A Critique of Rob Lovering's Criticism of the Substance View

Friberg‐Fernros, Henrik

doi:10.1111/bioe.12080

Cited by 25 publications

(12 citation statements)

References 1 publication

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“…Simkulet has claimed OAs have been 'silent' on the topic of spontaneous abortion,[19] despite how much OAs have said about it in years prior [24][25][26][27][28][29][30][31][32][33][34][35][36]. OAs have continued these discussions through 2019 as well.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Prolife hypocrisy: why inconsistency arguments do not matter

2020

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Opponents of abortion are often described as ‘inconsistent’ (hypocrites) in terms of their beliefs, actions and/or priorities. They are alleged to do too little to combat spontaneous abortion, they should be adopting cryopreserved embryos with greater frequency and so on. These types of arguments—which we call ‘inconsistency arguments’—conform to a common pattern. Each specifies what consistent opponents of abortion would do (or believe), asserts that they fail to act (or believe) accordingly and concludes that they are inconsistent. Here, we show that inconsistency arguments fail en masse. In short, inconsistency arguments typically face four problems. First, they usually fail to account for diversity among opponents of abortion. Second, they rely on inferences about consistency based on isolated beliefs shared by some opponents of abortion (and these inferences often do not survive once we consider other beliefs opponents of abortion tend to hold). Third, inconsistency arguments usually ignore the diverse ways in which opponents of abortion might act on their beliefs. Fourth, inconsistency arguments criticise groups of people without threatening their beliefs (eg, that abortion is immoral). Setting these problems aside, even supposing inconsistency arguments are successful, they hardly matter. In fact, in the two best-case scenarios—where inconsistency arguments succeed—they either encourage millions of people to make the world a (much) worse place (from the critic’s perspective) or promote epistemically and morally irresponsible practices. We conclude that a more valuable discussion would be had by focusing on the arguments made by opponents of abortion rather than opponents themselves.

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confidence: 99%

Prolife hypocrisy: why inconsistency arguments do not matter

2020

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“…He says, “The reason for choosing the two infants over the 10-year-old child seems obvious enough: saving two human persons is better than saving one", and continues ‘The reason for saving the 10-year-old child over the two infants relates, I think, to differences in their relative time interests. In accordance with my reasoning above, one can argue that the 10-year-old child has a greater time relative interest than the two infants, a fact which in turn might justify why we choose to rescue one older child at the expense of two infants’ 22. The concept of a time-relative interest was first introduced by Jeff McMahan to help explain the intuition that the deaths of adults can be worse than that of fetuses and young children 23.…”

Section: The Two Tragedies Argumentmentioning

confidence: 72%

The Two tragedies argument

Simkulet

2019

J Med Ethics

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Opposition to induced abortion rests on the belief that fetuses have a moral status comparable to beings like us, and that the loss of such a life is tragic. Antiabortion, or pro-life, theorists argue that (1) it is wrong to induce abortion and (2) it is wrong to allow others to perform induced abortion. However, evidence suggests that spontaneous abortion kills far more fetuses than induced abortion, and critics argue that most pro-life theorists neglect the threat of spontaneous abortion and ought to do more to prevent it. Friberg-Fernros contends such an obligation would be implausibly strong, arguing that induced abortions are far worse than spontaneous abortions because while both involve the tragedy of the death of the fetus, induced abortion involves a second tragedy—one person killing another. I argue this two tragedies argument fails to explain what is morally relevant about induced abortion.

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“…The first debate at the heart of the contemporary abortion controversy concerns the moral status of the fetus. Most opposition to abortion turns on the belief that a human fetus, from the moment of conception (or soon afterwards), and has a moral status comparable to an adult human person; abortion critics believe fetuses are human organisms,2 rational substances,3–6 have a possible future it would be wrong to deprive them of7–9. Others argue that abortion is acceptable because the moral status of fetuses early in pregnancy is trivial—they are not persons,10–12 or otherwise lack some feature that gives them moral significance 13.…”

Section: Abortion and Ectogenesis: Moral Compromisementioning

confidence: 99%

Abortion and Ectogenesis: Moral Compromise

Simkulet

2019

J Med Ethics

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The contemporary philosophical literature on abortion primarily revolves around three seemingly intractable debates, concerning the (1) moral status of the fetus, (2) scope of women’s rights and (3) moral relevance of the killing/letting die distinction. The possibility of ectogenesis—technology that would allow a fetus to develop outside of a gestational mother’s womb—presents a unique opportunity for moral compromise. Here, I argue those opposed to abortion have a prima facie moral obligation to pursue ectogenesis technology and provide ectogenesis for disconnected fetuses as part of a moral compromise.

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A Critique of Rob Lovering's Criticism of the Substance View

Cited by 25 publications

References 1 publication

Prolife hypocrisy: why inconsistency arguments do not matter

Prolife hypocrisy: why inconsistency arguments do not matter

The Two tragedies argument

Abortion and Ectogenesis: Moral Compromise

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