MISPLACED ATTITUDES, MORAL STANDING, AND ABORTION



MISPLACED ATTITUDES, MORAL STANDING, AND ABORTION

1. INTRODUCTION

Until Judith Jarvis Thomson’s groundbreaking essay, much of the debate concerning the morality of abortion was cast in terms of whether or not the fetus was a person or not, or whether it had moral standing or not, or whether it had rights or not.[1] Thomson’s essay shifted the debate from a discussion of whether or not the fetus has moral standing or not, or whether it has rights or not, to a debate about what rights it has. Whether it was Thomson’s intention or not, the debate was recast in terms of women’s rights, and more specifically rights to bodily integrity and autonomy. In making her case that abortion is morally permissible in many cases, even with it assumed the fetus is a person with rights, there has been a number of those who have pointed to problems in her argumentation for that conclusion.[2]

Furthermore, and more importantly, the debate has become one in which we have women’s rights pitted against fetal rights. Of those contending against Thomson, it only makes sense to support their view with a contrasting idea: Which is more important: The right of a person (fetus) to get to continue to live? Or the right of a woman to exercise her autonomy and control her body? A different ethical perspective/theory may help advance the debate. This theory is called virtue ethics. One of its main, and uncontended, proponents with respect to the issue of abortion is Rosalind Hursthouse. Although in her classic essay “Virtue Theory and Abortion” it is not apparent what her thesis is with respect to whether or not abortion is permissible in various cases, it does become clear upon reflection that she takes a rather “conservative” position.[3] And although her goal is not primarily to make definitive claims with respect to abortion, it is quite clear that she is dismissive of looking at the issue in terms of the moral standing of fetuses as well as what rights they have.

A perhaps oversimplified, yet useful, way of chronicling the abortion debate is as follows. The debate starts in terms of moral standing/personhood; we will call this approach STANDING. Via Thomson, the debate is now about what rights fetuses have (just assuming that fetuses have moral standing/personhood); we will call this approach RIGHTS. Via Hursthouse, the debate is about the virtues and vices displayed in deciding to abort, as well as in responding to known abortions; we will call this approach VIRTUE. With respect to the approach of STANDING, the intuitive idea is this: 1. The intentional killing of some innocent being with moral standing (person) is morally wrong. 2. Fetuses are innocent beings with moral standing (persons). Therefore, it is morally wrong to kill via abortion fetuses. Thomson showed that this way of understanding the STANDING approach is problematic. In particular, she has us question premise 1. Here, we just have to think of cases of killing in self-defense as providing a counterexample to premise 1. And by appealing to a number of cases, Thomson gets us to question what our unreflective judgments about the rights of even innocent beings with moral standing. Thus, this motivates the RIGHTS view. What we might assert as a right no longer intelligibly works as a way of constraining certain actions which are morally permissible; I have a right to life, but if my living requires stealing your vital organs, then obviously my right to life does not “entail” being allowed to steal your vital organs. Finally, we have the VIRTUE approach. There are at least two ways to apply this theory. One way is by determining permissibility in terms of what the ideally virtuous person would do. This will of course be limited with respect to the issue of abortion. Another way is by determining permissibility in terms of what would be virtuous of the person relative to the position that the person is in (including their abilities and knowledge).

Now, here is my very speculative diagnosis on the debate to this point. The STANDING approach lost out to the RIGHTS approach. This is not to disregard continuing discussion of the STANDING approach. Nevertheless, there is contention within the RIGHTS approach concerning whether or not the rights of one group (women) outweigh the rights of another (fetuses). Furthermore, there is scholarly literature which contends the arguments Thomson advances in order to establish the conclusion of moral permissibility of abortion under the framework of assumed moral standing of fetuses outweighed by the rights of pregnant women. Then there is the suggestion that the debate is misled by a discussion focused on either the approach of STANDING or RIGHTS, as it is VIRTUE that is the way to essentially settle the issue. My main thesis, then, is this: The abortion issue is best served by going back to the issue of the moral standing of fetuses, and not the rights of fetuses under the assumption that they have moral standing and not the approach I’ve called VIRTUE.[4]

