© Michael Lacewing

Abortion and persons

Michael Lacewingenquiries@alevelphilosoph

y.co.uk

Arguing about abortion

• Most of the argument focuses on the moral status of the foetus: does it have a right to life?

• This question is usually connected to asking whether the foetus is a person.

Questions

• What is a person?• Why think persons have a right to life?

• Is the foetus a person?• Does it make a difference to whether abortion is right or wrong that the foetus is/is not a person?– The metaphysical question may not be relevant to the ethical question, and vice-versa.

Persons as possessing souls

• Persons have souls. This both distinguishes them from everything that isn’t a person, and is the basis of the right to life.

• If persons have souls, when do the soul and body come together? Traditional Catholic doctrine: at conception - so the embryo is sacred, as all human life is, straight away

Objections

• Many philosophical problems with the concept of a soul as a separate ‘thing’.

• Am I a soul? Is a soul a person before it has any of the characteristics of a person?

• Locke: persons aren’t souls– If you swapped all the memories between two souls, which soul would be which person?

Characteristics of personhood

• Implication: a person must have psychological attributes– But not all creatures with a psychology are persons

• What determines whether something is a person, if not having a soul?– Self-awareness, having a ‘point of view’– Language– Reason– Autonomy– Morality– Being human

Dividing people up

• Apart from souls and ‘being human’, all other criteria are possessed by some human beings and not others, e.g. severe mental disability, senile dementia, permanent vegetative state– Not all human beings are persons– Yet we don’t think it is permissible to kill them for the benefit of others

– Is this because they still have a right to life?

Sentience

• Sentience: primitive consciousness of perception, pleasure, pain– Doesn’t distinguish persons from non-persons

– But perhaps it is the ground for a right to life?

– Many animals are sentient - do they have a right to life?

• Sentience begins around 18 weeks, so younger foetuses don’t have right to life.

The argument from potential

• Foetuses are have a right to life because they will become a person with a right to life if allowed to develop

• But:– Sperm and egg prior to conception have this potential, if allowed to conjoin

– Does potential matter? A student, who has the potential to become a teacher, is not put in charge of lessons until trained as a teacher; you can’t spend money you don’t have yet

Persons and abortion: recap

• Unless persons = embodied souls or persons = human beings, foetuses aren’t persons

• But they may still have a right to life– Potential persons– Sentience

• Both of these options are difficult to defend

• But even if the foetus doesn’t have a right to life, it might be wrong to kill it.– Not all morality is about rights.

The right to choose

• But suppose foetuses are persons, with a right to life. Is that enough to make abortion (always) wrong?– The case of the violinist

• Even a person with a right to life does not have a right to use another person’s body. Until it can survive outside her body, the foetus is part of the woman’s body.

• Even if the foetus is a person, even if it does have a right to life, the right to choose may take precedence.

Act utilitarianism

• The right thing to do is what will cause the greatest balance of happiness over pain.

• Importance of pleasure and pain - suggests sentience is right criterion for moral importance

• Since the feotus can’t feel pleasure or pain, does it not count at all?

• Or because, if it developed into a child, it would, should we count its future experiences (consequences)? Though we can’t tell exactly what these are, we normally prefer being alive to not being alive.

Virtue theory

• The discussion seems to treat women as containers for a foetus, rather than creators of life. The meaning of pregnancy in human life, and of abortion, haven’t been discussed.

• To think the foetus doesn’t matter is callous:– Even if the answer is that abortion is morally permissible, it would be wrong to do so lightly and without due consideration

• The life the woman is leading and her reasons for choosing abortion are central. Each case must be judged individually.