Denial of fetal personhood typically leads to implausible conclusions regarding how we may treat infants and severely disabled humans, and arguably to a denial of human equality even among non-disabled adults. Even if these conclusions are accepted, most people would accept that these are appreciable bullets to bite – especially for those effective altruists who are invested in preventing infant mortality.
Agreed. In fact, animal-inclusive altruists make very similar arguments for why animals merit moral consideration. As Dale points out in “Blind Spots: Compartmentalizing”, it’s unclear why these arguments from marginal cases would apply for animals and not for fetuses.
Arguments that abortion is permissible even if the child has full moral status typically rely on the claims that abortion is letting die, rather than killing, and that there is no duty to assist the child to rescue it from death.
Not only is it killing—if the fetus is sentient, it’s likely quite painful. Here are some descriptions of surgical abortion methods:
Labor Induction (20+ weeks gestation): The fetus is administered a lethal injection with no anesthesia, often of potassium chloride, which causes cardiac arrest and death within a minute. Potassium chloride is also used (with anesthesia) for the death penalty. If the fetus is sentient, this is “excruciatingly painful” because potassium chloride “inflames the potassium ions in the sensory nerve fibers, literally burning up the veins as it travels to the heart.”
Dilation & Evacuation (13-24 weeks): The fetus’s arms and legs are torn off by forceps before the fetus’s head is crushed.
(As titotal points out, the vast majority of abortions occur before this. Still, hundreds of thousands of these surgical procedures occur each year.)
Thomson’s violinist
A further objection to Thomson’s violinist is that the person wakes up with the violinist attached through no action of their own. In cases of consensual sex, the risk that conception could occur is known. A more precise analogy would be rolling a die while knowing that if the die lands on 1, then the violinist will be attached to you. In that case, unplugging the violinist seems wrong.
Not only is it killing—if the fetus is sentient, it’s likely quite painful.
So what? Do we forbid abortion and condemn women to have these children? Or should we rather talk about policies to ensure that we don’t need abortions anymore—that is, making contraceptives widely available and costless and educating men and women from the youngest age about the need of having efficient contraceptives?
You talk about the risk of conception being known—men know, but some pay very little attention to the consequences nevertheless. So, should we find binding ways to force men to care?
I hope this conversation sounds as interesting as regulating women’s bodies in the first place, because it’s a conversation we must have if we start talking about removing the ability of giving women a choice.
Agreed. In fact, animal-inclusive altruists make very similar arguments for why animals merit moral consideration. As Dale points out in “Blind Spots: Compartmentalizing”, it’s unclear why these arguments from marginal cases would apply for animals and not for fetuses.
Not only is it killing—if the fetus is sentient, it’s likely quite painful. Here are some descriptions of surgical abortion methods:
Labor Induction (20+ weeks gestation): The fetus is administered a lethal injection with no anesthesia, often of potassium chloride, which causes cardiac arrest and death within a minute. Potassium chloride is also used (with anesthesia) for the death penalty. If the fetus is sentient, this is “excruciatingly painful” because potassium chloride “inflames the potassium ions in the sensory nerve fibers, literally burning up the veins as it travels to the heart.”
Dilation & Evacuation (13-24 weeks): The fetus’s arms and legs are torn off by forceps before the fetus’s head is crushed.
(As titotal points out, the vast majority of abortions occur before this. Still, hundreds of thousands of these surgical procedures occur each year.)
A further objection to Thomson’s violinist is that the person wakes up with the violinist attached through no action of their own. In cases of consensual sex, the risk that conception could occur is known. A more precise analogy would be rolling a die while knowing that if the die lands on 1, then the violinist will be attached to you. In that case, unplugging the violinist seems wrong.
Not only is it killing—if the fetus is sentient, it’s likely quite painful.
So what? Do we forbid abortion and condemn women to have these children? Or should we rather talk about policies to ensure that we don’t need abortions anymore—that is, making contraceptives widely available and costless and educating men and women from the youngest age about the need of having efficient contraceptives?
You talk about the risk of conception being known—men know, but some pay very little attention to the consequences nevertheless. So, should we find binding ways to force men to care?
I hope this conversation sounds as interesting as regulating women’s bodies in the first place, because it’s a conversation we must have if we start talking about removing the ability of giving women a choice.