Here I wish to give a conclusive account of my view on abortion. Due to the complexity of the topic a full extrapolation of the reasoning behind my views will not be carried out, but rather a comprehensive look into where I stand in reference to the multifaceted topic. The facets I wish to delineate are those of the political standpoint, the moral standpoint, and the personal standpoint. As a caveat, there are innumerable cases which do not fit the norm, many of which I surely will not mention, and many more with which I am ignorant of existing, as well as their implications. To these we do seek to delegate some explanation, and the handling of such outlier cases must still be covered under the law in the political realm, and under wisdom in the ethical as well as personal realms.

Political Perspective

For the political exposition, we must clearly state what the role of the government is, and how it correlates to the issue of unborn child death (here any stage of development after conception and before formal birth/life outside of mother’s womb or an artificial embryonic life support system, will be denoted as “unborn child”). The government’s chief role is to provide the people for which it governs with the ability to live safely and with the ability to express themselves in a manner which does not physically harm other members of the nation. The people have a say in additional roles of the government, in supporting the people in their pursuit of wellbeing, enabling equality of opportunity, and the ability to have unfettered speech and creative ability so long as it does not physically harm other members. Private property, the social contract, taxes, are all beneficial and, potentially necessary, for the cohesion required for such a system to work optimally, but in reference to the issue at hand, we will be directly responding to the government’s role in protecting its citizens from physical harm. In the face of abortion, here we are discussing the voluntary ending of potential, future, human, experience.

Where there would be no life for an organism not existing after birth, as in the cases where its medically concluded that the child will die before being “born” due to complications or other unfortunate maturation processes, there is neither moral nor legal implications towards the parent’s decision of how to handle the unborn child. The obvious point of contention is in the unborn child’s foreseeable potential to suffer and experience wellbeing, or to be conscious of his/her experience. While this surely is an issue to be extrapolated upon in the moral sphere, the law must hold firm to its role in protecting its citizens, namely, the autonomous individuals which make it up. While the government holds this promise to its citizens, and thus bears the responsibility of providing this system to the members within its nation, I hold that the unborn child does not become a part of the nation until its birth. Only at this point, when it is living outside of the womb, outside of life support, are the government’s laws and regulations applied. If an unborn twin strangles its brother with the umbilical cord, surely the government would not charge it with murder. While people may feel an ethical obligation towards the preservation of future life, say in an 8-month old fetus, I in most cases likewise hold that the parents ought to allow the pregnancy to be carried to term. But the problem with government intervention is the slippery slope which stems from government intervention towards an individual’s autonomy, and their ability to alter, change, or create with their own bodies, without “harming” another individual – we cannot extend our moral intuitions into a domain that doesn’t hold precedent over such matters, or we are guilty of categorization error. While the terminating of a fetus may or may not cause conscious suffering to the unborn child, and thus holds moral implications, the government here has no say in dictating the actions of a mother to the contents within her own body. It is staunchly out of their constitutional realm of power, and is clearly a sign of government overreach into the personal sphere.

I view the unborn child at this point (not yet born) to be the product of the creative act of its parents, the right to which the government must offer the parents full support towards the possibility of opportunity, being as they are members of the contract that binds them to the laws and regulations of the nation. While a child does not choose the country to which it is born, the parent’s do, and hold responsibility over the life of the child as they raise her within the limits of the law, from birth till 18, the child isn’t necessarily selecting the laws which govern her, yet regardless, for issues regarding the safety and cohesion of the nation, must follow the laws overseeing her life, as “given” to the child by her parents (until she has the opportunity to move to a country or residence with whom the laws of the nation suit her will – or not – and face the consequences). The problem is in reference to a death sentence law towards a being which is not under the purview of the law, nor has reached the age of maturity in order to choose the country whose laws she wishes to be a part of. While a child between the ages of 0-18 also doesn’t hold this ability to move into a nation with the laws that she chooses to loom over her head, the parents hold the responsibility of the laws which do apply to the child within this development period. Being that the unborn child is the production of two people, operating outside of the realm of government influence, the unborn child doesn’t become subsumed under his parent’s national laws before birth, she succumbs only to the desire of her creators, who hold the power over her existence, or non-existence, up until birth. Thus there should be no legislative decisions regarding the unborn child, nor towards the parents and their action towards the baby.

