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The Moral Case For Abortion

 
  

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Our Lady Has Left the Building
11:44 / 14.03.05
I'm throwing this up without due care and attention I admit, but I'm wondering if there's a moral case to justify abortion, beyond the wellbeing and wishes of the mother?
 
 
Jack Fear
13:14 / 14.03.05
Same moral case there is to be made for mercy killing.

That is: A quick death, even a violent one, may be considered preferable to a life of misery. This is the argument most often used when a pregnancy is terminated because the baby has been diagnosed with some severe birth defect or deformity—or, going a little further down the slippery slope, with mental retardation.

Or, further still, when the baby has been diagnosed with a bad case of poverty and hopelessness. Or with being female, and heir to a thousand woes and fuck-all prospects.

Essentially: when the alternative is to bring into this world a child who will never know hope, who cannot be cured or rehabilitated of hir pre-existing condition, a child who can never expect anything more than mere palliative care—then it may be judged "better" not just for the parents but for the child hirself to spare hir that life of suffering.

It's a horrible, horrible choice—but sometimes, in some circumstances, it may be adjudged to be the most moral one. Like any moral choice, it is intensely subjective, dependent on the decision-maker's personal and cultural values.
 
 
sleazenation
13:34 / 14.03.05
Over-population? To forcibly prevent individual communities/the world producing more people than it can sustain?
 
 
Ariadne
19:33 / 14.03.05
To prevent the misery caused by unwanted pregnancy and unskilled illegal abortion.
 
 
JOY NO WRY
19:54 / 14.03.05
The argument that "its better than backstreet jobs" seems to assume that backstreet jobs can't be effectivly prevented. Whilst that is probably true, I do have something of an issue with it because its saying "Here is something that the populace/state finds morally wrong, but because we can't prevent it, we're going to standardise and legalise it"

If this approach was taken to other 'crimes'(For want of a btter word), I think the general response would be a lot more negative.

I do realise this is only a tiny part of the issue, btw.
 
 
astrojax69
20:07 / 14.03.05
a child who can never expect anything more than mere palliative care

there is a case perhaps for the assertion that this is all any of us experience...

sometimes i find it harder to find moral justification for living. unless you identify ('invoke' perhaps too evocative here?) some kind of higher moral authority, what is not but mere biological fact of alive / not alive? how does desire come into play? this is the nub of this issue for me...

unfortunately, i see it as the death of the foetus being the endpoint in the decision of someone else, some outside actor, to cause it to be not alive. not its choice. so *if" the choice is to make it not alive it will be that actor's choice, there will be nothing it can do about it - seemingly death by fiat. like being hit by a meteor or something... so i wonder not if, but why, that should be changed...

that leads me to consider there might be no imperative for the actor to even consider the biological fact of whether the foetus will be alive / not alive in hir deliberations on how to act in hir own life's experience. we're all just going to die anyway. why should it matter?

( of course i actually *try* to behave like a nice person, but i find identifying the rational steps the tricky bit, then wonder....)

help me.
 
 
Regrettable Juvenilia
20:10 / 14.03.05
I'm not sure "wellbeing and wishes" covers the woman's side of things, does it? The term people tend to use is "the right to choose", is it not?
 
 
sleazenation
20:34 / 14.03.05
I'm not sure it would.

There is a strong argument that outlawing drugs simply hands a very profitable industry to the criminal underworld while removing any of the safeguards (such as standardized pure dosages) that might offer some level of protection to the vulnerable.

The same line of reasoning holds for abortion.
 
 
Jack Fear
20:49 / 14.03.05
we're all just going to die anyway. why should it matter?

And that's the very bottom of the slippery slope.
 
 
Withiel: DALI'S ROTTWEILER
20:55 / 14.03.05
Perhaps the question is not whether there's a moral case for abortion, but whether there's a watertight one against it: outlawing the termination of pregnancies seems to immediately eliminate the range of moral choices that only the specific woman involved in each situation can make. I don't think there's a moral case for such a prohibition: if there was it'd probably invoke a Utilitarian calculation, in which case I'm with Ariadne and Jack Fear - there seems to be less misery involved if an unwanted child is aborted rather than leads a miserable life. Of course, it's also possible that said child could actually lead a potentially happy life. So it looks more like abortion is a possible case for a situation where conventional "blanket" moral theories don't apply, and the only way to deal with it is on a case-by-case basis by the person (or possibly persons) involved. In which case, as I'm not a woman subject to an unwanted pregnancy*, I should shut up and keep my nose out of it. In the nicest possible way, of course.

