On Abortion

The morality of abortion is first and foremost a philosophical question about intrinsic value (before it is a question of bodily autonomy, socio-economic impact, or law). To determine whether abortion is moral, we must first define what has value, so that we can judge whether a fetus has value and whether abortion destroys that value.

Opponents of abortion often take a simple stance:

1. Humans have value.
2. A fetus is human, so killing a fetus is murder, which destroys value.
3. Therefore, abortion destroys value (and is thus wrong)

This syllogism is logically valid, but premise (1) already assumes that humans inherently have value without examining why humans have value. Moreover, if something is not human, it can still have value—such as a pet or a hard drive containing a person’s consciousness. As for (2), it’s really just a definitional issue.

So, back to the key question: what exactly has value? You might think many things have value—your salary, your health, your reputation. But are these intrinsic values? Not really. Money is valuable because it lets you spend and enjoy life. Health is valuable because it allows you to experience happiness. Reputation is valuable because it brings admiration and fulfillment. Ultimately, all pursuits are for mental satisfaction. If something does not bring happiness, then no matter how grand it sounds, it lacks intrinsic value. For example, a box of priceless caviar has no value to someone who doesn’t enjoy eating it.

This is the hedonistic utilitarian view: pleasure (or happiness, joy, or any positive psychological experience) is the only intrinsic value, the fundamental goal we should pursue and protect.

So why do we believe humans have value? Clearly, it’s because humans can experience pleasure—they are carriers of happiness. That’s why we respect people and seek to maximize overall well-being. But if a person’s brain is completely dead and only the brainstem is functioning, then even though they are biologically human, they have lost their intrinsic value because they have no perception. Such a life, from a philosophical perspective, is not worth preserving.

If you had two choices: (1) falling into a permanent coma with no chance of waking up, or (2) dying instantly, most people (assuming no belief in an afterlife) would see little difference between the two—because in both cases, they would no longer be able to experience pleasure. In short, the prerequisite for intrinsic human value is the ability to experience pleasure.

Now the question becomes simple: Can a fetus or infant experience pleasure? This is a biological issue. Current research suggests that a fetus a few months old has weak sensory capabilities, but given its level of intelligence, it is unlikely to experience fear of death or negative emotions associated with impending doom. As long as abortion is quick and painless, it is no more immoral than slaughtering an adult pig.

However, supporters of abortion must also address another question: if killing a fetus is moral, what about killing a newborn? More specifically, if aborting a seven-month-old fetus is acceptable, what about killing a six-month-old premature baby? After all, the premature baby has even less cognitive and sensory capability than a fetus. If abortion is acceptable, why wouldn’t infanticide be? The only difference between them is location—one is inside the womb, the other outside. But it’s hard to imagine that an entity’s moral value is determined solely by where it exists.

The answer to this question is also simple: there is nothing inherently wrong with killing a newborn or a premature baby. In my view, an infant only gradually acquires moral value as it develops—for example, at eight months old or one year old, when it begins to understand the world, itself, and death, and when its nervous system has developed a strong sensitivity to pain. At this stage, killing it would cause significant suffering. By the way, the Netherlands had legalized euthanasia for neonates and infants with severe illness (which is just infanticide in these cases because the babies are too young to give consent, and the decision is made by the parents and doctors).

Many people crave black-and-white moral clarity, expecting a clear threshold: before a certain age, it’s fine to kill, and after that, it’s absolutely wrong. But this approach is flawed because human cognitive development is gradual, not instantaneous. An infant’s intrinsic value slowly increases as it grows, as its capacity for experiencing pleasure and pain strengthens. Therefore, a reasonable judgment is that the older an infant gets, the more immoral it is to kill it.

In summary, this is my utilitarian argument for why abortion is moral. Of course, there are many other justifications for abortion, such as Kantian rationality, relational ethics, or the expectation of a future life, but I personally do not find them as compelling as utilitarianism.

Six final points:

1. While fetuses and infants may lack intrinsic value, they can have extrinsic value—their parents, for instance, might suffer greatly from their death. This factor should be indirectly considered, though it is a separate issue.
2. Morality and law are related but not identical. While an infant’s moral value gradually increases, the law cannot afford such ambiguity. Legal rules must be clear-cut, which is why laws typically prohibit killing from birth onward. This simplification is both necessary and reasonable.
3. Some pro-lifers, such as the lady at the booth in the photo, who I debated with, insist that life begins at conception, which makes all stages of abortion wrong.  No else distinctions are necessary. This position avoids some philosophical complexities, but has its own problem. It is estimated that 40% of fertilized eggs did not make it to implantation, and about 40% of implanted eggs were miscarried and fail to be born. Therefore, when a couple decides to be pregnant, they are inviting a 50% of chance to create a human and let it die, which is technically manslaughter (unintentional homicide) or at least a failure to perserve someone’s life. Think about the moral implications of that—-to be pregnant, you need to voluntarily and consciously kill 0.5 person. Is getting pregnant itself even moral? That 0.5 person would not die (because it would have never existed) if you don’t get pregant, but for your own motives, you let it die anyways. Plus, similarily, a man nutting on some menstrual blood should probably be first-degree murder or manslaughter.
4. Some will realize that the arguments put forth in this article “overkill.” Because if abortion is okay as long as it does not create suffering, then killing an adult and sentinent human will not be wrong under the same condition. Well, yeah, think about it, why is death a bad thing to begin with? Empirically, people fear death, so they made rules against killing, but death itself is not instrinsically bad or immoral, we all end up having it. Fear of death is possibly a survivorship bias—-you are asking live people whether they want death, but you can’t survey the dead people on the other side! However, there can be more derivative/extrinsic moral and legal reasons against adult homicide.
5. If humans are intrinsically valuable only because of their sentience (ability to feel pleasure or pain), then isn’t the really intrinsically valuable thing actually the pleasure, rather than the humans? I will say yes, I am with the “happiness containers” view, which says that sentinent beings are only valuable for their ability and reality of experiencing pleasure.
6. By the same logic, non-human animals capable of perception also have value—and a healthy adult pig clearly has more value than a newborn human infant.

—-Atlas, 2022.6.25, edited