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Lousy Arguments for Abortion
Some arguments for the moral permissibility of abortion are pretty lousy. I’m talking about the interesting arguments from analogy that purport to establish the moral permissibility of all abortions even if an unborn baby really is a human being. Arguments from analogy employ a certain form, or pattern of reasoning along the following lines:
- A is like B in that both have property X;
- A has property Y; so
- B also has property Y.
There are various ways to evaluate an argument from analogy, but here are the three big ones:
- What are the relevant known similarities (i.e., X) of A and B?
- How relevant are the similarities?
- What are the relevant dissimilarities?
(For more on this, I recommend you consult my own sources: The Power of Logic and Introduction to Logic. Hint: You can buy older editions on Amazon for a zillionth of the price, and the older editions are about 99% as good.)
The Violinist Analogy: Argument
You may already be familiar with the infamous violinist argument from Judith Jarvis Thomson:
You wake up in the morning and find yourself back to back in bed with an unconscious violinist. A famous unconscious violinist. He has been found to have a fatal kidney ailment, and the Society of Music Lovers has canvassed all the available medical records and found that you alone have the right blood type to help. They have therefore kidnapped you, and last night the violinist’s circulatory system was plugged into yours, so that your kidneys can be used to extract poisons from his blood as well as your own. The director of the hospital now tells you, “Look, we’re sorry the Society of Music Lovers did this to you–we would never have permitted it if we had known. But still, they did it, and the violinist is now plugged into you. To unplug you would be to kill him. But never mind, it’s only for nine months. By then he will have recovered from his ailment, and can safely be unplugged from you.”
To cut to the chase, the argument from analogy is this:
- Unplugging yourself from the violinist is like abortion in that both lead to the death of an innocent person;
- Unplugging yourself from the violinist is morally permissible;
- Therefore, abortion is also morally permissible.
The Violinist Analogy: Evaluation
What are the relevant known similarities?
- Both liberate an innocent person from the encumbering life-support system of another innocent person;
- The encumbering life-support system encumbers the first innocent person for about nine months; and
- Both lead to the death of that other innocent person.
How relevant are the similarities?
- They’re pretty relevant.
What are the relevant dissimilarities?
- Abortion terminates a natural process, not a radical medical procedure.
- In almost all cases, pregnant women are not nearly as as encumbered as the person in the violinist story.
- Unplugging yourself from the violinist does not kill an innocent human being; it only allows him to die. But the act of abortion kills an innocent human being.
- The violinist story presumes kidnapping, but most pregnancies are the result of free choice, if not free choice to become pregnant then at least free choice to engage in the sort of behavior that has the same result. (This difference doesn’t work in the minority of pregnancies resulting from rape.)
And the verdict is: As an argument for the permissibility of all abortions, this argument is terrible. (It might have some strength for abortion in the case of rape, mitigated somewhat by the other differences.)
The Zombie Analogy: Argument
One of my students who is involved with debating told me that the argument won a big debating competition. (I think it was the student debating competition: the big international one.) Here’s my attempt to reconstruct the argument based on what what he told me:
Killing a brain-eating zombie is like abortion in that both acts involve the killing of a parasitic human being.
Killing a zombie is morally permissible.
So abortion is also morally permissible
The Zombie Analogy: Evaluation
What are the relevant similarities?
- In both cases, a human is killed.
- In both cases, the human lives off of another human being’s body.
- In both cases, the behavior of the human is morally innocent, acting on biological necessity rather than free choice.
How relevant are the similarities?
- Very!
What are the relevant dissimilarities?
- A zombie is not a normal human being. It’s probably not actually a human being at all. Assuming it’s even a living thing, it might be better thought of as a different species.
- A zombie, even if we consider it to be human, is an unnatural and severely malfunctioning one. But an unborn baby behaves in the way natural and proper for a human infant at that stage of life.
- An unborn baby lives off its mother without hurting her. Zombies kill you and eat your brains. (A difference not applicable to situations where the life of the mother is threatened, such as ectopic pregnancies.)
And the verdict is: This argument is terrible! It might have some strength with respect to abortions to save the life of the mother. (And if you replace the zombie with a blood-sucking but non-lethal vampire, the argument might have some strength with respect to abortions to preserve the health of the mother.)
But as an argument for the moral permissibility of all abortions, the argument depends on ignoring enormous relevant differences between babies and zombies.
Published in General
Might there be one more way to argue the “I have a right not to play parasitic host” argument? After all, kids are literally physically and emotionally dependent on their
hostsparents for a lot longer than 9 months.What is the rationale for forbidding the killing of a two-year-old, a one-year-old, a nine-month old… if the child is burdensome to its parent? Why not, at least, allow exposing him on a hillside somewhere?
Indeed.
If abortion is morally permissible up to the point of birth for the reasons usually cited, then killing babies is morally permissible for the same reasons.
There are those who affirm the if statement and defend infanticide. It’s only logical. It’s also morally wrong and crazy.
