Can how pregnancy feels guide the ethics of abortion?
The author argues that the moment a pregnant woman first feels the foetus move is a principled place to set the time limit for abortion on request.
Source
Phenomenology of pregnancy and the ethics of abortion
Study at a glance
- Design
- Qualitative / archival — Philosophical argument applying phenomenology of the lived body to abortion law and prenatal diagnosis.
- N
- No participants; a conceptual and normative analysis.
- Population
- Pregnant women and embryo-foetuses as they appear in lived experience and through medical technologies such as ultrasound and prenatal tests.
- Outcome
- Thesis that quickening supports an upper limit for elective abortion around week 16 and that screening is justified only for conditions predicting considerably more suffering than a standard life.
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What they did
The author contrasts pro-life arguments about the foetus as a (potential) person with pro-choice arguments about owning one's body, then introduces the phenomenological idea of the 'lived body' that one is rather than owns. He analyses how the foetus shows up in the woman's experience through quickening, and how ultrasound and blood tests change that appearance. He then applies Hans Jonas's idea of responsibility and a phenomenological account of suffering to abortion for medical reasons and to screening for Down's syndrome.
What they found
He argues that quickening, usually felt from about week 18 to 20, is typically experienced as contact with a coming child rather than as alienation, so a limit around week 16 (to be safe) gives plenty of time for early abortion. Routine early ultrasound at weeks 10 to 12 creates an inconsistency, since it presents the foetus as a child to be earlier; either the legal limit should move to that scan or early scans should be limited to high-risk pregnancies. Later abortion can be justified, even required, when a condition predicts a considerably more painful and alienated life. Because many people with Down's syndrome flourish, routine screening for it is ethically problematic unless severe cases are the large majority.
The limits
What it doesn't show
The argument generalises about what quickening is typically like and admits individual pregnancies differ, especially unwanted pregnancies or those after rape, where the foetus may feel alien. The key threshold of a 'considerably' worse life is admittedly vague, and the author says he cannot estimate the ratio of severe to mild Down's syndrome that his screening principle needs. It offers a perspective to inform law, not a worked-out legal proposal, and does not analyse how designing children would change parent-child relationships.
Key terms
- Lived body
- The body as the subject's own way of being in the world, rather than an object or piece of property the person owns.
- Quickening
- The first time a pregnant woman feels the foetus move inside her.
- Dys-appearance
- Drew Leder's term for the body forcing itself into attention as alien, as in pain or illness.
- Viability
- The point at which a foetus could survive outside the womb with medical help.
- NIPT
- Non-invasive prenatal testing: analysing foetal DNA in the pregnant woman's blood to screen for genetic conditions.
- Gestell (enframing)
- Heidegger's idea that technology makes everything, potentially including people, show up as calculable and usable.
Flashcards
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Quiz yourself
Which event does the author treat as the main basis for an elective-abortion time limit?
Common questions
How is this different from the standard pro-choice view?
It denies the woman's body is her property; pregnancy is a changing embodied way of being, so the foetus's appearance in her experience matters morally.
How is it different from the pro-life view?
It does not treat the embryo as a person from conception; the foetus's standing is understood from within the woman's life and grows as it shows up in experience.
Why does early ultrasound cause a problem for the argument?
Scans at weeks 10 to 12 make the foetus appear as a child to be before quickening, so some foetuses gain ethical standing earlier than others unless the law or screening practice is adjusted.
Does the author think screening for Down's syndrome is wrong?
He calls routine screening problematic because many people with the syndrome live content lives, and says it is justified only if severe-suffering cases predominate.
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