The last 6 months or so I have been researching the morality of abortion. My interest in the subject was peaked from some thinking I had done on the moral status of future persons, and animal rights; reasoning about the former seemed to have potential as the basis of an argument for the immorality of abortion. The latter touches on some moral intuitions I have about the rights of animals, and arguments against a social contract theory of morality. Additionally, apart from the appeal on an abstract level, the fact that one's position on abortion has an impact on the world that is not true of other philosophical arguments. So far, my research in the field hasn't proven to be productive in the manner that I expected. I thought there would more reasoning about the relationship between different qualities and how, or why, those qualities include/exclude things from moral consideration. What I have read so far, though admittedly small, has concentrated on our intuitions about either the right to life, or what kind of obligations are entailed by the right to life.
There are two lines of reasoning for the anti-abortion position that I am most familiar: the moral standing of life before conception, and the moral standing of life after conception. The argument I hear most frequently usually falls into the latter category, and those of the former are usually considered as a reductio ad absurdum. Now, there is good reason for looking at moral standing before conception argument as absurd. For my approach to the subject, I'll just make the strongest argument from the preconception position, then move to why it cannot ultimately support the anti-abortion position.
The preconceptionist (for lack of a better term) argues that people are destined to be born before the act of conception. If one prevents conception from taking place, that person is killing that child. Or, one might argue that we have an obligation to future generations to not intentionally harm them. If we prevent some people from being born, we have done those people the greatest harm. For example, if someone had the cure to cancer, and that person intentionally withheld the cure, he would be partially responsible for the pain inflicted on the people who would eventually develop cancer (at least those that he would have helped had he acted). Thus, those who prevent a person from being born harm the unborn through their actions (or lack thereof).
There are three principle objections to this line of reasoning. First, it is possible that the use of contraceptives, or an abortion, is predestined. Thus, choosing to not have a child, does not prevent someone from being born since the choice would be part of the overall plan. Further, if one can defy destiny by not having a child, it would be reasonable to infer that one could defy destiny by having a child. If acting against God's will is one's principle concern, both would be equally immoral. Some might object that God's will is always that, if a child can be born, he or she should be conceived. This objection will be dealt with in the third point.
Second, while it may be possible to harm one through inaction, a harm to someone that does not exist is incoherent. For example, it would be wrong to claim that someone who does not exist has cancer, and even more confused to further claim that, by not curing cancer, one has harmed the potential person. The immoral quality of associated with a harm occurs with the advent of that harm. Further, there is an assumption that the “harm” of not existing is worse than other possible harms. Many people could be born into situations such that it would be better had they not been born. For example, supposed a couple is trying to decide whether to have children. They come to learn that, if they have a child, there is 100% certainty that the child will be born with a severe genetic disorder. Not only would we say that the couple should not have the child, it would be wrong for them to have the child with that knowledge.
Third, a conclusion that abstaining from sex is equivalent to murder seems prima facie wrong. Most would say that a couple who decides to wait to have a child until they can afford it is doing the right thing. Additionally, if preventing potential people from being born is murder, then having a child would be also be murder. When a couple decides to have a child this means that they have decided not to have other children that they could have had at another time. Thus, the action would both be an act of murder and not at the same time. Such a conclusion does not answer whether one should have a child, or not, since every answer would be a wrong one.
These are the reasons why I decided that, if abortion is wrong, it isn't because we are doing a harm to potential persons. Next I'll explain the “at conception” arguments that have the most appeal and why I don't find them persuasive.
Keep the love,
Ryan
First, I love that you have this blog. Secondly, you are wrong ;) Let me address your second point - you said:
ReplyDeleteSecond, while it may be possible to harm one through inaction, a harm to someone that does not exist is incoherent.
Let's imagine that you come upon someone in a cryochamber - call him Fry - who has been frozen for hundreds of years. He has no vital signs whatsoever, and if you were to let him thaw naturally, he would remain dead. However, if you do not interfere, the cryochamber will revive him in the hour and restore him to full healthy functionally. You however decide that since you have no obligations to him you will pull the plug on the cryochamber. He now has become a thawing corpse. Even if you didn't murder him, didn't you do him some form of harm, even though he is not currently a living person? And even if you disagree, can you really say that the idea that you did him harm is "incoherent"?
- Shairylann
Thanks for taking the time out to read the blog. I'm glad you like it. Also, I love that you used a Futurama reference. Geek points to you!!
ReplyDeleteWith regards to a thought being incoherent, I am not talking about incoherence in the way that say Chomsky does with is green ideas. That is, people can clearly think about nonexistent objects having properties in a way that they cannot about square circles. Rather, in the same way that we would find something wrong with claiming that a nonexistent ball is red, we would similarly say that a nonexistent (or potential) being has some property. This is similar to the point that Kant makes with regards to the ontological argument. We can imagine that, if it existed, what properties it might have. But, something not existing and having properties doesn't work.
Strictly speaking, something that is not conscious cannot experience pain or pleasure. So, we wouldn't say that we've harmed something that does not possess consciousness. Additionally, there is a difference between someone that will not exist and someone did exist and now does not. Even if we take a broader approach to harms, such that it doesn't only include experienced harms(pleasure/pain), we are still referencing an actualized being versus a potential one. In short, the discussion about harm to the once alive is different from the discussion about the may be alive.
Some Christians might argue that people exist before they are born. Thus, we are still harming actual beings by not bringing them into existence. I don't know if you would make this point since, from the example you gave, the person stops existing (the stuff that matters anyway) after he died and a harm is still done to him. This is how I understood your counter example. Nevertheless, even if one believes that people exist before they are born, this admits that they do exist and harm to potential people doesn't make sense.
Its difficult for me to make a definitive statement about the nature of souls since no consensus about their properties exists to my knowledge. However, souls are typically described as substances that contain our identities, but lack the other physical qualities that bodies possess. As such, we wouldn't say that souls can be harmed in the more narrow sense. This also would be incoherent since they can't have the properties associated with having a body. However, more broadly speaking, I would be willing to admit that, it is coherent to talk about obligations to non-physical entities assuming such beings could be rightly said to exist. To clarify, there are problems with talking about something that exists (is spacially and temporally located) and does not have the characteristics of physical beings which have spacial and temporal qualities. If we assumed that such talk was coherent, then talk of these entities having other properties would also be coherent.
-Ryan