Morality of abortion

The morality of abortion is a hotly contested issue. This is a detailed breakdown of the major arguments for and against the legality of abortion.

Framing the arguments
It is critical to understand that the abortion argument dances between two competing interests: the mother and the fetus. Focusing on the mother engenders arguments about her inherent right to decide who has the right to access her body and use it, when and under what circumstances she will bring a child into the world, and her basic right to control her body. Arguments of incest and rape, financial status, or the snarl word "convenience" are at issue when you focus on the mother. When your argument focuses on the baby, a host of different conversations come up. When does life begin? How far along in pregnancy can a child feel, or become aware? At what point does the fetus become a person? What is the difference (if at all) between an abortion and euthanasia if the child has serious medical problems?

Beyond that, specific arguments have played out in political and moral dialog and in the courts regarding the overall acceptability of abortion.

Rape, incest, or simple sin
In most arguments discussing a woman's legal access to abortion, especially in the United States and Australia, the woman's personal responsibility in the pregnancy is at issue. If the woman has been raped or if she is the victim of incest, the audience-at-large is more likely to see her as a victim and take the situation more seriously than if she was just out on a Friday night, doing her thing. In almost all situations where access to abortion is limited by law, consideration for exemption is given in cases of rape and incest. The underlying assumption is generally two-fold. One, a rape or case of incest (which in a technical sense are almost always rape) is psychologically and often physically traumatic to the woman or child; the reality that a pregnancy will simply compound that trauma should be considered. The second issue falls back to stereotypes and ideals of the roles of women in society. In these cases, the woman (or girl) has not "chosen" to have sex, and therefore she is more pure, clean, and honorable than the woman who has sinned, and should "take responsibility" for her actions. Pro-Choice arguments counter the first claim by saying all unwanted pregnancies are inherently emotionally traumatic, and only an individual woman, in her specific place in life, can "rate" the level of trauma — not a legislature. The second claim they more or less roll their eyes at.

For right to life folks, there is a problem with the logic of the "rape and incest exception" — a problem they rarely bring up, as it makes them look cold and heartless. If a life has value from conception, and if God is in control, then that life is just as valuable if it came from a one night stand as if it came as the result of an act of violence. However, despite this clear inconsistency of their argument, few "anti-abortion" politicians or legislative bodies in the western world have suggested restricting access to abortion for the victims of these crimes.

There's a more serious question with regards to the hypothetical rape exemption. How would it actually be implemented? Would the woman have to prove she was raped before she would be allowed to get an abortion, or would she just have to make a claim that she was? In the former case, ignoring how often rapes will lead to a conviction, and ignoring that rape victims may have reasons they don't wish to pursue charges, proving a crime in a court of law can take months if not years, which is a problem for abortions for obvious reasons. In the latter case, if a woman who wants an abortion must claim rape, well, we might be creating a world where innocent people are being falsely accused of rape, while actual rapists could have the "it was consensual but she wanted an abortion" defense.

As for incest, not all cases are instances of rape, even if absolutely every instance is gross. The big issue is the risk of genetic abnormalities and birth defects. However, defects from incestuous relationships are not guaranteed, just far more likely. If the mere risk of defects from incest allows for abortion, then logically, abortion should be allowed in all cases where there's higher or even guaranteed chances of genetic defects. For instance, if genetic screening shows Down Syndrome. Of course, this is also making a value judgement of a human life based on disability, and where it should stop becomes blurry.

The 'rape/incest exemption' is more of platitude than a well-thought-out argument, and the anti-abortion side probably isn't giving too much thought into how to ensure victims of rape or incest actually have access to abortions.

Term of pregnancy
The second major framing issue, when discussing the morality, ethics, or legality of abortion, is how far along the pregnancy is. Regardless of where they stand on the issue, or what they think of the legality of abortion, virtually everyone discussing this issue intuitively understands and agrees that an abortion that happens in the first month of the pregnancy is quite different from an abortion that happens in the 9th month. For ease of discussion, most people discussing the issue of abortion follow the medical "trimester" system, and see 5 distinct "term based" limits.
 * Personhood proponents frame the issue of abortion as "life begins at conception, and all abortions are equally wrong as they take that life."  In the US, proponents of personhood views have recently tried to give legal status to the zygote, though so far, all attempts have failed.
 * First Trimester - This is the single most common view held by adults in the western world.  The medical assumptions include the fact that the fetus has no brain and therefore no awareness, by and large, movement can not yet be felt, and the large percentage of natural abortions (miscarriages) in the first trimester (generally given as "around 25%" of all pregnancies) makes an abortion in this trimester more palatable to many who would otherwise challenge a woman's right to abortion.
 * Second Trimester - Because the fetus is becoming more human-like, can be felt moving, sex can be determined, etc., emotional connections to the "fetus" being a true "baby" are far stronger. In most nations that regulate abortion, the second trimester tends to be the "battle ground" between legal and not.
 * Third trimester - In the third trimester, the fetus fully resembles a born baby, at least superficially.  The emotional connection is impossible to deny at that point.  Few if any nations that allow abortion allow it during the third trimester unless the woman's health is threatened or the fetus develops serious problems.
 * Always legal - like "personhood" on the other extreme, there are people who feel that the question is not and should not be about the age of the child in the uterus, but about the women's right to control her body and who or what lives inside it. Such a position makes no distinction between a right to abort a 1 month old fetus, or fully to term fetus, as long as the women desires an abortion.  This is more of an ideological position, as virtually no abortion has ever been done to an 8 or 9 month old fetus unless complications arise that drastically affect the women's health.

