Is it because the fetus and other tissues are growing from the egg cell that was part of the mother? The egg cell might have been part of her body, but the sperm cell was not, and the resulting organism is from both. What we have is its own organism with its own genetic makeup and its own body. Arguments by analogy: Much of the thinking on each side of the dispute consists of implicit arguments by analogy. Pro-life: A fetus and an adult are both persons, so since an adult has a right to life so too does a fetus.
Pro-choice: Or a zygote is more like an unfertilized egg cell than an adult, so the zygote should have the same moral status as the egg cell. This reasoning by analogy is not always made explicit or even realized by advocates on each side, and ironically both sides struggle with preventing analogies as much as depending on them. The pro-lifer points to similarities between the embryo or fetus and children or adult human persons, claiming all have physical or metaphysical similarities so they should have equal moral status moral rights.
But considering the undeveloped brain of the embryo and early fetus, and lack of self-consciousness of the fetus, perhaps the better analogy is with a nonhuman animal. However, they would like to prevent this parallel, because most people do not recognize nonhuman animals as having any right to life. The pro-choicer draws analogies between the fetus and nonhuman animals, saying since the latter are not persons neither is the former. Legitimate reasons to get an abortion: Pro-choicers often claim that the embryo or fetus has no right to life because it is not a person.
Some of these same people then claim that there can be illegitimate reasons for an abortion, such as to choose eye color.
Moral status and its basis: How exactly does the moral status of a being derive from its physical or metaphysical status? The usual tactic is to use analogy to say, for example, normal adult humans have a certain physical or metaphysical status, and we grant them a moral status, so therefore anything relevantly similar in physical or metaphysical status should also have that moral status. But why is it wrong to murder adult humans? The philosopher Donald Marquis in fact tries to answer such a question in his writings on abortion.
Marquis suggests that the reason killing innocent human beings is wrong is the loss to the victim of the value of his or her future. A child or adult who is killed loses the value of their future experiences and activities.
But then this also applies to a fetus, whose future consists of the same types of experiences. A suicidal person might not value his or her future experiences, but yet the future can still have value for the person. So Marquis thinks he has pinpointed why abortion is wrong. Not everyone agrees with his analysis. Columbia, MO Contact. All rights reserved. DMCA and other copyright information. For website information, contact the Office of Communications. Contact the MU School of Medicine. Informational Alert Close.
Learn how to schedule an appointment for vaccination or testing. Read More. Education Research Patient Care. Student Resources Faculty Resources. More Search. Can't find what you're looking for? Pages No Results. Center for Health Ethics. You don't want children, so you fix up your windows with fine mesh screens, the very best you can buy. As can happen, however, and on very, very rare occasions does happen, one of the screens is defective, and a seed drifts in and takes root.
Does the person-plant who now develops have a right to the use of your house? Surely not--despite the fact that you voluntarily opened your windows, you knowingly kept carpets and upholstered furniture, and you knew that screens were sometimes defective.
Implicit Argument:. Ordinary consensual sex without contraception? If the room is stuffy, and I therefore open a window to air it, and the burglar climbs in, it would be absurd to say, 'Ah, now he can stay, she's given him the right to the use of her house, for she is partially responsible for his presence there, having voluntarily done what enabled him to get in, in full knowledge that there are such things as burglars, and that burglars burgle.
Objection: A fetus is innocent, not a burglar trying to do you harm. But, Thomson would say, this makes no difference: I have the right to eject an innocent person from my home, if that person falls through my window.
At this point it may be objected: getting pregnant due to voluntary, unprotected sex is not like having a person stumble into your home or fall through your window. It is more like having someone over because you invited them into your home…. Thomson recognizes that not all moral obligations stem from rights. For example, if a child finds a chocolate bar, then his sister has no right to it, but decency requires that he share it with her anyway. When is it indecent? In fact, no one is even required to be a Minimally Decent Samaritan.
Thomson: Abortion is permissible in many cases, but this does not mean we have the right to secure the death of the fetus. Were it possible to remove a fetus without killing it, then it must not be killed. Pro-choice lobbies are concerned about laws and policies that may implicitly recognize the fetus as a person e.
Would such laws and policies be cause for concern for Thomson? What about a personhood theory? Abortion and Implicit Consent. Under what conditions does the fetus have the consent of the mother? I am fully aware of what this will involve. This is what we do when we sign a contract. This is not what we do when we decide to have a child.
If women give consent to fetuses, it is not explicit consent. You might be required to dress in a certain way, refrain from shouting, etc. If you fail to follow these rules, you may be expelled. The fact that you are there of your own free will is interpreted as an agreement on your part that you will obey the house rules. In other words, you have implicitly given your consent to be subject to those rules.
