Abstract
I here present a feminine voice version of the moral case against abortion and draw from it some conclusions for public policy. My motto is solidarity with the last and least. The unborn individual is “one of us”—to be welcomed, not dismissed as a burden on society. Abortion, I argue, is bad for women, bad for children, and bad for the rest of us. Public policy should reflect these conclusions.
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Notes
- 1.
Even ardent pro-choice feminists like Alison Jaggar concede that “abortion was opposed historically by several prominent feminists like Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton. These feminists usually opposed abortion for reasons independent of feminism.” “Response to Michael Tooley, Philip Devine, and Celia Wolf-Devine,” in Michael Tooley, ed., Abortion: Three Perspectives (New York: Oxford University Press, 2009), 168. Unfortunately, she fails to say what their reasons were and why they were not feminist ones.
- 2.
The American Feminist (a publication of Feminists for Life of America), Fall/Winter, 2014. This issue contains a number of essays on the first wave feminists, carefully documenting their opposition to abortion.
- 3.
For a valuable discussion of pro-life progressives and their exclusion from the Democratic Party, see Daniel K. Williams, Defenders of the Unborn: The Pro-life Movement Before Roe v. Wade (New York: Oxford University Press, 2016).
- 4.
Laurence Tribe, Abortion: The Clash of Absolutes (New York: W.W. Norton, 1990), 209. See also Rem B. Edwards, “Public Funding for Abortion and Abortion Counseling for Poor Women,” Advances in Bioethics 2 (1997), 318.
- 5.
See the website of NARAL Pro-choice America and its state affiliates on waiting periods, informed consent, and mandatory ultrasounds. https://www.prochoiceamerica.org/issue/abortion-access/ On the unhealthy conditions in abortion clinics and the need for regulation, see Denise M. Burke, “Abortion Clinic Regulation: Combatting the True ‘Back Alley,’” in Erica Bachiochi, ed. The Cost of “Choice”(San Francisco: Encounter, 2004), Chap. 11.
- 6.
The Atlantic, Sept. 22, 2014. Abortions, generally, are going down, but the large disparity between the number of abortions performed on black women relative to their proportion of the population and that of white women persists. Hispanic women also get abortions at a rate 1.5–2 times higher than white women.
- 7.
Judith Thomson, “A Defense of Abortion,” Philosophy and Public Affairs 1 (Fall 1971).
- 8.
We are one of only 7 countries that allow elective abortion after 20 weeks. (See https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2017/10/09/is-the-united-states-one-of-seven-countries-that-allow-elective-abortions-after-20-weeks-of-pregnancy/?utm_term=.3ba31caf6231).
- 9.
On the difficulties with rights discourse, see, e.g., Mary Ann Glendon, Rights Talk (New York: Free Press, 1991).
- 10.
Charles Taylor, Sources of the Self (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1992).
- 11.
Carol Gilligan. In a Different Voice (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1982).
- 12.
I apply the feminine voice to abortion in “Abortion and the Feminine Voice,” Public Affairs Quarterly 3, no. 3 (1987), arguing that proponents of the “feminine voice” are inconsistent in supporting abortion on demand.
- 13.
I argue this in “Postscript to “Abortion and the ‘Feminine Voice’: The Gutting of the Ethics of Care by Carol Gilligan and Nel Noddings,” in Life and Learning 3 (1993). Posted on my website: www.celiawolfdevine.com.
- 14.
See Bachiochi, ed. The Cost of “Choice”, Pt. II. See also two annotated bibliographies titled Women’s Health After Abortion, ed. Elizabeth Ring-Cassidy and Ian Gentles (Toronto, CANADA: The deVeber Institute for Bioethical and Social Research, 2003) and The Detrimental Effects of Abortion, ed. Thomas Strahan (Springfield, IL: Acorn Books/Eliot Institute, 2001).
- 15.
Carolyn Whitbeck, “Women as People: Pregnancy and Personhood,” in W.B. Bonderson, et al., eds., Abortion and the Status of the Fetus (Boston: D. Reidel, 1983) 252.
- 16.
