Abortion and Ambivalence in America:
Is the Moral Theory behind Personhood
Justified?
Master Thesis
Marina Espinoza
Student Number: 3862879
Supervisor: Ineke Bolt
Erasmus Mundus Master Program
Applied Ethics
Utrecht University
August 2012 The Netherlands
Abstract
Currently in America there is a movement to legally consider fetuses as persons in
order to ban not only abortion, but also certain contraceptives and in-vitro fertilization, in
order to prohibit the destruction of zygotes and fetuses. Proponents of “fetal personhood”
use a moral theory that always renders abortion morally impermissible. Their theory uses
one principle: it is absolutely immoral to kill an innocent human being. This is how they
morally justify banning abortion. The objective of this thesis is to show that the moral
theory used by anti-abortionists is not justified or adequate to the task of judging abortion
for many Americans. In order to do this I will draw heavily from Margaret Little. In the
first chapter I will argue that the two main arguments for fetal personhood: intrinsic value
and numerical continuity between fetuses and persons are disputable. More importantly, I
will argue that personhood does not confer moral status the way proponents believe it
does. Additionally, since personhood proponents are trying to affect policy I will
highlight America’s ambivalence on the issue to show that the moral theory used by antiabortionists does not reflect how many Americans judge or view abortion. The second
chapter will be concerned with how abortion’s permissibility varies and how information
affects ethical judgments of abortion. Personhood proponents’ use of a deontological
moral theory will be critiqued in order to show that it is not sensible or ethically justified.
Due to the inadequacies of the anti-abortionist moral framework and the ambivalence of
most Americans, I agree with Margaret Little that a moral framework is needed that takes
seriously “fetal geography.” In the third chapter I will discuss and analyze Margaret
Little’s relationship framework for abortion to show its appeal and why it is better suited
to the task of judging the morality of abortion.
2
Contents
Abstract
2
Introduction
5
Chapter 1 The Personhood Movement
8
1.1 Why This Push for Personhood?
8
1.2 Argument for Fetal Personhood
11
1.3 Are the Anti-abortionists’ Arguments Accurate?
13
1.4 Personhood’s Consequences
20
1.5 Does Personhood Fulfill its Function?
22
1.6 Ambivalence
25
1.7 Gradual Moral Status
27
1.8 Why Gradual Moral Status?
30
1.9 Conclusion
33
3
Chapter 2 Ethical Decision Making
35
2.1 Exceptionless Moral Principles
36
2.2 Why Women Abort
37
2.3 Reproduction & Women’s Autonomy
40
2.4 Conflicting Responsibilities
44
2.5 Personhood’s Moral Theory
46
2.6 Conclusion
50
Chapter 3 Margaret Little’s Relationship Framework
50
3.1 A Limited Right to Life
53
3.2 Fetal Geography
54
3.3 Parenting and Relationships
56
3.4 Appeal of the Relationship Framework
60
3.5 Relationship Framework’s Shortfalls
63
3.6 Conclusion
65
Works Cited
68
4
Introduction
Currently in America there has been a movement by anti-abortionists to redefine
personhood and change the national debate. This push to redefine personhood is to fill the
“Blackmun Hole” (PersonhoodUSA.com). The Blackmun Hole refers the landmark
Supreme Court case Roe v. Wade that legalized abortion. Justice Blackmun stated in the
majority opinion, “If this suggestion of personhood is established, the appellant’s case, of
course, collapses, for the fetus’ right to life would then be guaranteed specifically by the
[Fourteenth] Amendment” (qtd. in PersonhoodUSA.com). Hence, if it were found that the
fetus is a person then abortion would be rendered illegal. The personhood movement is to
“. . . clearly define the pre-born baby as a person” and grant that there is a person at
conception (PersonhoodUSA.com). Personhood proponents assert that human beings are
persons since fertilization and therefore, legally have the unalienable right to life.
This push for personhood is fundamentally religious. PersonhoodUSA.com
declares its primary mission “. . . to serve Jesus by being an Advocate for those who
cannot speak for themselves, the pre-born child” (PersonhoodUSA.com). Personhood
USA’s website states that it is led by Christian ministers who consider themselves
missionaries to preborn children and seek to honor Jesus Christ in their work (n. pag.).
Most anti-abortionists argue that, “Ultimately, human life matters because God matters,
and God is the author of human life (abort73.com). “Not only did God create human
beings, but Genesis1:26-27 and James 3:9 tell us that God created us in HIs [sic] own
image. This is huge. It is an honor and responsibility bestowed upon no other creature in
all the universe” (abort73.com). In 2009, Gallup polls started to show that for the first
5
time more Americans were considering themselves pro-life than pro-choice (Saad
n.pag.).
Personhood proponents’ religiosity and biological beliefs convince them that the
fetus is a person and deserves a right to life. They use one moral principle: that it is
immoral to kill an innocent person. This principle would not only force women to bear
children, it would have severe repercussions for sexually active couples, couples seeking
children, pregnant women and their partners, and even doctors and medical researchers
(Armstrong & Hsieh 3). It would ban in-vitro fertilization, certain forms of IUDs, stemcell research and most abortions even in cases of rape and incest. These consequences
seem extreme to most Americans and thus, many of these amendments have been voted
down—even in very conservative states. Not only is abortion sought to be banned, but
also certain forms of birth control, fertility treatments, and medical research that may
result in the destruction of the embryo. The goal is protect every zygote from the moment
of fertilization (Armstrong & Hsieh 3). Personhood legislation would hurt those that are
poor and most vulnerable adding to the ambivalence most Americans feel on the issue of
abortion. Furthermore, the arguments for fetal personhood are inconclusive. In light of
this, is it reasonable to follow personhood’s moral theory? Should their moral theory be
used to inform legislation on abortion?
My objective in this thesis is to show that personhood’s moral theory is not
justified or adequate to the task of judging abortion. In the first chapter I will argue that
the two main arguments for fetal personhood: intrinsic value and numerical continuity
between fetuses and persons are disputable. More importantly, I will argue that
personhood does not confer moral status the way proponents believe it does.
6
Additionally, since personhood proponents are trying to affect policy I will highlight
America’s ambivalence on the issue. The second chapter will be concerned with how
abortion’s permissibility varies and how information affects ethical judgments of
abortion. Personhood proponents’ use of a deontological moral theory will be critiqued to
show that it is not sensible. Due to the inadequacies of the anti-abortionist moral
framework and the ambivalence of most Americans, I agree with Margaret Little that a
moral framework is needed that takes seriously “fetal geography.” In the third chapter I
discuss and analyze Margaret Little’s relationship framework to show its appeal and why
it is better suited to the task of judging the morality of abortion.
7
Chapter 1 Personhood Amendments
Anti-abortionists believe that fetuses have an intrinsic value. They assert that even a
zygote is worthy of respect and inviolable. They not only want to promote life, but also
legally preclude anything that destroys it. Although their definition of a person seems to
be clear-cut, philosophers and other theorists have failed to come to a consensus.
Ethicists have used theories of personhood to try and figure out when a life begins or
ceases to have intrinsic value (Newson 278). The point of this chapter is to analyze and
critique the arguments used by proponents of fetal personhood.
1.1 Why this push for personhood?
In his article “Personhood and Moral Status,” Ainsley Newson states that theories
of personhood are important because “Human beings protect themselves with a thicket of
rights they do not grant to other beings” (278). Its importance is also tied to moral status,
which confers a right to life. When a person has moral status they are morally
considerable. As Newson states, “Personhood is the link between a full right to life or no
rights all” (Newson 278). When an entity has moral status one cannot treat it however she
pleases, “ . . . we are morally obliged to give weight in our deliberations to its needs,
interests, or well-being’ (Newson 278). Personhood is one dimension of moral status, but
another dimension is the value of life. To assert that one is a person is to implicitly claim
that the entity has a special value and is deserving of respect. It is clear that being a
person is different and more complex than just being human. A human being is part of
8
the species homo-sapien. It has genetic and biological characteristics that make one a
human being. Simultaneously though, a person has a set of metaphysical and
psychological properties that go beyond being a human being and confer moral status
(Newson 277).
It is because many feel that persons are more than just bodies, that they are also
made special because of other properties, that many theorists have come up with criteria
that are required to be a person. Many philosophers have even offered species neutral
descriptions of personhood. These views hold that a person is a rational and selfconscious agent aware of his or her past and future, regardless of what species it is.
Hence, intelligent apes would also count as persons (Newson 280).
Religious perspectives also have had an immense influence on theories of
personhood (Newson 278). A core position has been to adopt a vitalist view of moral
status and personhood, which emphasizes the wrongness of intentionally taking innocent
human life. This position is all-inclusive in that it includes all human life regardless of
their age or development, for they satisfy the criteria for personhood in virtue of being
human (Newson 278).
Moral status is present from fertilization because even though zygotes do not
presently have self-awareness or cognitive abilities, they will. Zygotes should be
recognized as actual people because they have an actual potential that should be treated
as an already functional capability (279). Many philosophers have a problem with
potentiality because they feel there is a strong distinction between being and becoming.
They point to the fact that “ . . . a caterpillar is not a butterfly, and a foetus is not a human
being, only a human becoming” (279). Furthermore, some argue that potential is
9
unfounded because not every fertilized egg will give rise to a new individual; many
pregnancies are spontaneously lost” (Newson 279).
Currently in modern ethics approaches to personhood have attempted to define an
attribute or set of attributes, which are collectively constitutive of personhood (Newson
279). Many approach the question by asking what a person must have for moral status.
This is why many argue that what is needed is a concept of self as a continuing subject of
experiences and as a continuing entity. The problem with this approach though, is that
fetuses already developed and viable, as well as infants and some who are cognitively
impaired do not qualify for moral status (279). Since these beings lack sentience and
desires, there is no future to frustrate and thus no harm being done to them (Newson 279).
As Margaret Little notes, it is not so much that these theorists believe that one has moral
standing only when sentient, but that beings that have never been sentient cannot be
harmed. This is because in order to be harmed there must be a setback of interests and no
interests develop until the being is sentient (“Abortion and personhood” 337).
Some theorists hold a simple criterion for determining which lives are valuable. A
being’s life will have value as long as it is capable for valuing its own interests. A zygote
cannot be aware of itself, therefore it cannot value its life and this is why it cannot be a
person with a right to life. This would make personhood a threshold instead of it coming
in degrees. Those that are pushing for personhood also see personhood as a threshold;
once fertilized the embryo is a person until death.
Some, including myself, think that personhood is problematic as an all or nothing
concept. If personhood is a matter of degree it will be possible to accord moral
consideration to some beings that are not yet persons. The moral consideration of such
10
beings will steadily increase as it gets closer to full personhood (Little, “Abortion and
Personhood” 332). Some recognize that mental capacities do not develop all at once
(Little, “Abortion and Personhood” 281). A gradual approach is more biologically
accurate, reflexive of America’s reality and ambivalence, intuitive and more responsive
to the realities of pregnancy. I will use Margaret Little to illustrate this. First though, I
will present the anti-abortionists argument for personhood at conception.
1.2 Argument for Fetal Personhood
There are two arguments offered for fetal personhood by anti-abortionists. The
main argument is that the embryo is an innocent life recognized and valued by God.
Abortion therefore, is murder. However, since America is a democracy and there is a
separation between church and state, proponents of personhood also claim secular
justification for a right to life.
The claim that the zygote is a person comes from the belief that a human and
unique individual exists at the moment of fertilization and develops gradually until death.
Personhood USA states on its website, “A person, simply put, is a human being. This fact
should be enough. The intrinsic humanity of unborn children, by definition, makes them
persons and should, therefore, guarantee their protection under the law” (n. pag.). It
continues, “When the term ‘person’ is applied to a particular class of human beings, it is
an affirmation of their individual rights. In other words, to be a person is to be protected
by a series of God-given rights and constitutional guarantees such as life, liberty, and the
11
pursuit of happiness” (n. pag.). Thus, according to Personhood USA unborn fetuses
should possess the right to life because they are human.
