I know this is an old one, but my friend and I found ourselves discussing it today. Here were some points that were raised:

Position 1 (his position):
-Abortion is always a sad event
-Abortion is the taking of life.

summary
when people have sex, they know there is a chance they will become pregnant. people need to take responsibility for the consequences of their actions. only in cases of rape and incest should abortion be permissible.

Position 2 (my position):
-Abortion can be a good thing
-Abortion is stopping potential life

summary
when people have sex, they do not necessarily want to have a child. if they are faced with an unwanted pregnancy, it is up to each individual woman to decide whether it is ethical (for her) to have an abortion.

comments/ thoughts?

Abortion is not OK because the life form in the womb is definitely a human being albeit a very young one. Dehumanising names are given to avoid this fact such as fetus, however a woman who wants her pregnancy to go full term usually refers to her "baby", seldom her "fetus".

It was suggested that abortion clinics should have books showing the various stages of developement of the unborn child in the womb but this was not considered desirable reading for people who where just about to kill their baby. Too close to the reality of the situation.

Its ironic that newspapers sometimes have front page spreads about "miracle" premature babies that courageously survived aginst the odds when at the same time, possibly in the same hospital, baby remains are being thrown in the waste disposal.

I've been told by professionals in the hospital work force that late term abortions sometimes result in live births and they are then left to die in a dish.

This is a perennially intractable debate – intractable because people often work from fundamentally inconsistent starting points, and often “talk past” one another so that they never get to the root of their disagreement.

In at least one respect, arry, your friend is objectively correct; abortion is the taking of a life. A foetus is undoubtedly alive (if only because it can die).

(And, furthermore, it is the taking of a human life, if only in the biological sense of “human” – the foetus conceived by a man and a woman is human, not feline, bovine, canine, etc.

And we can go even further and say that the foetus is a unique human individual. And no biologist will disagree.)

Thus far your friend is right and it follows, I think, that your position is incorrect, or at least inaccurate. The foetus is not just potentially alive; it is actually alive. Abortion is the taking of a human life, and any attempted defence of abortion has to accept that reality, if it is to be worth our time and attention.

But the question really comes down to, is abortion the taking of human life of a kind which has a moral claim to be respected/protected by us? you might argue that the foetus has the potential to grow into the kind of life which would command our respect and protection, but hasn’t actually grown into that kind of life yet.

For many people, <human life> = <life which has a right to our respect and protection>, and this is axiomatic –i.e. they don’t feel the need to argue for or demonstrate the truth of this claim; they simply assert it as true and expect agreement. I don’t say this to criticise those people; I think all ethical beliefs ultimately rest on ethical axioms whose truth we accept without being able to demonstrate it. We all have some ethical value that we assert but cannot justify. It’s just that, for these people, this is one of those axioms.

We have to accept, I think, that we cannot force others to accept our axiomatic values.

Forgive me if I misrepresent you, arry, but I think the position that you are arguing from (or possibly arguing towards) is that there is a class of human life which deserves our respect and protection, and another class which does not.

At this point in the discussion, the cry of “Nazi!” will usually be heard, since of course the Nazis did believe that there were human lives undeserving of respect and protection, and they notoriously acted on that belief on a wide scale. Such are the passions that abortion rouses, that anyone who embarks on this line of thinking is almost certain to be compared to the Nazis sooner or later.

I, however, am not going to call you a Nazi, since I’m going to assume that the line you draw between those lives which must be respected and those which need not be will be drawn at a completely different place, and will be based on completely different values, than the line the Nazis drew. So put Nazis aside, and let them not be mentioned in this thread again.

I do think, though, you need to set out what additional characteristic(s) you think a human life must have before it can command our respect. Obviously, it will be a characteristic that foetuses, or at least some foetuses, don’t have.

You can go on to say why you think a human life must have that characteristic before it can command our respect, or you can just say that this, for you, is an axiomatic value. In my experience most people fairly rapidly get to the “axiomatic” stage on this point.

And that’s where the discussion stops, or at least has to find another direction. Because if your friend holds as axiomatic a value which you do not accept, and you hold as axiomatic a value which he does not accept, and neither of you can force the other to accept his axioms, where do you go from there?

Ok, so we go with the axiom that:

human life = life which has a right to our respect and attention.

Therefore we must either dispute the definition of 'human life' or 'right to our respect and attention' if we are to 'prove' abortion is ok (if we accept the axiom).

What is a human life?

