The Wisdom of Repugnance

Julian Sanchez is quite right about this: If you support the blanket legalization of abortion, there's really no reason to find the abortion of embryos and fetuses with genetic defects any more morally problematic than the abortion of embryos and fetuses for financial reasons, or personal reasons, or almost any other reason you care to name. If anything, as Julian says, it's arguably less morally problematic:

I am supposing, for instance, that as self-identified pro-choicers, they're not raising a fuss about abortions had on the grounds that a child would be too disruptive or economically draining at some point in a woman's life. Why are these very reasons suddenly suspect if instead it's that the added difficulty of raising a child with a serious disability would be too disruptive or economically draining?

Julian suggests that this is "a case [where] people are vaguely uneasy about something that seems analogous to various other objectionable things," - i.e. Nazi-style eugenics - "but where in fact the analogies break down precisely at the points of objectionableness." For my part, I like to think that people are uneasy about the practice because they understand on some fundamental level that abortion is wrong, and killing a fetus because of something particular to its nature, rather than something particular to the mother's situation, throws the wrongness into relief - by serving as a reminder that a fetus is alive, with human qualities, and that in killing it you're killing a creature rather than a thing.

Comments

Wrong. It is perfectly possible to be pro-choice (i.e., to believe that the state should not criminalize abortion, prosecuting doctors who perform, and women who procure, abortions) and morally opposed to abortion in general and/or in the particular case of fetuses with genetic defects. Unless, of course, you believe that the spheres of politics and morality must match up on every matter. But clearly, Ross, you're too intelligent to believe this.

Despite what the most extreme abortion-rights activists maintain, the pro-choice position is not inherently pro-abortion (as if it were some kind of feminist rite). It is pro-CHOICE, without state interference, including the choice never to have an abortion.

Posted by Damon Linker | May 17, 2007 12:01 PM

I think a lot of people are similarly sqeemish about similar genetic issues when they involve fertility treatments like selecting which eggs to use for in vitro or like human reproductive cloning. Which suggests that the squeemishness isn't coming up for the reasons you're arguing.

As someone who finds the vast majority of abortions not morally questionable at all (certainly less morally questionable than eating factory grown meat, which I do anyway), I still find something like sex selective abortions somewhat repulsive. Not that they should be illegal, but that they're morally bad. Not because of any harm done to the fetus, but because of harm done to society. I don't find abortion for severe genetic disorders bothersome, but I can at least understand where it comes from because I draw that line at stuff like sex or having gay genes.

Posted by Noah | May 17, 2007 12:50 PM

I agree with Damon's point that there's a big difference between legality and morality that needs to be addressed here. It certainly begs the question to assert that personally held moral positions should translate into theories of political rights. I'm not entirely sympathetic to this objection but it's obviously a common one.

Yet even if we granted this conflation of the moral with the political I think one could argue, further, that there is a huge difference between aborting a fetus because one doesn't believe they could take care of it and aborting a fetus because it is (going to be) handicapped. It's perfectly reasonable to argue that the former case has to do with agency while the latter case has to do with discrimination - and not even discrimination towards a fetus per se but to other members of society. That is, it's not too hard to see that the latter argument is deleterious not so much to the fetus (because it's not a person) but to current handicapped members of society. What's important is what such a "eugenic" policy would say about handicapped citizens, effectively making them a lower class. The problem then might be the spill over from such an argument, not so much its direct effect.
Many will probably find this unconvincing but, if we're legislating on the basis of moral goods, couldn't we just say that a "eugenic" policy is simply prompts discrimination against the handicapped?

Posted by berger | May 17, 2007 1:24 PM

Shorter berger: "How can I make a moral judgement without seeming like a Christian? Ideas?"

Posted by Aaron | May 17, 2007 2:24 PM

Well, from a left-liberal perspective, abortion politics, like all politics, is about equality, specifically in this case non-discrimination. So indiscriminate abortion--I'm having this abortion whether the hypothetical kid would have been handicapped or superpowered--is okay. You're treating the equally. But it'd be morally objectionable to discriminate between abortion targets--this hypothetical priveleged kid I want to keep but this hypothetical oppressed kid I want to zap. That's treating them unequally.

