The abduction over the years of very religiously conservative judges into the Supreme Court of the US–seven of the nine Justices are Catholic and many are religious and conservative at a time when over a third of millennials identify as “nones–, and the recent events in Texas (where restrictions to legalized abortion inspired by particular interpretations of Christianity are now being imposed in a manner that is difficult to challenge) are scary for many of us who have for years feared the ongoing encroachment of Dominionist ideology and theocracy in America, both in the public square and in our private lives. Recently, we discussed the issue of abortion from an Epicurean perspective. I wanted to get the opinions of several of the members of the Garden of Epicurus FaceBook group, to ensure that my opinion is not the only one being expressed here and that the discussion remained as objective as possible. Below is the (edited) dialogue we had concerning abortion as an ethical problem from an Epicurean perspective.
Hiram. Concerning the Texas abortion law: do others see good Epicurean arguments for / against? I’m curious to see what others make of this.
My first instinct is to acknowledge that unborn babies, particularly in the first few weeks, are just “goo in a petri dish” (to cite comedian Bill Maher). They lack the neural complexity for sentience, and so are not yet human beings from the Epicurean perspective (Epicurus’ Principal Doctrine 2 ties living to sentience). A certain amount of neural complexity is needed to produce the actual experience of being human.
My second reaction is that forced motherhood creates more unwanted children (and, in the case of incense or rape, particularly when the mother is herself a child, compounds the trauma), and these unwanted children later go on to contribute significantly to virtually all the statistics of societal dysfunction. It also keeps families in poverty if they’re not prepared for the huge responsibilities of another child (it costs $ 250,000 to raise a child in the US outside of the cycles of poverty)
Jason. PD38 says it all, for me.
When circumstances have not changed and things that were thought to be just are shown to not be in accord with our basic grasp of justice, then those things were not just. But when circumstances do change and things that were just are no longer useful, then those things were just while they brought mutual advantage among companions sharing the same community; but when later they did not bring advantage, then they were not just.
We’re not the same community. This is a religious community trying to impose their values on people who are not in their community. It’s fundamentally unjust on the face of it.
If they want to virtue signal they can do so voluntarily. It ceases to be virtuous when the behavior is forced. Their own actions aren’t in alignment with their religious doctrine. Choice and avoidance is as important a part of Christianity as it is in Epicurean philosophy.
Hiram. The accusation of virtue signaling reminds me of our third Scholarch Polystratus, who argued that when people pursue virtue but fail to study nature, their virtue comes to nothing and degenerates into superstition and arrogance (fanaticism). And so true virtue is impossible without it being rooted in the physics. In this case, the neural complexity of the newborn child is what renders it sentient enough to eventually feel pain and pleasure, which is what dignifies a soul in our ethics. But Christians do not care about that. They magically attribute even “personhood” to an undeveloped fetus without considering its neural complexity.
Going back to our discussions on slavery, this policy is an instance of denial of consent: people who did not participate in articulating the terms of a particular “social contract” are being forced into it against their will (and in the case of forced motherhood, this also includes the unwanted child who is brought forcefully into the world against the will of parents, who may later also abuse or neglect the unwanted child).
Doug. The debate would likely seem bizarre to an ancient Greek Pagan. They practiced infanticide. The father had several days after the birth to decide whether the child should be allowed to live. If he thought so, then there was a ceremony to welcome the child into the family.
What does the Bible say about Abortion?
Jason. The debate is bizarre to everyone outside of the noisome group making it the center of their politics. It isn’t even in alignment with their own other anti-regulatory beliefs.
Eileen. Abortion bans are about a Christian belief in ensoulment at the point of conception, but I’m not clear on Epicurus’s stand on this. I do know that abortion was by turns tolerated and vilified in the ancient world, its fortunes seeming to rise and fall with society’s perceptions of their population status at any given time.
Ilkka. We must also remember that these are the same people who oppose factual sex education and easy availability of contraception. The actual methods of preventing abortions … An Epicurean might answer that legislation that is motivated by superstition is automatically unjust.
Beryl. There is something for me here about abortion or “killing one’s own whilst in the womb“ which seems strikingly unfriendly to human life. That said it’s also extremely unfriendly to legislate for fully adult people how they can use their own bodies.
Whilst science tells us when a fetus may be human and religion tells us when a human fetus has a soul, hedonic calculus tells us clearly that knowing that unprotected sex–despite the pleasure–can cause untold suffering of the life created if brought into poverty, servitude, or life situations that cause early infant death, is itself a hostile unfriendly act. Where are the legislators taxing men named and proven by DNA tests as progenitors of offspring that may suffer hardships in life?
So on one hand one could say that the Texas legislators are preventing suffering by preventing late abortion. This though when examined further is a lie since the legislation will overwhelmingly affect poor women, especially minority women, and their unwanted children who may have entire lives suffering psychologically from the impact of poverty. Essentially the ruling is a hostile act and unfriendly towards both women and their unborn children whilst masquerading as the opposite. This level of hypocrisy needs to be avoided and be unsupported as toxic anti-woman and -child rhetoric. This legislation further does not look at the true causation of maternal and infant suffering–namely poverty, and neither does it address issues such as free contraception access which could decrease suffering overall. So if happiness is to be the greatest good, legislation which harms women and children is not Epicurean, nor is is compatible with the concept of friendliness.
From my own experience as a mother and as a witness to folk who have undergone these surgeries, the love of our own children brings great happiness and is an immortal good, as remembrance of times past being the most delicious memories. Even early morning feeds are remembered fondly. From talking to folk who have opted for the path of abortion there is deep sadness for some and poverty, lack of love for the partner, youth of the mother, or illness, along with in ability to self-reflect and manage desires, are amongst the reasons that unwanted pregnancies arise. A friendly act would be to fund contraception, teach folk about consent, educate our young on respect for human life, and how we conduct ourselves, especially when desire pulls us in directions that can cause harm to others. The spotlight needs to be put equally on men and women as co-creators of human life, and as such equally responsible for the suffering they inflict on their unwanted children.
Marcus. They often say that science is amoral and morality is a separate field all together. Here is an example where science is very relevant to morality. At what point of its development does the fetus experience pain? How can we tell if the fetus is viable? Does it represent a health risk to the mother? Etc. Only science can bring any resemblance of an answer to these questions. Or at the very least, bring us to a place where we can start any reflection on these subjects. For a more scientifically-minded contribution to the debate, here is an article from Carl Sagan and Ann Druyan.