2. VIRTUE THEORY, APPLICABILITY, AND ABORTION

One could take what I’m doing in this section as offering a standalone thesis. It is something like this: Although I think that virtue theory is much more limited than it has been espoused, I will argue that proponents of such theories should be wary of illustrating its power with respect to certain kinds of issues and cases, and in particular the issue of abortion and its multitude of cases. This has to do with the fact that in thinking of virtue theory as a certain kind of moral theory (whether this be of the form “An action is morally permissible if and only if …” or “A person, P, under circumstances, C, morally ought to phi in order to be someone of quality, Q, if and only if …”), it need not have to posit a theory of moral standing, which takes the form “A being, B, has moral standing if and only if …”. To put it more concretely, suppose that one argues for her preferred virtue theory by showing its applicability to some case in which she (the theorist) falsely assumes that the being acted upon has moral standing. Furthermore, she argues that her preferred virtue theory shows that the action under consideration is a callously done action, with no regard to the being acted upon; she then might argue that it is in virtue of this callousness that the action is morally wrong. But recall that the assumption that the being has moral standing (that it morally counts) is false. In this case, the theorist would be saying (unbeknownst to her) that a being that does not count morally has been treated in a callous way and perhaps in a morally wrong way; well, this comes close to contradiction. Here, just think of a theorist arguing that her theory implies that in some case a particularly uninteresting pebble is morally wronged in virtue of being treated somehow callously, perhaps by being thrown to the ground. Virtue theorists would do well, in illustrating the power of their theories in their applicability, by staying away from issues and cases in which it is contentious whether the being acted upon has moral standing, and certainly where it is uncontroversial that the being acted upon has no moral standing (e.g., a pebble).

In her article “Virtue and Abortion,” Rosalind Hursthouse sketches an alternative version of virtue ethics as well as shows its applicability with respect to abortion.[5] The applicability of the theory to abortion is supposed to lend evidence to its plausibility. I will argue that what she says about abortion, for the most part, is just plainly incorrect. It is upon further reflection that she is calling us to make judgmental attitudes toward women who choose abortions of fetuses who do not have moral standing, or at least where such moral standing is contentious and far from obvious. Why be so judgmental about some action/practice when it is not obvious at all that there any beings being affected adversely? In the second part of “Virtue and Abortion,” Hursthouse defends the applicability of her virtue theory by relying on her readers misplacing their attitudes toward cases of abortion, cases in which no one is morally wronged, including the fetus.

Before fleshing out her thesis concerning abortion and the overall argument, I will first give a flavor of the rhetoric:

The fact that the premature termination of a pregnancy is, in some sense, the cutting off of a new human life, and thereby, like the procreation of a new human life, connects with the all our thoughts about human life and death, parenthood, and family relationships, must make it a serious matter. To disregard this about it, to think of abortion as nothing but the killing of something that does not matter, or as nothing but the exercise of some right or rights one has, or as the incidental means to some desirable state of affairs, is to do something callous and light-minded, the sort of thing that no virtuous and wise person would do. It is to have the wrong attitude not only to fetuses, but more generally to human life and death, parenthood, and family relationships.[6]

Hursthouse takes any action of abortion to be a serious matter, regardless of whether or not the action is morally permissible or not. One might think that any morally permissible action is one in which no moral concern or seriousness is appropriate, since such an action is in fact morally permissible. This, of course, would be a mistake. Take, for example, a case of killing in self-defense. Killings in self-defense are in most cases morally permissible. But because in these cases we have a killing of a being that morally matters – that has moral standing, often persons – such cases are morally grave, even with them being cases of moral permissibility. By analogy (of some sort), we can motivate Hursthouse’s suggestion that any action of abortion, as it involves the killing of a being (a fetus), is a serious, grave matter. As I will argue in this paper, Hursthouse’s suggestion here is incorrect. Many cases of abortion need not be serious, grave matters, as these will involve cases of beings (fetuses) who do not have any moral standing. Of course, there may be plenty of other features in such cases which then show that the consideration of aborting is a serious matter, but such seriousness will not be explicable in terms of the fact that the being under consideration has moral standing. I will expand on this later.

From Hursthouse’s discussion, there appears to be at least two different ways to go about applying virtue theory to the issue of abortion. The first way is to apply the right hand side of “An action if morally permissible if and only if it is what the ideally virtuous person would do” to abortion. In other words, an abortion will be permissible just in case it would be performed by the ideally virtuous person. Furthermore, the proper attitudes concerning abortion will be the ones reflected by the ideally virtuous person. A second way is perhaps something like this. Relative to the circumstances that a person finds herself in, the morally permissible/right thing to do is what she would do in displaying the relevant virtues, and just so long as she does not display any vice. So it will be morally permissible for a woman to abort just in case in her doing so, relative to her circumstances, she displays the relevant virtues, and does not display any vice. Furthermore, the proper attitudes concerning abortion will be reflected by those displaying the relevant virtues, and no vices, relative to their circumstances.

