pro choice philosophy essay

Ethics and Morality

Ethics and abortion, two opposing arguments on the morality of abortion..

Posted June 7, 2019 | Reviewed by Jessica Schrader

Abortion is, once again, center stage in our political debates. According to the Guttmacher Institute, over 350 pieces of legislation restricting abortion have been introduced. Ten states have signed bans of some sort, but these are all being challenged. None of these, including "heartbeat" laws, are currently in effect. 1

Much has been written about abortion from a philosophical perspective. Here, I'd like to summarize what I believe to be the best argument on each side of the abortion debate. To be clear, I'm not advocating either position here; I'm simply trying to bring some clarity to the issues. The focus of these arguments is on the morality of abortion, not its constitutional or legal status. This is important. One might believe, as many do, that at least some abortions are immoral but that the law should not restrict choice in this realm of life. Others, of course, argue that abortion is immoral and should be illegal in most or all cases.

"Personhood"

Personhood refers to the moral status of an entity. If an entity is a person , in this particular sense, it has full moral status . A person, then, has rights , and we have obligations to that person. This includes the right to life. Both of the arguments I summarize here focus on the question of whether or not the fetus is a person, or whether or not it is the type of entity that has the right to life. This is an important aspect to focus on, because what a thing is determines how we should treat it, morally speaking. For example, if I break a leg off of a table, I haven't done anything wrong. But if I break a puppy's leg, I surely have done something wrong. I have obligations to the puppy, given what kind of creature it is, that I don't have to a table, or any other inanimate object. The issue, then, is what kind of thing a fetus is, and what that entails for how we ought to treat it.

A Pro-Choice Argument

I believe that the best type of pro-choice argument focuses on the personhood of the fetus. Mary Ann Warren has argued that fetuses are not persons; they do not have the right to life. 2 Therefore, abortion is morally permissible throughout the entire pregnancy . To see why, Warren argues that persons have the following traits:

• Consciousness: awareness of oneself, the external world, the ability to feel pain.
• Reasoning: a developed ability to solve fairly complex problems.
• Ability to communicate: on a variety of topics, with some depth.
• Self-motivated activity: ability to choose what to do (or not to do) in a way that is not determined by genetics or the environment .
• Self-concept : see themselves as _____; e.g. Kenyan, female, athlete , Muslim, Christian, atheist, etc.

The key point for Warren is that fetuses do not have any of these traits. Therefore, they are not persons. They do not have a right to life, and abortion is morally permissible. You and I do have these traits, therefore we are persons. We do have rights, including the right to life.

One problem with this argument is that we now know that fetuses are conscious at roughly the midpoint of a pregnancy, given the development timeline of fetal brain activity. Given this, some have modified Warren's argument so that it only applies to the first half of a pregnancy. This still covers the vast majority of abortions that occur in the United States, however.

A Pro-Life Argument

The following pro-life argument shares the same approach, focusing on the personhood of the fetus. However, this argument contends that fetuses are persons because in an important sense they possess all of the traits Warren lists. 3

At first glance, this sounds ridiculous. At 12 weeks, for example, fetuses are not able to engage in reasoning, they don't have a self-concept, nor are they conscious. In fact, they don't possess any of these traits.

Or do they?

In one sense, they do. To see how, consider an important distinction, the distinction between latent capacities vs. actualized capacities. Right now, I have the actualized capacity to communicate in English about the ethics of abortion. I'm demonstrating that capacity right now. I do not, however, have the actualized capacity to communicate in Spanish on this issue. I do, however, have the latent capacity to do so. If I studied Spanish, practiced it with others, or even lived in a Spanish-speaking nation for a while, I would likely be able to do so. The latent capacity I have now to communicate in Spanish would become actualized.

Here is the key point for this argument: Given the type of entities that human fetuses are, they have all of the traits of persons laid out by Mary Anne Warren. They do not possess these traits in their actualized form. But they have them in their latent form, because of their human nature. Proponents of this argument claim that possessing the traits of personhood, in their latent form, is sufficient for being a person, for having full moral status, including the right to life. They say that fetuses are not potential persons, but persons with potential. In contrast to this, Warren and others maintain that the capacities must be actualized before one is person.

The Abortion Debate

There is much confusion in the abortion debate. The existence of a heartbeat is not enough, on its own, to confer a right to life. On this, I believe many pro-lifers are mistaken. But on the pro-choice side, is it ethical to abort fetuses as a way to select the gender of one's child, for instance?

We should not focus solely on the fetus, of course, but also on the interests of the mother, father, and society as a whole. Many believe that in order to achieve this goal, we need to provide much greater support to women who may want to give birth and raise their children, but choose not to for financial, psychological, health, or relationship reasons; that adoption should be much less expensive, so that it is a live option for more qualified parents; and that quality health care should be accessible to all.

I fear , however, that one thing that gets lost in all of the dialogue, debate, and rhetoric surrounding the abortion issue is the nature of the human fetus. This is certainly not the only issue. But it is crucial to determining the morality of abortion, one way or the other. People on both sides of the debate would do well to build their views with this in mind.

https://abcnews.go.com/US/state-abortion-bans-2019-signed-effect/story?id=63172532

Mary Ann Warren, "On the Moral and Legal Status of Abortion," originally in Monist 57:1 (1973), pp. 43-61. Widely anthologized.

This is a synthesis of several pro-life arguments. For more, see the work of Robert George and Francis Beckwith on these issues.

Michael W. Austin, Ph.D. , is a professor of philosophy at Eastern Kentucky University.