*loaded use of language here, but I failed to come up with anything better
 
 
Tryphena Absent
10:02 / 15.03.05
"Here is something that the populace/state finds morally wrong, but because we can't prevent it, we're going to standardise and legalise it"

What if the state finds foundations and orphanages morally wrong?
 
 
hoatzin
10:30 / 15.03.05
There is no society on earth today where not killing members of our own species is a moral imperative. So we all judge it OK for some members to die under certain conditions. Unless human life is judged to be absolutely sacrosanct, there can be no complete outlawing of abortion, and no-one can claim the high moral ground. It seems there are many pro-lifers who deem it their moral duty to send their own children to be killed in 'morally justified' wars. The sooner pregnancy can be made an absolute choice, the better.
 
 
Tryphena Absent
10:47 / 15.03.05
Of course, it's also possible that said child could actually lead a potentially happy life

I don't think that the abortion debate should revolve around the potential happiness/unhappiness of the foetus' life. There are specific reasons to legalise abortion, not because of back street abortions though those social consequences are certainly a factor but rather the status of women as basic human beings. These factors of course depend on whether you see sex as a basic human function and right or something that should be only a means to reproduction.


This issue is embedded with the ideas of righteousness and sacrifice, this is probably because the opposition to legalised abortion tend to be religious. They ignore the women's rights that I see as fundamental. My main point being that women are born with the capacity for pregnancy.

Now from the point that the mother has no conscious control over her reproductive system and contraception can fail these moral questions arise. Will a mother be happy knowing 1)that she has given up an unwanted child,
2)that she couldn't afford a child- couldn't provide for it and so had to give it up,
3)couldn't afford to bring up a child and so lived in poverty with that child for over a decade.

The abortion rights afforded to women in this country have allowed them not only to make choices when all manner of other contraception failed but to retain control over their own bodies and to at least live with a guilt that they could control. Pro-life advocates believe that you have a responsibility to care for a child if you conceive and to find some other means of caring for it if you cannot. They assign a responsibility to the process that I do not. Morally I do not think that a woman who has exercised as much control as possible has that obligation.


There isn't a way to turn our reproductive systems off and I don't believe that people should abstain so this is a futile and unjust debate. It isn't morally right to hold people responsible for things that they have no control over. Women deserve potentially happy lives in the face of the bodies that they cannot have complete control over. That is why abortion is moral.
 
 
hoatzin
11:27 / 15.03.05
I agree again with Nina. However I do see a problem with the actual abortions, which is why I hold out great hope for 'morning after' pills which avert pregnancy- although I believe there are religious objections to these as well.
 
 
Jack Fear
11:45 / 15.03.05
Just to play devil's advocate here...

There isn't a way to turn our reproductive systems off...

A patently false premise, given the number of easily-available contraceptive methods. And even surgical sterilization is proving to be increasingly reversible: if that's not damned close to an on/off switch for human reproduction, I don't know what is.

...and I don't believe that people should abstain...

Can you give a good reason for this belief, beyond your personal prefernce/prejudice? Because otherwise it sounds like a bit of a cop-out.

It isn't morally right to hold people responsible for things that they have no control over.

And therein lies the thrust of the argument. By conveniently ignoring contraception and abstinence, you're positing a situation wherein women have no control over their reproductive status—which makes abortion a first choice, rather than a last resort.

I appreciate that you're trying to make a sex-positive argument here, but I think it's a flawed one—or at least an incomplete one. And because of that, it tends to paints women as helpless in the face of their reproductive status and sexual urges.

Which is a bit quease-inducing, as well as counterproductive. You're shooting our own argument in the foot: If sex is not a choice—if it is uncontrollable—if we are slaves to it—then how can it be a positive, empowering thing?
 
 
Katherine
12:23 / 15.03.05
Hmmmm Ok, I will trot out one of the oldest reasons given for abortion. Rape.

Does abortion now have a moral case?

(I realise this could be a bit too far, in which case please delete)
 
 
hoatzin
12:30 / 15.03.05
Jack, nobody is saying that the impulses are uncontrollable, just that the outcome often is. How many men have to consider whether or not they will have sex because of the possible outcome? Do you think that women should only have sex if they are happy for the outcome to be a child? No methods of contraception are 100% effective yet, and I think the medical profession would be somewhat appalled at viewing sterilization and its' reversal as a contraceptive option.
Abortion is always a last resort, I have never met any woman who viewed it lightly. Abstinence is certainly not a normal practice in our society; there is a lot of difference between abstinence and promiscuity, and most people find a happy medium. I would suggest that it would be the males in our society who would be most critical of abstinence as a method of contraception!
 
 
Jack Fear
13:21 / 15.03.05
I would suggest that it would be the males in our society who would be most critical of abstinence as a method of contraception!

More than they would object to abortion as a method of same? Let's stay apples-to-apples here.
 
