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Self-Ownership, Abortion and Infanticide

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Self-Ownership, Abortion and Infanticide J7ournal of medical ethics, I979, 5, 133-138 J Med Ethics: first published as 10.1136/jme.5.3.133 on 1 September 1979. Downloaded from Self-ownership, abortion and infanticide Ellen Frankel Paul Department of Political Science, Miami University, Oxford, Ohio Jeffrey Paul Department of Philosophy, Northern Kentucky University, Kentucky perplexing moral predicament. He is told that Authors' abstract destroying a fetus in one spatiotemporal setting Doctors have been placed in an anomalouis position (inside the mother's body) is perfectly permissible by abortion laws which sanction the termination of a while failing to assist it or actively intervening to fetus while in a woman's womb, yet call it murder terminate its life moments later in another setting when a physician attempts to end the life of a constitutes murder. fetus which has somehow survived such a procedure. This predicament, the doctors' dilemma, can be A philosopheres resolution resolved by adopting a strategy which posits the right to ownership of one's own body for human One philosopher, Michael Tooley, offers a resolution beings. Such an approach will generate a to this dilemma which, while generating a consistent consistent policy prescription, one that sanctions set of moral guidelines to the doctor, nevertheless the right of all pregnant women to abortions, creates an egregious moral precedent. Tooley yet grants the fetus, after it becomes viable as a attempts to justify both abortion and infanticide potentially independent person, a right to its own by contending that a fetus and an infant do not body. The doctors' dilemma is surmounted, then, by possess the properties required for an entity to have requiring that abortions of viable fetuses be a 'serious right to life.' performed in a manner that will produce a live delivery. Hence, infanticide and termination of . my argument has been that having a right to lifecopyright. one to viable fetuses are proscribed. supposes that is capable of desiring continue existing as a subject of experiences and other mental states. This, in turn, presupposes both that one has the concept of such a continuing entity and that one Introduction believes that one is oneself such an entity. So an Recently, an intriguing case has come to trial which entity that lacks such a consciousness of itself as a poses both a moral and legal dilemma for those who continuing subject of mental states does not have a would argue for the permissibility of abortions.' A right to life.4 http://jme.bmj.com/ California doctor was accused of strangling to death Tooley anticipates that such a rule would only a after a saline surviving baby girl legal abortion. sanction the taking of a newborn's life within the The infant, approximately twenty-nine to thirty-one 6 weeks had been first few weeks of existence. But as S I Benn has developed, miraculously delivered persuasively argued, it is doubtful whether even a alive and was being given resuscitation and other aid two year old child has such a sophisticated concept by nurses when the doctor was informed of the of itself as an entity with 'a consciousness of itself as situation. Without enquiring about the baby's a continuing subject of mental states...' John on September 30, 2021 by guest. Protected condition, he ordered the nurses to render no Robertson 6 has pointed out that Tooley is also assistance to her, but while he was returning to the subject to a 'thin edge of the wedge' problem in his hospital this order was disobeyed by the nurses. attempt to legitimate infanticide while proscribing When the doctor appeared on the scene, the infant euthanasia. Having once possessed this concept of was still breathing. He was charged by another selfhood which entitles one to moral rights, Tooley doctor, whom he summoned to the scene, with maintains that a present vegetative state in which repeatedly strangling the baby until she finally one no longer has that concept cannot invalidate ceased to breathe or exhibit a heartbeat. one's claim to those rights. But why, Robertson The legal predicament ofthe doctor is clear, but is inquires, does past selfhood qualify as morally it consistent ? Under the Supreme Court decision in relevant while future selfhood, the position of the Roe v. Wade,2 a state can sanction third trimester fetus, does not; such a distinction is purely arbitrary. abortions. California law does so, but also instructs Other strategies have been employed by various that 'the rights to medical treatment of an infant philosophers which might offer a resolution to the prematurely born alive in the course of an abortion doctors' dilemma. should be the same as the right of an infant of similar medical status prematurely born i) Benn argues that, even if the fetus or infant spontaneously.' 