A Philosophical Defense of the Pro-Life Stance

People marching past the US Supreme court during the 2020 annual March for Life. Source: Vatican News

I’ve spent several years now in hundreds of conversations and debates about the issue of abortion. This is my best try at compiling all the counterarguments I’ve heard, and the best responses to them. Part I, here, will cover the main argument, some “miscellaneous” counterarguments, and the famous “bodily autonomy” arguments. Part II will cover some more “miscellaneous” counterarguments, and arguments about the nature of personhood. Part III will cover the “difficult cases” and rhetorical advice for engaging with the issue effectively.

     I. The Argument

The pro-life argument is simple. 

1. Killing or neglecting an infant until the point of death is abhorrent and should be unlawful.

2. There is no moral difference between procured abortion and killing or neglecting an infant until the point of death.

3. Therefore, abortion is abhorrent and should be unlawful.

     II. Some Miscellaneous Counterarguments

There are a number of questionable or peripheral counterarguments (i.e. some aren’t actually counterarguments to the argument above). They include the following.

1. Appeals to Social Concerns (e.g. the child won’t live a positive life, society can’t support the child/mother, etc.)

Many people, especially those who haven’t thought at length about abortion, will advance arguments like these to justify it. 

The best way to respond is to “point to a toddler.” Just as there are pre-born children who are likely to live difficult lives, or be a drain on the welfare system—there are also toddlers who are likely to live difficult lives, or be a drain on the welfare system. Ask your interlocutor if it would be acceptable to starve or kill off these toddlers to prevent their difficult lives/their drain on resources. Any reasonable person will respond that it would not be. After all, social concerns can be addressed in many ways, but the deliberate taking of innocent human life cannot be one of them.

Here, many interlocutors will offer that toddlers are morally different from pre-born children. This is progress: whether or not pre-born children are morally equivalent to toddlers is the crux of the issue. It is addressed below.

2. “It’s None of Your Business” (e.g. if you don’t like abortion, don’t have an abortion, it’s a decision for a woman and her doctor, etc.)

This is one of the more common responses nowadays. Its popularity, however, does not reflect its reasonability.

The best way to respond to this is to quote historical examples, most notably, from the American slavery debate. It was often argued by proponents of slavery that it was a state or individual’s right to refuse to own slaves, but that anti-slavery advocates should “mind their own business” instead of imposing their beliefs on Southern states and slave owners. You can affirm here that your interlocutor probably agrees that’s a ridiculous argument—when the abolitionists said they were opposed to slavery, they weren’t expressing a personal preference, they were expressing a universal moral judgement. Likewise, we’re saying that abortion is a universal evil, just like child killing or neglect is a universal evil.

Here, most interlocutors will offer that abortion is not a universal evil. You can make the argument in Point I as to why you believe it is. This is progress; it will hopefully lead your interlocutor to offer one of the valid counterarguments below.

3. My Body, My Choice

More of a catchphrase than an argument, but I’ve heard a variant of this argument that purports to argue that any legislation that “legislates (women’s) bodies” is categorically impermissible.

I’ve heard some people respond to this argument by observing (cheekily) that all criminal legislation “controls (women’s) bodies.” This is true. But beating this (not-actually-logical) argument on a logical level is unproductive. See that the interlocutor correctly observes that there seems to be something different about the kind of bodily control involved in abortion bans than in other criminal legislation. Strengthen the interlocutor’s argument by offering some variant of the “violinist argument” below. Confirm that it aligns with what the interlocutor is saying—then respond to it.

Counterintuitively, by raising your interlocutor’s argument to the level of reason, as opposed to emotionally-inspired catchphrases, you’re strengthening their argument, but simultaneously making it easier for you to respond to it. After all, progress can only be made if both you and your interlocutor are willing to engage the issue in a reasoned way. And strengthening your interlocutor’s argument in this way is a good way to invite them to engage the issue in a reasoned way.

     III. The Valid Counterarguments

A valid counterargument isn’t necessarily a convincing one. It just means that it at least tries to respond to the argument above. There are three categories of valid counterarguments against the arguments above. 

1. Killing or neglecting an infant until the point of death is not abhorrent and should not be unlawful.

2. There is a moral difference between the act of child killing/neglect and the act of abortion.

3. There is a moral difference between the objects of the acts: an infant and a pre-born child.

Of these, the rarest and most difficult to address is actually the first. But given that very few people advance this argument in good faith, and that it’s more of an academic argument than a real objection, I will not address it here. In a public debate or discussion, it will usually suffice to “agree to disagree” when both sides admit that abortion is morally equivalent to child killing, but the two sides disagree as to the ethics of child killing itself. I’ll speak more on this in Part IV: Rhetorical Techniques.

