Racism and the Pro-Life Connection

I recently read a pro-lifer suggest that the pro-life position would one day come to be seen as the anti-racism position now is. It got me thinking about the connection between the two, and I came to a very different conclusion. Obviously I understand his point - both extend protection to more human beings than previously. Nevertheless actually I think if we look a bit deeper, we will find that a pro-choice position (certainly one which does not demand equal rights from conception) is the true heir of the anti-racism movement. To be clear, in no way do I suggest or believe that pro-lifers tend to be racist. However, I think that the very success of anti-racism suggests that the pro-choice position is to be preferred.

The reason for this is that the most widely-held intellectual justification of racism was that people of certain skin colours or ethnic origins are inherently inferior in some way to people of the favoured skin colour (usually white). Slavery was justified by the idea that black people were not worthy of protection as they were not like the slave owners. Now, as we know, skin colour is a genetic varient. The suggestion was that we can determine who is worthy of protection by genetic facts. The repudiation of the racist viewpoint is therefore a rejection of the idea that looking to genetics is enough. They were found to be wanting as an adequate explanation for why people are worth protecting.

On a superficial level the shift was from protection for whites to protection for humans. However, humanity is equally a genetic fact, albeit more widespread. If the shift was merely from one genetic fact to another then there appears to be no real justification for it. Why should we prefer one genetic fact to another? Was there any principle to the shift? Of course there was. People recognised that protection was needed because of the ability to suffer and feel pain or to grow and flourish. This is common to all colours and unifies our conception of those worthy of moral consideration. In short, the success of anti-racism was the success of a consideration of the characteristics of beings as beings, rather than merely their genetic make-up.

The pro-life movement (narowly defined as those who desire protection from conception) denies this shift. It argues that what is important is the genetic fact of humanity and nothing else. Thus all those genetically human must be protected whether or not they have any capacity for consciousness, pain or pleasure. They eschew any consideration of beings as beings. While they would use the wider genetic fact of humanity as their criterion, they fail to move past its arbitrary nature and merely insist that it is intuitively true, just as white supremacy was once intuitively true for so many people.

The shift from a genetic criterion to a beings as beings criterion was one from arbitrariness to principle. It expanded the scope of protection in some ways, to those of different colours. However it also excluded those who only fulfilled the biological condition of humanity without any of the characteristics (faculties and consciousness) of beings worthy of protection. Those desperate to protect such zygotes rely on a purely genetic argument in a way which, if accepted, would damage the coherence of the anti-racism movement. In the end, the pro-choice lobby is the heir of anti-racism.

Non-Religious Pro-Life

In this post, Jeremy who is guest blogging at Philosophy et cetera argues that the pro-life argument is not necessarily religious. I have said before that the sanctity of life view rests on a worrying religious contention (that our value is based on being God's property). But is there any other way this view can be upheld?

I will deal purely with the abortion question here, and take pro-life to mean someone who disagrees with the killing of an embryo from the point of conception (the usual, if not only, meaning). I will accept that there are theoretical ways to be pro-life which do not rest on God, but will assert that holding these views to any degree of consistency is either ridiculous, or in no way representative of any significant part of the pro-life community.

Note: It is difficult to distinguish religious from non-religious arguments. Jeremy suggests whether an argument is based on religious revelation or not, but I believe this is insufficient. If I make an argument based on the premise that during Holy Communion the bread and wine physically becomes the body and blood of Jesus (transubstantiation) then that is still a religious argument because the premise only makes sense with a religious underpinning. However, since everything eventually must lead to some unsupported underpinnings, I will say that a non-religious argument is one whose premises can eventually be tracked back to observations about the empirical world but not the existence of God. (This last requirement is necessary because an argument for God could itself be non-religious by relying on the world rather than revelation, like the argument from design. If this was used then one could collapse the religious / non-religious distinction.) An argument involving transubstantiation relies on faith in God, and so is religious. Any premises have to be tracked back to see if they could rely on the empirical world without belief in God. Only if so can they be non-religious.