3 This places the doctor in a rather were ruled out as persons 7 there are consequentalist x34 Jeffrey Elliot Paul J Med Ethics: first published as 10.1136/jme.5.3.133 on 1 September 1979. Downloaded from reasons of a rule utilitarian kind against infanticide. personhood of the fetus, and investigate the position People will become callous toward human life thus that the mother has a right to her own body, we may jeopardising actual future people tomorrow by discover grounds for resolving the doctors' dilemma. treating potential ones harshly today. Under such a What is unsettling about Thomson's argument is her rationale, however, it is difficult to see how all persistant use (clever though it be) of analogies-the abortion would Iot have to be proscribed if infanti- unwilling victim attached to the kidneys of the cide is impermissible. violinst is most memorable-for as Hare has argued, conclusions drawn from such cases depend entirely 2) Controversy has centred around the status of upon the moral intuitions of the adjudicator. the fetus; is it a person, a mere human being, or a Thomson's intuitions would certainly not be potential person? Michael Tooley and Mary Anne shared by the typical Catholic defender of abortion Warren 8 have attempted to discredit the potentiality nor anyone who held an extreme altruistic moral principle, with Tooley arguing that if we would have ethic. Also, Thomson appears to compromise when no duty to refrain from killing kittens injected with a she declares abortion permissible for fourteen year brain serum that would make them potential persons olds, but positively indecent for a woman in her then we would have no similar duty towards fetuses, seventh month who wants an abortion simply to and Warren alleging that a merely potential person avoid the nusiance of postponing a trip abroad. (non-sentient stuff) cannot be wronged. Others have just as vehemently defended the Self-ownership potentiality principle. R M Hare, for example, 14 that human beings possess a right argues that fetuses as potential people do have a Let us assume ie, a right to right to non-interference under a Golden Rule to the ownership of their own bodies, moral principle: the use and disposition of their persons. How can this be applied to the case at hand, the resolution of If we are glad that nobody terminated the pregnancy the doctors' dilemma ? First, let us look at the rights that resulted in our birth, then we are enjoined not in question during the pregnancy of the host."5 ceteris paribus, to terminate any pregnancy which Despite 'slippery-slope' arguments to the contrary, will result in the birth of a person having a life like we will argue that a fairly decisive demarcation ours.9 point can be ascertained factually and, what is morecopyright. Hare disparages Tooley's kitten example as based important, morally defended. Thus, the argument purely on intuitionism and not a sufficient refutation from self-ownership will proceed in two stages: ofthe potentiality principle. I) Before viability ofthe fetus, 3) It is no wonder, then, that other philosophers 2) After viability. have declared the question of the morality of abortion to be insoluble. Roger Wertheimer 10 BEFORE VIABILITY OF THE FETUS that http://jme.bmj.com/ concludes that the status of a fetus is not a question Before viability, the contrasting assumptions for everyone could agree on the facts and still the fetus is or is not now a person or a potential of fact, it has rights, dispute over the interpretation of the facts, and person and if either of these, whether hence, the legitimacy of abortion. George Sher "I and will yield the same conclusion in either case. 12 basically concur in this evaluation, Regardless of how these disputes are resolved, the Grant Cosby a contending that moral rules are indeterminate in this determination will be morally irrelevant on If we grant the case; i.e., there is no way to determine rationally self-ownership moral criterion. a person and, be based on genetic assumption that the fetus is potential on September 30, 2021 by guest. Protected whether protection should what capacity or on a developed capacity for future therefore has rights of self-ownership, valued states. follows ? This right cannot make a difference while it is inside the body of an unwilling host. If it is a person (or a potential person) and it is there in her Another view ofthe dilemma body against her will, then it has no right to be there. Perhaps, the latter group of analysts have despaired If it is not a person (or potential person), then the too soon, and another approach might prove less conclusion is identical. If the woman owns her own ambiguous or controverisal. We would like to body, the use and disposition of it is subject to her examine the implications of a strategy adumbrated control and her control alone.
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