Abortion

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Abortion
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Rights-based Arguments
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Rights-based Pro-life Argument

• A fetus is a person
• A person has a right to life
• So, a fetus has a right to life
• Its wrong to kill something with a right to life
• So, its wrong to kill a fetus
• Abortion kills a fetus
• So, abortion is wrong

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Personhood

• Is a fetus a person?
• What is a person?
• Person is vague and normative people have
  rights
• We need criteria for being a person

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Criteria for personhood

• Biological genes, appearance, brain activity
  (Noonan)
• Independence (viability)
• Consciousness
• Self-consciousness
• Physical separation
• Autonomy self-concept, plans for future, etc.
  (Warren)

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Four weeks

• Genetic pattern established since conception
• Heart, eyes, nervous system formed

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Six weeks

• Arms and legs formed
• Skeleton complete, reflexes active
• Brain waves present

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Seven weeks

• Brain activity present
• Appearance complete

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Eight weeks

• Now officially a fetus
• All systems in place
• Just need to develop and increase size

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Eight weeks
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Eleven weeks

• Arms and legs move, sucks thumb
• Inhales and exhales amniotic fluid

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Twelve weeks
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Twelve weeks
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Sixteen weeks

• Grasps, swims, kicks, turns somersaults

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Eighteen weeks

• Vocal cords work fetus can cry

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Twenty weeks
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Twenty-four weeks
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After Birth
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Criteria for Personhood

• Conception genetic makeup
• First trimester appearance, brain activity,
  consciousness
• Second trimester
• Third trimester viability
• Birth physical separation
• Well after birth self-consciousness, autonomy

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Inadequacy of Later Criteria

• Autonomy, self-consciousness
• develop well after birth
• So, babies arent people
• Babies have no right to life
• Warren If its wrong to kill them, its because
  other people care about them (like works of art)
  (!)
• Physical separation, viability
• Morally irrelevant
• What about people on ventilators, etc.?

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Two Pro-life Views

• Early criteria succeed, and imply that most or
  all abortions are wrong
• Being a person doesnt depend on having these
  characteristics, but on a capacity for them
  having the right dispositions
• An early fetus is like a comatose patient who
  will recover

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Fetuses have rights

• A comatose patient has a right to life because of
  what he/she will be able to do
• But fetus (generally) will be able to do those
  same things
• So, fetus has a right to life too

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Fetuses have rights

• A mother who drinks, takes drugs, etc., while
  pregnant and risks harming her fetus acts
  immorally
• Someone who intentionally injures a fetus acts
  immorally (Cf. doctor who tore arm off fetus in
  botched abortion attempt)
• But killing someone is worse than injuring them

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Killing what has a right to life

• Its wrong to kill anything with a right to life
• A fetus has a right to life ltgt
• Others have a perfect obligation not to interfere
  with the fetuss living ltgt
• Others have a perfect obligation not to kill the
  fetus gt
• Abortion is wrong in fact, unjust

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Can right to life be outweighed?

• Punishment irrelevant
• Self-defense protection of mothers health (1-3
  of abortions)
• Prospects of life not worth living (severe
  defects lt1 of abortions)
• Greater good (happiness)? But we dont let
  people kill people who might make them unhappy
• Privacy? But we dont let people kill in private

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Rights-based Choice Arguments

• Roe v. Wade (Justice Blackmun)
• Mother has a right to privacy concerning
  fundamental liberties
• Whether to bear a child is a fundamental choice
• So, mothers right to privacy include a right to
  abortion
• The state may protect the mothers health before
  viability the fetuss life only thereafter

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Roe v. Wade

• First trimester right to privacy no regulation
• Second trimester may regulate only to protect
  mother
• Third trimester viability may regulate to
  protect the fetus, but mothers health comes
  first
• Birth fetus has full rights

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Thomsons Argument

• Thomson criticizes the premise that its wrong to
  kill anything with a right to life
• A fetus has a right to life ltgt others shouldnt
  kill the fetus unjustly
• So, we can conclude that abortion is wrong only
  by showing that it is unjust killing
• Justice is prior stems from mothers right to
  her own body

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Violinist

• You may unplug yourself from the violinist, even
  if doing that kills him
• You have not given him a right to use your body
• So, unplugging yourself is not unjust killing
  (analogy rape, lt1)
• Burglars and people seeds voluntary acts done in
  knowledge that pregnancy might result still dont
  give right to use

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Obligations to others

• Maybe the mother is obligated even so (imperfect
  rather than perfect obligation)
• How much must we do for others?
• Our obligations are minimal
• But abortion is wrong only if we must be good
  Samaritans toward others

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Degrees of generosity

• Splendid Samaritan risks life to help others in
  need
• Good Samaritan endures significant cost to help
  others in need
• Minimally Decent Samaritan does something to
  help others in need