Of course, that's not necessarily the libertarian or utilitarian positions, and it's probably through one of those avenues that most pro-choice people are pro-choice. So you're probably right about them, but bear in mind that a lot (most) pro-choicer seem to think abortion is wrong but are unwilling to outlaw it.

Posted by Alex Kranz | May 17, 2007 5:11 PM

Well, some liberals like to think that Republicans like yourself don't ever seem to do anything to address poverty because you're indifferent, save for empty expressions of vague good will, to concerns of people who are not upper class and white.

My point is, people are moved by different issues. And a lot of people genuinely believe that human life does not begin at conception.

Digby, who's usually a little more restrained and empirical, writes from another perspective: "After seeing the allegedly deeply religious South Carolina Republicans lustily cheer the cross-dressing, pro-choice New Yorker and the abortion flip-flopping, Taxachusetts pretty boy at that debate when they proclaimed their macho bonafides I am more convinced than ever that the Republican base is nothing more than hypocritical bullies whose dedication to blastocysts and fetuses is solely due to their primitive need to dominate women (or force other women to be dominated as they are.)"

Posted by Elvis Elvisberg | May 17, 2007 7:29 PM

"So indiscriminate abortion...is okay. You're treating them equally."

As good an argument as I've ever seen against reducing morality to one principle.

Posted by Sargent | May 17, 2007 8:05 PM

Elvis and Digby have a point. Doesn't the love affair with Rudy suggest that for many social conservatives, it was never about fetal life. It was always about putting women in their place, as Rudy put Donna Hannover in her place.

Posted by Pithlord | May 18, 2007 3:04 AM

Doesn't the fact that Rudy gets much higher support among pro-choice moderates and independents suggest that for many pro-choicers, it was never about the woman's freedom. It was always aboutthe man's freedom to be a BSD without responsibility for the consequences, like Rudy callously leaving his wives when he was tired of them.

Posted by Adam Greenwood | May 18, 2007 1:07 PM

"but where in fact the analogies break down precisely at the points of objectionableness."

Except that the analogies don't break down at all. The eugenicists thought (think) that certain types of human beings don't deserve to live due to certain characteristics they have. The same is true of anyone who supports abortion - they think that the right of a human being to live who is less than 9 months from conception is superseded by the desires of the mother, and this supersession of rights is dependent upon a particular characteristic of that human being (it's age). Moreover, many of the arguments for both eugenics and abortion (and euthanasia) are similar: society will be better off without (Jews, Blacks, severely disabled people, infants whose mothers aren't married and/or don't have a large enough income, sick elderly people who are going to die anyway). Frequently they use the argument that it is in the victim's best interest, as well. But the root philosophy is the same: some human beings are not persons with an inherent right not to be killed. It's just the details of the rationalization that shift.

But Ross is correct that changing the focus of the decision from what the mother desires to some characteristic of the child does place the moral status of the child into sharper relief.

Posted by Mike S. | May 18, 2007 2:29 PM

Damon Linker repeats the same sophistry the abortion-rights movement has employed for four decades now. The only way in which his argument makes any sense is if the moral status of the child in the womb is in doubt, or is unknown, or is somehow predicated upon the mother's wishes. But that is precisely the point at issue. His argument obviously makes no sense in the context of slavery - it didn't when Stephen Douglas made it, and it doesn't now. So why does he think it has any force with respect to abortion?

By the way, lets see what happens to this rationale when it is applied to "social justice". Liberals have no problem insisting that the state has the moral right, if not the moral duty, to use it's power to redistribute money amongst its citizens. But when conservatives make the argument that individuals, or perhaps Christian communities, do, in fact, have a duty to care for and support the poor, but that this is not something that the federal government has the right to force everyone to do.

"Despite what the most extreme poor-rights activists maintain, the pro-poor position is not inherently pro-taxationist-redistributionist (as if it were some kind of economically liberal rite). It is pro-CHOICE, without state interference, including the choice never to ignore the poor."

Posted by Mike S. | May 18, 2007 2:40 PM

The other question, if the NYT statistic about 90% of fetuses diagnosed being aborted, is how many of them are the fetuses of self-professed "pro-life" parents? Not so "pro-life" after all, apparently.

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