Asymmetrical Information

This is just the famous trolley problem. When you ask people whether they'd flip a switch to save ten people from getting hit by a train but causing one other person to be hit by the train instead, they typically say yes. Then ask them the same question, only instead of flipping a switch they have to push an extremely fat man in the way of the train to derail it. Most people switch their answer to "no" despite the result being the same in accounting terms.

So, fine. Jane is pointing to a very real psychological phenomenon. But so what? If an argument doesn't jive with your intuitions, one of the two is going to have to go. But you're begging the question by assuming that your intuitions are always right. Upon further examination, if it seems that there is a plausible cognitive bias or unexamined assumption shaping your intuitions, then why can't the intuition be junked instead of the argument?

I must point out an error in your analogy. The fifty people in Africa do already exist. Embryos that are not conceived due to the use of contraceptives never came into existence.

So there really is no parallel at all. The hypothetical African example is of failure to act versus taking an overt action. The distinction between contracepting and abortion is the difference between the hypothetical and the actual.

Contracepting, in terms of culpability, is merely an extension of abstaining. After all, a virginal nun who never engages in intercourse is releasing an egg every month, which never will be fertilized and thus never be part of the creation of a new human being. But once the sperm hits the egg, one of two things happens: either a new human entity comes into existence, or a non-viable product of conception, such as a hydatidiform mole, comes into existence. Someone or something comes to be that had not been before. If the new entity is a someone, then the parents are responsible for protecting and nurturing that new someone. If the new entity is a something, then the parents have no obligation toward it and the mother is morally free to take any action that removes the entity from her body.

Christina, you never answered me before, so I'll say it again: you are making the broken window fallacy a centrepiece of your morality, and this will not hold up. I don't see why this should be more acceptable in ethics than it is in economics.

I'm sorry, I know this is covered ground but why does Jane Galt support abortion rights?

Stress, did you read the post prior to this one?

Matt, your glib and inapt analogies don't disguise the fact that you have yet to show any sign that you understand the basics of gametic reproduction.

Hint: what is a "window"?

I've really enjoyed this series: You're taking a the abortion question more seriously than almost anyone out there (even if I disagree with it in parts). Unlike your previous posts, this one is wrong, IMHO:

These are not the two different cases in the "train problem". If you never took birth control, a kid would by created. If you never performed an abortion, a kid would be created. So, inevitability isn't the distinction because in both cases you are actively taking an action that prevents a person from existing who would have otherwise.

So, maybe the question is instead, "are you destorying a person at that moment?" With birth control, while a person is inevitable, I'd still argue no. However, with an embryo I'd argue no as well. You're simply assuming the answer is "yes" here (if I follow).

But isn't that the same question the vast majority of people in the abortion debate are asking? "Is it a person?"

Jane,

Both birth control and abortion are acts of commission. Failing to spend $10,000 to save 50 people in Africa is an act of omission. Both birth control and abortion are 'active' in your analogy. Abstinence would be analogous to your omission of spending $10,000 to save 50 lives in Africa. I do not accept the relavence of your analogy.

Your point on the distinction of the valuation of statistical people vs particular people is interesting. You seem to want to extend that principle to value particular potential people more than statistical potential people. That is an interesting point I will have to mull over a bit...

In regards to the health charity analogy, Jane writes that withholding money and committing murder are "logically the same." This is incorrect. From a utilitarian standpoint, they are the same. From a deontological standpoint, they are not. In particluar, one is murder and the other is not. (From a logical standpoint, their equivalence is indeterminate, since they are not logical propositions but moral ones and cannot be evaluated using formal logic.)

From neither the utilitarian nor deontological viewpoint does "specificity" matter in the case of murder. If you shoot blindly into a crowd, it is still murder even if you don't know specifically who your victims are.

Likewise, in many acts other acts specificity does not matter. It does not matter if I know which eggs were cracked to make my omlette, because eggs just don't matter.

