Philosophy Now Forum

If abortion is necessary because otherwise there would be too many of us and we would all feel miserable, why do we tolerate alcoholics, drug addicts, criminals etc. ?
Should we not take a democratic vote about who is disturbing more and has to go first ?
New babies or alcoholics ?
How about making space for innocent babies by disposing of bad adult individuals ?

I am in favour of euthanasia for people who simultaneously oppose abortion and also oppose subsidized daycare and welfare for single mothers.

It is perfectly reasonable to do so.

There is an infinity of arguments I could spend time thinking about, so I necessarily must reject some, often after most cursory examination.

When I have people who simultaneously decry "mass slaughter" of abortion, without seeming to realize that spontaneous miscarriages are at least as frequent - and who also support torture and wars of agression (e.g. the American religious right) - it is obvious that they are either hypocrites or stupid (or both) - and thus unlikely to present a philosophically interesting argument.

Yet there remains a vast difference between a zygote and a newborn. The former has no nervous sytem, no brain - there is nothing there capable of perception or suffering. The difficulties in drawing a precise line have no bearing on this.

I think there is a different way of looking at the issue, a way which doesn't require us to distinguish between a born baby and a foetus.

Say person A has a rare blood disease that can only be cured by running a 9 month round-the-clock infusion from person B. Would we be allowed to hold person B against his will and force him to support person A?

I would argue that the answer is no, and that this scenario is a good analogy to unwanted pregnancy.

The foetus may or may not be morally human. In neither case does it give the foetus the right to life as an unwelcome parasite on the mother.

At later stages of pregnancy, I would support requiring (to the limits of medical technology) keeping the foetus alive - in other words having a premature birth. The new-born baby could then be handed for adoption. Before viability, however, neither the foetus nor society on her behalf has a right to FORCE the mother to carry her.

This is an important insight that is often overlooked by the so-called pro-lifers.
Clearly there is a point at which personhood is reached, and it is worth taking a cold hard look at what that might be.
The point of birth is now universally obtained as the moment after which no question as to personhood is reached. But this was not always so and a different understanding always existed until very recently and still persists in many poor countries where infanticide based on practical and economic considerations is performed. In the ancient world unwanted babies were placed in a pot in the agora or market or exposed on the hillside; a a baby that goes full term can still be a serious burden on the future of the family in times of great need.
In the modern world this point of personhood has been pushed back into the duration of the pregnancy so that the ultimate point of consideration is conception - or even before conception so that masturbation becomes a sin against god.
But no one in their right mind is likely to say that a sperm on a tissue is a potential life, and by the same logic a fertilised egg is far from a person as it is possible to get.
There only remains to decide at what point from conception to birth is it unseemly to dispose of the products of conception before they are reasonably considered a person?

The important point is that if we accept that no being, even full humans, has a right to live parasitically off another, the question of when personhood emerges becomes irrelevant.

All that is relevant is the scientifically-decidable question of whether the being can live independently, or with the help of willing adults.

I may have a moral obligation to sustain another person's life, but absent a prior commitment, I cannot morally be forced to do so.

Many people would consider the mother to have a moral obligation to carry the pregnancy to term. I am not expressing a view one way or the other (I guess if pressed I would say it depends on many circumstances).

However, I would object strongly to the mother being forced to do so against her will. A Doctor may not be allowed to disconnect a patient from life support. However, nobody can force the Doctor to continue to work as one if he or she chose to retire and leave the city.

I don't believe in slavery, even if the purpose for which we make people slaves is a moral one.

I wrote:

Of course I can legally be forced to do anything. The law doesn't make an act moral or immoral.

For the purpose of this discussion, I think there is a moral analogy between forcing a doctor to continue to work, against his will, to facilitate the savings of life, and forcing a pregnant woman, against her will, to continue to carry a foetus to term. Of course if it an 8 month-old foetus, abortion SHOULD be illegal as an equivalent of murder. Inducing premature birth, on the other hand, is within the rights of the mother (even if it increases the risk to the life of the baby).