Here, therefore, are the possible non-religious foundations for the pro-life view:

It is always wrong to kill

This argument would hold that killing anything with the criteria of life is wrong. If this was held then the problems with the pro-life view disappear. However, this is a radical view. Since it is not based on faculties, it requires upholding the right to life of a cabbage to the same extent as a human. Certainly, this would justify protection of a newly created embryo. But at the same time it would make life incredibly difficult to live. It would essentially require the Fruitarian lifestyle of only eating what dies naturally. I do not believe that any realistic portion of the pro-life community is represented by this view. Moreover, I do not believe that the belief in the sacredness of all life can survive without religious underpinning. The mere facts of being able to grow and reproduce appear to have no more importance ethically than the colour of one's skin. Only by having a God who gives special value to them can life in and of itself be ethically prejudiced.

If this cannot be a consistent non-religious ethical basis, then we must find some criteria which distinguishes the newly conceived foetus from a cabbage.

We must value things based on their potential

This is the only argument here that can be based on faculties. The only other change of ethical importance which happens to the embryo is that it will become able to survive on its own without constant help. If we take this latter as the important potential point, then this would exclude from the argument any child doomed to die in its first few years. This is because although after birth a child will not be bodily dependent on the mother in the same way, it will still be unable to live without constant care for many years. I am pretty sure that no pro-lifer would argue this way, so I will assume that the key to potentiality is faculties that will naturally develop.

Potentiality basically involves treating beings as they will naturally become. I say naturally because that seems to be the only way to treat it. Clearly it makes no sense to treat beings as they could possibly be, given the right conditions. This would require treating a sperm and egg as a person, because in the right circumstances they could be. The 'naturally becoming' test is the least bizarre potentiality requirement. However, this is clearly difficult to identify. Natural cannot mean 'without outside influence' because embryos require outside influence to grow into the beings we are considering. The only way in which it seems that embryos naturally grow into children and then adults is through pure probability, which seems a very odd way to identify their moral status!

The big problem however is that no-one takes any kind of potentiality truly seriously. It is a cliche to point out that no-one treats an acorn as an oak, but it is true. No-one treats a law student as a lawyer (or at least they are foolish if they do, believe me!). But let's move on to fully moral issues. It is possible to say that certain classes of people will probably and quite naturally become criminals and commit many crimes. Potentiality would presumably therefore have us treat them as criminals. But what if a very intelligent person is in that category, with the potentil either to become a criminal or a brilliant doctor. Are we obliged to ethically treat them as both - worthy of punishment and praise? This all seems ridiculous, but this is the reality of potentiality. It is not applied consistently by, I believe, any significant slice of the pro-life community.

Humans have souls

Jeremy asserts (in the comments) that souls are not necessarily a religious creation. However, I would take issue with this. There is no direct evidence for souls in the world, as I'm sure Jeremy would admit. We cannot see, hear or touch souls. The only arguments for them come from the incidents of those who supposedly have them. They rest on certain special qualities and abilities of those with souls, like the ability to think and reason. However, by basing evidence for the soul on faculties, we deny souls to those without those faculties, and this includes newly conceived embryos.

In order to include these, many say all humans and only humans have souls. However, by doing so they concede almost all of the arguments in favour of souls: Animals live and move but apparently they do not need souls to do so. Therefore the only evidence for souls must come from religion. Alternatively, if we argue that life itself is the incident of souls, and grant souls to all living beings, we are brought back to the first heading above. If destroying souls is wrong, then it must be wrong to kill any living thing. More than that however, there is absolutely no need for a soul in our understanding of, say, a cabbage. We understand how they work much better than complicated higher animals where there may, somewhere, be room for explanation by soul. The declaration that all life has a soul therefore can only rely as evidence upon religious belief.

There is of course an alternative like that suggested at the beginning of this section - the idea that there are different levels of soul according to faculties. However since an embryo has no more faculties than a skin cell, it cannot demand a soul on this arguement.

I have argued therefore, that there are three key ways to argue from a pro-life perspective without being explicitly religious: The wrong-to-kill argument, the potentiality argument and the souls argument. In all three cases, the arguments either require resort to religious backing or require massive changes to ethical systems in a way completely unrepresentative of any significant slice of the population as a whole, let alone pro-lifers. It is possible to consistently be pro-life for non-religious reasons, but I confidently believe that almost no-one is.

Before and After the Person

Now that I am finished with my posts about Peter Singer I feel ready to explain my position on some of the issues which came up in this debate. While I have explained my basic position on abortion in some detail, the issue of pregnant women causing birth defects divided pro-choicers. And even on the side which thought that it was wrong (including me), the further issue of harm caused after a victim's death is controversial. I will examine both questions here.

