Module 4 Abortion
Lesson 17 – The Fundamental
Question and John T. Noonan’s
Conservative Arguments
State what the fundamental
question on the morality of
abortion is often thought to be,
and be able to explain why this
question is thought to be
fundamental
Explain and thoroughly critique
Noonan's principal argument
for his view that human life
begins at conception
Abortion is the termination of pregnancy with the intent and result of ending the life
of the prenatal organism.
The fundamental question when thinking about the morality of abortion is at what
point does the fetus acquire the moral right to life?
John Noonan maintains that abortion is almost always seriously immoral. It is only
not wrong when it is necessary to save the pregnant woman’s life. He thinks life
beings at conception:
1. A being with human genetic code is human.
2. A new being receives its human genetic code at conception when the sperm
fertilizes the ovum.
-3. Therefore, one is human at conception.
Noonan then assumes that one is human => one has the right to life => one may not
be killed except for reasons of extreme necessity.
EVALUATION:
Premise 1 is weak. Non-humans can have human genetic code. Cattle are sometimes
injected with human genetic code to make their milk more digestible. Same with pigs
to grow tissue that can be transplanted to humans. Human hair is not a human. An
acorn has the DNA of an oak tree, but is not an oak tree. An egg is not a chicken. An
organism that has only human DNA has at best the potential to become a human
being but is not one yet.
Furthermore, the argument has the fallacy of equivocation. Noonan’s argument
slides between two different meanings of the word “human being.”
1. All human beings have a right to life.
2. The fetus, from conception, is a human being.
-3. Therefore, the fetus has a right to life from conception.
In the first premise, human beings refers to persons – members of the moral
community. In the second premise, human being simply refers to having human
genetic material (versus genetic material from another species). That is, the fetus is
genetically human.
Explain and critically assess
Noonan's supporting argument
for his view that human life
1. Human life must begin at some point.
2. In deciding when human life begins, we should pay attention to probabilities.
3. There is a sharp shift in the probability of development at conception.
begins at conception
-Therefore, it is reasonable to think human life begins at this point ie. conception.
Noonan does not intend this argument to be conclusive proof for his view of when
human life begins, but rather as an inductive argument.
The principal problems with the argument is that the premises, even if true, do not
guarantee the conclusion to be true. E.g. I have made a non-refundable down
payment on the car you are selling, the probability I will own the car have gone up
greatly, but does not guarantee that I own the car now.
Lesson 18: The Moral
Significance of Potentiality
Explain and evaluate the
relationship between
potentiality and rights
Even if a fetus is not a human being with rights at conception, it is a potential human
being with potential rights at conception.
1. A fetus is a potential rights holder from conception.
2. If something is a potential rights holder it should get rights now.
-3. Therefore, a fetus has rights from conception.
Distinguish between
instrumental and noninstrumental value
State and evaluate Warren's
contract argument for why
fetus has value.
State and evaluate Patrick's
argument that a fetus has noninstrumental value.
Explore the connection
between the claim that a fetus
has value in virtue of its
potential, and it is wrong for a
woman to obtain an abortion.
Lesson 19- Mary Anne Warren’s
Liberal Defense of Abortion
Explain Mary Anne Warren's
criteria of personhood
Premise 2 is certainly suspect. Such a principle is clearly false. If I am interested in
buying your car and your car is for sale, I am the potential owner of your car. But I do
not have any rights to your car in virtue of that potential. Likewise, some students
may not be of drinking age but they will be.
Instrumental value: it is valuable as a means to something else.
Non-instrumental value: It is value that something has in itself or for its own sake.
In the original position, people would value fetuses because it is in their interest to
keep their species or culture going, and so will value fetuses as a means to that.
The idea that the fetus has value helps to explain why we think a miscarriage normally
calls for appropriate sorts of responses, and why we’d be shocked at the woman’s
response in the previous example. We are shocked because the mother who regards
her miscarriage as no big deal should feel some sense of loss.
This value can be demonstrated, by appeal to a certain conception of the good life.
Imagine you have an old computer you no longer want. Other may value that
computer but you no longer value it. Of course it would be permissible to
scrap/recycle the computer. Same with your kidneys, sperm, eggs, and therefore it is
unclear why this wouldn’t apply to fetuses.
