I was bemused by Pernick’s argument in his column “Abortion is NOT a moral issue” that “having less poor people” supersedes moral claims about the life of a fetus or woman’s rights. Pernick argues that having legalized abortion is good for society, insofar as there is decreased crime and decreased want, and that, “us Wesleyan students ought to be able to see beyond such triteness” as the moral claims in the (pro) life v. choice smackdown.
My confusion stems from the fact that the above is, in fact, an ethical argument.
It is a normative argument that 1) deprivation is bad 2) crime is bad. It may seem like these are simply “common sense,” and have little relation to “fluffy” arguments about the rights of women and fetuses. Actually, they are based (pretty firmly, I’d argue) in the moral school of Utilitarianism. There is a moral argument at stake, and it is that considerations of the future unhappiness of the dead fetuses and the people they steal from is more important than the consideration of either women’s rights OR the Christian right. That is to say, it is more utile to allow abortion prima facie than to give consideration to any of the other moral claims involved in the issue. While it’s perfectly possible to hold that point of view, it’s a mistake to think of it as transcending ethics.
Personally, I think that as an ethical argument, it’s a fairly disingenuous one.
Refusing to discuss other ethical claims is shoddy thinking, particularly as it applies to an issue that is rooted in some of the most basic moral thought. I think there is a robust argument to be made that a viable fetus is human. After all, if the author is willing to consider the consequences of a life thirty years after a possible abortion, then why shouldn’t he also consider the fact that in thirty years the fetus will be in full possession of the right to life? I may still believe abortion should be a legal right, but I also understand where pro-lifers come from. The author argues that we should allow potential lives to be terminated because they will be unhappy. A deontological thinker may believe that a potential life ought never be terminated. A deontological thinker might also think that women have some categorical rights—privacy, for example.
Of course, these aren’t the strongest articulations of either of the viewpoints ignored in the column. The project of my commentary is less to demonstrate ways in which the author’s abortion argument could be wrong, and more to point out that it is lazy. The argument presented was an ethical one, and there are competing moral views that ought be addressed before the argument can be taken seriously. Pernick likes to think the abortion question is one of “crime and economics.” The social sciences don’t exist in a moral vacuum, and it would be a mistake of the first order to believe that policy-making is not an inherently moral process. Perhaps the biggest sin in the ivory tower of academic political economy (and its unfortunate obsession with all things consequentialist) is the casual disregard of the views of those who don’t live in it with us. A conscientious engagement with the views of the other would have made the article far more palatable, as it is, it should be a reminder to “us Wesleyan students” to continue to examine our moral beliefs in a fallible light.
P.S.: It is extremely ironic that Pernick likes to think of himself as a Pragmatist, while ignoring the most basic tenants of the Pragmatist school—a recognition of the unknowable, and a respect for the multiplicity of personal beliefs.
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