Abortion: Granting embryos the Right to Life

The abortion debate often gets stuck deciding when embryos are developed enough to be morally relevant. Here, I explore the consequences of granting a right to life at the point of conception.

I’m lucky enough not to be particularly invested in the debate around abortion. Nevertheless, it’s been difficult to avoid being drawn into discussions about it, strangely, most often with other people who also aren’t personally invested. I’m not against discussing things on pure principle, in fact, I quite enjoy it. So, I put some thought into it, did a little digging, and I’ve ended up somewhere I didn’t expect.

In part, this article is a way to work through my thinking on this, and hopefully stimulate discussion, perhaps even inform the debate a little.

As it stands, the debate is an extremely messy one. With the overturning of Roe V Wade in the USA, tensions are high, heads are hot, and rationality and logic seem to have left the roost altogether. Both “sides” of the debate throw up smoke screens, obfuscating the nuanced philosophical questions at the heart of the question.

Is it right to kill?

Is it right to kill an unborn person/child/fetus/bundle of cells/parasite/whatever you want to call it?

Is there a morally relevant difference between these two questions?

These, to me, seem like the pertinent philosophical issues. I suppose (and I include myself here) most are unqualified to tackle these questions in a meaningful way. These are the domain of the philosopher, perhaps the theologian, not Susan from down the road who has a mighty big reckon and a rather small mind.

Speaking of smoke screens, I do believe that the prominent position among the Left that abortion is primarily a matter of women’s right to bodily autonomy a cynical attempt to immediately undermine and invalidate the opinion of 50% of the population. “No uterus? No opinion!” doesn’t drive the debate towards reconciliation or solution. It is a catchy slogan though!

Similarly, I view the blanket classification of a fertilized egg cell as a life by fundamentalist Christians, sacred under God’s ever watchful eye, to be equally inappropriate to any who wish to have a serious discussion. Religious arguments just aren’t relevant in a world where most people either aren’t religious or don’t consider that religious belief should be a driving factor in political life. If you want to change minds, this isn’t the way.

I’ve watched smug “street epistemologists” and anti-abortionists challenge “the other side” on their views to equally humorous outcomes. Their positions aren’t well founded and they crumble under examination. This is just another battle ground for the virtue-signaling status war that these groups are fighting, each one claiming to represent and guard the rights of some oppressed group, each one claiming moral superiority over the foolish degenerates of the opposition.

I don’t really have a side in this. It’s an obscenely complicated question. It’s a bit like quantum mechanics. If you think you understand it, you don’t. If you really feel like you’ve come to an ultimate conclusion about whether abortion is right or wrong, you probably haven’t given it enough thought. People who spend their entire lives and careers thinking are still going back and forth on this one. What makes them think their half-baked, Youtube-fuelled, echochamber-honed opinion has any merit?

Away from the absurdities at the fringes, much reasonable discussion centers around trying to decide when an embryo is “alive” or “conscious”. Discussions of levels of delevelopment in utero are common, with some pointing out that the “baby” has fingernails earlier than you might expect, or explaining when it can feel pain or emotion. Again, pretty messy, very difficult to pick apart.

My contention is that this part of the discussion isn’t actually necessary. Even given the Right to Life as set out in the European Convention on Human Rights immediately after conception, there’s still difficult ground to cover. This is where I think I’ll diverge from many people. So, naturally, this is what I’ll share.

The Right to Life

Article 2 of The European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) protects the right to life, except in a limited set of circumstances involving law enforcement and war. Crucially, however, it imposes a negative duty rather than a positive one. Negative duties impose a restriction on action, whereas positive duties demand that specific actions be taken. Therefore, our duty to other humans is to not end life. This article does not provide that we must sustain or protect life, especially when doing so requires sacrifice on our part.

So, for the sake of following my train of thought, I’ll grant fertilised egg cells the Right to Life under the ECHR. Let’s assume that this right is bestowed at the very moment of fertilisation, when the two nuclei fuse. How would this impact the discussion around abortion?

This represents the absolute extreme end of the debate regarding when a life becomes morally relevant in utero. If life begins at conception, some say, then it is murder to knowingly end that life. Fertilised eggs, embryos, foetuses, all of these things are therefore qualitatively alive in the same way that we are and are equally morally relevant. To them, there is no difference. To them, abortion is unconscionable.

However, it isn’t quite that simple. Giving it a Right to Life does not give it a right to demand that it be fed and protected, that it be sustained for nine months at considerable risk and detriment to the mother. That would be far beyond the provisions of the ECHR. Indeed, this would only work if Article 2 conferred a positive duty rather than a negative one.

So, in the same way that I cannot compel another to feed me, clothe me and keep me otherwise from harm, so an unborn child would not be able to rely on its right to life to compel a mother to continue to sustain it.

The Unconscious Violinist argument, as proposed by Judith Jarvis Thomson, is a famous example that may apply here. Roughly, the situation goes that you’ve awaken in a hospital bed beside a famous violinist who has a fatal kidney condition. All other possible donors have been investigated but it turns out, you’re the only one that can help. They kidnapped you last night and wired up your circulatory system to the violinist’s so that your super-charged kidneys can clean his blood of toxins and prevent his death. All they need you to do is sit pretty for 9 months and then you’ll be free to go. Easy peasy.

