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Abortion.

December 30, 2004

Consider the following story:

Anna is driving her truck at night along an unlighted, winding road. She turns a corner and suddenly, 50 feet ahead of her, she sees a dark mass. She thinks she sees it move. It is about the size of an adult human being, but it could just as easily be a tree branch or a wounded deer. Anna has to decide whether to slam on her brakes (and risk spinning out of control) or to lay on the gas and drive over the thing, whatever it is.

Anna should slam on her brakes, even if Anna feels very confident that the thing is not a person, but a tree branch. General rule: When you’re in a situation like the one Anna is in, act as though you know the thing you’re about to destroy is a person unless you’re pretty close to certain that it is not a person.

I think that, like Anna, we should all be in doubt about whether a fetus is a person, although our ignorance has a different cause than Anna’s does. Anna should doubt that the dark mass is a person because Anna does not know the relevant brute facts about the object. If she knew just a few things about the object (e.g., "those things moving are leaves") then she would be in a position to know whether it is a person.

By contrast, we know many brute facts about the fetus — perhaps far more than we would ever need for the present purpose. Our ignorance about whether the fetus is a person has two sources: 1. the fact that the fetus is a "borderline case," and 2. the fact that there is no clear, uncontroversial set of criteria for personhood. We have "prime examples" of persons — I know I am a person, for instance, and I’m relatively certain you are one too — but we do not have an exhaustive list of "personhood criteria," and therefore cannot help being confused about borderline cases such as the case of a fetus. (Certainly, there are people who claim not to be confused about this question, but I claim they are confused about that as well.)

Thus, according to me, we should all be in doubt about whether a fetus is a person. But it seems to me that there should be no doubt about two conditionals:

1. If the fetus is not a person, abortion is a mostly harmless, and often beneficial, medical procedure;

2. If the fetus is a person, abortion kills a person.

Apparently some people do doubt either or both these conditionals. I won’t defend either of them in this post, but I might be moved to do so some other time. For now, assume without argument that these two conditionals are true. Would there be any doubt in that case that, unless you’re very close to certain that the fetus is not a person, you should refrain from aborting it?

So I’m arguing that abortion is wrong, in the same or similar way that it would be wrong for Anna not to slam on her brakes. But were my argument here successful, how wrong would abortion be? I don’t think it would turn out to be as wrong as many on the pro-life side seem to think it is. For instance, it wouldn’t be equivalent to murder. If Anna refrained from slamming on her brakes and the dark mass turned out to be a person, she should not be charged with murder; I’m not sure she should be charged with any crime at all.

Posted in Uncategorized

15 responses to “Abortion.”

Jacqueline

December 31, 2004

It’s irrelevant to the abortion debate whether or not a fetus is a person. Consider that pregnancy and childbirth cause more physical damage than most brutal rapes, and still kill many women every year. I have a right to self defense against this assault, including using lethal force if necessary.

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david

December 31, 2004

Jacqueline–
I’m inclined to agree that you have a right to have an abortion, though my reasons might be slightly different than the ones you give. But many things which one has a right to do are nevertheless immoral. For instance, if I’m a millionaire, I think I have a right not to contribute to any charities dealing with the recent tsunami, but I still think it would be immoral for me not to do so. Abortion might turn out to be something like that. My intention in this post was to look at the broadly moral aspect of abortion; I’m somewhat less concerned about legal and “rights” questions dealing with abortion.

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taylor

December 31, 2004

By whom is Jacqueline being assaulted if she is pregnant? By the fetus? But Jacqueline let the fetus into her body, with full knowledge of the possible consequences. If the fetus is not a person, killing it may not violate anyone’s rights (though it doesn’t follow that killing a fetus is the sort of thing a virtuous person would do — see Rosalind Hursthouse’s “Virtue Theory and Abortion”). If the fetus is a person, the issue is more complicated. Killing an innocent person, even in self-defence, is no trivial matter and requires justification, especially when one is responsible for creating the situation in the first place.

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Richard

December 31, 2004

This argument may only work against mid- to late-term abortions. Early on, the embryo is just a bunch of cells, and clearly not a person. The tricky questions don’t begin until a certain level of brain development is reached. Before that stage, I don’t see any good reason to doubt that there’s no ‘person’ there.
It seems to me that the only absolute pro-life argument (i.e. implying that all abortion is wrong) rests on assigning value to potential personhood. And that doesn’t strike me as particularly convincing.

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david

January 1, 2005

Richard-
I share your intuition that the clump of cells is probably not a person. The clump is creeping toward the border of the borderline region, and may have crawled just over the ridge. But the fact that so many people believe the clump is a person does, I think, count in favor of preserving its status as a borderline case.

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Richard

January 1, 2005

“But the fact that so many people believe the clump is a person does, I think, count in favor of preserving its status as a borderline case.”
But “so many people” believe all sorts of silly things – alien abductions, young-earth creationism, etc. The only important question is whether there are any good reasons for such belief.
Incidentally, do you suppose your precautionary principle would also commit you to vegetarianism? After all, many animals are much more cognitively developed than embryos are, which must at least raise some questions about their possible moral worth. Yet we slaughter them in huge numbers. This could (possibly) be terribly wrong. Are we being reckless here too?