I want to emphasize that either way the applicability is understood there are fundamental problems in how Hursthouse thinks about abortion; an escape from one way will lead to a problem with the other. Let’s though suppose that Hursthouse goes with the first way of understanding how to apply abortion. Here, we determine permissibility in terms of what an ideal agent would do. Furthermore, we should think this: Perhaps the agent is not ideal at the point up to pregnancy, but if she were to do what is permissible at further points, it will be in terms of her being a virtuous agent/person. As Hursthouse mentions, though, there is a certain problem concerning the relationship between knowledge, virtue, and the issue of the moral standing of the fetus. She writes:

One cannot have the right or correct attitude to something if the attitude is based on or involves false beliefs. And this suggests that if the fetus is relevant to the rightness of abortion, its status must be known as a truth, to the fully wise and virtuous person …[yet] the status of the fetus – that issue over which so much ink has been spilt – is, according to virtue theory, simply not relevant to the rightness or wrongness of abortion (within, that is, a secular morality).[7]

The idea here is that an ideally virtuous agent would know whether some being has moral standing or not, and thus with respect to the issue of abortion, this agent would know whether it was morally problematic to abort it. But as one can see from the quotation, Hursthouse argues that in the end the ideally virtuous person does not need this knowledge, and that such questions about the moral standing of the fetus are morally irrelevant.

How does she advance this view – that is, of it being irrelevant to the issue of abortion of whether or not the fetus has moral standing (and hence, to the ideally virtuous pregnant woman)? How she does so I will call the BIOLOGICAL FACTS VIEW. She writes:

Now if we are using virtue theory, our first is not “What do the familiar biological facts show – what can be derived from them about the status of the fetus?” but “How do these facts figure in the practical reasoning, actions and passions, thoughts and reactions, of the virtuous and the nonvirtuous? What is the mark of having the right attitude to these facts and what manifests having the wrong attitude to them?” [Furthermore], to attach relevance to the status of the fetus, in the sense of in which virtue theory claims it is not relevant, is to be gripped by the conviction that we must go beyond the familiar biological facts, deriving some sort of conclusion from them, such as that the fetus has rights, or is not a person, or something similar.[8]

According to Hursthouse, the rightness/wrongness of abortion will be determined by the responsiveness of those involved (most significantly the pregnant woman) to the biological facts concerning pregnancy and abortion. But furthermore, and very importantly, Hursthouse is advancing the idea that we can use the biological facts surrounding pregnancy and abortion without thereby informing our ideas about whether or not these facts support the case for or against the fetus under consideration morally matters or not (that is, has moral standing or not). And so, according to the BIOLOGICAL FACTS VIEW: An act of abortion is morally permissible just so in far as it “responds” to the biological facts concerning pregnancy and abortion, but not in terms of whether such facts support the fact of whether or not the fetus under consideration has moral standing (i.e., morally matters).

Hursthouse says plenty of other things to suggest that (i) whether or not the fetus has moral standing is morally irrelevant and (ii) we should not consider biological facts to support the case of moral standing of the fetus, although it is nevertheless important to consider such facts for the permissibility of abortion (in the absence of those facts supporting the moral standing of the fetus). I think that the BIOLOGICAL FACTS VIEW is false. Although certain facts concerning burdens and benefits concerning pregnancy are certainly relevant, they are just not the kinds of facts (in most cases) which can determine that the killing of a fetus is morally permissible/impermissible. I of course said “in most cases.” We could imagine the pregnant woman’s life threatened by “successfully” giving birth to the fetus. In such cases, this is a kind of biological fact that would weigh strongly in favor of the permissibility of aborting the fetus, if in doing so this would be the only feasible way of saving the pregnant woman’s life. I will end up saying more about this later in the next section of this paper. Another thing to say about the BIOLOGICAL FACTS VIEW that supports its falsity is this. Such a view is highly limited in what it purports to be morally relevant. As I will note later, but argue for, there are biological facts that support the idea that most fetuses are not sentient until a certain point in their development. And this fact concerning sentience seems to then support the idea that such beings have moral standing, and that such beings without it do not have it. As such, the BIOLOGICAL FACTS VIEW is very selective in what it counts as morally relevant. I will claim that its selectiveness leads to it being false.

But Hursthouse’s claims about abortion (and here defense of the applicability of virtue theory) can be defended by an alternative to the BIOLOGICAL FACTS VIEW. The idea is this. Suppose that Hursthouse gets it wrong according to this way of understanding the permissibility of abortion (which is not hard to do – just assume that the biological facts support the idea that the fetus does/does-not have moral standing). Then if Hursthouse is wrong here, then perhaps she has something else in mind.

According to this fallback alternative view, it can still be relevant whether the fetus has moral standing. It just so happens that most (if not all of us) do not know whether the fetus has it. This seems like a reasonable position to be in, as well as the kind of position that Hursthouse should be offering. So, instead of her advancing the thesis that the issue of moral standing/personhood is irrelevant, she may instead be advancing the thesis that in the absence of knowing whether or not knowing the fetus has moral standing/personhood, it is in many cases morally impermissible according to virtue theory.

