The Standard Argument against Abortion

Anti-abortionists usually reason that abortion is morally impermissible regardless of circumstance because a ‘foetus is a human being, a person, from the moment of conception’ and thus should not be killed (Thomson, 1971). For anti-abortionists, conception is the most crucial moment because it is typically viewed as the moment the ‘new organism’ is formed. However, Thomson questions how advocates of the standard argument against abortion (henceforth, ‘The Standard Argument’) go from granting that a foetus is a person to concluding that abortion is impermissible. Hence, Thomson discusses what she takes as the missing premises of The Standard Argument; my presentation of Thomson’s argument is below:

I now turn to Thomson’s argument against The Standard Argument.

Thomson’s Argument against P3 of The Standard Argument

Thomson thinks that P2 of The Standard Argument is false as it has not been argued for well by its proponents. Nonetheless, Thomson grants P2 (thus C1) because she wants to show that even if foetuses do have the right to life, that right is not stronger than the mother’s right to decide what happens in and to her body in cases (1), (2) and (3). So, the foetus’s right to life does not outweigh the mother’s rights. Therefore, according to Thomson, P3 is false (thus C2) in these cases. Thomson’s reasoning for why abortion should be morally permissible in each case is as follows.

1. (1) The foetus is a threat to the mother’s life: the ‘expanding child’

Thomson argues that abortion should be morally permissible if the foetus is a threat to the mother’s life; surely, ‘it cannot be said that she must sit passively and wait for her death’. To persuade us of her view, Thomson presents the ‘expanding child’ thought experiment.

Imagine being trapped in a tiny house with a rapidly expanding child. If you do not kill the child, you will die within a few hours, and the child will survive. According to Thomson, regardless of how innocent the child is (as it is not his fault that he is rapidly expanding), this does not mean you cannot act to save yourself. Thomson argues that this hypothetical scenario is similar to fatal pregnancies. To prevent the mother from having an abortion would be to insist that she wait passively for death ‘within her own home’, which is morally wrong. Hence, Thomson thinks that the mother’s right to decide what happens in and to her body is stronger than the foetus’s right to life, and so outweighs it. Therefore, abortion should be morally permissible when the foetus threatens the mother’s life.

1. (2) The foetus is a product of rape: ‘The Violinist’

Thomson argues that abortion should be morally permissible where the foetus is a product of rape. Before discussing Thomson’s reasoning for her view, note the following. Thomson understands the ‘right to life’ to mean the right not to be killed unjustly. I will return to the significance of this.

Thomson presents the ‘violinist’ thought experiment to persuade us that abortion should be morally permissible in this case. Imagine being kidnapped against your will and plugged to a famous violinist. The violinist (an innocent person with a right to life) has a life-threatening kidney ailment and needs to use your kidneys for nine months as you are the only person with the correct blood type. If you unplug yourself from him, he will die. However, if you remain plugged to him for nine months, he will fully recover, and you will never see him again. Thomson raises the question of whether it is morally necessary for you to remain plugged to the violinist. Thomson likens not volunteering to be plugged to the violinist to a woman who is raped, who does not wilfully choose to be ‘plugged’ to the foetus (carry the foetus). Although using her body for nine months is the bare minimum the foetus needs to survive, like the violinist, the foetus has no right to such use because the mother has not wilfully given it that right. Returning to the right to life consisting of the right not to be killed unjustly, since the foetus is formed against the mother’s will, Thomson argues that the mother does not act unjustly in having an abortion.

Additionally, suppose the mother has to be ‘plugged’ to the foetus for only an hour. Thomson claims that we may conclude that, since the pregnancy is only an hour long, she is ‘self-centered, callous and indecent’ if she has an abortion. However, her act is not unjust because she has not wilfully given the foetus ‘the right to use her body for food and shelter’. So, according to Thomson, where the foetus is a product of rape, P3 is false. Therefore, abortion should be morally permissible.

1. (3) Efforts have been made to prevent pregnancy via contraception: ‘People seeds’

Thomson argues that if two individuals consensually engage in sexual intercourse and use contraception that fails, an abortion, in this case, would not be killing the foetus unjustly. Hence, abortion should be morally permissible. Thomson defends this claim via the ‘people-seeds’ analogy. Imagine there existed ‘people-seeds’ drifting around like pollen. By opening your windows, there is a chance one could float in and take root in your carpets. You do not want children, that is, ‘people-seeds’, so you ensure that you install the best mesh screens (contraception) on your windows. However, one of the mesh screens is defective (as contraception can be), and a ‘people-seed’ drifts in and takes root in your carpet (the sperm and egg fertilise).

Thomson argues that it would be absurd to say that the ‘‘people-seed’ now has a right to be in your house (the foetus in your body) because you were partly responsible for its presence there. Thomson claims that while you could say that ‘you could avoid the people-seeds getting in your house by having bare floors’, as you could altogether avoid pregnancy by having a hysterectomy, ‘this just will not do’. Thomson does not discuss why it ‘will not do’. However, a plausible reason is that having a hysterectomy is too demanding as it strips women of the chance of ever having children, which is arguably unreasonable. So, Thomson claims that where contraception has been used, P3 is false. Thus, abortion should be morally permissible.

