Abortion and the Fetal Personhood Fallacy

Marco Rubio, Mike Huckabee, and other politicians continue to assert a common fallacy about abortion—because human life begins at conception, fetuses are persons, and abortion must be prohibited. Indeed, Huckabee and Rubio claim that the U.S. Constitution requires such a result.

But they are wrong. And not just because people disagree about the beginning of personhood. The flaw in the Rubio/Huckabee logic was pointed out more than 40 years ago, even before the U.S. Supreme Court recognized a constitutional right to abortion in Roe v. Wade. In “A Defense of Abortion,” Professor Judith Jarvis Thomson correctly observed that even if we assume that personhood begins at conception, it does not follow that abortion must be banned before the fetus is viable. Indeed, as she wrote, a ban on abortion before fetal viability would be inconsistent with basic principles of law.

How is that so? While opponents of abortion typically characterize the procedure as a “killing,” it also can be viewed as a withdrawal of assistance. A pregnant woman seeking an abortion is saying that she no longer wants to give of her body to sustain the life of her fetus. And nowhere in American law do we require some people to give of their bodies to sustain the lives of other persons. We do not even require parents to donate their organs or their bone marrow to save the lives of their children.

If the law insisted that pregnant women continue their pregnancies until delivery, pregnant women would be singled out for a legal responsibility that no one else must assume. And that is something the U.S. Constitution does address. The equal protection clause protects people from being treated differently than other people.

As Thomson also observed, the analysis changes at viability, for then the woman can withdraw her assistance while still allowing the fetus to survive.

Of course, one can argue that the relationship between pregnant women and their fetuses is different from all other human relationships—even parent-child relationships—and so it is permissible to impose greater duties on pregnant women than on other people. But that is a very different argument than is being made by Rubio, Huckabee, and like-minded persons. And it is an argument that has counter-arguments too.

[cross-posted at Bill of Health and orentlicher.tumblr.com]