The traits that are most central to the concept of personhood or humanity in the
moral sense, are very roughly, the following:
1. Consciousness (of objects and events external and/or internal to the being) and in
particular the capacity of feel pain
Explain her argument for her
criteria of personhood
Critically evaluate her criteria of
personhood
Critically evaluate her argument
for personhood
Lesson 20- L. W. Sumner’s
Argument for a Moderate view
Explain Sumner's specifications
for an adequate view of the
moral status of the fetus
2. Reasoning (the developed capacity to solve new and relatively complex problems)
3. Self-motivated activity (activity which is relatively independent of either genetic or
direct external control)
4. Capacity to communicate (by whatever means)
5. The presence of self-concepts, and self-awareness, either individual or racial, or
both
1. In the early stages of pregnancy, a fetus has none of these personhood traits.
2. If one has none of these personhood traits, one is not a rights-holder.
-3. Therefore, a fetus in the early stages of pregnancy is not a rights-holder.
4. In the mid to later parts of pregnancy the fetus may be somewhat conscious, but
lacks other traits of personhood.
5. The rights of a merely conscious being are not sufficient to override the rights of a
full-fledged person.
-6. A woman may obtain an abortion at any stage for any reason.
One could attack her criteria of personhood. One might argue that her criteria must
be false since it has morally unacceptable implications.
An adequate view of the moral status of the fetus should be
1) Development
2) Gradual
3) Differential
This means that an adequate view of the moral status of the fetus should reflect the
fact that the prenatal organism is continuously developing throughout pregnancy;
should reflect the fact that this development is gradual; and that there is a large
difference between the zygote and the mature fetus.
Explain why Sumner rejects the
life criterion and the rationality
criterion of moral standing
Explain why Sumner accepts a
sentience-based criterion of
moral standing
Secondly, Sumner thinks that the criterion of moral standing must be motivated by a
plausible rationale and not be arbitrary, and it must not be vulnerable to clear
counterexamples.
The criterion that one is human at conception ignores the development of the fetus,
and it not differential. Same with a rationality based view – ignores development of
the fetus, and cannot account for the great differences between zygote and mature
fetus.
Sentience is the capacity to experience pleasure and pain. This view takes into
account the 3 specifications of an adequate view of moral standing. It is
developmental because it recognizes moral status as the fetus develops certain
psychological capacities; it is gradual insofar as it is likely that sentience comes on
gradually and develops over time; and it is differential, viewing a late fetus as having
full or nearly full moral standing, and an early fetus/embryo/zygote as having no
moral standing.
Apply Sumner's criterion of
moral standing to the fetus, and
to the proper moral and legal
status of abortion
Understand some of the
principal difficulties with
Sumner's sentience based view
Further, a sentience based view is motivated by a plausible rationale – something that
is sentient has interests. They can be injured or benefited in ways that matter to it.
These interests of all sentient beings should be given moral significance.
Sentient based views imply that (sentient) non-rational humans have moral rights; as
do non-human animals that are sentient.
An objection to the view is that the view implies that human infants and the mentally
challenged also lack a full right to life. The reply could be to bite the bullet.
An objection to the strong sentience based view is that it views the killing of sentient
non-humans as a violation of someone’s full moral right to life (e.g. killing a fish is the
same as killing a human).
An objection to all sentient based views is that it is odd to grant the right to life based
on the capacity to feel pleasure and pain. This capacity could give someone a reason
not to have suffering inflicted or to be given pleasure, but why does it give one a right
to life?
Lesson 21: Judith Jarvis
Thomson’s “Defense of
Abortion”
Explain Thomson's violinist
analogy
Discuss difficulties with this
analogy, and how it might be
improved
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 have 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. The director of the hospital now tells you. "Look, we're sorry the Society
of Music Lovers did this to you... But still they did it, and now the violinist is plugged in
to you. To unplug you would be to kill him. But never mind it’s only for nine months.
By then he will have recovered from his ailment, and can safely be unplugged from
you." Is it morally incumbent on you to accede to this situation? ...
Thomson basically wants to avoid the fundamental question that human life begins at
conception (y/n) and attacks the premise of the conservative argument that one’s
right to life should come before another’s right to control his/her body.
The case of the violinist is meant to be analogous with pregnancy due to rape.