Birth Defects

The salient points about causing birth defects are these: Whether due to the intake of drugs or other acts, the actions occur and the harm is received well before birth. However, the effects are still felt some time after birth. The question is whether the acts can be said to be wrong, assuming that the harm principle holds, (as I do, although I interpret the principle widely).

Again I will have to distinguish myself from many pro-choicers who focus solely on the difference between persons and non-persons. This line is generally drawn after birth, and I would agree that that makes sense. However, as I have explained before, I think far more important is the nature and extent of the interests of any being, person or not. Late-term foetuses have interests which it is generally wrong to violate. However, the specific circumstances of a pregnancy and the effects on a woman's autonomy and dignity can justify the minimum necessary harm to the foetus while ending the pregnancy (as humane as possible abortion before viability, or induced birth afterwards).

However, when it comes to actions which will have a negative effect on this foetus, the situation is different. A woman's autonomy and dignity is sufficiently protected by allowing abortion. There is no similar argument preserving her moral right to take drugs which harm that foetus. Her autonomy is not affected in anything like the same way, this requirement being a prohibition and not a requirement. Indeed, in choosing to continue the pregnancy we can see her as having taken on even some, reasonable, positive obligations to the foetus, such as to stay reasonably healthy.

Moreover, I would say that this applies equally to actions done to early term foetuses with no interests at all, where the harm is actually felt later once interests have developed. I think even those who disagree that foetuses should have any rights should be in accord on this one. There is no question that taking thalidomide harms the person the foetus will become, in comparison to how their life would have been otherwise. It robs them of opportunities and abilities. However, the actual effects, when the damage is done, precede the development of any interests. Is taking thalidomide wrong?

The question can be taken out of the context of tricky interest / personhood issues. Can actions taken before the existence of a being with interests which later hurt that being be wrong? Ignoring abortion entirely, is it wrong to set a trap which will harm someone not yet conceived? I would say that it most certainly is. If someone does an action likely to harm someone, that is prima facie wrong regardless of when the victim is conceived or born. What matters in when the harm or effects are felt, not when the physical action took place. Just as the trap setter is wrong, so is someone who damages a pre-interest foetus such as to cause harm to the person it will be.

This may look odd considering that I see absolutely no moral problem with killing pre-interest foetuses. However, crucially there will never be any being with interests capable of receiving any harm. This is dramatically different from the situation in question. In my opinion, the conclusion that causing harm to beings not yet existing is wrong should be clear to both pro-choice and pro-life alike.

Harm After Death

Richard proposes that the fulfilment or otherwise of our desires at any time impacts our welfare. He argues that if someone's wishes are violated after they die, their welfare has been damaged. This is predicated on the view (which he expresses in the comments of the linked post) that "all moments exist equally, just like all places do." Thus, once there is a person there is a person, regardless of the time at which we are talking. That person exists even if not born yet. Thus the person's interests can be harmed at any time. It is this which leads him to agree with me on the birth defects question - the person is harmed regardless of temporal issues.

I however would say that timing is important - the time that the harm is received, rather than when the harmful act takes place. With the example of setting a trap as previously put, we do not harm the victim when we put down the trap - if we were to have a change of heart and remove it no harm would be done. The harm occurs when the trap strikes. (Nevertheless, the wrong is done when the trap is set with the requisite mental state. We can only redeem ourselves by removing it, not prevent the wrong from ever happening. Removing it would make it one of the class of wrongs without harm, as it was intended to make harm likely or did in fact make harm likely. This is why I interpret the harm principle widely.) With the burning of a dead man's precious library, there is no person to receive the harm (we are discounting upset relatives and heirs, for simplicity's sake).

The reason for my assertion is not that harms must be felt to be harms at all. I do not believe this. If we steal from someone and they never notice, they have been harmed. If we cause someone brain damage so that they can never realise that their mental abilities have been reduced, we have still harmed them. This is because one important type of harm is deprivation. I've explained before that this is the wrong of painless killing - depriving us of numerous abilities, faculties, interests and memories. Actual mental distress is not always necessary. Loss of something like options is enough, (even, I would argue, if they are options which would never be chosen). Harms which are unrealised may be less serious than those which are, but they are harms nevertheless. This is the only way to make sense of a large number of our intuitions. Imagine we lock someone in a room while they sleep, but they choose to remain there when they wake up without realising they can leave. Are they not harmed by the imprisonment at all, if they are removed again before they realise? Imagine that later they found out that they had been trapped. Would they feel that their interests had been violated, or merely that they had been at risk of violation? I say it must be the former.

