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Is There Sufficient Common Ground to Resolve the Abortion Debate?

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Notes

  1. See Charles Camosy, “Common Ground on Surgical Abortion?—Engaging Peter Singer on the Moral Status of Potential Persons,” Journal of Medicine and Philosophy, Vol. 33, (2009): 577–593.

  2. Chris Kaposy, “Proof and Persuasion in the Philosophical Debate about Abortion,” Philosophy and Rhetoric, Vol. 43, No. 2, (2010): 139–162, p. 155.

  3. For these distinctions, see for example Peter Alward, “Ignorance, Indeterminacy, and Abortion Policy,” Journal of Value Inquiry, Vol. 41, (2007): 183–200, p. 184; and Susanne Gibson, “The Problem of Abortion: Essentially Contested Concepts and Moral Autonomy,” Bioethics, Vol. 18, No. 3, (2004): 221–233, p. 222.

  4. For proponents of the moderate position, see D. F.-C. Tsai, “Human Embryonic Stem Cell Research Debates: A Confucian Argument,” Journal of Medical Ethics, Vol. 31, (2005): 635–640; and Alward, op. cit.

  5. Camosy, op. cit., pp. 581–582.

  6. Ibid., p. 582. Cf. Robert Larmer, “Abortion, Personhood and the Potential for Consciousness,” Journal of Applied Philosophy, Vol. 12, No. 3, (1995): 241–251; and Massimo Reichlin, “The Argument from Potential: A Reappraisal,” Bioethics, Vol. 11, No. 1, (1997): 1–23.

  7. Ibid., p. 581.

  8. Ibid., p. 585.

  9. In this paper, I will use Joe and Joe Schmo as a substitute for Camosy’s terminology, Joe 1 and Joe 2. See ibid.

  10. See especially Ronald Dworkin, Life’s Dominion: An Argument about Abortion, Euthanasia and Individual Freedom (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1993), p. 16; Peter Singer, Rethinking Life and Death: The Collapse of our Traditional Ethics (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1996), pp. 97–99; and Bonnie Steinbock, “Why Most Abortions are Not Wrong,” Advances in Bioethics, Vol. 5, (1999): 245–267.

  11. Camosy, op. cit., p. 585.

  12. It is worth noting that this type of argument is not unusual in the scholarly literature. Comparison between human fetuses and temporarily comatose adults has been a common strategy of opponents of abortion for some time now. See for example Francis Beckwith, Politically Correct Death: Answering the Arguments for Abortion Rights (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 1993); Patrick Lee and Robert P. George, Body-Self Dualism in Contemporary Ethics and Politics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007); Werner S. Pluhar, “Abortion and Simple Consciousness,” The Journal of Philosophy, Vol. 74, No. 3, (1977): 159–172; and Stephen Schwarz, The Moral Question of Abortion (Chicago: Loyola University Press, 1990). In recent years, a number of prolifers have developed Joe Schmo-like scenarios designed to show that beings have a right to life in virtue of their future potential. For this, see Francis Beckwith, Defending Life: A Moral and Legal Case Against Abortion Choice (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2007), pp. 135–136; Russell DiSilvestro, Human Capacities and Moral Status (New York: Springer, 2010), pp. 78–79; Christopher Kaczor, The Ethics of Abortion: Women's Rights, Human Life, and the Question of Justice (New York: Routledge, 2011), pp. 31–32; Larmer, op. cit., p. 248; and Patrick Lee, “The Basis for Being a Subject of Rights,” in John Keown and Robert P. George, eds., Reason, Morality, and Law: The Philosophy of John Finnis (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), pp. 237–238.

  13. By fallible, I mean that no intuition is fixed or unalterable. One reason to think that intuitions are fallible in this sense is that many people in history have made systematic mistakes in their moral sensibilities (for example, slavery). For additional support for this view, see Brian Weatherson, “What Good are Counterexamples?,” Philosophical Studies, Vol. 115, (2003): 1–31, p. 5. Kaposy also suggests that intuitions are fallible and may need to be revised, though he defends this claim as a methodological requirement of reflective equilibrium. See Chris Kaposy, “Two Stalemates in the Philosophical Debate About Abortion and Why They Cannot be Resolved Using Analogical Arguments,” Bioethics, Vol. 26, No. 2, (2012): 84–92, pp. 89–90.