Similarly, if you enroll in a class, then you are subject to certain requirements necessary for getting a passing grade usually detailed in the syllabus. Depending on what nation, state and county you live in, you will be subject to different laws. Citizens do not give explicit consent to obey the laws, but it is arguable that they give implicit consent. For example, suppose Smith lives in a county where pornography is illegal. He could easily move to a different county, but he chooses not to. If Smith is caught displaying pornography, he could be fined.
The above examples of implicit consent all have two things in common: i the consenting person makes a voluntary choice to engage in a certain type of activity, ii the activity in question is generally understood to entail certain responsibilities. British Broadcasting Corporation Home. Most of these arguments are to be read in the context of the first two arguments above.
People who don't believe abortion is always morally wrong use arguments like this:. Search term:. Thomson invites you to imagine that you have been connected while sleeping, bloodstream to bloodstream, to a famous violinist.
The violinist, who suffers from a rare blood disease, will die if disconnected. Thomson argues that you surely have the right to disconnect yourself.
She appeals to our intuition that having to lie in bed with a violinist for an indefinite period is too much for morality to demand. She supports this claim by noting that the body being used is your body, not the violinist's body. She distinguishes the right to life, which the violinist clearly has, from the right to use someone else's body when necessary to preserve one's life, which it is not at all obvious the violinist has.
Because the case of pregnancy is like the case of the violinist, one is no more morally obligated to remain attached to a fetus than to remain attached to the violinist. It is widely conceded that one can generate from Thomson's vivid case the conclusion that abortion is morally permissible when a pregnancy is due to rape Warren, , p. But this is hardly a general right to abortion.
Do Thomson's more general theses generate a more general right to an abortion? Thomson draws our attention to the fact that in a pregnancy, although a fetus uses a woman's body as a life-support system, a pregnant woman does not use a fetus's body as a life-support system. However, an opponent of abortion might draw our attention to the fact that in an abortion the life that is lost is the fetus's, not the woman's.
This symmetry seems to leave us with a stand-off. Thomson points out that a fetus's right to life does not entail its right to use someone else's body to preserve its life. However, an opponent of abortion might point out that a woman's right to use her own body does not entail her right to end someone else's life in order to do what she wants with her body. In reply, one might argue that a pregnant woman's right to control her own body doesn't come to much if it is wrong for her to take any action that ends the life of the fetus within her.
However, an opponent of abortion can argue that the fetus's right to life doesn't come to much if a pregnant woman can end it when she chooses. The consequence of all of these symmetries seems to be a stand-off. But if we have the stand-off, then one might argue that we are left with a conflict of rights: a fetal right to life versus the right of a woman to control her own body.
One might then argue that the right to life seems to be a stronger right than the right to control one's own body in the case of abortion because the loss of one's life is a greater loss than the loss of the right to control one's own body in one respect for nine months. Therefore, the right to life overrides the right to control one's own body and abortion is wrong. Considerations like these have suggested to both opponents of abortion and supporters of choice that a Thomsonian strategy for de-.
In fairness, one must note that Thomson did not intend her strategy to generate a general moral permissibility of abortion. The above considerations suggest that whether abortion is morally permissible boils down to the question of whether fetuses have the right to life.
An argument that fetuses either have or lack the right to life must be based upon some general criterion for having or lacking the right to life. Opponents of abortion, on the one hand, look around for the broadest possible plausible criterion, so that fetuses will fall under it. This explains why classic arguments against abortion appeal to the criterion of being human Noonan, ; Beckwith, This criterion appears plausible: The claim that all humans, whatever their race, gender, religion or age, have the right to life seems evident enough.
In addition, because the fetuses we are concerned with do not, after all, belong to another species, they are clearly human. Thus, the syllogism that generates the conclusion that fetuses have the right to life is apparently sound. On the other hand, those who believe abortion is morally permissible wish to find a narrow, but plausible, criterion for possession of the right to life so that fetuses will fall outside of it. This explains, in part, why the standard pro-choice arguments in the philosophical literature appeal to the criterion of being a person Feinberg, ; Tooley, ; Warren, ; Benn, ; Engelhardt, This criterion appears plausible: The claim that only persons have the right to life seems evident enough.
Thus, the syllogism needed to generate the conclusion that no fetus possesses the right to life is apparently sound. Given that no fetus possesses the right to life, a woman's right to control her own body easily generates the general right to abortion.