I believe this argument holds good for the genetic alteration of a zygote to influence its development as well, through the usage of technologies such as CRISPR to edit the genetic sequencing towards more desirable traits and attributes (resistance to tumor growth, aka cancer, or hierarchical reasoning abilities, aka intellect, etc.). As genetic editing capabilities have surpassed the point where it is possible to alter the genetic source code of a zygote and thus the individual stemming from it, a country has no right to interfere in this creative product, just as they have no domain over the creation of the child, or not, as decided upon by the mother who houses the child. The obvious contention here is between economic viability and further separation of classes as the upper echelons of a society in terms of wealth have the recourses to afford this endeavor, and given the current landscape, such separation of the upper class is deemed “bad”, but regardless of our philosophical position on the topic of class and wealth distribution – this modification also is outside of the governments purview.

The argument will be posed that the unborn child is life, and therefore must be protected by the government whose role it is to protect its people’s lives. Additionally, the argument will be posed that since the fetus can experience pain and suffering, and thus physical harm, it is under the government’s authority as to its responsibility to provide the same equality of opportunity to live in the nation free of harm as rewarded other citizens of the state.  The obvious difficulty here lies in what defines “life”, and I am stating that it isn’t life simply stated, as there are many forms of life which are within a country’s borders that don’t follow laws, but rather a type of life, human life, marked by autonomy, separation from its creators, containing conscious sentience (or once has but has lost autonomy), which, as far as I’m concerned, begins, in its true potentiality after birth. As the skin cells on our noses are surely “living”, they surely do not constitute a being with whom we cannot murder, in addition, the creation of a zygote between the gametes of a father and a mother surely are “living” in the technical sense, but not in the form of a citizen-agent with whom the government’s laws should be required to protect. We do not regard the individual gametes within an individual as individuals themselves with constitutional rights, and therefore charge people with murder anytime their expenditure doesn’t reach consummation, likewise, we cannot solely state the possibility of life which exists in potential form in any fetus or collection of cells within the human body, or at any other point within the unborn child’s development, ought to be under the purview of the government. While gametes contain the potential for life, and are, in themselves, living, we do not offer them protection under the law, and for good reason.

While the comparison to a consummated fetus is a stretch, the difference being substantial, the basic premise still stands. What we consider true potential for autonomy ought not be regarded until the moment of birth, and this, to me, is an opinion which I hold as the standard for justification legislatively. As far as it is it is part of the mother and father, yet residing and growing in the mother, we must consider it as part of the mother, as her other cells, organs, tissues, limbs, surely all are. While the possibility of life surely exists at the point of conception, just as the possibility of life exists in any healthy adult (in their gametes and genetic material), this doesn’t entail government oversight and restriction on the decisions of the individual. There surely is a lack of “selfhood” or experientially intuited autonomy in any form of being prior to being born, the creation is still being created, whether it contains conscious sentience or not. Conscious sentience here is important to the morality and time of abortion, but in the sphere of politics, it holds no sway over law. Here we enter into the moral dilemma.

Moral Perspective

In considering abortion from a moral perspective, all legislative and governmental purview are suspended, and bracketed, as surely existing but currently not applying. The moral question necessarily must be founded upon the wellbeing and suffering of life. Without life, there is no pain and suffering, there is no wellbeing, and there definitely isn’t consciousness of better or worse experiences. Without experience of some form which can undergo some form of better or worse states, there is not a moral question, as actions regarding them do not produce a better or worse subjective experience – pleasure nor pain, wellbeing nor suffering, growth nor decay. Where there are moral questions there are also right and wrong answers, per moral realism, which takes into account the wellbeing and suffering of the individual, and other life forms into their causal connectivity, in the present moment and across time. In this scenario, the potentiality for future experience, much like the potentiality of a murdered adult, is taken into account, in its connectedness and effect on the wellbeing of other sentient beings.

