In this lecture The debate Roe v. Wade Pro-life v. pro-choice
Personhood Interests Potentiality Future-like-ours Bodily autonomy
Special cases
Slide 3
The Debate The legal status of something refers to how it is to
be regarded from the legal point of view. The moral status of
something refers to how it is to be regarded from the moral point
of view.
Slide 4
The Debate A fetus is an unborn child at any stage throughout
pregnancy. An embryo is a fetus at a very early stage of
pregnancy.
Slide 5
The Debate Since abortions have been legalized (especially
after the United States Supreme Courts ruling on Roe v. Wade in
1973), it is one of the safest procedures, with little history of
complication or side effects. Thus, the abortion debate is not
about health issues, but moral issues.
Slide 6
The Debate The abortion debate usually surrounds the issues of
whether a fetus has a right to life, and whether the pregnant
womans right over her own body justifies abortion even if the fetus
has a right to life.
Slide 7
The Debate Does a fetus have a right to be carried to full
term? Does a pregnant woman have the right to do whatever she wants
with her body, including the right to dispose of a fetus?
Slide 8
The Debate Arguments on both sides of the debate look at issues
from the third- person point of view and pay scant attention to
matters of personal concern. Approaching the question from the
first person perspective (from the pregnant womans point of view)
may involve very different considerations.
Slide 9
Roe v. Wade The United States Supreme Court in the Roe v. Wade
(1973) decision established that a womans constitutional right to
privacy included a right to an abortion. Prospective mothers are
free to abort for personal reasons up until the third trimester
(i.e. 6 months).
Slide 10
Roe v. Wade The right to choose whether to have children was
protected by the right to privacy. Privacy can be understood as a
condition in which one is not disturbed by government. In relation
to abortion, privacy is defined as the right of a woman to decide
what happens to her own body.
Slide 11
Roe v. Wade However, a womans right to terminate her pregnancy
is not absolute after the fetus becomes viable, the state may
prohibit all abortions except those necessary to preserve the
health or life of the mother.
Slide 12
Roe v. Wade Viability refers to the stage of fetal development
where a fetus is capable of surviving given suitable intensive care
outside the mothers womb. The Courts decision came close to
espousing viability as the cutoff point between not having a right
to life and having one.
Slide 13
Roe v. Wade The Court held that the state has a legitimate
interest in protecting potential life and that this interest
becomes compelling at viability because the fetus then presumably
has the capability of meaningful life, outside the mothers
womb.
Slide 14
Roe v. Wade The Supreme Courts ruling might have settled the
dispute over the legal status of abortion, but not its moral
status. Even if you have a legal right to seek abortion, it does
not follow that doing so is morally right.
Slide 15
Pro-life v. pro-choice People who oppose abortion call
themselves pro-life, while those who support womens right to
abortion call themselves pro-choice.
Slide 16
Pro-life v. pro-choice Pro-life argument: Because fetuses are
full human beings, abortion is never justified, except perhaps to
save the mothers life. Counterargument: The assumption that fetuses
are persons (full human beings) is questionable.
Slide 17
Pro-life v. pro-choice Pro-life argument: There are plenty of
readily available contraceptives on the market. If a woman does not
use them, it is her own fault and she has to take responsibility
for her carelessness. Counterargument: No contraceptive method is
100% effective.
Slide 18
Pro-life v. pro-choice Pro-life argument: Permitting abortion
would lead to horrible consequences such as widespread infanticide
and moral breakdown. Counterargument: Abortions have been performed
in the U.S. and many other countries for quite some time without
the slightest evidence of harmful social effects.
Slide 19
Pro-life v. pro-choice Other pro-life arguments include, for
example, [1] abortions emotionally harm the mother; [2] abortion
denies society the possible benefits these children could produce;
and [3] families eager for children are denied the opportunities of
adopting unwanted children.
Slide 20
Pro-life v. pro-choice Pro-choice argument: Abortion is a
private, personal decision based on the mothers right to privacy
and autonomy. Freedom of choice is a persons fundamental right that
must be protected from government interference.