Those that are pro-life are using the biological claim that life begins at
conception. This new life is human and distinct from the woman with its own genetic
code. This is not a potential human life, but an actual human being in the early stage of
development. Now that there is a human being, they go on to argue that it is a person with
the right to life (PersonhoodUSA.com).
As abort73.com, an anti-abortion website asserted, “Something is a person if, by
nature, it has the capacity to think rationally, express emotion, make decisions, etc. This
capacity is something that a person has as soon as he begins to exist, since it is part of his
nature . . . So it is impossible for a fetus to not be a person” (n. pag.). Anti-abortionists
assert that age, size and IQ are differences in degree, but not in kind. These different
levels of cognitive abilities and development all are equally human and qualified to life.
Thus, a person is a human being and the differences between a person before and a
person after birth do not matter. Because from the moment of conception there is a
person, a member of the human community, it is required to give it moral status.
Whoever is a valuable person now was also a valuable human person at every moment in
its past, including when that person was in the womb (abort73.com). Although fetuses
and zygotes are not actual rational agents, they still have some of the moral properties of
a rational agent because of what kind of beings they are. Conferring upon them moral
status would make sense since newborns and those that are cognitively disabled are given
moral status although they may not be self-aware or cannot be moral agents.
Abort73.com points out that even though zygotes and early fetuses do not look
12
like humans, they quickly develop characteristics that are similar to persons (n. pag.).
Anti-abortionists point to the rapid growth of the fetus “ . . . in order to better understand
why it is such a fallacy to argue that abortion is the mere removal of cell tissue . . . ”
(abort73.com). They believe it is a misconception that most abortion occurs before the
embryo or fetus is recognizably human. They state, “Day after day, thousands of aborting
women wrongly believe that they’re simply eliminating some undifferentiated human cell
tissue. . . . Abortion is not the mere removal [of] cell tissue; it is the death of living,
growing human beings” (abort73.com). Moral status is present from fertilization because
even though they do not presently have self-awareness or cognitive abilities, they will. To
not give them moral consideration because they do not have the degree of cognitive
abilities they feel is discriminatory; Abort73.com calls these “inconsequential
differences” (n. pag.).
In light of the fact that embryos are genetically human beings a woman cannot
have the right to an abortion. Those that are pro-life claim that there can be no choice for
abortion because it is a criminal choice. “The law generally leaves people the legal
freedom to make bad choices, but the law must do all it can to prohibit criminal choices”
(abort73.com). They see abortion as act of violence that must be precluded by law.
1.3 Are the Anti-abortionists’ arguments Accurate?
Anti-abortionists hold that zygotes, embryos, and fetuses even in their first
trimester have the same moral status as a person. That the obligations owed a newborn
are also owed to zygotes. Anti-abortionists hold this because the zygote and the person it
13
will become are the same; there are no significant differences between them. A person
starts as a zygote and continues until death. As Armstrong and Hsieh note, the first half of
the personhood argument is purely biological discussing human life, the second part is
concerned with the politics of being a “person” (25). They state, “To slide between these
two distinct concepts using the term ‘human being’—as ‘personhood’ advocates
consistently do—is to commit the fallacy of equivocation” (25). They point out that, the
political concept of person cannot be given by science, for that is a question for
philosophy.
Proponents of abortion assert that the differences between zygotes and persons are
insignificant. If their criterion for being a person is merely being human, then they are
right and zygotes are identical with persons, but as discussed earlier many theorists
believe that a person is more than genetics; it has metaphysical and physiological
qualities that give value. Intuitively, fetuses are not rational agents that think and are selfconscious. Proponents assert that fetuses’ potentiality makes them numerically identical
(exactly alike) to persons, but biology does not support that. A zygote and early fetuses
are not even conscious until about twenty-two weeks (Armstrong & Hsieh 26). It means
they have no desires, feel no pain and are absolutely unaware that they are alive or of
what awaits them. While persons are conscious, zygotes and fetuses have never been.
Unlike a born infant a zygote is invisible to the naked eye. It has absolutely no organs,
not even a human form. Without a brain it lacks the capacity for awareness, emotions or
pain. It is more akin to skin cells than an infant. It is not even living its own life; it is
partaking in the life of the woman. The zygote cannot even become a baby on its own. It
must first implant in the lining of the uterus, if it cannot do this then it will be flushed
14
from her body without anyone knowing it existed (Armstrong &Hsieh 26). Although
fetuses are becoming persons, they are not yet persons. Numerical identity between the
fetus and the person it will become seems debatable, but it could be that zygotes are
continuous with the persons they later become and thus, can qualify for its protections.
Personhood proponents’ arguments are basically that with one egg and one sperm
you get one zygote and then one child. This zygote is supposed to be numerically
continuous with the human entity that will eventually develop. However this is
impossible if the zygote splits after formation. Identical twins come from a zygote that
splits into two. This means that from one zygote you get two individuals. This is why,
“[t]he concept of numerical continuity is too narrow as initially defined to allow for any
variations during or subsequent fertilisation” (Dawson 176). According to Dawson there
is an overemphasis on genetics in directing the course of events after fertilization (176).
There is no evidence that fertilization is the beginning of a human being; 78 percent of
human fertilizations end up lost and do not progress to the next developmental stage (178
Dawson). Proponents of personhood hold that morals against killing can be applied to
zygotes because the individual human being exists with a distinct genetic constitution;
however, the genetic constitution of an individual is not necessarily formed at
fertilization. Not only can many changes still occur; identical twinning may occur twelve
days after fertilization and in this process the original zygote ceases to exist (Dawson
176). This is why Dawson goes on to state that arguments used by those who are for
personhood, “ . . . provide an inadequate basis for policy formation or legislation
regulation reproductive technology as they hold only little relevance to actual biology”
(177). Proponents of personhood assert that zygotes are exactly alike the persons they
15
become, but this is not necessarily what occurs biologically speaking with zygotes either
splitting or ceasing to exist.
While proponents of personhood assert that having the potential in one’s nature
confers full moral status, Little states, “Having the potential for moral status is not itself
immediately prescriptive; one may wonder why the whole is granted a status by virtue of
its peak achievement. This view comes from the conviction that inviolability is an
essential rather than accidental feature” (“Abortion and Personhood” 334).
Persons have metaphysical and psychological properties that go beyond being a human
being and thus give value and confer moral status—not from having a distinct set of
chromosomes (“Abortion and Personhood” 334). Anti-abortionists espouse these secular
arguments about genetics and being a human being in order to have a right to life, but
even they do not believe that being human is enough to make someone morally
considerable. One abortion website states, “It is not the raw genetic material which gives
human beings significance, it is the unique attention given to us by our Creator”
(abort73.com). They state, “Ultimately, human life matters because God matters, and
God is the author of human life” (abort73.com). Really the secular arguments used by
proponents of personhood are just to mask their religious view that life is valuable
because of God. This is also why they state that rights are God given. This belief
according to Armstrong and Hsieh is false though, rights are not God given, they are
instead rooted in facts about human nature, and the conditions for survival and
flourishing (25). They come from the conditions required by people’s nature for their
proper survival (25). Proponents fallaciously believe that rights and genetics confer moral
16
status because God gives them; ethically however, moral personhood comes from not
only being a person, but also through intrinsic value.
It is understandable why anti-abortionists want to give fetuses the right to life. In
his article “The Values of Life,” Govert den Hartogh notes that it is easy to see how a
fetus can be said to benefit from the fulfillment of the duties correlating to its alleged
right to life. In the sense that every living being benefits from everything which
contributes to its flourishing (54). Nevertheless, the value of human beings cannot be
answered solely by natural creative processes. This is because as den Hartogh notes,
human beings can transcend mere genetics and remember their past and make plans for
the future, they can integrate their memories and their plans into a more or less coherent
whole (58). Consequently, human beings attribute personal value to their individual lives.
Non-conscious entities, like fetuses, cannot value anything themselves at all, and when an
individual specimen lacks consciousness, it seems to be worthy of protection only if it
has special characteristics endowing it with value to other conscious beings. Thus,
according to him, in the cases of zygotes and fetuses, they are not deriving value solely
from natural investment, but from the relationship they have with the woman (58). The
fetus’s value is relational in that its value is also coming from its connection to the
woman. This relational value does not depend on the fetus being self-ware or conscious,
as Newson notes, “A woman develops a relation to the being growing in her womb, at
least as soon as she feels it moving, long before it has aims and memories and selfconsciousness, or even consciousness” (60). Den Hartogh notes that this relational value
is a problem for conservatives since their position requires that being an individual
member of the human species should be a reason to attribute intrinsic value. They do not
17
want to be committed to the intrinsic valuation of all the living organisms that are human
species like placentas or living human cancer cells (58-59). The only way to keep them
out in a principled way is to value a human life and require that beings that qualify are
continuous or identical with human beings, which eventually will live a conscious human
life. The problem is that the embryo will not qualify because before implantation it can
still develop into two human beings or more—there is no numerical continuity between
the embryo and the person.
This relational value of fetuses is not completely independent of developmental
characteristics either (den Hartogh 60). Den Hartogh states, “Otherwise the relation of the
mother to the fetus or the newborn child would not be different from the relation between
a child and its doll: it would be based on ascribing to it characteristics in fantasy which it
doesn’t have in reality” (60). The state the woman is in during pregnancy is a state of
anticipation, and no one can pinpoint when exactly this anticipated reciprocity turns into
actual reciprocity (60). Den Hartogh compares the relationship to a loving relationship.
When you love someone you do not love her irrespective of her properties, but it is not
correct to say you love her because of her properties, because that would mean that you
would be committed to loving everyone with the same properties to the same degree. He
states, “Love is irreducibly particularistic you are relating to a token individual, not to a
specimen of type” (61). As he points out, if you are just a blob of tissue no one can
actually put their love upon you. To be loved you must be an individual (61).
Many who want to bypass the metaphysical arguments of personhood simply
point to the fact that abortion and ending embryonic life is the same as killing an innocent
person and that is why it is wrong (Little, “Abortion and Personhood” 336). This is
18
because the way killing someone deprives it of its future, aborting an embryo also
deprives it of its future. Future for persons is valuable and just like those who are alive,
fetuses also have futures. As Little points out though, its logic holds that it is worse to
end the life of a zygote than that of child or a teenager. Its logic would hold the loss of
the zygote as more of a loss because it has more life to lose. Intuitively however, many
would feel that the loss of a toddler or teenager would be worse than that of the zygote.
Although it is true that what makes killing so reprehensible is that it robs someone of
their life, the reason it is so horrible though, is that persons know what they are losing.
Additionally, this argument is under the belief that the embryo would continue to become
a person as long as the mother does not interfere. This view fails to take into
consideration that the fetus has no trajectory independent of the woman. Abortion in
some instances is more of a letting die, which is that it leaves the fetus no worse off than
it would have been absent the woman’s help to begin with (Little, “Abortion and
Personhood” 336). As Little states, “At least early in pregnancy, we might say, it is not
clear that one should describe ending gestation as depriving the embryo of its future
rather than continuing gestation as helping to provide it with one” (“Abortion and
Personhood” 336).
It is important to remember that anti-abortionists are using these arguments to
change and influence actual policy that will affect people’s daily lives. Not only are these
arguments unsound, but they also have devastating effects.
19
1.4 Personhood’s Consequences
Personhood legislation would legally establish personhood at the moment of
conception, granting full legal rights to a fertilized egg. This would require criminal
investigation of any miscarriages deemed suspicious, it would ban common fertility
treatments and would ban potentially life-saving embryonic stem-cell research. Doctors
and women‘s health advocates have stated that the proposals would jeopardize women’s
right and lives. Not only would they ban virtually all abortions, including those from rape
and incest, they would also ban some birth control methods like IUDs and “morning after
pills,” which prevent fertilized eggs from implanting in the uterus. They would also
outlaw the destruction of embryos created in laboratories. Many women are fearful of the
fact that doctors may hesitate out of fear of prosecution to save women who have life
threatening pregnancies (Armstrong & Hsieh 1).
