Writing on Abortion

Before starting, I want to acknowledge that as a man, my moral authority is suspect with regard to weighing in on any question of constraining the bodily autonomy of women.  I would gladly cede any such codification to only female members of the voting public.  However, seeing as gender-based voting is not something we will likely be trying any time soon, and our voting routinely impacts female bodily autonomy, I feel like I must attempt to think deeply about the moral considerations.  (Simply polling women won't be enough as there is much disagreement amongst the female body politic on these issues).  Onward to abortion.
 
The core issue seems one of epistemology. We generally all agree there is a point in development where it should be illegal to kill a "baby" (the reason for quotes should be obvious to the theme of this thread).
 
Save for the life of the mother (the fact that current laws are getting nearer to making this consideration secondary to the "baby" is horrific), the next question is at which point is it OK.  How do we determine this? As we move earlier down in development, our basis for making moral claims diminishes.  The epistemological factors typically considered in taking a life - consciousness, viability, pain, autonomy, social attachment - become difficult to ascertain. (I am going to leave out religious considerations because these are by definition arbitrary to individual faith and inadmissible, if not by moral standards of a pluralistic society, certainly by our constitution).   In essence, our moral ground becomes shaky to non-existent, and we are in frank terms guessing.  It is here that the mother’s autonomy in making the decision quickly enters the picture.
 
It seemingly enters in direct proportion to the degree that social interest in the life of the “baby” diminishes.  This balance of the mother versus society follows a parallel moral gradient to our epistemological certainty.  One might picture them on axes:





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Note that I have plotted fetal pain, not believed to be registered until the 3rd trimester.  However, the pain experienced in death may not be a moral consideration.  Firstly, it could conceivably be removed via anesthesia.  Secondly, it would likely be either brief or non-existent, depending on the procedure.
 
Also note that I have plotted the notion of "social attachment".  By this I mean the moral inclusion of individuals other than the mother and the "baby".  I have placed it as entering in mid-to-late 3rd trimester.  The moral calculation here rests upon the inclusion of these individual's developing attachment to the "baby".  One might imagine various gradients within this concept, from the relational distance (e.g., from father to sibling, to grandparent, to friends, to larger society), to the relative growth in perceived attachment, starting with the first announcement and increasing with development).
 
I have also plotted viability, which is a traditional consideration in the codification of the right to legal abortion.  One imagines this places a more objective separation between the rights of the mother to a dependent fetus and the fetus as a viable individual outside of the womb.
 
You will note that from beginning to end, the epistemological certainty at any given point in development is debatable.  Some considerations may not even be constrained to the womb.  For instance, the consideration of pain could as easily be applied to the killing of a human at any age.  Indeed, so too might viability or social attachment.  An individual at any age might be medically dependent on others to live.  Likewise, one might imagine an individual with no living social relations to speak of - say, a friendless only-child stranded on a desert island whose parents have passed away.  Their death might indeed be mourned by no one.  What right do they have to continue existing?
 
A moral calculation I came across - and I regret I do not remember from which philosophical tradition it comes (Kant's Categorical Imperative?) - is the notion of a sort of social contract that we ought to encourage in which "one ought not kill".  This is of course similar to the primary religious objection to abortion, however the philosophy here is framed in purely secular terms, with a strong ring of utilitarianism: we would not want to live in a society in which people go around killing each other.
 
However, as with the religious admonition, there would be caveats.  Christians are taught that killing is wrong, except in the case of self-defense, either to the individual, one's close relations, or possibly nation state.  Codified thusly as "self-defense" in the case of imminent personal threat, or more broadly to protect innocent civilians (e.g., an "active shooter").  The state has been granted the power to kill judiciously to police forces and the military.
 
State execution raises some parallel considerations, and there are additional secular justifications, however in the main the only serious argument for it would seem to be pure retribution, the cases for deterrence and public safety do not strike me as compelling.
 
Additional considerations with abortion (just as there are those allowed for other types of killing) relate directly to the fact not only that a fetus is literally given life and sustenance by the mother in the womb, but that she is responsible for it as it continues to develop after birth.  By requiring the mother to proceed in pregnancy, we are subsequently requiring all manner of constraints on her life, not least of which the increased likelihood of her own death due to complications.  If one dismisses these concerns, especially in light of the possibility that she may be released form responsibility after delivery should she put the child up for adoption, this introduces an emotional obligation as well on her to suffer the likely pain of separation and grief of having produced a child which now must be sent away and all rights to it being severed.  These are unique physical and emotional burdens that she would be forced to endure without being afforded any right to disengage.
 
In the event the mother is unwilling to give her child away for adoption (a dilemma the seriousness of which ought to point us to the gravity of the emotional burden in severing attachment already described), a vast set of constraints lies ahead as the mother now faces the prospect of having to continue making a life for herself and her child.  This is all the more concretized in considerations that these are likely the very foreseen and unforeseen complications that she would have already anticipated in her initial consideration of the option to terminate the pregnancy.  Caring for a child for 18 years is obviously an incredible burden - especially should the child have special needs that could exponentially increase emotional and financial burdens).
 
Finally, I might return to my original disclaimer about the moral propriety in my weighing as a male who will never become pregnant and raise an additional critique of this entire project of moral philosophy.  Abortion is does not merely take place within the life of the mother and child, but so too society, and the special epistemological frailties involved in any social determination.  By this I mean the deep assumptions and prejudices that cannot but lurk within each of us.  In the year 2023, we are but at the tip of millennia of patriarchal norms that have dyed the social waters within which we swim. 
 
A common thought experiment that might fruitfully capture this predicament is the contrafactual scenario in which it is not women but men who give birth to children.  Would society be adhering to the same sorts of considerations concerning the codification of abortion that we currently see?  My immediate suspicion is that we would certainly not.  One only needs a passing knowledge of the ways in which patriarchy has privileged men in society to imagine how different our assumptions might be.  Would it be too flippant to propose that the right to abortion would not only be explicitly codified constitutionally, but that it would quite possibly be viewed as nothing more concerning than an oil-change?  Would the patriarchal norms inevitably lead to performative aesthetics of "tactical abortion" kits, and macho abortion drive-throughs?  Battlefield medics would surely be trained in providing abortions to secure troop readiness.  Would "abortion counts" be tossed around with jocularity in casual conversations?  Would young men be teased for not having had at least one before the age of 18?
 
As previously stated, men are still allowed to vote on the bodily autonomy of women.  As such, I feel compelled to do my best to think deeply about why I feel the way I do about this subject, and to try and ponder its many complexities.  Even my layman's philosophizing here has likely only scarcely scratched the surface of the relevant considerations.  But the fact that they are, even, as such, seems an additionally compelling reason to doubt that our epistemologies are anything but muddy.  This seems as strong a case as any to firmly reject any attempts to interfere with a woman's right to choose her own course of action when it comes to her body and that of anything growing within her.

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