Slide 21
Pro-life v. pro-choice Pro-choice argument: Women should have
the right to control their own bodies and reproduction. They should
be able to decide how many children they want to have and when to
have them. The government should not tell them what they can and
cannot do with their bodies.
Slide 22
Pro-life v. pro-choice Pro-choice argument: Unwanted
pregnancies carry emotional burdens as well as physical ones.
Pregnancy can be significant interruption in a womans life, and
motherhood can bring a serious disruption of her hopes and plans.
If women are denied the right to abortion, they are denied the
rights and opportunities to participate fully in society.
Slide 23
Pro-life v. pro-choice Pro-choice argument: Someone too
immature or otherwise not ready for a child could harm the child or
end up leaving the child as a burden to society. These unwanted
children are likely to end up with problems later in life, so are
the mothers who were forced to bear them.
Slide 24
Pro-life v. pro-choice Pro-choice argument: If women do not
have legal access to abortion, many of them will have to resort to
back-street abortions carried out in unsuitable conditions by
unqualified persons. As a result, the health and well-being of
these women will be endangered.
Slide 25
Pro-life v. pro-choice Counterargument: Enforcement problems
might provide a reason not to ban abortions, but they certainly do
not make abortions morally right. Legalization of abortion is
undesirable because it will encourage irresponsible behavior.
Slide 26
Personhood The debate about the rights of the embryo or fetus
is often framed as the question of whether or not it is a person.
If it is a person (if it has the moral status of a person), then it
has all the rights of other persons, including a right to
life.
Slide 27
Personhood The term personhood or moral personhood refers to
the moral status of a person. Does a fetus have the same moral
status as a fully functional person?
Slide 28
Personhood Opponents of abortion argue that to kill a fetus is
to murder a human being. This claim is supported by the fact that
all the necessary genetic material that defines the zygote (i.e.
fertilized egg) as human is already present at the very moment of
conception.
Slide 29
Personhood Defenders of abortion argue that fetuses are human
beings in the biological or genetic sense, but they are not persons
in the moral sense. The biological or genetic status of the human
organism does not settle the question of its moral status.
Slide 30
Personhood If an entity has moral status, it has intrinsic
value. Its needs, interests or well-being have importance in their
own right. Persons are beings of full moral status and therefore
are the subjects of rights.
Slide 31
Personhood What does it mean to be a person? Where do we draw
the line between those who are subjects of rights and those that
are not?
Slide 32
Personhood When does a fetus attain the legal and moral status
of a person with a right to life? Different people may have
different views because there does not seem to be a clear cutoff
point between conception and infancy.
Slide 33
Personhood Some argue that the fetus attains personhood at
around the eighth week when brain activity or consciousness
generally becomes detectable. However, if brain activity or
consciousness is a sufficient condition for personhood, many
animals will have to be treated as persons.
Slide 34
Personhood Some say that a fetus should be considered a person
when viable (i.e. can survive outside the mothers womb). However,
with improved medical support, very premature fetuses can be kept
alive, challenging what counts as viability.
Slide 35
Personhood Some hold that birth is the decisive cutoff point
between nonpersonhood and personhood. But this seems an arbitrary
distinction. There is no reason to suppose that the fetuss status
one second before birth is miraculously transformed one second
after birth.
Slide 36
Personhood Mary Anne Warren: Birth, rather than some earlier
point, marks the beginning of true moral status. Warren maintains
that if a fetus is to be considered a person, then so should sperm.
Does this mean that we need to protect the rights of sperm?
Slide 37
Personhood By virtue of what characteristics does an entity
have personhood status and thereby possess a right to life?
Slide 38
Personhood To answer this question, Warren suggests a series of
traits or characteristics that are central to the concept of
personhood; namely, [1] consciousness, [2] reasoning, [3]
self-motivated activity, [4] the capacity to communicate, and [5]
the presence of self-concepts.
Slide 39
Personhood Warrens list sets a very high threshold for
personhood. Thus it seems impossible, at least according to Warren,
for a fetus to be a person. But if fetuses do not have the moral
status of persons, we do not have a moral duty to treat them as
persons they are not subjects of rights.