Besides outlawing abortion these amendments would “adversely impact the lives
of sexually active couples, couples seeking children, pregnant women and their partners,
doctors and medical researchers” (Armstrong & Hsieh 1). Personhood legislation would
mandate harsh legal penalties for harm done to zygotes and intentionally harming a
zygote would be a crime of the same magnitude as harming a born infant. So if a zygote
is a legal person from the moment of fertilization then any intentional act of preventing it
from implanting, which is what happens when women take the morning-after pill, or
aborting the embryo or fetus would be first-degree murder (9). Any actions that may
endanger the well-being of the embryo or fetus could then be considered child abuse (9).
20
If a parent threatened to harm its child you could physically separate them, however you
cannot separate a woman from the fetus. Women seeking to terminate their pregnancies
may have to be physically restrained until the fetus is delivered. As Armstrong and Hsieh
state, “Thus, the ultimate alternative to legal abortion is police officers strapping an
uncooperative woman to her bed for weeks or months and forcing her to give birth—then
throwing her in prison for attempted murder” (11).
It would also outlaw the abortion of fetuses that are severely deformed with no
hope of viability outside the womb. There are many couples that have given their stories
on having children who are encephalic (missing most of the brain), or have a terrible
illness or deformity. They discussed how horrible and painful it is to go through the
delivery process and to then watch your child die (Armstrong & Hsieh14). It is important
to remember that the intent of personhood language is to protect all life, regardless of the
mental level of functioning, so it may require for some women to give birth no matter the
cognitive or physical disability (14). As Armstrong and Hsieh point out, “ . . . painful
family decisions would become political spectacles for anti-abortion activists under the
false banner of ‘protecting life’” (15).
Many critics have discussed the problem these abortion bans produce for ectopic
pregnancies, which are the leading cause of pregnancy related death during the first
trimester in the United States (Armstrong & Hsieh 13). These occur when a fertilized egg
develops outside of the uterus. In 1992 about half of all ectopic pregnancies ended in
hospitalization (13). Under personhood amendments the lives of women may be put at
risk. As Armstrong and Hsieh ask, “ . . . how would prosecutors treat doctors who
prescribe medical intervention as a ‘first resort’ in cases of ectopic pregnancy to better
21
protect the woman’s life and health?” (13). As one oncology nurse stated, “ . . . I was
asked to give methotrexate for an ectopic pregnancy . . . I believed the pregnancy was
tubal. Needless to say I refused because I was unsure of the morality of it” (Armstrong &
Hsieh 13). As Armstrong and Hsieh note, these personhood laws my require doctors to
conduct theological debates before providing emergency medical care or may be forced
to use less dangerous methods of treatment (13). What about women who get cancer?
Will they have to delay treatment to save the child? Under an enforced personhood law a
woman might not be able to obtain an abortion even if she feared for her life, thereby
usurping her rights to autonomy, bodily dominion and integrity.
Personhood legislation would also ban in-vitro fertilization. About 12 percent of
American women have used infertility treatments or services (Armstrong & Hsieh 17).
Fertility treatments helped women deliver more than 50,000 infants in 2007. Using solely
in vitro fertilization helps many women become pregnant (17). As Armstrong and Hsieh
point out, without infertility treatments many women would not be mothers and their
children would not exist today. This is why many people feel that personhood
amendments are not really “pro-life” but are anti-life since they “ . . . would actively
damage, prevent, or destroy the lives of so many actual people . . .” (19).
1.5 Does Personhood fulfill its Function?
Proponents of personhood are after moral status for the fetus and they want it
through redefining what a person is. Personhood is supposed to do all the moral work.
Once the fetus becomes a person it becomes a member of the moral community. Once a
22
fetus is a person it is automatically immoral to abort the fetus at any stage, for any reason;
however, as discussed earlier, personhood is a contentious concept with no clear
characterization. In his article “The Failure of Theories of Personhood,” Tom Beauchamp
points out that, “The concept of person is simply not orderly, precise, or systematic in a
way that supports one general philosophical theory to the exclusion of another” (319). To
assert that the fetus is a person at whenever is your preference and decide that its
destruction is murder is inescapably a moral decision, for which we have to have moral
reasons (Hare 205). “To say that a fetus is (or is not) a person gives by itself no moral
reason for or against killing it; . . . the word “person” is doing no work here (other than
that of bemusing us)” (Hare 206).
Just like genetics, having the capacities of language, rationality and selfawareness lack an intrinsic connection to moral properties like moral agency and moral
motivation (Beauchamp 312). Beauchamp believes that a creature is a moral person if it
is capable of making moral judgments about the rightness or wrongness of its actions and
if it has motives that can be judged morally. Moral personhood unlike metaphysical
personhood is sufficient for moral standing. The moral protections afforded by this
community may be extended to the weak and vulnerable who fail to qualify as a moral
person, but moral standing for these individuals must rest on some basis other than moral
personhood (315-316). It is not that fetuses and newborns, or brain-damaged patients do
not deserve moral protection; it is just that as Beauchamp astutely points out, their
protections do not come from moral personhood (316). It is not that fetuses need
personhood to be morally considerable, what they need is only the capacity for pain and
suffering.
23
Beauchamp states that there are two properties that qualify a being for moral
standing: the capacity for pain and suffering, and properties of emotional deprivation. He
states, “As Jeremy Bentham pointed out, the capacity to feel pain and undergo suffering
is more relevant to moral standing for nonhuman animals than are cognitive properties”
(316). Moral standing is to protect individuals because harm is bad in itself, not because
it is bad for members of a certain species or type of individual, and not because the
individual is or is not a moral person. As Hare pointed out, to say that a fetus is a person
provides no moral reason against killing it.
Not only does personhood not qualify the fetus for moral consideration, but it also
does not do what we want it to do. It does not tell us whether abortion is ethically
justified or not. I agree with personhood proponents that fetuses are morally considerable,
but my point is that personhood is not what makes fetuses morally considerable, their
capacity to suffer does. Most Americans rely on other information besides the status of
the fetus, so the moral status of the fetus is not enough for ethical judgment. In America
there is an enormous amount of ambivalence. Many take into consideration both the
woman and the fetus. Not only does relying solely on personhood leave out a woman’s
right to bodily dominion, but it also fails to realize that there are other variables in
pregnancy that dictate for some the morality of abortion. This is why many Americans
allow abortion when the woman has been raped, when the fetus will be cognitively or
physically handicap, or if the woman is in poverty or other circumstances. For many
Americans the moral status of the fetus—which is not conclusive—is not enough to judge
the morality of abortion.
24
1.6 Ambivalence
Jon Shields notes in his article “Almost Human: Ambivalence in the Pro-choice
and Pro-life Movements,” that there is a sharp contrast between warring activists and the
vast majority of ambivalent Americans. The national debate may reflect a high
polarization, but as he states, “There is an especially broad consensus for this view in the
case of abortion, since surveys routinely reveal that countless Americans remain torn
between the interests of women and embryos” (496). Americans whether pro-life or prochoice, tend to care far more about embryos with anthropomorphic characteristics than
those without them. According to Shields these sentiments moderate both movements and
public policy. There is not much sympathy for weeks-old embryos, hence the allowance
of in-vitro fertilization where regulation is scarce even in conservative states. He states
that the most plausible explanation for these shared intuitions about early- and late- term
embryos is that inherited psychological traits compel us to sympathize with beings with
anthropomorphic characteristics as opposed to undifferentiated bundles of cells (Shields
496-497).
People who are fervently pro-choice are very ambivalent and are at war with their
own sentiments (Shields 497). Shields writes, “One study of a Denver hospital concluded
that even ‘people who fought for the law suddenly [felt] uneasy when it actually came to
the performance of an actual abortion’” (498). While psychologically nurses were better
at tolerating first-trimester abortions, they found living fetuses much more troubling
(499). Some employees and doctors suffered from nightmares and images (503). A New
York City ethnography stated that, “ . . . all doctors and nurses were troubled by abortion
25
sometime between 10 and 20 weeks gestation” (499). An abortion clinic employee even
stated that she hated abortion because of ‘[t]he destruction I can’t deny’ (501). Abortion
workers were surprised at their moral uncertainty. As one woman stated, “I feel like I’m
letting the whole movement down. If I’m not certain, what does that mean for women
who will need abortions?” (Shields 504). Although there is this strong sympathy for the
fetus it can be counteracted by the personal circumstances of pregnant women. The
reasons for abortion also shaped the counselors’ emotional responses to it. Shields noted
that at one extreme a twelve year-old who was pregnant by her uncle raised the morale
because workers again felt their work in the service of humankind (504). Although the
interests of the fetus matter, numerous Americans at the same time understand that
abortion is necessary for women’s health, life and well-being.
Those that are pro-life also suffer from ambivalence. Many pro-lifers do not have
problems with in-vitro fertilization or IUDs. The small bundles of cells do not command
the same sacrifice or commitment more mature fetuses do (Shields 507). While the
national debate just highlights two sides, most Americans fall somewhere in-between
depending on the circumstances. Sometimes abortion is justifiable and sometimes it is
not. Countless Americans try to balance both the interests of the woman and the interests
of the fetus, trying to moderate their intuitions.
This broad consensus for abortion and the strong visceral reactions that arise from
Americans on both sides of the debate show that common ground can be found (Shields
506). Obstetricians and gynecologists cited the most important factor for deciding
whether or not to perform an abortion was the age of the fetus (505). This is why
personhood proponents use pictures to promote their cause. The pictures show suffering
26
and thus for many, they inspire horror (508-511). While there is little middle ground, he
notes that both sides agree that one should not defend the rights of organisms based on
their likeness to persons (511). Both sides are trying to be rational and place their
sympathy and intuitions for the fetus aside, for most people emotion is driving
moderately and not extremely (Shields 512). It is for these reasons and more that moral
consideration for the fetus should be gradual.
1.7 Gradual Moral Status
For many Americans it is just as extreme to confer personhood status at
fertilization, as it is to confer it until cognitive abilities arrive. Gradual moral status
allows us to take into consideration the health of the fetus, the prospects of its survival
and the health and circumstances of the woman. These variables affect how the woman
views her pregnancy. Furthermore, as discussed earlier, the value of the fetus is not
entirely intrinsic, but relational, and this relational value is not independent of
developmental characteristics. Not only are there these variables that immensely affect
the status of the fetus, but the fact that the fetus is inside the woman and uses her body
also means that her outlook on the pregnancy does matter morally (Little, “Abortion and
Personhood” 332).
For many Americans early abortion is not much of a problem, but late abortion is.
This is because many have a graduated view where developing human life has an
important value worthy of respect. As it grows, its status grows until at late in pregnancy
27
where the fetus is deserving of the very strong moral protection due newborns (Little,
“Abortion and Personhood”332).
According to Margaret Little in her article “Abortion and the Margins of
Personhood,” gradual moral status would allow for the moral status of the fetus to grow
as the fetus grows in the womb (343). In the first trimester the moral status of the fetus is
modest since the fetus has no trajectory independent of the woman’s assistance. Viability
is important in this case because in some instances aborting can instead of killing, be
more akin to letting die. In order for aborting to function like letting die, it depends on
whether the fetus has a hopeful trajectory independent of gestation. As Little puts it,
“When the fetus has no opportunities that the act of aborting would forestall, abortion is
properly viewed less as interference and more akin to a letting die, to a removing of lifesustaining assistance” (“Abortion and Personhood” 343). Abortion done in the first
trimester is not so much ending the pregnancy as it is refusing to continue it.