  14. See for example David DeGrazia, “The Harm of Death, Time-Relative Interests, and Abortion,” Philosophical Forum, Vol. 31, (2007): 57–80; Rob Lovering, “Futures of Value and the Destruction of Human Embryos,” Canadian Journal of Philosophy, Vol. 39, No. 3, (2009): 463–488; Jeff McMahan, The Ethics of Killing: Problems at the Margins of Life (New York: Oxford University Press, 2002); and Dean Stretton, “The Deprivation Argument Against Abortion,” Bioethics, Vol. 18, No. 2, (2004): 144–180.

  15. See especially Beckwith, Defending Life, pp. 134–136; Camosy, op. cit., p. 586; and Patrick Lee, “Substantial Identity and the Right to Life: A Rejoinder to Dean Stretton,” Bioethics, Vol. 2, (2007): 93–97, p. 96. By Joe Schmo-like, I mean that these individuals lack past and current interests.

  16. Dean Stretton, “Critical Notice—Defending Life: A Moral and Legal Case Against Abortion Choice by Francis Beckwith,” Journal of Medical Ethics, Vol. 34, (2008): 793–797, p. 794.

  17. David Boonin, A Defense of Abortion (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003), p. 78. See also Nathan Nobis, “Abortion, Metaphysics and Morality,” Journal of Medicine and Philosophy, Vol. 36, (2011): 261–273, p. 268.

  18. See Stretton, “The Deprivation Argument Against Abortion,” p. 176. Cf. David DeGrazia, Creation Ethics: Reproduction, Genetics and Quality of Life (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), p. 30.

  19. Ibid., p. 177.

  20. Ibid., p. 178.

  21. Cf. Stretton, “Critical Notice,” p. 794.

  22. Stretton, “The Deprivation Argument Against Abortion,” p. 168.

  23. For this suggestion, see Patrick Tully, “A Defense of the Deprivation Argument,” in Joseph Koterski, ed., Life and Learning XVI (Washington, D.C.: University Faculty for Life, 2007), p. 278.

  24. Indeed, a common response in the scholarly literature on abortion is to deny that a given argument by analogy generates the desired intuition. See for example Stretton, “The Deprivation Argument Against Abortion,” p. 179; and Kaposy, “Two Stalemates,” pp. 87–88.

  25. John Cottingham, “What is Humane Philosophy and Why is it at Risk?,” Royal Institute of Philosophy Supplement, Vol. 65, (2009): 233–255, p. 243.

  26. Boonin, op. cit., p. 78.

  27. Camosy, op. cit., p. 589.

  28. For an argument along these lines, see Peter Nichols, “Abortion, Time-Relative Interests, and Futures Like Ours,” Ethical Theory and Moral Practice, Vol. 15, (2012): 493–506, pp. 501–502.

  29. McMahan, op. cit., pp. 67–68.

  30. Ibid., p. 78.

  31. Here I am borrowing on the work of Kaposy who makes the same point about the relationship between McMahan and Beckwith’s “Uncle Jed,” an adult in a temporary coma who is diagnosed with complete amnesia. See Kaposy, “Proof and Persuasion,” p. 160, n16. Cf. Lovering, op. cit., p. 479.

  32. McMahan, op. cit., p. 494.

  33. Nichols, op. cit., p. 502.

  34. Camosy, op. cit., p. 590.

  35. See Stretton, “The Deprivation Argument Against Abortion,” p. 178.

  36. For an argument alone these lines, see S. Matthew Liao, “Time-Relative Interests and Abortion,” Journal of Moral Philosophy, Vol. 4, (2007): 242–256, pp. 251–253.

