ABORTION

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The intentional termination of a pregnancy

• Fetus? (Week 29-40) / 3rd Trimester

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When is abortion morally permissible?

Provide a brief explanation as to why.

• Embryo? (Week 2-Week 12)

• Zygote? (Conception)

• Fetus? (Week 13-28) / 2nd Trimester

• Never (stage of development is an accidental, not essential, property of being a person). Choose adoption.

Abortion around the world

• 88% of abortions worldwide take place in developing countries

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(source. Alan Guttmacher Institute)

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Incidence of abortion (USA only from here)

• Half of all pregnancies are unintended, around half of these are aborted
• In 2011, 1.06 million abortions were performed, down from 1.21 million in 2008. From 1973 through 2011, nearly 53 million legal abortions occurred.
• At least half of American women will experience an unintended pregnancy by age 45, and at 2008 abortion rates, one in 10 women will have an abortion by age 20, one in four by age 30 and three in 10 by age 45

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(source. Alan Guttmacher Institute)

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Who has abortions

• Women who have never married and are not cohabiting account for 45% of all abortions.
• Women in their 20s account for more than half of all abortions:
• Forty-two percent of women obtaining abortions have incomes below 100% of the federal poverty level ($10,830 for a single woman with no children)
• Fifty-one percent of women who have abortions had used a contraceptive method in the month they got pregnant, most commonly condoms (27%) or a hormonal method (17%)

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(source. Alan Guttmacher Institute)

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Providers and services

• The number of U.S. abortion providers declined 4% between 2008 and 2011 . 89% of all U.S. counties lacked an abortion clinic in 2011; 38% of women live in those counties.
• Only 16% of all abortion providers offer abortions at 24 weeks.
• In 2011-2012, the average amount paid for a nonhospital abortion with local anesthesia at 10 weeks’ gestation was $480.

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(source. Alan Guttmacher Institute)

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Some methods of abortion:

• Morning after pill (week 1) Prevents fertilized eggs from embedding in the woman. Usually considered to be contraception, but some see it as an abortion.
• RU486 pill (weeks 2-7) Forces the womb to flush itself out and expel the fetus.
• Dilation and Evacuation – (early term) a big vacuum cleaner that sucks the fetus out. The most common form of abortion.
• Dilation and Curettage – (early term) use a sharpened tool to scrape the fetus out.
• Dilation and Extraction (‘partial birth’) (3^rd trimester) – turn fetus on its side, go through the ear and crush the skull.

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Late-term abortions

• Only 1.5% of abortions occur after week 20
• Very Small percentage of total abortions
• BUT 1.5% = 19,500 late-term abortions / year

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• Why wait so long?
• Woman’s health at risk
• Fetus is found to have a severe defect
• Other reasons: teens in denial, drug users in denial, homeless, mentally retarded, socially unskilled, women with extremely irregular menstrual periods.

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Late-term abortions

• Why might late-term abortions be particularly worrisome?

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• The fetus is has developed far enough to acquire sufficient moral value to make abortion impermissible in more cases

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• The procedure being used at this point is unacceptably brutal to the fetus.

Some reasons abortions are performed:

• Rape/incest
• Risk to mother’s health/life
• Expectation of disabled/afflicted child
• Unwanted lifestyle / Financial limitations (75%/66%)
• Relationship problems with partner / No partner (50%)

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Utilitarian considerations

• Mother’s health & safety
• Mother’s quality of life
• Psychological burden of parenthood
• Child’s quality of life
• Overstretching social and natural resources

• Loss of child’s future happiness
• Child’s future contributions to society
• Physical & psychological harm to mother & other family.

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Pro-legal abortion

Anti-legal abortion

P1. Abortion is the intentional killing of innocent persons.

P2. Intentional killing of innocent persons violates their right to � life.

P3. Abortion violates the right to life of innocent persons.

P4. Violating the right to life is morally wrong & should be � prohibited.

C. Abortion is morally wrong & should be prohibited.

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Deontological Arguments

Against abortion

Recall Kant’s humanitarian principle. Humans have intrinsic worth and are not disposable.

Human Being v. Person (Warren)

• Human in the genetic sense = being a member of the biological species homo sapien.
• (Inc. functioning children and adults, all fetuses and living human bodies without functioning brains)
• Human in the moral sense = a full-fledged member of the moral community = Person

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What characteristics entitle an entity to be considered a person?

1.  Consciousness (of objects and events external and/or internal to the being), and in particular the capacity to feel pain;

 2.  Reasoning (the developed capacity to solve new and relatively complex problems);

3.  Self-motivated activity (activity which is relatively independent of genetic or direct external control).

4.  The capacity to communicate, messages of with an indefinite number of possible contents on indefinitely many possible topics.

5.  The presence of self-concepts and self-awareness.

* Fetuses don’t have these, so not people!

• Objection: This would apply to babies as well.
• Her reply: Babies are much closer to being persons.

