Category Archives: Ethics / Morality

Planned Parenthood: An Unmentioned Ethical Issue

Posted on by
Reply

In the wake of the Center for Medical Progress’s first two sting videos against Planned Parenthood, pro-lifers have focused mostly on the barbarism of crushing and crunching, and on the fact that the very utility of fetal liver, hearts, lungs and heads for medical research proves the humanity of the unborn. Ross Douthat, for example, wrote in the New York Times: It’s a very specific disgust . . . a fetus’s humanity . . .

Though those points are well-taken, it seems that many of the public are inured to barbarism; and even pro-choicers who are willing to grant the humanity of the unborn offer some justifications for a right to dispatch those humans beings that, if not quite convincing, are fairly strong. And if the baby is going to die anyway, the argument goes, why not harvest from it anything useful.

But “if the baby is going to die anyway” is where the argument for a market in the body parts of those aborted babies (genteelly referred to as “fetal tissue”) hits an ethical snag, unless one considers abortion to be 100% innocuous. Because if it is permissible to market any valuable commdodity, the production of that commodity will be incentivized. Abortion will be incentivized for anyone who wants the commodity and anyone in a position to share in the profits from the sale to the person who wants the commodity. Those in a position to share in the profits from the sale might include the pregnant woman herself, her boyfriend, her abortionist, various middlemen, and even, for instance, suppliers of operating tables and sopher clamps to the abortionist.

As the most glaring example, a woman might go into business getting pregnant purely for the sake of aborting and selling the body parts. Yet if abortion is 100% innocuous, there should be no objection to such farming entrepeneurship.

Even many who believe that a woman should have a legal choice to abort consider abortion to be in some way undesirable, hence the laws that prohibit profiting from the sale of fetal tissue, and the strong support those laws have historically had. And in the wake of the videos, pro-lifers have of course not failed to reiterate such considerations. [Edit: In a 2016 Washington Post article, David Daleiden himself was quoted as saying, “The big problem, when we talk about the harvesting and sale of fetal tissue from abortion, is you’re creating a market. You’re introducing this extra new level of demand for abortion.”]

Unmentioned Issue

However, there is also a dimension of this ethical issue that I have not yet seen mentioned. For anyone who wants the commodity and anyone in a position to share in the profits from the sale, not only will individual abortions be incentivized, but abortion rights will also be incentivized. Many Americans already support abortion rights, but not many support late-term abortions. Yet the more gestated an unborn baby is, the more valuable its parts. Suppose that StemExpress is allowed to profit, and suppose they are receiving parts orders that they can’t fill. They will feel that as a loss and will have an incentive that there be more abortions, and will be more incentivized to lobby against abortion restrictions, especially restrictions on late-term abortions, which are solid gold to them. Tissue researchers as well will have an incentive that there be more abortions and will be more incentivized to lobby against late-term abortion restrictions. Abundant abortions will ensure that good-quality brains are always available at a cheap price.

If profit is permitted, I don’t see how any amount of regulation will successfully eliminate all the incentivizing of abortion and of abortion-rights lobbying. Even many pro-choicers admit that a moral issue exists, and would not want our laws on abortion to be determined by money.

And if trafficking is permitted even without profit, as under the present legal regime, there will be a black market. Even if trafficking is prohibited, there will be a black market, but the black market, and the consequent incentivizing, could at least be minimized by banning the trafficking.

So it would be misleading to say, “The fetus is dead anyway.” It is dead at that point, yes, but some of them would not have been killed in the first place.

P.S.: To try for a broader perspective, though, perhaps no one said it better than a fooball player, Ben Watson of the New Orleans Saints:

As horrific as it is, the issue isn’t really the sale of human parts. It’s the legal practice that allows this to even be a possibility. Killing children and simply discarding the leftovers is not any more acceptable than profiting off of them.

Aug. 13, 2015 update: Now the Center for Medical Progress has released its sixth video, featuring, like an earlier video, Holly O’Donnell, a former employee of StemExpress, one of the middlemen companies, or “biomedical tissue procurement companies,” who receive body parts from Planned Parenthood and sell them to researchers. In this video, O’Donnell says that some of PP’s patients at heart do not want to go through with the abortion. O’Donnell says that she would not pressure women to get abortions, and that if they did proceed, she would not pressure them to consent to the use of the child’s body parts if they were reluctant. But she says her StemExpress supervisors were unhappy with her about such lack of drive. She recalls that one time when she let a woman decide against abortion, a supervisor told her, “That was an opportunity you just missed.” O’Donnell continues, at 8:35,

Like, I’m not going to tell a girl to kill her baby so that I can get money. And that’s what this company does. Straight up, that’s what this company does.