In the case of a mother’s life being at stake in the birth of the child, the mother and father are not morally culpable for the abortion of the unborn child, due to the guarantee of current life ending. The causal implications of someone with emotional ties and relationships is much greater than the amount of potential suffering caused to the unborn child in his abortion – in most cases. There are obvious outliers here, such as in the effect of malevolent psychopaths and the sort – the potential suffering is more directly intuited to be greater in their continued living than in our intuition of the potential their child may have in affecting greater or worse wellbeing / suffering in the world after they exist. Absent of all details and intricate factors of real pragmatic life, and the moral implications that are specific to the causal connectivity of a person’s existence and their continued existence, this is, in the abstract, a moral neutral position (to be determined by the actuality of the situation), to me, where the mother sacrificing herself for the baby, and the mother aborting the baby, stand on equal grounds – all other things considered.

Where a mother may lose her life if she continues with the childbirth, there does exist a moral realist answer to the implications of either choice. But given our lack of omniscience, we must claim that the decision, by the mother, and if she so chooses the fathers opinion to be of value than his plays into the decision as well –  is on morally neutral grounds, it is neither good nor bad – the effect of such action will dictate its pragmatic utility, and the ability to see the opportunity cost would only lead our intuitions to a better or worse assessment in extreme cases. Current life or potential future life here are morally equal in the abstract realm, due to our inability to foresee the possible repercussions of the continued life of either “person”. In extreme cases the moral situation becomes clearer, such as in the authentic philanthropist or the psychopathic authoritarian tyrant. If we were to see the causal connectivity between the extended life of the mother or the potential life of the child, and weigh the improvement of wellbeing and reduction of suffering for themselves and other sentient beings across time, if we could accurately calculate this data, then a morally positive “right” answer could be attained. Seeing that we don’t have this, I posit the neutrality of the situation. The same guidelines hold for a fetus formed through parental abuse, drug induced intercourse, rape, or some other form of unwanted insemination. The results of the potentiality of life and its affects upon the mother and the ability for her to end the life of the unborn child, or not, and suffer henceforth (the child too may suffer such a conception story), are also unknown (as is the circle of influence stemming from either life’s potentiality), but a certain distinction is made here, between the continued life of two organisms.

While all beings will surely suffer in life, I reject full-heartedly the notion of anti-natalism, while acknowledging its philosophical position, I hold that the potentiality for healthy, conscious, human life, is something to be pursued and not something from which to shirk from in its institution to a world of suffering. I think the situations which call for a mother to abort, or not, and their continued life, are under individual moral standards, applying in degrees of “rightness” or “wrongness” in reference to each individual case. This is surely an opinionated standpoint, and while it may be vague in its abstract form, it is decisive in its individual manifestation – which represents the implicit complexity of every situation. As in the previous case, if all factors were calculable, we would have a correct moral answer to every situation, regardless of extremity – seeing as we do not, there is no simple general moral standpoint from which to view and judge any given situation. Therefore, we put the matter of abortion upon a moral spectrum, based upon the wisdom of the one perceiving, judging, or attempting to make such a decision. Better or worse case scenarios and their respective moral heights are to be regarded on an individual level, with an aim to the improvement of wellbeing. That being said, the wisdom to weigh the potential life and one’s own life, or when viewing another two lives, to weigh the morality of the decision made, is surely dependent upon the viewer’s ability to cognitively assess the situation, but where the potential for life is concerned, the judgmental scale always tips morally towards the advancement of life, regardless of the different situations which led to the conception of the baby.