The second way that Hursthouse might defend her view is through something that I will call the SAFETY VIEW. Instead of being sensitive to the biological facts per se, a pregnant woman is supposed to be sensitive to the fact that the fetus may actually be a being with the kinds of moral properties typical of a person. The idea here is that the fetus might actually be a person, and the thought of possibly killing a person is strong enough to discourage the pregnant woman from aborting. So, according to the SAFETY VIEW: An act of abortion is morally permissible just in case it abides with the practice of properly viewing the fetus for what it could be, that is a being with moral standing/personhood. I want to note that the idea is that permissibility is linked to viewing the fetus as a being that, as a matter of safety, might actually be a person (or at least have some moral standing).

Now, with either the BIOLOGICAL FACTS VIEW or the SAFETY VIEW, it’s the case that Hursthouse furthermore endorses a certain kind of view concerning what can make an act of abortion morally permissible (opposed to not). According to Hursthouse, with both the above-mentioned views, there are nevertheless certain permissibility-making features that would make an otherwise morally wrong act of abortion according to the above views actually morally permissible.

Here, what I mean by “permissibility-making feature” is something that makes an otherwise impermissible action, according to some general principle, actually permissible. So, one might think that the intentional killing of an innocent person is morally impermissible. But given that the world is much messier and complex, intentional killings can and do occur with certain permissibility-making features built into the case at hand. Often, the fact that some person A’s life is being threatened by another innocent person B will count as a permissible-making feature, such that it is permissible for A to intentionally kill B.

According to Hursthouse, there are at least two permissibility-making features by which it would be permissible to abort a fetus even if the fetus was in fact a being with moral standing/personhood. The first has to do with hardships to the mother in terms of her life. This makes sense. Even if the fetus is a person, it could very well be the case that when the pregnant woman’s life is threatened, it is morally permissible to abort it. The second is an odd one, I believe, and yet one that might be cited commonly by many folk. It’s that a pregnant woman already has children. Hursthouse notes multiple times throughout her essay that the fact of having a child already counts as a reason to doubt the viciousness (and hence impermissibility) of the pregnant woman aborting. But I think that this is morally irrelevant all other thing equal, just in so far as the moral standing of the fetus is morally relevant. All other things equal, there is no viciousness when the fetus does not count morally (has no moral standing). All other things equal, there is much viciousness (something close to evil) when the fetus does have moral standing and there is nothing even remotely close to conflicting with a comparable interest to the woman or her children or other projects upon giving birth to the fetus. Let me state it again in a different way, and also in a specific way: Moral standing is important. When the fetus has moral standing, then aborting it merely because the pregnant woman has had a child before (whom she loves), and perhaps aborts because she is afraid that it will get in the way of her raising her (first) child, is morally impermissible, and something close to an evil. So, I take it that this second kind of permissibility-making feature is not genuinely a permissibility-making feature. I will illustrate this with some cases below.

But before doing so, let me give some textual support for my attribution to Hursthouse of the supposed permissibility-making feature of already having children to take care of. Similarly, I want to give further textual support for her view on judging women who decide to abort who do not have the same “permissibility-making features” present.

As to the permissibility-making feature, Hursthouse writes repeatedly, but just to mention one passage:

Consider, for instance, a woman who has already had several children and fears that to have another will seriously affect her capacity to be a good mother to the ones she has – she does not show a lack of appreciation of the intrinsic value of being a parent by opting for abortion. Nor does a woman who has been a good mother and is approaching the age at which she may be looking forward to being a good grandmother.[9]

Now, because Hursthouse's approach is virtue-based, I take this to read that in the absence of manifesting a flaw in character, such an action would be deemed permissible according to her account. As to judging women with misplaced attitudes, Hursthouse writes:

The virtuous woman (which here of course does not mean simply “chaste woman” but “woman with the virtues” has such character traits as strength, independence, resoluteness, decisiveness, self-confidence, responsibility, serious-mindedness, and self-determination – and one, I think, could deny that many women become pregnant in circumstances in which they cannot welcome or cannot face the thought of having this child precisely because they lack one or some of these character traits.[10]

I will argue that what Hursthouse says in these quotations leads to problematic results. In particulr, her account leads to judging certain actually morally permissible actions wrong, as well as certain morally wrong actions morally permissible. Now here are the cases to build my position on Hursthouse’s VIRTUE approach:

The Adelle Case: Adelle, a 36 year old woman, works as an ethics consultant for a hospital. She does various things in her role as a consultant – e.g., from reviewing cases at the hospital, to doing original research, and teaching courses to undergraduate philosophy majors and nursing majors, as well as providing seminars for medical students and physicians alike. (Adelle’s qualifications are a B.S.N. and a Ph.D., and she is an R.N.) Adelle has been in a long-term relationship with her partner for six years. She knows, relative to her own family history, that she will become infertile within a few years, and the window for having a biological child is closing. Her partner knows this. Additionally, Adelle, with the support of her partner, does not want children. She’s never wanted children, and she currently doesn’t want to have children, ever. Adelle is two months pregnant. Adelle and her partner had unprotected sex, not for the purpose of getting pregnant, but because for both of them it’s more fun that way. Adelle also believes that two month old fetuses do not have moral standing. Adelle has an abortion at two months.