In the second trimester the fetal status continues to grow and become more
personlike. This means that it takes greater justification to decently abort (Little,
“Abortion and Personhood” 343). There may be justified reasons however; there are
considerations that may lead one to abort. As Little notes, if the moral status of the fetus
evolves so too can the woman’s circumstances. The pregnancy may become physically
taxing, a marriage may end, a job may be lost, she may be sent to jail or the mental health
of the mother has worsened. Or maybe news of a horrible ailment or disability is found
out. Little states,
What we might say about the care of premature infants born with such
conditions, the finding of profound abnormality in the middle of
28
pregnancy brings its own issues, both because the fetus’s status, while
substantial is not yet equivalent to a newborn, and because of what it
means to have one’s body carrying, attached to, and sustaining a fetus with
a profound impairment. (“Abortion and Personhood” 345)
These circumstances may lead a woman to justifiably abort.
In the third trimester the fetus is almost mature and the viability solidifies. It is
more conscious and it can apparently feel and respond to pain (Warren, “Status of
Abortion” n. pag.). The fetus now has viability and opportunities independent of the
gestating woman; however, even though the child has full moral status, the fetus is still in
the woman and their physiologies are intertwined, implicating the woman’s health, life
and bodily integrity. Little points out that “ . . . getting the fetus out implicates the same”
(345). According to Little in the third trimester women do not need to be granted a right
to elective abortion independent of considerations of their health and life, “ . . . but details
of medical need or method may not be ones best demarcated by legislative bodies” (347).
This is not because there is a feeling of unequal status between a newborn and a fetus in
the third trimester, but because regulating the body is different from regulating custody;
with so many variations in pregnancy it hard for legislation to take them all into account.
For Little, moral consideration of the fetus depends on fetal viability—the point at
which others can reasonably and meaningfully sustain the fetus’s life if only it could be
delivered from the pregnant woman. Little goes on to state that, “‘Viability’ of course, is
a bright-line idea making a continuum of probabilities and complexities—how good the
chances of survival, how brutal the interventions, how sober the risks of catastrophic
impairment, how enormous the resources to assist to relative independence” (“Abortion
29
and Personhood” 343). While I agree that in some instances viability does matter to the
morality of abortion, I do not want its moral consideration to rest solely on viability
because viability can be dependent on technological possibilities (Warren, “Moral
Difference” 51). Technology may make it possible for first trimester fetuses to become
viable and therefore usurp a woman’s right to an abortion. I do not think it is so much its
viability in the second in the third trimesters that bestow moral consideration, as it is that
there is a life that is not only becoming more formidable, but also as Beauchamp points
out, a life that we do not want to suffer.
1.8 Why Gradual Moral Status?
Biology clarifies that the fetus is continuously growing and pictures give us proof.
Bundles of cells in the first trimester go on to become a fetus with hands, feet, a heart and
many other characteristics. The fetus becomes increasingly like a child while in the
womb. As Dworkin notes, the later the abortion the more like a child a fetus has already
become—the worse it is (90-91). There is a natural investment that would be wasted
since an abortion grows steadily larger and more significant (92). According to Mary Ann
Warren in her article “On the Moral And Legal Status of Abortion,” we should take
seriously that as a human being develops continuously its rights develop in the same way
(n. pag.). She states, “It does seem reasonable to suggest that the more like a person, in
the relevant respects, a being is, the stronger the case for regarding it as having a right to
life, and indeed the stronger its right to life is” (n. pag.). She states that although a
seventh or eight-month fetus has features that make persons want to protect them, they
30
are not significantly more personlike than an embryo. She asserts that in the relevant
respects, a fetus, even a fully developed one, is considerably less personlike than is the
average mature mammal and because of this if the right to life of a fetus is to be based
upon its resemblances to a person, then it cannot be said to have any more right to life
than a woman (n.pag.). Thus, along with Armstrong and Hsieh, she concludes that a
fetus’s right to life could never override a woman’s right to obtain an abortion, at any
stage of her pregnancy.
Mary Ann Warren asserts fetuses should not be given personhood status because
she points out, “It is impossible to treat fetuses in utero as if they were persons without
treating women as if they were something less than persons” (“Moral Difference” 59).
Extending personhood would violate women’s rights to autonomy and physical security
(59). Already hospital or physicians have court ordered women to undergo Caesarean
sections against their will. “[F]orced Caesareans threaten to reduce women to the status
of inanimate objects—containers which may be opened at the will of others in order to
get at their contents” (qtd. in Warren, “Moral Difference” 59).
Although I agree with Warren that it is impossible to treat women as persons
while simultaneously giving personhood status to embryos, their gradual development
and increasing consciousness does make them morally considerable. As discussed earlier,
the capacity for pain and suffering makes one morally significant. For a woman to be able
to abort at any time during her pregnancy is extreme. The fetus is alive and although
value is relational the capacities that make fetuses valuable to other human beings are
maturing. A life is being destroyed—it is a loss and should be taken seriously. As Shields
noted, “Among workers who strongly supported abortion rights, 77 percent described it
31
as a ‘destructive act’ and 18 percent actually said it was ‘murder’ (501). One clinic
worker stated, ‘I think part of the problem is that we don’t talk about [the sadness caused
by second-trimester abortion] . . . because there’s always that fear that somebody will
hear it. . . . And an anti will get hold of it’ (Shields 501). Furthermore, as the fetus
continues to grow abortion becomes less of letting die and more of an intentional killing
when the fetus has become viable and can live independently. Gradual moral status
allows many Americans to confront their ambivalence and balance their worries for the
fetus and the woman.
Gradual moral status is preferable because not only does it allow the fetus moral
consideration, but it also considers the woman and acknowledges that the woman helps
the fetus become a person. Pregnancy implicates every aspect of a woman’s life and
although the fetus is of value, it is also a responsibility unlike any other. To become
pregnant is not only a burden, but also deeply intimate. As Little states, “ . . . its costs,
judged both as burden and intimacies, can be substantial, and deeply context dependent,
grounded in what the pregnancy means in the narrative context of the woman’s life”
(“Abortion and Personhood” 344). As Little points out, what continued pregnancy asks
prospectively of the woman is more than is required by any other citizen. Little states, “A
constitutionally-protected right of access to abortion, then, is a core protection for
women’s status as citizens; and early abortion, while regretful, can be regarded as a
decent and, indeed, a potentially honorable action” (“Abortion and Personhood” 344).
Gradual moral status not only speaks to many Americans’ ambivalence on
abortion, it can account for reality. Many Americans do not consider fetuses persons,
while they do allow for gradual moral status. This is why in-vitro fertilization and IUDs
32
are allowed, but why Americans have such austere reactions when a fetus is aborted
during the second or third trimesters. It can account for why some women abort fetuses
that will be cognitively or physically disabled. It can also make sense of den Hartogh’s
theory of relational value. As the fetus continues to develop, it develops characteristics
that make it more valuable to us; hence why we have such instinctive reactions to late
term abortions, but not early ones. Unlike personhood at fertilization, gradual moral
status takes seriously what the pregnancy would mean for the woman—at any stage
(Little, “Abortion and Personhood” 344). Gradual moral status allows for women to be
the other fundamental variable in assessing the moral and legal status of abortion. Little
states, “Whatever the status of early human life, it does not develop on its own. . . . Put
bluntly, it takes a great deal of work to turn early human life into something of full moral
status” (“Abortion and Personhood” 344).
1.9 Conclusion
The personhood movement although having secular arguments, is still
fundamentally religious. One can see this through its logical leap from human biology to
personhood (Armstrong & Hsieh 31). The right to life is inalienable and has intrinsic
value because it originates with God. This is why fighting abortion is “God’s work”
(PersonhoodUSA.com). This is why they do not even believe their inconclusive secular
arguments. Their assertions are based on dogma instead of reality. There is no
indisputable view on the moral status of embryos or fetuses that a pregnant woman is
intellectually compelled to accept (McCullough & Chervenak 37).
33
Not only does personhood fail to tell us whether abortion is ethical or not, the
intrinsic status required of the embryo is not possible. Its value is also relational.
Personhood proponents and their belief that life originates with God renders women
invisible and adds to the inadequacy and extremeness of the framework. Although she is
the link between the zygote and human being, the work required of her to turn the
embryo into something of full moral status is ignored. Personhood alone does not tell us
whether abortion is immoral or not, there are other variables and sometimes abortion is
not so much killing as it refusing to provide assistance in the first trimester.
My point is that the moral judgment that abortion is never permissible is not
substantiated because there is no conclusive evidence that fetuses are persons. Neither is
it irrefutable that they have intrinsic value. Many Americans are ambivalent; they take
into consideration both the fetus and the mother and rely on more information than just
the moral status of the fetus to decide its permissibility. Due to the fact that the
permissibility of abortion varies and since it is necessary to know more than just the
status of the fetus in order to make that judgment, the anti-abortionist moral theory that
solely depends on personhood is inadequate. This I will discuss more fully in the next
chapter.
34
Chapter 2 Ethical Decision-making
Moral norms are usually used in making judgments about particular actions.
These norms are also used to inform public policy. According to Ronald Lindsay, there is
this common morality and it is supplemented with widely accepted factual beliefs along
with an understanding of our background social conditions (35). Sometimes these moral
norms are justified seeking a reflective equilibrium. Reflective equilibrium is an approach
that does not take certain norms or judgments as given, but that are instead revisable. It
tests initial moral judgments by detailing and examining the consequences of adhering to
these judgments. These principles are themselves tested against our background beliefs
and theories, both moral and nonmoral. Judgments and principles that cannot be rendered
consistent with each other and our background beliefs and theories may need to be
modified or discarded (Lindsay 37). I would like to use this approach to judge whether
anti-abortionist moral theory is justified. In the first chapter I discussed the consequences
and theories of personhood. Now I would like to give some descriptive and background
information about abortion in order to highlight what numerous Americans take into
consideration when judging abortion.
Proponents of personhood use a moral principle to judge the morality of abortion.
It is always immoral to intentionally kill an innocent person and therefore, their moral
framework is much more rigid and exceptionless. This is why they focus solely on the
fetus. For many Americans however, the morality of abortion takes into account more
than just the fetus. Many Americans, like those who are pro-choice, sometimes feel that
abortion can be an ethical decision depending on the circumstances. New information and
reflection can change our moral judgments, they are not necessarily absolute.
35
In this chapter I would like to discuss why women abort and how pregnancy
affects their lives in order to highlight why unlike anti-abortionists, pro-choice Americans
do take into consideration the mother and her circumstances when judging abortion. Then
I will discuss why the personhood movement’s moral theory is inadequate to the task of
judging abortion.
2.1 Exceptionless Moral Principles
To share the view of gradual moral status for the fetus, or the view that in some
cases abortion is justified, is to not be in-line with anti-abortionist morality. This is
because their argument rests on one principle: that it is unequivocally immoral to kill an
innocent human being. This argument is highly deontological. Deontology holds that
individuals have strong duties to respect what follows from the inherent dignity and value
of rational beings (Panza & Potthast 293). For John Finnis, an anti-abortionist
philosopher, and other anti-abortionists, to not murder is a moral principle that cannot be
overridden by other considerations (Boyle 77). No one should intentionally kill an
innocent human. This is why the banning of in vitro fertilization, or contraception, or
having women bear children because of rape does not discourage proponents—they insist
that critics were and are missing and avoiding the central moral problem (Eckholm
n.pag.).
Personhood proponents see the abortion of the fetus as the sole moral problem in
abortion and they feel any other focus unjustified. Furthermore, some anti-abortionists as
well as those who are pro-choice hold other assumptions about women who electively
36
abort, which prevents them from having sympathy for the woman in some cases. There
are assumptions about women who have elective abortions. These women are
irresponsible, selfish, rash, and they are aborting because it is convenient. There is the
belief that if she would only stop to think about her actions she would change her mind.
This is why most people believe that most, if not all, women who abort are not good
mothers. Nevertheless, statistics show that these assumptions are not entirely accurate.