While different scenarios fall upon a spectrum, the choice to abort a healthy unborn child, abstractly an in a “standard” situation (between two dedicated lovers, separated parents, or only the mother or father’s decision or choice to have a baby or raise a child once learned the mother is pregnant) falls entirely upon the “bad” end of the spectrum, to different degrees, depending on differing factors. In other words, I believe it to be morally good, right, or correct to preserve the life of a child, to differing degrees, depending on the circumstances and factors at play in the individual scenario. Likewise, I consider it morally wrong, bad, incorrect, to abort the life of an unborn child, also, to differing degrees based on the details of each distinctive situation. While I think it is morally “bad” to take plan B and thus end the potentiality for life, it is surely a moral “wrong” that can be forgiven, much like I hold that dietary veganism is morally superior to a carnivore diet, I hold the continued abstaining from veganism to be a moral “wrong” which warrants minute criticism, and thus minute judgment, or very small influence on the moral evaluation of another person or yourself. On the other end, the birthing of a baby born with severe cognitive issues, whose birth either kills the mother, or whose life leads to incalculable suffering, would still tell a morally “good” story in regards to the action of giving birth of life, and the sacrifice therein, yet I would not call it a wise choice, and apart from the action itself, must be considered abhorrent.

Virtue ethics now makes its essential contribution into our evaluation. The act itself of attempting to preserve life, without prior knowledge of harm to either party, and is founded upon virtuous intentions towards the proper upbringing of a child, warrants an act that is morally “right” or “good”. Yet, from a consequentialist perspective, we must calculate based on the repercussions of such an action. To me, the wise choice, given any situation, including that of abortion, is the prudent ability to decipher from which perspective to attempt to tackle the situation, from which standpoint to navigate. Do we attempt to act from the character we deem as virtuous, and if that values the continuance of life in the successive generation, act to fulfill what we value? Do we look towards a cost benefit analysis of future moral implications to ourselves, our circle of influence, and the potential world the child may engage with – and make a pragmatic assessment and assertion of optimality based on this rational factor analysis?  Judgment of either method of interpretation is to take place under the meta-ethical framework of moral realism as dictated above.  In this way the eye of wisdom is called upon in distinguishing the correct response to moral questions, and must be exercised with care, and separated from the actual inherent virtue of the act.

The totality of future suffering and wellbeing must be considered across the spectrum of sentience in order to calculate whether decisions should be made or not. Whether the act itself is good or bad holds little importance here in comparison to what the wise decision may be. To abort a potentiality unhealthy child, or one which is generally unwanted, accidental, due to malevolence, or other extreme factors, should be legally up to the parents, but if the parents are of age to deliver a healthy baby, with our current systems in place to take care of them I believe it to be “morally wrong” to take the potential life, or not become responsible for our actions through the proper revelation of our values in bringing up the child to maturity. I view it as our sacred duty and responsibility to pass down the knowledge we have acquired in successfully navigating life to the proceeding generation, as our forefathers have done for us – at least in the situations where it is the wisest choice to be made.

I still reserve the right for parents to abort the child in the germinal, embryonic, or fetal developmental phases as they see fit, for any reason. I can’t justify it morally upon the “right” or “virtuous” spectrum based within the virtue ethicist framework of the act itself, stripped away from circumstances. In the context of circumstantial factors, the moral playing field becomes considerably muddied, without sufficient foresight in predicting the future outcome, we must rely on experience, scientific data as it relates to the individual factors, and overall wisdom in discerning the optimality of carrying to term or abortion. The wisdom spectrum supersedes the practicality of an action, in all cases, and an honest interpretation of the factors at hand enables the philosopher to clearly view whether the “act” of abortion truly passes the wellbeing / suffering test, whether it is intuited as being pragmatically true as beneficial and useful in the decision to abort or not. That being said, any moral act does lie in degrees depending on circumstance along the spectrum of moral answers, from the most optimal and beneficial, to the most abhorrent.

Personal Perspective

Personally I will never choose to abort a healthy child, insofar as I have a say in the matter, and in the situation where the mother places the burden of choice upon me, at least at this point in my life. An unhealthy child, or one under other circumstances than what would be, in short, “optimal” as regards its potential conscious experience (sickness or other mental deficiencies), surely would call for an exercise in wisdom and communication with the mother in the choice. But, currently, along as the child and his mother are healthy, whether I’m in the requisite financial situation towards raising the child personally or not, I will opt towards the preservation, creation, and continuance of life, whether it be under my care or not, with, of course, the mother’s approval. While this is a personal stance, I would never seek to extend it to any other individual’s circumstances, nor seek to impose my standards which I apply strictly to the scenario of “my current life” in a legislative manner.