What Jane has not shown in her argument is why specificity matters in the case of potential human life. That is, why is killing a specific zygote (preventing the development of a specific DNA pattern) worse than using birth control (preventing the development of an unknown and therefore inspecific DNA pattern)?

That is to say, why merely potential life becomes more valuable simply by having a specific DNA sequence associated with it. We presumably agree that potential human life, in itself, posesses little intrinsic value, which is why birth control is not immoral. We also presumably agree that DNA in itself posesses little intrinsic value, otherwise every cell in our bodies would be a person.

Jane's position in seemingly that when these two properties, DNA and potential, combine, then by some metaphysical alchemy they create personhood. I have no idea on what secular basis one would classify that as anything other than superstition. (From a religious standpoint, it is very easy to defend, simply posit ensoulment.)

I would suggest either dispensing with the philosophical approach altogether and establish personhood on the basis of custom and prudence, or, if one insists on being philosphical, ot admit of the intuitive and obviuos fact that personhood has, for the whole of western history, been defined in terms of rational thinking abilities. From Aristotle's "Man is the rational animal" to John Locke's defintion "...a thinking, intelligent being, that has reason and reflection, and can consider itself as itself, the same thinking thing, in different times and different places."

If that puts you too close to Peter Singer's position, again simply turn to arguments from prudence and custom to push legal protection for the infant or fetus as close to conception as you'd like to go.

Boo is right to put 'ensoulment' into the mix. Now, I have three actual children, so I think I'm an expert! They walk, they talk, they scheme to make sure the others don't get more than their shares, they give lip to their mother and to me, they want help with their homework. In short, they have souls, or something (I'm secular, so I vote for 'something')
It seemed to me that when they were newborns, they didn't. They were bundles of reflexes: they sucked, they wet, they made noise. At about three months, it seemed to me that there started to be something more - smiles, noticing Mom as a person instead of as a nipple. Capacity for fear and dread. And then it was off to the races.
So I'm going to claim that ensoulment, or attainment of personhood, a claim on the world that is independent of the parents' hope for comfort and posterity, should start about then. Before that you have a potential for humanity, and heartbreak for the parents if it is a desired pregnancy, and is lost, but you don't have humanity itself. So I think if the parents want to end that potential for humanity, there's not a good moral argument that they should be required to keep it going.
Boo has it right again, "...simply turn to arguments from prudence and custom to push legal protection for the infant or fetus as close to conception as you'd like to go." I think Jane is right that early infanticide and late abortion are not all that different in any theoretical way. But I am squeamish about infanticide, though the above doesn't provide any logical justification to oppose it.

Matt, you'll have to explain to me how my assertions fit the "broken window" scenario, because I'm not seeing it.

Not sure why Jane is going through these logical gymnastics to point out that birth control and abortion are different. That they are entirely different phenomena is obvious. One involves killing the fetus, the other involves preventing fertilization. Why so many words?

One is aware, of course, that some forms of birth control act by inducing abortion, and should be characterized for purposes of this discussion as abortifacients. Someone who believes that, say, the government ought to protect unborn people by restricting abortion, but believes the government should do nothing to restrict non-abortifacient birth control products, would be operating with perfectly consistent logic.

That is, why is killing a specific zygote (preventing the development of a specific DNA pattern) worse than using birth control (preventing the development of an unknown and therefore inspecific DNA pattern)?

Um, because the former (if one accepts the view that when fertilization occurs a human being comes into existence) is killing somebody, and the latter isn't.

Small quibble with your analogy, Megan.

If you said no to the first question, and yes to the second, what's the difference? The result is the same: you have $10,000, and fifty people in Africa are dead. Logically, they're exactly the same thing.

In the first situation, you have chosen not to give $10,000, so you are in the exact same financial position as before. In the second situation, you have been given $10,000 to commit the murders. You are now $10,000 richer than before.

