How should laws regulate abortion?

Option 1: Make all abortions illegal.

'Ontology' here refers to the status of the fetus as human or non-human, person or non-person.

Pro:
1. Murder is the deliberate killing of an innocent human being.
2. Murder is forbidden.
3. Abortion is the killing of a fetus.
4. A fetus is an innocent human being.
5. Abortion is the deliberate killing of an innocent human being.
6. Abortion is murder.

Con:
1. Murder is the deliberate killing of an innocent human being.
2. Murder is forbidden.
3. Abortion is the killing of a fetus.
4. A fetus is not a human being until it has integrated cerebral activity.
5. Abortion of a fetus before it has integrated cerebral activity is not the killing of a human being. (If the removal from life support systems of a human who is in a 'persistent vegetative state' is not murder, then the abortion of a fetus which has not developed out of a 'vegetative state' is not murder either.)
6. Abortion is not murder.

Pro:
1. The killing of a human being is murder.
2. Murder is forbidden.
3. A fetus is a potential human being.
4. A potential human being is a human being.
5. A fetus is a human being.
6. The killing of a fetus is murder.
7. Abortion is forbidden.

Con:
1. The killing of a human being is murder.
2. Murder is forbidden.
3. A fetus is a potential human being.
4. A potential human being is not a human being.
(A potential X is not an actual X. For one example, while any person who is a natural born citizen of the United States and who is at least 35 years old and who has resided in the United States for at least 14 years is a potential President of the United States, no one is President of the United States just because of potential. For another example, a fully conscious human being is a potential corpse. But a fully conscious human being is not a corpse.)
5. A fetus is not a human being.
6. The killing of a fetus is not murder.
7. Abortion is not forbidden.

Pro:
1. If all abortions were illegal, then only illegal, possibly incompetent abortions would be performed.
2. Women acting rationally will choose not to have life-threatening incompetent abortions.
3. Fewer women will die as a result.

Con:
1. If all abortions were illegal, then only illegal, possibly incompetent abortions would be performed.
2. Desperate women will choose to have incompetent abortions.
3. More women will die as a result.

Pro: A pregnancy that resulted from rape is a violation of a woman's will. The fetus itself represents an assault on the woman. It is a constant reminder of the act of violence against her, and it dominates much, if not all, of her life while she bears it. A woman who was raped did not choose to become pregnant, so she ought not to incur the responsibilities of pregnancy. Abortion in this case is a relief from the physical, emotional and economic burdens the woman did not deliberately undertake.

Pro: The pregnancy of a woman whose contraceptive technique failed is a violation of the woman's will.

Pro: The pregnancy of a woman who does not want to bear a child is a violation of the woman's will.

Pro: If the state disallows abortion, then it requires pregnant women to bear children whose conception may have resulted from incest or rape. It also requires women to risk their health—or even their lives—to give birth to children they do not want.

Reply: Prohibiting a certain act does not necessarily imply approval of all of the consequences that flow from the prohibition.

Con: Whether a fetus results from voluntary intercourse with the intention of procreation or it results from rape or a failure of contraception, every fetus has the same right to life. The life of the fetus is more important than the psychological comfort of the woman who was raped or whose contraceptive failed.

Con: Women have available to them a variety of methods of contraception. At the very least, they have the ability to abstain from sexual intercourse. This being the case, unless she is raped, a woman who becomes pregnant does so because she wants to: having willing sexual intercourse without using birth control implies an acceptance of the possibility of pregnancy, and so a woman who does not use birth control and has intercourse and becomes pregnant is not entitled to an abortion. She is acting irresponsibly if she aborts a fetus which she deliberately conceived. So a medical establishment that provides abortions offers support to irresponsible behavior in the citizens it serves.

Pro: No method of contraception, save abstinence, is completely effective. The failure of a birth control product, which the woman used entirely according to instructions, does not imply her irresponsibility. Much less does it imply that she wants a child. The right to an abortion ought not to be based on the outcome of some test of responsibility, because no such test could produce reliable results.

Con: The humanity of the fetus is a moral factor given a higher rank than the responsibility of the woman for her pregnancy. If the fetus is an innocent human being, and killing a human being who is innocent is forbidden, then abortion is forbidden even to a woman who has been raped or has been involved in incest.

Pro: The right to have an abortion is an aspect of the ability of a woman to control her reproductive and hence her social and economic life. By exercising her right to abortion, a woman is able to remain on par with men as they remain unburdened by pregnancy and the demands of rearing children. The ready access to providers of abortion gives women control over their reproductive destinies and hence also control over many aspects of their lives. Prohibitions on induced abortion are a feature of societies in which men tyrannize women. Opponents of abortion are typically male and in any event are mostly those who want to see women remain subservient to men.

