Abortion is one of the most sensitive areas of applied ethics, largely because of the emotive language surrounding it. For all but a very few, murdering a baby is the most horrifying of crimes, essentially because the baby is entirely defenceless. For the pro-life lobby, abortion is just that – murdering something defenceless – and so is entirely reprehensible. ‘Pro-lifers’ argue that the unborn child has the same rights as a child, and that the mother consequently has a duty to bear that unborn child to full-term, whether she wants to or not (when I refer to the rights of the foetus, the reader should infer the implied duty of the mother). ‘Pro-choicers’ respond that the unborn child is not yet endowed with rights, and thus the mother is not burdened by any duties to the bundle of cells inside her womb. Within this context, it would seem that the morality of abortion is merely to be determined by a discussion of the rights of the unborn and the duties of the parents. However, this is ultimately not the case: to declare that "abortion is merely a question of rights and duties" implies that only a Kantian notion of deontology will answer the question. In fact, discussions over the rights and wrongs of abortion may seem to focus on the rights of the unborn child and the duty of the expectant mother, but in fact most of the dialogue revolves around intuitive, emotivist, consequentialist and religious responses to the question.

At this point, it seems sensible to explain what is meant when one says, "X is a question of Y." I have assumed that this is not a prescriptive statement, but a descriptive one – namely, the purpose of the statement is not to cause people to consider X with respect to Y, but merely an observation that X is frequently considered with respect to Y. This assumption is critical to both the style and purpose of the essay, but I do not think it is an unreasonable one, as a prescriptive statement urging people to consider Y when considering X would feature the word "should" (or "ought"), rather than "is." Given that the statement makes an assertion as to the ethical system people use when considering abortion, it would make sense to challenge that assertion by determining whether any other ethical systems are used and, if so, what those systems are. The essay will thus not attempt to explain under what circumstances, if any, abortion can be justified – rather, it will survey the various suggestions that have been made as to the justifiability of abortion, and determine what ethical system has been used to make those suggestions. Finally, the essay will not seek to conclude whether one system is better than another in judging the justifiability of abortion, as any attempt to do so would necessarily then be a product merely of the author’s own ethical value system. In a post-modern, relativist world, such a product might make for an interesting insight into the author’s character, but would necessarily be obsolete and of little consequence, and would not be in place within an essay whose basic concern is to describe, not prescribe

First, let us discuss whether abortion might be permissible under some circumstances (those circumstances will be discussed later). The arguments will focus, somewhat inevitably, upon the status of the foetus and therefore, albeit tacitly, on the foetus’ rights. This focus on the state of the foetus will leave us with a variety of points up until which various groups are in favour of abortion under some circumstances. Broadly, these points are:

• 0 days (i.e. abortion is entirely impermissible)
• Less than two weeks
• Up until the point of viability
• Up until birth

Each of these positions, ultimately, claims that the foetus/baby has acquired the most basic right of all – the right to life – after the declared point. However, the idea of the baby acquiring rights is neither simple nor obvious, and it is most certainly not the primary cause. Each of these points shall be examined independently in order to determine exactly why the relevant parties believe that rights are acquired at that point.

Those who claim that abortion is always immoral might lay out their argument in the following syllogism:

The first premise is irrefutable – murder is defined as wrongful killing, and therefore can never be moral. However, the second premise is much more open to challenges, and Peter Singer exposes it dramatically. Murder, in this context, means the taking of a human life. In that case, ‘human’ must be defined, and can be defined in only two ways: either ‘member of the species Homo sapiens’ or ‘Person’ (i.e. a distinctive and individual personality). But a foetus is certainly not a ‘person,’ so a pro-lifer must be defining abortion as murder purely because the foetus is a Homo sapiens foetus. This merely demonstrates irrational speciesism – that is to say, favouring one species over another – when really there is no logical reason to condemn the abortion of a Homo sapiens foetus whilst allowing a canine foetus to be aborted without complaint. Anyone who holds that the foetus is a human is therefore be simply following their emotions, intuitions or credo of their religion (for example, Catholicism advocates that an abortion should not be carried out under any circumstances because human life is sacred. This applies even when the life of the mother will be endangered: it is up to God to decide which of them will survive). Thus, in this case, the tenants of emotivism, religion or intuitionism have determined the idea that the baby has rights.

