A Critical Introduction to the Ethics of Abortion

Understanding the Moral Arguments

Bernie Cantens

• Éditeur: Bloomsbury Academic
• Année: 2019
• ISBN:
  9781350055889
• Édition: 1
• Sujet: Philosophy
• Sous-sujet: Ethics & Moral Philosophy

A Critical Introduction to the Ethics of Abortion addresses some of the most prominent and influential arguments to the abortion debate. These include the Being a Person verses Functioning as a Person Argument, women's rights vis-à-vis the rights of the foetus, personhood as an essentially contested concept, and a virtue ethics approach. Also covered are central bioethical issues concerning prenatal screening, stem cell research and cloning. Based on a critical assessment of the evidence, the book offers an impartial view and draws on the importance of critical thinking and the logic of argumentation. Providing an overview of the legal history of abortion in the United States, it discusses five of the most influential Supreme Court cases on abortion law during the past fifty years and examines the current state of abortion law, politics and the main trends. Presenting a balance between ethical concepts, views and arguments, A Critical Introduction to the Ethics of Abortion is an up-to-date introduction to the choice of abortion illustrating the importance of evidence, clear thinking and good arguments for supporting one's ethical beliefs.

1

Personhood Arguments for the Moral Permissibility of Abortion

In this chapter we examine arguments that defend the position that abortion is morally permissible based on the claim that the foetus is not a person and thus does not have a right to life. We examine two arguments: (1) the argument from undeveloped cognition¹ and (2) the argument from first-person perspective.² The distinction some abortion defenders make between a person and a human being is crucial to properly understand these arguments. Some philosophers argue that the necessary properties for personhood are a complete or partial set of complex psychological properties such as consciousness, self-awareness, desires, reasoning and autonomy. They define a human being as a being that belongs to the species Homo sapiens, and this entails only a being’s physical and biological composition. Therefore, according to these philosophers, being a human being does not guarantee personhood.

Personhood core argument for the moral permissibility of abortion

Let’s begin by analysing the abortion defenders core personhood argument.

The first thing to notice about this argument is that the first premise is a moral principle, and it is expressed in an absolute and universal form. The second thing we should notice is that the argument is valid. Therefore, if the premises are true, then the conclusion follows necessarily and must also be true. The question that needs to be addressed, then, is whether the premises are true. If all the premises are true, then the argument is sound, and we can be certain that abortion is morally permissible. If one or more of the premises are false, then we can reject the argument as deductively sound; in other words, if one or more of the premises are false, then the conclusion does not follow necessarily from the premises.³ Let us begin, then, by examining the truth and falsity of the premises.

Personhood core argument for the moral permissibility of abortion

Premise 1:		Intentionally killing a non-person human being is always morally permissible.
Premise 2:		A foetus is a non-person human being.
Premise 3:		Abortion is the intentional killing of a foetus.
Premise 4:		Abortion is the intentional killing of a non-person human being (from 2 and 3).
Conclusion:		Therefore, abortion is morally permissible.

Assessing the soundness of the argument: Truth and falsity of the premises

Premise (1) states that killing a non-person is always morally permissible. Why is killing a living non-person always morally permissible? The truth of premise (1) can certainly be challenged. The permissibility of killing a living non-person human being seems to depend on the idea that living non-person human beings lack the mental capabilities necessary for personhood, such as consciousness, desires, self-awareness, autonomy and rationality. However, consider the issue of the ethical treatment of animals. Most people would agree that the unjustified killing of a dog or a cat is morally wrong, and dogs and cats do not have the mental capabilities necessary for personhood. Therefore, we need to know on what basis do abortion defenders support the truth of premise (1).

They have at least three possible responses. First, they might claim that while animals are not persons and they do not have the necessary properties for personhood, they are, nevertheless, conscious and sentient beings. Foetuses, on the other hand, lack consciousness and sentience, at least in the early stages of the gestation period, and thus the two cases are not equivalent. However, this response will run into several problems. The first problem is that later foetuses do acquire some basic degree of sentience. More importantly, this response substantially changes the nature of the argument, because it changes the basis for the permissibility of abortion from non-personhood to non-sentience.

A second and more promising response is to change premise (1) and defend a weaker premise: (1.1) Killing a non-person human being is sometimes morally permissible. By modifying premise (1) to a weaker claim, the abortion defender is suggesting that it is only sometimes the case that it is morally permissible to kill a non-person human being. However, this solution will require the proponent of the argument to develop a defence of the view that abortions are instances in which killing a non-person human being is not morally wrong. They might, for instance, invoke the argument that the foetus depends on the use of a woman’s body for its survival and thus killing it is not the same as killing an independent non-person human being. Let us refer to this as the dependency principle.

