Animal Advocacy and Abortion

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Animal Advocacy and Abortion

Pro-Choice Pro-Animal Ethics

by Larry Rosenfeld

 

 

While pro-life animal advocates often attribute inherent moral value to

an experience of " life " that is spiritually imbued, pro-choice animal

advocates usually assign inherent moral value to aspects of life that

are more " psychological " . Such aspects of living things include

consciousness, sentience, self-consciousness and a variety of

experiences associated with these capabilities such as interests,

preferences and the ability to participate in a caring relationship.

 

" Animal Rights, " as a secular ethic, has been definitively stated by

NCSU philosopher Tom Regan (author of " The Case for Animal Rights " ). For

Regan, inherent moral value is directly attributable to " subjects of a

life " . Regan has defined subjects of a life as creatures that " have

beliefs and desires; perception, memory, and a sense of the future,

including their own future; an emotional life together with feelings of

pleasure and pain; preference- and welfare-interests; the ability to

initiate action in pursuit of their desires and goals; a psychophysical

identity over time; and an individual welfare in the sense that their

experiential life fares well or ill for them... "

 

From Regan's Animal Rights perspective, a fetus is only entitled to

rights (such as the right not to be harmed) once it becomes a subject of

a life. How can we determine when a creature is a subject of a life?

With other-than-human animals, criteria include neuronal development and

complex behavior. When we apply these same criteria to fetuses, much

current research suggests that the fetus does not become a subject of

life until somewhere between the middle of the second trimester to late

in the third trimester of pregnancy. Regan himself advocates extending

rights to " viable human fetuses " giving them " the benefit of the doubt " .

Hence, Regan's Animal Rights viewpoint is highly compatible with a

pro-choice viewpoint.

 

As with the rightist viewpoint, the assignation of inherent moral value

to self-aware creatures can be seen in a variety of other pro-choice

pro-animal perspectives. For instance, Austrailan utilitarian

philosopher, Peter Singer (author of " Animal Liberation " ) has written:

" For on any fair comparison of morally relevant characteristics, like

rationality, self-consciousness, awareness, autonomy, pleasure and pain,

and so on, the calf, the pig and the much derided chicken come out well

ahead of the fetus at any stage of pregnancy -- while if we make the

comparison with a fetus of less than three months, a fish would show

more signs of consciousness. " From a utilitarian perspective, Singer

concludes: " (A) woman's serious interests would normally override the

rudimentary interests even of a conscious fetus. "

 

Beyond consciousness and self-consciousness, some feminist animal

advocates emphasize the ability to engage in relationships as central to

ethical consideration. In this way, these advocates extend to animals

moral systems worked out by feminist ethicists such as Nel Noddings.

Noddings argued that since the embryo and early fetus are likely to lack

sentience, the embryo and early fetus can only obtain ethical status in

terms of how the pregnant woman cares for them. In her book on ethics,

" Caring, " Noddings wrote: " The one-caring [who relates to others in an

ethical manner] is concerned not with human tissue but with ...

consciousness -- with pain, delight, hope, fear, entreaty, and

response.... It is not a question of when life begins but of when

relation begins. "

 

This emphasis on the moral significance of relationship is evident in a

recent interview, " Do Feminists Need to Liberate Animals, Too? " (in " On

The Issues, " Spring 1995) with feminist animal advocate Carol J. Adams

(author of the " Sexual Politics of Meat " ). Adams said: " Certainly when I

was pregnant and did not want to be, I had a different relationship to

what was happening to my body than I did when I was pregnant and wanted

to be.... [W]e have a right to take part in deciding what potential life

will come into life " . Compare Adams' remarks on the fetus with her

description of relations between ethical humans and companion animals

(from her essay, " Abortion Rights and Animal Rights, " anthologized in

her recently published " Neither Man Nor Beast " ): " When we watch someone

who has a companion animal interact with that animal, we see in that

relationship a recognition of that animal's individuality, or, in a

sense, that animal's personhood: given a name, touched and caressed, a

life that interacts and informs another's. "

 

In addition, Adams writes: " Chickens, cows, mice, pigs, and women should

not be forced to be pregnant against their will. If cows had

reproductive freedom, there would be no veal calves and no milk for

humans to drink. " For Adams and others, abortion highlights the way in

which our society dominates both women and animals, objectifying them as

" natural resources " .