Applied Ethics
Abortion
1. Abortion is an “act which a woman performs in voluntarily terminating, or
allowing another person to terminate her pregnancy”. (Mary A. Warren) Is abortion
morally permissible or impermissible, right or wrong?
1.1. Two approaches to abortion:
(a) For the utilitarians, no taking of human life, be it abortion or euthanasia, is
intrinsically wrong, since actions are wrong only insofar as they cause suffering or
reduce happiness. For abortion, it is the consequence or effect on the mother, fetus
(unborn baby), and others that matter, not person’s rights or moral status of fetus.
 Utilitarian arguments for abortion could employ the bad consequences that may
result from a continued pregnancy—say, the loss of job or other opportunities for
the pregnant woman, the suffering of the child, the burden of caring and nurturing
upon the woman, etc. Arguments against abortion may cite the loss of happiness
and the future contributions of the being that is aborted.
(b) The second position relies on some theoretical concepts--human being, person or
rights. Is the fetus a human being or person? If it is a human being or person, then
does it have rights, especially right to life? What are the criteria for being a person?
Is there any morally relevant dividing line along the biological process of
development from the unicellular zygote to birth?
2. Conservative (pro-life) view: This anti-abortionist or pro-life view takes the fetus
as a human being. Abortion is morally wrong since the fetus is a human life, and since
abortion is the taking of human life and the taking of human life is wrong. Thus,
abortion is justifiable in only some special circumstances, say, if a pregnant woman
gives birth to the baby, the pregnant woman will die.
 Argument against abortion: The fetus continues to grow and develop during the
9-month pregnancy, and there is no significant dividing line in fetal development
separating something is a human being from something is not. Hence the fetus is a
human being from conception onwards. Since
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It is wrong to kill a human being.
A human fetus is a human being.
Abortion is killing a human fetus.
Abortion is killing a human being.
Therefore, it is wrong to have abortion.
 The fertilized egg (zygote) contains the entire genetic blue-print for the future
development of the fetus, baby, child and adult. The actual physical constitution
and appearance of the fetus, baby, and so on, is determined by the DNA of the
fertilized egg.
 But is it always wrong to kill a human being? There are possible situations where
the first premise could be questioned, say, killing in self-defense seems not wrong.
 The second premise could also be questioned since it is not at all clear whether
fetus is a human being, though it is a member of the species of homo sapiens.
3. Liberal (pro-choice) view: Abortion is an issue about women’s right and free
choice. This pro-abortionist or pro-choice view takes the fetus as a part of the
pregnant woman’s body. Abortion is not a morally serious matter, not a matter of
taking human life, but simply removing a bit of living tissue from the woman’s body,
like an appendectomy, or the removal of a hand. In abortion, a woman is exercising
her right to choose what happens to her body, or her right to choose not to bear a fetus.
It is morally permissible for a woman to demand an abortion at any stage for any
reason because she has a right to choose what happens to her own body, and since the
fetus is only a part of her body.
3.1 Criticisms and objections:
 Even if it is morally permissible for me to cut off a hand, or an unwanted part of
my body because I want to, it does not follow that it is morally permissible for a
doctor to cut off my hand or an unwanted part of my body at my request, just
because I want him to.
 Suppose a fetus is aborted and lives. This viable fetus (a fetus is said to be viable
at the point where it could survive independently of the mother) is not morally on
a par with an organ of the human body since it is itself growing and developing
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into a human body independently. But it seems odd to say that something has
different moral status according to where it is living and developing. A viable
fetus in an incubator counts as a baby; a viable fetus that is not in an incubator but
in a woman’s body just counts as morally on a par with one of her organs.
 Liberal abortionists see birth as a morally relevant dividing line between human
and non-human. But it is not at all clear where the morally relevant difference is
between the fetus ten minutes before birth and a just born baby. The only
difference is the physical separation (the just born baby is no longer dependent on
the woman’s body) of the fetus from the mother. It seems implausible to interpret
this as the morally significant difference.
4. Personhood argument for abortion: The term ‘human being’ or ‘human’ can be
analyzed into two senses (Mary A. Warren):
(i)The biological or genetic sense, a human being is just a member of the species
homo sapiens. Whether a being is a member of a given species can be determined
scientifically by an examination of the chromosomes in the cells of living organisms.
A fetus conceived by human parents is certainly a human being.
