Thoughts on Abortion: Part 1 (maybe?)

I have had, over my years, many thoughts on the topic of the termination of pregnancy. I find there to be much nuance and even more importance to the topic. First I want to say, as a "straight white male" I have been charged with having no say in the matter by many who subscribe to an overbearing liberal or progressive point of view. I want to ignore such an objection for the moment as I will tackle this in a paragraph to follow. For now, I'd like to make clear that I grew up in a conservative household and so I am most well versed in the conservative, and more clearly that of the religious conservative, opinion on the matter. I intend to, over the course of however many blogs are necessary, to go through as many justifications as I can imagine for the two common positions, while also exploring the nuances at play in each opinion; namely the pro-choice and pro-life positions.

In this blog I've endeavored to avoid using some controversial language as far as possible. In places I've had to choose, I chose to attempt the least offensive language. I doubt I've done so to the satisfaction of either party, but know that the terminology used here is not intended to sway the reader in one direction or the other, but rather used to most accurately describe what I believe I am referring to. Any emotion intrinsic to the language that may sway the reader in one direction or the other was unintentional on my part and I would encourage you to ignore such emotions as it is the rational argument and not the colorful language that should sway a reader in one direction or the other.

I'd like to first define what I believe these two positions to be rather broadly. It seems most accurate to describe the pro-life position as the position taken by those whom believe that the termination of a pregnancy should be illegal and the pro-choice position is that of those who believe it should be legal. To be clear, the legality or illegality of the topic is distinct from the morality or immorality of the topic and I won't delve into that discussion in this series as that is a matter much more nuanced than I am currently able to parse. For now, I'd like to point out that both positions have nuance- each side deciding when and if there are exemptions or exceptions. For some who are pro-life, for instance, the termination of a pregnancy prior to a heart beat is acceptable. But since both parties draw lines on circumstances in a variety of places in an attempt to come to the most comprehensive opinion. I will be ignoring the subtleties in this area of the debate for the remainder of this blog but intend to return to them at a later date. For now, I will look at the widely used argumentation on both sides and present objections as I see them relevant.

Before I can endeavor to discuss the argumentation, I'd like to defend my right, and the right of others like me, to have an opinion on a topic which seemingly is unrelated to my own personal life and circumstances. In any topic of social importance, it seems intuitive that any member's opinion on a topic should be heard and considered. However, more importantly I think it is worth considering the arguments by John Stuart Mill as presented in the second chapter of his book "On Liberty" where he goes at length to defend the right of all members of society to hold and to share their opinion on any topic for the truth of a proposition or belief is not found in the bearer of the belief but rather in the belief itself. Therefore any belief or proposition should be accepted or refuted on it's own merits as opposed to that of the presenter. Therefore, it is necessary for any interested party to voice their opinion so that it may be rightly scrutinized or exalted in as much as it deserves. As I am not interested in dedicating significant time and energy to writing out a defense of this position in this specific blog as it would belabor the points I'd like to make, I'll save a longer defense for another time. Suffice it to say, regardless of the person, myself or otherwise, who delivers these arguments, I implore you to take them as they are in themselves.

The most popular arguments I see in this debate are those between an individuals right to life (in this case the unborn child) and the right to bodily autonomy (the pregnant person's right to choose who and what gets to use her body). Under this umbrella there are many points and significant nuance. For those living in the United States, where I myself reside, liberty is a foundational piece of our social and governmental structures. Liberty, which includes both formerly mentioned rights, often comes into conflict with itself. I don't think it can be doubted that the unborn child is in fact a human being- if a human being is an organism that has the requisite biological substructure to be classified as such. Additionally, it cannot be denied that the pregnant person is autonomous and is indeed endowed with a right to choose who and what uses her body and for what purpose or span of time they will be allowed to do so. Therein lies a conflict of right.

The pro-life argument is that the unborn child, being an independent human being, is endowed with a right to life which supersedes the right to bodily autonomy by the pregnant party in question. They believe that any human life, an organism with it's own unique human DNA, is a particular human being and should be treated with the same rights regardless of where it resides or its developmental stage. If it resides inside a pregnant person or outside, it should be endowed with a right to life. This argument is, in the way presented, a fundamental one in the consideration of the termination of a pregnancy. One in which the opposition need not to quarrel.