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Four pro-life philosophers make the case against abortion

To put it mildly, the American Philosophical Association is not a bastion of pro-life sentiment. Hence, I was surprised to discover that the A.P.A. had organized a pro-life symposium, “New Pro-Life Bioethics,” at our annual conference this month in Philadelphia. Hosted by Jorge Garcia (Boston College), the panel featured the philosophers Celia Wolf-Devine (Stonehill College), Anthony McCarthy (Bios Centre in London) and Francis Beckwith (Baylor University), all of whom presented the case against abortion in terms of current political and academic values.

Recognizing the omnipresent call for a “welcoming” society, Ms. Wolf-Devine explored contemporary society’s emphasis on the virtue of inclusion and the vice of exclusion. The call for inclusion emphasizes the need to pay special attention to the more vulnerable members of society, who can easily be treated as non-persons in society’s commerce. She argued that our national practice of abortion, comparatively one of the most extreme in terms of legal permissiveness, contradicts the good of inclusion by condemning an entire category of human beings to death, often on the slightest of grounds. There is something contradictory in a society that claims to be welcoming and protective of the vulnerable but that shows a callous indifference to the fate of human beings before the moment of birth.

There is something contradictory in a society that claims to be protective of the vulnerable but shows a callous indifference to the fate of human beings before the moment of birth.

Mr. McCarthy’s paper tackled the question of abortion from the perspective of equality. A common egalitarian argument in favor of abortion and the funding thereof goes something like this: If a woman has an unwanted pregnancy and is denied access to abortion, she might be required to sacrifice educational and work opportunities. Since men do not become pregnant, they face no such obstacles to pursuing their professional goals. Restrictions to abortion access thus places women in a position of inequality with men.

Mr. McCarthy counter-argued that, in fact, the practice of abortion creates a certain inequality between men and women since it does not respect the experiences, such as pregnancy, which are unique to women. Some proponents of abortion deride pregnancy as a malign condition. A disgruntled audience member referred to pregnant women as “incubators.” Mr. McCarthy argued that authentic gender equality involves respect for what makes women different, including support for the well-being of both women and children through pregnancy, childbirth and beyond. He pointed out that in his native England, pregnant women acting as surrogates are given a certain amount of time after birth to decide whether to keep the child they bore and not fulfill the conditions of the surrogacy contract. This is done out of acknowledgment of the gender-specific biological and emotional changes undergone by a woman who has nurtured a child in the womb.

The most compelling argument against abortion remains what it has been for decades: Directly killing innocent human beings is gravely unjust.

Mr. Beckwith explored the question of abortion in light of the longstanding philosophical dispute concerning the “criteria of personhood.” The question of which human beings count as persons is closely yoked to the political question of which human beings will receive civil protection and which can be killed without legal penalty. The personhood criteria range from the most inclusive (genetic identity as a member of the species Homo sapiens ) to the more restrictive (evidence of consciousness) to the most exclusionary (evidence of rationality and self-motivating behavior).

Mr. Beckwith has long used the argument from personal identity (the continuity between my mature, conscious self and my embryonic, fetal and childhood self and my future older, possibly demented self) to make the case against abortion, infanticide and euthanasia. To draw the line between personhood and non-personhood after conception or before natural death is to make an arbitrary distinction—and a lethal one at that. Mr. Beckwith noted, however, that none of the usual candidates for a criterion of personhood is completely satisfying. Even the common pro-life argument from species membership could, unamended, smack of a certain materialism.

The most compelling argument against abortion remains what it has been for decades: Directly killing innocent human beings is gravely unjust. Abortion is the direct killing of innocent human beings. But political debate rarely proceeds by such crystalline syllogisms. The aim of the A.P.A.’s pro-life symposium was to amplify the argument by showing how our practice of abortion brutally violates the values of inclusion, equality and personhood that contemporary society claims to cherish. In the very month we grimly commemorate Roe v. Wade, such new philosophical directions are welcome winter light.

John J. Conley, S.J., is a Jesuit of the Maryland Province and a regular columnist for America . He is the current Francis J. Knott Chair of Philosophy and Theology at Loyola University, Maryland.

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8 The Pro-Choice Pro-Lifer: Battling the False Dichotomy

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The contemporary abortion debate is too often dominated by dichotomous thinking, including and especially a false dichotomy between women's reproductive rights and respect for fetal life. In this chapter I argue that it is possible to embrace a pro-choice ideology while respecting fetal life.

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The Ethical Dilemma of Abortion

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This paper discusses the extremely complex and important topic and dilemma of abortion.  Specifically, that the pro-life versus pro-choice dilemma is an imperative one that continues to cause ethical tensions in the United States.  For this reason, this issue and dilemma warrants close scrutiny.  It affects many major areas including ethics, religion, politics, law, and medicine.  Ethical theories and principles of the pro-life position and the pro-choice position will be contrasted.  This paper will further discuss the arguments in the context of Roe v. Wade and its impact on laws in the United States.  The general ethics of the pro-life argument and the pro-choice argument are founded on the issues of human rights and freedom.  Three main principles that the pro-life argument argues (the Human Rights Principle, the Mens Rea Principle, and the Harm Principle) will also be discussed.  This account will not include this author’s own prescriptive response (in the form of recommendations, best practices, or similar types of judgments) and therefore, this paper does not go beyond a purely comparative method.  Lastly, the Nuremberg Code, which was created at the Nuremberg Doctors’ Trial, will be discussed.  Specifically, the Nuremberg Code will be correlated in relation to laws in the United States, as well as contemporary bioethical debates, which are misleading when comparing the use of fetal tissue for transplants from abortions to experiments done during the Holocaust and crimes of Nazi biomedical science.

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Christina M. Robinson, IUE Graduate

Christina graduated from Indiana University East with a 3.911 GPA in May, 2021 with a B.S. in Psychology and a minor of Neuroscience as well as a minor of Women's and Gender Studies.  She continues her work as a Research Assistant through IUE and is also a Supplemental Instruction Leader.  Christina hopes to continue her education in a graduate school program in the near future!

