3 9 0C H A P T E R 1 9 ■ M o r a l R e a s o n i n gpermitted, but only in extreme circumstances. This position is still vague,
but it is attractive to some people who want to avoid placing too much em-
phasis on any single point in fetal development.
Uncertainty is also exploited in other ways. We already discussed slip-
pery-slope arguments in Chapter 13. Another way to exploit uncertainty is
to put the burden on the other side to produce a reason for drawing a line
at some point. For example, Ronald Reagan said, “Anyone who doesn’t feel
sure whether we are talking about a second human life should clearly give
life the benefit of the doubt.” However, the same kind of argument is also
available to defenders of abortion: Since we are not sure whether the fetus is
a person, but we are sure that the pregnant woman has rights over her body,
we should give the benefit of the doubt to the pregnant woman. We should
always suspect that there is something wrong with an argument that can be
used equally well in opposing directions.co nF l i c t i n g Pr i n c iP l e s. A third kind of pro-choice response is to invoke
another principle, which conflicts with the pro-life principle against killing.
Pro-choice liberals often emphasize two such principles: one about the rights
of the pregnant woman to control her own body and another about overall
human welfare. We will focus for now on human welfare.
Defenders of abortion often argue that abortion can sometimes be justi-
fied in terms of the welfare of the woman who bears the fetus, or in terms
of the welfare of the family into which it will be born, or even in terms of
the welfare of the child itself (if it were to be born with a severe disability
or into an impoverished situation). This argument, when spelled out, looks
like this:
(1) An action that best increases overall human welfare is not morally
wrong.
(2) Abortion is sometimes the best way of increasing overall human
welfare.
∴(3) Abortion is sometimes not morally wrong.
What are we to say about this argument? It seems valid in form, so we
can turn to the premises themselves and ask whether they are acceptable.
The first (and leading) premise of the argument is subject to two immedi-
ate criticisms. First, it is vague. Probably what a person who uses this kind
of argument has in mind by speaking of human welfare is a certain level of
material and psychological well-being. Of course, this is still vague, but it is
clear enough to make the premise a target of the second, more important,
criticism: Although maximizing human welfare may, in general, be a good
thing, it is not the only relevant consideration in deciding how to act. For
example, it might be true that our society would be much more prosperous
on the whole if 10 percent of the population were designated slaves who
would do all the menial work. Yet, even if a society could be made generally
happy in this way, most people would reject such a system on the grounds97364_ch19_ptg01_383-422.indd 390 11/15/13 5:45 PM
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