Is the reply adequate?

Moral status based on having interests (Steinbock)

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Steinbock: Moral status is based on the possession of interests (having a stake in something) and thus a welfare of its own

1. If a being has no interests, its interests cannot be considered.

2. Embryos have no interests.

3. Therefore, the interests of an embryo cannot be considered.

4. If the interests of an embryo cannot be considered, embryos have no moral status.

5. Therefore, embryos have no moral status.�

Moral status based on having interests (Steinbock)

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Implications: If a being has interests, there is no justification for ignoring those interests when making moral decisions.

1. If a being is sentient (can experience treatment as painful), it has at least one interest: not experiencing pain.�
2. Therefore, sentient beings have interests.�
3. If a being has interests, it has moral status.�
4. Therefore, sentient beings have moral status.��

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The Wrong of Abortion�(George and Lee)

1. Human embryos and fetuses are complete (through

immature) human beings.

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2. What is killed in abortion is a human being who has

moral status.

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3. Thus, the choice to have, to perform, or to help an

abortion is objectively wrong.

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The Human Embryo

What makes the human embryo a complete (though immature) human being?

1. It is distinct from any cell of the mother or the father.

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• It has the genetic makeup characteristics of human beings.

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3. Therefore, it is a complete � organism, though immature.

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The Human Embryo

Difference between sperm and fetus (or ovum and fetus):��Sperm and ovum are genetically and functionally identifiable as parts of the male and female parents.�������Difference between embryo and somatic cells:��This cell is a complete human being in the making -- not part of a human being.

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The Human Embryo

1. Embryos lack higher mental capacities (such as self-awareness).�
2. Therefore, embryos are not persons.�
3. If an embryo is not a person, they lack moral status.��
4. Therefore, embryos lack moral status (are human but not persons).

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No Persons Argument: Dualist Version

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This argument makes the dualist claim that “I am one thing and this human organism that I am associated with is another thing.” This is false. I don’t come to be after I have a body.

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We are not consciousnesses inhabiting bodies. Rather, we are living bodily entities.�

Further, natural capacities to reason and make free choices are present at conception. They are actualized later.

Response

1. Personhood is an acquired attribute.�
2. In the same way that one comes to be a baseball player or a musician, so does one come to be a person when they acquire the ability to feel pain.�
3. Embryos do not have these qualities from the beginning.��
4. Therefore, embryos lack moral status (are human but not persons).

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No Persons Argument: Evaluative Version

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The basic, natural capacity for higher mental functions is present in every living human being at root form.

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There is no valid reason for requiring human beings to have immediate exercisable capacity.

Response

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1. The developing human does not reach a point where he or she can perform a type of mental act that other animals do not perform until at least several months after birth.

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• The capacity for reasoning, deliberating, and making choices are gradually developed as one matures through gestation, childhood, adolescence and so. There is a difference in degree, not in kind.�
• Being a human being is not an either/or matter. A human being is valuable by virtue of the type of being they are, and not based upon having certain qualities.

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• Therefore, the capacity for reasoning an accidental attribute.

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• Embryos have the capacity to reason (actualized later).

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• Therefore, embryos have inherent dignity and the right to life.

The First 7 Days

The Human Embryo

4 Weeks

MILESTONES

• Day 22:  heart begins to beat with the child’s own blood, often a different type than the mothers’.�
• Week 3:  By the end of third week the child’s backbone spinal column and nervous system are forming.  The liver, kidneys and intestines begin to take shape.�
• Week 4:  By the end of week four the child is ten thousand times larger than the fertilized egg. 

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6 Weeks

7 Weeks

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• A seven-week old embryo swims freely in the amniotic sac with a natural swimmer’s stroke.�
• Even though the baby is already kicking, the mother will not feel the baby until 4.5 months into the pregnancy.�
• The jaw forms, including teeth buds in the gums. �
• Soon eyelids will seal to protect the embryo’s developing light-sensitive eyes and will reopen at about the seventh month.

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8 – 9 Weeks: Extremely Active

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At 8 Weeks …

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• The heart has been beating for more than a month. The stomach produces digestive juices. The kidneys have begun to function.�
• Forty muscle sets began to operate in conjunction with the nervous system. The fetus responds to touch.

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9 to 12 Weeks

• 9 weeks – Fingerprints are evident in the skin.
• 10 weeks – The baby can now squint, swallow, wrinkle her forehead and frown. Finger nails have developed.
• 11 weeks – The embryo is now 2-3 inches long. He or she can make complex facial expressions and even smile.

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By Week 12…

• All body organs are present and working.�
• The fetus now sleeps, awakens, and exercises its muscles energetically – turning his head, curling his toes, and opening and closing his month. �
• By the end of the 12^th week, the hand finds the month and contact with the lips causes the fetus to respond by sucking. �
• The fetus at twelve weeks has developed all the body parts to experience pain, including all the nerves, spinal cord and thalamus.