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Abortion rights: history offers a blueprint for how pro-choice campaigners might usefully respond

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In October 1971, the New York Times reported a decline in maternal death rate. 1 Just 15 months earlier, the state had liberalised its abortion law. David Harris, New York’s deputy commissioner of health, speaking to the annual meeting of the American Public Health Association, attributed the decline—by more than half—to the replacement of criminal abortions with safe, legal ones. Previously, abortion had been the single leading cause of maternity related deaths, accounting for around a third. A doctor in the audience who said he was from a state “where the abortion law is still archaic,” thanked New York for its “remarkable job” and expressed his gratitude that there was a place he could send his patients and know they would receive “safe, excellent care.” Harris urged other states to follow the example set by New York and liberalise their abortion laws.

Just two years later, in 1973, the US Supreme Court intervened. In the landmark decision, Roe v. Wade, the Court ruled that the constitution protected a woman’s liberty to choose to have an abortion, and in doing so, struck down the “archaic” abortion laws that still existed in many states.

As surely everyone knows by now, Roe v. Wade was repealed on 24 June 2022, setting off a wave of fear, uncertainty, rage, and apprehension among those committed to the right to choose. Thirteen states with “trigger bans,” designed to take effect automatically if the ruling was ever struck down, are due to prohibit abortion within 30 days. 2 At least eight states banned the procedure the day the ruling was released. Several others are expected to act, with lawmakers moving to reactivate their dormant legislation. But as the 1971 New York Times article indicates, banning abortion only bans safe abortion.

In November 1955, Jacqueline Smith found out she was about six weeks pregnant. Historian Gillian Frank describes what happened next. 3 Unmarried and anxious about the social consequences for mothers and babies born out of wedlock, Jacqueline and her boyfriend Daniel started looking for methods to end the pregnancy. On the 24 December 1955, Daniel paid a hospital attendant, $50 to perform an illegal abortion in the living room of the boyfriend’s Manhattan apartment. Just a few hours later, Jacqueline was dead. Before abortion was legalised in Great Britain in 1967, the situation on this side of the Atlantic was similar.

As the New York Times article suggests, these names were just some of thousands of women who lost their lives to backstreet abortions or forced birth, and of many more who had their lives irreparably altered by being made to carry babies to term that they were not able to care for or that they simply did not want. But if history foreshadows a terrifying history for women in America, it also offers a blueprint for how pro-choice campaigners might usefully respond.

Roe v. Wade was a landmark legal decision, but it came only after decades of grassroots feminist activism. In early 1960s California, radical activist Pat Maginnis taught women how to fake the symptoms that would get them a “therapeutic abortion” (then the only legal kind). 4 She founded a group called the Society for Humane Abortion that demanded the repeal of abortion laws and ran an underground network focused on helping women obtain safe abortions, compiling lists of abortion providers outside the US, and providing women with tips on how to evade suspicion at the Mexican border. While some doctors and others were advocating reformed abortion laws in the first half of the twentieth century, it was feminists like Maginnis who were the first to publicly insist that abortion should be completely decriminalised. In 1969, the radical feminist group Redstockings organised an “abortion speakout” in New York City, where women talked about their experiences with illegal terminations. This history shows that women have always been at the forefront of pro-choice activism, and sadly will have to be once again.

But abortion rights also need to be protected closer to home. While abortion is legal in Northern Ireland, millions of women, girls, and people remain without access and must travel to England to receive appropriate reproductive care. Similarly, due to the legacy of nineteenth-century legislation, abortion remains a criminal offence in England—and doctors must lend their substantial social and political capital to the campaign to overturn the 1861 Offences Against the Person Act. 5

The world is radically different to how it was in the 1960s. But two things remain constant. Reproductive rights are fundamental to women’s health, safety, and autonomy. And if access to abortion is to be reinstated or expanded in both the United Kingdom and the United States, then healthcare professionals need to be led by, and work in collaboration with, feminist activists.

Competing interests: AA-F’s research is funded by the Wellcome Trust.

Provenance and peer review: commissioned, not peer reviewed.

• ↵ The New York Times. Decline in Maternal Death Rate Linked to Liberalized Abortion. https://www.nytimes.com/1971/10/13/archives/decline-in-maternal-death-rate-linked-to-liberalized-abortion.html?searchResultPosition=1
• ↵ NPR. 'Trigger laws' have been taking effect now that Roe v. Wade has been overturned. https://www.npr.org/2022/06/24/1107531644/trigger-laws-have-been-taking-effect-now-that-roe-v-wade-has-been-overturned
• ↵ Slate. The Death of Jacqueline Smith. https://slate.com/human-interest/2015/12/jacqueline-smiths-1955-death-and-the-lessons-we-havent-yet-learned-from-it.html
• ↵ NPR. Inside Pat Maginnis' radical (and underground) tactics on abortion rights in the '60s. https://www.npr.org/2021/10/29/1047068724/pat-was-an-early-radical-abortion-rights-activist-her-positions-are-now-common
• ↵ Freeman H. The Guardian. Abortion should be a medical matter, not a criminal one. The law needs to change. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/dec/01/uk-abortion-criminal-offence-24-week-time-limit

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Pro-Choice Does Not Mean Pro-Abortion: An Argument for Abortion Rights Featuring the Rev. Carlton Veazey

Since the Supreme Court’s historic 1973 decision in Roe v. Wade , the issue of a woman’s right to an abortion has fostered one of the most contentious moral and political debates in America. Opponents of abortion rights argue that life begins at conception – making abortion tantamount to homicide. Abortion rights advocates, in contrast, maintain that women have a right to decide what happens to their bodies – sometimes without any restrictions.

