Julie Stinson
Gregory Spendlove
PHIL 1120-001
November 18, 2016
Abortion is not Always Immoral
Abortion is not always immoral. A woman has the right to life, the right of self-determination, right to privacy, and the right to physical integrity. A fetus is not a person, and therefore has no rights. A fetus is not a person, therefore abortion is not murder. A fetus has quasi-rights, whereas a pregnant woman has actual rights, and actual rights trump quasi-rights. A woman should be able to decide when, how often, and under what circumstances she becomes a mother. Abortion is not always moral. In late pregnancy, after viability has been reached, it is immoral for a woman to have an abortion. It is also immoral for her to have a late-term abortion without a valid, compelling reason.
A pregnant woman has the right to decide whether or not to terminate a pregnancy. The fetus is not a person because it does not have the necessary traits of personhood. If a fetus is not a person, then abortion is not murder. Jane English in her essay Abortion and the Concept of a Person defines personhood as having five factors: the biological factor (being a human being, having extremities, eating and sleeping), the psychological factor (sentience, having a concept of self and of one’s own interests and desires), the rationality factor (ability to reason, ability to generalize and learn from past experience), the social sector (ability to sympathize, love, ability to work in groups), and the legal factor (being counted in the census, having a name and citizenship). (235) A fetus is a human life form, but it is not a person because it does not have all of the qualities that make it so. (Gordon, section 2) In her essay A Defense of Abortion, Judith Jarvis Thomson says “a newly fertilized ovum, a newly implanted clump of cells, is no more a person than an acorn is an oak tree.” (48). A fetus is a human life form due to its genetic code, but is not a person. Being a human life form is not sufficient grounds to grant it legal and moral rights. (Gordon, section 2)
A pregnant woman’s rights trump the quasi-rights of the fetus. She has the right to life, the right of self-determination, right to privacy, and the right to physical integrity. Her life is more valuable than that of the fetus. “Nobody is required to make large sacrifices, of health, of all other interests and concerns, of all other duties and commitments… in order to keep a person alive.” (Thomson, 60) The fetus does have a quasi-right to live, but the right to live doesn’t include the right to not be killed. It doesn’t include the right to be given the means necessary for survival. The pregnant woman has the right to decide what happens with her body. She has the right to make the decision of what will be best for her and her family.
A woman should be able to decide when, how often, and under what circumstances she becomes a mother. (Davis, 207) In the early stages, abortion is permissible when it’s in the best interests of the pregnant woman or her family. In the middle stages, it’s only permissible when the continuation would cause harm to her or her family, such as physical, psychological, economic, or social. In the late stages, it is only permissible in cases of severe fetal disability/maldevelopment, to save the life of the mother. A pregnant woman can abort before the age of viability if she has been raped, if the pregnancy threatens her life, or the pregnancy and child will cause extreme hardship for her and her family. Working class women have a special need for the right to plan and space their pregnancies autonomously. They are engaged in a far more fundamental fight for survival. (Davis, 210). If a woman cannot support a pregnancy and child, she can choose to abort. She may not have the economic status to support a pregnancy to be able to give the child up for adoption. She may be outcast socially if her community learns a child was conceived out of wedlock, or if she’s dependent on welfare to support herself, her children, and another pregnancy. Her life, and the lives of any children she already has, are more important than that of a clump of cells that has yet to become a person.
The opposing point of view to my thesis is that all abortion is immoral. Don Marquis states in his essay Why Abortion is Immoral that killing someone is wrong because it inflicts one of the greatest losses possible, the loss of a future. (189) In this essay, he states that fetuses are human, and it’s morally wrong to kill another human being, and that personhood doesn’t matter. He believes that fetuses have valuable futures identical to adult human beings and children. His discontinuation account states that killing is wrong because of the discontinuation of the valuable experience of living. The desire account states that killing is wrong because it interferes with the fulfillment of a strong and fundamental desire to continue to live. (Marquis, 195) However, in order for a person’s future to have value, they have to value it. Fetuses cannot value their lives, so their futures are not valuable to them. Fetuses do not have experiences, activities, and projects to be continued or discontinued. The discontinuation of these things is what makes killing wrong. Furthermore, fetuses do not have a strong and fundamental desire to continue to live, as they are not aware that they are living, or of the values of having a life, or future. Because fetuses do not have a desire to live, a desire to continue living, and cannot value a future, abortion is not immoral.
Once the age of viability has been reached, 24 weeks gestation, it is immoral for a woman to have an abortion except in cases to save the life of the mother or severe fetal maldevelopment. It is immoral for her to have an abortion simply for convenience, such as a vacation. There has to be strong, compelling evidence that necessitates an abortion at this point of the pregnancy. Such evidence would be that continuing the pregnancy would greatly risk the mother’s life, such as severe cases of preeclampsia, gestational diabetes, or other non-pregnancy related medical issues, such as cancer. It would also be permissible to abort if the discovery was made late in the pregnancy of severe defects in the fetus, resulting in a short life of pain, suffering, and imminent death. It doesn’t occur often that these types of defects are found late in the pregnancy, but it would be cruel and inhumane to make a newborn suffer in excruciating pain and struggle to live, then die, simply because it is believed that abortion in the third trimester is immoral.
Abortion is not always immoral. A woman has the right to life, self-determination, privacy, and physical integrity. Fetuses are not persons, therefore abortion is not murder. Women have the right to determine, when, how often, and under what circumstances they become mothers. Abortion is immoral in the late stages of pregnancy except in cases of saving the mother’s life or extreme fetal defects. Only the woman affected can decide whether or not to terminate a pregnancy. If it is going to cause her extreme hardship, if she became pregnant due to rape, or if it puts her life in jeopardy, a woman can choose to abort. Simply because another life form is dependent on her does not mean she has to keep it alive. Her right to live is more important than the right to life of the fetus. The fetus has the right to life, but not the right to not be killed.
Works Cited
Angela Davis, “Racism, Birth Control, and Reproductive Rights.” Women, Race, and Class. (New York: Vintage Books, 1983), p. 202-210, 213-216, 218.
Jane English, “Abortion and the Concept of a Person” Canadian Journal of Philosophy. Vol 5, No. 2, October 1972, p. 233-243.
Don Marquis, “Why Abortion is Immoral,” The Journal of Philosophy, Vol 86, No. 4, April 1989, p. 189-201.
Judith Jarvis Thomson, “A Defense of Abortion,” Philosophy and Public Affairs, Vol 1, No. 1, 1971, p. 47-53, 55-61, 65-66.
John-Stewart Gordon, “Abortion,” Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. November 17, 2016. www.iep.utm.edu/abortion.
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