The Christchurch Health and Development study in New Zealand, for example, was designed with the intention of debunking post-abortion syndrome, but its findings confirmed its reality instead. For references and a summary of recent research of this sort, see Priscilla K. Coleman, “Abortion and Mental Health: Quantitative Synthesis and Analysis of Research published 1995–2009,” British Journal of Psychiatry, August, 2011, http://bjp.rcpsych.org/content/199/3/180. The Elliot Institute, https://www.afterabortion.org/elliot.html. http://www.afterabortion.org, is a good resource for research on the aftermath of abortion and links to resources for help.
- 17.
See William R. LaFleur, Liquid Life (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994); Marc Moskowitz. The Haunting Fetus (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2001); Jeff Wilson, “Mourning the Unborn Dead”: a Buddhist Ritual Comes to America (New York: Oxford University Press, 2009); and Yvonne Rand, “The Buddha’s Way and Abortion: Loss, Grief, and Resolution,” www.esolibris.com/articles/buddhism/buddhism_abortion.php.
- 18.
Conversation with Vicki Thorn, head of Project Rachel, November 2017
- 19.
For some examples and a discussion of the issues, see Dana Goldstein, “The Abortion Counseling Conundrum,” The American Prospect, June 30, 2008. Emerge is one such group https://www.prochoiceresources.org/emerge-a-support-group-for-people-who-have-had-abortions/And the National Abortion Federation states on its site that most NAF member clinics offer post-abortion counseling, and provides a few links to resources. See https://prochoice.org/think-youre-pregnant/what-should-i-expect-after-the-abortion/ and http://www.peaceafterabortion.com).
- 20.
Margaret Little, “The Moral Permissibility of Abortion,” in Andrew I. Cohen and Christopher Heath Wellman, Contemporary Debates in Applied Ethics (London: Blackwell, 2005), 37.
- 21.
Sallie Tisdale, “We Do Abortions Here,” Harpers, October, 1987.
- 22.
For references to research on the effects of abortion on men, see http://www.menandabortion.info/l0-research.html. Reprinted from The Association for Interdisciplinary Research in Values and Social Change, Research Bulletin, 19, No. 1 (Winter 2006).
- 23.
American Adoptions, “How Many Couples are Waiting to Adopt,”:” http://www.americanadoptions.com/pregnant/waiting_adoptive_families.http.
- 24.
For a more in-depth presentation of the following arguments and responses to objections made to them by Alison Jaggar and Michael Tooley, see Celia Wolf-Devine and Philip Devine, “A Communitarian Pro-Life Perspective” and “Response to Michael Tooley and Alison M. Jaggar,” in Tooley et al. Abortion: Three Perspectives.
- 25.
See Richard Stith, “Facing the Unborn,” First Things (August–September 2015), 17–19; or the longer version, “Overcoming the Imaginative Barrier to Embryonic Personhood,” Life and Learning 25 (2017), 15–21.
- 26.
Don Marquis, “Why Abortion is Immoral,” Journal of Philosophy 86, no. 4 (1989), 183–202.
- 27.
Some of the tests for Downs Syndrome, for example, yield a significant number of false positives, especially among older women.
- 28.
There seems to be an underlying biological process at work in addition to whatever psychological effects the abortion may have on the woman. As a result of fetal-maternal microchimerism, cells from a fetus pass through the placenta and establish cell lineages within the mother that persist for decades and even longer. This is especially prevalent after miscarriage or abortion. Kiarash Khosrotehrani et al., “The Influence of Fetal Loss on the Presence of Fetal Cell Microchimierism: A Systematic Review,” Arthritis & Rheumatology, 48, no. 11 (November 4, 2004), 3237–3241.
- 29.
- 30.
David C. Reardon, Julie Makimaa, and Amy Sobie, eds., Victims and Victors (Springfield, IL: Acorn Books, 2000).
- 31.
Colin Harte. Changing Unjust Laws Justly (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 2005), 5.
- 32.
Thanks to Philip Devine, Robert George, Anne McDonald, Janice Schuster, and Michael Wreen for their help at various stages of the writing of this chapter.
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Wolf-Devine, C. (2018). Welcoming the Unborn: Toward a Politics of Inclusion. In: Boonin, D. (eds) The Palgrave Handbook of Philosophy and Public Policy. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-93907-0_51
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