To explore the case for abortion rights, the Pew Forum turns to the Rev. Carlton W. Veazey, who for more than a decade has been president of the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice. Based in Washington, D.C., the coalition advocates for reproductive choice and religious freedom on behalf of about 40 religious groups and organizations. Prior to joining the coalition, Veazey spent 33 years as a pastor at Zion Baptist Church in Washington, D.C.

A counterargument explaining the case against abortion rights is made by the Rev. J. Daniel Mindling, professor of moral theology at Mount St. Mary’s Seminary.

Featuring: The Rev. Carlton W. Veazey, President, Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice

Interviewer: David Masci, Senior Research Fellow, Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life

Question & Answer

Can you explain how your Christian faith informs your views in support of abortion rights?

I grew up in a Christian home. My father was a Baptist minister for many years in Memphis, Tenn. One of the things that he instilled in me – I used to hear it so much – was free will, free will, free will. It was ingrained in me that you have the ability to make choices. You have the ability to decide what you want to do. You are responsible for your decisions, but God has given you that responsibility, that option to make decisions.

I had firsthand experience of seeing black women and poor women being disproportionately impacted by the fact that they had no choices about an unintended pregnancy, even if it would damage their health or cause great hardship in their family. And I remember some of them being maimed in back-alley abortions; some of them died. There was no legal choice before Roe v. Wade .

But in this day and time, we have a clearer understanding that men and women are moral agents and equipped to make decisions about even the most difficult and complex matters. We must ensure a woman can determine when and whether to have children according to her own conscience and religious beliefs and without governmental interference or coercion. We must also ensure that women have the resources to have a healthy, safe pregnancy, if that is their decision, and that women and families have the resources to raise a child with security.

The right to choose has changed and expanded over the years since Roe v. Wade . We now speak of reproductive justice – and that includes comprehensive sex education, family planning and contraception, adequate medical care, a safe environment, the ability to continue a pregnancy and the resources that make that choice possible. That is my moral framework.

You talk about free will, and as a Christian you believe in free will. But you also said that God gave us free will and gave us the opportunity to make right and wrong choices. Why do you believe that abortion can, at least in some instances, be the right choice?

Dan Maguire, a former Jesuit priest and professor of moral theology and ethics at Marquette University, says that to have a child can be a sacred choice, but to not have a child can also be a sacred choice.

And these choices revolve around circumstances and issues – like whether a person is old enough to care for a child or whether a woman already has more children than she can care for. Also, remember that medical circumstances are the reason many women have an abortion – for example, if they are having chemotherapy for cancer or have a life-threatening chronic illness – and most later-term abortions occur because of fetal abnormalities that will result in stillbirth or the death of the child. These are difficult decisions; they’re moral decisions, sometimes requiring a woman to decide if she will risk her life for a pregnancy.

Abortion is a very serious decision and each decision depends on circumstances. That’s why I tell people: I am not pro-abortion, I am pro-choice. And that’s an important distinction.

You’ve talked about the right of a woman to make a choice. Does the fetus have any rights?

First, let me say that the religious, pro-choice position is based on respect for human life, including potential life and existing life.

But I do not believe that life as we know it starts at conception. I am troubled by the implications of a fetus having legal rights because that could pit the fetus against the woman carrying the fetus; for example, if the woman needed a medical procedure, the law could require the fetus to be considered separately and equally.

From a religious perspective, it’s more important to consider the moral issues involved in making a decision about abortion. Also, it’s important to remember that religious traditions have very different ideas about the status of the fetus. Roman Catholic doctrine regards a fertilized egg as a human being. Judaism holds that life begins with the first breath.

What about at the very end of a woman’s pregnancy? Does a fetus acquire rights after the point of viability, when it can survive outside the womb? Or let me ask it another way: Assuming a woman is healthy and her fetus is healthy, should the woman be able to terminate her pregnancy until the end of her pregnancy?

There’s an assumption that a woman would end a viable pregnancy carelessly or without a reason. The facts don’t bear this out. Most abortions are performed in the first 12 weeks of pregnancy. Late abortions are virtually always performed for the most serious medical and health reasons, including saving the woman’s life.

But what if such a case came before you? If you were that woman’s pastor, what would you say?

I would talk to her in a helpful, positive, respectful way and help her discuss what was troubling her. I would suggest alternatives such as adoption.

Let me shift gears a little bit. Many Americans have said they favor a compromise, or reaching a middle-ground policy, on abortion. Do you sympathize with this desire and do you think that both sides should compromise to end this rancorous debate?

I have been to more middle-ground and common-ground meetings than I can remember and I’ve never been to one where we walked out with any decision.

That being said, I think that we all should agree that abortion should be rare. How do we do that? We do that by providing comprehensive sex education in schools and in religious congregations and by ensuring that there is accurate information about contraception and that contraception is available. Unfortunately, the U.S. Congress has not been willing to pass a bill to fund comprehensive sex education, but they are willing to put a lot of money into failed and harmful abstinence-only programs that often rely on scare tactics and inaccurate information.

Former Surgeon General David Satcher has shown that abstinence-only programs do not work and that we should provide young people with the information to protect themselves. Education that stresses abstinence and provides accurate information about contraception will reduce the abortion rate. That is the ground that I stand on. I would say that here is a way we can work together to reduce the need for abortions.

Abortion has become central to what many people call the “culture wars.” Some consider it to be the most contentious moral issue in America today. Why do many Catholics, evangelical Christians and other people of faith disagree with you?

I was raised to respect differing views so the rigid views against abortion are hard for me to understand. I will often tell someone on the other side, “I respect you. I may disagree with your theological perspective, but I respect your views. But I think it’s totally arrogant for you to tell me that I need to believe what you believe.” It’s not that I think we should not try to win each other over. But we have to respect people’s different religious beliefs.