That is a very interesting question. Is an Iraqi human life worth as much as an American human life? Judging by American media, we would suspect not. Is an African human life worth as much as an Australian human life? Judging by the starvation rates in Africa, one would suspect not. Is a disabled person's human life worth as much as a normal person's human life? Always? No matter how disabled they may be? And of course, is a fetus human life worth the same as a baby human life? Then we get onto animals of course. Is a working dog worth more than a person who is paralysed from the neck down? The working dog will be contributing more to society and working harder. We do rate animal life. Killing an ant is not the same as killing a cow, a cow not the same as killing a whale apparently. There are so many inconsistencies- both in how we say we rate life (and the inconsistencies within those positions) and then what we actually do (which often contradicts what we say also).

I think if we look at it objectively, it does seem to me that- through our actions, we do rate the value of human life. We decide that some are more important than others, that some are more deserving of 'protection'. The natural inclination has been to protect the vulnerable- this disabled, the sick, women and children. But from a utilitarian perspective you could question this mentality and ask whether we should actually be protecting our greatest asset- the fit and strong. For example, if we had a twenty year old and a six month old. We had to sacrifice one, we would be- from a utilitarian perspective- better off sacrificing the six month old because less resources have been invested into that human life. This is especially the case if the twenty year old has turned out to be a person of great value to society. There is no guarantee the six month old has or will be. But is that how we should measure human life? It seems logical and rational but is it right?

"Right to our respect and attention"
Judging by our actions, we do not respect or attend to the starving children in Africa each day. Is that because we believe those lives are not worthy of our respect and attention? If so, why then is a fetus? This is incosistent is it not? However two wrongs don't make a right, we could say that yes, we are wrong on that count, and we are also wrong to think abortion is ok. That would at least be a morally consistent argument.

Now i can't think of a way to ethically justify abortion. If we accept that it is a human life, I can't see how it can be justified.

arry

I'm always amazed at those who oppose capital punishment, yet support abortion on demand.

It would seem to me that there are instances where both the death penalty and abortion are the right thing to do.

A fetus or feotus is worthy of our respect and attention because we have created it. We cannot take the burden of the whole world on our shoulders can we now?

Its nice to see such a very elegant discussion on the subject of abortion but unfortunately it doesn't pretty up the subject matter any.

Christine,

Do you oppose the right to an abortion in the event of incest, rape or especially incestuous rape?

Kookaburra
I said abortion is not OK in my book, but I realise everyone must be free to make their own decision.

Christine,

Based on your quote, then you do support abortion on demand so that each person is free to make their own decision? Otherwise how could each person exercise this freedom?

When does one persons freedom impose on someone elses freedoms?

Where does society draw the line? If I make a subtle change in your quote does it make a difference?




I said marriage is not OK in my book, but I realise everyone must be free to make their own decision.

I said polygamy is not OK in my book, but I realise everyone must be free to make their own decision.

I said same sex marriage is not OK in my book, but I realise everyone must be free to make their own decision.

I said murder is not OK in my book, but I realise everyone must be free to make their own decision.

I said stealing is not OK in my book, but I realise everyone must be free to make their own decision.

I said drink driving is not OK in my book, but I realise everyone must be free to make their own decision.

I said incest is not OK in my book, but I realise everyone must be free to make their own decision.

I said rape is not OK in my book, but I realise everyone must be free to make their own decision.

I said meat eating is not OK in my book, but I realise everyone must be free to make their own decision.

I said religion is not OK in my book, but I realise everyone must be free to make their own decision

I said circumcision is not OK in my book, but I realise everyone must be free to make their own decision

I said lack of personal responsibility is not OK in my book, but I realise everyone must be free to make their own decision

I said private gun ownership is not OK in my book, but I realise everyone must be free to make their own decision
I said pornography is not OK in my book, but I realise everyone must be free to make their own decision

Pick any number of issues and the argument can be made that it imposes on someone else freedom of choice.

Hi arry


I think you have a problem, so. You can debate fundamental moral values, but objectively demonstrable scientific realities are not up for debate. The human foetus is alive, and it is biologically human. A moral account of abortion which starts from a denial of either of these facts is going to be unconvincing.


You raise interesting points, but I don’t know that they help you towards a justification for abortion. I think most people would say, for instance, that the fact that so many, e.g. African children, suffer avoidable want, disease and death is an injustice and marks a moral failure on our part. If so, it hardly amounts to an ethical case for practising abortion as well.