When women discuss their decisions to abort they usually have more than one reason for
their abortion. Additionally, more than 62 percent of women who abort are already
mothers (Guttmacher.org). Whereas the mother is looking past the pregnancy towards the
life after it emerges out of the womb, anti-abortionists simply worry about making it out
of the womb.
2.2 Why Women Abort
The responsibilities for existing children are increasingly significant for women
seeking abortions (Jones, Frohwirth & Moore, 88). Women not only want to provide
material things for their children, but also abstract things like life enrichment, attention
and nurturing. Women have certain ideals they want to uphold when it comes to having
children. Before having children women want to have a home, a stable income, an
education. They want to be in a stable relationship with a man they deem responsible, and
they want to be able to be able to give all of themselves to their children. Jones,
Frohwirth and Moore’s article “I Would Want to Give My Child, Like, Everything in the
World,” provides research that shows that issues of responsibility and care for existing
37
and future children influence women’s decisions to terminate their pregnancies. Women
are very aware of the responsibilities that being a mother entail and so want to be able to
properly fulfill these duties.
One case given in Jones, Frohwirth and Moore’s research was of a woman who
was having an abortion in order to be reunited with her children. Her former partner was
abusive and had left with two of her children and would not allow her to speak to them in
an attempt to convince her to live with him again. Since then, she began to live with
another man and ended up pregnant and she knew that she could not return to her partner
in that condition. She stated:
I have two kids, and I want to go back with my other two kids . . . I think a
lot of times that it’s a baby that I’m killing. I love kids. I love my kids and
I love babies. But I got nothing else to do . . . If I get pregnant again but
with my ex-husband, I would have it because it’s a baby, and I love
babies, and I would have it. (89)
The abortion in this case was so this woman could reconnect with her family. The next
case is of a woman who did not feel equipped to have another child at the time. She
stated:
Now, I have three beautiful children. I love them. That is a reason . . . It’s
so difficult because I live for my children. And I love them so much . . .
And it’s not like, “Oh, children! I can’t have another one.” It’s just the fact
that everything that comes along with it . . . But, it’s not because, you
know, I just don’t want to be a mother, or I just don’t want another kid, or,
oh! (89)
38
It is perpetuated not only by anti-abortionists, but also by other women, that women who
procure abortions do not know what they are doing, that they do not know what they are
giving up, that they are selfish, but this shows the contrary. These women are not
thinking foremost about themselves, but of their families, their children and the
responsibilities they entail. This demonstrates how much responsibility and hard work
goes into having another child or as the woman above describes it, “It’s just the fact that
everything that comes along with it . . .” that prevents these women from taking on
another child (Jones, Frohwirth & Moore, 89).
Women who had abortions and had no children discussed that there were certain
conditions that had to be met before they could be parents. One respondent stated:
I have a feeling, like, if I would have had the baby, I wouldn’t have been
able to give the baby everything I would have wanted to . . . I can’t have a
new-born baby and not be able to take care of it, and I would want to give
my child, like, everything in the world . . . I really do want a baby
someday. I want to be able to support my child and give it everything it
needs, and I don’t want to depend on anyone else for it . . . I want my kid
to be healthy and stable, physically, financially taken care of. And I didn’t
see any of ‘em happening [right now]. (91)
Other respondents who did not have children said that they felt they were not mentally
ready or mature enough to have a child. Some women do not want their children to grow
up in less than ideal situations or in situations they themselves have been through and
39
find undesirable. In some cases respondents felt that it would be selfish to have the child
instead of aborting it because they would be recreating the same negative circumstances
for their future children (Jones, Frohwirth & Moore, 93). There are also instances where
women wanted children, but then had to abort because of changing circumstances.
Boonstra et al. point out that 1.3 million women procured abortions although they had
planned for a child (8). This was due to changing circumstances where their marriage or
finances became unstable or they or the fetus became diagnosed with a medical
condition. This shows that not all abortions stem from irresponsibility or promiscuous
behavior—sometimes even married or stable couples abort because of changing
circumstances or because they cannot support a child.
2.3 Reproduction & Women’s Autonomy
As pregnancies occur in women’s bodies and because not all women are in
control of their reproductive systems there always exists the possibility for an unwanted
pregnancy (Boonstra 6). It is because of how pregnancy affects women’s independence
and their bodies that feminists (that are pro-abortion) and those that are pro-choice hold
that women should have the choice to abort. Employed single women who become
pregnant face not only the interruption of their jobs and careers, but a decrease in their
earning ability rendering them unable to raise a child on their own. Even worse for
women who already have children, pregnancy can bring them below the poverty line
(Guttmacher.org).
40
Many Americans agree with the Supreme Court that women should have
autonomy over the decision to abort. In the Supreme Court case Roe v. Wade, the right to
choose an abortion was based on a woman’s private decision. As Eugenie Robinson
points out, privacy rights affirm the importance of a respect for autonomy and un-coerced
decision making in ethical life, thus protecting personal choices from arbitrary
interference and state intervention (77). Those that are pro-choice believe that this right to
an abortion should be protected regardless of whether some object to it as immoral
(Dworkin 61). As Thomas Hill points out, “To respect someone as an autonomous person
. . . is to acknowledge that certain decisions are up to him or her and thus to refrain from
efforts to control those decisions” (48). He continues that when we say that someone is
autonomous it is not a description; it is to grant that a person has a right to control certain
matters for himself or herself. Self-determination and control over one’s body is a
fundamental part of being an agent with needs and rights (48). Denying women the rights
to control their bodies would exempt them from these values. There is a great fear among
feminists and others that women become secondary to their roles as mothers and are seen
just as vessels for baby making (Copeland n.pag.).
Many feminists are of the view that taking away women’s rights to an abortion is
in essence declaring them unfit to make decisions for themselves. Anti-abortionists must
remember that choices must exist in order for human beings to participate in morality. I
must choose to do something in order to be held accountable for it (Young 43). Although
anti-abortionists view women who abort as morally deficient and selfish, many women
know that it is morally grave to abort, however there are concrete realities and
responsibilities that push them to do it (Scott 320). As Thomas Hill states, “Ideally
41
autonomous, or self-governing, moral agents would respond to the real facts of the
situation they face, not to a perception distorted by morally irrelevant needs and
prejudices” (51).
Pregnancy can be extremely risky for some women and has several severe
physical effects (Robinson 47). Not to mention that there are medical anomalies and that
some women are mentally unstable and serious dangers to themselves (Copeland n. pag.).
Furthermore, those that are feminists and those that are pro-choice realize that women
sometimes abort out of their responsibilities to children they are currently raising. As
Robinson states, “If she has responsibilities to herself and to other that the care of the
fetus will force her to neglect, she is being forced into a position in which she cannot but
act irresponsibly” (48). Women realize that children can dampen their prospects and can
exacerbate their already unequal and undermined social and economic statuses.
Pregnancy involves immense sacrifices that range from physical, economic and
emotional; this is why those that are pro-choice feel women are justified when they abort
for their careers or well-being (Copeland n.pag.). For those that are pro-choice there is
nothing inconsistent between holding abortion immoral and still allowing people the
choice. This is because they are aware of the moral complexity and the various
dimensions of the issue (Scott 325). Support for abortion may come from a higher-order
belief in tolerance and civil liberties rather than reflecting a specific judgment on abortion
itself (Scott 320).
Anti-abortionists must realize that in reality it is hard to live up to the ideal of
motherhood and that with children being such immense responsibilities and in wanting to
provide them the best lives, women are forced to take into account their circumstances.
42
With children needing many material things besides love and affection some people
consider it wise and responsible to consider one’s circumstances. As Ayn Rand stated,
The capacity to procreate is merely a potential which man is not obligated
to actualize. The choice to have children or not is morally optional. Nature
endows man with a variety of potentials—and it is his mind that must
decide which capacities he chooses to exercise, according to his own
hierarchy or rational goals and values. . . . To an animal, the rearing of its
young is a matter of cycles, for man is it is a life-long responsibility that
must not be undertaken causelessly, thoughtlessly, or accidentally. (qtd. in
Armstrong & Hsieh 29)
This is why to simply have a child due to an accident is as Armstrong and Hsieh state,
“self-destructive” (29).
Bringing another human into the world is a morally serious consideration that
supersedes any absolute duty to remain pregnant (Porter 80). It is also important to
remember that, “[t]he woman who gets the abortion and the woman who gives birth are
the same woman at different stages of their life” (qtd. in Jones, Frohwirth & Moore, 80).
Some women who abort already are mothers or will go on to be mothers. Although some
women are irresponsible and may abort for callous reasons, not all women who obtain
abortions are necessarily selfish or morally incompetent. They are not all making these
decisions on whims; some of these decisions are well informed—even compassionate. I
bring up these assumptions and stereotypes about women who electively abort because
these assumptions occasionally make it hard to take away the taboo and stigma of
abortion. These stereotypes demean the real necessity of abortion and hinder us from
43
realizing that many Americans find elective abortion just as justified as abortion in an
emergency. More importantly, these stereotypes do not allow many Americans to realize
that mothers and women who abort are in many cases are the same woman. These
assumptions sometimes further the view that it is the woman against her fetus, and makes
it harder for us to see the relationship that exists between a woman and the fetus, which I
will discuss further in chapter 3.
2.4 Conflicting Responsibilities
It must be acknowledged that in reality women do not think of the decision to
abort as one where their rights are being exercised, but it is one of care and responsibility
in relationships. It is not about conflicting rights, but of conflicting responsibilities
(Porter 80). As Porter states, “Difficult decision making involves multiples negotiations
between social structures, ideologies, immediate social contexts, and particular desires,
rationales shift according to changing needs” (85). She points out that women “ . . .
deliberate, weigh options, reflect, equivocate and eventually decide” (85). This is not a
simple decision and if we want an ethics of abortion that is realistic and reflective of that
then it must take women’s circumstances into consideration. As stated earlier, women
usually have more than one reason to abort. Do we really want to criminalize women
when they are aborting to reunite their families, to give their already limited resources to
their living children, or because they were raped? This is why with an issue so complex
like abortion, we must be wary of absolutes. It must be taken earnestly that abortion is
contextual and unique to each pregnancy, not something universal that applies to any
44
woman and any fetus (Sherwin, 238). In some situations abortion will be morally
permissible and in some it will not, however we need to look at each instance
individually because every woman experiences pregnancy differently.
While personhood proponents focus on just one moral problem, those that are
pro-choice or that take these other factors into consideration perceive even more ethical
concerns if the woman were forced to gestate. Those that take in both the woman and the
fetus are trying to find a balance and are trying to make the choice that involves less
harm. A legislator, Albert Blumenthal, who wanted to repeal antiabortion laws
completely before Roe v. Wade asked, ‘Isn’t that the ultimate morality? Could we have
saved 367 young women from dying if we had not imposed on them our own sense of
morality and condemned them . . . to the butchery of the side streets of Harlem or
Riverside Drive in my district?’ (Boonstra12). Many Americans realize that abortion will
continue even if made illegal, endangering the lives of not only women, but their children
as well.
As stated in the beginning by Ronald Lindsay, common morality is supplemented
with widely accepted factual beliefs along with an understanding of our background
social conditions. When creating new policy or legislation there is a need to be systematic
and coherent with other theories, facts and background social conditions. Proponents of
personhood want to use their morality to create policy, but their secular arguments and
assumptions are not entirely accurate or irrefutable; a fertilized egg is not continuous with
the person it later becomes and an abortion in the first trimester is more of letting die than
killing for the fetus has no trajectory without the woman. Their focus on solely the fetus
disregards facts and background social conditions that show abortion is necessary for
45
women’s well-being in American society, and that varying circumstances sometimes
make abortion the more ethical choice to make. Personhood proponents just focus on the
status of the fetus, while some Americans are ambivalent and take into consideration both
the fetus and the woman. This is why personhood legislation does not cohere with how
numerous Americans view the abortion issue and fails to reflect and speak to reality since
many of things it would criminalize, like IUDs and in-vitro fertilization, many Americans
are proponents of.