Slide 40
Personhood Counterargument [1]: Although the term person is
typically defined in terms of mental or psychological
characteristics, there is no agreement concerning which
characteristics are the most important. And there is often little
or no explanation as to why mental characteristics should make a
moral difference.
Slide 41
Personhood Counterargument [2]: If abortion is permissible
simply because fetuses do not meet the requirements of personhood,
then infanticide should also be permissible because it is difficult
to show relevant differences between the capacities of the late
fetus and the newborn.
Slide 42
Personhood Counterargument [3]: Not all humans have those
qualities mentioned in Warrens list, while some animals may possess
them. Severely retarded children, severely senile adults, and
people in persistent vegetative states do not possess those
properties, while dolphins, chimpanzees and apes may possess
them.
Slide 43
Personhood Counterargument [4]: Personhood arguments were used
in the past as an excuse or justification for oppression women,
slaves, Jews, certain racial groups, the disabled, etc. were once
believed, for one reason or another, to be non-persons.
Slide 44
Personhood Is it morally permissible to kill unconscious and
severely retarded humans, or very small children, simply because
they do not exhibit the required characteristics for personhood?
Should we treat them equally as members of the human
community?
Slide 45
Personhood Is the decision about whether to continue or end a
pregnancy more or less the same as the decision about whether to
cut ones hair? Is it morally right to treat fetuses as mere
objects?
Slide 46
Interests Personhood is not the only basis for moral
consideration. Another important factor is interests. According to
the interest theory of rights, there is no reason to suppose that
only fully functional persons have interests.
Slide 47
Interests The interest theory of rights asserts that the
possession of interests is both necessary and sufficient for moral
status. To have moral status is to be the sort of being whose
interests must be considered from the moral point of view.
Slide 48
Interests To have rights is to have protected moral status.
Interests are a necessary condition for the attribution of rights.
If the primary function of rights is to protect interests, a being
that lacks interests does not need rights because it cannot be
harmed and therefore does not need protection.
Slide 49
Interests Having rights seems to presuppose having interests,
which in turn seems to presuppose having wants, hopes, fears, likes
and dislikes. Some argue that fetuses cannot have interests simply
because they cannot think or feel, experience anything, or want
anything.
Slide 50
Interests According to this view, fetuses are incapable of
being harmed and they do not have any interests to be protected. It
is therefore mistaken to say that abortion violates the fetuses
rights because entities that do not have interests cannot have
rights.
Slide 51
Interests Counterargument [1]: Fetuses are sentient beings in
the sense that they, too, have feelings. Since fetuses can feel
pain, they have an interest in not being caused to suffer.
Slide 52
Interests Counterargument [2]: Although fetuses may not have
interests now, they will acquire interests once they are born.
Their future interests can be harmed by events that occur while
they are still in the womb. For example, smoking, drinking alcohol,
or taking narcotic drugs during pregnancy can cause a child to be
born with serious impairments.
Slide 53
Interests Counterargument [3]: A wrongful act done today may
harm someone in the future who is not yet born or even conceived.
For example, putting poisonous ingredients into powdered milk to be
sold in the markets 12 months later is obviously immoral because of
the harm it will cause to future newborns.
Slide 54
Potentiality A fetus is a potential person, not an actual
person. A potential person is surely not an object, but it is not a
fully functional person either. Should we treat a potential person
in exactly the same way we treat an actual person?
Slide 55
Potentiality Some argue that the fetus is a potential person
and has the capability of becoming an actual person. For this
reason, a fetus should be valued and respected for that potential
and be accorded the same moral status and protection that we accord
each other.
Slide 56
Potentiality It does not necessarily follow that full moral or
legal status should be awarded on the basis of potentiality. Having
the potential to become an musician is not the same as being an
musician, and a potential person is not equal to an actual
person.
Slide 57
Potentiality We feel a sense of loss when a mature apple tree
is felled or chopped down, but we do not feel the same sense of
loss at the destruction of an apple seed. The question is: Can we
justify the killing of a fetus on the basis of an analogy between
seeds and fetuses?