So realisation and even ability to realise what has transpired is not necessary for harm. Nevertheless, I say that dead people cannot have interests which can be violated. They have no options to be taken away from them, no ability to experience which can be abused to cause suffering. Everything which marks a person as a moral object has disappeared. Nothing more can be done to violate their interests, as their interests have disappeared. They can receive no more harm. My great ancestor may have wished for a possession to stay in the family, but I need not take his concerns into account before I sell it.

I think the difference of opinion between me and Richard is not about all moments existing equally or not. It is that he thinks that it is generally good for our preferences to be upheld. I think that it is generally good for our preferences to be upheld because that allows us to make choices about our lives and increase our own happiness, options and abilities. Preference fulfilment is facilitative of all kind of other goods. Once someone is dead, however, it is facilitative of nothing as far as that person goes. I think that this accords with common sense and an interests-based view of ethics.

Life, Death, Abortion and Animals

In this post I explained how the sanctity of life ethic behind the idea that human life and only human life is sacred from conception stems from the idea that ethics is about upholding God's property rights over all creation. I insisted that this was an abhorrent ethic, permitting people to be treated solely as property in a way rejected at the end of slavery.

However, that leaves us to develop a theory of ethics based on interests and centred around the idea that it is inherently wrong to violate these interests. Way back here I linked this with empathy, as empathy allows us to understand the importance of these interests and go about creating an ethic which does justice to them.

Creating this new ethic is a task which Peter Singer approaches with gusto, and I think he makes great strides. However, he is widely disliked and discredited for one very unpopular conclusion which he reaches. This is that it can be morally acceptable to kill some newborn babies. I will describe his reasoning and then attempt to explain why I think he goes wrong, building a more defensible ethic as I go along.

Singer's starting premise is that biological humanity is not in itself morally significant. I have said much independently to the same effect, so I will merely summarise the argument. On an interest-based approach, morally relevant faculties must have some relationship with these interests. So self-awareness, ability to feel pain etc can be morally relevant as they influence the interests that we have. However, there are no such faculties which tie to all and only biological humans. In the early stages, embryos have absolutely no interests, and while they gain more towards the end of pregnancy, they only gain certain crucial faculties after birth. Indeed, many animals have vastly superior faculties than newly born babies and some severely mentally disabled people.

Now, there is a lot of debate in ethics over what is necessary to meet the requirements to be a 'person,' and this is often treated as someone who must be treated ethically. It is usually drawn at the same place as to make 'persons' of those we can expect to be ethically responsible, and while I agree with this, there is no necessary reason why the line for moral agent and moral object should be the same. In any case, clearly going by faculties and interests we cannot draw the line so as to include all humans and exclude all animals. Hence the problem. Singer seems to embrace the same solution I favour: A graded scale of interests. Rather than personhood putting someone in or out of ethical consideration, we have to look at the level of perception and interests in order to decide how to treat someone. I hit upon a similar idea with appreciative empathy - treating others as we would like to be treated if we had their faculties and preferences. So Singer would agree without hesitation that it is wrong to torture animals, while there is no obligation to educate them - they do not have the faculties to appreciate the latter. Personhood can be seen as the top of the gradient, above which we can assume that 'people' have all the faculties we are used to, and so treat them as such.

The problem arises when it comes to killing (at least, where there is no pain involved). Singer considers the wrong of killing from a number of perspectives, and concludes that a right to life is far more persuasive when the being is self-aware or has a sense of existing over time. In this way its preferences can be thwarted. Preference utilitarianism therefore speaks in favour if it living. Clearly this does not apply to many animals, foetuses or (crucially) the new born. So what is wrong with killing these? Singer argues classical utilitarianism, so that to do so would overall decrease pleasure. This allows that if living a life is so unpleasant as to bring negative pleasure, then there is no obligation to maintain that life - the argument for euthanasia in a nutshell.

But Singer says that even where a non-person's life is worth living, it can still be okay to end it. In the case of new born babies, they are not yet people and so if unwanted, can justifiably be killed. However, for the most part this is not true as there are many people willing to adopt. For disabled babies, however, he worries that their lives will not be happy. Crucially, he argues that we can compare their happiness to that of babies who will be born if the disabled babies are killed, as replacements for them. It is here that I think he goes horribly wrong, and I think the reason is his commitment to utilitarianism.

