5.2: Arguments that abortion is often not wrong

Now we turn to arguments that abortion is generally not wrong.

5.2.1 No good arguments that it is wrong

A first argument depends on the discussion so far. If you are familiar with the most important and strongest arguments given to believe that abortion is wrong, and believe with good reason that they are unsound, then that gives a reason to think that abortion is not wrong. In general, a good reason to think that an action is permissible is that there is no good reason to think it’s wrong. How this general strategy is applied to this issue depends on your evaluation of the arguments above and any other arguments against abortion worthy of critical evaluation.

5.2.2 Early fetuses aren’t conscious & feeling: personhood and harm

The next positive arguments in defense of abortion depend on the scientific facts about early fetuses that we have emphasized over and over: they are not conscious, are not aware of anything, cannot feel anything, and so on: they are and have been entirely mindless so far. The proposal is that beings like this are very different from beings like us and babies and children, who are conscious: despite our being the same kind of beings in some ways, we are also different kinds of beings in other ways that are morally significant.

These observations motivate these principles:

• If a being is and has always been completely unconscious, that being is definitely not a person.
• If some being is definitely not a person, then it’s not wrong to kill that being.

This proposal is supported by, among other considerations and cases, the ideas that if someone permanently ceases to be a person (e.g., permanent, irreversible coma cases) or never becomes a person (e.g., anencephalic newborns) it can be permissible to bring about their death, perhaps even by killing their body, since their being alive is doing them no good. Cases like these are steps towards the above principles, which are related to this proposal:

• If a being is and has always been completely unconscious, that being cannot be harmed, which requires a “turn for the worse” for that being. But there is no “for that being” for early fetuses yet, so things can’t get worse for them. So killing them doesn’t harm them or make them worse off, compared to how they were, since they never “were” in a conscious way.

Given the fundamental moral significance of consciousness and all that results from that, the fact that early fetuses entirely lack it is arguably highly morally relevant to how they can be treated.

5.2.3 The right to life & the right to someone else’s body

Finally, suppose much of the above is mistaken and that fetuses indeed are persons with the right to life. Some think that this clearly makes abortion wrong. Philosopher Judith Jarvis Thomson famously argued in 1971 that this isn’t so.¹⁷ She observes that people often have a naive understanding of what the right to life is a right to. She makes her case with a number of clever examples, most famously, the “famous violinist”:

You wake up in a hospital, “plugged in” to a famous violinist, who needs to use your kidneys to stay alive. You were kidnapped for this purpose. If you unplug, he will die. But it’s only for nine months.

Does the violinist have a right to your kidneys? Do you violate his right to life if you unplug, and he dies? Most would say “no,” which suggests that the right to life is not a right to anyone else’s body, even if that body is necessary for your life to continue.

This suggests that, even if fetuses were persons with the right to life, they would not have a right to the pregnant woman’s body: only the woman herself has that right. So until there is a way to remove fetuses and place them in other wombs, abortion would be permissible, given women’s rights to their own bodies and related rights to autonomy and self-determination, especially about matters concerning reproduction, among other relevant rights. This discussion also suggests another definition of abortion:

• Definition 4: Abortion is the intentional withholding of what a fetus needs to live, to end a pregnancy.

Thomson’s insights are not without controversy, however. Some respond the violinist case is somewhat like a pregnancy that results from rape, since there’s no consent involved, but claim that pregnancies that don’t result from rape do give fetuses the right to the woman’s body because, they argue, the woman has done something that she knows might result in someone existing who is dependent on her.

Thomson, however, had other cases that partially address this type of concern: e.g., if someone falls in your house because you opened a window, they don’t have the right to be there, even though you did something that contributed to their being there; and, more imaginatively, if people sprouted from “people seeds” floating in the air, and you tried to keep them out of your house but one managed to get in and became dependent on your carpet for its gestation, that resulting person would not have a right to be there, despite your having done something that led to that person’s existence.

We should also notice that the claim that doing something that results in the existence of something uniquely dependent on you grants that something rights to your assistance might be question-begging. Compare doing something that results in the existence of a new plant or dish or random cells that is dependent on you: you wouldn’t be obligated to provide for that plant or cells. To assume that things are different with fetuses is, well, to assume what can’t be merely assumed, especially if we don’t already believe that early fetuses are persons with the right to life. Thomson assumed fetal personhood for the sake of argument to illustrate her claims about the right to life, but the facts of the matter—that early fetuses arguably aren’t persons or have characteristics that make them have a right to life—is surely relevant to assessing this type of claim when applied to actual cases of pregnancy.

It should be made clear though that even if the fetus doesn’t have a right to the pregnant woman’s body, there could be other rights or other obligations that could make abortion wrong nevertheless: e.g., if pregnancy were just 9 hours perhaps women would be obligated to be Good Samaritans towards them, even if fetuses didn’t have a right to the woman’s resources and assistance: ethics isn’t just about not violating rights. What’s important here is that rights to life and personhood are not the “slam dunk” against abortion, so to speak, that people often think they are: things are more complicated than that.

5.2.4 “What ifs”: rape and later-term abortions

We are now in a good position to address some of the “what ifs” we set aside earlier.

First, rape: if early abortions are generally not wrong, then early abortions due to rape are especially not wrong. While people sometimes consider rape a special excuse that justifies abortion, if abortions generally aren’t wrong, no special excuse is needed. (It is worthwhile to again observe that those who think that all fetuses are persons and so argue that abortion is wrong should think abortion is wrong in cases of rape also, since a person is a person, irrespective of their origins.)

Second, later-term abortions: these might affect conscious and feeling fetuses, who could be persons or close to it. Fortunately, the best evidence suggests that these abortions are rare and done only for justifying medical reasons (Google for harrowing personal stories of women having later abortions due to medical difficulties, including fetal abnormalities incompatible with life). If any far later abortions are done for frivolous reasons, they could be morally wrong, since it’s wrong to cause serious pain for no good reason.¹⁸ The best response here is to ensure that any abortions that can be done earlier in pregnancy are done earlier, before the fetus is conscious and feeling.

Should laws be created to ban any potential later abortions done for trivial reasons? Again, not all wrongdoing should be illegal, but—most importantly—a ban on these potential abortions would surely have a negative impact on actual later abortions done for legitimate medical reasons. If the justifiability of any later abortion had to be proven in court, or people had to go through the criminal justice system to approve an emergency medical procedure, that would have very bad effects, given the speed, inefficiency and occasional incompetence of courts and the criminal justice system. Bringing the police and judges into private medical decisions would be very bad for all, especially vulnerable groups: people of color, immigrants, poor people, and pregnant women generally.

There are, of course, other “what ifs” asked about abortion, and we encourage the reader to identify those and carefully evaluate the arguments given about abortions in those unique circumstances.

In sum, these are some of the more influential considerations given in support of the view that abortion is generally not wrong if done early in pregnancy, as well as reasons to believe that far later abortions could be morally problematic. These arguments often involve applications of answers to general moral (and legal) questions, such as: what makes killing us wrong, and what makes something (or someone) relevantly similar to “us”? What is the right to life a right to, and a right from? What is to be a person, and what’s the moral significance of personhood? What should be legal and what should be illegal? These arguments are also often developed in response to arguments against abortion and their implications for other ethical issues. Clearly, abortion is a complex issue, and so responsibly-developed arguments about it will engage that complexity with insight and, we hope, wisdom.