While some may object to the granting of rights to unborn persons, it seems that for any proposed symmetry breaker between an unborn person and a born one, that can be claimed, is ineffective. For example, someone may say that due to the person's dependence on the body of the pregnant person, they are not granted any right to life. This of course is ineffective as one can point to any number of born persons who are not able to live independent of other human assistance and are still granted a right to their own life (typically disabled, but also including born persons under an age of independence). One may respond that they do require assistance but that these born persons are unique in that they don't require the assistance of a particular person, but rather the person granting assistance is a consenting party. 

This doesn't seem to quite break the symmetry in terms of an unborn child because the consent of a third party is not the relevant factor for the rights of the first party. In that- if we decided that the rights of a person were to be determined by whether or not their caretaker consented to their care, we would allow for a parent to relinquish their consent to care and thereby remove the right to life for the child in their care. Of course, we all see the obvious moral issue with such a position as it would allow for both infanticide and the murder of any minor or disabled person under the care of a consenting caretaker. This is an important point because the fundamental idea behind consent is the ability to choose not to consent at any given time. Therefore if we are to say that consent is a right giving action, then the right of the child may be removed by removing consent.

Now consent, is indeed a valid point of consideration which we will see later, but it is unrelated to the right of the individual in question as the rights herein referred are not that of the consenting or not consenting party, but rather a party dependent on the consenting party. This nullifies the consideration of consent as we do no recognize consent as a right-granting action. Rather, the existence of a person, in this case, grants them the fundamental right to life in our society. When this person becomes a person is unrelated to the consent of the pregnant person. 

Now there are other potential symmetry breakers for rights. Development is a very popular one. A person may say that until an unborn child has a heartbeat or some detectable brain function, we should withhold right to life. Issues here come in many forms but the most effective, in my opinion is the argument from arbitrary distinction. The choice of brain function or heartbeat are arbitrarily defined based on presuppositions of the person whom holds the position. There is no way to justify why one and not the other is the point at which rights are conferred as both are only dependent on the time in development. It seems strange to decide a person is worthy of a right to life based purely on developmental status. If developmental status is to be the determining factor, why not a later stage? Why not an earlier stage? Certainly a person would not say that until a child can walk, they are not given a right to life.

A person may object and point out that some rights, such as the second amendment right in the US Constitution, requires a certain age. That being, in most states, the age of 18 or 21. They may say, if these rights are based on age/development, and such things are arbitrary, we should eliminate them entirely and allow anyone of any age to own a firearm! I think this is a false comparison because the rights outlined in the bill of rights, and in many other governmental documents around the world, are distinct from our fundamental right to life and that the fundamental right to life is not based on the governing body in which we subject ourselves. If this is not the case, then a government disrespecting the rights of its populous would not entail any wrong doing as the citizen's rights are only what the governing body decides they are. On this topic, I believe I have said enough and intend to leave it in the interest of brevity. 

To use developmental stage as a point at which to confer a right to life seems far too arbitrary for such a fundamental right. For this reason, I choose to, for the remainder of this blog, treat this as a settled issue. The unborn child does indeed have a right to life, a concession which I think does no harm to the pro-choice position.

The last objection to the right to life of an unborn human that I want to present is the objection on the basis of bodily autonomy; the objection that where these two rights intersect, the right to bodily autonomy should be preserved and the right to life should be sacrificed. This is likely the most common point of disagreement between the pro-life and pro-choice position. To illustrate this objection, Judith Jarvis Thomson, asked her readers to consider a famous violinist. It seems this person has a right to life and therefore, upon their failing health, require a person to become medically attached to them to support their life for a period of time (say 9 months). Does a person have the right to refuse this attachment? Most people would say that a person does indeed have a right to reject this attachment. 

The pro-life position would attempt to present symmetry breakers between a violinist who is fully independent prior to health issues and an unborn child who is never independent of the pregnant person's care until birth. I see this type of objection as incorrectly interpreting the point of the thought experiment. The point being that the right to bodily autonomy does indeed sometimes supersede the right to life of another individual. That making a claim like "right to bodily autonomy doesn't supersede the right to life of the unborn" is insufficient without further justification because it isn't clear this is the case. This is how I interpret the purpose of the thought experiment.