Classical utilitarianism considers the total resulting pleasure from any choice in order to decide what is right. While maintaining that interests are the basis of morality, I still assert that this is overly simplistic and wrong-headed. To take a simplistic example, even if a gang rape will lead to greater pleasure for the perpetrators than pain for the victim, it is still wrong. The current case is another example. I think that while we can consider the total pleasure / pain of an individual (which will almost always still be positive), it is wrongheaded to simplistically compare it to that of others. Moreover, I think Singer is wrong to believe that we can even consider the interests of a being which may not be conceived.

Instead, I would argue that the better view is one where interests are violated wherever the capacity for them is lost. In killing any conscious being, we are robbing it of its faculties, and so violating its interests. This is more wrong the more developed these faculties are, but it is wrong (barring justifications) with any conscious being. This actually solves the old problem of what is wrong with killing a person in their sleep. It is not just that their preferences have been thwarted, but that their faculties have been destroyed. Their memories, plans, preferences and personality have been ended, and that is the great wrong of killing.

This actually allows a lot of other issues to slot into place. Abortion is still acceptable because even once the foetus has become conscious, its interests do not trump the dignity and autonomy of the mother, as explained here. It is wrong to kill the severely mentally disabled and new borns, because although not conscious, killing them would still rob them of those faculties they do have. At the same time, it is also wrong to kill animals because it robs them of their faculties, again unless there was a justification.

So once the baby is born and its interests are no longer competing with those of a pregnant woman, as long is its life is not so unpleasant that death would be a welcome release, and barring other justification, I do not think that we can allow it to be killed. We cannot compare it to babies who might be born otherwise, as they have no interests to lose. Although it is not yet a person by most people's standards, it still has interests which must be respected.

Abortion Debate

I am in the middle of an interesting discussion about abortion which is taking place across two left-wing, pro-choice blogs I frequent. It started out with this post:

Sufficient Scruples - Keeping It Real

The author, KTK argued that there really is no rational way to argue the pro-life position and that the only issue is women's autonomy. I was unconvinced that it was that simple. The next post was this:

Lean Left - How Not To Debate Abortion

Tgirsch argued that KTK's post was unnecessarily dismissive of pro-lifers and defended them as often motivated by genuine ethical concerns. In the comments which followed, I used my own ethical logic to try to deal with points which came up like the difficulty of Peter Singer's approach to newborn babies (which I will deal with in my next post) and the question of mental disabilities taking one outside of personhood. Now, KTK has made a new post:

Sufficient Scruples - Obligations To The Foetus

Here, he deals with what I consider to be a very interesting problem - pregnant women behaving such as to cause birth defects. He asserts that since the foetus is not a person, these acts are not immoral. I completely disagree with him, and use the example of a trap set before the intended victim's birth which kills them later to show that what is important is when the effects are felt, rather than when the acts are done.

I invite anyone who reads this blog to join in, either on these blogs or the comments section here. To my mind, one important thing that this shows is that abortion ethics are much more complicated than simply 'yes' or 'no'.


Update:

Here are some more blog posts on both sides of the issue, and some which branch out to further issues. I have commented on a number of them.

Philosophy, et cetera - Obligations Beyond the Fetus

Richard is of the same opinion as me that abortion is permissible while causing birth defects while pregnant is not.

Philosophy, et cetera - The Temporal Acrobatics of Harm

On the other hand, Richard believes that we can harm a person after they die, because if a person ever exists, then it has interests not bound by time. Personally, I cannot see any merit in this as it strikes me as ignoring how interests are tied to existing, conscious beings. Since beings are mortal, so are their interests. So we cannot harm anyone after they die.

LTI Blog - Do No Harm (Except For That Killing Thing)

LTI Blog - "Harming" a Living Human Being Non-Person Fetus Thing

LTI Blog - A Moral Obligation to Kill

In these three posts, responding to KTK and Richard, pro-life Serge argues that the issues of abortion and causing birth defects are tied up so that they stand and fall together. I have come out against this on grounds hopefully adequately summarised in one comment I made (although I may soon expand it to to a full posts once I am done with Singer!):

An early term foetus has no interests, and I maintain that a late term foetus has some but fewer than a full person, which are overridden by the mother’s rights to dignity and autonomy. However, once she makes the choice to continue the pregnancy, I don’t see anything wrong with that imposing new moral constraints on her. This does not violate her autonomy as she still has the opt-out clause of abortion.