(ii)‘Person’, a conscious and rational being, is a moral agent who possesses some
traits or qualities, like consciousness, reasoning, self-awareness, self-control, capacity
to communicate, etc. All of us are persons (moral agents) and holders of rights, but
fetuses, embryos, babies, and the extremely senile or brain-damaged are not.
 Criteria for Personhood:
i)
Consciousness—the capacity to feel pain and enjoy happiness;
ii)
Reasoning—the capacity to solve new and relatively complex problems;
iii)
Self-motivated activity—relatively independent activity;
iv)
v)
Capacity to communicate, by whatever means, messages of an indefinitely
variety of types.
The presence of self-awareness.
 Look at the argument against abortion (conservative view) again with these two
senses. What do you have to say? The argument is valid or invalid?
 The fetus is not a moral person and it does not have the right to life since it lacks
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the criteria of personhood. Thus abortion is morally justified.
A fetus is merely a human being in the biological sense.
No fetus is a person.
No fetus is a moral agent
No fetus has the right to life.
It is not wrong to kill a fetus.
Therefore, abortion is not wrong.
4.1 Criticisms and objections:
 Infanticide: Taking ‘human being’ different from ‘person’, we can further argue
that a newborn baby is not self-conscious, not rational; it cannot see itself as a
being which might or might not have a future, and so cannot have a desire to
continue living. If a right to life must be based on rationality, self-awareness, or
capacity to want to go on living, a newborn baby cannot have a right to life.
 The newborn baby or infant is thus on the same footing as the fetus. If it is not
wrong to kill fetus, then it is not wrong to kill new-born babies.
 Where the line is to be drawn in the case of infanticide? How old an infant that is
up to the standard of being a person, that it is wrong to kill it? The moral problem
can thus only be solved by choosing some period of time arbitrarily, say a month
or two after birth, as the interval during which infanticide is permitted. But our
morality will reject that killing newborn babies is not seriously wrong.
 If it is not wrong to kill newborn babies, then it is also not wrong to kill those
people who are seriously brain-damaged or in coma, since they are not up to the
standard of personhood. Though people with severe mental handicaps who lack
personhood have no rights (if rights were tied to the notion of personhood), it is
clearly prohibited or morally wrong to kill disabled people.
 Any theory that leads to the permissibility of infanticide has gone wrong very
early. Common morality requires the protection of the most vulnerable members
of society, of which newborn babies are a prime example. If morality is not about
this, then it is about nothing.
 The personhood view is thus in conflict with our moral idea that all human beings,
at whatever stage of development, whether they be young, old, incapacitated,
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‘normal’ or not, have equal dignity and deserve whatever protection they need
from the aggression of those more powerful than they are. And the conception of
human rights says all human beings have rights simply they are human beings.
But for Warren, only moral persons have rights, human beings who are not up to
the standard of personhood do not have rights.
5. Judith Thomson’s defense of abortion: Suppose the fetus is a person or human
being and has the right to life. Is it always wrong to have abortion? No. Thomson
argues that abortion is morally permissible for some cases of abortion—pregnancy
results from rape and saving the pregnant woman’s life.
5.1 Abortion due to rape: The ‘violinist case’ attempts to show that abortion due to
rape is permissible. A famous violinist is plugged into your kidney by some music
lovers while you are sleeping, to share your blood for 9 months in order to save the
violinist’s life, without your permission. Unplugging will result in his death.
Remaining plugged to him is a substantial burden to you—unable to move or do the
things you want to do for 9 months. Is it wrong if you unplug?
 It is nothing wrong if you unplug. The right to life (of the violinist) does not
amount to the right against any other person to provide life support if doing so is
burdensome. The violinist does not have the right to your blood or to use your
kidneys without your permission.
 Having a right to life does not guarantee having either a right to be given the use
of or a right to be allowed continued use of another person’s body—even if one
needs it for life itself.
 Thomson interprets right to life as negative, not positive. Negative rights are rights
to be ‘left alone’, whereas positive rights are rights to demand assistance. “The
fact that for continued life that violinist needs the continued use of your kidneys
does not establish that he has a right to be given the continued use of your
kidneys.” (Thomson)
 Everyone has a right of how her own body is used. And the sick violinist has no
right to use another person’s body without her permission. Hence you cannot be
unjust in unplugging him: “You surely are not being unjust to him, for you gave
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him no right to use your kidneys, and no one else can give him any such right.”
Unplugging him is not wrong although the result of the action is the violinist’s
death.
