A range of topics related to the issue of abortion were raised which saw some interesting back and forth between Madeleine and Professor Savage.

Amidst the discussion as to what counts as a good reason for having an abortion, they got into post-viability abortions, whether a fetus is human, whether brain activity or lack of dependency on the mother should be the criteria for humanity, the use of terms like fetus, abortion for fetal abnormalities, abortion to save a woman’s life, the  argument from backstreet abortion and so on. The episode provides a pretty good presentation of the alternative views in the debate.

I am clearly biased but I think Madeleine offered the more persuasive position; her arguments were on the mark and very cogent yet she came off measured, humane and reasonable. You can listen to the Unbelievable? episode here: “Are there good reasons for abortion?“

RELATED POSTS:
Abortion and the Morality of Feticide: Part I
Abortion and the Morality of Feticide: Part II
My Body, My Choice? The Inconsistent Paternalism of Feminism
Abortion and Viability
Abortion and Sentience Part I
Abortion  and Sentience Part II
Abortion and Brain Death
Illegal “Backstreet” Abortion
Abortion and Child Abuse
Is Abortion Liberal?
Abortion and Capital Punishment: No Contradiction 
See our Feticide and Abortion tags for more.

Student group ProLife NZ have launched a campaign entitled JustThink (you can read more about it at the link). To kick things off the Waikato branch has invited Matt to speak on their key messages:

1. Is an unborn child a human being?
2. Should it have a right to life?
3. Should our views on abortion affect others?

This is an open lecture so anyone interested can come. There will be an opportunity for Questions and Answers so bring your questions!

The talk will be held in Lecture Theatre S.G.03 at the campus of the University of Waikato, Hamilton, New Zealand from 1-2pm on Wednesday 25 May 2011.

Dr Matthew Flannagan is an Analytic Theologian and Ethicist. His PhD thesis “Is Historical Opposition to Feticide Defensible in the 21st Century?” was just one of many pieces Dr Flannagan has written on the ethics of feticide (abortion).

Dr Flannagan is no stranger to the Waikato campus. He completed his undergraduate and first post-graduate degrees majoring in Philosophy at the University of Waikato where he and his wife Madeleine met, founded and led the Waikato campus branch of Students Organised to Uphold Life (SOUL). He was later elected and served as President of the Waikato Students Union.

Click the link to access all posts on this blog pertaining to the ethics of feticide.

If a fetus is a human being then feticide is homicide and this obviously makes abortion more than a health issue. But suppose (contrary to what I think is the case) a fetus is not a human being. How does it follow that abortion is a health issue?

Cutting tissue out of a person’s body does not make something into a health issue. Suppose, for example, that a woman has a boob job. Is this a health issue? No, this  is cosmetic surgery. It might be done in a hospital and by a surgeon but this does not make it into a health issue any more than the fact that a chef might kiss his wife in a resurant makes his romance of her a question of diet. Contrary to what some juvenile males may think, having small breasts is not a disease.

Of course, one can imagine situations where a boob job might be a health issue. Suppose a woman has breast cancer and the surgeon surgically removes her breast tissue to prevent the cancer spreading. This would be a health issue because cancer is a disease; it is something that threatens life, limb or bodily function and the surgery is necessary to prevent the body succumbing to the disease.

Pregnancy, however, is not a disease and I find it quite odd that people who claim to be pro-women would suggest that it was.

Of course, there might be some types of abortion which are a health issue; cases where the pregnancy threatens the life of the mother or threatens to cause her serious injury, for example. But these are not the normal cases or reasons women have abortions.

I suppose an obvious rejoinder will be raised here; any time a woman does not want to be pregnant carrying the pregnancy to term will be a source of anguish. Similarly, as the World Health Organisation (“WHO”) likes to tell us, health is broader than simply physical integrity like the absence of disease, loss of limb or death. Health is more holistic – it includes economic and emotional well-being, it is the absence of stress and so forth. Hence, abortion is a health issue because women use abortions to gain health in this broader sense.

We can define health the way WHO does if we like; and if we do, abortion is a health issue. But the problem is that on this definition almost anything one does is a “health issue”. My choice to take a particular career path, marry a particular woman, live in a certain house all can adversely effect my economic well-being, cause me emotional stress and so on.  We can call abortion a health issue only by calling everything a health issue and once we do this the fact that abortion is a health issue becomes of little significance – there would be little point in observing World Health Day.

So abortion is not a health issue. Moreover, even if it was, it is hard to know what saying it is a health issue is supposed to prove. The whole reason there is a field called medical ethics is because even “health issues” can be subject to moral and ethical critique.  Perhaps instead of chanting slogans about abortion, people should actually examine the moral and ethical issues the abortion procedure raises and engage in some moral reasoning and analysis. Hiding behind “it is a health issue, not a crime” is simply avoidance.

Check out the counter-blogswarm.

[1] It is wrong to kill a human being without justification;

[2] A fetus is a human being;

[3] In the case of feticide (at least in the majority of cases) insufficient or no justification is forthcoming.

I argued that defenders of feticide cannot rationally reject this argument unless they reject one of the premises. I argued further that attempts to refute [3] are successful only if one assumes that a fetus is not a human being. It follows then that defenders of abortion laws cannot rationally avoid the question of whether [2] is correct, whether a fetus is a human.

Is the Fetus a Human Being?

The first thing to note is that the claim that feticide is homicide has considerable prima facie plausibility. Consider this, a hunter is in the woods and notices some rustling in the bushes. Looking through his scope he sees a six-foot high, bi-pedal being with brown hair, blue eyes, wearing a red and black swanndri. He refrains from shooting. Here, the hunter makes the sensible and reasonable judgement that in firing he would risk engaging in homicide. He bases this on what the target looks like. In the absence of reasons for thinking otherwise, he has good grounds for this claim.

This example has application to the status of the fetus; “[there is] a general consensus that the fetus is recognisably human after six weeks, and certainly after eight”[1] This fact, conjoined with the above illustration, entails that, in the absence of good reasons to the contrary, there are good grounds for thinking that feticide is homicide.

The second thing to note is is that good reasons for thinking the fetus does not have human status are not forthcoming. Here I will focus on four common examples: viability, sentience, birth and person-hood.

Viability
A common argument contends that a fetus is not a human because it is not viable. Susan Sherwin argues that feticide differs from killing children because a fetus “is wholly dependent on her [the mother’s] unique contribution to its maintenance, while a newborn is physically separate, though still in need of a lot of care”.[2]

There are several problems with this position.