The existence of two apparently defensible syllogisms which support contrary conclusions helps to explain why partisans on both sides of the abortion dispute often regard their opponents as either morally depraved or mentally deficient. Which syllogism should we reject? The anti-abortion syllogism is usually attacked by attacking its major premise: the claim that whatever is biologically human has the right to life.
This premise is subject to scope problems because the class of the biologically human includes too much: human cancer-cell cultures are biologically human, but they do not have the right to life. Moreover, this premise also is subject to moral-relevance problems: the connection between the biological and the moral is merely assumed. It is hard to think of a good argument for such a connection.
If one wishes to consider the category of "human" a moral category, as some people find it plausible to do in other contexts, then one is left with no way of showing that the fetus is fully human without begging the question. Thus, the classic anti-abortion argument appears subject to fatal difficulties. These difficulties with the classic anti-abortion argument are well known and thought by many to be conclusive.
The symmetrical difficulties with the classic pro-choice syllogism are not as well recognized. The pro-choice syllogism can be attacked by attacking its major premise: Only persons have the right to life. This premise is subject to scope problems because the class of persons includes too little: infants, the severely retarded, and some of the mentally ill seem to fall outside the class of persons as the supporter of choice understands the concept.
The premise is also subject to moral-relevance problems:. Being a person is understood by the pro-choicer as having certain psychological attributes.
If one wishes to consider "person" a moral category, as is often done, then one is left with no way of showing that the fetus is not a person without begging the question.
Pro-choicers appear to have resources for dealing with their difficulties that opponents of abortion lack. Consider their moral-relevance problem. A pro-. This is essentially Engelhardt's [] view. The great advantage of this contractarian approach to morality is that it seems far more plausible than any approach the anti-abortionist can provide.
The great disadvantage of this contractarian approach to morality is that it adds to our earlier scope problems by leaving it unclear how we can have the duty not to inflict pain and suffering on animals. Contractarians have tried to deal with their scope problems by arguing that duties to some individuals who are not persons can be justified even though those individuals are not contracting members of the moral community.
For example, Kant argued that, although we do not have direct duties to animals, we "must practice kindness towards animals, for he who is cruel to animals becomes hard also in his dealings with men" Kant, , p. Feinberg argues that infanticide is wrong, not because infants have the right to life, but because our society's protection of infants has social utility.
If we do not treat infants with tenderness and consideration, then when they are persons they will be worse off and we will be worse off also Feinberg, , p. These moves only stave off the difficulties with the pro-choice view; they do not resolve them.
Consider Kant's account of our obligations to animals. Kantians certainly know the difference between persons and animals.
Therefore, no true Kantian would treat persons as she would treat animals. Thus, Kant's defense of our duties to animals fails to show that Kantians have a duty not to be cruel to animals. Consider Feinberg's attempt to show that infanticide is wrong even though no infant is a person. That is quite compatible with killing the infants we intend to discard.
This point can be supported by an analogy with which any pro-choicer will agree. There are plainly good reasons to treat with care and consideration the fetuses we intend to keep. This is quite compatible with aborting those fetuses we intend to discard. Thus, Feinberg's account of the wrongness of infanticide is inadequate.
Accordingly, we can see that a contractarian defense of the pro-choice personhood syllogism fails. The problem arises because the contractarian cannot account for our duties to individuals who are not persons, whether these individuals are animals or infants. Because the pro-choicer wishes to adopt a narrow criterion for the right to life so that fetuses will not be included, the scope of her major premise is too narrow.
Her problem is the opposite of the problem the classic opponent of abortion faces. The argument of this section has attempted to establish, albeit briefly, that the classic anti-abortion argument and the pro-choice argument favored by most philosophers both face problems that are mirror images of one another. A stand-off results. The abortion debate requires a different strategy.
Why do the standard arguments in the abortion debate fail to resolve the issue? The general principles to which partisans in the debate appeal are either truisms most persons would affirm in the absence of much reflection, or very general moral theories. All are subject to major problems. A different approach is needed. Opponents of abortion claim that abortion is wrong because abortion involves killing someone like us, a human being who just happens to be very young.
Supporters of choice claim that ending the life of a fetus is not in the same moral category as ending the life of an adult human being. Surely this controversy cannot be resolved in the absence of an account of what it is about killing us that makes killing us wrong. On the one hand, if we know what property we possess that makes killing us wrong, then we can ask whether fetuses have the same property. On the other hand, suppose that we do not know what it is about us that makes killing us wrong.
If this. Surely, we will not understand the ethics of killing fetuses, for if we do not understand easy cases, then we will not understand hard cases. Both pro-choicer and anti-abortionist agree that it is obvious that it is wrong to kill us.
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