Conceptual and Ethical Issues in Abortion Rachel Warren, 11th April 2015 WSAL Diploma in the Ethics and Philosophy of Healthcare. [email protected]

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Session Aims:  Personhood and moral status  The ethical significance of moral ontology (who and what we are) to ethics.

 To consider abortion and neonatal death.

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Specific Issues:

 When does life begin to matter morally?  Moral status, potential, and identity.  Circumstances and reasons for abortion.

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Introduction:  Moral issues surrounding termination of pregnancy.  Polarised debate between “pro-choice” and “pro-life” views: a woman’s autonomy, bodily integrity, and right to choose vs. foetal right to life.

 Please discuss the issues respectfully despite their emotional power.

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Two Key Questions:  Personhood and moral status: 1. Is personhood morally relevant?  Is an embryo/foetus a person?  When and how do entities acquire personhood? 2. If a human embryo is a person, under what circumstances it it morally permissible to kill it?

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A Distinction: Two Separate Questions:  When does human life begin?

 What is the scope of moral status?

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Life/ Species: Human?

Significance of viability and birth?

Moral Status

Person?

Sentience?

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Questions:  What is a person?  When/how/why is personhood acquired?  What characteristics are required for personhood?  Who is included/excluded by this concept?  Once acquired, can personhood be lost?

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4 Views of Moral Status: 1. Identity as a human organism. 2. Potential to be a person. 3. Identity as a person. 4. Conferred moral status.

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Personhood Human Persons

Human Non Persons

Non Human Persons

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Questions: Moral status, personhood and the morality of killing  What characteristics are relevant to moral status?  Is personhood the best criterion for moral status?  Is killing ever morally permissible? When?  Is killing human beings or persons generally wrong? Which? Why?

 Why is a person morally significant? What makes it wrong to kill a(n innocent) person?

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Application to Abortion • Can you think of any circumstances where abortion is clearly justifiable? Why, what are the reasons for this?

• Can you think of any circumstances where a woman should be denied or be prevented from obtaining an abortion?

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The moral status of abortion in different circumstances:       

The pregnancy is the result of rape The pregnant person is a child The pregnancy would affect a woman’s career The pregnancy would prevent a planned holiday The pregnant woman would be a single mother The pregnant woman would be very poor

The pregnant woman has a severe mental or physical illness

Can you think of any others? Is abortion justified in these circumstances? Are these circumstances relevant to the morality of an abortion? Which? Why?

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Perspectives on abortion. •“Pro- life”: sanctity of life, foetal right to life. •“Pro-choice”: woman’s right to choose, bodily integrity. •Gradualist: moral status of foetus as matter of degree: some/most/all abortions permissible. Distinguish between early and late abortions.

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Abortion Arguments  Sanctity of life and DDE  The foetus is not a person  Harm (self-defence)  Utilitarian  Potential (see Harris VoL)  Women’s Rights (JJT)

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The Implications of Potential  Active and Passive Potential

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Judith Jarvis Thomson

Key Ideas: Abortion permissible – why? •Why is it wrong to kill a person? •Rights •Obligations, duty •Good Samaritan •Justice •Responsibility •Moral decency •Are the analogies in this argument useful or convincing? •Is pregnancy qualitatively different? Why?

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Grounds for Abortion Virtue Ethics - Hursthouse on abortion and the ski-holiday.

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Questions for cases:  What is the extent of a woman’s reproductive autonomy?

 At what stage of gestation, if at all, does the moral status of the foetus limit a woman’s right to choose?

 When, if ever, is it ever morally justified to withdraw or withhold medical treatment from a neonate?

 Is the deliberate ending of the life of a severely disabled baby morally acceptable?

 How should these patients be treated? What is their moral status? What rights and other ethical concepts are at stake?

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 Dr Shann’s Dilemma

Two Babies. What should the doctors do?

Two babies were born in the same hospital ward on the same day. One of them had anencephaly, the other a heart defect, and needed an urgent transplant. They were compatible. The parents of the first child wanted their baby’s organs to be donated so that their child had a purpose in its short life and did not die in vain. The ethics committee was consulted about whether the transplant could go ahead.

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Other Implications for Medical Ethics:  Contraception and Abortion: on demand before foetal sentience?  Beliefs, values and conscientious objection to abortion.  Treatment of neonates: replaceable? Infanticide?

 Difference between personhood and moral status compared to the standard for capacity to consent to treatment.

 Mother-Foetal Conflict: ‘forced’ caesareans and ‘post-mortem’ pregnancy in brain-dead women

 PVS  Definition of death and treatment of dead.

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Summary: Key Concepts.  The Scope of Moral Status  What Makes a Person? Human ≠ person.  Implications for morality of killing and abortion.  Identity  Potentiality  Sanctity of life  Women’s rights

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Further Reading:

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Thank you. [email protected]

N.B. 1.30 pm for History of Medicine Session: Philosophy of Medicine in the Third Reich.

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