Abortion: Approaches from Virtue

It is a platitude that the issue of abortion polarizes people into extreme positions. In this paper, I explore the oft-neglected gray area between the pro-life stance and pro-choice views. In particular, I am interested in the fact that some defenders of abortion rights claim that they could or would never have one themselves. Similarly, I am struck by the fact that advocates of the right to choose often criticize women for repeatedly using abortion as a substitute for birth control. It is also commonly held that an ethics of virtue can have little or nothing to say about issues involving the need for action guidance. I will argue that virtue ethics, because of its emphasis on the character and motives of the agent, is able to help guide action and, in fact, is far better equipped to explain the moral responses in the gray area than utilitarianism. I divide this essay into four sections. In the first, I avoid having to answer the troublesome question about when a set of cells becomes a person by applying a tactic first used by R. M. Hare. Second, using two hypothetical cases, I suggest that Hare's utilitarian calculation is at odds with the moral intuitions commonly found in the gray area. Next, I examine Rosalind Hursthouse's virtue ethics and how she applies it to abortion. Finally, I explore Michael Slote's "warm agent-based" form of virtue ethics in light of the abortion debate. I ultimately conclude that, as these examples in the gray area indicate, character and motives are essential parts in the decision making process, and that virtue ethics can have something to say about the issue of abortion.