Dialogues on the Ethics of Abortion

Bertha Alvarez Manninen

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2022
• eBook ISBN:
  9781000587296
• Topic: Philosophy
• Subtopic: Philosophy History & Theory

What happens when two intelligent and highly informed fictional college students, one strongly pro-choice and the other vigorously pro-life, are asked to put together a presentation on abortion? Their conversations over five days – friendly but lively, charitable but clear – are captured in this book.

Through these dialogues, students and other interested readers are introduced to the difficult moral issues of abortion. In Chapter 1, readers learn about Roe v. Wade and other relevant legal cases. Chapter 2 covers basic, philosophical issues such as: What is a person? Are fetuses persons? Is fetal potential morally relevant? How shall we define the moral community? Chapter 3 introduces students to Don Marquis's "Why Abortion is Immoral" and also the metaphysical issues of personal identity and its relevance to abortion. Chapter 4 covers Judith Jarvis Thomson's "A Defense of Abortion", including objections and responses to the argument from bodily autonomy. Finally, Chapter 5 looks at abortion in hard cases, such as in cases of rape, fetal disability, non-viable pregnancies, and sex-selection; the chapter also includes a conversation on fathers and abortion.

With a Foreword by Laurie Shrage, topics headings in the margins, and an annotated bibliography, Dialogues on the Ethics of Abortion is an easy-to-use volume and valuable resource for anyone interested in a fair and clear-headed approach to one of the most contentious moral issues of our time.

1DAY 1Roe v. Wade and Other Legal Concerns

DOI: 10.4324/9781003109457-1

Day 1 – Scene: Two college-aged women, C and L, have been assigned as partners for a class presentation on Abortion in America.

C:This is an important topic, even though it’s one that people have been debating for decades now, to no avail it seems.

L:I agree it’s a very important topic, especially since I think we need to do away with state-sanctioned killing in all of its forms, which includes abortions.

C:Talk about hitting the ground running!

L:It’s something I am pretty passionate about.

C:Well, we have different opinions on this issue. I guess that’s why the professor paired us up. I am worried about the state of Roe v. Wade. With a conservative Supreme Court, I believe it is only a matter of time before an abortion case hits their desks. Already in 2020, 200 members of congress asked the Supreme Court to “revisit” Roe v. Wade with the hopes of overturning it.

L:You fear Roe v. Wade may be overturned, and I hope very much that it is overturned one day. This should be a fun project to do together. Let’s look at the directions.

C:So according to the directions the professor gave us, we have to explain our position in regards to abortion and consider and respond to two objections from an opposing perspective. That must be why she paired us up, so we can respond to each other’s concerns. I can start. You can already anticipate my perspective. I am a feminist and a big supporter of women’s reproductive rights in all its forms. I have been studying the abortion issue for the past few years, doing a lot of reading from a lot of different perspectives. And because of that all studying, I am proudly unequivocally pro-choice. I think abortion should be legal, accessible, and safe.

(a) Does the Bible prohibit abortions?

L:Well, you already know where I stand. I am proudly pro-life. I think murdering babies, which is all that abortion is, is morally wrong and should be illegal. One main reason I believe this is that I am a devout Catholic. My Biblical beliefs lead me to the conclusion that all life is sacred, from the beginning of a person’s existence, which is at conception, until the time she dies.

C:You know, I hear a lot that abortions are against the will of God, or that they are not Biblical, but it’s never been clear to me where in the Bible God prohibits abortions.

L:Well one of his commandments is “thou shalt not murder.”

C:But that assumes that abortion is murder.

L:Of course it’s murder. You’re killing an innocent baby. What else could it be?

C:Well I am sure we will get to that topic, but is abortion specifically prohibited in the Bible?

L:God specifically talks about unborn children having moral value. He talks about how he started His individual relationship with each of us while still in the womb. In Jeremiah 1:5 He tells Jeremiah: “before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart.”

C:But that seems to be referring specifically to Jeremiah.

L:If He knew Jeremiah, He knows all of us.

C:But there are other points in the Bible where He does not seem to regard fetuses as having equal value. Let me look up the quote I have in mind.(C looks up quote on her smartphone)

C:In Exodus 21:22-25 it reads: “When men strive together, and hurt a woman with child, so that there is a miscarriage, and yet no harm follows, the one who hurt her shall be fined, according as the woman’s husband shall lay upon him; and he shall pay as the judges determine. If any harm follows, then you shall give life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burn for burn, wound for wound, stripe for stripe.” Does that not show that the life of the fetus is not worth as much as the life of a person? The price for the loss of fetal life is a fine, whereas the price for the loss of a life is much higher.

