[fusion meetup]Abortion

We will try to have a philosophical discussion of a very hot button topic. Fingers crossed.

I suggest a set of discussions around key concepts and assumptions that may have a skewing effect on abortion discussions, to see if we as a group can make any headway.

One of the things that makes abortion such a difficult topic to address politically, is that it is often couched in terms of rights. And rights are generally considered inviolable. The right to bodily autonomy, for women. The right to life, for fetuses. Rights, legalism, deontology, tends to be absolutist, but these are not the only types of ethics models. Consequentialist ethics, such as utilitarian, Darwinian (of which there are many diverse stripes), and environmental tend to be far less absolutist. And virtue ethics focuses on a very different type of metrics. Also, even in law, rights cannot be absolute, as they often end up in conflict. Is the absolutist nature of rights thinking a problem here, and is non-absolutism a possibly better way to think about abortion?

Other moral ways to think about abortion is in terms of potential, and active vs. passive behavior. Should living things be valued based on their possible potential, or on their current features? And is there a moral difference between action to achieve a result, and not acting despite being able to do so, and just letting a result happen? Potential value plus preference for passivity as a moral stance are often used to argue against abortion. However, note, the combination of these two questions, potential plus action, combine with the nearly mature cloning technology, leads to the possibility of nearly infinite humans lives from basically any cell in any of us. Also, preserving life (if creating life per cloning is dismissed) is within our medical technology – ~50% of pregnancies lead to spontaneous miscarriage, and with active intervention these lost fetuses could be sustained and mature to babies. Most spontaneous miscarriages however, are associated with severe potential birth defects, so the babies would often not live long, and sustaining them would require heroic interventions (at high medical cost). Are these issues of relevance to the abortion discussion?

Is it useful to discuss biology? One of the issues in dispute is whether a fetus is a human life or not. Biologically, it is – it is a separate member of the human species, which took life upon conception. This point is often argued by anti-abortionists. However, this argument may carry less scientific weight than is assumed by its users. Biologically, every multicellular species goes thru a haploid/diploid cycle (haploid is with one strand DNA, diploid has two). Some multicellular species are multicellular in both phases, some are multicellular in only one. We humans are multicellular only in the diploid stage. But BOTH haploid AND diploid are members of that species, so sperm and eggs are also independent human life. Also, some normally only diploid species produce haploid offspring when a single female is isolated – there have been adult haploid rabbits. Having two DNA strands is not a requirement for rabbit or human life. Are these aspects of the biology of humanness relevant?

Is it useful to explore legal backgrounds? One of the basis of legal theory in the US is Constitutionality. Abortion did not show up in the Constitution, so to some degree that tends to be a State issue. But also, the Constitution reserves rights to individuals, which infers a default (non-explicit) right to privacy and bodily integrity. Are non-explicit rights valid Constitutionally? Note also, the Constitution is explicit about the conferring of citizenship, which is upon birth, not conception. Do these points matter?

Many of the opponents of abortion are motivated by religious justifications. Yet the Bible is explicit that the soul enters the body with the breath of life, not at conception. And abortions are not criminalized in the Bible, and abortions imposed by injury on a woman are punished by a fine paid to the husband by the offender, and this is not a murder fine. The religions motivation appears to be instead motivated by a spiritual dualist worldview imported from NeoPlatonism after the Bible was written. Does this matter?

Many of the supporters of abortion are motivated by secular ethics, yet one of the most morally focused of secular movements, the Animal Rights movement, is dominated by theoreticians who are strongly anti-abortion. Both Peter Singer, and Tom Regan, are secular anti-abortionists, and they are motivated by the same principles of extending rights to non-rational fetuses that they do to animals. Is secular animal rights reasoning relevant?

These were my thought questions – please post others in the comments.

Be respectful, and openminded. All views are welcome.