But what about people who believe that life begins at conception and that terminating a pregnancy is murder? For them, it may not just be about respecting or tolerating each other’s viewpoints; they believe this is an issue of life or death. What do you say to people who make that kind of argument?

I would say that they have a right to their beliefs, as do I. I would try to explain that my views are grounded in my religion, as are theirs. I believe that we must ensure that women are treated with dignity and respect and that women are able to follow the dictates of their conscience – and that includes their reproductive decisions. Ultimately, it is the government’s responsibility to ensure that women have the ability to make decisions of conscience and have access to reproductive health services.

Some in the anti-abortion camp contend that the existence of legalized abortion is a sign of the self-centeredness and selfishness of our age. Is there any validity to this view?

Although abortion is a very difficult decision, it can be the most responsible decision a person can make when faced with an unintended pregnancy or a pregnancy that will have serious health consequences.

Depending on the circumstances, it might be selfish to bring a child into the world. You know, a lot of people say, “You must bring this child into the world.” They are 100 percent supportive while the child is in the womb. As soon as the child is born, they abort the child in other ways. They abort a child through lack of health care, lack of education, lack of housing, and through poverty, which can drive a child into drugs or the criminal justice system.

So is it selfish to bring children into the world and not care for them? I think the other side can be very selfish by neglecting the children we have already. For all practical purposes, children whom we are neglecting are being aborted.

This transcript has been edited for clarity, spelling and grammar.

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The Pro-Choice Argument

There are those who hold that contraception unfairly manipulates the workings of nature, and others who cannot see the fetus as a child until the umbilical cord is cut. Invoking an almost religious fervor on both sides of the issue, abortion is one of the most emotionally potent present political controversies. Motherhood is a powerful institution in American life, and both the "Pro-choice" (supporting a woman's right to choose) and the "Pro-life" (anti-abortion) forces see the other as attacking the foundations of the mother-infant bond.

Social analysis argues forcibly for the need for safe, legal and affordable abortions. Approximately 1 million women had abortions annually until the 1973 decision legalizing abortion, and abortion had become the leading cause of maternal death and mutilation (40 deaths/100,000 abortions compared to 40 deaths/100,000 live births according to National Abortion Rights Action league.) An estimated 9000 rape victims become pregnant each year (FBI 1973); 100,000 cases of incest occur yearly (National Center for Child Abuse and Neglect, 1978). Two-thirds of teenage pregnancies are not planned, because many do not have adequate access to contraceptives (NARAL). And the taxpayer price of supporting a child on welfare is far greater than that of a Medicaid abortion. But the issue that provokes such anger surrounds the fetus's right to life--its status as a potential human being. Anti-abortionist proponents usually take the position that conception is life and therefore abortion is murder and violates the rights of the unborn, or that there is an inherent value in life and abortion is murder because it destroys that value.

The Supreme Court decided in 1973 that the unborn fetus had no constitutional rights until the third trimester (24-28 weeks), as it is incapable of functioning independently from the mother until that time. Right-to-Lifers claim that because the fetus will develop into a human being, it demands the same paternalistic protection that is extended to animals, children and others subject to exploitation and maltreatment. The fetus must be accorded the same constitutional rights as its mother.

Two arguments delineate the problems in giving the fetus these equivalent rights. The first looks at individual rights as the products of a social doctrine. Animals and children are unavoidably present within a society, and to ensure that they remain functioning members of that society they must be protected from exploitation by other societal members. Different political platforms advocate different rights--the right to free medical care, the right to minimal taxation--but all demarcate the interaction of the individual within the group. A person's rights protect him from future harassment, but to actually obtain those rights he must already be a member of the group providing him with those protections. An Australian cannot lay claim to American rights until he is on American soil (or its equivalent). He may have a guarantee that should he enter the United States, he will be accorded many of those protections. But the guarantee depends on his entrance onto American territory. In analogous fashion, until the fetus is actually, not potentially, a member of society, it does not have constitutional rights.

One could object that the fetus in the womb is as signally present in society as the child in the crib, that each are equally members of society. Yet surely the conception of "member" involves some minimal interaction. The fetus reacts to society of the outside world solely through the medium of the mother. Strictly speaking, then, society has no legal responsibility to the fetus, but rather to the mother.

This seems like a rather harsh position, but we can distinguish between the rights of the fetus and the action that a mother might feel morally compelled to take. Consider the following situation: suppose you were to return home one day and find a stranger camped out in your living room and peacefully eating the ham sandwich you saved for dinner. You would be tempted to throw him out in the street. Almost everyone could agree that you had the right to eject him.

But suppose he told you that he could not live outside of your house; perhaps one of his enemies waits outside your door. Moreover, he informs you that he needs food and clothing and someone to talk to--he needs your presence much of the day. He becomes more demanding: you must work less, earn less, give up jogging.

Introduce a complication: your food is strictly rationed, or perhaps your heating, on subsistence level for a single person. If the stranger stays with you, your life will be seriously endangered. You might be very upset, but if it came down to the wire you would probably kick him out of the house. Again, most people would agree you were within your rights to do so.

The difficulty of course arises when it would be possible for you to support him and take care of him, but you would rather not. You might agree if the demand were only for an evening, but hesitate if it were for the rest of your life. Do rights then depend upon the time factor? You could claim a certain moral responsibility towards another human being. But it is hard to say that he has the right to force you to support him. You are not legally required to help an old lady across the street.

One counterargument declares that willing intercourse implies acceptance of a possible pregnancy--that in effect you invited the stranger in, that you knew what you were in for and that he now has the right to demand your help. But faulty contraception is like a broken window. When you return to your suite and find your stereo missing, do you accede the thief's right to take it because your window is easily pried open? The abortion issue thus forces a clarification of the nature of the individual and his social rights. Although we may feel morally constrained to protect the future child, the fetus does not have the right to force us to do so. In the traditional dichotomy of church and state, to restrict abortion is to legislate morality.

