When Fetuses are Mere Means - Intercollegiate Studies Institute

When Fetuses are Mere Means

Writing a short blog post about the abortion issue is a bit like adding a single brick to the Great Wall.  Or using a Dixie cup of water to quell a forest fire.  But sometimes, something gives us a meaningful new perspective on the issue.

A few weeks ago, The Telegraph (UK) reported that some hospitals had been incinerating aborted fetuses as fuel.  Now we, pro-lifers and pro-choicers alike, justifiably feel repulsed by this.  The powers at be immediately ended this practice and apologized for it.  But why are pro-choice advocates repulsed? If they want to remain consistent, they shouldn’t be.

What is the moral status of a fetus? In such societies, the fetus doesn’t really have one.  While laws governing humans usually abide by the common moral maxim that human being should not be treated as means but as ends, fetuses enjoy no such protections.  An aborted fetus is used as a means toward some outcome.  Yet we do not discriminate between the significance of these outcomes.  The mildest of inconveniences suffices to justify aborting a fetus (or no inconvenience at all).  How is incinerating a fetus for heat different?  It’s using a fetus as a means toward some (albeit trivial) end.  Moreover, the fetus is already dead.  From the pro-choice perspective, there should be no qualitative difference between these cases.

Yet we remain revolted.  Clearly there is some inconsistency here.  Abortion advocates need to either start treating fetuses as ends in some meaningful way or bite the bullet and acknowledge that there is nothing necessarily wrong with burning them for fuel.

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