Against Rights-Based Arguments for Abortion

    Given that there has been the recent stirrup in the culture about the potential overturning of Roe v. Wade, I thought I would revamp an old argument of mine and share it with all of you, whoever you may be!

    This argument is essentially a reductio against those who argue for abortion on the basis of rights and thus, does not apply to those who endorse access to legal abortions for other reasons. Without further ado:

P1. Humans have the rights to life, liberty, and property.

P2. In order to the have the rights to life, liberty and property, one needs to be alive.

P3. If one needs to be alive in order to have the rights to life, liberty, and property, then protection of the right to life is more important than protection of the rights to liberty and property.

C1. Protection of the right to life is more important than protection of the rights to liberty and property.

P4. If protection of the right to life is more important than protection of the rights to liberty and property, then one would act wrongfully in violating one's right to life in order to protect another's rights to liberty and/or property.

C2. One would act wrongfully in violating one's right to life in order to protect another's rights to liberty and/or property.

P5. If one would act wrongfully in violating one's right to life in order to protect another's rights to liberty and/or property, then any rights-based argument for abortion which endorses the violation of one's right to life in order to protect another's rights to liberty and/or property endorses a wrongful act.

C3. Any rights-based argument for abortion which endorses the violation of one's right to life in order to protect another's rights to liberty and/or property endorses a wrongful act.

    I would be hard pressed to find this invalid, so let's briefly examine the premises.

    P1 is accepted by the proponent of rights-based abortion arguments and as such is the basis for the reductio. 

    P2 also seems highly uncontroversial and intuitive. For something to have a right is for that thing to be owed something in one way or another, but something which does not exist is not owed anything! Even if one could conjure a persuasive case for the idea that individuals can be owed things after they cease to exist, that would not apply to before they ever existed.

    P3 is probably the crutch of the argument, but it is very plausible to me. It seems clear that there is a hierarchical order between these three rights. 

Firstly, guaranteed protection of one's rights to liberty and property would be completely empty if one's life was not guaranteed protection. What value is the protection of my liberty and property if I am not alive to exercise my liberty or collect/enjoy my property? None. That's reminiscent of a kind of deal the Devil would make: "Sign this in blood and I'll protect your liberty and property," and later when helping the individual die so he can have their soul says, "well, I never said anything about protecting your life." From this, the position that the protection of the right to life is more important than protection of the rights to liberty and property is given some credence.

Secondly, something to draw from the above is that life is more valuable than liberty or property. This is because life is a necessary condition for liberty and property, but neither liberty or property are necessary conditions for life. The possession of life does not require liberty or property, but the possession of liberty or property requires life, and when x and y are dependent on z where z is independent of x and y, it is z that is more valuable, as that which is more foundational and independent is more perfect and thus more valuable. Thus, P3 is given more credence.

    C1 simply follows.

    P4 is not that controversial as the valuing of an object of less importance over an object of more importance is simply disordered valuing, and since the act of placing a lower good over a higher good is an act of disordered valuing, it is an irrational act, and since "the good of moral virtue consists in conformity with the rule of reason" (Aquinas), it is a wrongful act. 

    C2 simply follows.

    With respect to P5, it is just the culmination of the previous premises and conclusions. Some may object and say that not all arguments for abortion based on rights accept that any right to life is being violated since an unborn baby lacks the qualification for the possession of a right. Firstly, P5 clearly states that "any rights-based argument for abortion which endorses the violation of one's right to life. . ." and does not state that "all rights-based arguments for abortion endorse the violation of one's right to life," and so my argument here simply would not apply. My argument is directed at those views which would subordinate the right to life to a lower right.

    Another possible way to avoid my argument is by understanding the rights to life, liberty, and property not as human rights (things owed to humans in virtue of being human, which would apply to zygotes as the initial post-conceptive instances of new human substances), but rather as mere edicts of positive law, thus having no basis in nature but rather in political expediency. This would take another blog post or two to extrapolate the position, so I shall quickly say that my intuition tells me that this conception of rights would be a consequence of a dubious if not dangerous underlying political theory, and also that it is highly likely that this understanding of rights would only apply to citizens of the polity, and one is only a citizen post-birth, thus allowing in principle the legal abortion of a child at any instant prior to birth, which is genuine infanticide considering that the difference between a born baby and a baby 10 seconds prior to birth only consists in 1) a difference in location and 2) the severance of the umbilical cord.

    In conclusion, the argument seems more plausible than not, and I am highly skeptical of the positions required to avoid the argument, and I think most sane, rational people would as well. For some non-legal/political papers on abortion, see below. Thanks for reading!

Oderberg S., David. The Metaphysical Status of the Embryo: Some Arguments Revisited

Hershenov DB, Koch RJ. How a Hylomorphic Metaphysics Constrains the Abortion Debate 

Pruss R., Alexander. I Was Once a Fetus: That is Why Abortion is Wrong

Works Cited

Aquinas, T. (n.d.). Question 64. the mean of virtue. Summa Theologiae: The mean of virtue (Prima Secundae Partis, Q. 64). Retrieved May 6, 2022, from https://www.newadvent.org/summa/2064.htm#article1