2.5 Personhood Proponents’ Moral Theory
Proponents of personhood are using a deontological theory of ethics. This theory
has to do with what is morally required, forbidden, or permitted. Deontologists hold that
some choices cannot be justified by their effects (Daniels n.pag.). According to this
theory what makes a choice right is its conformity with a moral norm or principle.
Personhood’s moral argument rests on one principle: that it is absolutely immoral to kill
an innocent human being. It is considered exceptionless by John Finnis and other antiabortionists because “ . . . an act of intentionally killing an innocent human being . . . is
wrong in such a way that anything further one might discover about the action will not
change its moral valence from impermissible to permissible” (Boyle 79). It is simply
morally out of the question to ever intentionally abort a child. This evil should not be
done no matter how great the outcome will be (Boyle 79-80). Goods are not only to be
protected, but also promoted. There are no instances where you can ignore one’s inherent
dignity (Finnis 294). This theory therefore, forbids you from ever taking an innocent life
46
and at the same time, requires that you promote life. Finnis and personhood proponents
always hold life as something valuable—a gift (from God). It is a good that needs to be
protected and promoted because of its value and inviolability.
Finnis and personhood proponents believe fetuses have intrinsic value and a
dignity that should not be destroyed and base their argument for moral impermissibility
on this. There just can be no justification for taking an innocent human life. I argued in
Chapter 1 however, that unconscious persons do not have intrinsic value due to their
inability to value anything for itself; they therefore have a relational value that is
developmentally dependent. Personhood proponents hold that naturally human beings are
valuable, Den Hartogh points out though that persons are not naturally valuable, they are
valuable because they can attribute value to their lives and existence. When a member of
an un-endangered species lacks consciousness it is worthy of protection only if it has
special characteristics endowing it with value to other conscious beings (58). It is a value
marked by context-dependency and gradualist character (61). Furthermore, I argued that
moral considerability for fetuses does not even come from being a person or from
belonging to a certain species, but from the capacity to feel pain and suffer.
This moral theory also requires for life to always be promoted, realistically
though, life is not always a gift. For some people whose lives are full of suffering or pain,
there is more of a preference for death than for life. Having information about the kind of
life the fetus will have outside of the womb matters ethically. If the fetus will be born
without a brain, or with a severe disease that keeps it from flourishing or from a quality
life, it may push the parents to abort out of morally compassionate reasons. If the woman
is having severe health problems it may also be more ethical to end the life of the fetus,
47
than to continue it. Even if the child may not have a disease or something severe, a
mother may decide that the having of an abusive household, a household with drug
addicts, or a poor household may not only cause suffering (maybe the child will be taken
away and put in foster care), but may also impede the flourishing of the child, pushing the
woman to abort. As I mentioned in the beginning of the chapter, those that push for
personhood assert that there is no information that could change the morality of abortion,
but in reality some Americans realize there can be. Life is a good and the principle of not
killing the innocent helps answer this tough moral question of abortion, but it is to only
focus on one part of the problem of abortion (Boyle 80). I highlighted women’s reasons
to abort and how pregnancy affects women’s lives to show that they also matter morally
in the abortion debate.
This deontological moral theory should not be used because of its inconsistent
foundations, but also because of its exclusion of information, its ruthlessness and its sole
focus on the fetus that ignores the moral complexities and Catch-22s that women
experience. This moral theory fails to respect women. In Chapter 1 when I discussed
ambivalence I highlighted that not only are many Americans worried about the fetus, they
are also worried about the woman. I discussed that even people who were pro-choice
undeniably felt that they were destroying life, incredibly however, when they helped
women who were in dire circumstances they could at the same time be certain that in that
instance what they were doing was justified. As the woman stated, she felt she was
“helping humankind” (Shields 504). In America there are two sides to this issue—not
one—and a moral theory for abortion, especially one that will be used for legislation,
should reflect that. This moral theory fails to realize that there are conflicts between
48
duties and rights (Daniels n.pag.). Mothers are in deep conflict, I highlighted this in the
testimonials earlier in this chapter. Women equivocate and think about what they are
doing. This is a deeply complex issue and while principles can be great starting points,
there needs to be ethical reflection. It must be taken into account where our moral
theories lead us, what their consequences are. This is why even people who are pro-life
are voting down these personhood initiatives. One woman stated that the proposal
“yanked” her ‘ . . . in one direction and the other’ (Eckholm n.pag.). She felt a lot of
compassion for teenagers and said that she had a lot of praying to do before she voted.
This theory is paradoxical in that following this moral principle leads to actions that are
perceived to be even less unethical. It ignores the nuances found in abortion. It cannot
account for all the other circumstances some Americans take into consideration.
Since fetuses are not persons, this theory irrationally requires us and permits us to
make the world morally worse (Daniels n.pag.). What this morality would do to the
living at the expense of those who are not is unjust given that fetuses do not have the
same moral status as persons. This is why although abortion is ethically problematic
critics of personhood amendments claim it is even worse to further victimize already
hard-hit families (Grabiner n.pag.). As Gene Grabiner states, “Apart from the increased
Hispanic/Latino teen-age birthrate (2005 data), the greatest overall increase in the
American birthrate, consequent to outlawing choice, is likely to occur among poor and
working people, many of whom are already unemployed/underemployed” (n.pag.). He
goes on to ask, “But, if they are poor families forced by anti-abortion laws to become
multi-child families what may be expected of the quality of life for those children?”
(n.pag.) Children are not able to fulfill their potential due to inadequate social, economic
49
and educational conditions and this is also morally problematic. Although many that are
pro-life insist that nothing is more sacred than human life, one pastor commented, ‘It
matters whether a new life . . . might threaten to undermine the theologically understood
fulfillment of already existing human beings’ (qtd. in Dworkin 46). This theory should
not be taken seriously until it seriously takes into consideration the life that continues
after birth.
2.6 Conclusion
What I have tried to show in this chapter is that personhood’s moral theory is too
rigid for many Americans and cannot speak to abortion’s realities. It does not show an
acknowledgment of women’s background social conditions. For some information can
change the morality of abortion—it is not as absolute as the proponents of personhood
make it out to be. Finding out the fetus will be deformed, finding out the woman will
suffer greatly along with the child, finding out that the pregnancy will greatly undermine
the trajectory of the woman’s life, if you find out she was raped, that she cannot afford
the children she already has—does change the morality of abortion. The statistics on what
pregnancy does to women’s lives, the fact that women have a right to their bodies, the
fact that inequalities against women are exacerbated when they become pregnant adds to
the issue’s complexity and creates ambivalence.
Testimonials of women who have procured abortions show us that abortion is
about conflicting responsibilities and varying circumstances, that it is more complex than
just the status of the fetus. As stated before, having a child is an immense responsibility
50
that supersedes any duty to remain pregnant. Anti-abortionist morality refuses to take this
into consideration because of its principle. Furthermore, this morality turns the woman
into a passive container. Biology shows that she is the link between fertilization and
moral status. She is providing it life; it is extremely dependent on her. In the first
trimester she is not killing as much as letting die. This morality grossly usurps rights to
bodily autonomy and reduces her moral status using arguments that are faulty and
disputed. It is undeniable that for many Americans this moral theory is shortsighted and
inadequate. The fact is that personhood is contested, and this theory has severe
consequences that cannot be justified. So why use this moral theory and why let it usurp a
woman’s right to abortion?
It is not that I do not agree with personhood’s principle, it is just that fetuses are
not persons and while I agree that they deserve moral consideration, their moral status
does not equal that of those who are living. I concede that abortion is always morally
problematic and that it gets worse as the fetus continues to grow. There may not be a
person, but there is a life and it is a loss. This belief that fetuses have intrinsic status and
are inviolable is fundamentally religious. Its genetics is cited because a new life is
something given by God. As one proponent of the initiative stated, ‘Personhood is bigger
than just shutting abortion clinics; it’s an opportunity for people to say that we’re made in
the image of God’ (Eckholm n.pag.). It is fine that proponents or personhood believe this,
but they cannot require others to also believe them. Concomitantly, it must be
acknowledged that this morality holds women to ideal standards instead of realistic ones.
It is an imposition of values. This morality tells women with whom, when and under
what conditions to have children (Hewson ii10).
51
Lastly, it is naïve to believe that personhood policy will get rid of abortion. It
needs to be kept in mind that abortion is precipitated by unintended pregnancy. Thus, if
we want to reduce the number of abortions we should start there. We can greatly reduce
the numbers of abortion by increasing levels of contraceptive use. Additionally, we can
reduce the need for abortions by helping women control their reproductive lives.
Boonstra et al. point out that when women can control their reproductive lives it also
benefits the nation, their children, their partners and themselves (5). If as a nation
America is riled up on this issue, then why not aggressively do something about it that
does not include restricting it?
Unintended pregnancy should be a focus not only because it leads to abortion, but
also so that as a nation Americans can realize that they are also responsible. Lack of
contraceptives, lack of family planning and lack of sexual education has a cost. It is not
just the fault of these women, as a nation the seriousness of sex and child rearing should
be acknowledged by teaching young adults to be sexually responsible. Currently there is
a war by conservatives against Planned Parenthood, a government institution that deals
with family planning and abortion services. It is not fair to take away contraceptives from
women, to take away their reproductive freedoms and then once they are pregnant to then
force them to gestate and take on an immense responsibility. Conservatives cannot have it
both ways.
The reality is that abortion has to do with a fetus and a woman. Their relationship
consistently fails to be acknowledged by both sides of the abortion debate. It is necessary
to have a framework that takes seriously what Little calls “fetal geography” (“Abortion
and Intimacy” (1).
52
Chapter 3 Margaret Little’s Relationship Framework
Given that the personhood moral framework is inadequate, I propose Margaret
Little’s relationship framework. I would like to show that her framework is better suited
to assess the morality of abortion because not only does it take into account the fetus, the
woman and their relationship, but also because it can speak to and make sense of
abortion’s realities.
3.1 A Limited Right to Life
Margaret Little’s article “Abortion, Intimacy, and the Duty to Gestate” discusses
how America’s public debate on abortion is inadequate and points out that this issue is
especially difficult because even when one tries to morally evaluate abortion carefully
with the usual tools, the issue still seems beyond our grasp. She highlights that America’s
laws view a person as an individual, physically separate from others. Little highlights
how both sides of the abortion debate would view abortion as a violation of a right to life
if the fetus turned out to be a person. This would circumscribe the woman’s right to an
abortion because now the fetus would have the rights that she has. This sounds like an
unlimited right for the fetus, but Little perceptively points out that this right is actually
highly circumscribed—even for persons. She shows that although persons have a right to
life the right does not include the right to a life preserver from a stranger, or the right not
to be shot if it is done in self-defense. She asserts that along with a person’s right to life
come questions about what contours the right to life has given varies circumstances. To
53
be inside a womb as Little notes, is to be in an extraordinary environment and
enmeshment (1). Given its incredible circumstances and physical dependency it could be
asked then, whether the fetus’s right to life includes the continuation of this relationship
(“Abortion and Intimacy” 1).
When women are pregnant there is a physical intertwinement that legally cannot
be accounted for since law deals with individuals and not with fetuses. Even in our moral
frameworks, there is never a focus on the relationship between the mother and the fetus.
This intertwinement is not taken into account or acknowledged. Consequently, Little
states, “The central figures in the abortion drama—fetus, gestating woman, and their
relationship—are left out of the conceptual paradigm” (“Abortion and Intimacy” 1). Our
theories do not let us fully appreciate the relationship arising from gestation. Little points
out that literature on the relationship between mother and child is recurrently shown as a
relationship “ . . . between strangers or with the woman dubbed a ready-made mother
who is blithely assigned responsibilities of a kind and feel unmatched by any other
citizen” (1). Hence, according to Little, those in the debate face the morality and politics
of intertwinement and enmeshment with a conceptual framework that is ill suited to the
task. Little highlights that not only is the intimacy neglected, but also that neither side
takes pivotal that gestation occurs inside of someone’s body (1).