The staunchest opposition comes from those who hold absolutely that conception is life. But belief in the inherent value of life is not a trite axiom: it avows some faith in the quality of existence beyond the moral injunction "Thou shalt not kill." It becomes easy to see as hypocritical those anti-abortionists--particularly men--who condone extra-marital intercourse (or even intramarital intercourse) yet would refuse to financially and emotionally support the child conceived because of faulty contraception. The only morally consistent value-of-life position is to have intercourse only if one is willing to accept a child as a possible consequence, and participate in the quality of the child's life. This in part lies behind the Catholic prohibition of premarital sex.

As a personal doctrine few would reproach those who follow it. But pragmatics belie its application to all society, rape being the prime instance where the woman is not free to choose to become pregnant. The restriction of federal support to cases of rape, incest and probable death of the mother suggests an interesting quality-of-life argument: that potentiality is not absolute but must be prorated. Due to society's dread of incest, such a mother and her child would be spared a psychologically unbearable life. In case of danger to the mother's life we do not hear that the 'child' has potentially far more years of happy, productive life than the mother. Rather, the argument runs that the mother's life should not be sacrificed for the child who would bear such a tremendous burden.

Yet an unwanted child may be born into a household with an equally heavy psychological toll. If the potentiality of life thesis rests on an understanding of the inner qualities of life, then abortion is a necessity rather than a crime. Those who deny the right to an abortion under any circumstances fail to see that their argument undercuts itself. Abortion provides a unique understanding of the "inherent good" of existence. It is morally irresponsible to believe that a pregnancy must be brought to term even in case of the mother's death simply because it is a matter of nature and out of our hands when we have the medical means to save the mother. The case involves a comparison of the life-value of the mother and the child: the final decision must evaluate the process of existence--the value of life as it is lived. The inherent value of life cannot be an a priori constant if a choice is to be made between two lives.

Once the quality of life-as-it-is-lived is introduced into the argument, we can say that abortion provides the possibility of improving that quality. Motherhood is a remarkably special bond between mother and child, perhaps the most important relationship we ever have. It requires tremendous emotional capacities, and raising children should be one of the most conscious decisions we make. Many of those who have abortions when young have children later in life, when they are more emotionally and financially equipped to handle them. Contraception is at most 99 per cent safe, and abortion must be available to allow women the freedom to provide the optimum conditions for their child's growth.

According to a 1978 Clark University study, 83 per cent of Massachusetts supports the woman's right to choose. But the trend of recent legislation is distinctly anti-abortion, the result of an extremely well-organized and funded "Pro-life" movement (which some link to the New Right). On the federal level, the 1976-7 Hyde Amendment, a rider on the Labor-HEW appropriations bill, cut off federally funded abortions except in cases of rape, incest, and "medically necessary" instances, defined by the Supreme Court as long-lasting physical or psychological damage to the mother's health.

In 1977 this clause cut 99 per cent of all reimbursements (250,000-300,000 annually prior to the cut-off); this year "medically necessary" has been replaced by probable death of the mother. Military women are similarly restricted under the Dornan Amendment; the Young Amendment funds no abortions at all for Peace Corps women. Employers may refuse to include abortion coverage in their company health plan under the Beard Amendment. Fifteen states have called for a constitutional convention to introduce the prohibition of all abortions: 19 more would fulfill the requisite number of 34.

In Massachusetts the Doyle Bill would cut off state funds in the same manner as the Hyde Amendment. Formerly an adjunct to the budget it was passed and signed as a bill this year. Appealed by MORAL (the Massachusetts Organization for the Repeal of Abortion Laws), the bill is under injunction and pending review by the Federal District Court on the basis of a Supreme Court decision that all medically necessary services must be available to the poor. As of last May, hospitals are no longer required to perform abortions upon demand except in case of probable death to the mother. Legislation restricting abortions to hospitals with full obstetrical care (rather than women's health clinics), now before the Massachusetts House, could place the woman in a double bind. Also under Massachusetts debate is an "Informed Consent" bill which essentially amounts to harrassment: the bill requires spouse and parental notification, with consent of parents or courts for minors, full information concerning the viability and appearance of the fetus, description of the aborting technique, anad a 24-hour waiting period after the 'information session' before the abortion could be obtained.

There is a real danger that anti-abortion legislation could become increasingly more restrictive. It already discriminates against women in lower economic brackets. The power of the pro-life people should not be underestimated: they have targeted 12 Congressmen for defeat in 1980, among them Morris Udall and Birch Bayh. We need to inform our politicians of their pro-choice constituency and reverse the further tightening of the over-restrictive and discriminatory legislation.

Tanya Luhrmann '80-3 is working for Abortion Rights Action Week.

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Moral foundations of pro-choice and pro-life women

Mariola paruzel-czachura.

1 Institute of Psychology, University of Silesia in Katowice, Grazynskiego 53, 40-126 Katowice, Poland

2 Penn Center of Neuroaesthetics, Goddard Laboratories, University of Pennsylvania, 3710 Hamilton Walk, Philadelphia, PA 19104 USA

Artur Domurat

Marta nowak.

3 Healio Institute of Psychotherapy in Katowice, Bazantow 35, 40-668 Katowice, Poland

Associated Data

The materials, data, and code are available at https://osf.io/793cr/?view_only=None . The study was preregistered at https://aspredicted.org/i9fa8.pdf .