There are other forms of this thought experiment that deal with the potential "rape" exception for the termination of a pregnancy. The point being, if a person was forced into sustaining the life of the violinist, most people would believe that the right of bodily autonomy, the right to unhook oneself form the violinist once already attached, if exercised, would not be immoral. However, it isn't any fault of the violinist that you were forced into that situation- and yet he is the party that suffers the most from your choice to detach yourself. In the same way, if a person is raped, and chooses to terminate a resulting pregnancy, the pro-life position may argue, is punishing the wrong party for the action, i.e., punishing the unborn child instead of the rapist themselves. This of course isn't an objection made by all pro-life supporters, but is one sometimes made by the most extreme. In this case, the thought experiment points out that most people would not see terminating the pregnancy as wrong, in the same way unhooking yourself form the violinist wouldn't be wrong.

The violinist argument is just an intuition pump though- a test to see if our intuitions change with a situation that is identical in the relevant ways, though different in a way that may provide a different intuition. This isn't at all a complete refutation to the argument form right to life, but it is an effective way to test the consistency of those proponents of right to life.

If a pro-life supporter were to allow for the termination of a pregnancy in the case of rape, then it seems that the situation in which a person may find themselves, to no fault of their own actions, can change the status of their right to life. This seems contrary to our ideas about rights- that some of your rights may be determined by your actions, i.e. in the case of losing liberty for committing a crime, but that our most fundamental rights, like right to life, are never given up or removed by, no fault of our own, the actions of a third party. Meaning that if someone were to rob you at gun point, your refusal to give up your right to your property doesn't entail a forfeiture of your right to life. If they shoot you, they are not justified in doing so, even though you made the decision to reject their request knowing full well the consequences may be losing your own life. Being robbed is a situation in which you did not voluntarily enter into and therefore your rights are not forfeited for any reason. On the other hand the person robbing you has given up their liberty by infringing on your rights if they have done so voluntarily (not coerced by another). These situations, in which someone voluntarily engages in an action can result in the forfeiture of rights, but when someone isn't voluntarily engaged they are not able to forfeit their rights.

With this in mind, I'd like to point out that if a person believes you can allow a pregnant person to terminate their pregnancy if they enter into the pregnancy involuntarily, this either admits that the unborn person doesn't have a right to life or that the bodily autonomy of the pregnant person does indeed supersede the right of the unborn. To this, I would point out that, this concession is at least sufficient to point out that the right of the unborn child to life does not always supersede the right of the bodily autonomy of the pregnant person, even when the unborn child has not done anything to forfeit their right. In this way, one would have to hold the stance that bodily autonomy can and in some cases does supersede the right to life of the child.

On the other hand, if a person holds that an the rights of the unborn person supersede that of the born person, then removing yourself from the violinist is wrong. The only symmetry breaker I've seen presented here is that the unborn child has not had the opportunity to live independent of a person and therefore their right to their right to life is somehow bolstered against the bodily autonomy right of the pregnant person. 

This seems strange- to say that the longer one lives, the less right to life they have or even stranger still that once one is born their right to life is immediately diminished. This seems to allow for the execution of the elderly by the state in some circumstance which we would deem immoral or illegal. In this way we would also have to acknowledge that, because the pregnant person is older (by necessity) than the unborn, they have no right to protect their right in case of complications during pregnancy or delivery. A very common concession of those in favor of a right to self defense. Further this would mean that the right of an elderly person to defend themselves is far less than that of a younger person. Therefore if a young person is starving, for instance, perhaps they would have the "right" to the food of an elderly person, allowing the elderly to starve and because the life of the younger person is sufficiently more valuable, the elder must submit their resources to the younger. 

Regardless of which we consider, that right to life diminishes over time or that being born diminishes the right to life at once, we have the same issue as we did with the developmental case for right earlier, namely that it is arbitrarily distinguished. Such an arbitrary distinction is liable to all sorts of abuses as already pointed out and therefore will be dismissed at this point without further exploration.

Therefore, it seems rational to point out that in some instances a right to life does not supersede bodily autonomy and the developmental stage or age of the person does not impact the strength of their right to life. Therefore there are at least some cases in which the pregnant person can justifiably terminate their pregnancy. If this is acceptable we will move on to the next point of question- the reemergence of consent.