What you may be talking yourself towards is something like the Catholic idea of a “consistent ethic of life” – the idea that human life always deserves respect and protection , and that the society which allows an African child to starve to death because she is a long way away and we don’t know her name is also the society which will allow the unborn to be destroyed as a method of family planning.

The African child can die, but we try to save the fit and the strong because, being fit and strong, they might be useful to us. There’s an assumption underlying these attitudes that the lives of others matter only in so far as they affect me. This is an assumption wihch the “consisistent ethic of life” of course denies. The alternative is to accept the assumption, and to say that no only is abortion morally permissible, but that it is morally right for the African child to starve, because her death makes no difference to us. That’s not a position that many of us would be comfortable with.


Hi Kookaburra

You raise a different question. The OP asks whether abortion is good and ethical. You ask whether people have a right to abortion.

There are lots of things that we think of as always or generally wrong, but that we do not make illegal – e.g. adultery, deceit, hypocrisy. It’s not inconsistent to say that I think abortion is usually or always an ethically wrong choice, but that I also think the law should permit it in some or all cases. It comes down to what we think the function of law is, but very few people would say that the function of law is simply to prevent immoral actions.

Many things that the law forbids are indeed generally considered immoral – e.g. murder, as you point out yourself. But other things that the law forbids have no inherent moral content – e.g. driving on the right. And yet other things are immoral but not illegal – adultery. Thus “illegal” and “immoral” are categories which overlap to some extent, but by no means completely. To argue that something is immoral does not amount to arguing that it should be illegal. And accepting that it should be legal is not an assertion or acceptance of its morality.

Kookaburra
Thats quite a hotch potch you've strung together there.
I'll admit I was tired and was winding down for a good night's sleep, otherwise I would have reiterated that I am against abortion in all its forms.
I see you are using the familiar thin end of the wedge, figures of tragedy, victims themselves, to slide the argument for abortion into a more repectable position for the debate.
Hitler did the same thing to convince the good people of Germany that they needed to be rid of the Jews, and lots of people had reason to be agrieved by the injustices that had occured.
Of course now we never hear of any such reasons we are just told that Hitler was a madman.
While a child may be an inconvenience to us, that does not mean they are not entitled to a life. Many people are glad they avoided an abortion, they realise kids are more valuable than money, a man or job.

Another thought about the Friztl case. Would Elizabeth Fritzl have been better off with a lonely twentyfour year incarceration and regular rapes from her father with abortions thrown in? The company of her beloved children must have been a huge comfort to her.

Christine,

I do not believe abortion on demand at the whim of the individual involved as being either ethical or a right.

But I do support the right and the ethicalness of abortion in the event of rape, incest, or incestuous rape.

Similarly, I think capital punishment should be reserved for particularly heinous acts. But not every crime.

In terms of ethics, and not right and wrong, I see that one way of considering the ethical implications is to look at the impact upon all stakeholders and is that impact is positive, negative or neutral. By considering the impacts one can gain a feel for what could be best for each stakeholder. Of course, what is best for one is not necessarily best for another. If there is no impact to that person, then that person is not a stakeholder.

The stakeholders in this are (in more or less priority order);
- the embryo/foetus/baby
- the mother
- the father
- the relations/family such as grandparents etc.
- the human race
- the local society
- the state/country
- the world
Each of these stakeholders are impacted by an abortion taking place or not.

Some of the impacts are more or less as follows:
- the embryo/foetus/baby. Life or no life. Is life always better than no life? Many would sometimes say no, sometimes life is not better than non-existence. A fertilised egg that has some genetic or other problem and results in an anencephalic embryo (a condition which means much of the foetus's brain is missing) is arguably not even human. In such instances most people would say that no life is better than life for this living creature. As this creature/human cannot appreciate it is or isn't alive, in such cases one could argue that aborting such a creature/human is not abortion of a human. It appears to me that in some cases life is not always beneficial for a fertilised human egg. Life is of course preferred by a normal live baby.
- the mother. By having a baby, a mother can gain a lot of benefit in terms of self esteem, emotional growth, closeness within a society, Government financial aid etc. But a baby can also be a negative to a mother who cannot cope with a baby or child. Some mothers have been known to become depressed or kill their baby or commit suicide because of problems the baby/child brings to their life. A baby is usually beneficial to a mother, but not always. There are some cases where for medical reasons, a choice must be made between the mother's life and that of the potential baby. This is a classical ethical dilemma.
- other stakeholders. Anyway, each of the remaining stakeholders are also impacted by an abortion taking or not taking place. I am certain we can all figure out the benefits and non-benefits for the other stakeholders more or less.

