|
Rationally Speaking.
N. 54, October 2004
Abortion, a philosophical approach
I have often remarked in this column that philosophy
gets an unfair bad wrap on the ground that it
doesn’t solve problems. Indeed, the point
of philosophy is more to clarify concepts, ideas,
and their consequences, then to solve practical
issues. However, it would seem that clarifying
things isn’t much of a goal if in turn it
doesn’t help us make some progress. So, let
us consider one particularly sensitive debate
-- the one about the very idea of abortion --
where philosophy, by claryfying our thoughts,
can help reasonable people come to a compromise
(philosophy can do nothing for unreasonable people,
so if you are among those who scream “murder!”
at the thought of someone masturbating, get a
life, and while you’re at it, make a point
of watching Monty Python’s Meaning of Life).
Much of the debate on abortion hinges upon what
seems to be a scientific question: when does a
fertilized egg become a human being? Of course,
the answer cannot be entirely scientific, since
it depends in part on objective facts about the
biology of human development, and in part on what
we mean by “human being.” Which is where
philosophy comes into play. Does a foetus become
a human being when the heart starts beating? When
there is a recognizable central nervous system?
When it can react to external stimuli? When it
can feel pain? Any of those answers would put
the boundary between unacceptable and acceptable
abortion practices at different times during pregnancy,
but it seems rather arbitrary to pick one of these
developmental milestones and use it as a universal
yardstick for moral decisions. After all, many
other animals have a nervous system, a heartbit,
respond to external stimuli, and can feel pain,
but most of us (vegetarians excluded -- but most
abortion opponents included) don’t seem to
have too many qualms about killing such animals.
No, the crucial point must focus on something
else that characterizes human beings. Plenty of
philosophers, for example Julian Baggini (in his
excellent collection Making Sense: Philosophy
Behind the Headlines) have suggested that the
important facts in the debate on abortion (and
the parallel one on euthanasia) are not found
in the biology of humans, but rather in our (philosophical)
concept of personhood. In other words, some of
us think a foetus should be protected because
it is becoming a person, i.e. an entity that can
eventually feel not just pain, but suffering;
that can have not just the urge to have sex and
reproduce, but may fall in love; a being that
could one day write a sonnet, a song, or a philosophical
essay.
If the problem is actual or potential personhood,
not the developmental biology of our particular
species of primates, then we have moved from biology
to philosophy, a much more tricky terrain to navigate.
Being a person is tightly linked to having the
ability to lay down and recover memories (which
make up our “identity” as a person),
as well as to experience emotions (like love and
suffering) and not just feelings (like sexual
urge and pain). These characteristics are in turn
dependent on being a member of a society, interacting
with others, communicating one’s thoughts
and receiving and understanding information about
other people’s thoughts and emotions. Yes,
all of this is also a matter of biology (after
all, these things are made possible only by the
presence of certain biological essentials, like
a functional body, and especially a complex brain),
but taken together they mean that personhood is
most of all a question of psychology and sociology.
The problem is that there are plenty of circumstances
in which a human being is not, in fact, a person.
Foetuses are not persons, and neither are people
who survive in a vegetative state induced by a
coma. Other cases are more difficult to determine,
but one can make a reasonable argument that very
young children are only on their way to become
persons, while patients affected by advanced stages
of some mental diseases like Alzheimer are well
on their way out of full personhood. So, while
there is very little question that by performing
an abortion we are in fact killing a biological
being that belongs to the human species, it is
an entirely different -- and much more difficult
to defend -- proposition to say that we are killing
a person.
Abortion opponents may shrug all of this philosophical
quibbling as irrelevant on the ground that the
procedure -- at whatever stage it is practiced
-- kills a potential person. But this is a rather
odd argument, with far reaching consequences that
should be seriously considered by whoever proposes
it. For example, the mass of cells in question
will become a person only if many conditions other
than biological development are fulfilled, including
being raised in a proper physical, psychological
and social environment. It is ironic, therefore,
that we spend so much energy debating abortion
while most of us are much less passionate about
more apparently mundane issues such as, say, health
care and education for all those non-aborted foetuses.
Even more radically, if a fertilized egg is a
potential person, so is every single unfertilized
one, and every sperm as well. After all, the egg
or sperm only needs a gamete of the opposite type
to begin the developmental process that will lead
to the generation of another person. I suppose
that is why the most rabid religious fundamentalists
(including the current Pope) are against masturbation
or sex that doesn’t have the goal of reproduction.
But it is hard to see what these people could
do to avoid the natural “waste” of unutilized
human eggs. Should we explant them from every
woman and fertilize them artificially? If your
intuitive answer was “no,” and yet you
are against all types of abortion, you may want
to consider the consistency of your philosophy.
Do I have a better and clearer solution to offer
that can help us settle the abortion debate once
and for all? No, as I acknowledged at the beginning,
that isn’t the point of a philosophical discussion.
Quite the opposite, I hope that people reading
this column will feel a bit less sure of their
own positions because they have understood that
the issue is much more complex and difficult to
settle than a simple slogan, or even an introductory
course on human developmental biology, allow.
And please do check out that Monty Python movie
I mentioned in the beginning.
Back
to Articles | Home
|