Many pro-lifers would actually concede this, agreeing that the foetus is not a human yet, and thus moving instead to a syllogism that defines the place of the foetus much more securely, but puts it in a place which is open to attack. This syllogism runs as follows:

There is no denying that the foetus has tremendous potential. However, there is nothing to support the first premise. Something potential is, inherently, something thing is not at the moment. This being the case, how can it be wrong to take away a potential? Before the 14^th day of pregnancy, there is no way of knowing whether the ball of cells will become an individual or, for example, twins, so potential is even more vague than it initially seemed. Tracing the pregnancy back even further, would it have been wrong for the couple to use contraception, given that that removes the potential for life? Or, even further than that, would it have been wrong for the couple to abstain from sexual intercourse? After all, a man’s semen and a woman’s egg both have the potential for human life latent within them – by not copulating as frequently as humanly possible, we have removed the potential for life, and thus would seem to be acting immorally, if the first premise of the syllogism is correct. But it is absurd to suggest that someone is immoral for remaining chaste – particularly when one considers that many pro-lifers are Catholics, and that the Catholic Church still favours the state of chastity over marriage, hence the enforced celibacy of the clergy – and thus the first premise of the argument must be absurd. Again then, why do people hold the idea that a potential life must be protected at all costs? It can only be because of their emotional, religious or intuitive response to the situation.

The next point to be examined, that of 14 days, is also a question of emotions and religious bliks rather than anything else. Before 14 days, the embryo has no features that make it resemble a baby (the ‘primitive streak’) and cannot yet be seen as an individual because it may yet become twins. This would seem to be a fair enough dividing line – if this ball of cells could become an individual or sextuplets, it would seem fair enough to claim that this ball of cells is not yet conscious. However, this arbitrary line of consciousness is critical. Why should it matter if the foetus is conscious? After all, it would be perfectly possible to anaesthetise the foetus at any point in the pregnancy such that, when aborted, it would not feel any pain. There is no real reason for us to believe that consciousness should provide a dividing line short of the fact that we know that we are conscious, and we would not want to be killed ourselves. It is almost immaterial that a fish of three months is more self-aware than a foetus of three months – the point is that we feel a bond with the foetus, therefore supposing that it has the same rights as we do. The other possible argument is that, once conscious, a foetus is a child in God’s eyes, and thus it is wrong to kill it. Either way, we attribute rights with consciousness purely because of an emotional or religious response.

The point of viability is likewise an intuitive or emotional response to the situation. If something is unable to survive on its own, we tend to believe that it does not have the right to survival. This has no basis in reason, and there is no logic to thinking such a thing – in fact, it is decidedly illogical. To be consistent, someone who is advocating the possibility of abortion up until the point of viability is also advocating the possibility of involuntary euthanasia for chronic sufferers of Alzheimer’s Disease, because both parties would die very quickly indeed if uncared for. In fact, the point of viability is even less logical than that – there is nothing inherently ridiculous about advocating involuntary euthanasia under certain conditions, although few pro-choicers would do so – when one considers that at no point is a baby viable itself; that is to say, even a baby born two weeks after it was expected will die if untended to. Worse still, the point of viability is dependent upon the medical technology of the area in which the mother-to-be lives: would it be moral for her to fly from New York with her foetus of twenty-two weeks (thus ‘viable’ in America’) in order to have an abortion in Papua New Guinea (where economic forces dictate that the baby would not yet be viable)? The foetus’ rights surely do not change with location, but that is what the point of viability suggests. Why then do people hold such an illogical belief? Simply because it appeals to our intuition to suggest that, if something will not survive on its own, it does not have the right to life.

The last point – that of abortion at any point in the pregnancy – is again an appeal to emotions and intuitions rather than anything else. Essentially, this argument suggests that the mother has rights that outweigh those of the foetus (if the foetus has any at all). But there is no logical reason to suggest that something magical happens at birth and that the baby miraculously inherits those inalienable human rights. Position, as mentioned before, makes no difference to rights, and that applies to the in/ex utero distinction just as much as it does to countries. Furthermore, it is totally illogical to suggest that a baby born two months prematurely has rights, but that a foetus who is two weeks overdue and just about to be born has none. Why then does anyone suggest that the point of birth means anything? Purely because we cannot see a baby until it has been born. Granted, ultrasound allows us to see black and white ‘noisy’ images, but only once it has been born can we really see it, hear it and cuddle it. It is this that provokes our emotional response, and thus it is once again from emotions that rights have arisen.

At no point so far have I made reference to why abortion might be justifiable. As before, the issue at stake appears to be rights, although, in the case of justifiable abortion, it is the rights of the mother that one focuses on. Briefly setting aside the idea that abortion is never justifiable (which was discussed earlier and found to be a product of emotions, intuitions or religious beliefs), there are four commonly cited circumstances under which abortion might be justified:

• If the mother’s physical or mental health will be endangered
• If the arrival of a new child will seriously detriment any existing children
• If the baby will be handicapped
• Upon request

