In the 1970s we have the Roe v. Wade decision
in the United States.
It was a decision relating to a woman's right
to have an abortion.
It introduced the trimester framework.
It basically allowed first trimester abortions,
made it very difficult to have third trimester
abortions.
And essentially this was really met very quickly
thereafter with the sort of backlash.
And really the last 40/50 years of American
history have more or less been a backlash
against Roe v. Wade and an attempt to kind
of criminalize abortion in all sorts of interesting
ways without overturning the decision.
So that's kind of the legal playing field.
I mean we can talk about some of the specifics,
but the more interesting question I think
is thinking about the morality of abortion.
And I'll say that I think abortion is an extremely
difficult question.
So one of the first questions people have
to think about is are fetuses persons?
And that's a very important linguistic question,
persons.
I didn't say human beings.
I didn't say alive.
Those are three different issues.
Something can be alive but not be a person.
Your dog is a good example.
You love your dog.
It's a wonderful thing but it's not a person.
Something can be human and potentially not
be a person.
Some people think the embryo, for example,
before 14 days or stem cells being derived
are members of the human species but may not
be a person.
So what do we mean by persons?
We mean something that has a certain set of
moral and/or legal rights, most important
of which is a right against in viability.
They can't be killed or destroyed or harmed
without very good reason.
And we have the attitude that we're all persons
so we have an index case we're pretty clear
we're persons and the question is who else
is a person?
Well to answer that you need to have a theory
about what makes something a person.
And there are a few different kinds of theories
you can have.
One could be just to say if X is living and
a human being X is a person.
Now some people have problems with that.
So Peter Singer and some animal rights advocates,
for example, think that that's a speciesist
attitude, that by saying human equals person
it's problematic that we're excluding animals.
Instead we ought to have some criteria that
looks at capacity.
So other people have sometimes what are called
a capacity X view where they say in order
to be a person you have to have X capacity
and then we have to fill in what X is.
Is it the ability to think complex thoughts,
the ability to plan and look towards the future,
the ability to feel pain whether you understand
it?
Is about continuity of an identity over time
or is it merely being alive and breathing?
And some people think it's a single criteria,
others think it's a compound criteria.
And then there are complex questions about
what happens for things that have the potential
to have capacity X or had a capacity X but
lost it.
So, for example, a fetus doesn't have the
abilities, early fetus let's just say an embryo
just to make it very easy, an embryo before
14 days doesn't have the capacity to think
deep thoughts about the future or have future
orientation.
I think that's pretty well accepted by everyone,
but it certainly has the potential to do so.
And the question is is that enough?
What kind of theory or potentiality?
Hydrogen and oxygen each have the potential
together to become water.
Does that mean that they are water?
They have the metaphysical properties of water.
Or do we require more of a kind of a potentiality
something like in the natural course of things
they will become something?
The other difficult set of categories are
things that once had the capacity but now
no longer have and perhaps never will again.
So those that are brain-dead, for example,
are a good example.
They are certainly human beings.
Most cases they have been persons.
But now if your capacity for personhood how
do you define personhood is something like
the capacity to think deep thoughts about
the future or do you have future orientation,
these are entities that no longer have that
capacity and we don't believe will have it
again.
Do they cease being persons at that point?
Let's just say that in order to understand
whether a fetus or an early embryo, the kind
that are used for stem cell derivation, is
a person.
You have to do a lot of metaphysical work
in understanding what makes something a person
and why and what those capacities are.
Now even if you think something is a person
that doesn't necessarily mean you've solved
the abortion problem.
So it's possible, although popular among philosophers
not so popular in the political process, to
say fetuses are persons and yet abortion is
still legal and justified.
How does that argument go?
The suggestion is that there is a right of
another entity that has overcome whatever
interest the fetus has and that is the right
particularly of the mother who is gestating
the fetus.
So they claim is yes a fetus is a person.
Yes abortion will cause the death of a person.
But that doesn't mean that abortion is wrong
because a woman gestating the fetus has a
right to stop that gestating, even if it will
result in the death of a person.
And the most famous versions of this argument
comes from Judith Jarvis Thompson, a very
famous I thought experiment about the worlds
most famous violinist.
And she says imagine you find yourself a heavy
night of drinking; you got drunk; you blacked
out and you wake up the next morning and you
find yourself a human dialysis machine hooked
up to the world's most famous violinist.
Nobody doubts the violinist is a person.
He's not only a person, a great person, the
world's most famous violinist.
But she says don't you have the right to unplug
yourself from that person even if it will
turn out that it will result in the death
of the violinist?
And she says if you think the answer is yes
then you think that even though the entity
is a person you may have a right to cause
its death, a right to unplug itself.
And she analogizes that to the right of a
mother to unplug herself from her fetus who
is a person.
Now there's lots of contestation about that
thought experiment.
You might say you got drunk no fault of your
own somebody kidnap you.
Is that really the situation of all women
who become pregnant or is it the situation
only of women, for example, who are raped
or who are impregnated in an unconscious state?
But this is just to show that there's some
complexity.
Okay, one more point.
That is that the stem cell question looks
different on in this regard.
Remember when we we're talking about embryos
we're talking about embryos that are frozen
that are in a lab.
Nobody is gestating them.
If embryos have the rights of persons, unlike
in the case of abortion because nobody has
a contrary right to stop gestating them, so
you might actually think the argument for
prohibition against destroying early embryos
is easier than the argument or prohibiting
abortion for this reason.
Now, on the flipside you might think the early
embryos have even less of the capacity X,
whatever that is, than does the fetus.
But this is the way in which bioethicists
and lawyers think about these problems.