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Dan Schneider

January 1, 2005

The dilemma is not so simple. 1st off- how many have ever held a fetus? I have. There simply aren’t many inch long humans I’ve met.
The real question is autonomy of the fetus- is it viable w/o extraordinary means, and the genetic destiny of the mom or pop. This is because in a decade of two it will be wholly viable to take zygotes to term outside the womb. Should we then take all aborted fetuses and raise them, against their parents’ wishes? & who bears the financial burden?
Another point is that abortion has been practiced in most nations thru history, w no set of beliefs in its personhood. Abortion nowadays has ben politicized in concert w the rise of women’s rts. I’m no dyed in the wool feminist- but I am a civil libertarian, and the timeline shows an interesting coincidence- as it does w the decline of Jim Crow. An untalked of linkage is the high incidence of white power anti-abortionists.
This goes back to the fallacious idea of the homunculus in sperm- w the homunculus merelt having been moved ahead in the timeline. All sperm are equally ‘potential’ humans-as are eggs- just a little less- so why discriminate against them? Am I on par with Stalin if my midnight ejac kills more sperm than he did folk? Are women who never reproduce serial killers? This is silly.
Euphemizing is also silly. What is pro-choice? Are you for free linoleum for all? No. I am pro-abortion, when needed. There is nothing wrong with that. I am pro-euthanasia, when needed. I am pro-death penalty, when needed, pro-drug legalization-although drugs are pernicious. Freedom entails risks, and folk who will abuse freedoms. But, by removing abortion from their very identity, pro-choicers have tacitly ceded the debate that there is something even taboo with the term, much less the procedure.
Then there are the constant lies from anti-abs- ‘partial birth abortion’ is neither partial, nor occurs in birth, It’s called a D & X- Dilation and Extraction. The Silent Scream was debunked. As were many other proagandists’ nonsense. The latest being that almost all women who have abortions are torn up over it.
I’ve known dozens- and recall not a one w severe trauma. An occasional what if? moment- but that’s normal. This is the Linda Lovelace phenomenon- where the ex-porno star became a Born Again, and spread all sorts of lies about that industry- just as some numbskulls bought Ted Bundy’s ‘confession’ that porno made him do it. It would be funny were it not so sad.
Unfortunately, few filk wanna discuss these repercussions.
Anyway, found you thru Majikthise. Keep up the discussions and please, don’t descend into the vapid sportswriterese and base politicizing of so many blogs. The Lowest Common Denominator need not affect everything. DAN

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david

January 1, 2005

Richard-
I am afraid the “precautionary principle” I’ve advocated here might indeed commit me to vegetarianism. I’m not a vegetarian (not even close), but I am very much open to the possibility that eating meat is immoral. If I do turn out to be committed to this result, I don’t think I’ll be in bad company.
I agree that we should not take just any silly beliefs seriously just because they happen to be widely held. But I think that there is a slight presumption in favor of widely held beliefs. This presumption can be countered by providing sound arguments to the effect that those beliefs are false. But I claim that such arguments are difficult to come by in the present case. No clear “personhood criteria” are known, so it is difficult to show that a fetus fails to meet those criteria.

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taylor

January 1, 2005

David, re. vegetarianism: Never mind about personhood and the precautionary principle. Your own beliefs about how how you should treat humans, including notably young children and the mentally handicapped, in all likelihood commit you to stop eating meat. It’s worth considering (and I am not the first to point this out) that Peter Singer, Tom Regan, et al. are not trying to impose their values on you; they are trying to impose YOUR values on you.

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Scott Hagaman

January 1, 2005

By way of considering objections to one’s position, you might find David Boonin’s book A Defense of Abortion helpful. He offers a critique of three versions of the argument from ignorance in sections 5.4, 5.41, and 5.42. And check out the table of contents at Amazon.com: http://www.amazon.com/gp/reader/0521520355/ref=sib_rdr_toc/002-7208371-0900062?%5Fencoding=UTF8&p=S00A#reader-page

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david

January 1, 2005

Thanks for the reference, Scott. I’ll have to check that one out.

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Jacqueline

January 4, 2005

“By whom is Jacqueline being assaulted if she is pregnant? By the fetus? But Jacqueline let the fetus into her body, with full knowledge of the possible consequences.”
If my birth control method fails, no I did not “let” the fetus in. If the lock on my front door is (unbeknownst to me) faulty, I didn’t “let” an intruder into my home, either.
“But, by removing abortion from their very identity, pro-choicers have tacitly ceded the debate that there is something even taboo with the term, much less the procedure.”
Personally, I call myself “pro-abortion” — not only do I think women have a right to it, but I also think the world would be a better place if more of them exercised that right.

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Jacqueline

January 4, 2005

Oh, and good job, David, starting your blog off with a topic sure to provoke comments. 🙂

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Alexppe

June 29, 2007

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hmwlfpdths

September 28, 2007

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