Abortion: Does the Soul matter?

A popular pro-life position is that people obtain their moral standing at conception or very shortly after. However, the reason they have moral standing at conception, and not some later date, can vary. This post will focus on those arguments that maintain that the soul entering the body at conception is the relevant quality for moral standing. More particularly, it is this fact that makes abortion immoral. In addressing this position, I will explain some conceptual hurdles that the advocates must address and why I find arguing for moral obligations via the soul unproductive.

A simple version of the soul argument against abortion can be made in four steps: 1) killing an innocent person is murder; 2) all things with souls are persons; 3) fetuses have souls; 4) thus, killing a fetus is murder. The driving intuition here is that what makes people different from other animals, and responsible for our actions, is our soul. Many believe that our identity resides in our soul and we retain our identity throughout our lives which extends back to the moment we are conceived. Now, for the sake of brevity, I have assumed that people have souls, and explain why I nevertheless find this popular pro-life position unconvincing.

Although my soul is the substance that contains my identity, how people enter the world is still not resolved. Our souls could be created (or enter) after our bodies develop beyond a particular point. Just as a human soul would not enter an insect and become a person (at least by many Christian theologies), the soul may wait to enter the body until it has been properly formed. This line of reasoning tracks the intuition that I am different from my body. Certainly I existed before my body and will exist long after it has rotted away. In short, before the soul enters the body, the primary moral concern should not be to have a child as soon as possible, but the life that the child will enter into.

For those that believe I am me only in the unity of the body and soul, the questions concerning the development of the body, and its relationship to identity still stand. If we must have a body to be a person, the type of body would still be at issue. For example, without the ability to think, it seems implausible to refer to the unthinking thing as a person. Further, would this unthinking being be accurately called me? I don't think so. And, I believe that our other moral intuitions about our relationship between those things with souls, and those without, agree with this assessment.

The underlying problem with the pro-life position from the belief in a soul is that, while it is a unique feature of human beings, there doesn't seem to be a reason to treat this property of persons differently than other qualities that make us stand out. In particular, it would seem that, while having a soul could be morally relevant in a moral consideration, the existence of the soul does not have the effect that the pro-life advocate desires. Consider, for example, how we ought to treat animals. Although we may disagree about whether killing animals is wrong, far more agree that the mistreatment of animals (abuse and negligence) is wrong. And, it would be wrong even if we were to conclude that animals have no souls. I might not believe that dogs have an after life, but this doesn't mean I can take my frustration at work out on my dog. Thus, possessing a soul is not a necessary condition for moral consideration.

The soul is not a sufficient condition for the kind of moral consideration needed for the pro-life position. That is, just because something has a soul does not mean that the destruction of that thing is on par with murder. For instance, if we believed that a house had a soul, the destruction of that house, while possibly not good, would not be equivalent to killing a person. Our intuitions about the destruction of a house versus killing a person is different because the physical properties of the house and a person are very different. It is these properties that make the difference in our moral determination. Similarly, the treatment of an unformed body with a soul is different than the treatment of a fully formed body with a soul. Hence, the fact that something has a soul is not sufficient to determine whether the destruction of that thing is murder.

Keep the love,
Ryan

Abortion: The death of the potential person

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