P.B. Almeida

I would agree with you that they are obviously different. However, what MAKES them obviously different to me is pre-birth personhood (at some point) of the fetus. Jane had endevored (three posts ago) to mount an argument for the 'badness' of abortion that did not really upon the personhood of the fetus. She was trying to side step the argument of whether arbortion involved killing someone, and instead mount it in terms of prevention of a potential someone.

The problem with prevention of a potential someone as a basis for the 'badness' argument is that there is a strong argument that it applied equally well to the 'badness' of birth control. Since most of us reject the notion that 'birth control' is bad, this trends towards disproof of Jane's argument by contradiction. That is why Jane is defending the distinction between birth control and abortion.

Does that help at all? Please see the threads for the last three posts for background. Also note, if some of us seem to be making slightly strange arguments that leave you wanting to scream 'but your arguments are silly because a fetus is a person!', please note that one of the points of the discussion is to contruct an argument for the 'badness' of abortion without having to invoke fetal personhood.

Does that help at all? Please see the threads for the last three posts for background. Also note, if some of us seem to be making slightly strange arguments that leave you wanting to scream 'but your arguments are silly because a fetus is a person!'

Got it. Mybad. I read this blog pretty regularly, but must admit I rather skimmed through the recent abortion posts.

These are a great series of posts. While I do not completely agree with Jane's position, it is very well argued. I am very glad her mother made the "choice" to carry her to term.

I am comfortable with the theological arguments; and, with the philosophical arguments which arrive at the same end point as the theological arguments. I am far less comfortable with the philosophical arguments which support "abortion on demand", particularly once the baby's head is in the birth canal. I find the idea of "partial birth abortion" too gruesome to contemplate.

However, I find it almost impossible to participate in an objective philosophical discussion of this issue for very personal reasons. My wife and I have our older son because his unmarried "birth mother" chose to allow him to live. We have our other son's wife for the same reason. We also have a granddaughter whose mother and father, unmarried at conception but married at birth, thought her life was more important and more valuable than their convenience. Objectivity comes hard on this issue. Our lives would be very different without these three individuals.

Logically, I don't see any difference between taking a loss, and not realizing a gain; that's one of those irrational intuitive leaps that make discussing issues like abortion so much fun.

Jane,

If you had $1 million dollars on hand, would you see a difference between taking a loss of $1 million dollars (effectively wiping you out) and not realzing a gain of an additional $1 million dollars (leaving you with $1 million, instead of $2 million)?

Or are your really arguing that you see no distinction between acts of commission and acts of ommission?

I can see that the end states are different, but the tradeoff is not: is it worth giving up $10K to prevent 50 people in Africa from dying, or not? Whether or not you already have the money seems to me to be irrelevant. After all, you would not argue that it would be okay to shoot the people if you really needed the money, but not okay to forgo the charitable donation just because you didn't, even though your personal condition would be worse in the first example than the second.

I'm still trying to figure out what "a health care rity" is.

Jane - does the argument change if you are being paid $10K to "release a nerve gas which will kill approximately 50 random people"? They are no longer specific... it could be anyone.

Change the argument as much as you like to achieve the desired level of non-specificity... say, to release killer robots that will pick a random point on the continent of Africa and then kill the nearest person (again at random) at a time chosen at random.

quadrupole - does your argument really change if someone offers to forgive a $10K debt rather than pay $10K? What if it is a $12500 judgment that they are 80% statistically likely to get from a law suit against you?

What if it is a $10K government "robot-releasing" tax credit that you can choose to take? Or conversely, a government fine for not releasing the robots?

Does the argument change if the gas released will cause 50 spontaneous abortions?

Does it change if the robots have a random 8-11 month delay and will only kill babies less than 7 months old?

Thanks for this series of posts, Meagan. It's good that somebody is engaging the abortion issue without getting overly emotional.

A better question is this:

If I give you $10,000 because I feel like it, then break into your house and take it from you a week later, is that wrong? You're in the same position you were before.