 
A0S
14:37 / 15.03.05
I agree with Withiel. There is no moral justification for banning abortion.
From what I know of abortion (I am male) it's pretty traumatic and very unlikely to be anyones first choice of contraception. If it does then it may be time to look at it again. Until then it should be availible.
 
 
Withiel: DALI'S ROTTWEILER
14:59 / 15.03.05
I don't think that the abortion debate should revolve around the potential happiness/unhappiness of the foetus' life. There are specific reasons to legalise abortion, not because of back street abortions though those social consequences are certainly a factor but rather the status of women as basic human beings.

Neither do I: the point I was making was that conventional secular moral theories don't seem to apply to the issue of abortion. Moreover, I think that the case here might be for the moral rather than legal justification for abortion; as soon as Archraven's example comes up, it's pretty clear that there's a pretty clear legal reason for the non-prohibition of abortion. However, not thinking that an action should be prohibited in law is not necessarily the same as agreeing that said action is morally justifiable - fox-hunting is probably a good example to use here. (Not that I'm comparing the two in any way, it's just that both fox-hunting and abortion could be objected to morally without that objection implying a wish for these actions to be outlawed).

(More on this later - strapped for time at the moment)
 
 
Jack Fear
15:52 / 15.03.05
You've touched on an important issue, Withiel—the essential difference between a thing being morally desirable and not being morally undesirable. A positive good and a negative good, in other words.

It's hard—but, I think, possible—to make a case for abortion as a positive moral good. I think the test is: Can you make a case for the thing in itself?

Over in the execution thread, Ganesh argues that we cannot argue the relative merits of the death penalty without also considering the possibility of wrongful convictions. I repectfully disagree. I think that we can sometimes shed light on complex situations by examining their components individually—in a vacuum, as it were—in a series of hypotheticals. The process can lead us to some basic assumptions, upon which we can build.

Abortion is a complex issue because it works on at least two levels: it ends pregnancies, and prevents births. The two are related, but not the same. To frame abortion solely as a women's issue—as Nina has explicitly done—focuses entirely on the former, while conveniently ignoring that there is another party—another life—dammit, let's call a spade a spade, another person involved in the decision.

That, I think, is what so rankles me about that framing of the issue—it's a reductionist argument, and not one that holds up under close examination. To claim that abortion is entirely about women's reproductive freedom—when there are so many other ways of dealing with the issue of unwanted pregnancy, most of which quite sensibly focus on prevention—seems incredibly disingenuous to me.

So let's reduce it the other way, and see if there's a positive moral good to be found. Let's focus less on the fact of pregnancy itself, and more on outcomes.

Thought experiment: Assume, if you will, the existence of a 100% safe, effective, and pleasant contraceptive method. Assume that all pregnancies in our hypothetical society are wanted. In such a hypothetical, is there still a place for abortion?

I would argue yes, for the reasons outlined in my initial post. The focus is placed not on the pregnancy, but on the birth and life of the child. But if your support for abortion is predicated solely on the appeal to a woman's right to choose when and whether to bear children at all, then, it seems to me, you're on shakier ground.
 
 
Ganesh
16:12 / 15.03.05
Over in the execution thread, Ganesh argues that we cannot argue the relative merits of the death penalty without also considering the possibility of wrongful convictions.

Actually, I state that I cannot argue the relative merits of the death penalty without also considering the possibility of wrongful convictions. I'm quite prepared to accept this as a limitation of my own thinking-in-a-vacuumness.
 
 
Ganesh
16:15 / 15.03.05
another person involved in the decision

This surely then begs the question, 'when does an implanted embryo become a "person"'...
 
 
Jack Fear
16:30 / 15.03.05
Not at all. Use "potential person," if it makes you feel more comfortable. The argument about "when life begins" is nothing but a distraction. The point is that abortion pre-emptively stops what we can all agree to call "a human life"—i.e., the whole birth-to-death experience—from ever occuring. A life, a person, is, if not ended, exactly, then prevented.
 
 
Ganesh
17:24 / 15.03.05
Not at all. Use "potential person," if it makes you feel more comfortable.

I will, thanks - but it's worth remembering that a "potential person" is not the same thing as a "person", in the way that a fertilised acorn - a 'potential tree' - is not the same thing as a mature oak.

The argument about "when life begins" is nothing but a distraction. The point is that abortion pre-emptively stops what we can all agree to call "a human life"—i.e., the whole birth-to-death experience—from ever occuring. A life, a person, is, if not ended, exactly, then prevented.

I disagree; I don't think the argument is reducible to being a "distraction". The prevention of potential 'personhood' is, IMHO, not the same as the termination of established 'personhood', in (crudely) the same way as uprooting a seedling is not the same as felling an oak tree.
 
