If there's a line to be drawn, I'm pretty firmly on the "pro-choice" side of it. On the other hand, I would take issue in a couple of respects.
Firstly, to me the important ethical criteria are sentience and sapience. I don't think there are firm dichotomies to be had, but as things become progressively more sentient I become less and less comfortable with the idea of causing them pain; as they then become more sapient I become less comfortable with the idea of killing them, even if they metaphorically never know what hit them. My vegetarianism and leaning towards the legal recognition of non-human persons stem from these tendencies.
Suppose there is a classic cliff-hanger: a car is balanced on the edge of a cliff with person B on board. Person A is dangling from the front bumper. If A lets go, they plummet to certain death; if A holds on, the car will topple killing both A and B. While there's a strong ethical argument A that should let go, if C is standing nearby with a gun, is it right for them to shoot A? Legally, the answer is a clear "no", and ethically it's pretty troublesome.
So what separates that from aborting a fœtus on the principle that otherwise both the pregnant person and the child they're bearing will die?
My own answer is partly that, OK, maybe C should shoot A after all and partly that the difference is that the fœtus has no sense of self. Or, at least, that's a potential difference: clearly it's a difference at the moment of conception but not normally at the moment of birth. Somewhere in between, the one shades into the other; my level of discomfort with the situation grows gradually rather than flipping suddenly.
It's worth noting, by contrast, that many societies have condoned neonaticide; even birth isn't necessarily a clear-cut dividing line, and I'm a little wary of condemning "primitive tribespeople" out of hand from a Judeo-Christian perspective. If you do take that as the line, how do you view deliberately preventing a baby being born, or failing to enable a birth (for example by withholding a cæsarean?)
Apropos the issue of social support, suppose everyone in the country wanted to have as many babies as they could. Is it your view that society should support them in this, at whatever cost? My own answer is an emphatic no, and we couldn't even if we wanted to. So the only options are either relying on few enough people wanting lots of children or dissuading people. Sure, better contraception and less rape would help, but would they help enough? And what do we do in the meantime?
I think we have to support some people in having children and dissuade some people from having children. Anything else is impractically idealistic. The argument is which people to encourage or discourage — and that is, of course, a huge can of worms. A second, equally large, can of worms is whether we'd prefer to support more immigration or a higher birth rate, because those conflict, as well.
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Date: 2012-11-27 10:01 pm (UTC)Firstly, to me the important ethical criteria are sentience and sapience. I don't think there are firm dichotomies to be had, but as things become progressively more sentient I become less and less comfortable with the idea of causing them pain; as they then become more sapient I become less comfortable with the idea of killing them, even if they metaphorically never know what hit them. My vegetarianism and leaning towards the legal recognition of non-human persons stem from these tendencies.
Suppose there is a classic cliff-hanger: a car is balanced on the edge of a cliff with person B on board. Person A is dangling from the front bumper. If A lets go, they plummet to certain death; if A holds on, the car will topple killing both A and B. While there's a strong ethical argument A that should let go, if C is standing nearby with a gun, is it right for them to shoot A? Legally, the answer is a clear "no", and ethically it's pretty troublesome.
So what separates that from aborting a fœtus on the principle that otherwise both the pregnant person and the child they're bearing will die?
My own answer is partly that, OK, maybe C should shoot A after all and partly that the difference is that the fœtus has no sense of self. Or, at least, that's a potential difference: clearly it's a difference at the moment of conception but not normally at the moment of birth. Somewhere in between, the one shades into the other; my level of discomfort with the situation grows gradually rather than flipping suddenly.
It's worth noting, by contrast, that many societies have condoned neonaticide; even birth isn't necessarily a clear-cut dividing line, and I'm a little wary of condemning "primitive tribespeople" out of hand from a Judeo-Christian perspective. If you do take that as the line, how do you view deliberately preventing a baby being born, or failing to enable a birth (for example by withholding a cæsarean?)
Apropos the issue of social support, suppose everyone in the country wanted to have as many babies as they could. Is it your view that society should support them in this, at whatever cost? My own answer is an emphatic no, and we couldn't even if we wanted to. So the only options are either relying on few enough people wanting lots of children or dissuading people. Sure, better contraception and less rape would help, but would they help enough? And what do we do in the meantime?
I think we have to support some people in having children and dissuade some people from having children. Anything else is impractically idealistic. The argument is which people to encourage or discourage — and that is, of course, a huge can of worms. A second, equally large, can of worms is whether we'd prefer to support more immigration or a higher birth rate, because those conflict, as well.