Luis Duran

Talking about abortion Cornelio

Why don´t we have a clear and strong answer about most of the moral

issues that are considered important in our XXI century? Why after centuries

of discussing about moral values, philosophy, and religion does it seem to us

that the answers that we have been looking for are not even close? Without

a doubt we could say with Wittgenstein “that even when all possible

scientific questions have been answered the problems of life remain

completely untouched” Wittgenstein (1991). So, if we won´t have an answer

which satisfies everybody or which will not answer with certainty our

questions, why should we have to think or even more, try to analyze the

answer of someone else abouta moral and controversial issue like abortion?

In the next few lines I summarize, in the first place, J. Thomsom´s

Essay; A defense of Abortion, her thesis, arguments, and some of her

examples. I will then argue why Thomsom´s thesis seems to me deeper and

stronger than the other three essays that we have read in class on abortion.

Although I almost entirely agree with Thomsom´s argument, in my

conclusion, I will try to argue that an opinion about abortion shouldn´t be just

an ethical, religious, political or scientific discussion but a dialogue between

different perspectives, too.

Thomsom´s essay begins with the conservative premise that the fetus

is a full moral person with a right to live from conception. After that premise,

that she doesn´t believe, Thomsom says that sometimes some pro-life
groups accept that an abortion could be allowed only in extreme cases, such

as, when a woman becomes pregnant after a sexual assault. In a sarcastic

tone Thomsom says; “If they (the fetuses) didn´t come into existence

because of rape; [do] they have more of a right to live?” Certainly, this is a

weird contradiction. After this point Thomsom with lead with one point of

view about abortion: the extreme view; “Abortion is impermissible even to

save the mother´s life.” As an ironic commentary the author informs us that

whether the mother and child should have an equal right to live, we should

perhaps flip a coin to decide who can live or not, but certainly she does not

agree with that. This is only a strategy to show us her point of view.

Moreover, and continuing with the discussion about the “extreme view” the

author takes the four principal arguments that support that point of view: (1)

the fetus is an innocent person, (2) to kill an innocent person is murder and

murder is impermissible, (3) killing an innocent person is more stringent than

one´s duty to keep a person from dying, and (4) between a very innocent

person (the fetus) and a person, we should allow the very innocent to live.

After all these conservative arguments, which from an ethical view, seems to

look strong and not easy to destroy, Thomsom will say that all of the

arguments are false for three reasons: (1) if the mother has to die the

“innocent person” can be considered as a murderer, (2) it is not a murder to

take away another life for self defense, and finally (3) we should remember

that the mother’s body is the one who houses the fetus and not the contrary.

“The house belongs to her”: Thomsom says. Therefore, if there is something

that all human beings have, prior to claiming anything, it is their body. About

that last point – our body belongs to us – we should also see that that

affirmation, whether is true or not, has ethical and moral consequences in

other controversial topics. I’m referring to the euthanasia and suicide, but

that´s not our discussion now, let´s continue with Thomsom´s arguments.

We just viewed briefly what Thomsom has to say about the “extreme

view” of abortion, but when the mother´s life is not at risk, what does she

say? The author gave us three imaginary examples to explain her next step,

(1) the violinist plugged into your kidneys without you being asked about it,

(2) The beautiful touching of Mr. Fonda´s cool and warm hand that somebody

needs to stay alive, and (3) the two children with a chocolate box, the

chocolate box belongs to one of the children. Those three examples are just

trying to go to a single and main point. The fact that all human beings have a

right to life does not guarantee having a right which allows you to continue

using another person´s body. The author says more specifically; “The rights

to life consist not in the right not to be killed, but rather in the right not to be

killed unjustly.” In a first look, this phrase seems to be strong and with lack

of compassion, but certainly Thomsom will argue that we are not called by

law to be Good Samaritans which is true. Indeed, the case of Kitty Genovese

is just an example of that.

The last argument of Thomsom’s that I want to bring up is her answer

about whether or not abortion should be ethically allowed when a woman

voluntarily indulges in intercourse, knowing the chances of getting pregnant.

“Doesn´t her partial responsibility for its being there itself gives to the fetus

a right to use of her body?” I first want to inform you, that that issue, when a

woman and a man have sex irresponsibility without thinking about the

consequences, makes me feel that in this case abortion shouldn´t be

performed. Nevertheless, Thomsom has a simple but good answer to this

moral standoff view. She argues that knowledge does not necessarily mean

intention. Moreover, she defends that we don´t have any such “special

responsibility” for a person unless we have assumed it or taken the role.

