We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
We now relate the themes of previous chapters – free choice, familial attachment, personal responsibility and possible harm – to two extremely controversial debates. This chapter deals with the first of these, abortion.
Despite the controversy that surrounds abortion, the aim of the chapter is to identify what can be termed a ‘pragmatic consensus’, or a broad field of opinion in which most of those who think about the issue probably stand. It is this that has arguably enabled abortion to become embedded as an accepted practice in many countries and which therefore deserves consideration for that reason if no other. To this end, the first half of the chapter addresses two questions that will help us to mark out the space of that consensus: should there be abortion on demand and what should the upper time limit for abortion be? The appropriateness of these questions to the pragmatic consensus should become obvious as we proceed. The chapter also explores two further questions, but we will leave these to one side for now.
Abortion on demand
Should there be abortion on demand?
There are various reasons why many feel uncomfortable with the idea of abortion on demand (Cleary, 1983; cf. Glover, 1977, pp 144-5). Wouldn't it encourage women to seek abortion on frivolous grounds? What if some used it as a form of contraception? For many, such doubts represent an insurmountable problem. So where might an ethical justification lie? On what basis could abortion on demand be permissible?
If we decide that abortion is acceptable, why should the motivations of the pregnant women be an issue? If we believe that the foetus is organically and morally indistinguishable from the rest of her body, why insist on imposing procedural hurdles? Abortion is either murder or it isn’t, and we don't excuse murder based on how the killer does or does not feel. So perhaps the requirement to have abortions sanctioned by medical experts and other authorities stems from nothing more than moralistic desires. To make abortion dependent on evidence of medical harm, emotional distress or worthy intentions might encourage women either to worry themselves into the first, fake the second or simulate the third – hardly a basis for ethical decision making.
Consequentialists and Kantians, of course, both downgrade the worth of factors like emotions and motivations.
To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure no-reply@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.
Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.
Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.
