The morality of abortion and the deprivation of futures

In an influential essay entitled Why abortion is wrong, Donald Marquis argues that killing actual persons is wrong because it unjustly deprives victims of their future; that the fetus has a future similar in morally relevant respects to the future lost by competent adult homicide victims, and that, as consequence, abortion is justifiable only in the same circumstances in which killing competent adult human beings is justifiable. The metaphysical claim implicit in the first premise, that actual persons have a future of value, is ambiguous. The Future Like Ours argument (FLO) would be valid if "future of value" were used consistently to mean either "potential future of value" or "self-represented future of value", and FLO would be sound if one or the other interpretation supported both the moral claim and the metaphysical claim, but if, as I argue, any interpretation which makes the argument valid renders it unsound, then FLO must be rejected. Its apparent strength derives from equivocation on the concept of "a future of value".     

Is there a 'new ethics of abortion'?

This paper argues that the central issue in the abortion debate has not changed since 1967 when the English parliament enacted the Abortion Act. That central issue concerns the moral status of the human fetus. The debate here is not, it is argued, primarily a moral debate, but rather a metaphysical debate and/or a theological debate--though one with massive moral implications. It concerns the nature and attributes that an entity requires to have "full moral standing" or "moral inviolability" including a "right to life". It concerns the question when, in its development from newly fertilised ovum to unequivocally mature, autonomous morally inviolable person does a human being acquire that nature and those attributes, and thus a "right to life". The paper briefly reviews standard answers to these questions, outlining some problems associated with each. Finally there is a brief discussion of one way in which the abortion debate has changed since 1967--notably in the increasingly vociferous claim, especially from disability rights sectors, that abortion on grounds of fetal abnormality implies contempt for and rejection of disabled people--a claim that is rebutted.     

The moral significance of spontaneous abortion.

Spontaneous abortion is rarely addressed in moral evaluations of abortion. Indeed, 'abortion' is virtually always taken to mean only induced abortion. After a brief review of medical aspects of spontaneous abortion, I attempt to articulate the moral implications of spontaneous abortion for the two poles of the abortion debate, the strong pro-abortion and the strong anti-abortion positions. I claim that spontaneous abortion has no moral relevance for strict pro-abortion positions but that the high incidence of spontaneous abortion is not (as some claim) eo ipso any sort of justification for voluntarily induced abortion. Secondly, I show that if the strict anti-abortionist position is to be taken seriously in its insistence that prenatal life has a right to be protected by virtue of its being conceived, then it seems necessary to take measures to prevent spontaneous abortion and its presumptive causes, and this as a matter of moral obligation.     

Critical notice--defending life: a moral and legal case against abortion choice by Francis J Beckwith

Francis Beckwith's Defending life: a moral and legal case against abortion choice defends the pro-life position on moral, legal and political grounds. In this critical notice I consider three key issues and argue that Beckwith's treatment of each of them is unpersuasive. The issues are: (1) whether abortion is politically justified by the principle that we should err on the side of liberty in the face of reasonable disagreement over the moral status of the fetus; (2) whether the fetus's natural capacity or genetic propensity to develop rationality and communication is sufficient to give it a moral right to life; and (3) whether abortion is morally justified on the basis of bodily rights. I also show that Beckwith's book fails to consider several important issues and arguments.     

A future like ours revisited

It is claimed by the future like ours anti-abortion argument that since killing adult humans is wrong because it deprives them of a future of value and the fetus has a future of value, killing fetuses is wrong in the same way that killing adult human beings is wrong. In The morality of abortion and the deprivation of futures (this journal, April 2000) I argued that the persuasive power of this argument rests upon an equivocation on the term "future of value". If the expression means "a potential future of value" then the moral claim is implausible because people do not in general have rights to what they need to fulfill their potential; if the expression means "self-represented future of value" then the argument fails because the fetus does not represent its future. Under no interpretation is the argument sound. In Deprivations, futures and the wrongness of killing (this journal, December 2001) Donald Marquis, author of the future like ours argument, responds at length to this objection. In the present essay the focus of the debate shifts to the proper interpretation of the right not to be killed. Donald Marquis argues that this liberty right entails the welfare right to the means necessary to sustain life; I argue that the right not to be killed does not entail unlimited welfare rights. On Marquis's view, the right not to be killed confers upon the fetus the right to whatever it takes to sustain life; on the view I defend, the right not to be killed does not confer upon the fetus or anyone else the right to another person's body. On Marquis's view, abortion is almost never permissible; on my view abortion is almost always permissible.     