Opinions on abortion are more polarized than opinions on most other moral issues. Why are some people pro-choice and some pro-life? Religious and political preferences play a role here, but pro-choice and pro-life people may also differ in other aspects. In the current preregistered study ( N  = 479), we investigated how pro-choice women differ in their moral foundations from pro-life women. When the Moral Foundations Questionnaire (MFQ) was applied (i.e., when declared moral principles were measured), pro-life women scored higher than pro-choice women in loyalty, authority, and purity. However, when women were asked about moral judgments indirectly via more real-life problems from the Moral Foundations Vignettes (MFV), pro-choice women scored higher than pro-life women in emotional and physical care and liberty but lower in loyalty. When we additionally controlled for religious practice and political views, we found no differences between groups in declaring moral foundations (MFQ). However, in the case of real-life moral judgments (MFV), we observed higher care, fairness, and liberty among pro-choice and higher authority and purity among pro-life. Our results show intriguing nuances between women pro-choice and pro-life as we found a different pattern of moral foundations in those groups depending on whether we measured their declared abstract moral principles or moral judgment about real-life situations. We also showed how religious practice and political views might play a role in such differences. We conclude that attitudes to abortion “go beyond” abstract moral principles, and the real-life context matters in moral judgments.

Graphical abstract

Supplementary information

The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s12144-023-04800-0.

Banning the termination of pregnancy due to severe and irreversible damage to the fetus was approved in October 2020 in Polish legislation, which turned out to be one of the most restrictive abortion laws in Europe. Similarly, some American states have enacted new abortion restrictions in 2021 and 2022. Those changes provoked protests and showed how one moral issue, i.e., “the abortion problem”, may polarize societies. We already know that opinions on abortion were “always” polarized (Foot, 1967 ; Singer, 2011 ; Thomson, 1971 ; Watt, 2017 ), and they are also very stable (Kiley & Vaisey, 2020 ). Moreover, they are more polarized than opinions on most other moral issues (Baldassarri & Park, 2020 ; DiMaggio et al., 1996 ; Jones, 2018 ). Nevertheless, why are some individuals pro-life or pro-choice, and what characterizes those two groups?

Past research tried to answer these questions showing mainly how religiosity and political preferences shape the attitude to abortion. More religious and conservative people are usually more willing to declare pro-life (Barkan, 2014 ; Fiorina, 2017 ; Jędryczka et al., 2022 ). The abortion problem is indeed strongly related to religion, and religion is strongly related to politics (Jelen & Wilcox, 2003 ; Malka et al., 2012 ). When the religion is against abortion, for example, in the case of the Roman Catholic Church, the followers are usually pro-life (Jonason et al., 2022 ).

But moral judgments related to abortion are based mainly on the strength or salience of personal values (Rilling & Sanfey, 2011 ; Schwartz, 2007 ; Spicer, 1994 ), and religious or political preferences are just the indicators of those values (Koleva et al., 2012 ). That is probably why religious and political preferences were commonly studied as predictors of attitudes to abortion. However, one can approach the abortion problem from another perspective, i.e., look at it through the lens of moral foundations theory (Graham et al., 2018 ; Graham & Haidt, 2012 ). This theory, in its latest version, postulates six moral foundations, i.e., care, fairness, liberty (so-called three individualizing foundations), loyalty, authority, and purity (so-called three binding foundations) (Clifford et al., 2015 ).

The moral foundations theory and the abortion problem

Moral foundations theory (Graham et al., 2009 , 2013 , 2018 ; Haidt, 2001 ) was proposed to explain why moral beliefs vary so widely across cultures yet still show many similarities and recurrent themes (Haidt & Graham, 2007 ). The first version of the theory posited that people differ in evaluating the importance of five moral foundations: care, fairness, loyalty, authority, and purity (Graham et al., 2018 ). The care foundation (the opposite of harm ) relates to feeling empathy for the pain of others. Fairness (the opposite of cheating ) concerns sensitivity to justice, rights, and equality. Loyalty (the opposite of betrayal ) refers to the tendency to form coalitions and feel proud of being a group member. Authority (the opposite of subversion ) relates to a preference for hierarchical social interactions and feeling respect for, or fear of, people in a higher social position. Finally, the purity (previously termed sanctity ) foundation (the opposite of degradation ) refers to a propensity to exhibit disgust in response to incorrect behavior and reflects individual differences in concerns for the sacredness of values (Koleva et al., 2012 ). Care and fairness are individualizing foundations. They are person-centered and focus on protecting individuals, whereas loyalty, authority, and purity are conceptualized as binding foundations because they focus on preserving one’s group as a whole (Graham et al., 2009 , 2013 , 2018 ). In the last modification of the theory, the sixth moral foundation of liberty was added (Graham et al., 2018 ). A higher level of liberty means a higher need to be free in our choices and behaviors. Liberty is also an individualizing moral foundation.

Only two studies tested how moral foundations might be related to attitudes to abortion. In the first study, Koleva and colleagues (Koleva et al., 2012 ) found that purity (measured by the Moral Foundations Questionnaire – MFQ of Graham and colleagues) predicted being pro-life. Specifically, they conducted two studies involving thousands of participants and a variety of moral issues (among them: the abortion problem), and they tested if the endorsement of five moral foundations may predict judgments about these issues, also testing the role of political ideology (measured by self-assessment on a scale from very liberal to very conservative ), age, gender, religious attendance (i.e., frequent church attendance), and interest in politics. Regarding the abortion problem, only purity predicted attitude to abortion, next to conservative ideology and frequent church attendance. Despite the relevance of this result, this study focused only on declared preferences for moral foundations (i.e., used MFQ). We already know that those abstract preferences or principles do not always predict real-life decisions (Bostyn et al., 2018 ; Schein, 2020 ). For example, regarding the abortion problem, it was already found that some people, despite declaring they are against abortion, decided to help a close friend or family member seeking an abortion (Cowan et al., 2022 ). That is why we also need to study moral foundations more indirectly, for example, by asking about moral decisions close to real life. Additionally, Koleva and colleagues did not test the relevance of the liberty foundation, which was later added to the MFT (Clifford et al., 2015 ; Graham et al., 2018 ). Moreover, they tested only general attitudes to abortion (for example, not measuring the possible impact of the abortion law on the participants or their close others). Lastly, they conducted the study before the latest law changes in 2020–2022, which could also impact attitudes toward such an important social issue.