The Adelle’s Seven Month Old Fetus Variant Case: All details are the same as the Adelle Case, except that Adelle is seven months pregnant. Adelle believes that seven month old fetuses do not have moral standing. Adelle has an abortion at seven months.

The Beth Case: Beth, just as Adelle, is an ethics consultant and is a 36 year old woman. All of the details concerning Beth’s job and qualifications are the same as Adelle’s. Beth is also in a relationship of six years. Beth, along with her partner, also knows that she will become infertile in a few years. Beth already has two children. Beth is two months pregnant, and became pregnant as a result of her failing to stick with her birth control regime and the fact that her partner did not use a condom the time they conceived; she usually is rather good with her birth control, and he usually uses a condom. Beth believes that two month old fetuses have moral standing, and that they are persons. But Beth also doesn’t want to interrupt her career, and realizes that this will require paying less attention to her two very young children. Although Beth believes that two month old fetuses are persons, she has an abortion at two months.

The Beth’s Seven Month Old Fetus Variant Case: All details are the same as the Beth Case, except that Beth is seven months pregnant. Beth believes that seven month old fetuses have moral standing, and that they are persons. But Beth just now comes to the decision that because she doesn’t want to interrupt her career, and more importantly doesn’t want to give less attention to her two very young children, she will abort. Although Beth believes seventh month old fetuses are persons, she has an abortion at seven months.

According to the view that I endorse concerning the moral standing of fetuses, I judge that the actions of Adelle and Beth are morally wrong, all other things equal, in the seven month old fetus cases. I happen to endorse the view that it is sentience which grants a being moral standing. Given that, all other things equal, seven month old fetuses are sentient, it will be morally impermissible to abort them without strong reasons to outweigh this judgment. The reasons for abortion in both Adelle’s and Beth’s cases are not strong enough to outweigh this judgment, and in particular the fact that the being killed has moral standing. But I want to point out that in Beth’s seven month old variant case, things are much more sinister. Beth believes that what she is aborting has moral standing, and yet she does it anyway. If intentions are morally relevant to the wrongness of an action, then this should count decisively against Beth. In Adelle’s case, she doesn’t believe that what she is aborting has moral standing. As such, her intentions are less under scrutiny. It just so happens, according to the view that I endorse, that her action is still wrong, given that the fetus has moral standing. What should we take from these two cases? Overall, we have Hursthouse supporting a view in which Beth’s actions are morally permissible when, in fact, according to some (including myself) such actions are morally wrong. Furthermore, we seem to have someone whose intentions are morally questionable. The fetus under consideration is being viewed as morally counting and yet we have someone who for some reasons decides to abort it. The woman in my judgment is morally lacking in her own judgment abilities. Yet according to Hursthouse’s view, this woman is morally excused because she has the proper reverence for the situation (whether it be through the BIOLOGICAL FACTS VIEW or the SAFETY VIEW) and there is the permissibility-making feature present of other children she has born. Hursthouse in these cases deems what are impermissible actions permissible.

In the original Beth case we have someone (Beth) who believes she is killing someone with moral standing that does not, in fact (according to my view, as well as the view of others), have moral standing. Has she done something morally wrong? If intentions matter, then perhaps so. I’m inclined to think that she hasn’t. Nevertheless, if we go with the view that the fetus at two months doesn’t have moral standing, then we can say that Adelle has done nothing morally wrong: (i) It is a being with no moral standing, and (ii) Adelle correctly believes that this being does not have moral standing. Yet according to Hursthouse’s view, Adelle would be doing something wrong if she did not have the right response to the seriousness at hand. But there is no seriousness at hand, except for the costliness of the abortion (which is manifested in various ways, of course). Hursthouse in these cases deems permissible actions impermissible.

The VIRTUE approach I believe is problematic with respect to the issue of abortion. I hope that I have illustrated this. Given that it is problematic, and given that virtue theory is to show off its applicability, it is best that such a theory stay away from this issue and any given issue that is appropriately approached according to STANDING. Earlier I stated that Hursthouse’s BIOLOGICAL FACTS VIEW was selective in what it counted as biological facts that were morally relevant to the issue of abortion. It should be no surprise now that one very important set of biological facts has to do with what kind of being the fetus is. The biological facts concerning a two month old fetus do not support the case that the fetus has moral standing, whereas I believe the biological facts concerning a seven month old fetus does support the case that it has moral standing. This, of course, does not mean that the abortion of a seven month old is morally wrong, but just that other considerations have to be present in order for it to be permissible, whereas no such considerations need be present in the case of a two month fetus aborted intentionally by its host (bracketing the concern about what the pregnant woman’s belief is about whether the fetus has moral standing).