Aug. 18, 2015 update: Another mechanism by which the incentivization of abortion can take its eventual toll: a woman named Nancy Tanner has come forward with this account of a mechanism that actually came into play and caused her to have an abortion she would not otherwise have had —

Lawmakers recognized that the option to consent for fetal tissue donation was something that should only be offered AFTER the woman had already consented to have the abortion. They recognized that to tell a woman that is still “on the fence” about having an abortion that she would be doing something good for the advancement of medicine by donating her fetal tissue, is akin to providing her with a moral incentive to terminate her pregnancy.

Nancy claims she was given that incentive.

Women with unwanted pregnancies looking for a moral excuse to abort will have their excuse.

© 2015

 

You may leave a reply, if you wish, without giving your name or email address. If you do give your email address, it will not be published. Back up your work as you type, in case of accidents.

Some future posts:

Life Panels

Evolution, and the Humanizing and Uplifting Effect on Society of a Commitment to the Unborn

A Trade-Off of a Sensitive Nature

Unborn Child-Protection Legislation, the Moral Health of Society, and the Role of the American Democratic Party

The Motivations of Aborting Parents

Why Remorse Comes too Late

The Kitchen-Ingredients Week-After Pill

Unwanted Babies and Overpopulation

The Woman as Slave?

Abortion and the Map of the World

Abortion as Problem-Solving through Might Makes Right

Posted on by
2

 

Secular Pro-Life has published an article of mine under their paid blogging program.

 

You may leave a reply, if you wish, without giving your name or email address. If you do give your email address, it will not be published. Back up your work as you type, in case of accidents.

Some future posts:

Life Panels

Evolution, and the Humanizing and Uplifting Effect on Society of a Commitment to the Unborn

A Trade-Off of a Sensitive Nature

Unborn Child-Protection Legislation, the Moral Health of Society, and the Role of the American Democratic Party

The Motivations of Aborting Parents

Why Remorse Comes Too Late

The Kitchen-Ingredients Week-After Pill

Unwanted Babies and Overpopulation

The Woman as Slave?

Abortion and the Map of the World

Moral Intuition, Logic, and the Abortion Debate

Posted on by
24

 

Courtesy of Life Matters Journal. This essay was published, with illustrations, in Volume 4 Issue 1 — June 2015.

 

I would like to thank Jake Earl, who created the “John” thought experiment. The probing questions of various people, but most definitively of Earl, helped me to better think things through.

 

Moral principles must be based on pre-logical moral intuitions and laws should be based on those moral principles. (Of course to say that “laws should be based on those moral principles” is not to say that every moral principle should automatically be enacted into a law.)

Though everyone I have talked to agrees that moral principles must be based on pre-logical moral intuitions, I have heard an intelligent person or two contend that the correctness of such moral intuitions can still be logically proved or disproved (by which I mean, proved by a process of discursive argumentation, if not by formal academic logic) — as if moral inquiries were a hard science like math. More importantly, many people who would not explicitly make this contention nevertheless present their arguments about moral issues as if this were the case. So while some philosopher probably demonstrated centuries ago the impossibility of logically proving the correctness of moral intuitions, the relationship of logic and intuition still deserves to be examined. And I think the insights gained in the process of examining it can lead us toward methods of self-exploration and of discourse that will help reveal moral truths, including moral truths about abortion.

First of all, for moral principles to be based on moral intuitions really means that moral principles are the verbalized form of moral intuitions. Therefore correct moral principles will follow from correct moral intuitions. And if the correctness of a moral intuition could be logically proved, then it would be possible to construct a correct moral principle through logic alone, with no recourse to intuition — since the process of constructing would be the same as the process of proving.

To say that it would be possible to construct a correct moral principle through logic alone, but at the same time to agree that moral intuitions (of which moral principles are the verbalized forms) are pre-logical — as everyone seems to agree — would be contradictory. Nevertheless, as mentioned, some people do present their arguments about moral issues as if the correctness of a moral intuition could be logically proved (that is, as if it would be possible to construct a correct moral principle through logic alone). So let’s continue to address that contention.