The fact that a fetus cannot survive independently of its mother does not mean it is not a human being. Fetal viability is contingent upon the medical technology of a given culture. A fetus that is not viable in Chad is viable in Los Angeles. If viability is necessary for something to be a human then a woman pregnant with a viable fetus in Los Angeles who flies from Los Angeles to Chad carries a human being when she leaves but this human being ceases to exist when she arrives in Chad and yet becomes human again when she returns.[3]

Another implication of the viability criteria is that it entails that conjoined twins are not human. Consider conjoined twins Bob and Scott. If Bob is a human being then since Scott cannot live independently of Bob, Scott must not be a human being. It is difficult to see what property Bob has that Scott lacks which would justify considering him human but not Scott. By this reasoning, one would be forced to conclude both that they are and are not, human.[4]

In addition, the property Sherwin points to – dependence – is not something that ends at birth. David Oderberg puts the point well;

A born baby is also totally dependent on its mother, only instead of being fed and sheltered by the mother’s automatic internal processes, it is fed and sheltered by the mother’s consciously controlled external, behaviour. How can that make a difference to whether or not a foetus is a human being? [5]

A newborn is totally dependent on its mother if it happens to be born in an isolated area where there are no other lactating women and there are no means of bottle-feeding. An elderly woman may be totally dependant on her children looking after her. A hiker who breaks her leg a week’s walk from a road will die if her companions do not bring help. In these situations, it would be homicide for the mother to kill her baby, the children to kill their mother or the hikers their companion. The fact of dependence does not change this; one could not plausibly say that the baby, the elderly women or the hiker are not human beings.[6] Consequently, it is not plausible to suggest that the dependence of the non-viable fetus upon its mother makes it non-human.

Sentience
Because of these problems the more common response is to ground humanity in certain psychological capacities. Killing an organism is not homicide unless the organism’s brain has developed enough for it to acquire sentience, the ability to perceive pleasure and pain. This criterion will mean abortion is permissible up to 24 weeks.

Despite its pervasive appeal, there are some prima facie problems with this position. On the face of it, lack of sentience does not make a being non-human. If it did, then human beings cease to exist when asleep or unconscious and then pop back into existence upon awakening. Shooting someone would cease to be homicide as long as the victim was asleep or unconscious.

But setting this objection aside, there are other serious problems with this position. David Boonin notes that those who attempt to ground humanity in the amount of brain development an organism has undergone face a dilemma. “Any appeal to what a brain can do at various stages of development would seem to have to appeal to what the brain can already do. Or to what the brain has the potential to do in the future.”[7]

Either option leads to problems for a defender of the permissibility of abortion who does not also want to endorse infanticide. This is because “by any plausible measure dogs, and cats, cows and pigs, chickens and ducks or more intellectually developed than a new born infant.”[8]

Suppose, then, one takes the first horn and appeals to what the brain can already do.  However, unless one wishes to affirm that cats, dogs and chickens are human beings, “appeals to what the brain can already do” will “be unable to account for the presumed wrongness of killing toddlers or infants.”[9]

Suppose, then, one takes up the second horn of the dilemma and appeals to “what the brain has the potential to do in the future;” Boonin notes that this will entail that feticide is homicide. “If [such an account] allows appeals to what the brain has the potential to do in the future, then it will have to include fetuses as soon as their brains begin to emerge, during the first few weeks of gestation.”[10]

Birth
A third, position is that the fetus is not human until it is born. Aside from entailing feticide up until birth, this position has other problems. A premature, 30-week infant in a hospital intensive care unit would be a human being, whilst a 40-week fetus in utero would not be. Doctors would hypothetically struggle in one room to keep a human person alive while in the other, a physiologically-identical or more developed being is referred to as a non-human product of conception that can be killed. One gets the distinct impression that an ad hoc arbitrary judgement has been employed here purely to justify abortion.

Personhood
A final line of argument contends that while fetuses are clearly physiologically human they are not not “persons” –  where person is defined as  “a thinking, intelligent being that has reason and reflection and can consider itself as itself, the same thinking being, in different times and places.”[11] The point is that fetuses lack advanced psychological attributes such as self-awareness, rationality or autonomy which are typical of human persons. This position excludes the animals mentioned above as well as excluding human fetuses.

The problem is that by this account newborn infants are not persons either.

In a definitive study of infanticide, Michael Tooley compiled an impressive array of neurological and physiological data which demonstrated that infants are not persons in this sense until some time after birth.[12] The price of this line of inference is the reduction of newborn infants to the ethical level of cows. A newborn cow, and certainly a mature cow, is more person-like than an infant is. It is difficult to understand by this view why killing and eating infants is any more problematic than consuming a Big Mac.

Of course one can avoid this by claiming that it is the potential to acquire properties such as rationality, self-awareness, autonomy and not their actuality that matters. This enables one to claim that infants are protected by the moral rules against killing but it still permits us to kill and eat animals. The problem with this, of course, is that fetuses would also be covered by this rule, because fetuses also have the potential to possess these properties.

Conclusion
In summation, the arguments for the claim that a feticide is justified show that, except for a few rare cases, abortion is justified only if feticide is not homicide. However, there are good prima facie grounds for thinking feticide is homicide and these prima facie grounds are not overridden by reasons to the contrary. Almost every attempt to show a feticide is not homicide, has the implication that infanticide is not either.

[1] David Boonin A Defense of Abortion (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003) 95.
[2] Susan Sherwin “Abortion a Feminist Perspective” in Bonnie Steinbock & John D Arras (Eds)  Ethical Issues in Modern Medicine 5^th ed (Mountain View CA: Mayfield Publishing Co, 1999) 364.
[3] Peter Singer “Taking Life: the Embryo and the Fetus” in Writings on an Ethical Life (London: harper Collins, 2000) 148.
[5] David Oderberg Applied Ethics: A Non-Consequentialist Approach (Oxford: Blackwell Publishers Co, 2000) 5.
[6] Peter Singer “Taking life: The Embryo and the Fetus” 148-149.
[7] David Boonin A Defense of Abortion (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003) 125.
[8] Ibid 121.
[9] Ibid.
[10] Ibid.
[11] John Locke Essay Concerning Human Understanding I.9.29.
[12] Michael Tooley Abortion and Infanticide (New York: Oxford University Press, 1983) Ch. 11.5.

RELATED POSTS:
Abortion and the Morality of Feticide: Part I

In this talk Beckwith poses the question, who and what are we? He goes on to discuss current bio-ethical issues such as cloning and stem cell research as well as the nature of the fetus. He also critiques common arguments for abortion.

In this series I will examine this question. First I will sketch an argument against feticide: the killing of a fetus. Then I will examine three common ways of criticising this argument and respond to them.

The Argument Against Feticide

Implicit, if not overtly explicit, in much historic Christian moral reflection on feticide is a simple three-premise position. Firstly, that there is a divine law prohibiting homicide – the killing of a human being without adequate justification; secondly, a fetus is a human being; and thirdly, that in all or most cases of feticide, justification for homicide is not forthcoming. This argument can be summarised as follows:

[1] It is wrong to kill a human being without justification;

[2] A fetus is a human being;

[3] In the case of feticide (at least in the majority of cases) insufficient or no justification is forthcoming.