Con: A very substantial proportion of women are in the anti-abortion movement. And not all of these women favor the subservience of women to men.

Pro: The fetus is dependent on its mother for survival; it is, until birth (merely) a part of the woman's body. The mother could live without the fetus, but the fetus could not live without its mother. The pregnant woman bears more hardship than the fetus does during pregnancy. The former suffers more pain and anxiety, works harder, and stands to lose more of almost everything than the fetus does if something goes wrong.

The pregnant woman may therefore give primary consideration to her own well-being over that of the fetus. She may, with justification, decide to terminate her fetus when the losses resulting from the pregnancy outweigh the expected gains. Pregnant women have the right to decide whether they are going to take or continue to take the physical risks associated with pregnancy.

The mother has a right to control what happens in and to her body, specifically, to control her reproductive destiny. The fetus is a 'guest' in the mother's womb and may stay only so long as the mother wishes it to. The fetus has no 'right to life' beyond that right granted to it by the mother and only so long as the mother wants to grant it. Without the mother's consent to remain pregnant, the fetus may be regarded as an intruder.

Pro: Some pregnancies are threats to the life or health of a woman. In these cases, the fetus is an aggressor against the body of its mother. In such cases, the fetus is not 'innocent'; it is 'guilty' of threatening to harm its mother. In such cases, abortion is a choice in favor of protecting life: the life of the mother.

Con: Current medical practices have reduced the physical risks of pregnancy to very reasonable levels.

Con: Induced abortion might cause either physical or psychological harm to the woman who undergoes this procedure. Some women suffer from 'post-abortion syndrome', which involves feelings of guilt and self-loathing.

Pro: While some women may suffer bad psychological effects as a result of having an abortion, many other women who have had abortions encountered no problems at all.

Pro: Emotional reactions ought not to be used as guides in making moral decisions. For instance, the faintness or nausea that might be produced by imagining a medical procedure or watching a film of an abortion like 'The Silent Scream' or hearing a graphic description of that operation (e. g., "and now the head is crushed, and the limbs are torn from the body of the fetus") should not be taken as evidence that abortion is morally wrong. Squeamish people may react in similar ways to hearing about or seeing life-saving medical procedures, for example, heart or brain surgery or operations that treat ruptured aneurysms.

There is a great range in the way individuals react emotionally in the same circumstances to a given event. Moreover, one person may react to the same thing in different ways at different times. And any one person may be retrained, may have emotions altered in such a way that what once was repellent now becomes attractive, or what once was attractive now becomes repellent. So feelings by themselves cannot always be good evidence of the moral correctness of actions.

Con: The persons who perform abortions may suffer adverse psychological effects.

Pro: Procreation can put an undue psychological and financial burden on the parents of the child. Carrying a fetus to term may be a threat to the mental health of the mother and an economic hardship. And in addition to the psychological stresses typically felt by the parents faced with the responsibilities of caring for a child, the unwed mother has to face disapproval and discrimination from the rest of society.

Con: Abortion is not the only way to deal with an unwanted pregnancy. The child who is rejected by its parents can be adopted by people who will give it better care. At the very least, the pregnant woman should endure the pregnancy and, if she does not want the child, she should put it up for adoption.

Pro: A human being may be very likely to suffer throughout life as a result of inborn disabilities or environmental disadvantages. We are obligated to our children to provide them with a life unhampered by birth defects or a predisposition to disease. To a person who imagines having a child with severe mental or physical handicaps who asks, "Why was I born?", abortion can seem humane. If the mother and father are unfit to serve as parents, they should not bring a child into the world. 'Unfit' can be defined as psychologically, emotionally, mentally, economically, or morally deficient.

Some parents are better than others, and some parents are not fit to be parents at all. Perhaps the mother has no husband and is by herself unable to care adequately for the child. Abortion is a better alternative to raising a child in a bad way. Abortion is justified to prevent a child from being born, for example, into an extremely impoverished family or into an unsavory, crime-ridden environment. Nor will children likely do well if their parents are severely retarded or if their parents are criminal. If the child will likely be raised in very unfavorable circumstances, it is better off not being born.

In some cases, parents are capable of raising a child but are unwilling to do so. They may consider the birth of a child to be a minor or major inconvenience. Such parents might do psychological damage to the child. One reason for allowing abortion is preventing the emotional pain that would be suffered by a child who is rejected by its parents. Babies born as a result of incest stand a high chance of suffering not only serious biological defects but also problems in society as well.