There is another framing regarding "term of pregnancy" that is a bit of a slippery slope due to technological and medical advances: "ability to survive outside of the womb", or "viability". In 1970s, at the time of the Roe v. Wade decision, this happily coincided with the beginning of the 3rd trimester. But as technology advances, that line is younger and younger. It is highly feasible that in the not too distant future, fertilized eggs themselves can be incubated - making the question of "can survive out of the womb" tricky.

Arguments for legal abortion
In general, proponents of legalised abortion and its safe regulation hold that only a woman herself, rather than the state or other group, has the right to assert control over what happens inside her body.

Argument to protect women's health
The single most critical argument for ensuring that women can find access to legal safe abortion is that women will attempt to abort, legal or not, safe or not. When a woman truly does not want a pregnancy, especially if that pregnancy is potentially problematic to her social or physical situation, and feels for herself, that there are no alternatives, she will try to end it even to the risk of her own life. No amount of moral preaching, ethical discussions, or legal wrangling will change that reality.

With such a reality, it is incumbent on health institutions and governments to insure that she has the same access to health care that she would if she wished to bring the pregnancy to term.

Additionally, even if a woman wants to be pregnant, about 1-2% of pregnancies are ectopic&mdash;a dangerous condition which can result in death of the mother and for which the only treatment is abortion.

Argument from medical privacy
The argument for a woman's right to abortion according to the United States Supreme Court is based on a woman's right to privacy in making medical choices about her body and her reproduction. While articulated differently in Roe v. Wade, the basic premise that most legislative and judicial bodies in the Western World have used is that a woman maintains integrity of her body and of her medical decisions whether those decisions are about reproduction related issues including abortion, or physical issues like plastic surgery, or the right to seek medical attention at all, regardless of what might be "best for her" per the medical establishment or her social community.

In the United States, the breakdown for a legal medical right to abortion rests on these arguments:


 * 1) Women must have a fundamental right to bodily integrity, but this right must be balanced against the state's interest in the potential for life.  This balance is resolved with the "undue burden" test (Casey).
 * 2) Women (and couples) have a right to privacy in intimate choices (Roe v. Wade; Griswold v. Connecticut).
 * 3) Discrimination on the basis of biological markers inherent in biological sex is suspect under the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment and requires strict scrutiny (contra Geduldig v. Aiello, Michael M., which would have to be overruled for this argument to be valid).  Otherwise, biological marker-based discrimination enforces stereotypes that the law frowns upon, as seem in U.S. v. Virginia.  Further, this type of discrimination is subordinative, and the zeitgeist of the Fourteenth Amendment being anti-subordinative, must be immediately suspect.
 * 4) Griswold v. Connecticut and its progeny (Eisenstadt) outline a fundamental right to consent in childrearing: this is how contraception is constitutionally vindicated.  Disallowing abortion eviscerates this right, reading "consent" or "choice" wherever a condom fails.
 * 5) Originalist/tradition-based counter-arguments ("no tradition of abortion in the U.S., therefore no right") are unavailing.  First, tradition is a poor marker for objective reasoning, since the analysis of "tradition" is based on a conscious choice of what narrative to credit (Balkin, Tradition and Betrayal).  Second, tradition may be unjust (Loving v. Virginia) and must be read with a level of "generosity" to ensure a just society (Levinson, Constitutional Faith).  Third, appeals to tradition boils down to "Keep things the way they are because they're the way they are."
 * 6) Textualist counter-arguments ("not in the text of the Constitution") are unavailing.  Text is a poor marker for valuable meaning: reading text as complete in and of itself eviscerates cultural norms that the law is based on (Holy Trinity).  Further, Constitutional text is written at a high level of abstraction: rights are defined broadly, not enumerated specifically (Ninth Amendment, Griswold v. Connecticut), so rights may exist that lie in the "penumbra" of the specifically enumerated rights.

Many opponents of abortion base their position on religious doctrine; however, it is possible to oppose the practice on purely humanistic grounds.

To be fair to Christians some supporters of the right of abortion also use religious doctrine, citing passages in the Bible itself such as Exodus 21:22-23, Leviticus 27:6, Numbers 3:15-16, Numbers 31:15-17, and Hosea 9:14, 16. They even point out that passages often used by opponents of abortion either refer to the birth of a nation (Isaiah 49:1-3) or God's gift of prophecy (Jeremiah 1:5) i.e. nothing about an actual human fetus or child.