I will now defend the moral permissibility of abortion in cases (1) and (2).

The Moral Permissibility of Abortion in Cases (1) and (2)

I agree with Thomson that abortion should be morally permissible in case (1) in light of the Doctrine of Double Effect (DDE). The idea of the DDE is that we take an action that is usually considered impermissible, for example, abortion. Abortion is usually considered impermissible because I have an aim that is standardly conceived to end life. It is morally impermissible to do something where the set aim is ending life. However, according to the DDE, there are cases where your aim is not to end life but to save a life. For example, the mother’s life is in danger because she has cancer in her uterus lining. Her means to her end (saving her life) involves killing the foetus. She is not aiming to kill the foetus. Instead, to save her life, a hysterectomy needs to be performed whereby her womb is removed, which contains the foetus that is incapable of living outside the womb. Thus, abortion, here, has what is known as a foreseen but unintended and undesired consequence formally understood as an ‘oblique intention’. This means that she foresees that the foetus will die by having a hysterectomy, but she is not intending nor does she desire to kill the foetus. She intends to save her own life. So, according to the DDE, having an abortion to save the mother’s life is morally permissible.

Recall the ‘expanding child’ thought experiment Thomson uses to persuade us that abortion should be morally permissible. According to the DDE, if to save the mother’s life, the foetus must be killed, by crushing its skull, for example, while if nothing is done, the mother will die, but the child can be safely delivered, it is morally impermissible to intervene. It is morally impermissible to intervene because killing the child by crushing its skull, for example, is an intentional act. Intentionally killing the foetus is morally impermissible on the DDE. Reflecting upon this fact, Thomson’s thought experiment does not support her view that abortion should be morally permissible to save the mother’s life because it is much like the situation where to save the mother’s life, the child must be killed intentionally. To explain, in the thought experiment, the mother knows that the child will eventually occupy the whole house and crush her to death. So, the mother can only survive by killing the child as it is expanding. So, you cannot say that the mother foresaw the child’s death but did not intend it. She intended it; that is the point of the scenario. Hence, on Thomson’s thought experiment, having an abortion is morally impermissible considering the DDE. In this way, Thomson is unsuccessful in using the ‘expanding child’ thought experiment to persuade us that abortion should be morally permissible in case (1).

Nonetheless, Thomson’s view that abortion should be morally permissible in case (1) can be made plausible under the logic of the DDE. To explain, Philippa Foot (2002) puts forward a scenario whereby nothing can be done to save the child and the mother simultaneously, but the mother’s life can only be saved by killing the child. According to the DDE, abortion to save the mother’s life in this circumstance should be considered morally permissible; I agree for the following reason.

In the scenario whereby the mother has cancer in her uterus lining, the only way to save her is by having a hysterectomy which would save the mother but kill the foetus. Here, an external circumstance, namely, a medical condition, has intervened and overruled the rational will of the woman. More precisely, the medical condition has prevented the agent (the mother) from having what I am calling an ‘open choice’ regarding decisions towards the foetus. An ‘open choice’ is to be understood as a choice an agent can make which is not constrained by external factors such as medical conditions or the actions of wrongdoers. The mother did not wilfully choose to have cancer, and so when you are in a situation that you did not wilfully choose to be in, and so do not have an ‘open choice’, you have a licence to act in ways that would not ‘normally’ be permissible. In this scenario, if nothing is done to save the mother, the mother and the foetus will die. So, the foetus dies regardless. Surely, it is preferable, at least, to save the mother, given that her being in this situation is against her rational will. Since it is only by carrying out the operation that the foetus dies, the foetus’s death is a foreseen but unintended consequence and so morally permissible following the logic of the DDE. My view requires us to accept the DDE, but under the assumption we do, where the mother’s life is threatened, P3 is false; thus, abortion should be morally permissible.

One problem with the DDE is that it is restrictive as it does not count abortion where the foetus is a product of rape as morally permissible. However, it should count; I will now discuss my reasoning.

I agree with Thomson’s view that abortion should be morally permissible if the foetus is a product of rape, for reasons I will shortly discuss. However, Thomson’s view is not supported by her violinist thought experiment as there are morally relevant differences between pregnancy and the thought experiment. One crucial difference, highlighted by Rosalind Hursthouse (1987), is that if I remain hooked to the violinist, whilst I would be very inconvenienced, he will survive after nine months, and I never have to see him again. However, if I remain ‘hooked to the foetus’, after nine months, I will have a child who I am responsible for that is my child and the child of the man who victimized me in the worst way. In light of this difference, Thomson’s violinist thought experiment does not sufficiently support her view.

However, ultimately, I agree with Thomson’s view. As in case (1), an external circumstance, namely, the wrongdoer’s actions, has intervened and overruled the rational will of the woman. How the woman became pregnant and with whom she got pregnant is not through consent but coercion. Hence, I agree with the way John Martin Fischer (2013) interprets what it means for Thomson to say that a woman has the right to decide what happens in and to her body. Namely, she has a right to control her reproductive system in the manner whereby ‘she cannot be morally required to engage in gestation in a context in which she is pregnant as a result of activities to which she did not consent’. Therefore, abortion should be morally permissible.