A new born baby has a right not to be killed. I personally don't believe any person should be FORCED to care for that baby. Obviously, in any civilized society, many people would be very happy to, so the issue is not really relevant.

There is a world of difference between meeting obligations under a contract and being forced without prior agreement.

Thus, for example, if the pregnant woman in question is a surrogate mother who signed a contract to carry the baby to term, an abortion would be a breach of contract, and thus morally punishable.

This really depends on whether or not B has willfully taken action that, as any reasonable person knows, can lead to their being hooked up to A for 9 month.

If B is minding their own business and is just kidnapped and forced to act as life support, then I would tend to agree with you, although even there my agreement would be qualified - as I would be coming at this from a utilitarian perspective.

But most pregnancies occur as a result of action that is known, by reasonable people, to sometimes lead to pregnancy - so the scenario you describe does not provide a useful parallel. (It might in cases of rape or sexual abuse, but not in cases consensual sex.)



You seem to be implying here that parents do not have any special moral obligations towards their children. Am I reading you correctly here?



So, if I understand you correctly, a woman would be within her rights to have labour induced at, say, six months, and the premature baby could then be cared for by someone else and handed over for adoption?

Who, if anyone, would have the moral obligation to pay for the extra medical care this baby will require?

On it's face, that makes a morally-relevant difference. However, it is hard to see how, by virtue of having irresponsible sex, thereby creating the foetus, the mother can be seen to be committing herself implicitly to carrying the foetus to term. At the time of the intercourse, the foetus doesn't exist. How can it be a party to a contract, even an implicit one?


Not quite. I am making a critical diffence between moral obligations, and legally-enforceable ones. For example, we are morally obligated to help a friend in need. But unless we contracted to, we ought not be legally-forced to do so.

Caring for your children (as well as your parents and possibly more remote relatives) is clearly a moral obligation. I don't think it should be a legal one.


Hard to say in the abstract. As noted above, the mother may well have had a moral obligation to. Possibly the father. Perhaps a well-off relative. The question of moral obligations is subjective, and can have a different answer to different people sharing a society.

That is very different from the issue of legal obligation. Under normal circumstances, I don't think any member of society should be legally required to take care of another (either directly or indirectly by being taxed to do so).

Experience clearly shows that in any moderately-affluent society, there is never shortage of people willing to help the needy out of charity.

Moreover, in all democracies I am aware of, the state currently provides financial assistance to orphans, and even less-clearly-deserving people. That state action presumably reflects the attitudes of the majority in society. With the majority clearly indicating their willingness to help people in need, I can see no circumstances under which charity will be lacking in a free society.

Can we assume that you would accept that whilst a child is in the direct care of a parent or guardian (i.e. living with them) that said parent or guardian should have a legal responsibility to provide proper care and that this legal responsibility can only be discharged once the have found another entity (the state, a charity, a relative etc.,) to assume the role of carer?

If so I can't see anything contentious in that position. I don't think it's a good analogy for the issue of the foetus and abortion though.

The question of caring for children is a complicated one. I think that while a parent assumes parental child-rearing rights, they are obligated to provide proper care for their children. However, their right (legal, not moral) to discharge of those responsibilities should not be conditional.

I would advocate a free market in child-rearing rights (not to be confused with a market in children which is abhorrent). That means that a parent who currently owns the rights to rear a child should be able to sell those rights to another person, who would assume those rights, together with the responsibilities that go with them.

As a matter of practice, there will never be shortage of people willing to accept such right/obligation combinations. The question of what to do with parents who are unable to find somebody else willing to take over child-rearing from them is a hypothetical one, on comparable footing to a scenario in which, in the current system, the state (through its democratic institutions) decides to remove all financial support from orphanages. Both are theoretically, but not realistically, possible