Deprivations, futures and the wrongness of killing.

In my essay, Why abortion is immoral, I criticised discussions of the morality of abortion in which the crucial issue is whether fetuses are human beings or whether fetuses are persons. Both argument strategies are inadequate because they rely on indefensible assumptions. Why should being a human being or being a person make a moral difference? I argued that the correct account of the morality of abortion should be based upon a defensible account of why killing children and adults is wrong. I claimed that what makes killing us wrong is that our premature deaths deprive us of our futures of value, that is, the goods of life we would have experienced had we survived. This account of the wrongness of killing explains why killing is one of the worst of crimes and how killing greatly harms the victim. It coheres with the attitudes of those with cancer or HIV facing premature death. It explains why we believe it is wrong to kill infants (as personhood theories do not). It does not entail that it wrongs a human being to end her life if she is in persistent vegetative state or if her future must consist only of unbearable physical suffering and she wants to die (as sanctity of human life theories do not). This account of the wrongness of killing implies (with some defensible additional assumptions) that abortion is immoral because we were fetuses once and we know those fetuses had futures of value. Mark Brown claims that this potential future of value account is unsound because it implies that we have welfare rights to what we need to stay alive that most people would reject. I argue that Brown is incorrect in two ways: a welfare right to what we need to stay alive is not directly implied by my account and, in addition, most of us do believe that dependent human beings have substantial welfare rights to what they need to stay alive. Brown argues that depriving us of a future of value of which we have mental representations both is a better explanation of the wrongness of killing and does not imply that abortion is immoral. I reply that (a) if Brown's arguments against my view were sound, those arguments could be easily adapted to show that his view is unsound as well and (b) Brown's view is both ambiguous and unsound on any interpretation. The most popular class of pro-choice argument strategies appeals to the view that some or all fetuses lack either a mental state or function or a capacity for a mental state or function necessary for possession of the right to life. Desires, interests, sentience, various concepts, moral agency, and rationality have all been suggested as candidates for this crucial mental role. Brown's analysis is one member of this class of strategies. I believe that it is possible to show that none of these strategies is reasonable. However, there are so many of these strategies that the required argument demands something more like a book and less like a short essay. The argument of the following essay is a piece of this larger argument.     

Anencephalic newborns as organ donors: a critique

The authors reject the use of anencephalic infants as organ donors, favoring the present policy that vital organs may not be removed from the living to benefit others and that whole brain death is considered morally and legally the death of the person. They refute the proposition that lack of higher brain function defines brain death and that presence of higher brain function is a condition for personhood. Such a policy would be consistent with the use of infants with other severe brain pathology or with patients in chronic vegetative states as organ donors. Arras and Shinnar conclude that "admirable goals should not be advanced by improper means."     

The place for individual conscience

From a liberationist, feminist, and Catholic point of view, this article attempts to understand the decision of abortion. People are constantly testing their principles and values against the question of abortion. Advances in technology, the rise of communitarianism and the rejection of individualism, and the commodification of children are factors in the way in which the abortion debate is being constructed in society. The paper offers solutions to end the ugliness of the abortion debate by suggesting that we would be able to progress further on the issue of abortion if we looked for the good in the opposing viewpoint. The article continues with a discussion of Catholics For a Free Choice's position on abortion, and notes firstly that there is no firm position within the Catholic Church on when the fetus becomes a person; secondly that the principle of probablism in Roman Catholicism holds that where the church cannot speak definitively on a matter of fact (in this case, on the personhood of the fetus), the consciences of individual Catholics must be primary and respected, and thirdly that the absolute prohibition on abortion by the church is not infallible. In conclusion, only the woman herself can make the abortion decision.     