This argument is formally valid. These three premises jointly entail that feticide is wrong; premises [1] and [2] entail that it is wrong to kill a fetus without justification, this conclusion, conjoined with [3], entails that feticide is wrong in at least the majority of cases. Given the argument is formally valid, any critique of this argument must call into question the truth of either of the premises. [For more on validity see Assessing Arguments]

Avoidance Tactics
Notwithstanding this, the most common response to this argument is some tactic seeking avoidance of the issue. It is not unusual to see attempts to denounce, insult, caricature or defame the character of those who oppose feticide. If current commentary is to be believed opposition to legal abortion comes from misogynist fundamentalist fanatics who want to impose their religious mores onto others.

Of course, these strings of pejorative terms fail to address the argument above. Suppose everything that is said of such people is true – people who oppose feticide do have the bad character traits or motives claimed – the soundness of the argument remains untouched. A good argument does not cease to be a good argument just because someone has personal flaws or dubious motives. It is only unsound if it is invalid or if one of its premises is false. A person’s motives for adopting a conclusion or the circumstances of their supporting that conclusion, might tell us something of the psychology of that person but it does not tell us about the truth or falsity of their premises or the validity of their argument.

Similar things can be said about slogans such as “you can’t force your morality onto others”, “you can’t legislate morality”. As I argued in Imposing Your Beliefs Onto Others: A Defence, those who cite such slogans face a dilemma; either they claim that the slogan “you can’t force your morality onto others” applies to the moral principles prohibiting homicide or they do not. If they do not, then opposing feticide can only involve an unjust imposition of morality onto another if you first assume feticide is not homicide. If they do then their position is manifestly absurd as it entails that all forms of homicide – murder, manslaughter, infanticide, etc – should be decriminalised.

Is Feticide Justified?
In the literature on the morality of feticide numerous arguments have been offered against premise [3] that purport to establish that feticide is justified. These arguments can be broadly grouped into two categories. The first comprises of appeals to various beneficial consequences that the practice is alleged to have. The second category of arguments is rights-based and appeals to an alleged right to control or dispose of one’s body as one sees fit.

What is important to note is that the typical arguments against [3] succeed only if it is assumed from the outset the falsity of [2], the fetus is not a human being and given this that feticide is not a form of homicide. Some examples will illustrate this.

Rights Arguments
It is frequently asserted that “that a woman ought to be in control of what happens to her body to the greatest extent possible, that she ought to use her body in ways she wants to and refrain from using it in ways she does not want to.”[1] This assertion is false. Women do not have a right to do whatever they like with their bodies – no one has such a right!

Women cannot use their bodies to rape or commit homicide or set fires or steal. The right to do as we please is limited by the morality of our actions, thus whether abortion falls into the category of an action we are free to choose to do depends on whether feticide is homicide. If it is, then this argument fails but as currently used it is just assumed that it is not.

Some might object that such an interpretation is an uncharitable reading of this contention. What is important from this perspective is that all people have a right to control what happens inside or to their own bodies. I have a right to control what happens to mine and you have a right to control what happens to yours. Hence, provided the decision I make does not involve me using your body in a way that you do not consent to then I have a right to do it. However, implicit in this argument is the claim that a fetus, at least until born, is part of a woman’s body, that it is not a separate, bodily-living, human being on its own.

This claim is erroneous. There are no reasons for affirming this. The usual reason given is because the fetus exists inside a woman’s body and is dependent upon her for survival so therefore the fetus is part of that woman.

Despite its constant repetition in the literature, this reason is wanting. If a person lives inside an ocean liner for several months while on a cruise ship in the Atlantic, she resides inside the cruise liner and depends upon its facilities for survival. It does not follow that she is part of the cruise liner!

Numerous other counter-examples are available against this line of reasoning. A premature infant is not part of the incubator nor is an embryo, brought into existence extra-corporeally, part of a petri-dish.

Not only are there no reasons for thinking that a fetus is part of its mother’s body, there are some good reasons for thinking this contention false.  To suggest that a fetus is part of a woman’s body entails that the mother of a male fetus has two heads, four arms and a penis.[2] Once again, this argument is successful only if one assumes a fetus is not a human being from the outset. If the fetus is human then it too has a right to not have its body harmed.

Back-Street Abortion
The infamous illegal “back-street” abortion argument fares no better. I have written more about this in my post on Back-Street Abortion but consider the following argument from Zoe During;

But the majority of women, poor women, have had to go to backstreet practitioners or swallow dubious potions or use knitting needles on themselves. Attempting illegal abortion by such means has always been dreadful and dangerous and greatly increased maternal mortality.

The World Health Organisation estimates that worldwide there are 20 million abortions each year, half or more being illegal, these causing up to 78,000 maternal deaths and hundreds of thousands of disabilities… Thus not having access to legal abortion unjustifiably kills mothers and babies, while legalising abortion saves lives.[3]

The allegation that thousands of women die from illegal abortions can justify legalisation only if feticide is not homicide. If it is homicide then this argument reduces to the bizarre assertion that we should kill over ten million children each year in order to prevent thousands of women from harming themselves by breaking the law.

Other Consequentialist Arguments
Typical consequentialist arguments also fail. We are told that abortion prevents unwanted children who are likely to be poor, abused or engage in crime. It is hailed as a solution to over-population and the existence of more handicapped people. It prevents adult and teenage women from falling into economic hardship and stress. It enables them to complete their education, pursue their careers.  However, all this is equally true of infanticide.

Infanticide prevents the existence of unwanted children and their associated social costs, lowers the population, prevents the handicapped existing and saves women and teenagers from the economic and emotional stresses of parenthood. Yet infanticide, as convenient as it is, is condemned because it is homicide.

Again, all these arguments assume that the fetus is not human without actually arguing for it.

Self-Defence
This is not to say that feticide can never be unjustified. Utilising the justification of self-defence, I think a case can be made for feticide where pregnancy constitutes a serious threat of harm to a woman’s life. We do not generally think that a woman who stabs and kills her rapist has committed an unjustifiable homicide. So where a fetus poses a threat on par with such cases, defensive force aimed at it might be able to to be justified. However, such cases are extremely rare and make up less than 0.5% of all abortions (according to figures compiled by the New Zealand Abortion Supervisory Committee and this seems similar to figures from other jurisdictions).

So if feticide is homicide then the vast majority of abortions lack justification. To defend permissive abortion laws by appealing to the tiny amount of hard cases is a bit like allowing people to commit homicide whenever it suits them on the grounds that there exist rare cases of justifiable homicide in self-defence.

Unless on contests [2] the claim that a fetus is a human being then in the vast majority of cases feticide appears to be unjustified homicide.

In my next post Abortion and the Morality of Feticide: Part II I will look at whether the fetus is human and the arguments that it is not.

[1] Baruch Brody “Opposition to Abortion: A Human Rights Approach” In John Arthur ed Morality and Moral Controversy (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall Inc, 1981) 181.
[2] Peter Kreeft The Unaborted Socrates (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1983) 45-47; Francis J Beckwith Politically Correct Death: Answering the Arguments for Abortion Rights (Grand Rapids MI: Baker Books, 1993) 124.
[3] Zoe During “Is Abortion Justifiable?” New Zealand Rationalist Humanist Spring (1999) 10-11.