“The correctness of a moral intuition can be logically proved” and “a correct moral principle can be constructed through logic alone” seem to me like two different formulations of the same thing. But in case there’s any doubt, as I continue I’ll address the one I’ve actually heard, the former.

Is there such a thing as a correct moral intuition, and if so, can its correctness be logically proved or disproved? Though I am arguing no to the second question, I will argue yes to the first.

Moral Intuitions and Moral Principles

As an example of a moral principle — a generalized moral principle, but basically a sound one, I feel — let’s use “Thou shalt not kill.” I would say that that principle did not come from God, but rather is based on a pre-logical and pre-verbal human revulsion at most killing of the innocent. A pre-logical and pre-verbal sense of right or wrong is how I would define a moral intuition. Psychology professor Paul Bloom, author of the recent book Just Babies: The Origins of Good and Evil, said in an interview that while some moral ideals “are the product of culture and society” and “not in the genes,” “there also exist hardwired moral universals – moral principles that we all possess. And even those aspects of morality . . . that vary across cultures are ultimately grounded in these moral foundations.” Even if Bloom overestimates the role of the genes in the “hardwired” moral senses, and underestimates the role of culture in those moral senses, and overestimates how universal those moral senses are across cultures, it would be safe to say that most of us do have senses of right or wrong that come out of our unconscious in ways we cannot understand. I am calling those senses moral intuitions. (For alternatives to the term “moral intuition,” and for an explanation of “pre-logical” and “pre-verbal,” see Appendix A.)
Continue reading →

Dismantling the Bodily-Rights Argument without Using the Responsibility Argument

Posted on by
41

 

Clinton Wilcox of Life Training Institute was kind enough to read the semi-final draft of this post and provide a brief but insightful critique. This does not mean that he necessarily endorses any of the final contents. However, I wish to take this opportunity to thank him.

 

The strongest argument for abortion rights is usually considered to be the bodily-rights argument. Perhaps the most effective variation of it that I have seen appeared in a (negative) comment under Kristine Kruszelnicki’s March 11, 2014 guest post on the Friendly Atheist blog:

They [both mother and unborn child] are entitled to their own bodily rights. So exactly how does a fetus have the right to co-opt another person’s body without consent?

Let’s say for example medical science has progressed to the point of being able to transplant a fetus into another human being. In an accident a pregnant woman is injured to the point of immanent [sic] death, does that fetus have the *right* to be implanted into the next viable candidate without consent?

The commenter was arguing, in other words, “A woman who is a candidate to be made pregnant in that futuristic way would have a right to refuse to let her body be so used – everyone would agree. Therefore, why should a woman who has become pregnant in a more usual way not also have a right to refuse to continue the pregnancy?”

In the context of the abortion debate (and, significantly, in hardly any other context), the term “bodily rights” comes up often. Synonyms still more commonly used are “bodily integrity” and “bodily autonomy,” but I will say “rights” because it is rights that have practical consequences. If anything can help determine the practical outcome “Woman goes through with abortion,” it is a right, not an abstract “integrity” or “autonomy.”

The above fetus-implantation version or any version of the bodily-rights argument could be rebutted by pointing out that most pregnant women voluntarily engaged in a sex act that caused the pregnancy in the first place, and therefore have a responsibility for the child (the “responsibility argument”); but this rebuttal does not work in cases of rape, and is not convincing to some people in any situation – for reasons which I need not discuss here but will refer to in an appendix. Thus the argument remains logically strong. But is it logic alone that makes an argument strong or weak? I would like to approach this from the perspective that an argument is an instrument for changing some of another person’s brain circuitry, and the ideas that correlate with that circuitry, to resemble part of one’s own circuitry and ideas, and that some value-related circuitry and ideas are better for us as individuals and as a species than others. I will contend that though logical demonstrations (such as the above thought experiment) and their rebuttals have an important place in the debate about bodily rights, there is no clear logical resolution to the debate one way or the other; that in seemingly logical demonstrations there are psychological factors at play apart from factors which are purely logical, and that those factors sway us from our normal intuitions; and that those factors can be neutralized by understanding them and by other techniques.

