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Salient. Victoria University Students Newspaper. Vol. 38, No. 15. July 2, 1975

3. Ethics and Politics: Abortion Law Reform

3. Ethics and Politics: Abortion Law Reform.

(1) For any society there can't be any one morality effectively and justly imposed on all (Calvin's City of God—Geneva was not for human beings); and in a secular, plural society we don't want any attempts to forge such a domination, as the price is invariably human suffering and loss of life, which we value highly. Abortion is a moral matter, what is to be the state's stand? One could say, if the society can't deal properly with ethical matters, as properly as they ought to be dealt with, then it shouldn't deal with them. This is extreme and ill-grounded fact. Societies deal fairly well with ethics, and the ethical element, if there, can't be avoided (with impunity). All political values, all values, have ethical aspects or ethical values bound with them.

If the state can't avoid them, how shall it deal with them? Very carefully. In the secular, plural society, the state is to seek an ethical base, not the one of the majority of its citizens, as this would be a political solution to the problem, and one resulting in the prohibition of the minorities acting freely as they deem but, rather one that ranges over ethical views (supra-ethical). The state, not having an ethic if not concerned to judge thoughts and views as wrong; rather it deals with accommodating the maximum of minorities and their beliefs with the majority. It looks not whether there is right or wrong but is concerned for the physical well-being and damage of its citizens.

(2) The state New Zealand, a reasonable approximation to the model of the secular plural society, does take a moral stance on abortion:

abortion is only legal when done (in good faith) for the preservation of the life and health of the mother.

It seems to be that the justification for this would be one proclaiming protection of the quantity of the citizenry: the foetus is implicitly assigned moral status, abortion is murder except in the situations where some citizens might squeal loudly, or can be said to have done so. Not good: the ethical matter of the state's role is avoided by making abortions reasonably easy, a political solution.

Of course, one can't blame politicians for making political solutions, rather for making poor ones or unjust ones. The politicians wish to avoid all political problems: they'll decide only when on the precipice. Should an ethical matter need solution, the politicians know they're on safe ground. With truth, mercy and justice, ethics is not to be criticized: its like waving the flag. If the citizens still hanker after justice, the politicans if minimally cunning (recently, they weren't even that) will avoid the sticky stuff and silence the lobbyists with cabinet decisions and other pragmatics. Preferably we want the state to have an ethical concern...

but on the supra-ethical level described above, a concern for the maximal accommodation and minimal harm to individuals and minorities.

(3) Here as one is concerned with pragmatic solutions to the supra-ethical problems, one can bring in facts. I shall bring in Durkheim. Given that the number of abortions for any society is roughly constant from year to year, and so abortions are the sorts of things which can be administered in hospitals, then it is the state's responsibility to see that there is a service provided which is the cheapest and safest available.

(4) In as much as the Remuera Clinic was providing this and had the finest counselling service in the land, the state ought to make sure the Clinic is at least allowed to continue in its present manner. Afterwards it ought to duplicate or promote clinics like the Remuera Clinic in other centres.

Inasmuch as there is a wide range of opinion as to the inclusion or exclusion of the foetus for the moral universe, and many different ethical systems, then the state must flee this area, and repeal legislation that enforces one view over another. No-one is suggesting that abortions be made compulsory in law; no-one is suggesting that doctors (especially any unprincipled ones) would leap upon a liberalization and be prescribing abortions as if asprin.

There ought to be liberalization of the abortion laws such that:
(1)

the decision for abortion in the first three months be a matter for the patient and her medical advisors.

(2)

in the period of the third to sixth months it is also for these citizens to decide.

(3)

from the sixth to the ninth months also.

With (2) and (3) the mother's medical situation alters such that complications can enter into the abortion; perhaps some restrictions might need to be imposed to lessen the preying upon the mother by all sorts of unscrupulous people.

(4)

I am not intentionally arguing for an ethical relativism, rather to the absolute priority of rational discussion in ethics. If one is seriously concerned after rational discussion and policy, then one must take reasonable care of all the levels in which one is implicitly or explicitly arguing one's thesis. One can implicitly argue by selective uses or meanings of one's terms, just as one can by a selection of favourable facts. In ethics one must be careful one isn't arguing to preserve one's Vested metaphysical interests' and not to read a determined conclusion. There is also the problem of 'undeclared baggage': one's views on sex, women's rights, the type of society that one wants these I find have too high a psychological relevance to allow effective rational discussion.

All these naughtinesses do not favour discussion but fragment it into the disjointed stating of opinions, leading only to inflaming of the guts-feeling of one's opponent, the satisfying of one's own convictions.

There can be a rational discussion if one wants it: in an issue as psychologically ramified as abortion can be, rational discussion can cease if prevented (when it does one then starts fighting). A rational examination of the ethical problem of abortion can even be therapeutic, it should be taken up.