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ABORTION: KANTIAN PERSPECTIVE
Kant was totally opposed to taking the consequences of an action into account. The end does not in
any way justify the means according to his deontological (duty-based) theory.
Any good consequences from a moral act, for Kant, had to be purely incidental to the moral
action and ought to have no place in the decision regarding what action to take. In other words, if
abortion is to take place the issue will be whether it is simply the right thing to do irrespective of
any consequences for good or ill.
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Good Will: A moral act is one that is undertaken with the right intention. To be an
example of the good will, an action ought to be done because it is morally right (wholly rational),
not done out of self-interest or to promote good consequences like a better quality of life (an
irrational or self-interested action). The intention to abort a foetus because it is inconvenient, or
unwanted or a burden would go against good will.
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Hypothetic imperatives are not moral actions - abortion cannot be moral if it is
concerned with HIs eg achievements, goals, outcomes and ends; e.g. having an abortion in
order to keep a career on track or for financial benefit, or so quality of life will be
maintained or improved. These are consequential concerns, and therefore of no merit to a
Kantian.
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Autonomy: Kant presupposed that all human beings are free. Without assuming this, Kant
believed, morality could not exist, because if we do not possess the freedom to choose between
options then we cannot act morally. In this respect, we are, according to Kant, ends-in-ourselves,
we are autonomous beings (we have the moral law within).
(Such self proclaimed authority and autonomy (so characteristic of the ‘Enlightenment’) is summed
up in Kant’s dictum: “Have the courage to use your own reason”).
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Rational agents: for Kant, the duty to act rationally is greater than a person’s right to exercise
one’s freedom over one’s own body. Kantians must, at all times, do the right thing – to do
what is rational, based on universal principles - even if it does not bring happiness.
● 1st formulation of CI, duties are decided when a maxim can be universalised without
contradiction (CI 1st formulation of universalizability). If universalised, the maxim ‘always preserve
life at all costs’ would pass the test of contradiction, and so abortion is wrong, without exception.
Mothers would always carry their babies to term out of duty, not out of any other motive. The
pleasure (or happiness) or pain (physical and emotional) which may result from always keeping the
baby is coincidental to the action and not morally significant, since this would be to bring
hypothetical imperatives back into the decision.
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Conflict of duties: Yet this same categorical imperative, ‘always preserve life at all costs’
may come into conflict with other duties so that a Kantian may not be able to keep this principle in
all cases. For example, if the mother’s life is in danger while pregnant through serious injury or
health problems, the duty to save life applies to the mother as well as to the unborn childi. Kant
would allow the mother’s life to be saved, and the child to die, as there is a clear difference between
actively (deliberately) bringing about death and allowing death to occur. The deliberate intention
was to save life (the mother’s) - the foetus’ life was not deliberately intended, so it is not of moral
significance. Here the intention was good and so this qualifies as an example of the good will.
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2nd formulation of the CI, (never treat others simply as a means, but always as an end) the
baby’s right to life overrides any right of the mother over her own body.
Who is the moral agent? For a Kantian, the human being is a rational being, and it is this
capacity which makes human beings members of the human community. If the foetus is considered
as not having rationality, and for that reason it is not a person or member of the human community,
then aborting the foetus is not morally significant. Since a foetus is not a self-conscious or rational
being. This would, in Kantian eyes, make a foetus a member of the animal rather than human
community. (Kant’s view of animals: “so far as animals are concerned, we have no direct duties.
Animals are not self-conscious, and are there merely as a means to an end. That end is man”). So a
mother’s right of ownership and control over her own body can override the right of the foetus to
life. if the foetus is deemed a non-rational being.
(However, Kant, as a Christian, would probably agree with Christians who assert that the foetus has
intrinsic value based upon the principle of the sanctity of life.)
● Further Scientific Contributions: Kantians have a duty to be well informed rational agents - a
Kantian could not choose to remain ignorant of information which indicates the individuality, or
personhood of the foetus in the mother’s womb. So, to do his or her duty to be rational, a Kantian
researches the stages of foetal development:
- if severe mental handicap then abortion up to birth, because of the impairment of the
capacity to be rational.
- if foetus only begins to develop rationality at 8wks (feels pain) then wrong to abort any
time after this (although this depends on the interpretation of ‘rational’ and ‘self-conscious’- should
it include free will and choice, a sense of the past, present and future, ability to reason using
universal principles?) If so, then foetus is not a moral agent and does not have the status of a human
being.
i
The principle of double effect allows for the treatment of the mother in order to save her life even if it ends the life of
the foetus because the deliberate intention was to save life, while the unintended effect was the death of the foetus.