Pro Life Tour 2011

• 31 Jan Wellington
• 1 Feb Palmerston North
• 2 – 3 Feb Christchurch
• 4 Feb Dunedin
• 5 Feb Auckland
• 7 Feb Hamilton

Most centres will have day workshops and evening talks – click on the centre nearest you for details.

Dr Glenn Peoples will be joining Jill and Bryan to speak on “Pro-life Apologetics” at the workshop in Dunedin, Brendan Malone will be speaking on “Why we Believe what we Believe” at the Christchurch workshop and Matt will be giving a talk entitled “Answering Arguments for Abortion” at the Auckland workshop and also the one in Hamilton.

Pro-life Workshop Auckland

Greenlane Christian Centre, 17 Marewa Road

• 11:00am Doors open and Morning tea
• 11:20 am Welcome
• 11:30am Workshop 1 – Bryan Kemper ”Why should we be pro-life and how can we reach this generation?”
• 12.15 am Workshop 2 – Jill Stanek “Prolife blogging”
• 1:00pm Lunch
• 1:45pm Workshop 3 – Bryan Kemper “Pro-life activism on Campus”
• 2:30pm Workshop 4 – Jill Stanek “Abortion and the breast cancer link”
• 3:15pm Workshop 5 – Matthew Flannagan “Pro-Life Apologetics: Answering Arguments for Abortion”
• 3:55pm Pro-life Auckland – Simeon Brown “What we do and how you can help”
• 4:00pm – Finish

Speaker Bios

Jill Stanek was a registered nurse working in the labour & delivery department at an Illinois hospital. One evening she was on duty and she was asked to assist with a complicated abortion procedure. The baby was born alive and was subsequently put in the hospital’s soiled utility room and left to die. Jill went in and held it until it died. When hospital leaders said that they would not stop this practice, Jill went public and became a national figure in the pro-life movement.

Jill has been quoted in the national media on television, on radio, in print, and by local and national legislators, including the US President. She has now testified twice before the Judiciary Constitution Subcommittee of the US House of Representatives and in several state legislatures. Her written testimony has been read several times in key US Congressional debates on the Partial Birth Abortion Ban and the Born Alive Infants Protection Act.

Jill remained at the hospital fighting the fight from the inside, until she was terminated in 2001 for reasons related to her public outspokenness to its abortion practices.

In 2002, President Bush invited Jill to the signing of the Born Alive Infants Protection Act, which protects live aborted children from infanticide. The President publicly thanked for her help with the bill during his speech.

In 2003, World magazine named Jill as one of the 30 most prominent pro-life leaders in the movement over the past 30 years and President Bush invited Jill to his signing of the Partial Birth Abortion Ban, which protects partially delivered babies from being killed.

Today Jill writes on pro-life issues as a weekly columnist for WorldNetDaily.com, rated the #1 independent Internet news site. Jill also oversees her own blog, jillstanek.com, the top ranking pro-life blog in the US.

For her pro-life writing MSNBC’s liberal commentator Keith Olbermann named Jill, in 2009, as the “Worst Person in the World!” In 2011, News Real Blog named Jill one of the “Top Ten Enemies the Pro-Abortion Left Fears.”  More on Jill here.

Bryan Kemper grew up in a bad neighbourhood and battled drug abuse before becoming a Christian. He went on to found and run Stand True Ministries, a Christian pro-life group. He also founded Rock For Life, an organisation that blends the pro-life message with Christian rock music – two of Bryan’s own passions. He blogs at BryanKemper.com

Bryan is a passionate and compelling orator; he has spoken at high schools and Universities around the world, including Harvard, Princeton, Notre Dame, Queens University in Northern Ireland, Cardiff University in Wales and many more.  He taken the pro-life message around the world to countries like Ireland, Australia, Scotland, Austria and many more . In the past, he was a regular guest on the television show Politically Incorrect with Bill Maher and co-hosted his own call-in cable show in Portland, Oregon. Bryan has been featured on MTV, radio shows, newspapers, and magazines including the cover of the New York Times and a six-page layout in Swing Generation. He has also been featured in three documentary movies.

Aside from his speaking, Bryan is also an author. Bryan’s first book, Social Justice Begins in the Womb was released in January of 2010 by Clay Bridges Publishing. His articles have appeared in many magazines and pro-life publications. More on Bryan here

As one of the organisers, Andy Moore, wrote:

I’m going to go and hear these guys when they come to Auckland on 5 February.

These are two of the top pro-lifers in the States – on a speaking tour in NZ for the first time. Whether you’re pro-life or pro-choice, it shouldn’t matter. I put the challenge to you, come along and decide for yourself. If abortion is what I’ve said it is – the murder of an unborn child, then it’s a bloody serious issue that we should speak up about. This is not an issue where you can sit on the fence and be a typical laid-back Kiwi about – if they’re killing unborn babies down the road from you at your local abortion clinic, then you should do something about it.

Dr Glenn Peoples holds a Bachelors of Divinity, a Masters of Theology and a Doctorate in Philosophy from the University of Otago.

For over ten years he has been writing and speaking, both in New Zealand and abroad, on intellectual issues that Christians face, including the place of faith in the public square, justice and human rights and the reasons for Christian belief.

He and his wife Ruth Peoples were active in the Waikato branch of Students Organised to Uphold Life (SOUL) and later worked with the national office primarily doing pro-life talks in churches, community organisations and university campuses.

Glenn blogs and publishes his podcasts at Say Hello to my Little Friend: The Beretta Blog and Podcast. More on Glenn here.

Brendan Malone is a media and education officer for pro-life organisation, Family Life International. He regularly appears in the New Zealand media in interviews and opinion columns presenting the pro-life perspective on issues related to human persons and their fundamental right to life.

Brendan is an engaging speaker and will be taking on “Why we Believe what we Believe”, an overview of the arguments against abortion. Young people will work together in groups to learn how to communicate their pro-life views to their peers in a clear and logical way.

Brendan blogs at Semper Vita on life issues.

Dr Matthew Flannagan is a blogger at MandM – New Zealand’s most read Christian blog – and is also one of New Zealand’s leading analytic theologians. He holds a PhD in Theology, a Masters with First Class Honours and Bachelors degree in Philosophy.

His PhD thesis was on the Ethics of Feticide (the killing of fetuses). In it, he surveyed the history of Christian moral opposition to feticide and defended this tradition against contemporary secular critiques and arguments for abortion. This work is currently under consideration for publication as a monograph by a US publishing house.

His paper “Abortion as Arbitrary Killing” was made required reading for the Social and Moral Philosophy course at the University of Waikato. His article “Confessions of an Anti-Choice Fanatic“, originally published as one of his Investigate Magazine columns, has received considerable international attention from the pro-life movement (and its opposition) – Google currently shows 346 unique links to it! His academic publications on abortion have appeared in international journals of philosophy, theology and ethics he has earned praise for his work from some of the top pro-life academics in the world.

Matt is also qualified to teach philosophy, ethics, theology and religious studies in secondary schools, so he knows how to break complex academic topics down to lay level without compromising them.

