Is abortion morally wrong?

Table of Contents

1. Distinct Issues
2. Big Picture Graphic
   1. Arguments that Abortion is Morally Wrong
      1. Personhood begins at Conception
      2. Shooting into a Closet
      3. Killing a Viable Fetus is like Killing a Newborn
      4. Marquis Deprivation Argument
         1. Misfortune of Premature Death
         2. Marquis’ Argument
         3. What the Deprivation Theory Explains
         4. Problem with the Argument
   2. Arguments that Abortion is Morally Permissible
      1. Personhood Begins After Conception
      2. Right to Control One’s Body
      3. Judith Jarvis Thomson’s Famous Violinist
         1. Thomson’s Thought Experiment
         2. Thomson’s Argument
         3. Analogical Arguments in Ethics and Legal Reasoning
         4. Is there anything wrong with this analogical argument?
3. Addenda
   1. Vagueness of ‘Person’
   2. Fetal Development
   3. Development of Brain

Distinct Issues

• Moral Status
  • Is abortion morally wrong?
• Normative Legal Question
  • Under what conditions, if any, should a woman have a legal right to an abortion?
    • Conditions:
      • the stage of prenatal development
      • circumstances and reasons for abortion, e.g.
        • pregnancy due to rape or incest
        • preserve life or health of mother
• Personhood Question
  • When does personhood begin?
• Personal Decision
  • Should I have an abortion?
• Constitutional Question
  • Is a law prohibiting abortion unconstitutional?

Big Picture Graphic

Arguments that Abortion is Morally Wrong

Personhood begins at Conception

• Genetic Argument
  • The single-cell human zygote resulting from conception is a person because, in the development from independent sperm and egg to a newborn to an adult, the zygote is the first organism having the full set of 23 pairs of human chromosomes and thus genetically programmed to develop into an adult human being.

• Slippery Slope Argument
  • Suppose an ultrasound, CAT scan, or photograph has been taken of a person every day from conception to 18 years of age.  The images are numbered 1 through 7,000. The being in image 7000 is obviously a person. There’s no material difference between that being and the being on image 6999.  So, the being on image 6999 is likewise a human being. The same goes for the being on image 6998. Likewise for the being on image 6997. And so on back to the being on image 1, that of a one-cell human zygote. There is no magical day after conception when a human zygote-embryo-fetus becomes a person.
  • The argument in a nutshell:
    • Image 7000 depicts a person.
    • For each day from 2 to 7000, if the image on that day depicts a person, so does the image on the previous day.
      • Since there’s no relevant difference.
    • Therefore the image on day 1 depicts a person.

Shooting into a Closet

• If it’s unknown when a fetus becomes a person, abortion is morally wrong for the same reason it’s wrong to shoot a gun into a closet if you don’t know whether a child is inside. 
• The underlying principle:
  • If you don’t know whether an act will result in a person’s death, you have a moral obligation to avoid doing it.

Killing a Viable Fetus is like Killing a Newborn

• Killing a newborn is morally wrong.
• There’s no morally relevant difference between killing a newborn and killing a viable fetus.
  • Before birth the placenta supplies nutrients and oxygen to the fetus through the umbilical cord.  After birth nutrients are supplied by the newborn’s digestive system and oxygen by the newborn’s pulmonary system.  But being supplied nutrients and oxygen by different delivery systems is not a morally relevant difference that would permit killing a viable fetus but not a newborn. It’s not okay to kill a person, for example, just because they’re being fed through a feeding tube and breathing on a ventilator.
• Therefore, killing a viable fetus is morally wrong.

Marquis Deprivation Argument

A person is killed painlessly with no physical or mental suffering.
What makes that a bad thing?

• Don Marquis was Emeritus Professor of Philosophy at the University of Kansas until his death in 2022.
• He was best known for his paper “Why Abortion Is Immoral”, which appeared in The Journal of Philosophy in April, 1989. The paper has been reprinted over 80 times and is widely cited in the philosophical debate over abortion. The main argument in the paper is sometimes known as the “deprivation argument,” since a central premise is that abortion deprives an embryo or fetus of a “future like ours”.
  • wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_Marquis_(philosopher)

From Don Marquis’ Paper “Why Abortion is Immoral,” Journal of Philosophy, 1989

Misfortune of Premature Death

• The misfortune of premature death consists of the loss to us of the future goods of consciousness.  Those goods are whatever we get out of life: completed projects of which we are proud, the pursuit of our goals, aesthetic enjoyments, friendships, intellectual pursuits, and physical pleasures of various sorts. The goods of life are what makes life worth living.

Marquis’ Argument

• The Argument
  • Killing is morally wrong because it deprives the victim of a future conscious life just like ours.
  • Abortion is morally wrong for precisely the same reason: because it deprives the fetus of a future conscious life just like ours.

• Argument Reconstructed
  1. Depriving a human organism of a future it would value is morally wrong, other things being equal.
  2. Aborting a human embryo/fetus deprives it of a future it would value.
  3. Therefore, abortion is morally wrong, other things being equal.

