Topics Abortion

Question Hello, what do you think of this argument? If a woman has an abortion, then maybe a fetus is immorally killed. If this woman doesn't have an abortion, then a fetus is definitely not immorally killed. It is better to choose an option where a fetus is definitely not immorally killed, rather than an option where a fetus maybe is immorally killed. Therefore the woman should chose the option where the fetus is definitely not immorally killed. Therefore the woman should not have the abortion.

Accepted:
October 27, 2010

Comments

That's a clever argument. It looks like the form is valid. The problem is with premise 3 (it's better to choose option where fetus is definitely not immorally killed ...). Whether that premise is true seems to depend on whether there may be other reasons why the abortion may be justified that outweigh the possibility that the fetus is immorally killed, and of course, it's hard to assess the premise without more information about the likelihood that killing the fetus is actually immoral.

This structurally parallel argument should help illustrate the problem:

1. If a woman does not have an abortion, then maybe the fetus will grow up to do horribly immoral things.

2. If this woman does have an abortion, then the fetus will definitely not grow up to do horribly immoral things.

3. It is better to choose an option where the fetus is definitely not going to grow up to do horribly immoral things, rather than an option where the fetus may grow up to do horribly immoral things.

4. Therefore, the woman should choose the option where the fetus is definitely not going to grow up to do horribly immoral things (i.e., have an abortion).

Yikes, that sounds like an argument for universal abortion. So, it better be unsound! It seems that everything rests on the probabilities in premise 3 and the other moral considerations that need to be balanced against those probabilities. In your argument, we can't say much about that premise without knowing how probable it is that killing a fetus is immoral as well as the probabilities that there may be competing moral factors in play, such as the rights of the woman to make decisions about her own life.

Hope this leads to further thinking on this issue!