  37. See Peter Singer, Practical Ethics, 3rd edition (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011), p. 102.

  38. McMahan, op. cit., p. 342. Admittedly, McMahan thinks his view can accommodate our intuitions concerning infanticide to some extent. For discussion of this claim, see Liao, op. cit., pp. 247–249; and Nichols, op. cit., pp. 503–504.

  39. See for example Camosy, op. cit., pp. 586–589.

  40. See for example Alward, op. cit.; Robert Fogelin, “The Logic of Deep Disagreements,” Informal Logic, Vol. 25, No. 1, (2005): 3–11; Bernard Gert, Morality: Its Nature and Justification (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998); Alasdair MacIntyre, After Virtue, 2nd edition (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1984); and Judith Jarvis Thomson, “Abortion,” Boston Review, Vol. 20, No. 3, (1995): 11–15.

  41. Kaposy, “Proof and Persuasion,” p. 155.

  42. Ibid.

  43. A number of other philosophers also defend the view that laws prohibiting abortion are inconsistent with liberalism, e.g., Alward, op. cit.; Dworkin, op. cit.; Gert, op. cit., Gibson, op. cit., John Rawls, Political Liberalism (New York: Columbia University Press, 1993); Thomson, op. cit.; and Lawrence Torcello, “A Precautionary Tale: Separating the Infant from the Fetus,” Res Publica, Vol. 15, (2009): 17–31. For critics of the compatibility of liberalism and laws permitting abortion, see Henrik Friberg-Fernros, “Abortion and the Limits of Political Liberalism,” Public Reason, Vol. 2, No. 1, (2010): 27–42; and Philip L. Quinn, “Political Liberalisms and Their Exclusion of the Religious,” in Paul Weithman, ed., Religion and Contemporary Liberalism (Notre Dame: Notre Dame University Press, 1997).

  44. Kaposy, “Proof and Persuasion,” p. 155.

  45. Ibid., pp. 155–156.

  46. I am very grateful to an anonymous reviewer for bringing this point to my attention.

  47. For the classical articulation and defense of this principle, see John Stuart Mill, On Liberty (London: Longman, Roberts, and Green, 1869).

  48. See Alward, op. cit., pp. 188–189.

  49. Singer, Practical Ethics, p. 131.

  50. Alward, op. cit., p. 191.

  51. See ibid., p. 192.

  52. Ibid., p. 196.

  53. Ibid.

  54. Alward grants that a policy restricting late term abortions is probably justified on the assumption that newborns are persons. See ibid., p. 197.

  55. See Beckwith, Defending Life, p. 61.

  56. This line of reasoning is modeled on a similar argument that Kaposy gives with respect to the dispute between Boonin, op. cit. and Don Marquis, “Abortion Revisited,” in Bonnie Steinbock, ed., The Oxford Handbook of Bioethics (New York: Oxford University Press, 2007). So he should, in principle, be willing to accept the present point about the political problem of abortion. See Kaposy, “Two Stalemates,” p. 86.

  57. Kaposy, “Proof and Persuasion,” p. 141.

  58. See Beckwith, Defending Life, Chap. 6.

  59. An anonymous referee helpfully pressed me to consider this point.

  60. Alward, op. cit., p. 193.

  61. For example, since small communities tend to have a greater background of presupposed moral consensus, perhaps we could permit such communities to establish their own abortion laws through ongoing reflection on the moral status of the fetus. Admittedly, there is an important question here about what exactly gets to count as a small community, but vagueness of course does not imply meaninglessness. My own suspicion is that the question would have to be answered on a case-by-case basis.

  62. Fogelin, op. cit., p. 9; cf. Kaposy “Two Stalemates,” pp. 89–90.

  63. Cf. Kaposy, “Proof and Persuasion,” p. 149.

  64. I would like to thank Nathan Ballantyne, Charles Camosy, Carlo DaVia, Xingming Hu, Gregory Lynch, Turner Nevitt, and Shane Wilkins for comments on an earlier draft of this essay.

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    Peter Seipel

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Seipel, P. Is There Sufficient Common Ground to Resolve the Abortion Debate?. J Value Inquiry 48, 517–531 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10790-014-9436-y

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