So why should these obligations arise? Because the effect of the actions very much will be felt by a person, albeit later on. It is like kicking someone such that internal damage only causes pain and death a year on. The delay does not matter. A person quite foreseeably felt the effects, so it is wrong. The fact that in the birth defects case the ‘victim’ was not yet a person does not matter. The effects will harm a person, albeit with delayed action.

Abortion And Rape

It has always struck me that one of the biggest problems for the mainstream pro-life movement is their position when it comes to abortion after rape. It seems difficult for them to find a position on the issue consistent with the values they claim to espouse. Here is why.

In the last post I mentioned two big arguments of the pro-life movement: The supremacy of the right to life over other rights (like dignity and autonomy), and the (at least partial) responsibility of the woman for her pregnancy. The scenario where a woman is raped creates a tension between these arguments.

The mainstream position seems to be that rape is an exception to the general rule that abortion is always wrong. Why is this? It is true that an unwanted pregnancy can feel much worse if caused by rape. The feeling of violation can be extended throughout the pregnancy, and the woman might be torn between giving the child up for adoption (which can be a heart-breaking experience in itself) and keeping the child around, a constant reminder of the terrible act. So the consequences for the mother are likely to be worse.

But looking at the situation honestly, has the sole fact that the consequences are worse ever motivated the mainstream pro-life movement to make exceptions? A young teenage girl can be terrified of what is happening, completely unable to cope emotionally, and this tends not to change the judgement that 'abortion is murder'. Only if the woman's life is in danger will an exception otherwise be made, and that is an extension of the idea of the right to life. So if not the extent of the consequences, then what motivates the exception in the case of rape?

Well, it is the second principle above, that normally the mother gives up some of her rights by dint of being responsible for the pregnancy. Here of course there is no responsibility so the principle is applied to give an exception. The major problem for pro-lifers is that adopting this contradicts the idea that the right to life trumps all other rights. If this were truly taken seriously, it would not matter that the pregnancy was no fault of the mother. In order for this to matter, the fault of the mother must be the deciding factor above the life of the child. Acknowledging that the rights of the mother have some part to play means accepting that the whole thing must be considered on a case by case basis, and not purely on the basis that there is a child who must not be killed.

So what is the alternative? Some go further than the above and argue that abortion is wrong even in cases of rape. It avoids the above problem of compromising the life of the baby for the sake of the mother. However, it appears an incredibly uncompassionate response. It also jettisons the principle of the fault of the woman by not needing any fault on her part to require her to carry the baby. It means that even an unarguable victim is forced to undergo the further consequences of an unwanted pregnancy without fault, rather than being given the chance to prevent these consequences. I do not believe it to be too emotive to suggest that in a way this compounds the rape - enforcing a violation of bodily sanctity on one who is completely blameless.

To summarise: To make an exception for abortion after rape compromises on the absolute supremacy of the right to life, and to make no exception compromises on the requirement for fault on the mother's part. So, if this is true does this mean the pro-life ideal is inherently flawed? Not necessarily. It just means that to achieve consistency, only one of these principles can be maintained.

If the supremacy of the right to life is maintained, then no exception is made for rape. The woman is denied a means to end the violation of her person started by the rapist. I consisder this horrible, but at least it is consistent.

If the fault of the woman is considered paramount, an exception can be made for rape. However, with the absolute supremacy of the sanctity of life removed, a balancing exercise must take place. If other rights can override it, then why not in some cases without rape? Could the distress and suffering incurred not outweigh the right to life even without rape involved? Insisting that rape is still the only exception begs the question of 'why?'. Why, if the right to life can be displaced? Logical consistency requires weighing up other situations to see if they too could justify abortion.

While this balancing exercise can be difficult, it can be a consistent position. However, it requires leaving behind the absolutist approach to abortion and adopting one of relativism, anathema to the mainstream pro-life movement. It also begs the question of who is to judge. The courts? The doctors?

Might it not be better leaving it up to individual conscience after all?

Abortion And Autonomy

In the last post I noted that the problem with abortion is weighing up the different interests: Most obviously, the right to life of the foetus and the right to autonomy and choice of the woman. While I put forward one way people use to weigh up the situation (pre-existing attitudes to sex) I suggested that this was a poor way to consider the situation. Now I will explain one of the main reasons that I am pro-choice.