“Nobody is compelled by law to be a Good Samaritan,” quotes Thomsom.

After this short summary of Thomsom´s essay A defense of abortion,

let´s comment on some points which seem very important to me. First of all,

why did I take Thomsom´s essay instead of the other three articles that I

could have chosen? I didn´t choose Can late Abortion be ethically justified

nor Budhist Approaches to Abortion because their standpoint - although they

were good, especially the first one - approaches abortion from a perspective

that is not easy to understand in Western culture. This Eastern perspective

proclaims that the supremacy of the society is more important than the

existence of the singular person being alone by himself. Because one of my

main purposes for studying Philosophy it helps me approach society and that

society in my case is Western, I focused my attention to the first two articles

written by Marquis and Thomsom.

The reasons I didn´t choose Marquis´essay is because in my opinion

Marquis Essay failed in three areas. (1) Marquis main thesis is that abortion is
immoral because it takes the life of a being that will have a valuable future

(like ours). On one hand we should reflect on the moral consequences of this

idea not only in an abortion perspective but in other moral issues too. Before

seeing those moral issues, let´s focus in one main point of Marquis idea:

What is the meaning of “a valuable future”. In a briefly definition “a valuable

future” means to me that a human being could or will have the possibilities

to use his reason and his physical abilities in his adult life. Human beings in

order to build their own life must take the minimum requirements to be able

to exist by themselves. From Marquis Idea we could justify the death penalty,

euthanasia, the murder of people on unconscious or with mental problems

and so on. We could justify all those crimes because all of those persons that

I mentioned before have something in common, they don´t have, or let´s say

in another words, the society has decided that they don´t have a valuable

future like us. Whether we are coherent with Marquis´ point of view, those

morals consequences are true. On the other hand if we take the argument of

the “value future” to an extreme point of view (2) a sperm and an ovum, also

could have a value future like us. Therefore from that analysis we could

conclude that the use of contraceptives in a sexual relation will be also

inacceptable for morality. This is because we will be killing two cells which

together could have “a value future” like us. Marquis is not taking into

account the spread of sexually transmitted diseases like HIV and others

more. (3) Finally, another weak point of Marquis ´idea is what Thomsom

argued in her essay: “The rights to life consist not in the right not to be
killed, but rather in the right not to be killed unjustly”. Marquis doesn´t

evaluate either this point or the idea that the mother and the fetus don’t

have the same rights because the body belongs to the mother.

Thomsom´s essay seems to me very strong, logical and difficult to

contradict. Indeed, after reading her essay I have to admit that my thoughts

and opinions on abortion have changed radically. Nevertheless, we should

remember that humankind is not just a logical, scientific or structurally

argumentative animal. Let´s remember that we are also called by nature to

have compassion and to be Good Samaritans as well. It is true that we don´t

have to be more person, more human or more Samaritan by law, but if not,

then there wouldn’t be too much difference between the animal kingdom

and humankind because they (animals) do not have any rules which tell

them that they have to be noble by law. That is my only criticism to

Thomsom´s argument, abortion is not only about “justice to live” but

compassion to give life.

A moral answer about abortion won´t be simple, easy and radical as

some groups pro-life and pro-choice think. A response on the abortion issue

should be a dynamic and enrich dialogue between different classes of our

society. With the same force with which we have been listening to the

science in recent centuries, we should also listen to what religion, philosophy

and politic sciences together have to say about our moral controversies.

That, in fact, is the answer to the questions in the beginning of my essay. We

don´t have to be tired trying to figure out the answers for our Moral
Controversies because humankind is still alive when we talk and dialogue

from different perspectives. We are more humans, more persons and less

animals when we have the ability to think and talk at the same time without

hurting others.

In conclusion, I think that, the bad news here is that we don´t have yet

the specific answer on abortion as a moral topic of our society. However, the

good news is that we are closer to the answer because the discussion is kept

flowing and we are more capable to dialogue more on abortion and other

controversial issues than past time periods.

Wittgenstein, Ludwig. Tratactus Logico – Philosophicus, - Dover Publications (1998)

Timothy Shanahan, Robin Wang, Reason and Insight: Western and Eastern Perspectives on
the Pursuit of Moral Wisdom (2nd edition) 1996