3.2 Fetal Geography
Little draws attention to the fact that pro-life movements frame the issue on the
fetus and grossly neglect the fact that pregnancies involve women. She notes that when
54
women’s interests are mentioned, they cannot counter the fetus’s claims. The view held
by those that are pro-life neglects the fact that gestation happens inside of women’s
bodies and the danger with this is that people then begin to think of fetuses as persons
individuated and separate, that require rights identical to those human beings use in
everyday life (“Abortion and Intimacy” 2).
Little concedes that even if the view that abortion is not violating a right to life,
there still may be ethical and legal reasons to restrict or prohibit it. She believes more
interesting sources of concern would remain. These remaining concerns would arise from
the belief that a woman who aborts is more than anything violating and reneging on
positive responsibilities stemming from either beneficence or in virtue of a maternal
relationship she has towards the fetus. Little claims that the question that needs to be
acknowledged is whether, or when, one has a duty to continue gestating when one finds
oneself pregnant. She also asks, what burden is imposed on women when they are forced
to gestate (Little, “Abortion and Intimacy” 3)
Little acknowledges that pregnancy does impose a heavy social cost, but that
these concerns are incomplete because women’s stories about abortion are more about
gestation and motherhood. She goes on to explain that to be pregnant is to be inhabited
and occupied. She feels that it is important to realize that pregnancy involves a state of
physical intimacy. To force a woman to gestate is to keep her in physical intertwinement
against her consent. Many would argue that pregnancy and gestation are great and
beautiful, an experience of love and enmeshment. Yet as Little points out, this is to miss
the point because it neglects the fact that it was a willing gestation (“Abortion and
Intimacy” 3). She claims that similarly to sex, which can be wonderful under consent yet
55
a violation without it, pregnancy too can be awesome with it or repulsive without it.
Many hold the belief that all women want to be mothers and want to experience
gestation, however this is as Little states, to point out the ideal. Regardless of what
women are supposed and believed to want, it is what she actually wants that determines
the status of the enmeshment. Little claims that forcing a woman to gestate is a liberty
harm. It is about an invasion of self, not a thwarting of plans (“Abortion and Intimacy” 34).
To gestate is to be in a relationship where the woman will most likely not just
share her body, but also her heart. For many women this issue is not so much having the
right to abort, but whether and when it is moral to exercise that right (Little, “Abortion
and Intimacy” 4). Those that are pro-life believe that the woman should gestate out of
beneficence, but gestating requires the sharing of one’s body, heart and soul. Thus, she
claims that what is needed is a moral approach that does justice to the ethics of intimacy.
She points out that abortion is problematic because of people’s beliefs of what mothers
owe their children. Hence, we need an ethics of parenthood in order to understand what
makes a person a parent in a normative sense and what responsibilities entail. Little goes
on to argue that parenthood can have different layers where different moral
responsibilities attach at each layer (4).
3.3 Parenting and Relationships
Little points out that parenthood is a lived personal relationship, not just a legal
status. Between parents and children is an emotional interconnection, a history of shared
56
experience, and immense affection. She explains that this is why parents’ self-sacrifice is
often immediate. It is out of this intertwinement that the child has a legitimate
expectation of sacrifice and why failure to provide assistance would be seen as
problematic (“Abortion and Intimacy” 5). Most people have the intuition that in a case
where a child had two fathers and needed a kidney, where one father is in a lived
relationship with the child and the other was just a sperm donor (so only a biological
connection), that the father with the lived experience with the child owes more than the
father who has merely contributed his sperm. As relationships between parents and a
child grow, the more sacrifice that is expected of them. She notes that this does not mean
that all responsibilities of parenthood are functions of a relationship, but that
responsibilities to share one’s body are (Little, “Abortion and Intimacy” 5).
Little astutely points out that in ethics whether one ought to enter a relationship
and when it is permissible to exit is rarely discussed (“Abortion and Intimacy” 5). She
acknowledges that parenthood has many deontological obligations that exist regardless of
the status of the relationship between the mother and the fetus, even the lack of one;
however, she claims that some responsibilities do not arise from just social or legal
statuses of parenthood, or just a biological connection, but out of the lived and personal
relationships that accompany them. When discussing the ethics of relationships usually
the discussion focuses on what morally flows from or governs relationships once they are
entered, additionally though, Little adds one should also discuss whether one ought to
enter and when it is permissible to exit (5).
Little states that relationships require that one be open to the relationship and that
some people have a claim to someone’s openness (“Abortion and Intimacy” 5). Little
57
holds that biology is morally salient in that it is a claim toward a further relationship. She
explains that while she may legitimately decline to a stranger with no reason at all, if the
person were her cousin, she would owe him an openness to that possibility. She notes that
she does not have to pursue these relationships, and while there are a lot of reasons for
declining she highlights that she needs better reasons to legitimately decline when it is
her cousin and not a stranger. When it comes to people’s intuitions they usually feel that
it is a sense of betrayal to decline a relationship when there is a biological connection for
callous reasons. This is why there are moral claims about being open to entering such
relationships. Little states, “My suspicion is that some of the passions about the morality
of abortion stem from our tendency to confuse the two. We tend to conflate the claims
one faces to enter a relationship with the claims one would face if one were within it”
(“Abortion and Intimacy” 6). She continues, “One who declines to enter a relationship,
even for bad reasons, does not owe what he would have owed if he had entered it”
(“Abortion and Intimacy” 5-6). She asserts that responsibilities attach to the personal
relationships themselves; women therefore, do not have a role based moral duty to
gestate. She highlights that this matters directly to the responsibilities and abstentions of
parenthood. She shrewdly points out that it is a form of abandonment to refuse openness
to a child with someone who you have a biological connection with, and it is a form of
abandonment to refuse a sacrifice that would in a lived relationship be reasonably
expected, but that these are not the same abandonment. She states, “The sperm donor, or
again the one-night stand, does not need the same sorts of reasons for declining to donate
the kidney as does the father whose life is intertwined with the child’s” (Little, “Abortion
and Intimacy” 6). Gestation is even more intimate than providing a kidney, since it
58
involves not only intertwinement, but also nine months of occupation. According to
Little, this means: that a responsibility to gestate does not arise simply from being in a
biological relationship with the fetus. Nevertheless, she admits that this does not mean
that pregnancy is not a moral moment. Although the biological intertwinement grounds a
legitimate claim to a further relationship one may have good reasons to decline, like
issues of poverty (6).
According to Little this framework of relationship ethics helps to make sense of
the fact that intuitions regarding moral responsibility to gestate are varied, urgently felt
and underdetermined (“Abortion and Intimacy” 6). Some women conceptualize their
relationship as one between mother and child automatically, while for others it is slow
and gradual. For other women the relationship is never one of motherhood, she is only in
a biological relationship with a human organism. She perceptively points out that an
objective perspective does not exist for what the fetus expects to help determine which
woman’s conception is correct. She highlights that since the fetus is unconscious, there is
not anything to help determine what the relationship is. There are no shared experiences
to fill and define the relationship, consequently, there is little to the relationship, other
than the woman’s experience and conception of it. Little acknowledges that constructing
the decision as subjective seems as if too much power is being given to the woman.
According to Little this is not the case because it is not so much that we are yielding to
her point of view, it is that hers is the only one there is. If the moral duty to gestate arises
depending on the personal relationship then the woman’s conception is the only thing
besides biology to tell whether there is a personal relationship. She claims, “ . . . what you
would need to do to leave open the possibility of developing a personal relationship is
59
precisely what you have no special responsibility to provide until you have entered the
relationship: the use and occupation of your body” (“Abortion and Intimacy” 7). Little
holds that although the fetus has a claim towards a stronger relationship, until that
relationship exists, it has no strong claim to the intimacy involved in gestation.
Little feels that with this relationship framework what seems puzzling can be
explained. Many that are pro-life cannot understand or comprehend why women do not
just put up their children for adoption, why the need for abortion? Little states, “What has
seemed paradoxical (and indeed ethically confused) to many strikes me as perfectly
sensible, and often wise, appreciation of the different moral contours involved with
entering, existing in, and exiting relationships” (“Abortion and Intimacy” 7). It makes
sense for women to decline entering a relationship when they know that once extant
would not let them leave it (Little 7-8).
3.4 Appeal of the Relationship Framework
The national debate fails to reflect many Americans’ ambivalence. Many
Americans take into consideration the woman and the fetus. If there is to be a serious
moral discussion on abortion my point is that I agree with Little, that a moral framework
is needed, that not only takes into consideration the fetus and its moral status; the social,
political and economic repercussions of having a child; but also fetal geography. This is
the appeal of her framework: its comprehensiveness and acknowledgement of moral
ambiguity, its coherence with other theories of moral status and the value of fetuses, its
consideration of woman’s circumstances by allowing for gradual moral status, and its
60
insightfulness with respect to Americans’ ambivalence. What makes it really great is that
it puts the relationship front and center, which makes sense since it is because of this
relationship that the fetus is morally significant (Gibson 227). Gibson states, “It is the
variety of relationships and roles that a human being participates in – their membership of
a community- that gives them their value as persons” (227). It is also out of this
relationship that responsibility to the fetus arises.
Little perceptively points out that responsibility attaches to history and a lived
relationship. Most parents deeply love their children and are willing to give up anything
for them; however, they take for granted that they have been building this love and that
they have a history with their child already. Little’s kidney example shows us that
intuitively, layers of responsibility are possible when it comes to parenthood.
The other vital part of the relationship framework is that it helps make sense of
the 60 percent of women who abort and already have children and those who choose not
to put the child up for adoption. It is not because they love the fetus less, but that they
owe it less than what they owe their other children. It makes sense of why women abort
instead of continuing the gestation. As time progresses for some women the bond
strengthens because as Little points out, gestation is something intimate that forces the
woman to share herself. When she has to give up her child later it leaves her with even
more moral problems since she has no idea how the child’s life will turn out. She feels
responsible and to spare herself the uncertainty she aborts.
Anti-abortionist ideology naïvely asserts that nothing else is or should be
considered besides the fetus’s right to life, while feminist ideology conveniently neglects
the moral status of the fetus. This moral framework however, acknowledges that there is
61
something alive and growing and additionally, that its moral status is growing along with
it (Little, “Abortion and Personhood” 333). She acknowledges that as the pregnancy
continues and the status of the fetus continues to solidify it takes more justification to
abort. At the same time though she believes women should have the unrestricted right to
abort in the first trimester since they can best judge whether they can assume the position
of mother. This seems to reflect intuitively how many people feel. It is a framework that
takes a little from both sides of the debate to best acknowledge our moral intuitions.
Little’s framework has the ambiguity that is necessary in an abortion framework.
It is important to remember that not only do people’s views on abortion vary, but that
their views also vary depending on the pregnancy and the circumstances. By being a
relationship framework this is acknowledged because for each new relationship one must
morally judge it anew. The decision or judgment must be re-given. It may change or stay
the same, but the point is that there is a need to re-evaluate the situation. This helps keep
us away from generalizations and simplifications. Each relationship is unique and each
mother is in a different circumstance, which may or may not lead us to different
judgments.
If you notice Little’s framework, it does not have so much to do with rights, as it
has to do with responsibility, care and moral intuition. For this debate to move forward
and be responsive to both sides of the debate there is an immense need to go beyond the
language of rights to a language of responsibility. Abortion’s complexity needs to be
acknowledged and this is why I would like a more comprehensive moral framework. In
order to have a better debate and have a more intuitive moral framework abortion must be
seen as a complex moral construct. An ethic based on relationships and responsibility
62
would be better suited since realistically the decision is not based on rights, but on
responsibility from the multiple relationships and social contexts that is really about
minimizing hurt and maximizing compassion and care (Porter 80). Women need the right
to abortion in order to be reproductively independent not only to vindicate a right to be
left alone, but often also to strengthen their ties to others (Dworkin 65).