What the Deprivation Theory Explains

• The Deprivation Theory of killing explains;
  1. Why killing is one of the worst crimes. My being killed deprives me of more than does my being robbed or beaten or harmed in some other way because my being killed deprives me of  all of the value of my future, not merely part of it. This explains why we  make the penalty for murder greater than the penalty for other crimes.
  2. Why it is not wrong to deliberately end the life of a person who is permanently unconscious. Thus we believe that it is not wrong to remove a feeding tube or a ventilator from a permanently comatose patient, knowing that such a removal will cause death. 
  3. Why it is wrong, ceteris paribus, to withdraw medical treatment from patients who are temporarily unconscious. 
  4. Why in some cases active euthanasia is morally acceptable.  Proponents argue that if a patient faces a future of intractable pain and wants to die, then, ceteris paribus, it would not be wrong for a physician to give him medicine that she knows would result in his death.
  5. Why it’s morally wrong to kill infants.

Problem with the Argument

Marquis presents two arguments:

• Argument that abortion is morally wrong
  1. Depriving a human organism of a future it would value is morally wrong, other things being equal.
  2. Aborting a human embryo/fetus deprives it of a future it would value.
  3. Therefore, abortion is morally wrong, other things being equal.

• Argument that killing is morally wrong.
  1. Depriving a human organism of a future it would value is morally wrong, other things being equal.
  2. Killing a human being deprives it of a future it would value.
  3. Therefore, killing a human being is morally wrong, other things being equal.

• The problem with these arguments is that their second premises are collective empirical generalizations, like Americans are overweight. The premises are equivalent to:
  • Aborting a human embryo/fetus in general deprives it of a future it would value.
  • Killing a human being in general deprives it of a future it would value.
• The arguments thus justify only the conclusions that:
  • Abortion in general is morally wrong, other things being equal.
  • Killing in general is morally wrong, other things being equal.
• These statements are empirical generalizations rather than moral principles.  Thus Marquis’ argument fails to justify the moral principle that abortion is morally wrong, other things being equal.

The problem in a nutshell is that Marquis’ argument tries to establish a moral principle on consequentialist grounds.

Arguments that Abortion is Morally Permissible

Personhood Begins After Conception

• The human zygote-embryo-fetus gradually develops into a person as it develops a conscious life, since having a conscious life is part of what it means to be a person.
• Precisely when this happens is indeterminate because
  • fetal development is gradual and
    • View Fetal Development
  • the word person is vague, i.el., subject to indeterminate borderline cases.
    • View Vagueness of ‘Person’
• Abortion is thus permissible during the indeterminate phase of fetal development.

Right to Control One’s Body

• A woman has a moral right to control her body and her pregnancy.
• She has a right to abortion in the case of rape, per JJ Thomson’s argument.
  • View JJ Thomson’s Argument
• She has a right to abortion during the indeterminate phase of fetal development.
  • View Personhood Begins After Conception

Judith Jarvis Thomson’s Famous Violinist

• Judith JarvisThomson was a faculty member at MIT for 40 years, retiring in 2004. She remained active in philosophy at MIT, writing articles and advising graduate students, until her death. She is best known for her papers “A Defense of Abortion” and “Killing, Letting Die, and the Trolley Problem.”
  • Remembrance of Judith Jarvis Thomson, MIT

• Since Roe v. Wade was overturned, at least ten states have banned abortion with no exceptions for rape or incest. But in 1971 Judith Jarvis Thomson presented a plausible argument that:
  • Abortion in the case of rape is morally justified, even if the fetus is a person
• The argument is by analogy.

Thomson’s Thought Experiment

Thomson’s presented a thought experiment, somewhat dated, an analog to being pregnant by rape.

• “You wake up in the morning and find yourself back to back in bed with an unconscious violinist. A famous unconscious violinist. He has been found to have a fatal kidney ailment, and the Society of Music Lovers has canvassed all the available medical records and found that you alone have the right blood type to help. They have therefore kidnapped you, and last night the violinist’s circulatory system was plugged into yours, so that your kidneys can be used to extract poisons from his blood as well as your own. [Unplugging him now would kill him; but in nine months] he will have recovered from his ailment, and can safely be unplugged from you. ”
  • “A Defense of Abortion” Philosophy & Public Affairs , 1971

• Basic Idea
  • A tube is forcibly attached to your body, connecting it to some other guy’s body.
  • If you disconnect the tube before nine months is up, the other guy dies.
  • You are physically able to disconnect the tube anytime.