The main issue with the rape case is that the pregnant person did not consent to become pregnant. The main issue the pro-life position will run into with this concession (a reasonable concession in my opinion) is the distinction between consent to sexual acts and consent to pregnancy. It seems to be without question the case that some sexual acts do not run any risk of pregnancy. Therefore it seems reasonable to assume that human sexuality and the acts resulting therefrom are not exclusively for the bearing of children. This, at the very least, gives grounds for a reasonable person to expect to remain nonpregnant after engaging.

This is important to point out to avoid the pro-life objection that sometimes arises that claims that consent to sex is equal to consent to full-term pregnancy. As outlined above, not all sexual acts run a risk of pregnancy, and now we should point out that some sexual acts, with a naturally high risk of pregnancy, now- under the care of medical advancement and new technologies- are much lower risk. Some so much so that the risk may near 0. Additionally, sexual acts may be completely unrequired to conceive a child (i.e. IVF treatments) and therefore you may not need to consent to sexual acts at all to consent to pregnancy.

The question becomes, can we- in the modern age- conflate consent to sexual acts with consent to pregnancy or is it better to treat the consent of one and the other as separate. I would argue that, based on the way in which the modern world, and the culture in the United States, views sexual acts as separate from pregnancy, we can assume that consent should be separate. With our technological advancements and the rapid availability of contraceptives, it seems that people are regularly having sexual interactions without any anticipation of a resulting pregnancy. Further, pregnancy isn't an exclusively sexual byproduct anymore. If sex is not required for pregnancy and pregnancy is no longer a direct byproduct of our sexual actions, it seems that the consent must be separated.

If we allow for this to be separated, then the non-consensual violinist rears it's head. If you consent to sexual acts, but not pregnancy, and the result is pregnancy, it seems reasonable to compare the scenario to an nonconsenting party being hooked to a famous violinist. If our intuition on that matter holds, that the bodily autonomy of the nonconsenting party does in fact supersede the violinists right to life.

A person may ask how we can hold this view and condemn infanticide; the objection being; if, as previously mentioned, consent is required for a person to depend on another, couldn't we justify the killing of infants with the same reasoning? My response to this would be to point out that the parent of a born-child can relinquish consent without terminating the child's life and therefore there is no longer a conflict of right. In that both rights can be maintained. The child can be separated from the biological parent without death. In most of the cases concerning an unborn child, the removal of care results in loss of life. If an unborn child can be removed from the care of the pregnant person without loss of life, this should always be pursued.

It cannot be stressed enough that when I previously discussed the issue of consent for care, in the beginning of this blog, I did so in regards to it's ability or inability to impact granting of the right to life of the individual. It can neither confer nor eliminate the right to life of the individual. However, in a case where the right to life and right to bodily autonomy conflict, we may sometimes choose to preserve the bodily autonomy of one party over the life of the other (when that person is not a consenting party to the circumstances specifically). This does not mean that the other party is not granted a right to life, but rather that even in granting such, it is justified to let them die in order to preserve the right to bodily autonomy of the other.

If we reject this formula of one right superseding the other in this case, then it would be not only permissible but morally superior to force a person into the situation described in the violinist thought experiment. It would allow for the forced harvesting of unnecessary organs or blood from those whom don't consent on the basis of others having a "right to life" that supersedes the bodily autonomy of the chosen individuals. This kind of dystopian is one consistent with the opposing view of right to life. If one holds that this is not acceptable, they would need a relevant symmetry breaker that would allow them to value the right to life of the unborn over the autonomy of the born while not doing the same for the right to life of the born over the autonomy of the born. Any such symmetry breaker alludes me at the present time.

For the reasons outlined above, I personally take a pro-choice stance. For the first 25 years of my life, I held firmly to a pro-life stance, only to realize that the reality created by such a position is one of dystopian effect which very few, if any, would find appealing. Also, to return to an early objection, if any of my reasoning here is dependent on my maleness I would happily rescind it, however, as far as I can tell, my position on this matter is unrelated to any property associated with my gender or sex. If someone disagrees with my position I hope they will find a flaw in my reasoning and not a flaw in my person.