Does Abortion Benefit the Fetus? A Critique of Himma Part 1
This series was developed from the paper I gave to the Auckland STAANZ Conference: Eschatology and Pneumatology.
In Is Abortion Liberal? I suggested that one cannot simultaneously affirm the harm principle, accept that a fetus is a human being, and support permissive abortion laws. If abortion is homicide then it harms a human being, and the harm principle entails that we should prohibit harmful actions.
Kenneth Einar Himma contests this conclusion. Himma argues that even if one grants that a fetus is a human being, feticide (the killing of a fetus) does not harm the fetus. Consider the doctrine of final punishment which is articulated in chapter 33 of The Westminster Confession of faith.
I. God hath appointed a day, wherein he will judge the world in righteousness by Jesus Christ, to whom all power and judgment is given of the Father. … all persons, that have lived upon earth, shall appear before the tribunal of Christ, to give an account of their thoughts, words, and deeds; and to receive according to what they have done in the body, whether good or evil.
II. The end of God’s appointing this day, is for the manifestation of the glory of his mercy in the eternal salvation of the elect; and of his justice in the damnation of the reprobate, who are wicked and disobedient. For then shall the righteous go into everlasting life, and receive that fullness of joy and refreshing which shall come from the presence of the Lord: but the wicked, who know not God, and obey not the gospel of Jesus Christ, shall be cast into eternal torments, and punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of his power.
Himma suggests that, to be plausible, this doctrine should be interpreted so that human beings who lack moral culpability, are saved directly by Gods mercy.
Insofar as culpability presupposes moral knowledge, someone who lacks moral knowledge through no fault of her own is incapable of culpability and is hence exempt from divine punishment. Thus, for example, someone who instantiates a severe cognitive disability is saved without regard to either her behaviour or her attitude towards Christian doctrine. Such a person is saved no matter how she behaves or what she believes.
The same is true of children before they have developed the capacity for moral reasoning. Such persons are incapable of culpability in either deed or belief and, as Abelard puts the point, “Are saved without merit of their own, as for instance, infants, and attain eternal life by grace alone.”1
Himma is not alone in thinking this is the most plausible interpretation of this doctrine. Loraine Boettner, citing Charles Hodge, W. G. T. Shedd, and B. B. Warfield, notes “most Calvinistic theologians have held that those who die in infancy are saved,”2 these theologians, “entertained a charitable hope that since these infants have never committed any actual sin themselves, their inherited sin would be pardoned and they would be saved on wholly evangelical principles.”3
The implication for feticide is obvious; fetuses have not yet developed the capacity for moral reasoning, hence, according to the Eschatological doctrines Himma has sketched, “fetuses that die before birth are, as a matter of moral necessity, saved without regard to personal merit”4 hence they are “as a matter of moral necessity saved without regard to personal merit.” Himma contends that abortion does not harm the fetus but, in fact, benefits it;
It can plausibly be argued that premature death conduces maximally to the fetus’s self-interest. To see this, imagine yourself in the following situation. While in the womb, you are temporarily made fully rational and offered the choice between premature death and the opportunity to live a worldly life. The choice is expressed as follows. Should you choose a premature death, you will immediately experience a profound and eternal bliss – an ecstasy beyond any possible in this world. Should you choose an opportunity to live a worldly life, you will be judged at the end of your life for your deeds and beliefs. If you are judged favorably, you gain eternal bliss; if not, you will suffer eternal torment. You are also told there are many temptations that may lead you down a path that culminates in an unfavorable judgment so that the risk of such torment at the end of your worldly life is substantial. Finally, you are told that, after having made our choice, you will forget everything you have been told. Assume that you have no idea whatsoever of what your post-natal circumstances will be. What should you do? 5
Himma suggest that a rational person would choose to be killed. This is because “the odds of a favourable judgment after a worldly life are probably not in [anyone’s] favor.”6 He notes that if the probability of a favourable judgment is “less than 1. The smallest chance of an unfavorable judgement”7 is multiplied by an infinite cost. Whereas any benefits one gains from a worldly life will be finite.
Consequently, even if one grants that a fetus is a human being, traditional Christian eschatology entails that a fetus is not harmed if it is killed via an induced abortion. The harm principle, however, affirms that the state should permit, and people should have a legal right to engage in, any activity that does not harm another person; consequently, there should be a legal right to procure an induced abortion.