He is a proficient public speaker. He has twice formally debated Dr Zoe During (formerly of the Abortion Law Reform Association of New Zealand) on abortion; the second of these debates also featured Dr Bill Cooke (then President of the New Zealand Association of Rationalist Humanists).

He has appeared on major New Zealand TV documentaries and radio shows speaking on ethical issues surrounding abortion and his opinion pieces on pro-life issues have been published in mainstream New Zealand print media.

He and his wife, Madeleine Flannagan, founded and ran the Waikato branch of SOUL and later took over the national running of it. These roles saw him speak on abortion around the country at many churches, community organisations, university campuses and more than once at the annual Voice for Life conference in Wellington.

He has spoken on abortion at the Survivors Summer Camp in Los Angeles and he has just been invited to speak on issues around personhood at the Society for Biblical Literature’s annual meeting in San Francisco in November 2011.

You can find almost all of his popular and academic written material on abortion on this blog - just click here. More on Matt here.

So mark the pro-life tour date relevant to where you are in your calendar now, register and come along.

The first is that the typical arguments in favour of abortion succeed only if it is assumed from the outset that feticide is not a form of homicide. A couple of examples will illustrate this. It is frequently asserted that women have a right to do whatever they like with their own bodies. This assertion is false. Women do not have a right to do whatever they like with their bodies; no one has such a right. Women cannot use their bodies to rape or commit homicide or set fires. The right to do as we please is limited by the morality of our actions, thus whether abortion falls into the category of an action we are free to choose depends on whether feticide is homicide. If it is, then this argument fails but as currently used it is just assumed that it is not.

Some might object that such an interpretation is an uncharitable reading of this contention. What is important from this perspective is that all people have a right to control what happens inside or to their own bodies. I have a right to control what happens to mine and you have a right to control what happens to yours. Hence, provided the decision I make does not involve me using your body in a way that you do not consent to then I have a right to do it. However, implicit in this argument is the claim that a fetus, at least until born, is part of a woman’s body, that it is not a separate, bodily-living, human being on its own. However, this claim is erroneous. To suggest that a fetus is part of a woman’s body entails that the mother of a male fetus has two heads, four arms and a penis. Once again this argument is successful only if one assumes a fetus is not a human being from the outset because if the fetus is human then it too has a right to not have its body harmed.

The infamous illegal “back-street” abortion argument fares no better. The allegation that “hundreds” (I put this in scare-quotes because actually the figures show it was significantly a lot less than this) of women died from illegal abortions can justify legalisation only if feticide is not homicide. If it is homicide then this argument reduces to the bizarre assertion that we should kill eighteen thousand children each year in order to prevent “hundreds” of women from harming themselves by breaking the law.

Typical consequentialist arguments also fail. Abortion prevents unwanted children who are likely to be poor, abused or engage in crime. It is hailed as a solution to over-population and the existence of more handicapped people. It prevents adult and teenage women from falling into economic hardship and stress. It enables them to complete their education, pursue their careers. However, all this is equally true of infanticide. Infanticide prevents the existence of unwanted children and their associated social costs, lowers the population, prevents the handicapped existing and saves women and teenagers from the economic and emotional stresses of parenthood. Yet infanticide, as convenient as it is, is condemned because it is homicide. Again, all these arguments assume that the fetus is not human without actually arguing for it.

This is not to say feticide can never be unjustified. Utilising the justification of self-defence, I think a case can be made for feticide where pregnancy constitutes a threat to a woman’s life or perhaps in cases of rape (space prevents me elaborating the casuistry here). Such cases are extremely rare and make up less than 0.5% of all cases (according to figures compiled by the Abortion Supervisory Committee). So, if feticide is homicide, the vast majority of abortions lack justification. To defend permissive abortion laws on these grounds is a bit like allowing people to murder on demand on the grounds that there exist rare cases of justifiable killing in self-defence.

My second point is the claim that feticide is homicide has considerable prima facie plausibility. Consider this scenario. A hunter is in the woods and notices some rustling in the bushes. Looking through his scope he sees a six-foot high, bi-pedal being with brown hair, blue eyes, wearing a swann-dri. He refrains from shooting. Here, the hunter makes the sensible and reasonable judgment that in firing he would risk engaging in homicide. He bases this on what the target looked like. In the absence of reasons for thinking otherwise he has good grounds for this claim. However, “[there is] a general consensus that the fetus is recognisably human after six weeks, and certainly after eight” (D Boonin A Defense of Abortion (2003) 95). This fact, conjoined with the above illustration, entails that, in the absence of good reasons to the contrary, there are good grounds for thinking that feticide is homicide.

My final point is that good reasons to the contrary are not forthcoming. Here I will focus on three common examples starting with the fetus not being viable.

The fact that a fetus cannot survive independently of its mother does not mean it is not a human being. Fetal viability is contingent upon the medical technology of a given culture. A fetus that is not viable in Chad is viable in Los Angeles. If viability is necessary for something to be a human then a woman pregnant with a viable fetus in Los Angeles who flies from Los Angeles to Chad carries a human being when she leaves but this human being ceases to exist when she arrives in India and yet becomes human again when she returns (Peter Singer Writings on an Ethical Life (2000) 148).

Similarly, while the fetus lacks consciousness, lack of consciousness does not make a being non-human. If it did, then a human being ceases to exist when asleep or unconscious and then pops back into existence upon awakening. Shooting someone would cease to be homicide provided we render him or her unconscious first.

Appeals to fetal consciousness face other problems. David Boonin notes that those who attempt to ground humanity in the amount of brain development an organism has undergone face a dilemma. “Any appeal to what a brain can do at various stages of development would seem to have to appeal to what the brain can already do. Or to what the brain has the potential to do in the future.” (David Boonin A Defence of Abortion (2002) 125). Either option leads to problems for a defender of the permissibility of feticide who does not also want to endorse infanticide. This is because “by any plausible measure dogs, and cats, cows and pigs, chickens and ducks are more intellectually developed than a new born infant”.(Boonin, 121)

Suppose, then, that one takes the first horn of the dilemma and appeals to what the brain can already do. However, unless one wishes to affirm that “dogs, and cats, cows and pigs, chickens and ducks” are human beings then “appeals to what the brain can already do” will “be unable to account for the presumed wrongness of killing toddlers or infants.”

Suppose, then, one takes up the second horn and appeals to “what the brain has the potential to do in the future.” Boonin notes that this will entail that feticide is homicide. “If [such an account] allows appeals to what the brain has the potential to do in the future, then it will have to include fetuses as soon as their brains begin to emerge, during the first few weeks of gestation.”(Boonin, 121)

Finally, while it’s true that fetuses are not ‘persons,’ where person is defined as “a thinking, intelligent being that has reason and reflection and can consider itself as itself, the same thinking being, in different times and places,” (J Locke Essay Concerning Human Understanding) neither are newborn infants. In fact, a newborn cow is more person-like than an infant is. The price of a cogent pro-abortion argument is the reduction of newborn infants to the ethical level of cows. It is difficult to understand, on this view, why killing a newborn infant is any more problematic than killing a calf.

