On abortion

The abortion debate goes on and on; after a period of liberalization, in some countries, abortion laws become stricter again. The search goes on to find the balance between its practical inevitability and its fundamental immorality.

In his insightful book The Ethics of Killing (2002), Jeff McMahan deals with many aspects of abortion: the unborn child’s development, the balance of interest between mother and unborn child, social consequences, and human rights. He also gives a tremendous amount of border cases that seem to make it impossible to hold a coherent position. Abortion morality leads to tricky choices, as is also shown by an impressively complex legislative and judicial history worldwide.

Just like in the euthanasia debate, the abortion debate is made complex by awarding human life a special position among life as a whole. There is no compelling reason to make human life or human dignity special in any way. On one hand we all respect life as such, on the other hand, we know that killing, also of humans, is sometimes necessary. But this is no matter of decision at will between life and death.

Life is the standard, killing is only acceptable in justified, inevitable cases.

With at-will abortion, this need for justification has lost attention. When is killing justified? Who is to decide on it?  What does this responsibility involve?

Inevitability, responsibility, mutuality

Killing is allowed only if inevitable. Avoiding killing may range from catching spiders and set them free outside to police officers shooting fleeing suspects in the legs first. Animals we may kill to feed us or to protect ourselves and our property, but not randomly. As life starts with conception, abortion is killing; the stage of pregnancy, a possible future, consciousness, or personhood of the unborn child are irrelevant. Therefore, killing an unborn child needs to be justified as inevitable.

Humans share a common responsibility for life as a whole, a principle from which they themselves profit. Humans cannot survive without other life forms existing, and neither without protection from the communities they live in. Therefore, mentally competent persons must bear the consequences of irresponsible actions that harm others. In this respect, there is no fundamental difference between risky driving, playing with fire, and unprotected sex if a couple does not want to have children. It also makes no principal difference if the victim of an irresponsible action is a neighbor, a complete stranger, an unborn child, an animal, or any other living being.

Morality is mutual; to benefit from a moral order demands taking responsibility for that very same order and for all who are part of it. However, this mutuality also demands that the community take responsibility for the individual, providing the necessary means that enable her to behave responsibly.

Justified abortion

Abortion happens when the mother does not want her child to be born. This statement may look trivial, but it is not. In many cases, mothers claim to be compelled to not give birth to their child, suggesting they had no choice. Though maybe true in the practical sense, fundamentally, such claims cannot count as moral justification, since they show that the mother missed two possibilities of preventing abortion: first, to not have sex, and second, to have protected sex. The first possibility is unrealistic since having sex is an integral part of the lives of most adults. Sex is not a means for procreation, it is natural behavior sometimes resulting in procreation. The second possibility assumes that means to prevent pregnancy are known and easily available, which is often not the case as a result of poverty, bad education and inaccessibility of care services.

Abortion is a matter of balancing the interests of the mother and the unborn child. In the case of mentally competent mothers, the responsibility principle holds against any second thoughts about pregnancy. Getting pregnant is a choice that cannot be made undone at will in a morally acceptable way.  As for the child, it might be unjust to make it bear the consequences of unwantedness. But since we just cannot know what a child will be, we have nothing to go on in terms of necessary killing. If an average child becomes unwanted a few weeks after being born, nobody would justify killing it.

The defenders of the interests of mother and child are classically, but not very clearly divided between the ‘pro-choice’ and the ‘pro-life’ camps. These we might also call the “practically inevitable” and “morally unacceptable” camps respectively. But neither of these positions is tenable in the absolute sense. The “inevitable” camp admits that abortion is basically immoral in the last stages of pregnancy,  while the “immoral” camp needs to make exceptions for cases of danger to the life of the mother, of mentally incompetent or underage mothers, or of forced sex, in short, for cases where the responsibility argument does not hold.

The role of society

A critical issue also in the abortion debate is the difference between individual morality and the moral norms of society as a whole. The pro-choice camp will generally focus on individual morality and pointing out to the pro-life camp that they are of course free to reject abortion for themselves, but should not mess with the liberties of those who choose to have it. While this argument may hold in the case of euthanasia, abortion is a different case, since the unborn child is a seperate induvidual. The pro-life camp seeks to defend this unborn individual against at-will killing. They will require a certain degree of justification. Such a justification is closely tied to individual responsibility. However, society has to fulfil certain obligations to enable individuals to take such resposibility.

The two camps also differ in terms of goals and means. According to the pro-choice camp, the best abortion policies are those that lead to the lowest abortion rates. They point out that to reduce the number of abortions, more is needed besides regulating abortion as such. The pro-life camp seems more interested in their own clear conscience, allowing abortion only in inevitable cases, but neglecting the underlying problems that lead to abortion.

A pregnancy endangering the mother’s life is an almost generally accepted motive for abortion. Clearly, the life of the mother and the interests of the father and other children have to prevail. This proves that a complete ban on abortion is nonsense. Like sias, asometimes lkilling is just inevitable.

In the case of underage and mentally incompetent mothers, parents or guardians are responsible, but just like for most criminal offenses of minors, they can hardly be held responsible for an unwanted pregnancy. Since there is no responsible party, there neither is a moral obligation to give birth to an unwanted child.

In many countries, women suffer from sexual violence. In cases where sex was forced upon them, they cannot be held responsible. Nonetheless, some backward countries even reject abortion for women that were raped. Every community is morally obligated to act against sexual violence, but many communities largely neglect this obligation. At the same time, they uphold strict abortion laws and deprive women of the possibility to defend their cases, as well as of safety and support. The unwillingness of a community to really reduce violence against women violates sufficient protection by the moral order; hence, the mutuality principle becomes invalid and so, these women are no longer morally obliged to support that order by giving birth.

Protection by law of the unborn child against at-will abortions is only possible if communities act against sexual violence, promote sexual education, and make means to prevent pregnancy generally accessible.

States with legal abortion essentially trade off morality against tedious judicial procedures. To reach morally defendable standards, abortion at will is to be banned, but this requires at least full freedom of decision or women over what happens to their own bodies.