3. RIGHTS AND THOMSON’S VIOLINIST

Since my main thesis is that the morality of abortion should be centered around the issue of whether the fetus has moral standing – i.e., we should embrace the STANDING approach – and since I’ve only thus far criticized the VIRTUE approach, I will now criticize the RIGHTS approach, what I take the only other major alternative to the VIRTUE and STANDING approaches. I take the RIGHTS approach to be centered on a defense in the spirit of what Judith Thomson offers in her famous violinist case. Although there have been some very good criticisms and discussions of her article, I will not discuss them here, but instead offer my own criticisms.[11] I want to note, though, that I’m not particularly happy that I’m criticizing her work, for a couple of reasons. First, her approach was ingenious, and I think that it has done well to expose some very important points about how moral rights are not quite what we initially take them to be. Second, I’m more than inclined to agree with one way one might construe her conclusions she makes concerning abortion – that in many cases of pregnancy, abortion is morally permissible. By criticizing her work, it seems that I’m undermining the very important aspects of her work on abortion. My reply to these worries is this. First, nothing I say in these criticisms should take away her important points about moral rights. Second, I believe that by going the way of the STANDING approach, as opposed to the RIGHTS approach, we can still achieve the conclusion that in many cases of pregnancy, abortion is morally permissible. (But a better way to put this will be “For many fetuses, it will be morally permissible to abort them.”)

I’ll start my criticism by contrasting Thomson’s original violinist case with an altered violinist case.

Thomson’s Violinist Case: (This is taken word for word from Thomson.) “You wake up in the morning and find yourself back to back in bed with an unconscious violinist. A famous unconscious violinist. He has been found to have a fatal kidney ailment, and the Society of Music Lovers has canvassed all the available medical records and found that you alone have the right blood type to help. They have therefore kidnapped you, and last night the violinists' circulatory system was plugged into yours, so that your kidneys can be used to extract poisons from his blood as well as your own. The director of the hospital now tells you, 'Look, we're sorry the Society of Music Lovers did this to you – we would never have permitted it if we had known. But still, they did it, and the violinist now is plugged into you. To unplug him would be to kill him. But never mind, it's only for nine months. By then he will have recovered from his ailment, and can safely be unplugged from you.”[12]

The Young Child Violinist Case: Everything in this case is the same as Thomson’s violinist case, except that the violinist you are attached to is seven years old.

Here, the contrast is focused on the fact that the violinist is not an adult but instead a child. I suspect that for at least some of those who deem it morally permissible to unplug in Thomson’s original violinist case, it is now no longer permissible to unplug in the altered case, which I’ve called the young child violinist case. The fact that there are those who differ in their judgments between the two cases should count as evidence that the two cases do not parallel each other. Furthermore, in terms of age, the case of a fetus more resembles that of a seven year old child than it does the violinist in Thomson’s case. And so, we have evidence to suggest not only that the two cases do not parallel one another, but also that it is morally impermissible to abort fetuses.

Let me say more about the contrast between Thomson’s violinist case and the young child case. At least for me, whenever I think about the famous violinist, I picture someone, say, over 40 years old, someone who has already lived a life filled with joy and suffering, with navigating both the mundane and the adventurous. The violinist has gotten a shot at life, to put things a bit colloquially. But a seven year old child has not gotten her shot at life. For myself, I believe that the decision to unplug would be much more difficult to do so in the case of the seven year old than with the violinist I picture in Thomson’s case. And what is worrisome here is that this could be taken as evidence that there really is a morally relevant difference between the two cases, such that although it is morally permissible to unplug in Thomson’s case, it is not permissible to unplug in the young child case. Then, given that a fetus (even on the supposition that it has moral standing) is much closer in age to the seven year old, it makes sense to think that it is morally impermissible to abort it.

For those whose intuitions do not differ in the two cases, I present another case.

The Modified Young Child Violinist Case: Everything is the same as the young child violinist case, except that throughout your attachment, you are able to leave the hospital while attached to the child. You are still able to work at your job, and still attend gatherings with friends, but of course have less energy than you would otherwise, and there are of course restrictions on what you can do while at work or with your friends.

In this case we have you being able to continue your life in a way that is less disruptive. As such, you might think that unplugging in this case is impermissible. But also, notice that this case more closely resembles pregnancy than does the previous two cases, as you are allowed much more mobility and continuity with your previously unplugged life. Given the relaxations from the hardships presented in Thomson’s original case, it makes sense that there would be more of those who now believe that it is impermissible to unplug in this case.