In summation, except for a few rare cases, abortion is justified only if feticide is not homicide. However, there are good prima facie grounds for thinking feticide is homicide and these prima facie grounds are not overridden by reasons to the contrary. Jointly, these contentions demonstrate that feticide constitutes unjustified homicide, and, hence, should not be a practice that is tolerated or sanctioned by the state.

I write a monthly column for Investigate Magazine entitled Contra Mundum. This blog post was published in the January 10 issue and is reproduced here with permission. Contra Mundum is Latin for ‘against the world;’ the phrase is usually attributed to Athanasius who was exiled for defending Christian orthodoxy.

Letters to the editor should be sent to: editorial@investigatemagazine.DELETE.com

RELATED POSTS:
Is Abortion Liberal? Part 1
Is Abortion Liberal? Part 2
Sentience Part 1
Sentience Part 2
Viability
Abortion and Child Abuse: Another Response to Farrar
Abortion and Brain Death: A Response to Farrar
Abortion and Capital Punishment: No Contradiction
During, Sherwin & Hutchison on Backstreet Abortion
Imposing Your Beliefs onto Others: A Defence
Boonin’s Defense of the Sentience Criterion: A Critique Part I
Boonin’s Defense of the Sentience Criterion: A Critique Part II

Objection 1: Inevitability

One objection Himma makes to Murphy’s line of critique is to point out that there is an important disanalogy between Murphy’s illustration of the Good Samaritan and a person who aborts an innocent fetus. If a person aborts a fetus, it is logically inevitable that God will confer eternal life upon the fetus,

If God has resolved to confer eternal life upon moral innocents who die, eternal bliss is the inevitable outcome… Indeed there is no logically possible world in which a perfect God has made such a decision and acted contrary to that decision on any single instance.[1]

On the other hand,

Even if we knew that (1) the Samaritan would appear at the crime scene and (2) the traveller would have a transformative response to being rescued, we have no reason to think it inevitable, in any meaningful sense, that the Samaritan will rescue the traveller. Though it might be very unlikely that the Samaritan would do so, it is none the less possible.[2]

Himma’s point is that in the case of the Good Samaritan the benefits conferred upon the traveller were not logically inevitable; it was possible that the Samaritan would not rescue the traveller. This is why in this case we do not claim that the robbers benefited the traveller. In the case of abortion, however, salvation is inevitable.

This seems mistaken. First, it is not true that it is logically inevitable that abortion will result in the fetus receiving eternal life. If we are talking in terms of logical possibilities, as Himma is, then it is possible for the fetus to be aborted and yet not gain eternal life. It is possible for the abortion to be botched and for the fetus to survive; it is possible for the fetus to miraculously survive or to be risen from the dead post-abortion. These outcomes are very unlikely but they are, nonetheless, possible.

Secondly, the fact that it is possible that no rescue will be enacted by the Samaritan seems to have no bearing on whether the robbers are said to have harmed or benefited the traveller. Consider an analogous case that Himma himself mentions, the case where doctors perform a preventive mastectomy to prevent the development of breast cancer. Himma take this as an obvious case where a doctor benefits his patient. However, in this case the result is not logically inevitable. It is possible for the doctor to botch the operation and even if he did not it is possible that the patient would not have contracted cancer anyway. Moreover, if the patient had contracted cancer, it is possible that the cancer would miraculously disappear even if it was contracted. However, none of these possibilities led us to suggest that a doctor who performs such surgery does not benefit the patient. So it is hard to see why our judgement, that the robbers do not benefit the traveller but rather harm him or her, depends upon the mere possibility that the Samaritan will fail to carry out a rescue.

Objection 2: Equivocation between Harm and Blame

Himma’s second objection is to contend that the doctrine of novus actus interveniens “conflates two questions:

(1) The conceptual question as to whether A should properly be characterised as harmful; and,

(2) The normative question of whether the agent should be praised or blamed for A.[3]

Himma notes that these two questions are not the same thing; a person can, in certain circumstances, be punished for benefiting a person, such as when he performs life saving surgery on another person without their consent. Similarly, a person can be non-culpable for certain harms they accidentally inflict. Himma goes on to assert,

as far as our conceptual and moral practises are concerned it is uncontroversial only that the intervening act of a free agent insulates the performer of some proceeding act from moral responsibility of the consequences; it is not uncontroversial that the intervening act of a free agent necessarily figures into whether a proceeding should be characterised as beneficial or harmful.[4]

This response again seems irrelevant. First the fact that it is “not uncontroversial that the intervening act of a free agent necessarily figures into whether a proceeding should be characterised as beneficial or harmful” [emphasis added] is hardly an argument against this claim. Himma’s own argument is, after all, not uncontroversial but that fact alone does not suffice to refute it.

Secondly, I think the examples I cited previously do suggest that the intervening act of a free agent do factor into whether an action is characterised as harmful. Consider the example I cited from Augustine; it is not, in this case, that we think the person who refused to commit adultery actually killed the suicide victim in an innocent, non-culpable fashion; rather, our intuition is that the person did not kill the suicide victim at all.

Thirdly, in the context of the harm principle, it is unclear that the distinction Himma draws here carries much relevance. The harm principle, after all, is a principle about what actions the criminal law should punish by law and it requires that one should only punish harmful actions. In this context it seems the question then of what harms we can justly be punished for is the relevant question.

Objection Three: The Argument from Sharm

This brings us to Himma’s last objection. This involves granting Murphy’s point that the fetus is not benefited by the abortion but instead reformulating the harm principle in terms of what he calls “the sharm principle.”

I could respond simply by defining a new concept and reformulating the harm principle to include that concept in the following way. First, define sharm as follows: act a is sharmful to another person P if and only if a harms P and a does not make logically inevitable some benefit that would, from the standpoint of P’s self interest, infinitely out-weigh the harm to P from a. Second define the sharm principle as follows: the state may legitimately criminalise those acts that are sharmful to others.[5]

I will say two things in response to this fairly creative move. The first is that as Himma has defined his terms it does not entail that abortion should be permitted. For abortion to be permitted it would have to be the case that it does not sharm the fetus and this would be the case only if abortion makes it “logically inevitable” that the fetus will gain eternal life. But it does not. Even if the woman has an abortion it is logically possible for the fetus to not die. It is logically possible for the surgery to be botched or for the fetus to miraculously live or for God to raise the fetus from the dead post-abortion. Of course none of these things are terribly likely but they are logically possible and hence the outcome of fetal salvation is not logically inevitable.

Secondly, Himma’s move here seems to me merely an ad hoc manoeuvre. He has stipulated that the harm principle be reformulated a certain way precisely to ensure it gives him the result of justifying abortion rights. Apart from this, there seem no independent reasons for accepting the reformulated principle. If this is so then his argument is circular. He adopts a principle because it fits a given moral conclusion and then he uses the principle to justify that conclusion. Moreover, not only is there no independent reason for accepting the sharm principle, I contend that there are good reasons for not accepting it. This is because the sharm principle entails that infanticide should be permitted.