Novus Actus Interveniens Objection
Mark Murphy has argued that Himma’s argument errs by suggesting that the thesis of infant salvation entails that fetuses and infants are not harmed by being prematurely killed. He writes,
If the fetus enjoys the beatific vision upon being aborted … the fetus’ enjoying that good is caused not by the agent’s act of aborting the fetus but by God’s graciously conferring the gift of eternal life on the child. For not every good or evil that occurs downstream from an act counts as a benefit or harm conferred by that act. This is particularly clear in those cases in which the benefit or harm would not have occurred but for some agent’s free intervention. That the causal chain from act to effect is broken by the intervention of a free agent is a standard view, both in common sense’s attribution of responsibility and in the law’s.8
Murphy illustrates the point with an example,
If … a traveler is beaten and left for dead by robbers, is rescued by a Samaritan, and by this transformative experience comes to have a much better life than he or she would otherwise have had, it is nevertheless incorrect to say that the robbers did not harm, or even benefited, the traveler. The robbers merely harmed the traveler; the Samaritan benefited the traveler.9
Murphy here appeals to the common law doctrine novus actus interveniens. He notes that there is a difference between what a person causes and what one foresees will be caused by others in response to what one does. In a discussion of the doctrine of double effect, utilised in post-reformation Catholic casuistry, Donagan suggests that Catholic and Kantian ethicists,
… and in general, all moralists who accept the freedom of the will in a non-combatibilist sense, limit an action’s effects, and a fortiori what its agent intends to bring about in doing it, to those that follow from it in course of nature and the ordinary operation of social institutions, and from the free reactions of others to it. (Thus actions in the ordinary course of business, for example, those of postal officers in delivering a letter that has been mailed, are not counted as free reactions.) The principle on which they do is that a free reaction to an action, is a ‘new action’ (‘novus actus’), the effects of which are their effects, and not those of the action to which they are reactions.10 [Emphasis added]
Donagan does note that another person’s actions can be considered an effect of one’s actions if they follow in the ordinary operation of social institutions. For example, if I mail poison to another person and this kills him or her then I have killed him or her despite the fact that numerous other people’s actions intervened between my action of placing the poison in the mailbox and the person’s death. This is because social institutions are in place whereby the mail service acts as an agent on my behalf and such institutional rules mean that my actions can be attributed to it.11 For similar reasons, taking out a contract to kill another is culpable homicide because the institution of contract means that the killer kills on my behalf and hence I act in his or her actions. In the absence of such institutions, the free actions of others to my actions are not effects that I cause. Donagan notes that in some situations12 a person is culpable of wrongdoing if he does something which he foresees will be met with an immoral action on the part of others. However, he does not cause these actions.
I think this is plausible. Augustine proposed the following example. Suppose a man approaches a woman and tells her that he will kill himself if she refuses to have sex with him. Does that mean that she is a murderer if she refuses?13 Her refusal would not constitute homicide even though his death is a foreseeable result of her choice. Although she foresaw his or her death, she did not cause it. It was caused by the free decision of the tempter to commit suicide. Similarly, a company knows that some people will use the roads they build to engage in reckless conduct that will kill innocent people.
Applied to the context under discussion, a person who kills a fetus causes the evils inflicted on the fetus, such things as, damage to the fetus’s bodily integrity and deprivation of their earthly life. However, these actions do not cause the fetus to attain eternal life; this is brought about by the gracious mercy of God. Hence when a person kills a fetus they do not benefit it, they only cause it harm.
In my next post in this series I will argue that Himma’s response to this line of argument.
1Kenneth Einar Himma “No Harm, No Foul: Abortion and the Implication of Fetal Innocence” 19:2 Faith and Philosophy (2002) 179.
2Loraine Boettner The Reformed Doctrine of Predestination by Loraine Boettner The Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Company (Philadelphia, PA; 1963) 143.
3Ibid.
4Himma “No Harm No Foul” 179.
5Ibid 180.
6Ibid.
7Ibid.
8Mark Murphy “Pro-Choice and Presumption: A Reply to Kenneth Einar Himma” 20:2 Faith and Philosophy (2003) 241.
9Ibid.
10Alan Donagan “Moral Absolutism and the Double-Effect Exception: Reflections on Who Is Entitled to Double-Effect?” 16 Journal of Medicine and Philosophy (1991) 498.
11This is not to say that an agent acting unknowingly, such as the mail-man, is culpable for this action only that his actions are attributable to me. If I therefore do this willingly, I am culpable for his actions on my behalf while he is not.
12Theses situations are ones where one incites, induces or persuades a person to engage in wrongdoing or where in “pursuing his legitimate ends, a man finds that several effective courses of action are open to him, each legitimate in itself , but one of which will be foreseeable be met with a wrongful action by somebody else.” Alan Donagan The Theory of Morality (University of Chicago Press, Chicago; 1979) 48-50.
13 Augustine On Lying 9.
In: Contributors, political, theology