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Englishs Argument

• Self-defense You may injure someone somewhat
  more severely than you are threatened to protect
  yourself
• Abortion is justified if the mother
• Faces death or serious injury from continuing the
  pregnancy
• Faces seriously diminished life prospects from
  pregnancy
• But only in early stages

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Kantian Pro-life Arguments

• Everything has a price or a dignity
• Human beings have dignity, not a price
• What has a dignity should not be used merely as a
  means
• Abortion generally uses a fetus for the mothers
  ends
• Abortion is generally wrong

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Kantian Pro-life Arguments

• Possible exceptions when abortion does not use
  fetus for mothers ends, but done for the sake of
  the fetus
• Prospects of a life not worth living Severe
  birth defects, diseases, etc. (lt 1 of
  abortions)
• Self-protection (threat to mothers health 1-3
  of abortions)

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Kantian Pro-choice Arguments

• Isnt the fetus also using the mother?
• Respect for moral agency requires voluntary,
  informed consent
• Respect for the mothers agency requires her
  consent
• No one has the right to force her consent

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Kantian Pro-choice Arguments

• Roe v. Wade (Justice Douglas)
• People have a right to autonomy over development
  of intellect, interests, tastes, personality
• Freedom to choose lifestyle, including marriage,
  procreation
• Childbirth may deprive woman of preferred
  lifestyle
• So, a woman has a right to abortion

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Kantian Pro-life Response

• Problem what are limits on autonomy? May a
  woman kill her children if they interfere with
  her preferred lifestyle?
• Solutions I may do what I want so long as I
  dont hurt (Mill) or use (Kant) others
• But abortion harms and almost always uses the
  fetus
• If the fetus has dignity, thats immoral
• So, the argument depends on the fetuss status

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Suffering

• Is a fetus a person?
• One option (Benthams) Can it suffer?
• This suggests a criterion the fetus deserves
  moral consideration only after it gains the
  ability to feel pleasure and pain (around 7-8
  weeks)
• Even after that, its pleasures and pains lack
  complexity low quality

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Vagueness

• Is a fetus a person?
• Another option Vagueness
• Maybe there is no fact of the matter
• Maybe person is vague its indeterminate
  whether fetuses are people in a morally
  significant sense
• We have no choice but to decide which social
  policy is best

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Potential people

• But its not so simple
• To decide which policy is best, we must do moral
  calculus
• But how do we count the interests of fetuses?
• We dont have to count them as 0 or 1, as nothing
  or as a full adult we could count their
  interests as something in between
• Their pleasures and pains are low in quality

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Utilitarian Pro-life Arguments

• Harms of abortion
• Death of the fetus 1 million last year, 40
  million since 1973
• Thats an abortion every 30 seconds 25-30 of
  fetuses die from abortion
• Pain of the fetus (half of all abortions
  performed after the fetus can feel pain)

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Utilitarian Pro-life Arguments

• Harms of abortion
• Loss of future happiness of fetus and all who
  would have been affected by him/her
• Risk of injury, infertility for woman
• Loss of respect for life
• Increased child abuse
• Increased acceptance of euthanasia
• Decreased respect for women

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Utilitarian Pro-life Arguments

• Abortion is unnecessary there are less harmful
  alternatives
• Birth control 50 of abortions performed on
  women who used no other form of birth control
• 40 of all women who have abortions have more
  than one
• Adoption 2 million couples waiting to adopt, but
  only 50,000 babies put up for adoption each year

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Marquiss Pro-life Argument

• What makes death bad, and murder wrong?
• The loss of a human future
• A fetus has a human future
• Abortion deprives it of that future
• So, abortion is wrong, and for just the same
  reason that murder is wrong

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Utilitarian Pro-choice Arguments

• Harms to the mother
• Physical harm
• Psychological harm
• Caring for child can be a burden
• Physical and mental health
• Distressful life and future
• Inability to care for child

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Utilitarian Pro-choice Arguments

• Child may suffer
• From being unplanned and unwanted
• From unhappiness of mother and other family
  members
• From material disadvantages
• Legal abortion saves lives of women who otherwise
  would seek illegal abortions
• In 1972, 39 women died from complications of
  abortion
• In 1977, 21 did, though number of abortions more
  than tripled

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Burkean Pro-life Arguments

• How do we balance competing claims?
• Right to life outweighs other rights
• We dont kill sick patients because curing them
  will be inconvenient, expensive, etc.
• Analogies with comatose patients, animals, injury
  to fetus, premature infants
• Experience consequences of legal abortion have
  been serious
• Legislatures are structured to balance competing
  interests

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Analogies with neonates
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Burkean Pro-Choice Arguments

• Sometimes abortion is permissible
• Sometimes not
• Theres no principled way to distinguish
  permissible cases
• Any law about abortion will be unjust, outlawing
  permissible abortions, or allowing impermissible
  ones, or both
• Best to leave decision to those who can strike
  best compromise in the circumstances the woman
  and her doctor