From: cash@convex.com (Peter Cash)
Newsgroups: talk.philosophy.misc
Subject: Re: This whole abortion thing.
Date: 29 Sep 92 17:02:22 GMT
Organization: The Instrumentality
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In article <NX5TRB2w164w@phsbbs.princeton.nj.us> heather@phsbbs.princeton.nj.us (Heather Freeman) writes:
>Could someone please come up with a good argument against the following:

>        Complete access to abortion should be maintained because if it
>        is restriction or eliminated the chances of women going to back
>        alley abortionists would be greatly increased. Thus, more likely 
>        that not, both the woman and the unborn child would die.  It is a 
>        choice between two evils- one life or two, and the logical answer
>        is one. Maintain the status of unlimited abortion.

This argument is interesting because it implies that abortion _is_ an
evil, but it asserts that banning abortions will result in a greater
evil--two deaths for every one. However, given the initial admission that
abortion is evil, I think the argument is pretty clearly bound to fail.

First of all, it's improbable that the alleged consequences of outlawing
abortion (except to save the life of the mother) will actually manifest
themselves. Almost all abortions are done for the sake of convenience;
since "back-alley" abortions are even more inconvenient (not to say risky)
than having a baby, the overwhelming majority of women who have abortions
today would simply go through with the pregnancy. Thus, the number of
deaths (aborted fetuses plus women who die as a result of illegal
abortions) would be much fewer if abortions were outlawed than they are
today (about 2 million dead per year). 

Remember that the unwed mother of today is in a vastly different situation
than she was, say, forty years ago. The degree of social stigmatization
attached to being an unwed mother is much, much less than it was in the
past (just ask Murphy Brown), and assistance (financial and otherwise) is
much easier for an unwed mother of today to come by than it was in the
past. Thus, there are seldom overriding reasons that would compel women to
get an abortion despite the discomfort and risk of the "back alley". 

There is also a second question I would raise about this argument: if we
grant that the premises of the argument are true (though they aren't), and
stipulate that there would be more total deaths if abortion were outlawed
than if it were left legal, would it follow that it is wrong to outlaw
abortion?

Under our present laws, it's illegal to kill children once they're born--if
a parent murders a child, then the parent is punished. According to your
argument, this adds evil to evil: first we have the evil of killing a
child, and then we have the evil that's visited on the parent (e.g.,
lifelong incarceration). If our aim is to have a universe with the least
possible amount of evil in it, why not repeal the laws against killing
children?  Indeed, why not repeal the laws against any kind of murder?
Surely our laws against murder multiply the amount of total evil in the
universe by causing the perpetrator to suffer!

-- 
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             |      Die Welt ist alles, was Zerfall ist.     |
Peter Cash   |       (apologies to Ludwig Wittgenstein)      |cash@convex.com
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Newsgroups: talk.philosophy.misc