There are women who have to and those that choose to.
The have to's don't read this blog.

Earl -

How common are cases of "have to"? Please present hypothetical (or real, with names changed) scenarios of "have to", and then estimates of what proportion of abortions fit those scenarios.

(I generally agree that women should be allowed to "choose to", but I belieev there should be more limits on their choice than currently exist in U.S. law.)

So, fine. Jane is pointing to a very real psychological phenomenon. But so what? If an argument doesn't jive with your intuitions, one of the two is going to have to go. But you're begging the question by assuming that your intuitions are always right. Upon further examination, if it seems that there is a plausible cognitive bias or unexamined assumption shaping your intuitions, then why can't the intuition be junked instead of the argument?

I wonder what's left of morality if one tosses out moral intuition.

For theists, there's divine law. In fact, many theists doubt that morality can survive the loss of religious faith. Of course, many atheists disagree, and moral intuition factors very strongly into their defense against amorality.

So I think I'd be more careful about chipping away at your own foundations. I don't think it would be too persuasive to justify this or that abortion position on the basis that morality is itself irrational.

Jeff Licquia,

Moral intuition doesn't have to factor in at all. In fact, most of what I have read on the subject contains at the very least a distrust for moral intuition. There is a whole branch of philosophy dedicated to determining right actions without a divine being or relying on intuition. It's called ethics.

I'm familiar with ethics, having studied it extensively. And certainly, distrust of intuition is a staple of much ethical thinking.

What is missing, however, is a replacement for intuition (or divine command, another popular basis for moral reasoning).

Perhaps, having such a command of the ethical literature as to point out its existence to me, you could provide that missing piece?

In order to answer your question on abortion, one must go back to first principles. What is human and therefore legally entitled to human rights and morally entitled to guilt if these rights are violated?

Previously I have argued, base on historical precedent dating back to earliest written records, that humanity is not intrinsic in an entity but is granted to an entity by the society into which it is born. Only in modern times do people argue that if an organism emerges from a womb that it must have human rights. And lately, people argue that if an organism is created outside a womb it must have human rights - which is the basis for the president's ban on cloning using human DNA - even if its just a couple cells.

A familiar feature in SF is the notion of incubators that totally replace the womb making it possible for women to avoid the mess and fuss of pregnancy and the intollerable interruptions pregnancy causes in a woman's career path.

Artificial wombs will become a reality in our lifetime.

Should the thing that comes out of these things be given human rights? Even if it has Downs?
Does it have human rights from the moment the sperm is successfully introduced to the egg?

What do we do if it is a genius, christ like in its compassion, but has wings and 6 legs?

What makes a human human?

People have to vote on this issue. It cannot be solved scientifically. Fortunately we have 50 states which enables us to have 50 definitions of what is human and what is not.

w sol vason,

The votes may happen and there may eventually be 50 (51? - Don't forget the "District of Comedy") "legal" definitions of what is "human". Genetic "tinkering" may eventually produce some "not-fully-human" legal humans in this scenario. However, all the voting and the resulting laws would not change the fact that the union of a human male sperm and a human female egg, if the combined entity survives the gestation period, results in the existence of another human being.

Since most legislators appear to believe that the laws of physics and the laws of economics are subject to amendment or repeal, if doing so suits their purposes, there is little reason to suspect that they doubt their ability to change the laws of nature as well.

I doubt that I will be around long enough to see whether the scenario you suggest will become reality. I believe I am just as glad.

I believe I am also glad that I will not be around long enough to experience "The Mysterious Island of Doctor Singer", on which abortion on demand would be combined with euthanasia on demand through age one and again beyond age __. Or maybe I will experience it and then not be around.

Quadrupole correctly questioned the analogy itself. If we are talking about forms of birth control that prevent implantation AFTER fertilization, then those birth control methods are functionally equivalent to abortion.

At a minimum, "permissible" birth control would have to exclude those methods that allow fertilization to occur.

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