Looking at the two major competing interests as stated above, it is easy to quickly conclude that the right to life must trump all else, as superior and more important. This is one reason people argue the pro-life viewpoint. Another is the idea that the woman is (in cases other than rape) at least in part to blame for the pregnancy while the foetus is blameless. Therefore the benefit of the moral doubt must go to the foetus. In a way this suggests that as a punishment for consenting for sex, the woman gives up some rights over her autonomy. She has no right to complain as she could have prevented the whole situation from coming about.

These arguments should be kept in mind as I present my analogy, and I will come back to them. For the record, when I became a fully fledged liberal and attempted to apply the idea that people should have autonomy over their bodies and choices to my beliefs, abortion was one of the three main sticking areas (along with prostitution and drugs) which caused me a lot of trouble. It was a long time before I was able to put myself on one side of the fence on the issue, and it was only when I came up with my analogy that I was able to see the issue clearly.

The Driving Analogy:

A couple enjoy driving around in their new sports car. They are not going anywhere in it, just taking it around the roads at reasonably high speeds, the wind in their hair. There is of course always a risk while driving, but they are competent drivers and only think of the feeling of being on the open road.

One day, something terrible happens. They do not see a pedestrian until it is too late, and although they swerve to avoid him they hit him and the car crashes, knocking them both out.

When the woman of the couple wakes up she is in a hospital. Around her are doctors trying to reassure her, and as she becomes more lucid she realises that something feels wrong. Looking down, she sees many tubes attached to all different parts of her body. All of them lead across to an adjacent table, and on it lies the pedestrian they had hit. Before she can struggle and rip the tubes out, the doctors hold her and soothe her, telling her to relax.

Once she is awake, they explain to her what happened. Paramedics arrived at the scene of the crash and took the three injured people to hospital. It quickly became clear that the pedestrian was in bad shape. His organs were damaged, unable to perform their functions to keep him alive. He was also losing a lot of blood.

However, they realised that there was a way to save him. Using all their skill and technology they were able to hook him up to the woman, whose blood type matched his. By using the sustaining power of her almost undamaged body, they were able to keep him alive, and he is slowly starting to recover, by leeching nutrients from the woman's blood and using her organs.

This disturbs the woman much, but she is glad that the man is at least alive. However, she is shocked to learn that estimates suggest that the man will need to be hooked up to her, unconscious, for nearly nine months before he will be able to survive alone (and even then he will need constant care for some time). The woman is horrified at the idea of having him hooked up to her in this way for such a long period of time.

As time goes on she feels worse and worse as she can constantly feel the way her life is being leeched for the man's purposes. Her emotions go beyond her control and what she can do is restricted. She also finds out that unhooking him so he can live on his own is likely to be a very painful, exhausting and embarrassing procedure.

She starts to consider the possibility of refusing to continue her existance like this, removing the tubes and so letting the man die. As she considers this, she recieves guidance from two sources. One side call themselves pro-life, and insist that it would be murder to do so. They tell her that it is her own fault that she is in this situation, so she is obliged to let the man continue to leech her life force and undergo the final operation. The other side is pro-choice, and tell her that she has autonomy over her body, and so it remains her choice as to whether she removes the tubes or allows the man to stay like that. They say that no-one has the right to force her to remain like that.

End.

The question, of course, is which of the two sides would you agree was in the right? I will not patronise by going through the analogy explaining every line of it. Needless to say, the driving is sex, the crash is getting pregnant, and the pedestrian is the foetus growing in the womb. I would like to explain how this can help to shed some light on the issue of abortion.

Earlier I said that it can be easy to immediately conclude that the right to life is more important than anything else. I would say that the analogy might help to dispense with this particular gut feeling. While the right to life is important, I would argue that it is not enough to completely void the rights of others to autonomy and personal dignity. Other analogies could be given like this: A criminal threatens to kill a man unless his girlfriend allows him to have sex with her. While many would do it for their lovers, it would seem ludicrous to expect an absolute obligation to consent to sex to protect someone else's right to life. In the original analogy, the woman has to put up with much indignity and sacrifice some of her autonomy to keep the man alive - often pregnancy requires similar sacrifices. The point is that just because a life might be at stake, does not null and void all competing rights.