A third alternative available to the abortion defenders is to substitute premise (1) with the following two premises: (1.2) A non-person living thing does not have a right to life, and (1.3) killing a being that does not have a right to life is prima facie morally permissible. The argument now is grounded on both the conception of personhood and the right to life. Since a foetus is not a person, it does not have a right to life; therefore, an abortion does not violate a foetus’s rights and thus does not commit a moral wrong.

This response seems vulnerable to several objections. First, one might point out that, according to this line of argumentation, it would be morally permissible to kill our pets and any other animal that lacks personhood and thus does not have a right to life. But this goes against some of our most basic moral intuitions about the ethics of killing. It raises questions about whether personhood is a necessary condition for a right to life and whether a right to life is a necessary condition for the moral wrongness of killing. Do animals have a right to life, even though they lack personhood? Is it morally permissible to kill animals even if they lack a right to life?

Second, one might be morally obligated not to kill a living thing, based on a criterion other than a living thing’s right to life. For instance, one might argue that it is morally wrong to kill an animal that is on the brink of extinction even though it is not a person and even if it lacks a right to life. Furthermore, imagine that the species the animal belongs to plays an important environmental role, and killing it would create an environmental imbalance in the ecosystem that could severely harm the community of people living in its vicinity. In such a case, one might argue that, not only is it morally wrong to kill it, it is morally obligatory to try and sustain its existence. Therefore, it might be morally wrong to kill any non-person animal belonging to that species. These arguments demonstrate that a living thing’s lack of personhood status and lack of a right to life are not sufficient to infer the moral permissibility of killing it.

In response, the abortion defender could invoke, once again, the dependency principle. She might, for instance, argue that the case of the foetus is different insofar as the foetus depends on the use of a pregnant woman’s body for its survival and thus the pregnant woman’s killing it is not morally wrong, if the pregnant woman does not want the foetus and she did not agree to support its life. We could use premise (1.2) and the dependency principle to defend the truth of premise (1). In this case, proponents of the argument might defend the truth of premise (1) based on the claim that the foetus is not a person and thus lacks a right to life. In addition, the foetus’s life depends on the pregnant woman and thus the pregnant woman has the right to kill the foetus without violating the foetus’s right to life. Notice, however, that this line of argumentation only gives the pregnant woman the right to kill the foetus and not necessarily the right to have a third person to kill the foetus for her.⁴

From this discussion, I hope it is evident that defending the moral principle in premise (1) is not as easy as it might seem. Another important insight from our analysis of premise (1) is that while the personhood of the foetus seems to be a sufficient condition to defend the abortion critic’s position (i.e. if it can be shown that the foetus is a person, then killing it, without justification, would be equivalent to murder and morally wrong),⁵ it is not a sufficient condition for the abortion defender’s position (i.e. if it can be shown that the foetus is not a person, then it does not follow that it is morally permissible to kill it). For now, however, we will grant the justification of the truth of premise (1) based on (1.2) and the dependency principle. Therefore, if the foetus is not a person and it is dependent on the pregnant woman for its survival, then an abortion does not violate a foetus’s right to life and the pregnant woman’s killing it is morally permissible.

Personhood core argument for the permissibility of abortion restated

Premises 4 and 7 are not basic premises (meaning they are derived from other premises) and are derived from premises 1, 3, 5 and 6. We have accepted premises 1, 2 and 5 for now as true. The only basic premises remaining are 3 and 6. Premise 6 is simply the definition of an abortion so it seems incontrovertibly true. However, this premise can also be challenged. Other definitions of abortions are possible. For instance, one might argue that an abortion is not the killing of a foetus but rather the intentional separation of a pregnant woman from an unwanted foetus. The death of the foetus is an accidental result of the separation of the foetus from the woman. This definition does not necessarily entail the death of the foetus, for if the foetus can survive without the assistance of the woman, the woman is not justified in killing the foetus.⁶ Since cases in which a woman has an abortion and the foetus survives are rare, we will accept the notion that an abortion entails (or brings about) the death of the foetus, and thus it essentially constitutes the killing of the foetus.

