Abortion Ethics: Moral Status, Personhood, and Key Arguments

Introduction: The Actual Future Principle and Moral Status

There is considerable discussion about the moral standing of fetuses at an early stage and the issues surrounding the choice of whether to abort. One strong position has been largely ignored in this debate, while liberalism has taken center stage. According to Harman (1999), the Actual Future Principle (AFP) holds that the actual future of a fetus determines whether or not a pregnancy should be aborted. The principle distinguishes between two kinds of early fetuses. Early fetuses that die early go through their entire existence without acquiring the properties that confer moral status on them. However, an early fetus that is bound to grow into a person is different: such a fetus will in time have the complete moral status of a human being, and that is good reason to think that even now it has moral status to some extent (Harman, 1999).

The AFP holds that early fetuses have their moral statuses in contingent form. Thus, when evaluating events on moral grounds, it is prudent to assess actual events with respect to the moral counterfactual status of the fetuses in question. The first claim of the objector analyses an actual event in which the actual moral status of early fetuses would be absent in the counterfactual event — and this is precisely where the objector loses the point (Harman, 1999).

Women have been found to regret the act of abortion but not the choice to undergo one. This is thought to be incompatible with the full liberal view of abortion. Women are disturbed by abortion, and this is not merely a reaction to the uncertainties surrounding the procedure. These experiences can only be explained by the possibility that the women recognize they have engaged in a morally significant event and have found that they failed a moral test. The liberal view ignores these facts (Harman, 1999).

Biological Development and the Definition of Personhood

The central concepts that form the foundation of our understanding of the world around us are often difficult to define precisely. Concepts such as time, space, and life may carry clear everyday meanings, yet rigorous efforts to outline their definitive meanings reveal their seeming simplicity to be deceptive (Farah & Heberlein, 2007).

The same can be said of the concept of a person. We do not usually pause to consider what qualifies as a person; the general assumption is that all humans are persons while other things are not. Yet defining personhood has been a central topic among philosophers for many centuries. The first clear definition of a person was provided by Boethius, who defined a person as an individual substance that is rational in nature (Singer, 1994). Cognitive properties such as rationality have since formed a significant part of subsequent attempts to define personhood. The two most influential accounts — those of John Locke and Immanuel Kant — also incorporate aspects of rationality. Locke identified three critical characteristics of personhood: self-awareness linked by memory across space and time. He defines a person as an intelligent being with reflection and reason who considers itself the same thinking entity across time and space (Locke, 1997). Kant includes intelligence in his definition but restricts its role to helping a person act morally. For Kant, the ability to distinguish between things and persons and treat each accordingly is fundamental. Persons have intrinsic value; things may matter only because of their utility or desirability. People have dignity, according to Kant (Kant, 1948).

A more empirical approach to defining personhood may also be productive. There may be a natural kind that denotes persons, and if we collect the right data we may discover its salient properties. Such an approach calls for clear scientific criteria that align with most people's intuitions about personhood, and those intuitions could serve as a guide where agreement is lacking. Neuroscience is the discipline best placed to provide answers, since the human brain is responsible for the abilities most commonly identified as essential for personhood: self-awareness, rationality, intelligence, cognition about the future, mental states, linguistic communication, awareness of others' mental states, and consciousness (Farah & Heberlein, 2007).

Some schools of thought suggest that the abortion debate turns on the stage of prenatal development at which the brain begins to function. Neural development in the cortex has been identified as the point at which a person's brain begins to manifest psychological capacities including intelligence and self-consciousness (Farah & Heberlein, 2007).

Conclusion

Thomson, J. J. (1971). A defense of abortion. Philosophy & Public Affairs.