Within the limits of the defensible: a response to Simkulet’s argument against the pro-life view on the basis of spontaneous abortion

Abstract

In a recent article, William Simkulet has argued against the anti-abortion view by invoking the fact that many human fetuses die from spontaneous abortion. He argues that this fact poses a dilemma for proponents of the anti-abortion view: either they must abandon their anti-abortion view or they must engage in preventing spontaneous abortion significantly more than at present-either to the extent that they try to prevent induced abortion or at least significantly more than they do today. In this reply, I acknowledge that, if the latter would follow, the anti-abortionist view would imply implausibly strong obligations. My aim with this reply is to demonstrate that anti-abortionists can hold on to their view without having implausibly strong obligations to prevent spontaneous abortion. My conclusion is that Simkulet clearly overstates his position by not sufficiently considering the differences between the act of killing versus death by natural causes and between positive and negative rights.

The Two tragedies argument

“…Friberg-Fernros contends these obligations would be ‘implausibly strong’, and the 2TA is supposed to show that antiabortion theorists are justified in focusing primarily on a small number of induced abortions rather than the larger number of spontaneous abortions 15. Here, I have argued the 2TA argument fails.…”

“…Friberg-Fernros argues my analysis overlooks an important difference between induced and spontaneous abortion, as the former is ‘caused by moral agency’ and the latter is ‘not caused by moral agency—granting that embryo losses are not caused by a moral agency’ (p. 1–2) 15. Unfortunately, this terminology is misleading, as while it may be the case that some spontaneous abortions are inevitable, this is not the case for all spontaneous abortions.…”

“…He contends that in such a case, ‘almost everyone’ would choose to prevent the killing rather than providing the medicine 15. I do not share this intuition.…”

“…Henrick Friberg-Fernros argues this conclusion is ‘implausibly strong’,15 and that induced abortions are far worse than spontaneous abortions because although both involve the tragedy of the death of the fetus, induced abortion involves a second tragedy—one person killing another. Call this the two tragedies argument (2TA).…”

Defending the two tragedies argument: a response to Simkulet

“…While I did not rule out that proponents of pro-life should do more than they currently do also to prevent miscarriages—due to the fact that on that view miscarriages result in the loss of human individuals—I claimed that the fact that abortion, in contrast to miscarriage, involved not only the death of an individual but also the act of killing made this prioritisation justified (I invoked other aspects as well in order to justify this differentiation, but here I will focus on the argument he aptly labels’ Two tragedies argument) 1. Simkulet has responded to my position—labelled by him as the ‘two tragedies argument’ (2TA)—and claimed that it fails on three grounds 2.…”