1. Abortion is Not Like Child Neglect or Killing 

Some of the favorite arguments of your more educated pro-choice interlocutors will bring up hypothetical scenarios which are supposedly “parallels” to abortion. Your job, generally, is to show why our parallel (child killing or child neglect until the point of death), is the closer parallel to what abortion really is. I’ll address how this works first, with the most popular of these hypothetical arguments, then, with the one I consider to be the strongest.

Called the “violinist argument,” Judith Jarvis Thompson’s famous version goes like this. Suppose you woke up connected by a tube to a famous violinist, who is in a coma. He will recover only if you remain connected to him for the next nine months. But even if it may cause his death, you would be permitted—legally and even ethically—to disconnect the tube and leave. Likewise, even if it may cause the pre-born child’s death, you should be permitted to “disconnect” from him—through procured abortion.

A hypothetical argument is a kind of argument by analogy. And an argument by analogy is compelling to the degree that the hypothetical resembles, (in all the relevant ways), the situation in question. The problem is that Thompson’s hypothetical is hardly similar to the case of abortion. Sure—both cases involve a potential requirement to assist someone else who would die but for that assistance. But the similarities end there. For just a sampling of relevant moral differences:

1. Abortion involves a duty to one’s own minor child, the violinist here is a stranger. This is a relevant moral difference—there are many obligations that parents have towards their minor children that they do not have to a stranger.

2. Abortion, in 99% of cases, is the result of a knowing choice. The violinist’s case is not. This is a relevant moral difference—there are many cases in which we are willing to hold people responsible for the consequences for choices they make, when we would not hold them responsible for the consequences of an involuntary happening.

3. Abortion involves killing, the violinist’s case only involves refraining from assisting. This is a relevant difference—most would agree that one wouldn’t have the right to poison the violinist, or to dismember him limb from limb.

Given these and many other differences, the comparison I proposed above (murder, or at least, child neglect until the point of death), which does not suffer from the same problems, is a more appropriate parallel than Thompson’s “violinist” case. But some of these weaknesses of Thompson’s “violinist” case can be remedied. Consider the hypothetical below.

The best “hypothetical” pro-choice argument I’ve heard, which addresses many of these more “obvious” problems, goes like this. Suppose there was a terrible accident (perhaps of your own causing) and your own minor child requires a blood transplant, and you are the only compatible match in the world. Indeed, we may think it morally commendable if you were to donate your bone marrow. But surely, we should not require you under pain of criminal penalty to donate your bone marrow. Likewise, we may think it morally commendable for someone to “give their body” to carry a pre-born child to term, but it should not be required under pain of legal penalty. 

In many ways, this argument appears rather compelling. It involves the case of a parent being compelled to give assistance to her minor child, assistance which the child needs because of the parent’s act, assistance but for which the child would die, much like the case of abortion. Nevertheless, there is a crucial difference that illustrates why abortion is relevantly dissimilar from this case, and rather similar to the aforementioned case of child neglect.

At the threshold, there is the aforementioned distinction between killing and letting die that this argument cannot address. This would be an independently sufficient reason for rejecting abortion—but it is often not rhetorically compelling to most people on its own. Hence, the following distinction.

It is significant that the law makes certain impositions on parents, but not others. Specifically, the law does not require parents to provide any and all necessary care for their children, or even to save their children’s lives. Rather, parents are required to provide ordinary care for their children, the kind of care that any child needs to survive and thrive. Consider California’s child neglect law (which is similar to virtually all others throughout the country, and indeed, the world). It requires that parents provide “necessary clothing, food, shelter, medical care, or other remedial care” and that a “willful omission” of these that results in “endangering a child's health or welfare” is a criminal offense. Note that extraordinary care, such as donating bone marrow or plasma, even if it were necessary to save the child’s life, is not legally obligatory. 

The question then becomes: is the carrying of a pre-born child to term like the ordinary care that we legally expect of parents, or more similar to the extraordinary care that we do not? It is clear that it is the former. Unlike the extraordinary cases of blood transfusions or bone marrow transplants, a pre-born child’s need for gestation is not the result of extraordinary circumstances or exigencies. On the contrary, like the other ordinary cases of food and shelter, the pre-born child’s need for nourishment through the umbilical cord and shelter are as ordinary as ordinary can be: they are universal. Nor is the difference in the manner in which nourishment and shelter relevant. We understand in other contexts that a parent’s responsibility to provide ordinary care takes different, age-appropriate forms depending on the child’s level of development—hence, it would not be a defense against neglect for the parent of an infant child to offer that food was “available” in the refrigerator, while it would be for the parent of an adolescent.

There are other supposed differences between the care we legally expect from parents of born children and the care that we should legally expect from parents of unborn children. Not one of these differences saves the pro-choice position.

TO BE CONTINUED…