unplugging the violinist merely lets him die (the killing versus letting die objection); or, similarly, that abortion intentionally causes the embryo's death whereas unplugging the violinist merely causes death as a foreseen but unintended side-effect (the intending versus foreseeing objection; cf the doctrine of double effect).
Defenders of Thomson's argument—most notably David Boonin—reply that the alleged disanalogies between the violinist scenario and typical cases of abortion do not hold, either because the factors that critics appeal to are not genuinely morally relevant, or because those factors are morally relevant but do not apply to abortion in the way that critics have claimed. Critics have in turn responded to Boonin's arguments.
Alternative scenarios have been put forth as more accurate and realistic representations of the moral issues present in abortion. John Noonan proposes the scenario of a family who was found to be liable for frostbite finger loss suffered by a dinner guest whom they refused to allow to stay overnight, although it was very cold outside and the guest showed signs of being sick. It is argued that just as it would not be permissible to refuse temporary accommodation for the guest to protect them from physical harm, it would not be permissible to refuse temporary accommodation of a fetus.
Other critics claim that there is a difference between artificial and extraordinary means of preservation, such as medical treatment, kidney dialysis, and blood transfusions, and normal and natural means of preservation, such as gestation, childbirth, and breastfeeding. They argue that if a baby was born into an environment in which there was no replacement available for her mother's breast milk, and the baby would either breastfeed or starve, the mother would have to allow the baby to breastfeed. But the mother would never have to give the baby a blood transfusion, no matter what the circumstances were. The difference between breastfeeding in that scenario and blood transfusions is the difference between gestation and childbirth on the one hand, and using your body as a kidney dialysis machine on the other.
Thomson's argument thus remains highly controversial; but arguably it does at least show that the moral impermissibility of abortion does not obviously and necessarily follow from the claim that the fetus has a right to life.
See also
- Ethical aspects of abortion
- Fetal rightsFetal rightsFetal rights is a term used in some countries in reference to legislation that grants legal rights to fetuses. The term is used most often in the context of the abortion debate, as the basis for an argument in support of the pro-life stance....
- Fetal painFetal painNeonatal perception is the study of the extent of somatosensory and other perceptual systems during pregnancy. In practical terms, this means the study of fetuses; none of the accepted indicators of perception are present in embryos....
- Paternal rights and abortionPaternal rights and abortionThe paternal rights and abortion issue is an extension of both the abortion debate and the fathers' rights movement. Countries recognizing father's legal rights on abortion have laws requiring that the male who impregnated the pregnant female either consent or be informed before she has an...
- PersonPersonA person is a human being, or an entity that has certain capacities or attributes strongly associated with being human , for example in a particular moral or legal context...
- for a discussion of personhood - Libertarian perspectives on abortionLibertarian perspectives on abortionLibertarians promote individual liberty and seek to minimize the role of the state. The majority of libertarians consider a right to abortion as part of their general support for individual rights, especially in regard to what they consider to be a woman's right to control her body...
- Religion and abortionReligion and abortionMany religious traditions have taken a stance on abortion, and these stances span a broad spectrum as highlighted below.-Buddhism:There is no single Buddhist view concerning abortion. Traditional sources, such as the Buddhist monastic code, hold that life begins at conception and that abortion,...
- Societal attitudes towards abortionSocietal attitudes towards abortionSocietal attitudes towards abortion have varied throughout different historical periods and cultures. One manner of assessing such attitudes in the modern era has been to conduct opinion polls to measure levels of public opinion on abortion.-Africa:...