Slide 58
Potentiality No, because this is a false analogy: fruit trees
are valued by us because they bear fruit (because of their
extrinsic values to us), whereas human beings have intrinsic worth
in virtue of the kind of being they are (they are valued for their
own sake).
Slide 59
Potentiality The fetus is a potential person but it is not an
actual person. Nor should it enjoy the same rights as an actual
person. For example, teenagers will have the right to vote when
they reach the age of eligibility, but it does not mean that they
now have the right to vote.
Slide 60
Potentiality Counterargument: This, again, involves a false
analogy. The right to life (a natural or fundamental right inherent
to all human beings) and the right to vote (a legal right granted
to a specific class of people by legislation) are rights of very
different nature.
Slide 61
Potentiality A potential person does not automatically develop
into an actual person over time. We are not born persons but become
such through socialization. For a newborn to develop into a person,
it must be properly raised, fed and educated, and have
opportunities to establish relationships with others.
Slide 62
Potentiality Potentiality, therefore, does not imply actuality.
Becoming a person is not a biological given but an interactive
process. Infants abandoned or severely neglected by parents fail to
learn to speak and take on animal characteristics.
Slide 63
Potentiality The unfertilized egg and the sperm, like an embryo
or a fetus, also have the potential to become fully functional
adult humans. Does it imply that we should treat sperm and eggs
with the same respect as we treat human beings?
Slide 64
Potentiality Very few people regard abortion as the moral
equivalent of contraception. For most people, it takes no reason at
all to justify contraception, but it takes some reason to justify
ending a pregnancy. Why?
Slide 65
Future-like-ours Don Marquis argues that abortion is immoral.
Why? Because abortion involves killing. But what is wrong with
killing? Because killing robs its victim of a future of value,
according to Marquis.
Slide 66
Future-like-ours What makes killing wrong is the loss to the
victim of the value of the victims future. Killing deprives its
victim of all the goods of her future she otherwise would have
experienced.
Slide 67
Future-like-ours Marquis: For any killing where the victim did
have a valuable future like ours, having the future by itself is
sufficient to create the strong presumption that the killing is
seriously wrong.
Slide 68
Future-like-ours A future of value or future-like- ours,
according to Marquis, include all the activities, projects,
experiences and enjoyments that are either valuable for their own
sake or are means to something else that is valuable for its own
sake.
Slide 69
Future-like-ours We know that fetuses have valuable futures
because we were all fetuses once. Thus, abortion is wrong simply
because fetuses have futures like ours. What makes it wrong to kill
a fetus is exactly what makes it wrong to kill you and me.
Slide 70
Future-like-ours Counterargument: There is no guarantee that a
fetus will have a future of value or future-like-ours especially
for cases of unwanted pregnancies.
Slide 71
Bodily autonomy Judith Jarvis Thomson defends abortion while
granting her opponents the concession that the fetus is a person
from the moment of conception.
Slide 72
Bodily autonomy Imagine 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.
Slide 73
Bodily autonomy If the violinist is disconnected from you now,
he will die; but in nine months, he will recover and can be safely
disconnected. Is it morally permissible for you to unplug yourself
from the violinist even though this will cause him to die?
Slide 74
Bodily autonomy Thomsons answer is that demands made upon you
to remain attached to the violinist exceed those required of
morally responsible people. Just as you are under no moral
obligation to use your body to support the violinist, a pregnant
woman is under no obligation to use her body to support a child she
does not want.
Slide 75
Bodily autonomy Staying connected to the violinist may be the
kind thing to do, but disconnecting oneself does not violate the
violinists right to life. The right to life (a negative right) does
not include the right to have all the assistance needed to maintain
that life (a positive right).
Slide 76
Bodily autonomy A positive right can be seen as a right to be
provided with something, whereas a negative right is simply a right
to be left alone.
Slide 77
Bodily autonomy Thomson does not argue against the right to
life, but rather against the right to use another persons body
without the persons consent. In other words, the fetus may have a
right to life, but a woman is not morally required to allow the
fetus to use her body.