The two cases being compared may be relevantly different. In the violinist case, you
are bedridden for 9 months, but pregnant women are not bedridden.
There are also financial and emotional considerations. The violinist is independent
after 9 months, the baby is not.
We must also consider third parties – even if it is morally permissible for you to
remove the violinist, one might still claim that one must show that it is also morally
permissible for a 3rd party to provide the abortion.
The violinist doesn’t have the same DNA as the kidnapped person but the fetus does.
Pregnancy can be physically draining and there are the effect of hormones and such.
Explain and evaluate Thomson's
tiny house analogy
Analyze the analogy of Smith
and Jones
Explain Thomson's point that a
right to life does not always
entail a right not to be killed
Lesson 22: Don Marquis’
Argument Against Abortion
Explain Marquis' Future Like
Ours Argument against the
morality of abortion
Explain and evaluate the
Contraception Objection to this
argument
Suppose you find yourself trapped in a tiny house with a growing child. A very tiny
house and rapidly growing child – you are up against the wall of the house and in a
few minutes you will be crushed to death.
The woman is the person who houses the child and should not need to wait passively
while it crushes her to death.
Smith has a coat that he needs to keep from freezing, but Jones also needs it. It is not
impartiality that says “I cannot choose between you” when Smith owns the coat. One
cannot reasonably say “Of course it’s your coat, but no one may choose between you
and Jones who is to have it.”
It is wrong to kill others because it causes them the loss of their valuable future. This
can then be applied to the issue of abortion. In standard cases of abortion, abortion
causes the fetus the loss of its valuable future.
1. Killing you or me is prima facie seriously immoral because it causes you or me the
loss of a future of value.
-2. Therefore, it is prima facie seriously wrong to cause anything the loss of its future
of value (a future like ours).
3. Abortion, in standard cases, causes the fetus the loss of a future of value (a future
like ours.)
-4. Therefore, in standard cases, abortion is prima facie seriously immoral.
1. Do unwanted fetuses have a future of value?
-one could question premise 3
-unwanted fetuses are unlikely to become persons with valuable futures
-Marquis would say that even unwanted fetuses can still have futures of value
2. Contraception Objection
-premise 2: it is wrong to cause anything the loss of a future of value or a future like
ours IS false. For if this is true then contraception would also be wrong, because it
deprives the combination of sperm and ovum a future of value (a future like ours).
But of course contraception is not wrong.
Explain and evaluate the
Marquis would reply to say that contraception prevents the existence of individuals
and does not prevent individuals from having futures like ours.
Summary of Marquis’ argument:
objection that Marquis'
argument is unsound because it
commits the fallacy of
equivocation
1. It is prima facie seriously wrong to cause an individual the loss of a future of value.
2. Abortion, in standard cases, causes an individual the loss of a future of value.
-3. Therefore, in standard cases, abortion is prima facie seriously wrong.
A neutral loss vs. a moral loss. If A beats B in a race by running faster than B, this
causes B the loss of the trophy – this is neutral. If the same occurs because B stole A’s
running shoes, then the loss is a moral loss.
In premise 1 of the argument above, the loss is a moral loss, but in 2, it could just be a
neutral loss, making the argument unsound.
Lesson 23: Virtue Theory and
Abortion: Patrick’s View
State Patrick's reasons for
thinking a fetus has noninstrumental value.
Explain Patrick's argument for
why he thinks Deb's abortion
was morally permissible even if
her fetus had a right to life.
Think critically about Patrick's
arguments.
Explain how virtue theory
approaches the morality of
abortion.
Whether the fetus has rights does not determine whether abortion is right or wrong.
Rather, it depends on whether the act of abortion is virtuous or vicious.
All things considered, Deb was not acting viciously but virtuously. Deb wanted to
have an abortion to protect very important and worthwhile goods in her and Derek’s
life. If she has the child, it will likely destroy the marriage and business they have.
There’s also a near certainty that the child will be mentally handicapped and have a
difficult life. Having an abortion will show virtues like love, friendship, prudence,
industriousness, loyalty, kindness, charity, etc.
Whether the fetus has rights does not determine whether abortion is right or wrong.
If the fetus does not have rights, it could still be wrong to abort it if one’s decision to
do so is vicious.