Himma himself anticipates and tries to circumvent this; he notes that his argument “ would justify a law permitting infanticide,” he notes, “since infants are no more capable of sin than fetuses, it follows, according to this line of analysis that, that premature death is also infinitely benefits an infant by providing her with a free pass to heaven.”[6] The sharm principle would then entail that women have a right to commit infanticide. Himma grants that this implication would constitute a reductio ad absurdum of his position but argues that he can avoid endorsing laws in favour of infanticide by focusing “on the harmful effects of allowing infanticide.” He contends,

On this line of reasoning, societal tolerance for killing of even new born infants would diminish the respect we have for human life in general and hence would be likely to increase the rates of violent crime. Thus, allowing infanticide, even in limited circumstances would have psychological effects that are likely to result in an increase in violent crime against people who are morally culpable and hence are at risk of damnation.[7]

Himma thinks this is likely because of the “physical similarities between infants and older adults.”[8] He maintains that “our ethical judgements about and behaviour towards non-infants are shaped in part by our ethical judgements about infants because of the physical similarities between the two.”[9] The basic idea here is that because infants look like adults (that is, they are physically similar to mature adult human beings) a development of an ethic justifying the killing of infants will, as a matter of human psychology, lead to increased killing of older human beings. For this reason infanticide is harmful and so should not be permitted.

I find this rejoinder implausible for two reasons. First, if it is sound then an analogous line of reasoning can be made with regard to fetuses. Fetuses, after all, from fairly early on in the pregnancy, physically resemble human being. Boonin notes that there is “a general consensus that the fetus is recognisably human after six weeks, and certainly after eight.”[10] If, as Himma claims, rules against killing adults require us to prohibit the killing of beings which look like and physically resemble human beings, despite the fact that they lack a grasp of moral concepts, then it follows that there should be prohibitions on killing fetuses from at least eight weeks gestation (most abortions are performed 8-12 weeks gestation).

The second and more serious problem, however, is that the argument relies on a questionable premise. Himma thinks that because infants physically resemble adult human beings, human psychology means that the allowing of killing one will inevitably lead to the killing of another. Unfortunately he provides no empirical evidence for this claim; he simply asserts it as being true. It is unclear however that it is true. Sociological studies show that historically most cultures widely practiced and endorsed infanticide throughout history.[11] It was the rise of Judeo-Christian and Islamic beliefs about homicide that led to Westerners having a divergent attitude. However, there does not appear to be any evidence that these pre-Christian cultures were any more violent towards adults than Christian societies were. Moreover, one can think of plenty of examples where people have been able to deprive rights of a class of human beings and seek passionately the welfare of another class of human beings despite the fact that the class “resemble people physically.” For centuries people enslaved Africans and did not enslave Caucasians, despite the fact that the Africans and Caucasians physically resemble each other. People have treated women in ways they would never have treated men, despite the fact that men and women physically resemble each other in numerous respects. Jews were put in gas chambers and fellow Germans were not. Human societies appear quite capable of depriving one class of people of their rights and exalting the status of another class, despite the fact that the two are physically similar. Prima facie, Himma’s psychological claim appears dubious.

Himma then cannot, it seems, consistently permit abortion and rule out infanticide on the grounds he gives. In fact, I am inclined to think that the implications of his position go even further than merely permitting infanticide. If the sharm principle is correct, it would follow not just that infanticide is permissible but that the killing of any human being who lacks moral culpability is permissible. However, it is not just infants and fetuses that lack moral culpability, as Himma himself notes, mentally retarded adults lack moral culpability for their actions. Similarly, the laws of most countries recognise that even up to their early teens, children are not moral agents who can be held culpable for their actions. Hence, it is difficult to see why Himma’s argument does not commit one to permitting the killing of not just fetuses but also infants, children and mentally retarded people. If a moral principle clashes so violently with our pre-theoretical intuitions as this one does, and there is no independent reason for accepting it, then I submit we have good reasons for rejecting it.

[1] Kenneth Einar Himma “Harm , Sharm and One Extremely Creepy Argument: A Reply to Mark Murphy” 21:2 Faith and Philosophy (2004) 251.
[2] Ibid.
[3] Ibid, 252.
[4] Ibid.
[5] Ibid.
[6] Kenneth Einar Himma “No Harm, No Foul: Abortion and the Implication of Fetal Innocence” 19:2 Faith and Philosophy (2002) 186.
[7] Ibid, 187.
[8] Ibid.
[9] Ibid, 187-188.
[10] David Boonin A Defense of Abortion (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003) 95.
[11] See Lalia Williamson “Infanticide: An Anthropological Analysis” in Infanticide and the Value of Life ed M Kohl (New York: Prometheus Books, 1978) 61-73.

RELATED POSTS:
Does Abortion Benefit the Fetus? A Critique of Himma Part 1

In Is Abortion Liberal? I suggested that one cannot simultaneously affirm the harm principle, accept that a fetus is a human being, and support permissive abortion laws. If abortion is homicide then it harms a human being, and the harm principle entails that we should prohibit harmful actions.

Kenneth Einar Himma contests this conclusion. Himma argues that even if one grants that a fetus is a human being, feticide (the killing of a fetus) does not harm the fetus. Consider the doctrine of final punishment which is articulated in chapter 33 of The Westminster Confession of faith.

I. God hath appointed a day, wherein he will judge the world in righteousness by Jesus Christ, to whom all power and judgment is given of the Father. … all persons, that have lived upon earth, shall appear before the tribunal of Christ, to give an account of their thoughts, words, and deeds; and to receive according to what they have done in the body, whether good or evil.

II. The end of God’s appointing this day, is for the manifestation of the glory of his mercy in the eternal salvation of the elect; and of his justice in the damnation of the reprobate, who are wicked and disobedient. For then shall the righteous go into everlasting life, and receive that fullness of joy and refreshing which shall come from the presence of the Lord: but the wicked, who know not God, and obey not the gospel of Jesus Christ, shall be cast into eternal torments, and punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of his power.

Himma suggests that, to be plausible, this doctrine should be interpreted so that human beings who lack moral culpability, are saved directly by Gods mercy.

Insofar as culpability presupposes moral knowledge, someone who lacks moral knowledge through no fault of her own is incapable of culpability and is hence exempt from divine punishment. Thus, for example, someone who instantiates a severe cognitive disability is saved without regard to either her behaviour or her attitude towards Christian doctrine. Such a person is saved no matter how she behaves or what she believes.

