Abortion 2

Abortion
Part II
A Massively Controversial Issue
With Philosophical, Theological, Ethical, and Legal
aspects to it.
Please note this is not all my own work - other sources have
been used in compiling this work.

Wednesday 31 August 2011

Arguments for a Pro-Choice
Position
Pro-life advocates have only one point -
the unborn is still a child, a human life
and should be treated as such. Pro-life
advocates would say that what follows in
this section, the pro-choice arguments
for abortion, does not answer the
question of the personhood of the
unborn in the mothers womb. [Rae calls
this “begging the question” or assuming
the conclusion one wishes to reach
without offering any evidence for its
validity.]


1. A woman has the right to do with her
own body whatever she chooses
The fundamental pro-choice position
and frequently stated.
It is a position held by many who
might not have an abortion
themselves.
Rae says this is in fact not an
absolute: In the USA in many states
prostitution is illegal, illegal drugs are
not allowed to be freely used.
Is the fetus part of the woman's body?
It does have its own DNA and early
on in development its own heart and
respiratory system and usually a
distinct gender from conception.


So the fetus is attached to the
mother - but is it part of her body?
i.e. Living inside her does not mean it
is part of her.
Historically in Western civilisations
the right to life is held to take
precedence over all others. Only if a
fetus is not a living human being can a
choice be made which would result in
its death.
For both sides the argument focusses
clearly upon the state of the fetus -
whilst in the womb is it a child or
not?


2. If abortion becomes illegal women
have to look for illegal (dangerous “back
street”) options
Before legal abortion options were
provided women had to face looking
for illegal options to deal with
unwanted pregnancies which often
endangered their lives.
This safety issue once again addresses
the issue of whether the fetus is a
person with a right to life - if yes, then
you are legalising the right to kill
someone.
Is abortion simply another type of
surgery which removes parts of the
body?

Rae also questions the number of
illegal abortions suggesting only 42
happened in 1972, the year before
Roe v.Wade
He also says most abortions prior to
1973 were conducted by licensed
doctors.
Additionally such a law would be hard
to enforce - invasion of privacy and of
doctor-patient conﬁdentiality would
be involved.
Rae says that before 1973 enforceable
abortion laws were in operation and
only 100,000 abortions took place
per year - now the ﬁgure is 1,500,000

3. Forcing women, especially poor ones, to
continue their pregnancy will result in
overwhelming financial hardship
If abortion is not an option then women
cannot control the size of their families -
poverty and financial difficulties would
follow all through the life of the child and
mother.
You have to assume unborn are not
persons or else you could apply this to all
financially burdensome on society. In
society being financially burdensome does
not mean you have no right to life.
Is the solution to unwanted pregnancies to
eliminate the problem - or should we look
for a solution like adoption - is hardship a
good reason for killing?

4. Society should not force women to
bring unwanted children into the world
Added to section 3 there are various
reasons a pregnancy might not be
wanted - prochoice advocates suggest
this stops unwanted children being born
and therefore stops abuse etc.
Prolife advocates say being unwanted is
not a comment on the child but on the
parents - and it still does not address
the issue of the life of the unborn.
Rae says that since 1973 child abuse has
risen signiﬁcantly in spite of abortion
being available.


5. Society should not force women to bring
handicapped children into the world

Some handicaps can be detected
through amniocentesis whilst the
fetus is in the womb. It is cruel and
unwarranted to make a woman
carry a pregnancy which will result
in a deformed child.
These are a very small % of all
abortions.
One might argue for abortion in
some of these special cases - but it
is not a case for abortion on
demand.


The question is posed: if we
assume the fetus is a
person (again the key issue
here), would it then be ok to
kill all handicapped people?
Is a handicapped life not
worth living?
Are handicapped people
unhappy (evidence suggests
not)


Downs syndrome - caused by an
extra copy of chromosome 21.
Kids with Down syndrome tend to share
certain facial and physical features such
as a flat facial profile, an upward slant to
the eyes, small ears, and a large or
protruding tongue. At birth, infants with
Down syndrome often appear “floppy”
due to a condition called hypotonia (low
muscle tone) - grow at a slower rate and
remain smaller than other children their
age. For infants, low muscle tone may
contribute to feeding problems and
motor delays. Toddlers and older kids
may have delays in speech and in learning
skills such as feeding, dressing, and toilet
training.

All have some degree of mental
retardation - learn more slowly and
have difﬁculties with complex
reasoning and judgment, but they do
have the capacity to learn - are often
delayed in their 'developmental
milestones' such as walking or
talking. While they tend to walk and
talk later than other children,
children with Down syndrome will
learn to walk and talk. It is
important to remember that it is
impossible to predict the degree of
mental retardation in an infant with
Down syndrome at birth (just as it is
impossible to predict the IQ of any
infant at birth).

6. Society should not force women who
are pregnant through incest or rape to
continue their pregnancies
A woman has been forced to
have sex against her will - surely
she should not be made to
suffer again in having a baby as a
result of that act, surely she
should be allowed to end the
pregnancy?
This is 1 in 100,000 cases of
pregnancy.
Again pro-life advocates argue
against on the grounds of the
personhood of the fetus.

7. Restrictive abortion laws discriminate
against poor women

Before 1973 rich women could afford
to travel to other countries to have
an abortion if they wanted - poor
women could not. Hence poor
women were discriminated against.
Rae argues it is only discrimination if
you are denying them some moral
good - which he says is the point in
fact that is being argued against.


