The Abortion Debate

1. The Abortion Debate

2. Content • The debate • Roe v. Wade • Pro-life v. pro-choice • Personhood • Interests • Potentiality • Future-like-ours • Bodily autonomy • Special cases

3. The Debate ‘legal status’: how something is to be regarded from the legal point of view ‘moral status’: how something is to be regarded from the moral point of view

4. The Debate a ‘fetus’: an unborn child at any stage throughout pregnancy an ‘embryo’: a fetus at a very early stage of pregnancy

5. The Debate • Since abortions have been legalized (especially after the United State’s Supreme Court’s 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.

6. The Debate The abortion debate usually surrounds the issues of whether a fetus has the right to life, and whether the pregnant woman’s right over her own body justifies abortion even if the fetus has a right to life.

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? Under what circumstances is abortion morally permissible?

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 woman’s point of view) may involve very different considerations.

9. The Debate A woman contemplating whether to continue or end a pregnancy often has to face two difficult choices, neither of which is optimal or beyond reproach. For example, a woman may seek abortion because she lacks the resources to be a good mother at a particular time in her life.

10. Roe v. Wade The United States Supreme Court in the Roe v. Wade (1973) decision established that a woman’s 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).

11. 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 ability of a woman to decide what happens to her own body.

12. Roe v. Wade However, a woman’s 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.

13. Roe v. Wade ‘Viability’ refers to the stage of fetal development where a fetus is capable of surviving – given suitable intensive care – outside the mother’s womb. The Court’s decision came close to espousing viability as the cutoff point between not having a right to life and having one.

14. 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 mother’s womb.”

15. Roe v. Wade The Supreme Court’s 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.

16. Pro-life v. pro-choice People who oppose abortion call themselves ‘pro-life’, while those who support women’s right to abortion call themselves ‘pro-choice’.

17. Pro-life v. pro-choice Pro-life argument: Because fetuses are full human beings, abortion is never justified, except perhaps to save the mother’s life. Counterargument: The assumption that fetuses are ‘persons’ (full human beings) is questionable.

18. 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.

19. Pro-life v. pro-choice Pro-life argument: Permitting abortion would lead to horrible consequences such as widespread infanticide and the moral breakdown of society. 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.

20. 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.

21. Pro-life v. pro-choice Pro-choice argument: Abortion is a private, personal decision based on the mother’s right to privacy and autonomy. Freedom of choice is a person’s fundamental right that must be protected from government interference.

22. 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.

23. 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 woman’s life, and motherhood can bring a serious disruption of her hopes and plans. If women are denied the right to abortion, they are denied rights and opportunities to participate fully in society.

24. 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’ and ‘unattended’ children are likely to end up with problems later in life, as do the mothers who were forced to bear them.

25. 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.

26. 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.

27. 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 the right to life.

28. Personhood ‘personhood’ = moral personhood = moral status of a person Does a fetus have the same moral status as a fully functional person?

29. Personhood Opponents of abortion argue that to kill a fetus is to murder a human person. This claim is supported by the fact that all necessary genetic material is present at conception and the fetus continues development from conception until born as a human being.

30. 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.

31. 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 human beings of full moral status and therefore are the subjects of rights.

32. Personhood What does it mean to be a ‘person’? What makes a person valuable? Where do we draw the line between those who are subjects of rights and those that are not?

33. 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.

34. 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.

35. Personhood Some say that a fetus should be considered a person when ‘viable’ (i.e. can survive outside the mother’s womb). However, with improved medical support, very premature fetuses can be kept alive, challenging what counts as ‘viability’.

36. 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 fetus’s status one second before birth is miraculously transformed one second after birth.

37. 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?

38. Personhood By virtue of what characteristics does an entity have the moral status of ‘personhood’ and thereby possess a right to life?

39. Personhood To answer this question, Warren provides a series of traits or characteristics that are central to the concept of ‘personhood’, such as consciousness, reasoning, self-motivated activity, the capacity to communicate, and the presence of self-concepts.

40. Personhood Warren’s 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.

41. Personhood Counterargument: 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.

42. Personhood Counterargument: 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.

43. Personhood Counterargument: Not all humans have those qualities mentioned in Warren’s 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.

44. Personhood Counterargument: 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.

45. 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?

46. Personhood Is the decision about whether to continue or end a pregnancy more or less the same as the decision about whether to cut one’s hair? Is it morally right to treat fetuses as mere objects?

47. 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.

48. Interests The interest theory of rightsasserts 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.

49. 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 have rights because it cannot be harmed. Without interests, there would be nothing for rights to protect.

50. Interests Having rights seems to presuppose having interests, which in turn seems to presuppose having wants, hopes, fears, likes and dislikes. Fetuses cannot have interests simply because they cannot think or feel, experience anything, or want anything.