The Further Modified Young Child Violinist Case: Everything is the same as the modified young child case, except that instead of being attached for nine months, you need only be attached for nine days.

Although it is the case that in our world, pregnancy lasts nine months, and not nine days, this should still say something about both our moral judgments and morality in reality. We live in a world in which a burden of nine days to save a life is perhaps not that strenuous. As such, we might be inclined to think unplugging in this case is morally impermissible. At the same time, nine months may be way too long. Thus, just so long as the being that we are considering unplugging/aborting is one which counts morally (has moral standing), it seems that the duration (and subsequently quality as well) of the burden needed to sustain their life will be important. If a stuffed animal had moral standing, then although it might be permissible to withdraw support needed for nine months, it would be much harder to justify withdrawing support of it (the stuffed animal) if the support needed was nine days, or less, nine minutes. Now, this is important: I want to suggest that we live in a world in which the support needed is strenuous, but that the timeline for that support does not occur until around six months into the support. Thus, the supposition of aborting at nine minutes or nine days or three months is irrelevant precisely because, in the world we live, fetuses at these times are not beings with moral standing. (But, if they did have such standing, then this would be a problem for justifying abortion.)

The Alternatively Further Modified Young Child Violinist Case: Everything is the same as the modified young child case, except that instead of being the age that you are in thinking of these cases, you are 97 years old.

A further thing I’m worried about has to do with the age we picture ourselves as the person attached to the fetus. I’m afraid that when presented to most college-aged students, or even 40 yr olds, the assumption that they grant to themselves is that the unplugged person is also college-aged or even 40 years old. This is a good thing for Thomson’s example, for a few reasons. Here is just one: Most women who are pregnant, given the world we live in, are younger than 40 yrs old. As such, the analogy will go through in terms of the age of most pregnant women. But we can still suppose that you are a 97 year-old who has lived a full life. In this case, it seems minimally cold-hearted for such a well-lived person to not sacrifice a portion of your own for the benefit of someone who has barely started their own. Now, what does this show in relation to Thomson’s original violinist case? Although we live in a world in which the 97 year old case does not occur, it does show that age is relevant in a way not before predicted. More specifically, it should cast doubt on Thomson’s original case. If the basis for judging that it is permissible to unplug in that case is that you are in your 20’s and the violinist is in his 40’s and that his life has been lived well and your life needs to get going, then this will do very little to support the case of a 40 yr old woman wanting to abort a two month old fetus.

The big point that I’ve tried to make with these examples is that even with pregnancy being burdensome for pregnant women, just so long as we grant moral standing (or personhood) to the fetus, it will be much more difficult to justify abortion than as originally thought via Thomson’s violinist case. This is because aborting a fetus is more like the modified cases I presented than the Thomson case. And note that this is true even in the case of pregnancy due to rape.[13] In the young child case, it is still true that you were kidnapped, but this time by admirers of the seven year old child.

Now what I say here with respect to abortion in the case of pregnancy due to rape is highly controversial. But let me be clear that I’m not claiming that it is impermissible to abort in these cases. Instead, I’m saying that it will be very difficult to justify abortion in these cases if the fetus has moral standing, given the similarities such cases share with the young child case and its variants, and its dissimilarity to Thomson’s violinist case. There are two differences, though, between the young child case and cases of pregnancy due to rape. The first difference is striking and must be acknowledged. It is that rape is a clear case of extreme violence done to a person, whereas the kind of kidnapping (although morally wrong) in the young child case is not quite clearly violent. (We can imagine that you are unconsciously taken from your home with great care.) Given the difference and given that the act of rape is so violent, it perhaps makes sense to say that the pregnant woman can then kill the fetus. But if such violent acts caused a “seven year old” to come “spontaneously” into existence (with a stock of seven years of memories, a set of abilities that most seven year olds possess, and a bundle of aspirations, desires, and dreams), then it seems much more difficult justify the killing of this “seven year old” child. Similarly, if a fetus had moral standing in the way that a seven year old does, then it would be much difficult to justify aborting it even in the case of it existing due to an act of rape. But thankfully we don’t live in a world like this, where “seven year olds” spontaneously come into existence. And this now relates to the second, but less striking, difference between the young child case and cases of pregnancy due to rape. In the case of the young child, you are unplugging, and killing, a being with moral standing, whereas in the cases of pregnancy due to rape, you are aborting, and killing, a being which does not have moral standing, at least fetuses who have not yet achieved sentience. And so, all other things equal, you are doing nothing morally wrong by aborting such beings.