L:I am familiar with this quote. It depends on the translation used. In other translations, the word is not “miscarriage” but “premature birth.” So if the woman gives birth early, but there is no additional harm, then there’s just a fine to be paid.

C:Well, at least it shows that it’s not clear. A lot can be left up to interpretation. Aren’t there other parts of the Bible where God commands the death of the unborn as well?¹

L:There are many places in the Old Testament where God commands the death of all kinds of people, born and unborn, for varying reasons. But that still does not mean, for us, that human life has no value. We can’t legalize killing adult human beings because God commands that some adult human beings be killed in the Bible.

C:Fair enough. But if your belief is religious, can you really impose those beliefs on others? I don’t share your religious views, so why should there be a law based on religion that I, and other people, have to follow?

L:Well, I think there are good reasons to prohibit abortions that are not religious in nature that we can talk about, but it is not possible for me to be in favor of a law that I see as violating God’s will. It’s the same reason I reject the whole “if you don’t like abortions, don’t have one” reasoning. I am not ok with people committing murder no matter who does it. It’s like saying “if you’re not in favor of having slaves, don’t have one.” I can’t be in favor of a law or policy that would allow the owning of a human being, no matter who does it.

C:Well, slavery and abortions are hardly the same thing.

L:For me, there are equally awful.

C:But you know that before abortion was legal, many women still got one, and many women who should have had easy access to one were often denied abortions. Are you familiar with the case of Sherri Finkbine and thalidomide babies?

L:I am not.

(b) The thalidomide scare.

C:Sherri Finkbine was the host of the kids’ TV show Romper Room. In 1961, Finkbine took medication that contained the chemical thalidomide, which was given to many women as a way of relieving morning sickness. Well, it turns out that thalidomide caused severe birth defects in fetuses. Many babies were born with either shorter arms or legs, which looked like flippers, or sometimes no arms or legs at all.² Finkbine’s baby was one of them. She scheduled her abortion in Arizona but it was cancelled after Finkbine’s identity was released to the press and the hospital could not get assurance that it wouldn’t be prosecuted. She even received death threats. Finkbine had to travel to Sweden to get her abortion. The thalidomide tragedy pushed abortion back into the limelight in the United States. Now, should Finkbine had to have gone through all that?

L:I acknowledge that what she went through was hard. But I can’t agree that the life of a baby is worth less because he is missing his limbs.

C:It’s not about the fetus’s life being worth less. It’s about parents having a choice regarding whether they want to bring such a baby into the world.

L:Once a baby is conceived it is already in the world. A baby with no limbs has the same right to live as any other baby.

C:Ok, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk about your opposition to Roe v. Wade.

(c) Does Roe v. Wade legalize abortion on demand?

L:Ok. I oppose Roe v. Wade and its legalization of abortion on demand. I think it’s one of the worst Supreme Court decisions in our nation’s history.

C:Do you believe abortions are bad at any time during pregnancy? Or are early abortions acceptable? According to the Centers for Disease Control, 91% of abortions take place in the first trimester, at less than 13 weeks gestation. Are even those abortions unacceptable?³

L:I believe all abortions, with the exception of when it is necessary to save the mother’s life, are immoral no matter when in pregnancy the abortions take place.

C:Well, I think abortion should be legal, safe, and easily attainable.

L:At all points during pregnancy?

C:At the very least in early to mid-pregnancy, but in some cases, yes even later abortions are acceptable. I do think that obtaining later abortions require more pressing moral reasons than early abortions, and perhaps some restrictions on later abortions can be justified. But in some cases, I do believe the reasons for obtaining a later abortion are valid ones. Early abortions, however, where 91% of them happen, are completely morally justifiable.

L:I cannot imagine a single good reason why it would be permissible to kill a fetus that is close to being born. Even if you don’t think early fetuses have value, certainly late gestation fetuses are pretty much babies. I mean, we see in premature births that the being that is born is a baby and not a clump of cells. Saying that even babies at a later sta...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Half-Title Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Foreword by Laurie Shrage
• Preface
• Acknowledgements
• Day 1: Roe v. Wade and Other Legal Concerns
• Day 2: Abortions as Murder, Fetal Personhood, and Arguments from Potential
• Day 3: Fetal “Future-Like-Ours” Arguments, and Considerations of Personal Identity
• Day 4: The Bodily Autonomy Argument
• Day 5: Abortion in Hard Cases
• Annotated Bibliography
• Index