In light of what I have just said, I disagree with Thomson’s claim that the mother may be viewed as ‘self-centered, callous and indecent’ if she only has to carry the foetus for an hour and still has an abortion. Thomson’s view that abortion, where the mother only has to carry the foetus for an hour, is a morally permissible but all things considered bad act is commonly referred to as a suberogatory act. Such acts are bad but not morally forbidden. For example, imagine you are getting on the train. A couple gets on behind you, and you know they want to sit together (i.e. you overheard their conversation on the platform). However, there are only two seats left on the train which are placed together. If you sit on one of those seats, knowing the couple wanted to sit together, you have performed a bad act, but not a morally forbidden act; the couple is not more or less entitled than you to that seat. Equipped with an understanding of suberogatory acts, let us resume my critique.

I do not think that abortion in the case of rape, regardless of how long the mother has to carry the foetus, is a suberogatory act. Abortion, in this case, is only morally permissible and not bad because, as I said earlier, being put in a situation against your will gives you a licence to do things that would not otherwise be permissible. Imagine walking home, and someone tries to kidnap you or break into your home and put you at gunpoint. Many of us would surely agree that as a result of being put in a situation against your will, it would be considered (or should be considered) morally permissible to hurt them, to a certain extent physically. Under normal circumstances, that is, where you are not under duress, you would not be given the licence to do so. Therefore, when the foetus is a product of rape, P3 is false; thus, abortion should be morally permissible as the wrongdoer has overruled the rational will of the woman.

I will now defend why abortion should not be morally permissible in case (3).

The Moral Impermissibility of Abortion in Case (3)

Thomson argues that where a woman has consensually had sex and intentionally used contraception (that has failed), abortion should be morally permissible. However, I disagree. Abortion, here, should not be morally permissible because an external circumstance has not intervened and overruled the rational will of the woman; where there is no such factor, it would be immoral to have an abortion. My reasoning why it is immoral is because doing so demonstrates a kind of non-seriousness, and in a sense callousness, about the nature of sexual acts because the two consenting individuals knew what the result could be if the contraception failed. Unlike the case of rape, it cannot be said that the woman is in no way responsible for being pregnant. Nicely put by Mary Anne Warren (1973), a foetus should not perish due to actions undertaken in the full knowledge of the fact that the consequences of such actions involve even ‘a one per cent chance of bringing a human being into existence with a right to life’. To make my argument more plausible, let us look at how the woman’s role is different in Thomson’s ‘people-seeds’ analogy and pregnancy due to contraceptive failure.

Fischer argues that in Thomson’s ‘people-seeds’ analogy, opening the window is a causal enabler; your action merely enables the people-seeds that are flying around ‘willy-nilly’ to fall into your house and take root in your carpet. However, in the case of voluntary sexual intercourse with failed contraception, the woman’s actions are not mere causal enablers but causes of the sperm joining with the egg. Fischer is not saying that the woman is the sole cause of the pregnancy; the man is also a cause. Each individual is a cause rather than a causal enabler. In contrast to Thomson’s analogy, the woman’s voluntary actions do not happen against a background of seeds that are flying around ‘willy-nilly’, but instead cause a ‘change in the trajectory of the seeds’, which leads to the creation of a human. Fischer’s argument here is innovative, and I agree with his view. Consider the following example, which I have termed ‘The Lit Match’.

Counterarguments and Responses

A potential objection to my argument that could be raised is the following.

To defend my argument against this objection, imagine Lucy comes across a society whereby she is informed that twenty people’s names are picked out of a box at the end of every month. Out of that twenty, one wins one million pounds, and another is kidnapped (a woman being informed that contraception prevents pregnancy but can also fail, leading to pregnancy). Knowing the possible consequences, Lucy voluntarily signs up to the society (a woman having sex). One month, Lucy’s name is picked out, and she is kidnapped (the contraception fails, and the woman is pregnant). Lucy arguably put herself in a position where she might be kidnapped, despite its small chance. Let us call this the kidnapping case. In the case of abortion, it is sufficient for the woman to complete the pregnancy because, unlike cases (1) and (2), an external circumstance does not overrule the rational will of the woman. Just as Lucy knew the rules of the society, the pregnant woman knew the ‘rules of sexual intercourse’ and ‘signed up’ to engage in it anyhow. Through her voluntary actions (and his), the foetus is formed. Thus, in case (3), P3 is correct, so abortion should not be morally permissible.

One may respond with the following argument.

However, in the kidnapping case and, more importantly, pregnancy, one’s voluntary actions led to the result, namely, being kidnapped and pregnant. When deciding to go to the nightclub, you do not tend to consciously factor into your decision the possibility that you might be harassed. If you are harassed, it occurs against your consent; a wrongdoer has intervened and thus, as I have argued, frees one of moral responsibility. By contrast, in the kidnapping case and having sexual intercourse (even with protection), it was ‘explicitly said’ ahead of time that a particular consequence could occur. Therefore, abortion should not be morally permissible in cases of failed birth control.