This leads to the abortion being sometimes in the best interest of the major stakeholders. Probably not in the majority of cases, but certainly in some instances. This means abortion can be ethical in some instances. Great care should be taken to decide each situation.

In practice, some clear guidelines would be required which are administered by appropriately skilled people with regular reviews. I think that is what more or less what is aimed for currently in Australia.

I mention in passing that societies do permit the killing of others in war, in high risk occupations, as euthanasia or as capital punishment, so life is not definitely not sacrosanct. Also everyone (I think) born before 1890 has died and all six billion of us on the planet today will also die. An ethical life does not equate to the longest life. Life and death of individuals is not really that major in the scheme of things.

Interesting points.

Another perspective:

Life creates life. But in the case of pregnancy one life is dependent on another. Until the baby is old enough to survive outside the womb, it is dependent on the mother. Its life is tied to hers. Therefore, does it have a claim to life when it could not exist without the mother?

It doesn't need to claim life because it is already alive. Its much like an apple that needs to stay attached to the tree to ripen.

Is dependency on another person a reason to question whether the dependent one has a full right to life? Many people are dependent on drugs to help them fight cancer and heart disease. Stephen Hawking, the renowned British scientist who has motor neuron disease, said "I have received a large amount of high quality treatment, without which I would not have survived". He, and many others are dependent on the medical fraternity, friends and family members for survival.

It’s a good analysis. But if I can make two points:

1. It may just be me, but I’m not sure I follow your opening words – “ In terms of ethics, and not right and wrong, . . .” Are you suggesting that there is an ethical analysis which doesn’t proceed by asking what is right and wrong behaviour in this (or any) situation? If you are not asking the “right or wrong” question, what question are you asking? I can only make sense of the discussion which follows on the basis that it is assumed to be “right” to have regard to the interests of the various affected stakeholders. If that is not “right”, what is the relevance of the discussion?

2. Your conclusion is that, adopting this consequentialist perspective and considering the interests of the various affected stakeholders, abortion is in some instances ethical, and in other instances not ethical. But of course the validity of the conclusion depends on accepting the validity of the consequentialist perspective in the first place. This comes back to the clash of fundamentals that I mentioned earlier; not everybody accepts the validity of the consequentialist perspective.


I’m not sure that it is, you know. As far as the legal framework goes, the approach seems to be to “back off”. The increasing tendency is for the law not to say when an abortion may or may not be performed; this is left as a personal judgment for the woman concerned, and a clinical judgment for the medics involved.

It could in theory be that the medics are engaging in the kind of analysis that you suggest, but I think the reality is that they are not. Only a tiny fraction of Australian abortions could be justified by saying that the foetus suffers from some condition which would likely make its continued existence insupportable to it. I think we can be reasonably sure that the great bulk of Australian abortions are undertaken for conventional family planning reasons - as an alternative to contraception or as a supplement for contraception which has failed.

One of the questions we have to face is whether, assuming we think the proper analysis is a consequentialist one which attaches significant weight to the interests of the foetus, we are happy with a legal and clinical reality which administers abortions on a completely different – and in practice much more generous – basis. And that, I think, goes back to the point I made earlier – “is abortion ethical?” and “should abortion be permitted?” are two very different questions.

Hmmm, this could be the answer; One only has the right to life if they can live independently. If I am looking after a very sick person, they do not necessarily have the 'right' to demand that I look after them 24/7. If I stop doing it, they may die, therefore, do they have a right to life? No, they have a life but only because I am willing to care for them, however this is not their 'right'.

Similarly, if a mother is pregnant that baby does not necessarily have the right to demand that she allows them to stay in her body. If she removes them, they may die, therefore, do they have a right to life? no, they have a life but only because she is willing to let them exist inside her, however this is not their right. Her body belongs to her, not to the baby.

But depending on your relationship to the sick person, I think we would still say that it might be highly unethical of you to fail to care for them to the point where they die. And, as a community, I think we would say we have a collective duty to provide at least a certain level of care to the sick, the elderly, the dependent, etc, and that they have a corresponding right to expect that.

Similarly, a newborn baby is no longer physically connected to its mother, but is totally dependent on her (or on a substitute) for survival and, if neglected, will certainly die. If it would have been ethical to abort the child before birth on the basis of its dependence, is it equally ethical to neglect the child after birth, to the point where it dies? If not, why not?