 “The right to life consists not in the right not to be killed, but rather in the right
not be killed unjustly.” The violinist has the right to life, but “if you do not kill
him unjustly, you do not violate his right to life, and so it is no wonder you do him
no injustice.”
 Thus the victim of rape (pregnant woman) can have abortion since she has not
given permission to the fetus to use her body and it has no right to use her body.
The woman has done no injustice to the fetus.
 We are morally required to be a minimally decent Samaritan, but not a good
Samaritan. “Nobody is morally required to make large sacrifices, of health, of all
other interests and concerns, of all other duties and commitments…”
5.2 Abortion to save the woman’s life: Is self-defense against an innocent
threat—abortion in order to save the pregnant woman’s life morally permissible?
 Suppose you are trapped in a small house with a fast growing child. Is killing the
child to avoid being crushed to death by the child morally permissible? For
self-defense, it is nothing wrong.
 Thus the pregnant woman can have abortion in order to save her life, for she has
right to life and she has right to her body.
5.3 In Thomson’s arguments, two other moral aspects we have to consider: (1) The
burden involved in bringing the fetus to term. (2) The degree of responsibility the
woman carrying the fetus has to provide life support. Consider the following cases:
(i)A couple has unprotected sex in order to have a baby, but changes their mind.
(ii)A couple has unprotected sex without any thought of possible consequences.
(iii)A couple takes some precautions, but less than what would be reasonably
sufficient.
(iv)A couple takes all reasonable precautions.
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 What moral differences (if any) do these different cases make?
6. The potentiality view can be either anti-abortionist or pro-abortionist. The fetus,
from the moment of conception, is morally unique, not an actual but a potential
human being or person. Insofar as the fetus is not an actual but a potential human
being, it is (a) unlike an actual one, and (b) unlike any other piece of human tissue—a
stomach is not a potential human being.
6.1 The potentiality view can rank a potential human being very high, very close to an
actual human being; hence moving very close to the conservative position and arguing
It is wrong to kill a potential human being.
A human fetus is a potential human being.
Abortion is killing the human fetus.
Therefore, it is wrong to have abortion.
 The first premise of the argument is weak, for the wrongness of killing a potential
human being—even a potential person—is more open to challenge than the
wrongness of killing an actual human being.
 Does a potential person have rights? We might be able to derive potential rights
from a potential ability of having rights. But it is unclear how actual rights can be
derived from the bare potential ability of having such rights at a later time.
However, a woman’s actual rights could override a fetus’s potential rights.
6.2 The potentiality view can rank a potential human being very low, quite close to a
bit of human tissue; hence moving to an extreme liberal position.
6.3 Someone can take up a variety of positions in between. Their argument may begin
from the premise that the fertilized ovum, unlike the unfertilized ova and sperm, is a
potential human being. It then adds the gradual development premise that, working
forwards from conception through the various stages, there is no point at which we
can say ‘now it is an actual human being’ until the baby is born.
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 Unlike the claim that the fertilized ovum is immediately morally comparable to a
human being (the conservative view) or part of the woman’s body (the liberal
view), the claim that the fertilized ovum is immediately a potential human being
seems beyond dispute.
 Assigning the fetus ‘potential’ status does provide a premise for ruling out
abortion on trivial grounds. Deliberately to destroy a potential human being,
thereby preventing it from realizing its potential, is a morally serious matter.
 Potentiality: To say that a fetus is a potential human being is not like saying that
it has a chance to become a human being, a chance that may be lost. It is about its
natural development which can be perverted or prevented, but it cannot be lost.
The point of describing fetuses as potential human beings is to group them all
together into a natural class, with a certain natural development.
 A thing is potentially K if it will become K of its own accord, if nothing external
intervenes. So acorns and chestnuts are potential trees. All acorns are potential oak
trees, not potential chestnut trees or apple trees.
Suggested readings:
1. Julie C. Van Camp, Jeffrey Olen, & Vincent Barry, Applying Ethics: A Text with
Readings. (11th ed.) Chapter 4. Wadsworth, 2015.
2. Mary Anne Warren, On the Moral and Legal Status of Abortion, in Ethics: History,
Theory and Contemporary Issues. Steven M. Cahn & Peter Markie (ed.) Oxford
University Press, 2006.
3. Judith Jarvis Thomson, A Defense of Abortion, in Ethics: History, Theory and
Contemporary Issues.
4. Donald Marquis, Why Abortion is Immoral, in Applying Ethics: A Text with
Readings, pp137-142.
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