It’s just as logical to deny the then statement and oppose abortion. This approach happens to be less evil and more sane.
I find the violinist argument at least somewhat convincing. My work around is that it seems permissible to induce birth at any point and allow the baby to die (or survive if someone is able to save them), rather than it being permissible to kill them in the womb.
That really seems permissible to you?
I think it’s permissible. I have trouble thinking of a time when it’s correct.
In the same vein, adultery is permissible, but it’s probably never correct.
So it really seems morally permissible to you to induce birth a few days early and leave the baby somewhere to die?
Good heavens. No, it’s not.
Should we define permissible? I didn’t think it was controversial that some things were wrong, but not punishable by criminal law.
I think if a mother chooses to induce birth, she has no right to what happens to the baby after that. So the hospital (or anyone) is free to try and save the baby.
I’ve been thinking about the violinist analogy. I believe that disconnecting from the violinist might be morally permissible for your average modern Western secularist. But it seems to me that it would not be morally permissible for a Christian. Although, I am a sorry excuse for a Christian, and have plenty of bad theology in my head … so perhaps I’m wrong about that?
Can we settle the moral question first? I believe that’s how Auggie started the conversation — is it “morally permissible” by this logic?
Yes, of course.
I’m talking about moral permissibility. Are you talking about what’s legal?
You ignored my question. Do you really think it’s morally permissible (for a mother, doctor, nurse, or anyone) to induce birth a few days early and leave a baby somewhere to die?
So we have suspicion that Premise 2 of the violinist argument is false.
Jolly good.
I’m hoping to avoid getting into the theology (because I’m plenty busy already, and because I’m not sure where to start). But I certainly welcome suspicion of the premises.
That’s going to be tough, because I use “morally impermissible” to mean the things that inherently require retribution. Murder, theft, and other violation of rights without sufficient rational.
You might be able to argue that something needs to be done if you commit adultery, but that thing that’s required isn’t obvious.
People understand that they’re going out on a limb that their significant other isn’t going to ruin their life because there’s not much they can do if they do stray unless they have a really good prenup.
No, I disagree. It is morally permissible for the Christian to disconnect from the violinist for the reasons described. The situation is involuntarily imposed, it is unnatural, and much more onerous than pregnancy. What if the Christian has children at home to support and care for? It is immoral to compel him or her in this way.
Now, if the Christian wants to donate a kidney to the violinist…
I didn’t ignore it. You brought up something I didn’t say so I didn’t feel required to answer it.
That’s a hard call, and as I often like to say, “moral reasoning is hard.” If these questions were obvious to most people there wouldn’t be much of a question.
That being said, intentionally leaving a child to increase the likelihood that they do die doesn’t really seem permissible. If no one is interested in saving the baby (incredibly unlikely) I don’t know if we can compel any of them to use their resources against their will.
Not quite. I don’t think that adultery is permissible because it is legal, I think it’s legal because it’s permissible (in this case). There are plenty of things that are legal that are not permissible.
Maybe we should just talk about what’s morally wrong (which you acknowledge as a broader category than what’s punishable by law).
If for no other reason than my own understanding, do you mean that which requires retribution under the current system of law? Or that which requires retribution under an ideal system of law? Or that which requires retribution of some sort, whether by law or by the actions of some Burkean platoon?
That would be a reasonable enough call. But you did say it. If you didn’t, then what was it that you said when you said “it seems permissible to induce birth at any point and allow the baby to die” and added “I think it’s permissible”?
Indeed.
This seems to me a pretty blatant contradiction of what you said earlier.
This is, however, a separate question from the question of what’s morally permissible.
You think adultery is morally permissible?
Maybe a better term is requires compensation. I guess I mean something close to an “ideal system of law.” Where the “ideal” is as close to “objective moral truth” as possible.
As in, you can get away with it without being stoned, or fined, or imprisoned, (unless you agreed to it in contract), yes.
Not as in “everything is hunky dory and no one can fault you for it.”
But this means that what is morally wrong is not a bigger category than what should be punishable by law.
I disagree with that very strongly.
In the former bolded words you use the term “permissible” in one way, and in the latter you use it in a very different way.
Opening day of Logic class! I’m outta here. See you folks later.
Then I wasn’t clear. I think it’s permissible to induce birth when it’s impossible for the baby to survive. I don’t think it’s permissible to hide the baby from someone that might save it. You can’t have a baby and then tell everyone around you not to touch it if he’s dying. Or actually, you can’t permissibly stop anyone from helping him that wishes to.
Right, this is why I thought we were going to get into trouble, because I reserve “morally impermissible” for the most extreme set of circumstances.
So, I think where we’re talking past each other is you, Mike, see “moral” judgments in terms of legal and/or social consequences, where Auggie and I (if I may be so presumptuous) believe there are objective truths leading to objective moral judgments. Is that a fair statement?
It seems the word “permissible” is causing us confusion. Maybe we should stick to the question, “is it moral?”