3.5 Relationship Framework’s Shortfalls
This framework uses reliable observations and draws on moral intuitions to
promote a more ambiguous moral framework for abortion. It is a framework that morally
considers both the fetus and the woman. I use facts and social background to try and
justify some of my moral considerations. Some philosophers argue that these intuitions
should not be trusted. Others also say that facts and logic should be the only things used
to construct and justify moral theory. This framework and theory is also sympathetic and
biased towards women. This framework presupposes most women who abort to be
justified and gives women the unlimited freedom to decide whether to abort in the first
trimester.
This framework presents most women who abort as not selfish, or careerist or
irresponsible. This is not because I do not think there are. I am sure some women do
abort for trivial reasons; some do fail to give the fetus its due respect. Many women have
more than one abortion (Cohen n. pag.). Nevertheless, I am convinced that for most
women this does “ . . . not lead to unlimited, unprincipled abortion claims, but to an
agonizing, morally acute dilemma that involves reflecting on the dialectical interplay
63
between rights and responsibilities, in view of personal life narratives . . . ” (Porter 86).
This framework does not guarantee a responsible or even compassionate response from
every mother, but it does put front and center the woman and the fetus and it allows the
decision to be given by the one person that is responsible for it.
I think these women are justified because sometimes to know what is ethical
requires more than just the use of principles, but also information as to what are the
intentions, consequences and contexts of our actions. Extreme cases of pregnancy and
abortion force us to realize this. Varying information, gives us varying views on abortion.
Furthermore, these varying views are justified by reality, theory and facts. If moral norms
are going to be imposed on people, they should reflect some consensus and they should
make the world better, not worse. The intuitions that tell us to both take into
consideration the fetus and the woman can be justified and made sense by theories, facts
and biology. Personhood moral theory fails because a fetus is not a person; this is why it
is so extreme. Morality sometimes is not generalizable. Sometimes abortion is the better
alternative. People weigh and equivocate, and try to do the least harm. Usually the most
ethical thing to do is that which minimizes harmful consequences. Finnis and other
abortionists argue that abortion is an evil and should not be done no matter how great the
outcome will be (Boyle 80). Therefore, they view this framework as consequentialist
(Finnis 126). Consequentialism is a moral theory that maximizes happiness. Thus, if to
save fifty people you have to kill one, the morally right thing to do is kill the one person
because saving fifty people creates more happiness than keeping alive one. Solely the
consequences of the action are what matter. Many people like myself find this morally
64
repugnant. To abort though, is not to be a consequentialist because it is not about
maximizing happiness, but about minimizing harm.
Lastly, I realize that this thesis holds women and those that are dependent on them
as the most vulnerable, while anti-abortionists see the pre-born to be, especially those that
have cognitive or physical disabilities. Even though I agree that fetuses are alive and
there is definitely life within them, I am giving greater moral status to the living. This is
because the loss of a fetus is not as great as that of person who is living. Those that are
living have people who love them, have more invested in their lives and most
importantly, they know what you are depriving them of. Anti-abortionists place aborted
fetuses on the same level as the death of Holocaust victims and this lowers the moral
value of human consciousness (Porter 74). Many hold it morally worse when the person
knows they are being killed. Even toddlers and those that have severe cognitive
capabilities still represent more of a loss because even if they are not attributing value to
their own lives, they have formed relationships with loved ones and their lives have more
investment that would be lost.
3.6 Conclusion
The point of this thesis is to show that personhood is a contested concept and it
does not confer moral status like anti-abortionists think it does. Therefore, a moral theory
that bases impermissibility on the personhood of the fetus is not justified. It is also to try
and show that both sides of the abortion debate are justified, but that a fetus is not
indisputably a person. Therefore, there is no foundation for authority to overrule the
65
decision to have an abortion. This is why the anti-abortionist moral theory that
automatically judges abortion as impermissible is inadequate for judging the
unpredictable morality of abortion. The relationship between mother and child, as well as
the experience of the woman must be expressed without being distorted or worse—
ignored (Porter 39). The relationship should not be ignored not only because it is through
this relationship that the fetus becomes increasingly valuable, but also because it is
disrespectful to women. Abortion is not only a right to bodily self-determination, but also
the right to act as a moral agent (Gibson 232).
Personhood proponents are right; Americans do need to re-think abortion. Let us
have a debate and look at the facts and the realities without fear. Millions of women:
sisters, daughters, mothers, cousins, aunts, procure abortions and many are still
phenomenal mothers, so the stigma around abortion needs to be eliminated. Women can
be justified in aborting and this needs to be acknowledged, women, even those who are
pro-choice, should lose the fear of supporting abortion access. It is necessary for the wellbeing of all women, whether they need to abort or not. Not every woman’s pregnancy is
the same so judgment should not be so quickly and harshly given. Americans must
realize that personhood legislation will turn women and their partners who use
contraceptives, in-vitro fertilization or who use stem-cell research into criminals. These
consequences must be taken seriously.
Reproduction affects all facets of a woman’s life, especially her well-being,
which is why women should not have to fight for abortion rights every time politicians
need help getting elected. It is important to bear in mind what you are imposing on a
woman. To have a child is to have a responsibility unlike any other, a relationship that
66
will last a lifetime, an intertwinement, an occupation—all these things should be kept in
mind when discussing abortion because if not you are not getting the full picture—fetuses
do not exist alone, they are inside of women. Analogously, one must also realize the
grave loss the fetus’s life is. That this human being was denied the gift of living and all
the extraordinary things that come with it. Abortion is a difficult moral dilemma to
unravel; it is not as easy as extremists on both sides of the abortion debate make it out to
be.
67
Works Cited
Abort73.com. “Medical Testimony.” 17 January 2009. Web. 6 Aug. 2012.
Armstrong, Ari & Hsieh, Diana. “Personhood Movement is Anti-Life.”
Seculargovernment.us. Web. 25 July 2012.
Beauchamp, Tom L. “The Failure of Theories of Personhood.” Kennedy Institute of
Ethics Journal 9.4 (1999) : 309-324.
Boonstra, Heather D., et al. “Abortion in Women’s Lives.” Guttmacher.org. Guttmacher
Institute. (2006) : 1-45. Web. 26 June. 2012.
Boyle, Joseph. “Exceptionless Rule Approaches.“ A Companion to Bioethics: Second
Edition. Helga Kuhse and Peter Singer (ed.) Blackwell. 2009. GoogleScholar
Web. July 2012.
Cohen, Susan A. “Repeat Abortion, Repeat Unintended Pregnancy, Repeated and
Misguided Government Policies.” Guttmacher Policy Review. 10.2 (2007) :
n.pag. Guttmacher.org. Web. 6 Aug. 2012.
Copeland, Libby. “The Suicidal Pregnant Woman and the Politics of Motherhood.” Slate.
May 25, 2012. Web. 25 May 2012.
Daniels, Norman. “Reflective Equilibrium.” The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
(Spring 2011 Edition). Edward N. Zalta (ed.) Web. 6 Aug. 2012.
Dawson, Karen. “Fertilisation and moral status: a scientific perspective.” Journal of
Medical Ethics. 13 (1987) : 173-178. PubMed. Web. 1 July 2012
Dworkin, Ronald. Life’s Dominion: An argument About Abortion, Euthanasia, and
Individual Freedom. First Vintage Book Edition. New York, 1993. Print.
Eckholm, Erik. “Push for Personhood Amendment Represents New Tack in Abortion
68
Fight.” New York Times. October 25, 2011. Web. 1 July 2012.
Finnis, John. “The Right and Wrongs of Abortion: A Reply to Judith Thomson.”
Philosophy and Public Affairs. 2.2 (1973) : 1-12. JSTOR. Web. March 2012.
Grabiner, Gene. “A Question of Choice.” Reproductive Health. 8:20 (2011). PubMed
Web. 1 Aug. 2012.
Guttmacher.org. Guttmacher Institute, 1996. Web. 23 Nov. 2011
Hare, Richard. “Abortion and the Golden Rule.” Philosophy & Public Affairs.
4.3 (1975) : 201-222. JSTOR. Web. 2 Aug. 2012.
Hartogh, den Govert. “The Values of Life.” Bioethics. 11.1 (1997) : 43- 66. Google
Scholar. Web. 1 Aug. 2012.
Hewson, Barbara. “Reproductive Autonomy and the Ethics of Abortion.” Journal of
Medical Ethics. 27. (2001) : ii10-ii14. Web. Nov. 2011.
Hill, E. Thomas. Autonomy and Self-Respect. New York: Cambridge, 1991. Print.
Jones, K. Rachel, Lori F. Frohwirth and Anne M. Moore. “I Would Want to Give My
Child, Like, Everything in the World.” Journal of Family Issues. 29.1 (2008) : 7999. Web. Nov. 2011.
Lindsay, A. Ronald. “Bioethics Policies and the Compass of Common Morality.”
Theoretical Medicine and Bioethics. 30 (2009) : 31-43. PubMed. Web. 4 Aug.
2012.
Little, Margaret O. “Abortion, Intimacy, and the Duty to Gestate.” Ethical Theory and
Moral Practice. 2.3. (1999) : 295-312. Google Scholar. Web. Nov. 2012.
---. “Abortion & the Margins of Personhood.” Rutgers Law Journal,
39. (2008) : 331-348. Google Scholar. Web. Nov. 2012.
69
McCullough, Laurence B. and Frank A. Chervenak. “A Critical Analysis of the Concept
and Discourse of ‘Unborn Child.’” American Journal of Bioethics. 8.7 (2008) :
34-39. PubMed. Web. 4 Aug. 2012.
PersonhoodUSA.com. “What is Personhood?” PersonhoodUSA. 2011. Web. 6 Aug.
2012.
Panza, Christopher and Adam Potthast. Ethics for Dummies. Wiley Publishing. Indiana,
2010. Print.
Pollitt, Katha. “Fetal Right, Women’s Wrongs.” Eileen.undonet.com n.p. n.d. Web. 23
Nov. 2011
Elisabeth Porter. “Abortion ethics: Right and Responsibilities.” Hypatia. 9.3 (1994) : 6687. Google Scholar. Web. Nov. 2011.
Robinson, G. Eugenie. “A Defense of Women’s Choice: Abortion and the Ethics of
Care.” The Southern Journal of Philosophy. 30.3 (1992) : 39-66 GoogleScholar.
Web. Nov. 2011.
Saad, Lydia. “More Americans “Pro-Life” Than “Pro-Choice” for First Time.”
Gallup.com May 15, 2009. Web. 7 Aug. 2012.
Scott, Jacqueline. “Conflicting Beliefs About Abortion: Legal Approval and Moral
Doubts.” Social Psychology Quarterly. 52.4 (1989) : 319-326. JSTOR. Web. Nov.
2012.
Sherwin, Susan. “Abortion Through a Feminist Ethics Lens.” Ethical Issues:
Perspectives for Canadians Third Edition. Ed. Eldon Soifer. Buffalo, NY:
Broadview, 2009. 232-245. Web. Nov. 2011.
Shields, Jon A. “Almost Human: Ambivalence in the Pro-choice and Pro-life
70
Movements.” Critical Review: A Journal of Politics and Society. 23.4 (2011) :
495-515. PubMed. Web. 5 Aug. 2012.
Young, Robert. “The Value of Autonomy.” The Philosophical Quarterly.
32.126 (1982): 35-44. JSTOR. Web. Nov. 2012.
Warren, Mary Anne. “On the Moral and Legal Status of Abortion.” Biomedical Ethics. 4.
T.A. Mappes and D. DeGrazia, Eds. New York:McGraw-Hill, Inc. 1996 pp. 434440. instruct.westvalley.edu/lafave/warren_article.html.n.pag. March 22, 2004.
Web. 4 Aug. 2012.
---. “The Moral Significance of Birth.” Hypatia. 4.3 (1989) : 46-65. Google Scholar.
Web.6 Aug. 2012.
71