A new ethical approach to abortion and its implications for the euthanasia dispute.

Mr Gardner, a practising gynaecologist who is necessarily involved with abortion, suggests a view of the fetus which is between the positions commonly held: the fetus is a mass of cells, the fetus is a person from the moment of conception. He considers that from the moment of conception there is established a maternal-fetal unity. In that state the previable fetus is not an individual but is on the way to that status. The writer goes on to differentiate between the moral positions of the advocates of abortion and of euthanasia. Already legal safeguards for those antipathetic to abortion have been eroded in practice and so likewise would those be if the Euthanasia Bill were to become law.     

Are those who subscribe to the view that early embryos are persons irrational and inconsistent? A reply to Brock

Dan Brock has asserted that those who claim that the early embryo has full moral status are not consistent, and that the rationality of such a position is dubious when it is adopted from a religious perspective. I argue that both claims are flawed. Starting with the second claim, which is grounded in Brock's moral abstolutist position, I argue that Brock has provided no argument on why the religious position should be less rational than the secular position. With regard to the first claim, I argue that those who hold the view that the early embryo has full moral status can be consistent even if they do not oppose sexual reproduction, even if they do not grieve as much over the loss of embryos as over the loss of other humans, even if they prefer to save one child instead of 100 embryos in the event of fire, and even if they do not accept racism and sexism.     

In defence of Kant's moral prohibition on suicide solely to avoid suffering

In Ian Brassington's article in a previous issue of this journal, he argues that suicide for the purpose of avoiding suffering is not, as Kant has contended, contrary to the moral law. Brassington's objections are not cogent because they rely upon the exegetically incorrect premise that according to Kant the priceless value of personhood is in the noumenal world that we have no perception of. On the basis of Kant's normative, metaphysical and epistemological theory, I argue, contrary to Brassington, that according to Kant personhood's moral value is explicitly in the sensible, phenomenal realm. While I argue that suicide solely to avoid suffering is immoral, I show that Kant's normative system allows some acts of suicide to be morally permissible. In the course of the discussion of the value of humanity's rationality and the immorality of suicide, I will discuss the broader modern medical ethical implications of Kant's arguments, such as the moral impermissibility of using rationality depriving drugs, such as ketamine, solely to avoid pain.     

Medical ethics and the potentialities of the living being

Attitudes toward the personhood of the fetus as opposed to the existence of mere biological life with the potential to become a person are discussed in relation to reproductive issues such as abortion. Holbrook examines the arguments raised in the Times by W.H. Thorpe, R.J. Berry, and Andrew Huxley regarding the status of fetuses, and suggests that the way we act toward such beings, our attitudes toward "life," are relevant to our relationship with the natural world. He discusses the uniqueness of the fetus, the biology of conception, and the mysterious element in the formation and development of a living being. Because we do not fully understand the development of a fertilized egg, he contends, it is important to protect the process by which humans are formed and born against the ambitions of science and technology.     

The person, the soul, and genetic engineering

Argument about the ethical possibility of the therapeutic use of embryonic stem cells depends critically on the evaluation of the moral status of the very early embryo. Some assert that at the blastocyst stage it is only potentially human, not yet possessing the full ethical status of personhood, while others assert that from its formation the embryo possesses all the moral rights of a human person. It is shown that a decision on this issue is closely related to how human nature is to be understood. The idea of a person as a dual combination of body and spirit correlates naturally with the assertion of absolute personhood from conception, while an idea of human psychosomatic unity encourages a development picture in which the embryo only grows gradually into personhood. The latter view is seen to be encouraged by new advances in science which emphasise the importance of the concept of information in the discussion of complex systems. Other ethical issues related to human genetics are also briefly reviewed.     