Argument for the right to evict
Walter Block, an economist and libertarian, proposed a position known as "evictionism". This position relies on separating abortion into two parts; the act of removing (evicting) a fetus from the womb, and the act of killing it. Evictionism as a position states that people are allowed to evict from their property, and this is an unalienable right - in line with most libertarian thought.

As a woman owns her body and her womb, Block's position states that a fetus therein that is no longer wanted is arguably a parasite and intruder. The woman therefore has a right to evict the fetus using what means are necessary while causing minimal harm.

The argument continues that as there is no current means to "evict" a fetus without termination, then termination becomes the de facto least harmful. No other option is available to uphold the right to evict. Should the technological means become available to remove the fetus without a termination (via transferring it to an artificial uterus or an additional surrogate), then this would become the least harmful.

A similar distinction is drawn by Judith Jarvis Thompson, who argues that although abortion can be permissible, it must be distinguished from "the right to secure the death of the unborn child". If the fetus were to miraculously survive the abortion, Thompson argues that the mother would not then have the right to kill it, although the death of the fetus in the course of an abortion would not make the abortion morally impermissible in itself.

Arguments against abortion
Arguments against abortion generally focus on appeals to emotion the right to life, guided by the underlying conviction that life is intrinsically valuable, though anti-abortion arguments can descend from more practical considerations as well.

Arguments against a fundamental right of choice
Arguments against a choice to abort typically rest on one or more of the following premises:
 * 1) Unborn babies must have a fundamental right to bodily integrity, and abortion infringes that right. (Though one can argue that a sentient being, like the pregnant woman, should have rights, and while a young fetus is alive in the biological sense, it has no capacity to think, feel or be self-aware any more than a sample of flesh from our body, simply because its brain is not developed enough to the point where it can feel or understand the aforementioned qualities)
 * 2) An unborn baby is as valuable as a newborn, and thus killing them is equivalent.
 * 3) In the United States, there is no mention of abortion in the U. S. Constitution, or privacy, or family planning.  Further, the right is not fundamental to the national consciousness or deeply rooted in American history.  Therefore, it is not a fundamental right (applying Glucksberg or Scalia's VMI dissent).

The equilibration of rights
Whether we should override the mother's right to choose or the fetus's alleged rights is a contentious issue and anti-abortion advocates generally place the fetus's rights above the mothers in all but the most extreme cases.

Exceptions in cases of rape or incest can best be justified under this argument. If one deems the rights of the mother and the fetus as closely balanced, with fetus rights only slightly outweighing the mother's rights, then it's possible for any increased burden to tip the balance in favor of a mother's right to abort. Thus the argument that the added trauma to the mother from being forced to carry a reminder of a rape, or the added risk to the fetus from the increased likelihood for birth defects in the case of consensual incest, are sufficient to tip the balance in favor of abortion. Though once one allows extenuating circumstances to push the balance towards allowing abortion you must then explain why there aren't other exceptions. If the risk to the fetus represented by incest is enough to justify abortion why isn't evidence of birth defects from genetic testing sufficient? If increased trauma to the mother from rape is enough to justify abortion why wouldn't other situations that cause the mother increased trauma allow abortion? What if the mother experiences increased trauma from her pregnancy due to being ostracized from a family or persecuted by religions fanatics or just being too young? Shouldn't the mother be able to have a psychologist interview her and determine whether she is currently suffering enough pregnancy related trauma to justify an abortion?

Pro-choice advocates often cite risk of maternal death or pregnancy by rape as justifications for abortion. However, the pregnancy-related mortality ratio was 17.8 deaths per 100,000 live births in the US in 2011 (most recent year for which CDC data is available). The same 2005 study found that only 12% of women cited a "physical problem with health" as a reason for abortion and only 13% cited "possible problems affecting the health of [the] fetus", indicating that abortions are generally performed for reasons other than concern for maternal or fetal health. Finally, abortion due to rape is claimed to abort the fetus for the actions of the rapist.

The argument from potentiality
The argument from potentiality asserts that we ought to respect the rights of the unborn, specifically the right to life, even if they are not yet persons.

The probability that we terminate the life of a fetus who would otherwise be born alive is a morally relevant consideration. This becomes particularly vexing as medical technology advances, driving the age of viability (and of the possible transition from fetus to baby) earlier and earlier.

This also begs the question of when one draws the line for potentiality. For instance currently when a couple successfully conceives via IVF they usually have left over embryos, with these left over embryos often being discarded. If all potential for life must be protected then arguably it should be illegal to dispose of conceived embryos via IVF. Then again if a couple had to use all embryos rather or not they wanted more child they may decide not to risk being forced to have a large family and avoid IVF, which in turn means a child that could have existed via IVF, and thus had potentiality, no longer will because laws were passed that discouraged IVF. Taken to the extreme one could argue that a male masturbating or a female having a period without trying to conceive should be illegal because in both cases gametes that had the potentiality for life were wasted.