Con: The previous argument could be used to advance a racist or even genocidal agenda. Since many people live in poverty and in circumstances that otherwise threaten their well-being and even their lives, these people may receive counsel to limit their reproduction. The effect of this advice, were it to be put into practice, may well be to spare several children from grinding poverty and an otherwise brutal existence. But in time one effect of limiting the reproduction of people in certain ethnic groups or people in the minority would be reducing their political power and thus diminishing their prospects for success even more.

One advantage to having great numbers in a class or group of people within a society is the greater potential of the group for acquiring substantial political power and, along with that, an increased ability to make their lives more bearable.

All children have an equal right to life. If disadvantaged children have no less a right to life than children who have received every advantage, then defective fetuses have no less a right to life than those without defects.

Pro: Some citizens may be burdens on their societies. A community has difficulty in caring for children born into impoverished families and in caring for children with severe birth defects who require extraordinary medical care. At certain times and in certain places, any addition to the population is unacceptable, because adequate nourishment or medical care is unavailable: more (possibly retarded or handicapped) children would drain resources away from the rest of the community.

Adoption is not the answer for every woman with an unwanted pregnancy. The pregnant woman who does not want to have a child probably does not want the burden of a full-term pregnancy either, and a number of children who were rejected by their parents never get adopted.

Few citizens—even those who characterize themselves as strongly 'pro-life'—would favor, even in principle, taking on the responsibilities of housing, feeding and educating the children who were born because desired abortions were not performed.

To work well, anti-abortion policies have to provide people with incentives to avoid abortion. Such incentives might include guarantees that a child born to parents who do not want it will be cared for throughout its youth. But if societies educate their members to give a higher regard for life and offer incentives to support decisions to give birth, then fewer women will choose abortion. More children will be born who will challenge the already inadequate systems for delivering social, nutritional and medical support. As overpopulation develops, individuals will sink toward poverty, and the vitality of nations will be sapped.

Pro: Some women who will seek abortions despite the illegality of the procedure will suffer at the hands of incompetent practitioners. Where legal abortions are not available, the lives of pregnant women who desire abortions will be in jeopardy. Virtually any policy on abortion will produce costs and benefits. Among the costs that a policy-maker should take into account is the number of hospitalizations from improperly performed illegal abortions.

Pro: The pregnant woman has a right to privacy. Anti-abortion legislation is an unjust interference in the decision-making of a private citizen.

Con: The Constitution does not explicitly guarantee the 'right to privacy'. We all have rights to privacy—but not unlimited rights. One might argue, to no avail, that a person has a right to privacy in settling a dispute with an enemy by using violence. Killing, in this view, would be a private matter. Yet the state has a legitimate concern about such matters—personal, 'private' grievances—and intervenes in these circumstances.

Con: Doctors who perform abortions usually side with the woman, not with the fetus she carries. In fact, the fetus may have no advocate in a position to save it if the woman elects to have an abortion. If the fetus is classed as a human being, then it deserves representation equal to that afforded the woman.

Pro: Abortion is a useful tool for selecting the sex of a child. Some families prefer to produce males rather than females because (1) males are stronger; they have a greater ability to do hard physical work for the household and are better suited to fight in wars, (2) males can carry on the family name, and (3) males do not impose on a family the need to provide dowries for their partners in marriage. Female children, therefore, can represent a drain on the resources of a family.

Con: Permitting abortion for selecting the sex of a child can lead to a disproportionate number of births of children of one sex. Since many families prefer male children for various reasons, a disproportionate number of female fetuses may be aborted.

Con: Induced abortion may become a precedent for other unacceptable killings. A society that makes induced abortions routine may be setting the stage for the extermination of various 'defective' human beings—the weak, the sickly, and, in a broader interpretation of the term 'defective', the poor, or anyone who is not sufficiently productive, anyone who might represent a drain on society.

A society might set the stage for the extermination of various 'defective' humans in two ways: (1) It would give respectability to the notion of euthanasia, that is, make it seem to be an attractive idea, and (2) By conducting an extensive program of induced abortion, society might make euthanasia a necessity. For over time, such a program would change the proportion of young people to old in a given population. There would be fewer young citizens to take care of and to pay for the care of the old.

Along the way, this would exacerbate the tensions between the generations. Among the younger people, pressures would develop to cull those who are economically dependent—typically the older citizens—from society. In the extreme, the generational imbalance could produce an inter-generational war. In brief, the widespread acceptance of induced abortion puts public policy on a slippery slope toward euthanasia.

Con: A prohibition on induced abortions will help to regulate sexual activity (or at least encourage the use of contraceptives).