Topics Abortion

Question When considering abortion, the Roman Catholic Church uses the principle of double effect in order to allow abortion on the grounds that their primary intention was to save the life of the mother, e.g. in an ectopic pregnancy. However, surely the doctors (or whoever) know that the embryo will be aborted as a consequence of their action so how is the principal of double effect justified?

Accepted:
June 6, 2006

Comments

Proponents of the Doctrine of Double Effect draw a distinction betweentwo sorts of cases: (1) you intend to achieve a particular result Rthrough your action (i.e., this result is the purpose of your action)and(2) you intend to achieve a different result T through your action butforesee that your action will have an additional (though non-intended)result R. What’s crucial, according to this doctrine, is the object ofone’s intentions. In the case of abortion, the intended purpose of theprocedure is to terminate a pregnancy. In most cases of ectopicpregnancy, the purpose of the surgery is to save the life of thepregnant woman, and a foreseeable, though not intended, result of theprocedure is the termination of a pregnancy. (How can you tell whetherthe result is intended, rather than merely foreseen? See whether youwould still perform the action if you were to learn that the resultwould not occur.)

Iam not a fan of the Doctrine of Double Effect. It seems to me to dependon a distinction that makes no moral difference. To see this, let’simagine that I have a very important appointment across town and thatI’m currently stuck in traffic. The only way that I can get to myappointment on time is by driving on the sidewalk and running over alot of people. Of course, I don’t intend to kill anyone; killing is not the purposeof my action. If I could get across town without killing anyone, Iwould. Nonetheless, I can easily foresee that driving on the sidewalkwill put many people in harm’s way. On my view, the fact that I don’tintend to kill the pedestrians whose death I could easily foresee makesno moral difference whatsoever.

Now, of course, proponents ofthe Doctrine of Double Effect also would not endorse my running overpedestrians in the circumstances that I imagine. They would say that inorder for my action to be permissible, the harm that I’m trying toavoid must be “proportionately” as significant as the harm that I canforesee that I will cause. Since in the case of an ectopic pregnancythe life of the mother and the life of the fetus are equallysignificant, surgery that terminates the pregnancyis permissible.

So, let’s change the case of our impatient driver justa bit. Let’s say that I’m a very courageous and skilled firefightercalled to a burning apartment building across town. Let’s alsostipulate that my town is very poor, and though populous, very remote.I am the only firefighter within hundreds of miles. I believe that itis important to save the lives of the people who are trapped in theburning building, but the only way that I can get to them in time is bydriving on the sidewalk (due to budget cuts, my broken siren and hornstill have not been repaired, and due to an injury suffered in aprevious daring rescue, I am mute). According to the Doctrine of DoubleEffect, so long as I don’t intend to kill the pedestrians (even if Ican foresee their death) and so long as I intend to save the lives ofthe many trapped residents of the burning building, my sidewalkescapades would be morally permissible. While I myself think that it isactually quite difficult to explain why I should not drive on thesidewalk in these circumstances, I trust that most Catholics will agreewith me that I should not.

Of course, the case of an ectopicpregnancy is importantly different from this last case. If a physiciandoesn’t save the life of the mother, both the fetus and the mother willdie. But isn’t this the fact that should be most morallyrelevant to a person who believes that human life is sacred from themoment of conception? The fetus will die no matter what; the mother’slife can be saved. If human life is sacred, the mother’s life should besaved. There’s no need for an appeal to the Doctrine of Double Effect.