Premise 1:		A non-person does not have a right to life.
Premise 2:		Killing a being that lacks a right to life and is dependent on another person for its survival is prima facie morally permissible if the person does not want the being and does not agree to support its life.
Premise 3:		A foetus is a non-person human being.
Premise 4:		A foetus does not have a right to life (from 1 and 3).
Premise 5:		A foetus is dependent on a woman for its survival (dependency principle).
Premise 6:		Abortion is the killing of an unwanted foetus by the pregnant woman (by definition).
Premise 7:		Abortion is the killing of an unwanted being that does not have a right to life and is dependent on a woman’s body for its survival (from 4, 5 and 6).
Conclusion:		Therefore, abortion is morally permissible (from 2 and 7).

The final premise remaining is 3 or A foetus is a non-person human being. If this premise is demonstrated to be true, then the argument is sound. Thus, we have a valid argument with all true premises, which means that the conclusion, ‘abortion is morally permissible’, is true. Recall that to undermine a deductive argument one must show that either the argument form is invalid or one of the premises is false. The Restated Personhood Argument for the Permissibility of Abortion is valid and thus the only way to reject it is to show that one of the premises is false. We have shown that the basic premises 1, 5 and 6 can be defended. This leaves the anti-abortion proponent in a difficult position, because the only way to reject the conclusion would be by showing that premise 3, ‘A foetus is a non-person human being’, is false.

Is a foetus a person? In this chapter, we study two arguments that attempt to demonstrate that the foetus is a human being but not a person. If they succeed, then the argument is sound and the conclusion that abortion is morally permissible is true. Therefore, there is a lot at stake in these arguments.

Personhood argument from developed cognition for the moral permissibility of abortion

Some philosophers view morality as a phenomenon that takes place within a society or community of persons. It is only within such a community of persons that moral concepts such as inalienable rights and the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness make any sense. If one does not belong to such a community or society, then one cannot partake in the moral community. Moreover, if someone cannot partake in the moral community then the moral concepts of that moral community simply cannot be attributed to that non-member. For instance, Mary Anne Warren sees the moral community as ‘the set of beings with full and equal moral rights’.⁷ However, to participate in such a community the members must have cognitive powers that are sufficiently developed to carry on sophisticated forms of thinking. They must be able to understand and reason, and they must be able to make moral decision and communicate with other members of the moral community. It is only when members have this form of developed cognition that we can say that they are persons and they can be a part of the moral community.

This analysis of the moral community fleshes out what some philosophers believe is a serious fallacy of equivocation that is common in the abortion debate with the term ‘human’. Before 1972, many philosophers used the terms ‘human’ and ‘person’ interchangeably to mean and refer to the same thing. However, doing so gives a certain hidden advantage to abortion critics and results in fallacious, question-begging arguments. The word ‘human’ has at least two significantly different meanings that get conflated within the abortion debate. For instance, consider the following argument:

1 Killing innocent human beings is morally wrong.

2 A foetus is a human being.

3 Abortion is the killing of a foetus.

4 Therefore, an abortion is morally wrong.

Notice that the term ‘human’ is used twice in premises 1 and 2. For the argument to be sound, it must be both valid and have true premises. However, some might argue that the term ‘human’ in the first and second premises are not being used consistently, which would make one of the premises false and thus the argument unsound. This is known as the fallacy of equivocation.

Let’s look at this fallacy more carefully. In the first premise, human refers to a full-fledged adult human being that has the cognitive abilities we attribute to a person, such as consciousness, desires, self-awareness, rationality, communicative abilities and self-determination. However, in the second premise human refers to an organism that belongs to the species Homo sapiens but does not necessarily have the personhood traits of a full-fledged adult human being. If we use ‘humans’ consistently to refer to persons, then premise (1) will be true and premise (2) false and the argument unsound. If we use the ‘humans’ consistently to refer to a biological human non-person, then premise (1) will be false and premise (2) true and the argument unsound.

In the first premise, the term ‘human’ refers to the moral sense of human, that is, those members that make up the moral community that share the same full set of equal rights. In the second premise, the term refers to genetic sense of human, that is, those beings that belong to the human species. Many arguments for the moral impermissibility of abortion blur this distinction and assume that ...

Table des matières

• Cover
• Halftitle Page
• Title Page
• Contents 
• Preface
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• 1. Personhood Arguments for the Moral Permissibility of Abortion
• 2. Personhood Arguments for the Moral Wrongness of Abortion
• 3. What If We Cannot Determine the Concept of Personhood?
• 4. Women’s Rights and Abortion
• 5. The Ethics of Killing and Abortion
• 6. A Virtue Ethics Approach to Abortion
• 7. Feminism and Abortion
• 8. Prenatal Screening and Human Genetic Ethical Issues
• 9. Law and Abortion in the United States
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index
• Imprint