I would like to see people question where their convictions come from, because I think that the more they examine where they come from, the more they will move toward better convictions.

I would like to proceed according to the following outline:

1. Morality and moral principles, including our moral principles about when morality should be backed by legislation and when it should not, derive ultimately from intuition.

2. The intuitions of many people, particularly of most pro-lifers, say that the unborn children of pregnant women should be legally protected against abortion in some (not all) situations.

3. The intuitions of most pro-choicers differ from ours in the first place and say that the unborn children of pregnant women should not be afforded any legal protection.

4. There are some people who are, in terms of moral intuitions, “on the fence,” undecided.

5. Some people’s moral intuitions are better than those of others; in this particular area of moral investigation, the intuitions of pro-lifers are better. (Keep reading!)

I think that just as “there is no clear logical resolution to the (overall) debate one way or the other,” the correctness or incorrectness of any moral intuition cannot be logically proved, but that logic can nudge us toward correct moral intuitions, that is, help us find the correct moral intuitions within us. Under this point 5 below I will include a long section analyzing logically the concept of bodily rights. It is designed to nudge us toward more correct moral intuitions about the importance of bodily rights.

6. Though the intuitions of most pro-lifers say that unborn children should in many cases be legally protected against abortion, the intuitions of many pro-lifers also agree with pro-choicers (as do the intuitions of many undecideds) that a woman who is not pregnant (as in the above thought experiment) should not be legally subject to the forcible implantation in her of a child she did not conceive, even to save the child’s life. (And our intuitions also usually say that a violinist to whom we are hooked up should not be given legal protection from unhooking; and our intuitions also agree with various other pro-choice thought experiments designed to reject, in certain situations, legislative enforcement of a broad right to life.)

7. Human logical powers are limited, and therefore a particular situation, situation A, may seem parallel to another situation, situation B, in all the important morally-relevant ways that the human mind can think of, without the two situations necessarily being morally equivalent.

8a. The situation depicted by a thought experiment always includes some imagery of greater or lesser vividness, and some emotional content. If to our logical minds (momentarily or over a longer term) some outrageous situation, A, depicted by a pro-choice thought experiment, does seem parallel to situation B – a legal prohibition on abortion in a normal pregnancy – then the imagery and emotions of situation A get temporarily transferred to situation B. Let’s call this a process of “outrage transfer.” (Below I will touch on the search for an understanding of how events such as outrage transfer might actually work neurologically.)

b. Moreover, if we are subject to an over-fascination with logic, which many people are, then our consciences/intuitions will work with wrong information (the belief that logic can completely prove or disprove the moral equivalence of two situations) and may tell us that if there seem to be strong parallels between the situation of a pro-choice thought experiment that militates against legal protection of some living being, and the situation of pregnancy, then we should discard legal protection of the unborn in pregnancy – in spite of our earlier intuition supporting such legal protection.

8a and 8b are what I had earlier called “psychological factors at play apart from factors which are purely logical.” I had said that those psychological factors “sway us from our normal intuitions” and I had gone on to say, “those factors can be neutralized by understanding them and by other techniques.”

9a. The effects of outrage transfer will fade over time. Moreover, the outrage transfer of a pro-choice thought experiment can be offset or more than offset by pro-life thought experiments such as those involving the separation of conjoined twins, or the “Cabin in the Blizzard” thought experiment of Stephen Wagner et. al. (It can be “more than offset” if only because our minds are impressionable and are always most strongly affected by the imagery and emotional triggers that stimulated them most recently.)

b. Though human logical powers are not sufficient to tell us conclusively about the moral equivalence or otherwise of two situations (as mentioned in 7 above), they are sufficient to convince us of said insufficiency, and thereby to free us from an over-fascination with logic and restore our original trust in our intuition that the unborn deserve legal protection.

 

Someone will say that I am discarding logic and that moreover I am saying that a pro-life position can only be defended by discarding logic. But that is not what I am doing. We should always apply logic to the fullest extent possible, and there are good logical rebuttals to the forcible-implantation and other pro-choice thought experiments, and I will discuss them in brief; but we should not think that logic, even on a base of intuition, can give us final answers to all moral questions, specifically the question of whether a right to life overrides bodily rights in the case of pregnancy.

Continue reading →