Belshaw Christopher Abortion Sanctity

Discussion

ABORTION, VALUE AND THESANCTITY OF LIFE

CHRISTOPHER BELSHAW

ABSTRACT In

Life'sDominion

Dworkinarguesthatthedebateaboutabortionishabituallymisconstrued. Substantial areas of agreement are overlooked, while areas of disagreement are, mistakenly, seen as central. If we uncover a truer picture, thenhope of a certain accord may no longer seem vain. I dispute many of these claims.Dworkin argues that both sides in the debate are united in believing that life issacred, or intrinsically valuable. I disagree. I maintain that only in a veryattenuated sense of intrinsic value will this be agreed upon. I consider how anaccount of such value might be further fleshed out, but suggest, if this is done onanyplausiblelines,agreementwillfallaway.Dworkinargues,also,thattheissueof personhood, does not, contrary to widespread belief, keep the parties apart.Again I disagree. We need to distinguish the question of whether there is in fact dispute over this issue from that of whether there is, in truth, good reason for dispute. And I argue that, rightly or wrongly, the issue of personhood remainscentral. Dworkin suggests that the purported proximity between the two sidesoffers some hope of an eventual reconciliation. At least, they will agree to differ,accepting that in this area freedom of choice is paramount. I am sceptical. Eventhis measure of reconciliation depends upon conservatives giving up positionswhich, I argue, they will continue to maintain.There is a further point. Dworkin appears to be, in many ways, cautiouslyoptimistic. I appear, in contrast, to be pessimistic. I argue, however, that only solong as we do disagree over matters of substance is there much hope that our differences might be resolved.

No one can fail to be impressed by the resilience of the abortiondebate. For as long as many of us can remember, this single issue hasdivided conservative and liberal thinkers in, at the very least, most of

Bioethics

ISSN 0269-9702

Volume 11 Number 2 1997

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Blackwell Publishers Ltd. 1997, 108 Cowley Road, Oxford OX4 1JF, UKand 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA.

the English speaking world. The debate has been protracted. But ithas also been extraordinarily fecund, bringing in its wake muchdetailedandvaluablephilosophicalwork,andcastingnewlightupona range of old problems. So far, however, this has left the central issueuntouched

ö

inhospitals,courts,anduniversitiesalikethedisputantsare as much at loggerheads as ever they were, looking upon theiropponents, for the most part, as callous murderers on the one hand,dogmatic and puritanical spoilers of lives on the other.Is there hope? It has been said that there is. For in

Life's Dominion

1

Ronald Dworkin argues that the traditional understanding of thisdebate is seriously wrong-headed. It is thought the protagonistsdisagree about the most fundamental issues. But in fact they agreeabout these issues. They disagree, admittedly, about certain of theirimplications, but disagreement here is less profound. When this isunderstood, the position will appear less hopeless, and a way will beopen for some amelioration of the conflict.This reconciliation project, as I shall call it, is clearly well-intended. And it is ambitious. Dworkin has no narrow or specialisedconcern. Rather he intends nothing less than to refigure the publicface of the debate, so addressing his book to a large, disparate andoften influential readership, including politicians, lawyers, and thosein the medical profession, as well as philosophers themselves.The argument reveals passion. But does it carry conviction? I amunpersuaded. Dworkin argues that the question of whether the fetusis a person, which is so often thought to divide the parties, does notreally do so. Perhaps. But they really are divided, I shall maintain,by some issue at least closely connected with this. He argues that theyare united in a belief that human life is sacred. Perhaps. But only if that claim is interpreted in such a way as to allow little scope forestablishing much genuine agreement. And he argues that someagreement, abortion is a matter for individual conscience, mighteventually be found. Again, perhaps. But only if conservatives can bepersuaded to abandon many of their central beliefs. There are anumber of problems with the major argument of the book. And Iconsider the main ones here. But though much is addressed directlytothatargument,theattendantissuesare,Ibelieve,ofwiderconcern.For, whatever else, Dworkin has brought into sharper focus thebroader ramifications of the debate. That impenetrable notion,intrinsic value, is near its core, and near too are the issues of personhood, interests, and the difficult question of how moraldisagreement is possible. And it is as much in hope of throwing light

1

Ronald Dworkin,

Life's Dominion

, London: Harper Collins, 1993.

DISCUSSION: ABORTIONANDTHE SANCTITYOFLIFE 131

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Blackwell Publishers Ltd. 1997

upon, or at least mapping some of the dark around, those broaderissues, as to the detail of Dworkin's argument, that a great deal of what follows is addressed.

2

SANCTITYThe idea that life is sacred has a long history. But it is not often, incontemporary philosophical circles, well received. Nor is it often, inthose circles, well described.

3

So what do those who hold to thesanctity of life believe? There are various possibilities. Theirs couldbeaview,first,eitheraboutpeople,oraboutalllivingthings.Supposeit is about people alone. It could be about death, or about killing.Supposeitisaboutdeath.Oneviewis,deathisalwaysbad,wherethismeans, it is always worse to die than to live. This, in turn, could meanthat for anyone, it is today technologically possible to put them in astate which is better than death. Some such, I take it, is the view of those opponents of euthanasia who claim that modern drugs canmake any life worth living. Or it could mean, for anyone, whatevertheircurrentstate,thatstate,evenif itcontinues,isbetterthandeath.This is an extreme view, and is very hard to defend. But some believeit. Suppose, instead, that the sanctity of life view is about killing. It ismostoftentakenthisway. Itcouldbe maintainedthatwhetherornotit is worse for a person to die, it is always wrong to kill that person.Such a view has led to resolute pacifism, to principled opposition tocapitalpunishment,andtooutrightrejectionofabortion,euthanasia,andevensuicide. Andsuch aviewisnotuncommon.Supposewe lookfor a more modest interpretation. Could the view be that killing isalways

prima facie

wrong? That it needs always to be justified? At leastwherehumanlife isconcerned,almosteveryonebelievesthis.Becausethe sanctity of life doctrine is, at best, controversial, this cannot be adefensible reading of that doctrine. Viable interpretations will allgenerate dissent.

2

One idiosyncracy of Dworkin's approach needs here to be noted. Often, hemakes claims as to what groups of people actually believe. I express doubts aboutsome of these claims. But often, too, he supports the claim that people believe suchand such, by arguing that such and such is an independently plausible position. Isometimes argue, against this, that such and such is not plausible. These twostrands, the psychological/sociological, and the more standardly philosophical are,in Dworkin's book, very much intertwined. Inevitably, they are to some extentintertwined here. But I am more interested in the plausibility than the popularityof these positions.

3

But for some useful accounts see e.g. Peter Singer,

Practical Ethics

. SecondEdition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993; Jonathan Glover,

CausingDeath and Saving Lives

, Harmondsworth: Penguin 1990; Rosalind Hursthouse,

Beginning Lives

, Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1987.

132 CHRISTOPHER BELSHAW

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Blackwell Publishers Ltd. 1997

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