Secondly, it was suggested that some pro-lifers think the woman's choice should be nullified as punishment for partly causing the situation. If the response to this was not already clear, I would hope that the analogy would help to make it so. While it may be legitimate to associate blame with the act, the point is that the 'punishment' or consequences are wildly out of proportion with the infraction committed. It is like shoplifting in a country which executes theives. Even though the consequences might be foreseeable, it is not right to say that the consequences are fair because they are to blame. Our natural sense of justice (and empathy, I would hasten to add) requires that we only enforce consequences / punishment on people if it is proportional to the wrong done. In the analogy, while perhaps the driving was an unnecessary risk, the terrible consequences for the woman are out of proportion. Similarly the consequences of pregnancy on autonomy and dignity are far out of proportion to the 'wrong' of sex, particularly given the natural urges and societal pressures involved.

As such, it is argued that the analogy suggests that the decision must in the end be with the one whose dignity and autonomy is compromised. It is her sacrifice to make, not for someone else to force her to do so. The analogy made me firmly pro-choice, and remains my favourite way to explain my position.

Abortion And Sex

Of all the hot-button moral issues out there, abortion is quite possibly the most sensitive, and most disputed. When all other arguments have been uneasily reconciled, there will always bile and vitriole on this one. There are huge swathes of people on either side of the issue who will budge no inch, angrily defending their point of view. Then there are those in the middle, carefully drawing out a compromise which can never be reached. Other questions like stem cell research and cloning rest on this one. And it will never be settled, not really. Perhaps that is for the best.

A lot has been said about abortion, and so it is extremely difficult to say much that has not been said before. However, here is what I feel I have to offer to the everlasting debate.

In this post I will explain some thoughts on the motivations of those on either side. While no argument should be assessed based on the merits of its proponents (which would be an argumentum ad hominem), it is useful to examine them nevertheless. It seems to me that the vast majority of people on both sides either care about both the mother and the foetus, or would do so were it not for an attitude (call it a prejudice) developed due to this issue. Only a very minor fringe would otherwise act with complete disregard for a woman's autonomy or the wellbeing of something which can look and appear so human. So, given this groundpoint, what makes a person come down on one side or the other, to weigh up the interests and make their decision?

I would like to stress that many base their opinion on logical reasoning, personal experience and general gut feeling on the issue. Others are pushed one way or another by religious leaders, parents, friends etc. But I would argue that a fundamental factor which has helped to split opinion on this down traditional liberal / conservative lines is the attitude people have to another issue: SEX.

To the extent that I accuse either side here, I accuse them fairly equally. Those that come in with a sex-positive, free love kind of attitude are far more likely to be pro-choice. The reason is obvious. Not to mince words, but it is much easier to advocate the positive aspects of sex while downplaying the risks and consequences. While screening and a degree of care can minimise the risks of STDs, and treatment is generally uncontroversial, it is more difficult to talk away the risk of pregnancy. Firstly, because it potentially involves another, innocent third party (the potential child) rather than the willing participants. Secondly because it always has been, and always will be a real possibility. Short of extreme measures infeasible for many, the risk of pregnancy will never go away. By having abortion as a way of clearing up any 'accidents', the problem is solved. Sex can be relatively simple and without too many negative consequences. In short, promoting abortion fits a pro-sex agenda.

What of the other side? Those that come in with a sex-negative, restrictive and prudish kind of attitude are far more likely to be pro-life. For many of them, people need to be warned off any kind of sexual activity before marriage. Particularly in the USA, where anti-abortion activists have much influence, a lot of the reason for this attitude is based not on fear of consequences, but on religious teaching (which, ironically, I would argue probably originated from fear of consequences, but has now been merely cristalised into dogma). It is very hard to sell this reasoning to youth, and abortion becomes the logical way around this. By equating abortion with murder, many are (perhaps only subconsciously) trying to scare young people off sex. 'Look at the possible consequences', they are saying. 'If you dabble then you may have to choose between raising a baby or being a murderer.' It is a clever method of control. In short, condemning abortion fits an anti-sex agenda.

Again, there are many, especially outside of the USA, with good, sound reasons for their opinions on abortion. I like to think I am one of them, and I will explain my opinion in my next post. For now though, I am trying to point out that a lot of the arguing either way is actually based on an attitude to sex rather than to abortion itself. I just hope that eventually more people can learn to block that out and look instead to the issue itself, with its own, much more important, facets.