The same is true of children before they have developed the capacity for moral reasoning. Such persons are incapable of culpability in either deed or belief and, as Abelard puts the point, “Are saved without merit of their own, as for instance, infants, and attain eternal life by grace alone.”¹

Himma is not alone in thinking this is the most plausible interpretation of this doctrine. Loraine Boettner, citing Charles Hodge, W. G. T. Shedd, and B. B. Warfield, notes “most Calvinistic theologians have held that those who die in infancy are saved,”² these theologians, “entertained a charitable hope that since these infants have never committed any actual sin themselves, their inherited sin would be pardoned and they would be saved on wholly evangelical principles.”³

The implication for feticide is obvious; fetuses have not yet developed the capacity for moral reasoning, hence, according to the Eschatological doctrines Himma has sketched, “fetuses that die before birth are, as a matter of moral necessity, saved without regard to personal merit”⁴ hence they are “as a matter of moral necessity saved without regard to personal merit.” Himma contends that abortion does not harm the fetus but, in fact, benefits it;

It can plausibly be argued that premature death conduces maximally to the fetus’s self-interest. To see this, imagine yourself in the following situation. While in the womb, you are temporarily made fully rational and offered the choice between premature death and the opportunity to live a worldly life. The choice is expressed as follows. Should you choose a premature death, you will immediately experience a profound and eternal bliss – an ecstasy beyond any possible in this world. Should you choose an opportunity to live a worldly life, you will be judged at the end of your life for your deeds and beliefs. If you are judged favorably, you gain eternal bliss; if not, you will suffer eternal torment. You are also told there are many temptations that may lead you down a path that culminates in an unfavorable judgment so that the risk of such torment at the end of your worldly life is substantial. Finally, you are told that, after having made our choice, you will forget everything you have been told. Assume that you have no idea whatsoever of what your post-natal circumstances will be. What should you do? ⁵

Himma suggest that a rational person would choose to be killed. This is because “the odds of a favourable judgment after a worldly life are probably not in [anyone’s] favor.”⁶ He notes that if the probability of a favourable judgment is “less than 1. The smallest chance of an unfavorable judgement”⁷ is multiplied by an infinite cost. Whereas any benefits one gains from a worldly life will be finite.

Consequently, even if one grants that a fetus is a human being, traditional Christian eschatology entails that a fetus is not harmed if it is killed via an induced abortion. The harm principle, however, affirms that the state should permit, and people should have a legal right to engage in, any activity that does not harm another person; consequently, there should be a legal right to procure an induced abortion.

Novus Actus Interveniens Objection

Mark Murphy has argued that Himma’s argument errs by suggesting that the thesis of infant salvation entails that fetuses and infants are not harmed by being prematurely killed. He writes,

If the fetus enjoys the beatific vision upon being aborted … the fetus’ enjoying that good is caused not by the agent’s act of aborting the fetus but by God’s graciously conferring the gift of eternal life on the child. For not every good or evil that occurs downstream from an act counts as a benefit or harm conferred by that act. This is particularly clear in those cases in which the benefit or harm would not have occurred but for some agent’s free intervention. That the causal chain from act to effect is broken by the intervention of a free agent is a standard view, both in common sense’s attribution of responsibility and in the law’s.⁸

Murphy illustrates the point with an example,

If … a traveler is beaten and left for dead by robbers, is rescued by a Samaritan, and by this transformative experience comes to have a much better life than he or she would otherwise have had, it is nevertheless incorrect to say that the robbers did not harm, or even benefited, the traveler. The robbers merely harmed the traveler; the Samaritan benefited the traveler.⁹

Murphy here appeals to the common law doctrine novus actus interveniens. He notes that there is a difference between what a person causes and what one foresees will be caused by others in response to what one does. In a discussion of the doctrine of double effect, utilised in post-reformation Catholic casuistry, Donagan suggests that Catholic and Kantian ethicists,

… and in general, all moralists who accept the freedom of the will in a non-combatibilist sense, limit an action’s effects, and a fortiori what its agent intends to bring about in doing it, to those that follow from it in course of nature and the ordinary operation of social institutions, and from the free reactions of others to it. (Thus actions in the ordinary course of business, for example, those of postal officers in delivering a letter that has been mailed, are not counted as free reactions.) The principle on which they do is that a free reaction to an action, is a ‘new action’ (‘novus actus’), the effects of which are their effects, and not those of the action to which they are reactions.¹⁰ [Emphasis added]

Donagan does note that another person’s actions can be considered an effect of one’s actions if they follow in the ordinary operation of social institutions. For example, if I mail poison to another person and this kills him or her then I have killed him or her despite the fact that numerous other people’s actions intervened between my action of placing the poison in the mailbox and the person’s death. This is because social institutions are in place whereby the mail service acts as an agent on my behalf and such institutional rules mean that my actions can be attributed to it.¹¹ For similar reasons, taking out a contract to kill another is culpable homicide because the institution of contract means that the killer kills on my behalf and hence I act in his or her actions. In the absence of such institutions, the free actions of others to my actions are not effects that I cause. Donagan notes that in some situations¹² a person is culpable of wrongdoing if he does something which he foresees will be met with an immoral action on the part of others. However, he does not cause these actions.

I think this is plausible. Augustine proposed the following example. Suppose a man approaches a woman and tells her that he will kill himself if she refuses to have sex with him. Does that mean that she is a murderer if she refuses?¹³ Her refusal would not constitute homicide even though his death is a foreseeable result of her choice. Although she foresaw his or her death, she did not cause it. It was caused by the free decision of the tempter to commit suicide. Similarly, a company knows that some people will use the roads they build to engage in reckless conduct that will kill innocent people.

Applied to the context under discussion, a person who kills a fetus causes the evils inflicted on the fetus, such things as, damage to the fetus’s bodily integrity and deprivation of their earthly life. However, these actions do not cause the fetus to attain eternal life; this is brought about by the gracious mercy of God. Hence when a person kills a fetus they do not benefit it, they only cause it harm.

In my next post in this series I will argue that Himma’s response to this line of argument.

1Kenneth Einar Himma “No Harm, No Foul: Abortion and the Implication of Fetal Innocence” 19:2 Faith and Philosophy (2002) 179.
2Loraine Boettner The Reformed Doctrine of Predestination by Loraine Boettner The Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Company (Philadelphia, PA; 1963) 143.
3Ibid.
4Himma “No Harm No Foul” 179.
5Ibid 180.
6Ibid.
7Ibid.
8Mark Murphy “Pro-Choice and Presumption: A Reply to Kenneth Einar Himma” 20:2 Faith and Philosophy (2003) 241.
9Ibid.
10Alan Donagan “Moral Absolutism and the Double-Effect Exception: Reflections on Who Is Entitled to Double-Effect?” 16 Journal of Medicine and Philosophy (1991) 498.
11This is not to say that an agent acting unknowingly, such as the mail-man, is culpable for this action only that his actions are attributable to me. If I therefore do this willingly, I am culpable for his actions on my behalf while he is not.
12Theses situations are ones where one incites, induces or persuades a person to engage in wrongdoing or where in “pursuing his legitimate ends, a man finds that several effective courses of action are open to him, each legitimate in itself , but one of which will be foreseeable be met with a wrongful action by somebody else.” Alan Donagan The Theory of Morality (University of Chicago Press, Chicago; 1979) 48-50.
13 Augustine On Lying 9.