From: LeoCasey <LeoCasey-AT-aol.com>
Date: Tue, 27 Jan 1998 17:44:40 EST
Subject: M-TH: Morality and Law Are Not Necessarily The Same Thing


James H. writes:
Leo asked:
[...] is an abortion for sex selection morally wrong?
 
 
 And he replies:
 <<I think this is a good challenge, and I think it should be taken on
 squarely. If you support free abortion on demand then it should include
 abortion in pursuit of sex selection. This is at the limit point of the
 rights question and might seem perverse, but my reasoning would be this:
 
 If abortions are restricted to prevent sex selection the state assumes
 the right to act on the behalf of a wider social good against women's
 choices. Even if that choice is made for bad reasons, the possiblity of
 a positive outcome is greater if the choice exists than if it does not.
 
 Having the right includes the right to do the wrong thing. You can only
 learn to make good decisions if you exercise you right to make decisions
 on your own behalf. The idea that the state should prevent women from
 making choices on the grounds that those choices might be subtley
 coerced, or made under bad influences is the greater evil.
 
 I appreciate that it stretches the point, but a woman's right to choose
 is a woman's right to choose. To presume that her choices are for the
 wrong reasons, or that she lacks the ability to make her own choices,
 means denying her rights. It locates decision-making at an alienated
 level of the state, and a questionable social good.
 
 In Britain it is common for hospitals to refuse scans to asian mothers
 on the grounds that they are more likely to seek termination of female
 fetuses. That might be true, but it is still a gross intrusion.>>

Since James actually speaks to the issue, it may be possible to establish some
meaningful dialogue here. It has become apparent to me, over the course of
this debate, that there is a underlying premise to the arguments of the 'non-
morality' school which most of the remainder of us do not share. Simply put,
there is a belief that once you establish a matter as a question of morality,
of right and wrong, the state is compelled to intervene on the 'right' side.
Thus, if we insist that there are moral choices to be made with respect to
reproductive decision-making, they conclude, we must be putting forward a
'trojan horse' for state intervention in decisions over abortion.

The problem is that our Trotskyists and Stalinists start from the
authoritarian premise that the state ought to determine all questions of
morality. Call me a liberal if you want, but I happen to believe that there
are areas of morality which should be private, and not the realm of state
choice. Thus, there are a whole host of issues regarding interpersonal
relations which I see as matters of morality, questions of whether or not the
other person as treated as a person in their own right as opposed to an object
to be used, which should not be legislated. Is it right to sleep with someone
just to obtain some other end, such as money or status? I think not. Should
the issue be legislated? No. 

Now clearly some moral issues should be legislated. Clitoridectomies are, to
my mind, clearly immoral, and should be banned. Whatever the influences on a
mother or a father who submits a daughter to such mutiliation, it is morally
wrong on their part. It is also easy to legislate since there is no
conceivable moral justification for ever iniatiating such a procedure, and so
it can be simply prohibited. (I am not enough of a cultural relativist to
accept that because a given culture has a certain set of customs, no one else
can judge those customs. That is as sure a recipe for the oppression of women
as anything. The examples are numerous, from footbinding to throwing oneself
on one's husband's funeral pyre.) 

The problem with abortion is that far more often than not, there are morally
justifiable reasons for having an abortion, and so an across the board
prohibition of abortion is not justified, and would do far more harm than
good. Moreover, even though certain abortions, such as abortion for sex
selection, are morally wrong, there is no practical or feasible way to
identify when that is the reason -- all a person has to do is hide their
motive -- and so no way to prohibit the morally unjustified without also
banning the morally justified. Thus, James H. is correct, in my view, in
arguing that there should be no restrictions on abortion with respect to the
motive for abortions. He is also correct in seeing that this means that a
person may very well do the wrong thing. This is why I believe that one of the
more powerful pro-choice arguments is that women are the moral agents most
likely to make the right decisions with respect to reproductive freedom.

There needs to be discussion of ethics and morality which does not involve
calls for state intervention. Such discussions can help us in making the right
decisions on what to do.

Leo 


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