Slide 78
Bodily autonomy The violinist scenario shows that no one has
the right to use the body of another person against her will. The
fetus, therefore, does not have the right to use the body of the
mother for sustenance or survival against her will.
Slide 79
Bodily autonomy The mother who chooses to support her child by
sustaining the pregnancy is performing a virtuous act (as a Good
Samaritan would do) but one that she is not obliged to perform. In
other words, the mother does not have a duty to carry the fetus to
term.
Slide 80
Bodily autonomy Counterargument [1]: Abortion is an act of
extracting an unborn child that inevitably leads to its death.
There is a significant difference between choosing not to assist
someone (unplugging the violinist) and doing something that causes
someone harm (performing an abortion).
Slide 81
Bodily autonomy Counterargument [2]: Thomsons view of bodily
autonomy is premised on the questionable assumption that the
pregnant woman has the absolute right to do whatever she wants with
her body.
Slide 82
Bodily autonomy But most rights are not absolute. Just as the
right to swing ones fist ends where the other mans face begins, a
womans right to control her own body stops at taking the life of
her unborn child.
Slide 83
Bodily autonomy Counterargument [3]: Thomson assumes that the
fetus is like an uninvited guest who has no right to use the
mothers body. It can be argued, however, that once a woman
voluntarily engages in sexual intercourse, she has suspended her
right to privacy and autonomy by engaging in an act that brought a
new being (the fetus) into existence.
Slide 84
Bodily autonomy The violinist scenario, which involves a
kidnapping, can only be compared to pregnancy after rape. If a
pregnant woman was not raped but had sex voluntarily, she has
either tacitly consented to allow the fetus to use her body, or
else has a duty to sustain the fetus because she caused it to stand
in need of her body.
Slide 85
Bodily autonomy Thomsons expanding child scenario: o Suppose
you find yourself trapped in a tiny house with a rapidly growing
child. You are already up against the wall of the house and in a
few minutes you will be crushed to death. Is it morally permissible
for you to attack the child to save you own life?
Slide 86
Bodily autonomy For Thomson, if a pregnancy endangers a womans
life, she is morally justified to seek abortion on grounds of
self-defense.
Slide 87
Bodily autonomy The people-seeds scenario: o Suppose there are
people-seeds drifting about in the air like pollen. If you open the
windows, one may drift in and take root in your carpets. You do not
want children, so you fix up your windows with fine mesh
screens.
Slide 88
Bodily autonomy o If, however, one of the screens is defective
and a seed drifts in and takes root, is it permissible for you to
rid your house of the unwelcome intruder?
Slide 89
Bodily autonomy Thomson seems to think that if a woman has
taken all necessary precautions, she may seek abortion because she
has no duty to bear a child she does not want.
Slide 90
Special cases If a pregnant womans life is at risk, abortion
could be viewed as the lesser of two evils. For example,
chemotherapy for cancer treatment may cause a miscarriage; in which
case the death of the fetus is a secondary effect of treating the
mother.
Slide 91
Special cases When the mothers life is in danger due to
pregnancy, we quite naturally feel more sympathy and concern for a
person with fully developed capacities and a network of established
relationships than we do for a fetus which has neither.
Slide 92
Special cases In the case of an unintended and unwanted
pregnancy, it seems reasonable to weigh the harm of forcing the
woman to give birth to an unwanted child against the harm of
destroying a fetus.
Slide 93
Special cases If a poor decision led to the pregnancy in the
first place, how much worse will the decisions be when they are
being made for the baby who will have to live with the
consequences?
Slide 94
Special cases Do you think that access to abortion should be
provided to teenage girls who got pregnant? What about poor
families with several children that cannot afford another
child?
Slide 95
Special cases Two women were raped. One decide to keep the
child and raise it as if conceived under normal circumstances. The
other woman decided to have an abortion. Did both women make a good
decision?
Slide 96
Special cases Do you agree with the view that abortion on the
grounds of fetal abnormality is morally and legally objectionable
in discriminating against disabled people? Why or why not?