 
Jackie Susann
02:37 / 16.03.05
Yeah - I mean surely otherwise you have to accept that sperm is a potential person and make a moral case for masturbation?

I think the problem with the framing of the question is this thread - and I think Withiel touched on this - is where the burden of proof lies. It seems to me that, given that any prohibition of abortion has patently negative effects on the lives of actual living people (from unwanted pregnancies to dangerous illegal procedures) that you have to make a moral case against it, not for it.
 
 
Regrettable Juvenilia
08:16 / 16.03.05
A life, a person, is, if not ended, exactly, then prevented.

...As is the case with any other form of contraception, including abstinence.
 
 
Olulabelle
09:43 / 16.03.05
...As is the case with any other form of contraception, including abstinence.

No, because in most other forms of contraception the life is never in existence in the first place since the egg and sperm have not met.

Jack Fear is using the word 'prevented' to mean that the zygote (which is living as a result of the egg and the sperm meeting, but which is not yet a grown person)is then prevented from growing.

And actually, although the zygote is a living thing it does not begin to form a nervous system until the third week of existence. So perhaps it is only at this point that one can begin to 'prevent' its life.
 
 
Regrettable Juvenilia
09:53 / 16.03.05
No, Jack Fear is not doing that. He states:

The argument about "when life begins" is nothing but a distraction. The point is that abortion pre-emptively stops what we can all agree to call "a human life"—i.e., the whole birth-to-death experience—from ever occuring.

It's a ridiculous argument, because if you're not going to debate "when life begins", then any number of actions one takes during a day can be said to stop a human life from ever occuring. I didn't set up my friend with that girl from work - their son is never conceived - oh no!
 
 
Regrettable Juvenilia
09:55 / 16.03.05
In other words, "life begins at conception", even though we may not believe in it, is a more coherent position than Jack's.
 
 
Olulabelle
10:14 / 16.03.05
Abortion prevents something already in existence and that will turn into a human-being from doing so. Not setting up your friend with that girl from work prevents nothing. It changes possibilities and outcomes but as nothing is already in existence, nothing can be prevented. Most contraception changes nothing, the egg and sperm are produced anyway regardless of contraception, but when contraception is in place they do not meet.

I think the point was that the cells already have to be in existence if one is to prevent those cells from growing into a human being.
 
 
Regrettable Juvenilia
10:30 / 16.03.05
Look, olulabelle, I'm not being mean here, but if you go back and read what Ganesh says here and then read Jack's reply in that context, it's pretty clear that he's not making the distinction you make. He states that he doesn't want to have the "does life begin at conception?" argument because it's a "distraction". He states that abortion prevents a "potential person" from coming into being. That strikes me as ridiculous precisely because if you refuse to engage with the question of when life begins, BUT still insist that the life beginning carries moral weight, your argument can be reduced ad absurdiam pretty easily.
 
 
Olulabelle
11:42 / 16.03.05
I do agree with you about that and I think that when life begins is an integral part of figuring out whether abortion is morally wrong or right.

But abortion will never be the same as contraception which is what you were stating, for all the reasons I have already outlined above. In the simplest terms, stopping something (abortion) is very, very different from not starting it (contraception and abstinence).
 
 
hoatzin
12:14 / 16.03.05
Given that contraception is the prevention of conception occurring, and abortion is its' termination once it does, contraception should always be a purely personal concern, whereas once conception has taken place, there is some moral concern.
It's obviously impossible at the moment to agree when consciousness begins, but it must be true that the longer the pregnancy goes on, the greater the moral concern? There are always going to be instances where pregnancy occurs and is not recognised, or when contraception has not even been attempted. This is when the quality of life consideration comes to the fore both of parent and fetus.
Late abortions must be devastating for all concerned, and I don't think it's morally defensible for one set of doctors to be battling for the survival of a premature fetus whilst another set is aborting one of similar age.
Perhaps here there really are degrees of morality, and abortion can sometimes be morally justified, but sometimes not.
 
 
Lurid Archive
18:50 / 17.03.05
For me, the question of when life begins is the crucial one. While I consider a woman's right to choose what happens to her own body fundamental, it doesn't trump the right to life of her baby. That is, and I think this is pretty uncontroversial, abortion is not a simple right to choose at a point when the foetus becomes viable. Before that time (and it is rather murkier than a point in time, but nevertheless) I think that the woman's decision is really all that counts but only because I don't consider a foetus before a certain time to be much more than a clump of cells.

This is a difficult position because the transition isn't clear cut, and is open to the charge that it denies humanity on the basis of convenience. But it seems more satisfactory to me than the alternatives.
 
  

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