Peter Singer says about Down syndrome
babies:
We may not want a child to start on life's uncertain
voyage if the prospects arc clouded.When this can be
known at a very early stage in the voyage, we may still
have a chance to make a fresh start.This means
detaching ourselves from the infant who has been
born, cutting ourselves free before the ties that have
already begun to bind us to our child have become
irresistible. Instead of going forward and putting all our
effort into making the best of the situation, we can still
say no, and start again from the beginning.


Singer came under international condemnation
when he announced he favors killing disabled
babies via infanticide. Though he was blasted from
both sides of the political spectrum, the so-called
ethicist still holds to the position. . . . Singer said
he would deﬁnitely kill a disabled newborn baby.
He indicated he would do so “if that was in the
best interests of the baby and of the family as a
whole.” Singer said he found it surprising that
abortion advocates would disagree with his
views. “Many people ﬁnd this shocking, yet they
support a woman’s right to have an abortion.”


“The notion that human life is sacred just because it is
human life is medieval.”

“the traditional view of the sanctity of human life will
collapse under pressure from scientiﬁc, technological
and demographic developments.”

“[The introduction includes a quote from Alice Walker
that says animals] were not made for humans any
more than black people were made for whites. ... can
only be compared with that which resulted from the
centuries of tyranny by white humans over black
humans.”

Rae is keen to ensure we understand
that the issue at stake here is the
personhood of the fetus - all the other
issues beg the question.
If the fetus is not a person at the point
of conception then the arguments
raised by pro-choice advocates need to
be considered valid.


The personhood of the fetus
Possible positions:
The fetus is a person at
conception.
The fetus is a person at some time
in gestation - if so, when, what
is the decisive moment when
it becomes a person?
The newborn child is not yet a
person -rare.
Some suggest there is a difference
between a fetus being a human
being and a person - one might ask
when the essential nature of the
fetus changes?

Some say this cannot be known
scientiﬁcally (it is philosophical
and religious) and so the choice
is that of the individual.
Some say the prochoice view
allows for abortion throughout
the 9 months of pregnancy - as
personhood cannot begin until
birth. Rae suggest if you are not
sure about the personhood of
the fetus you should be cautious
not go ahead with abortion.


1. The US supreme court has used the
idea of viability - when the fetus can
survive on its own outside the womb -
as suggesting a decisive moment. This is
24-26 weeks - the fetus might still
need some medical technology but not
the environment of the uterus.
Viability varies and cannot be precisely
measured - and medical science keeps
pushing back viability to earlier stages
of pregnancy. It also depends upon
where you are - e.g. rural India
compared with New York. All this adds
up to viability being unreliable or at
least hard to deﬁne and regulate.


2. Brain development is also
suggested as a decisive moment (at
about 45 days) - as death is decided by
a cessation of brain function this seems
reasonable. But in a dead person the
brain cannot be made to function again
- in a fetus the brain is only
temporarily nonfunctional - and from
conception it has the potential to
develop full brain activity.


3. Sentience (ability to feel or
perceive things) is also suggested as a
decisive moment - this is especially
though of in terms of when the fetus
can feel pain. Hence abortion before
this time is ok as the fetus cannot feel
any pain in it.
Q: should we allow harm to the
fetus simply because it cannot
feel pain?
If I lose sensation in my legs should
they be amputated - or would I still be
harmed? And, what do we do with
people who temporarily lose feeling -
those in a vegetative state or who are
in a coma - or even who are sleeping?

If you argue the loss of
sentience is only temporary
you have to agree that
something apart from
sentience determines
personhood. (This argument
is then also used against
arguing for abortion on the
basis of being self-conscious,
aware of your environment
etc.)


4. Quickening - when a mother
ﬁst feels the baby move inside her
womb - is also suggested as as
decisive moment.
Q: Does the fetus become alive
simply by someone else being aware
of it?
In this same argument is the idea of
appearance of humanness -
the fetus resembles a baby and so it
is emotionally harder to abort. But
does appearance reﬂect the essence
of the fetus - which has the capacity
to grow to look like a human from
conception.

5. Some suggest birth is the decisive
moment in a fetus acquiring personhood. But
only location has changed from the day
before and the day after birth.


6. Implantation
a. The embryo signals its presence in
the womb causing hormonal changes
or signals - again this depends on
someone else recognising the
personhood.
b. 20-50% of all embryos
spontaneously miscarry - so this is
critical for the essence of the fetus -
the essential nature of the embryo
does not depend on the number of
embryos which survive to determine
its essence.


In the light of all these arguments Rae
suggests personhood starts at
conception on this basis:
1. An adult human being is the result of
continuous growth from conception.
2. From conception to adulthood
development has no break which is
relevant to the essential nature of the
fetus. (Rae says this is the debatable
part - but his counter arguments to
the 6 arguments above show any break
has no relevance to the nature of the
fetus)
3. Therefore following on from 1 and 2
one is a human person from
conception onwards.

From conception the fetus has
its own genetic identity needing
only food and shelter as it
develops into a full formed baby
and then an adult. Thus the
fetus is a full human person in
the process of developing into
an adult.


Judith Jarvis Thomson a pro-abortion
advocate argues that even though the
fetus is a person the mother still has the
right to abort.
Using an analogy of a person taken
captive to give blood to a violinist who
would otherwise die, Thomson argues
that the kidnapped person has no moral
obligation to keep the violinist alive. Her
argument is that the mother has been
kidnapped by the fetus and has no
obligation to maintain the fetus’s life.


Whilst this might be ok for
pregnancies through non-
consensual sex, is this a fair
comment on normal
pregnancies?
If the fetus is a person then one
might argue that the fetus does
have a claim on the mothers
body - just like a one year old
does, and if not catered for the
mother could be accused of
neglect or even child abuse.


Stem Cell Research

See separate
presentation


Abortion 2

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