Do you have the right to unplug yourself and leave the violinist and his maniacal followers behind, letting him die? Most would say yes, I’m sure. We don’t deny that he has a right to life, but he doesn’t have a right to have me or you or anyone else keep him alive. That’s not how his Right to Life works.

Indeed, you might be feeling generous for a few weeks and lay there letting your kidneys work double-time for a bit. He might even start improving. He’s still unconscious, but his pallid, lifeless skin is looking a bit more…lifey. You might even stick around for sixth months since you’re the most generous person that ever lived, a sort of savant of self-sacrifice. But, meh, the moral grandstanding and martyrdom wear off after seven months. You want to leave, but they beg you, “just two more months! We can take it from there. If you go now, he’ll die!”

Would it still be ok to leave him? Probably.

What this hints at is that there must be some other factor at play. As much as this analogy has merit, qualitatively it doesn’t feel the same. Simply applying the Right to Life could easily lead some to rush to the conclusion that this means abortions should be possible at any point. Though, this same argument would seem to apply postpartum, and that’s where the nuance lies.

The exception of parenthood

You are not compelled to feed the needy, to clothe or protect them from harm. You might in moments of magnanimity donate a tenner, or maybe you’ll set up a direct debit for St Mungo’s, but you’ll never be compelled to do these things. You’d scarcely be judged for taking no action at all, and you certainly wouldn’t find yourself facing a murder charge when a local homeless man freezes to death overnight. Could you have saved him? Probably. Should you? It would have been nice, but you’ll face no real accusations of culpability.

There’s a whole other philosophical discussion to be had here. Suffice it to say, as society currently exists, you’re free to ignore the problems of others. You have no duty or obligation to help or support them in any way. Except, in one very special case, your children.

In the UK you have a positive obligation, a legal duty to provide for your children. Neglect leading to the death of a child could lead to serious prison time and significant social criticism. I think we’d all struggle to find someone who thinks its ok to let their child freeze to death in the same way we all do to the homeless.

It would seem that in bringing a child into existence, a special kind of responsibility is born, one that confers significant moral and legal obligations. Crucially then, the question of parental responsibility becomes a key factor in the discussion around abortion. Are you a parent the moment a child is conceived? Do parent’s obligations begin then?

Parental obligations

If the parental obligations that currently exist in the UK were instantiated at the point of conception, what would this mean?

Firstly, abortion would legally become murder. That would settle the debate, but I doubt there are many on either side that would be satisfied with that conclusion. Secondly, what about unplanned pregnancies? Surely the situation may arise in which a woman unknowingly falls pregnant, continues drinking, smoking, eating blue cheese. All of these things are considered harmful or risky to unborn children. Indeed, drinking and smoking are already heavily frowned upon and I suspect many would support criminal charges. So, would the mother-to-be face criminal charges of child neglect and/or abuse? Ignorance would be no excuse, surely?

It is interesting to note that we socially enforce against behaviours that we consider to be detrimental to unborn babies, but that we still allow abortions during that same period. We’re obviously conflicted on the matter but, given how complex it is, that’s probably an indication that we’re doing something right.

So, conferring parental obligations at conception seems like an absurd thing to suggest. We’d end up with a strange authoritarian regime that enforces either abstinence or contraception except where the intention is to create offspring. In this case, the parties involved would be knowingly entering into a situation in which they could shoulder a significant legal burden and therefore face the same kind of criminal charges as the negligent and abusive parents of today. I don’t think anyone wants this, certainly not anyone I care to spend time thinking about.

Nearing the end of this train of thought, it appears that the key discussion as to the legality/morality of abortion is a question of when parental obligations arise as opposed to when a “bundle of cells” becomes an “unborn child”. This brings us almost full circle, for baked into the discussion of when parental obligations arise is surely a consideration of the stage of development the foetus has reached, what cognitive or emotional faculties it has. So maybe I’ve taken us on a convoluted journey back to exactly where we started. But I don’t think so, not exactly.

Is it a moral or legal problem?

A distinction that fails to be made in these discussions is whether combatants (and that’s what they are, combatants) are making legal or moral arguments about abortion. Indeed, this could actually be the major sticking point. Those proclaiming the overturning of Roe V Wade as an affront to the liberty and bodily autonomy of women seem to be making a legal argument. Rights, being conferred legally, are a social construct, so perhaps they are actually arguing for societal change. Whereas, those that usually hail from the religious Right, typically make moral arguments about abortion.

However, within each position is a claim to the existence of some objective morality that is affronted by the current legal position. Legal advancements lag behind moral ones, but which moral current will it follow? At the moment, with Roe V Wade overturned, it seems the tide is shifting to the Right, that their moral views are driving social change.

Both groups have sets of objective moral standards that are in direct conflict. One screams “Thou shalt not kill” while the other chants “Not your body. Not your choice.” Both appeal to the commandments of their ideology. How can these two groups possibly come to terms when they have fundamentally different views of what is moral?

They can’t, and it’s this that shows us the real battleground, the real issue over which these ideological skirmishes are fought. They don’t battle for women’s rights or rights for unborn children, they battle for the dominance of their tribe over their enemy. They battle for the dominance of their worldview and the destruction of all others.

After all, there can only be one objective morality, and theirs is the right one.

Thanks for reading! As ever, I’d love to hear your thoughts, be they in agreement or abject disagreement.

If you enjoyed this, consider subscribing for weekly articles on a variety of topics.

Have a great day