The Ethical Implications of Moral Crusades
In pursuit of ending abortion in America, the Right to Life movement applauds the Texas “heartbeat” law which empowers any private citizen (except state and local officials) to sue someone who provides, “aids or abets” abortions for state residents after a fetal heartbeat can be detected. A bill in the Missouri legislature goes further and would allow lawsuits even if the abortion takes place in another state. A bill in the Tennessee House would allow family members, friends and the spouse of a rapist to sue anyone who helps the victim get an abortion.
Though the moral value underlying this effort is the preservation of life, it’s important to ask how such measures impact other moral values important for a healthy society. In short, are the means to accomplish an ethical goal also ethical?
Social capital – the network of interpersonal relationships essential to smooth functioning in institutions and interpersonal interactions – depends on mutual trust. Legislators in Texas, Missouri and Tennessee (and other states considering similar measures) are inviting Americans to distrust and go after, if not also spy, on each other. This is at a time when trust among Americans is already declining according to polls. While “spying” may seem overly-emotional rhetoric, potential plaintiffs could engage in morally objectionable practices to pry into private lives: hacking into individuals’ or abortion provider websites and phone records, physical surveillance of pregnancy counseling services and pregnant women, paying informers for leads, etc.
Lawsuits do not require plaintiffs to subscribe to any moral principle but offer the prospect of financial gain irrespective of motive. While states may defend these measures by saying the goal is not lawsuits but creating a fear of them, fomenting fear “regardless of whether the person [defendant in a suit] knew or should have known” about the procedure is an ethically fraught justification. The law and lawsuits could well endanger the livelihoods and reputations of therapists, counselors, ride share drivers and even the operators of public transit.
To evade Supreme Court review (and thus to ignore the rule of law set by existing Supreme Court precedents) the crafters of such legislation prevent the state itself from taking action against those who aid in abortion. The state outsources law enforcement to private citizens, codifying a public purpose but evading the responsibility or accountability to enforce it.
Such measures as the Texas law establish precedents that encourage future laws, as we are seeing in Missouri and Tennessee. There is no guarantee where this slippery slope may lead. Might not it provide “justification” for using the same approach for contraceptive availability, the mailing of morning-after pills, suspected voter fraud, same-sex marriage, or gender transition surgery (which is already being called child abuse in Florida)?
In the Western philosophical tradition, three major approaches to defining what’s ethical exist. State measures on abortion should be subjected to the tests inherent in these approaches. Aristotle considered ethics a matter of virtue – developing habits that make one a good person. Immanuel Kant argued that any moral maxim should be one we apply to all people at all times and that humans must never be used as a means to an end. Jeremy Bentham defined behavior as ethical if it produced the greatest good for the greatest number. We may ask whether encouraging citizens to sue others when they themselves have suffered no harm makes them better people. We should ask why the law applies to everyone but a state or local government employee and whether potential plaintiffs and those they sue are just being used as a means to the state’s end. While the preservation of unborn life is a critical good, it’s worth asking as well whether these anti-abortion measures lead to the greatest good for society as a whole. When they foster distrust, pay citizens to sue fellow citizens, circumvent and undermine the rule of established law, make the state an architect of a policy it refuses to enforce and promote such behavior as enabling the family of a rapist to sue the victim if she cannot bear the burden of having a child created during an horrific crime, the greater good of society is not nearly so clear as these state governments would have it.
States enacting or considering anti-abortion measures should also consider what support they are willing to give so women can prevent pregnancy and forgo abortions. Will these states increase contraceptive efforts, support for prenatal care, financial support for adoptions? Will they increase resources and funds for raising the children they would bring into the world, the absence of which is a prime reason many women seek abortions?
"The spirit of liberty is the spirit which is not too sure it is right," said Judge Learned Hand.In the spate of state measures to stop abortions, facing that element of moral doubt would be helpful.So too is the warning Bayliss Manning, advisor to President Kennedy on ethics in government, gave about the danger of poor thinking about moral righteousness: “in an orgy of virtue, we seem to lose our grip on decency.”
Photo Credit: March for Life 2022, Maria Oswalt@unsplash.com