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Hands at 12 Weeks

Feet at 12 Weeks

17 - 20 Weeks

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21 -24 Weeks

Roe vs. Wade (1973)

• Abortion may not be denied prior to fetal viability (the point at which a fetus is capable of surviving outside a mother’s womb) - this means that point of viability moves with medical science.
• States may prohibit abortion after viability (with restrictions – related to the health of the mother – rape, survival of mother, etc.)

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Law and Policy

Planned Parenthood v. Casey (1992)

• States get the right to enact restrictions on abortion if these do not create an “undue burden” for women seeking abortion.
• As of January 1, 2014, 56% states have strongly and intentionally restrictive regulations on abortion clinics, mandated counseling designed to dissuade a woman from obtaining an abortion, required a waiting period before an abortion, required parental involvement before a minor obtains an abortion, or prohibited the use of state Medicaid funds to pay for medically necessary abortions.

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Law and Policy

Right to abortion even if we assume fetus is a person

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Thomson: Even if fetuses have a right to life, abortion may be permissible where there is a conflict with mothers’ rights and the mother’s rights outweigh those of the fetus

P1. Being forced to keep one’s � developing embryo or fetus alive � is like being forced to provide 9 � months of life support to a � violinist.

P2. One does not have a moral � obligation to keep the violinist � alive.

C. Therefore, the mother or father � does not have the moral � obligation to keep their embryo or � fetus alive.

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The autonomous right to control one’s own body.�A woman choosing an abortion is exercising a basic right to do what she wishes with her body.

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Personal responsibility and reproductive freedom.�In order to plan, choose, and exercise personal responsibility, one must have control of reproduction. A woman, therefore, must be able to make yes-or-no decisions about a specific pregnancy. Abortion is necessary to guarantee this freedom.

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The contingent value of fetal life.�A woman must want and value the fetus for it to be considered of moral worth.

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The right to social equality.�Female social equality depends on being able to compete and participate as freely as males can in the structures of educational and economic life. If a woman cannot control when and how she will be pregnant, she is at a distinct disadvantage.

Common Feminist Perspectives for Abortion

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Can one be a feminist and pro-life?

• What does it mean to be a feminist?

• Is having a womb ever thought of by men or woman as having a physical disability?

• Does abortion on demand discourage men (and women) from taking responsibility for their actions?

• Can one be a feminist and be pro-life?

Callahan’s bold claim

• Pro-choice feminists have simply borrowed the categories, assumptions, reasoning, and goals of pro-choice men.
• In response, Sidney Callahan maintained that each of the above principles must be changed--if we are to incorporate the insights of authentic feminism.

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This section is excerpted from chapter 5 of Beyond the Abortion Wars: A Way Forward for a New Generation by Charles C. Camosy (Eerdmans 2015)

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Shift from “autonomous control” over one’s “own body” to a more inclusive focus on justice and a nonviolent focus on the vulnerable:

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In all unjust systems, certain forms of human life are granted rights only when wanted, chosen, or invested with value by the powerful (e.g. slavery).�

Rejecting male aggression and destruction, feminists seeks alternative, peaceful, ecologically sensitive means to resolve conflicts. Abortion is a betrayal of feminism, which is built on the struggle for justice on the bedrock of nonviolence.

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Shift from “personal responsibility and choice” to a deeper and more authentic sense of reproductive freedom:

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Morality is sometimes thought of as a matter of human agency and decisive action, but feminists know that we have moral duties we do not choose. Morality is hardly limited to contracted agreements between isolated individuals.

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The pregnant woman, and the man with whom she pregnant, have a moral obligation to the now-existing and dependent fetus. The fetus possesses rights arising from its extremely vulnerable situation.

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Shift from the “contingent value” of human life to a justice-centered respect for its intrinsic and irreducible value:

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Human beings from the beginning to end of their development have intrinsic value that does not depend on meeting selective criteria or tests. ��Human rights arise from human needs, and it is the very nature of a right, or valid claim upon another, that it cannot be denied or rescinded by more powerful others.

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Feminists have justice-centered concerns to protect the vulnerable from the powerful and thus should oppose abortion.

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Shift from our understanding of “full social equality” to reflect an authentically feminist perspective:

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Women’s biologically unique capacity and privilege to bear life has been denied, despised, and suppressed under male domination. ��Rather than accept this view of the world, women should argue that pregnancy is an exercise of life-giving power that men can never know.

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A new kind of feminism is needed in which all of women’s reality is accorded respect. This time, instead of conforming to male model and ideas, women must demand that society must make room for the biological reality of women.

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Affirming and Empowering Women

• How would a pro-life feminist exercise his/her feminism to affirm and empower women in his/her private and public affairs?

Homework #3

Consider that two college students are dating, having sexual intercourse, and using contraception. The contraception does not work one day and the woman finds herself to be pregnant. Is it morally acceptable for her to have an abortion or should she choose adoption? In your response, draw insights from the different arguments that were presented today.

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