The Abortion Question: How Philosophy can Help

Over the summer, Dobbs v. Jackson overturned Roe v. Wade, which forbade states from illegalizing abortion. Naturally, this put abortion rights under the spotlight during the recent midterm elections. Largely, it seems that the anti-abortion and pro-choice movements have been talking past each other. Pro-choice advocates largely lean on bodily autonomy when defending legal abortion, claiming that the government has no right to tell a woman what to do with her body. Opposers of legal abortion, on the other hand, mostly emphasize that a fetus is a person with rights. Neither stance directly contradicts the other, and very few people attempt to include both ideas into one coherent argument. This post will serve to integrate both bodily autonomy and fetal personhood into one question in the context of a philosophical idea called the sorites paradox.

First, I will assume that the Pro-Choice stance that abortion legislation violates bodily autonomy is true. This post will focus on whether fetal personhood is likely enough that restricting bodily autonomy could be morally justifiable.

Only five days after Dobbs v. Jackson, a pregnant Texas driver avoided a carpool violation ticket by arguing that her unborn child counted as the second person in her car. Wendy Davis, a former Texas senator, commented on the importance of this case in a paper published by NBC News:

“But her point…could also play into the hands of those who argue a fetus should be granted the same full rights under the law that any other born person would receive. These anti-abortion zealots argue that “personhood” begins at conception, and that America should codify constitutional protections for fertilized eggs, embryos and fetuses”

This case drew attention to significant difficulties in assuming that fetuses are persons with rights. If fetuses are people, then shouldn’t a pregnant woman count as two people?

An answer to this question could lie in the sorites paradox. Originating in Ancient Greece, the sorites paradox is a puzzle meant to tackle the difficulties behind vague language. This paradox is more easily understood through an argument about baldness.

Premise 1: If a man has one hair on his head, he is bald.

Premise 2: If a man with one hair is considered bald, then a man with two hairs must also be bald.

Premise 3: If a man with two hairs on his head is bald, then so is a man with three hairs.

….. (Any number of premises adding 1 more hair and concluding that the man is still bald)

Essentially, this argument states that adding one strand of hair to a man’s head cannot turn him from bald to not bald. However, this line of argument could go on infinitely. If you keep adding strands of hair until the man has 1000 strands, he would no longer be considered bald. But where’s the line? What number of individual hairs turns a man from bald to not bald?

This thought experiment is considered a paradox because it is largely unanswerable. With vague designators, it seems impossible to determine a precise dividing line. This exact same problem is highly relevant to fetal personhood. Everyone agrees that a newborn baby is a person with rights. But what about a baby 3 seconds before from exiting the womb? What about a fetus 2 hours from exiting the womb? If one argues that a fetus eventually becomes a person, you have to decide precisely when and explain what is so unique about that instant. Determining an instant when a fetus becomes a person is no less difficult than stating precisely how many hairs it takes for a person to stop being bald.

The sorites paradox helps explain why it is so difficult to determine fetal personhood. In practice, however, we still need to answer the question in law. If fetuses are people with rights, then abortion is certainly impermissible. If they aren’t people, then the government would be unnecessarily overstepping female autonomy in restricting abortion. It seems that the ambiguity of fetal personhood leaves the government with two options. It could restrict female bodily autonomy to avoid the risk of killing an innocent life (aborting a fetus that has personhood), or it could risk the death of an innocent life to protect bodily autonomy.

The choice is between 1) A definitive restriction on bodily autonomy or 2) allowing the deaths of hundreds of thousands of fetuses with philosophically ambiguous personhood. As voters, it’s our job to choose which is worse. My hope is that addressing the ambiguity of fetal personhood through the sorites paradox can help lead to more constructive conversations about abortion and less partisan hatred.