I shall deal with the first three situations together, as they all have something in common: the mother’s right to end the foetus’ life is greater than the foetus’ right to that life under certain circumstances. Note that the proponents of any or all of three positions must accept that the foetus has a right to life, otherwise they would be forced to advocate abortion on demand. However, the notion that the mother’s rights are greater than the foetus’ seems slightly illogical – a foetus will probably have a much longer life ahead of it than its mother will. It may be argued that the rights of the foetus are potential rights, as the foetus is not a yet a human, but that the rights of the mother are concrete, because the mother actually is. But at what point (both in terms of a point in time and in terms of a particular circumstance) does the foetus’ right to life supersede the mother’s right to end that life? It must end at some point, or mothers ought to be allowed to execute their toddlers at their own discretion without reproach from the law. No ethical standpoint dependent on rational thought can really give an answer to this question, so we must leave the question unanswered: we simply cannot know when the mother’s right to end the foetus’ life overcomes the foetus’ right to that life. As a result, we cannot really claim that we know that there are certain circumstances under which abortion may be justified, because we cannot know whose rights have precedence. Once this has been realised, it quickly becomes clear that these stances are not then a product of a system of rights, but a product of a consequentialist ethic – The claim that abortion is justified by the consequence that the birth would have is obviously a consequentialist perspective. Consequentialism in this case may refer to utilitarianism and it would indeed initially seem that the three situations under which a foetus might be aborted are guided in some way by the principle of utility. However, upon closer examination, that is not the case. For example, although the birth of a child may cause the mother mental distress, perhaps because she has been raped, it is fallacious to assume that the total utility will be lower if the pregnancy is brought to full term than if the pregnancy is terminated. Whilst I concede that there are necessary difficulties with a consequentialist ethic – namely that the future is unknown to us – few could draw up a general rule to suggest that, judging on the principle of utility alone, it would, in some circumstances, be in the interests of the potential child to be executed, rather than being allowed to live.

In fact, the consequentialist ethic at work here is almost certainly situation ethics. Those who suggest that the mother may have an abortion if she or her offspring are in some way at risk are simply suggesting what they feel is the most loving course of action for the situation. Naturally the Catholic Church would disagree with this stance, given Pope Pius XII’s condemnation of situation ethics as "little more than the subjective appeal to circumstances in order to justify decisions that are in direct opposition to the Will of God" and Paul’s declaration "one may not do evil that one may do good." The rights of the unborn child versus the rights of the mother is an issue that is frequently discussed by proponents of one of the three ways referred to above, but such proponents are not really discussing rights at all. Given that rights are inalienable, it is impossible to suggest that one person’s rights hold precedence over another. Thus, any statement that these proponents make about the rights of the unborn and the rights of the mother are not statements about rights, but emotional responses about what they feel is the most loving course of action. For example, to allow mothers to abort the pregnancy if the pregnancy was a product of rape can be nothing more than the application of a guiding principle of agaph - it would be insensitive and unloving to force the mother to carry her pregnancy to full term. Similarly, to allow the mother to abort if the child will be handicapped is again an application of situation ethics, as it would be unloving to force a mother to give birth to a child that she might either not love, or be fully equipped, emotionally and/or financially, to handle. Any reference then to rights and duties by people who state that abortion is justified under certain circumstances is not a statement about rights and duties, but a statement about what they feel is the most loving course of action.

Abortion on demand is the last possible circumstance to be considered, and it holds that the mother’s right to end her foetus’ life is always superior to that of the baby. I would refer proponents of such an argument to the paragraph above, which asks where the cut-off point is, i.e. when does the baby acquire rights which cannot be violated? However, it is perfectly justifiable for the proponent to say: "we do not know exactly, but the rights are acquired at some point after birth. Therefore, if we draw the line at birth, then we can be sure that no immoral actions are taking place." But how does the proponent know that these rights are acquired after birth? They may appeal to moral relativism – that that is the way society outlines rights – but ultimately this would be foolish, given that most people within most societies are not in favour of abortion on demand up until birth (or abortion on demand at all, in many societies), and thus the proponents’ views must necessarily be wrong at the moment. Besides, if they brought moral relativism into the equation, they would have to accept that, in Catholic countries where the Catholic belief holds sway, it is immoral to abort under any circumstances. If they cannot appeal to moral relativism, to what can they appeal? In fact, it would seem, very little – merely their subjective emotions and intuitions. In fact, whatever time period they suggest, there is no logical reason for suggesting it, merely an emotional one.

What then, can be concluded from this barrage of statements about the rights of the foetus and the rights of the mother? Well, apart from the fact that abortion is a tremendously complex issue, it is apparent that there are consistent themes behind every argument, be it from the anti-abortionists to those in favour of free choice. It seems strange, but ultimately, every single position over the issue of abortion does not come down to a reasoned argument about the rights of an unborn foetus, largely because the reasoned discussion of such rights is impossible, as the relative rights of a foetus cannot be inferred from logical deductions. Despite this, every single position does make a claim to know who has which rights. Consequently, it might be argued that abortion is a question of rights and duties, as it appears that people are using a system of rights to weigh up the relative merits of each position, but this ignores the current beneath such assertions of rights and duties. This current, as has been shown, is actually down to emotional, intuitive, religious or consequentialist responses. The statement that this essay discusses is thus misleading, as, although rights are discussed, they are not the primary factor at work. Instead it should read: "abortion is an issue proximately of rights and duties, but primarily of emotions, intuitions, consequences and religious beliefs."