Thomson’s Argument

• Thomson argues that, since the situation was forced on you, you have no moral obligation to keep the violinist attached. What if, she asks, it were nine years rather than nine months, or the rest of your life in bed?
• By analogy, Thomson argues, a woman who’s pregnant because of rape has no moral obligation to carry the fetus to term.
• Her argument, reconstructed:
  • It’s morally acceptable for you to unplug the violinist.
    • It would be nice of you to keep yourself connected for nine months. But doing so is supererogatory, above and beyond the call of duty. You have no moral obligation to spend nine months connected to the violinist.
  • There’s no morally relevant difference between unplugging the violinist and having an abortion in the case of rape.
    • In both scenarios
      • The subject is forced into having her body supply nutrients to another person
      • If the subject stops the flow of nutrients within nine months the dependent person dies.
      • The subject prefers not to have her body supply nutrients to the dependent person.
      • The subject is able stop the flow of nutrients.
  • Therefore having an abortion because of rape is morally acceptable.
• View Kinds of Arguments

Analogical Arguments in Ethics and Legal Reasoning

• Argument by analogy is an effective way of arguing in Ethics and legal reasoning.
  • There’s no relevant difference between situations A and B.
  • X is the proper course of action in A.
  • Therefore, X is the proper course of action in B.
• Appealing to precedents in legal reasoning is arguing by analogy.
  • From Precedent in the Britannica:
    • A precedent is a judgment or decision of a court cited in a subsequent dispute as an example or analogy to justify deciding a similar case or point of law in the same manner.

Is there anything wrong with this analogical argument?

A friend tells you he pays nothing for his high-speed Internet connection. He had noticed that his neighbor’s WiFi connection was unsecured and simply connected his devices to it. You tell him that’s wrong. He replies: No, it’s just like at Starbucks reading the paper the guy next to you is reading.

Your friend’s argument:

1. It’s morally okay to furtively read a newspaper over a stranger’s shoulder (as long as you don’t disturb them).
2. Piggybacking off a neighbor’s Internet connection is morally analogous to furtively reading over a stranger’s shoulder.
3. Therefore, it’s morally okay to piggyback off a neighbor’s Internet connection

View Answer

Addenda

Vagueness of ‘Person’

• A linguistic expression is vague if its meaning is not precise, leading to borderline cases where its truth is indeterminate
  • Per Merriam-Webster, vague means not having an exact or precise meaning.

• Stipulating a precise meaning for many doesn’t solve the problem because the stipulated meaning is not the ordinary meaning:
  • Per MW, many means consisting of or amounting to a large but indefinite number; not few
• If you define many as “at least 30,” your stipulated meaning is inconsistent with the ordinary meaning.

• Vagueness permeates language.
  • Vague everyday words include: tall, hot, cold, heavy, light, big, little, rich, poor, young, old, many, few, brief, lengthy, quickly, slowly, red, green, loose, tight, bright, dark, high, low, wide, narrow, intelligent, dumb, honest, dishonest, expensive, popular, unpopular, fast, slow, torture.

• Vagueness is characterized by unanswerable min-max questions
  • What’s the minimum height a tall man can have?
  • What’s the maximum height a short man can have?
  • What’s the minimum net worth a wealthy person can have?
  • What’s the maximum net worth a poor person can have?

• Vagueness ≠ Ambiguity
  • A linguistic expression is vague if it does not have a precise meaning, leading to borderline cases where its truth is indeterminate
  • A linguistic expression is used ambiguously if it can be plausibly understood in more than one way
    • Examples
      • Driver: should I turn left at the stop sign?  Passenger: Right.
      • He’s a poor student.
      • Visiting relatives can be boring.
      • Two cannibals are eating a clown.  One comments “this sure tastes funny”.

• Vagueness of “Many”
  • 100 people vote in an election
    1. If most people vote for Mr. Smallweed, what’s the smallest number of votes he can receive?
    2. If many people vote for Mr. Smallweed what’s the smallest number of votes he can receive?
  • The answer to the first question is determinate and easily calculated.
  • The answer to the second question is indeterminate, not for want of information, but because many is vague. The second question is unanswerable.

• Vagueness of Person and Human Being
  • Compare
    1. On which day did the zygote implant in the uterus?
    2. On which day did the zygote-embryo-fetus become a person or a human being?
  • The first question has a definite answer, perhaps unknown
  • The answer to the second question is indeterminate, not because of lack information about fetal development, but because person and human being are vague.
  • The question when human life begins is unanswerable in the same way it’s unanswerable whether many people voted for Mr. Smallweed.

Fetal Development

• Conception / Fertilization
• First Trimester Begins (week 1)
  • Zygote implants in uterine wall (8-10 days)
  • Zygote becomes an embryo (10-12 days)
  • Heart starts beating (week 4)
  • Neurons start forming (week 6)
  • Embryo becomes fetus (week 8)
  • 91.5% of abortions performed by end of (week 13)
• Second Trimester Begins (week 14)
  • Quickening occurs (first fetal movement) (week 16)
  • Neurons start forming synaptic connections (week 18)
  • 98.7% of abortions performed by end of (week 20)
  • Lungs develop (week 22-23)
  • Fetus becomes viable (able to live outside womb) (week 22-23)
  • EEG looks very much like that of a newborn (week 24)
• Third Trimester Begins (week 28)
  • Synaptic growth skyrockets (week 28)
• Birth (week 38-40)

Development of Brain

• Neurons start forming (week 6)
• Corpus Callosum begins to develop (week 13)
• Neurons start forming synaptic connections (week 18)
• EEG looks very much like that of a newborn (week 22)
• Synaptic growth skyrockets  (week 28)
• Size of the brain and the proportion of its parts are basically those of an adult. (two years after birth)