This last claim concerning the moral standing of (most) fetuses needs defense. But it has found defense in the works of others.[14] The point of my paper is not to defend this claim, but instead to show that it is problematic to go with either the VIRTUE approach or the RIGHTS approach. By going with the RIGHTS approach, one risks making claims that allow for the possibility that it is morally wrong to abort even in cases of rape. By going with the STANDING approach, one can then argue that because most fetuses do not have moral standing (and are certainly not persons), it is morally permissible to abort them not just in cases of rape but in many, many cases. In fact, given that the fetus does not have moral standing, it now shifts the debate to having to justify bringing fetuses “to term”, or at least to the point of having sentience. This I believe would mean that in many cases of rape, the only reasons present with respect to whether or not to abort would be ones for aborting. And this, I believe, is the way it should be.

4. MORAL STANDING AND CONCLUDING REMARKS

I hope at this point have shown that both the VIRTUE and RIGHTS approaches are problematic enough that what needs to be done with the issue of abortion is a return to the STANDING approach. I’ve done this by criticizing prominent proponents of each approach. Of course someone else out there could do better what each proponent has done with each approach. But I’m more than skeptical. With each approach, such a person would have to bypass my worries concerning the fact that once we grant that a being has moral standing, there are very strong constraints on what we can do to it. Also, just so long as a being doesn’t have moral standing, it seems very judgmental without basis to deem that such actions are morally wrong.

My idea concerning determining whether some action or practice is morally permissible starts with first determining whether the being affected by the action or practice has moral standing. Rocks and plants do not have moral standing. We can, of course, do very wrong things in how we use them. But the wrongness of such actions is not due to the fact that they count. I believe that similarly fetuses without sentience cannot be morally wronged; they do not have moral standing. I can be wrong about this. But this is exactly the point that I’m making. The debate concerning issues of abortion should be centered around fetuses have moral standing. (Some do, and some do not in my view.) Let’s get away from the VIRTUE approach, and let’s get back to where we were without Thomson's RIGHTS approach, and let’s get back to the issue of whether or not any given fetus has moral standing. Doing otherwise lends ourselves to misplaced attitudes concerning actions and practices we do not understand.[15]

REFERENCES

David Boonin-Vail, 'Death Comes for the Violinist: On Two Objections to Thomson's “A Defense of Abortion”', Social Theory and Practice 23 (1997), pp. 329-364.

Michael Davis, 'Foetesus, Famous Violinists, and the Right to Continued Aid', The Philosophical Quarterly vol. 33, no. 132.

Rosalind Hursthouse, 'Virtue Theory and Abortion', Philosophy & Public Affairs (1991), pp. 223-246.

Duncan Richter, 'Is Abortion Vicious?', The Journal of Value Inquiry 32 (1998), pp. 381-392.

Peter Singer, Animal Liberation, (Ecco Press, 2001).

Judith Jarvis Thomson, 'A Defense of Abortion', Philosophy & Public Affairs 1 (1971), pp. 47-66.

Mary Anne Warren, 'On the Moral and Legal Status of Abortion', The Monist (1973).

Eric Wiland, 'Unconscious Violinists and the Use of Analogies in Moral Argument', Journal of Medical Ethics 26 (2000), pp. 466-468.

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[1] See Judith Jarvis Thomson. “A Defense of Abortion.”

[2] See for just one example Michael Davis' “Foetuses, Famous Violinists, and the Right to Continued Aid.”

[3] See Rosalind Hursthouse's “Virtue Theory and Abortion.”

[4] Mary Anne Warren also argues for centering the debate around whether or not the fetus has moral standing. She furthemore argues that most fetuses do not have moral standing. See Mary Anne Warren's “On the Moral and Legal Status of Abortion.”

[5] For more discussion of virtue ethics and abortion, see Duncan Richter's “Is Abortion Vicious?”

[6] Hursthouse, pp. 237-238.

[7] Hursthouse, p. 235.

[8] Hursthouse, p. 237.

[9] Hursthouse, p. 241.

[10] Hursthouse, p. 243.

[11] Once again, see Davis' “Foetuses, Famous Violinists, and the Right to Continued Aid.” There have been others who have critically helped or discussed Thomson's approach. For example, see David Boonin-Vail's “Death Comes for the Violinist: On Two Objections to Thomson's 'Defense of Abortion'; Eric Weiland's “Unconscious violinists and the use of analogies in moral argument.”

[12] Thomson, pp. 48-49.

[13] For different reasons and with a much more elaborate argument, Michael Davis argues for this in his “Foeteses, Famous Violinists, and the Right to Continued Aid.”

[14] For just one convincing example, see Peter Singer's defense in his Animal Liberation.

[15] I would like to thank Brian Kierland in agreeing to mentor my study of the issues concerning abortion, as well as for many fruitful discussions. I would also like to thank Kelly Sample for reading a draft of this paper, offering both stylistic and substantive comments. Finally, I would like to thank participants of the Iowa Philosophical Society 2011 Annual Conference for excellent feedback concerning section 3 of this paper.

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