Yes, the unborn child is wholly dependent on its mother. But I don't see that that translates into having no ethical claim upon her for whatever is necessary to go on living.

That depends on a whole lot of things including community resources; time, money and values. A lot of societies certainly don't take that approach.


Again, depends on the context. If you need to work to survive and therefore cannot care for them 24/7 and your society does not provide care for the sick, and as a result, they die, no one has necessarily acted unethically.




Not on the basis of dependence then, on the basis that her body belongs to her before the baby. She has the right to remove the baby because he or she is in her body. if the consequence is that they die as a result, so be it. If medical advancements have meant they will survive, so be it. I am exploring this idea that if her body belongs to her, not the baby (which I believe is correct), then it logically follows that she then has the right to remove the baby from her body because her body belongs to her first, not the baby. The question is, is she responsible for the baby's death? Yes. Is it wrong? I don't know. If we agree her body belongs to her, than it seems the answer would be no...

This argument in a way comes back to the question of whether a mother has a responsibility to her child. I would ask, does a father have a responsibility to care for their child? There are a lot of absent fathers at birth, if the mother neglects the child and it dies, is she more responsible than the father? Why?

2nd argument: Life Cycle
A 3 month- old fetus is not the same as a fully matured baby. We in our society have a standard of life, a plant is not worth as much as an ant is not worth as much as a dog, a dog as a human etc. Therefore, a fetus is not of the same value as a human baby based on this measure of life. The difference is, the fetus can become a human, so it will change from one 'value' to another. Does this give it greater life value?

I understand these arguments are not necessarily consistent with each other. I am just tossing around ideas.

Any ethical duty is subject to your ability to perform it. If it is impossible for me to do X, it is not unethical for me not to do X.

That’s why I said that the the community has a duty to provide “at least a certain level of care to the sick”. What that level is depends on the resources, capacity, etc of the community in question. But I think all communities consider that they have some obligation in this regard. It arises out of the golden rule (“treat others as you would wish them to treat you”) which I think is a fairly universal ethic.


My response is the same as above. Plus, I’d say that in the abortion context this point doesn’t get you very far. It would support an argument that a women who needs an abortion in order to survive herself acts ethically in having an abortion, but such cases are rare, and certainly do not account for many of the abortions actually performed. It would, in fact, only support an abortion for someone who needed it to survive in circumstances which would also support the abandonment to death of sick dependent – i.e., fairly extreme circumstances.


I accept, of course, that a woman has a right to the control of her body (as does a man, though that’s not so relevant to the question of abortion).

We have to ask, though, whether this right is absolute, even to the point where it can be asserted at the expense of the life of another?

In other circumstances, we don’t regard the right to control of one’s own body as absolute. Somebody who is charged with a crime can be arrested and imprisoned, for example, and this is seems to me a greater restriction on control of one’s own body than being required to continue a pregnancy. (Note that this can be done when someone is charged, and before conviction, so the person could be wholly innocent of any crime.) Someone who enters the country without the proper visa can be arrested and detained indefinitely, even though they haven’t even been charged with any crime. Someone who is judged to be a danger to themselves or others by reason of mental illness can be detained involuntarily.

And that’s just looking at detention as an example of an aggressive restriction on the right to control one’s own body. These examples could probably be multiplied.

So, yes, as a society, we do recognise the ownership and control of one’s own body. But we certainly don’t see it as an absolute, and there are many circumstances in which we restrict it, even where this has nothing to do with respecting the life of another. It’s not clear, then, that we must not restrict it in the matter of abortion.


As regards the neglect of a living child, obviously they are both responsible. For obvious reasons the question of abortion is slightly different. If we take the view that the right to control one’s own body does not allow one to abort a baby, this is obviously going to impact on women in a way that it doesn’t on men. Are we therefore demanding of women something that we don’t demand of men? Is that fair?

I think the answer is that it‘s inevitable, so it can’t be unfair. And it’s a disparity of treatment that cuts both ways. To the extent that abortion is permitted, it is the mother, and not the father, who has the ultimate say in whether an abortion will take place. So, she bears a greater burden where abortion is not permitted, but has greater control where it is. The bottom line, I think, is that because she is a woman she is faced with an ethical question which will never directly face a man. It’s one of the ways in which the experience of being a woman differs from the experience of being a man. And that difference will persist whether abortion is permitted in all circumstances, in some circumstances or in none at all.


I’ll come back to this one in a separate post, if I may.