Bodies, rights and abortion.

The issue of abortion is discussed with reference to the claim that people have a right of control over their own bodies. Do people "own" their own bodies? If so, what would be entailed? These questions are discussed in commonsense terms and also in relation to the jurisprudence of Hohfeld, Honore, Munzer and Waldron. It is argued that whether or not women are morally and/or should be legally entitled to have abortions, such entitlements cannot be derived from a general moral entitlement to do what we will with our own bodies since there is no such entitlement. Whether or not we "own" them, we can have rights duties, liabilities, restrictions and disadvantages as well as rights concerning our own bodies.     

In vitro fertilisation: the major issues

A Roman Catholic ethicist continues the debate on in vitro fertilization started in the December 1983 issue of the Journal of Medical Ethics by Peter Singer, Deane Wells, and G.D. Mitchell. Rejecting the utilitarian basis of Singer's and Wells' position, Iglesias argues that the basic issue raised by IVF is the moral and ontological status of the human embryo. She rejects self consciousness as a criterion of personhood and contends that the embryo is a person at every stage of its development. The principle of respect for persons therefore obligates us to treat the life of the embryo as inviolable from the beginning of its existence.     

To what do we have moral obligations and why? II

Following up on his 1 June 1985 article on moral obligations to living human beings versus other sentient beings, Gillon focuses on arguments for and against prohuman "speciesism," the claim that "viability" is a justifiable criterion for differentiating between humans that may be killed and those that may not, and claims that "personhood" is a morally relevant differentiating concept. He discusses the positions taken by Peter Singer and Dame Mary Warnock on "speciesism," and the theories of such philosphers as John Locke, Immanuel Kant, and Michael Tooley regarding the essence of personhood. He sees no solid basis for grounding the scope of moral obligations on simple sentience, membership in the human species, or technical differentia such as viability, and concludes that medical ethics still suffers from the lack of an adequate theory on which to base a right to life.     

Still unconvinced, but still tentative: a reply to DeGrazia

David DeGrazia's article provides a careful and fair rendition of my position on the possibility of post-persons. However, I am unconvinced that he has shown that such beings are possible. My view is based on two assumptions: (1) the concept of moral status is a threshold concept; and (2) the most plausible understanding of moral status as a threshold concept is a Kantian respect-based view, according to which all and only those beings who have the capacity to be accountable for reasons have the high status we associate with persons. I argue that the superior beings DeGrazia describes would be more morally admirable than us, but would not have a higher moral status. I also argue that, contrary to DeGrazia, even the most intelligent of canines do not have the capacity for accountability for reasons, even in an attenuated form. I then argue that DeGrazia faces a painful dilemma: either he must give up the assumption that moral status (so far as persons are concerned) is a threshold concept and say that for any two beings with the capacity for accountability for reasons, the one with the greater capacity has a higher moral status; or he must retain the view that moral status is a threshold concept but concede that he has not account of where the threshold lies.     

Against medical ethics: opening the can of worms.

In a controversial paper, David Seedhouse argues that medical ethics is not and cannot be a distinct discipline with it own field of study. He derives this claim from a characterization of ethics, which he states but does not defend. He claims further that the project of medical ethics as it exists and of moral philosophy do not overlap. I show that Seedhouse's views on ethics have wide implications which he does not declare, and in the light of this argue that Seedhouse owes us a defence of his characterization of ethics. Further, I show that his characterization of ethics, which he uses to attack medical ethics, is a committed position within moral philosophy. As a consequence of this, it does not allow the relation between moral philosophy and medical ethics to be discussed without prejudice to its outcome. Finally, I explore the relation between Seedhouse's position and naturalism, and its implications for medical epistemology. I argue that this shows us that Seedhouse's position, if it can be defended, is likely to lead to a fruitful and important line of inquiry which reconnects philosophy and medical ethics.