In the second study, Jonason and colleagues ( 2022 ) asked 255 women and men from Poland about their attitudes toward Poland’s ban on abortion. They showed that Catholics were higher on binding moral foundations (measured via MFQ) than non-Catholics and that Catholics perceived the new situation in Poland with less negativity, which led them to support the ban more than non-Catholics. These results are consistent with past findings, as generally, being religious and conservative is related to being pro-life, and religiosity and conservatism turn out to be linked to binding moral foundations (Kivikangas et al., 2021 ; Saroglou & Craninx, 2020 ). Despite the relevance of this study, it also focused only on declared moral foundations (i.e., MFQ) and did not measure liberty as a new moral foundation (Clifford et al., 2015 ; Graham et al., 2018 ). Moreover, it focused mainly on attitudes toward Poland’s recent ban on abortion. Finally, the two studies mentioned above analyzed the general population, so it is hard to make general conclusions about the differences between pro-choice and pro-life. One possible way to study this issue deeply could be by studying two samples of individuals who clearly define themselves as pro-choice or pro-life. We aimed to do this in the current research.

The current research

We aimed to provide deeper insights into the moral foundations among pro-choice and pro-life individuals. We wished to build on past work (Jonason et al., 2022 ; Koleva et al., 2012 ) in six ways:

• we used two measures of moral foundations that could allow more general conclusions about the differences between being pro-life and pro-choice as they measure moral foundations directly (MFQ) and indirectly (MFV). Specifically, we measured moral foundations not only by asking about the declaration of moral preferences (declared the importance of and attitude to abstract moral principles) using MFQ (Graham et al., 2009 ) but also by measuring participants’ assessment of immoral actors in concrete, real-life scenarios using MFV (Clifford et al., 2015 ). Measuring declarative abstract moral principles with MFQ makes sense; nevertheless, abortion is a common real-life problem involving concrete actions and choices to be made (Cowan et al., 2022 ; Maddow-Zimet et al., 2021 ). Because MFQ relies on respondents’ rating of abstract principles, it is tough to say anything about respondents’ moral judgment of concrete scenarios (Clifford et al., 2015 ). Moreover, those abstract principles do not always predict real-life decisions (Bostyn et al., 2018 ; Schein, 2020 ), e.g., some people, despite being against abortion (declaration of abstract principle), decide to help a close friend or family member who is seeking an abortion (Cowan et al., 2022 ). That is why we used MFV, an indirect measure of moral foundations based on real-life situations;
• by using MFV, we measured the new moral foundations of liberty, and to our best knowledge, we are the first to test the role of this foundation in the abortion problem;
• by using MFV, we were able to measure two types of care foundation, i.e., emotional and physical care, so this way, we could test the sensitivity to emotional or physical harm in our sample;
• we narrowed the sample to women. We did it for obvious biological reasons, i.e., women are more directly affected by the abortion rule than men. Past studies also show that our attitudes may be stronger if an object or issue may impact our lives more directly (Albarracín, 2021 );
• we decided to test two groups of women (i.e., pro-life and pro-choice). Past research (Jonason et al., 2022 ; Koleva et al., 2012 ) did not study such opposite groups; by this design, we could look for the clear differences between them;
• we measured attitudes to abortion in more detail than in past studies (Jonason et al., 2022 ; Koleva et al., 2012 ). Specifically, we asked women about their attitude to abortion in three ways: by direct question whether they are pro-choice or pro-life, by asking about their views on four detailed issues concerning the new abortion law in Poland, and by using a scale that helped us to measure Full and Conditional Abortion Support (see Measures section).

Following past research (Jonason et al., 2022 ), we hypothesized that pro-life women would have higher levels of binding moral foundations than pro-choice women. Because moral foundations measured by MFQ and MFV correlated positively in past research (Clifford et al., 2015 ), we expected to observe the same pattern of results for both of them.

The Research Ethics Committee of the University of Silesia in Katowice accepted the current study. The materials, data, and code are available at https://osf.io/793cr/?view_only=None . The study was preregistered at https://aspredicted.org/i9fa8.pdf . We report all measured variables in this study.

Participants and procedure

We preregistered a survey with a sample of at least N  = 300 respondents, n  = 150 women pro-choice, and n  = 150 women pro-life. Using G*Power 3.1.9.7 software suggested that we need to recruit two independent groups of ca. 150 participants, assuming alpha error probability of 0.05, power of 0.8, and low-to-medium effect size of 0.33 (of differences between groups on a dependent variable in two independent group comparisons). Because participants’ membership to one of two groups would be defined post hoc – based on the dichotomous question about support for abortion – and the allocation ratio to the groups was hard to predict a priori, we preregistered that if we collect more data in any of the two expected subsamples, we will include them in the analyses. We stopped the data collection when the smaller group had n  = 150.

Our online study was conducted during a specific time in Poland in 2021, just after the Polish government introduced the new abortion law. We want to highlight that it was a stormy time when many people went on the streets to express their support for women’s rights, despite the COVID-19 pandemic, so despite that, their lives were directly in danger. Like the study by Jonason and colleagues ( 2022 ), contrary to Koleva and colleagues’ ( 2012 ) study, we asked about a real-life problem, as abortion was the main topic in media, hospitals, homes, etc.

Women were invited to an anonymous online survey in Qualtrics using the snowball method via the University of Silesia’s website and social media platforms. Five hundred sixteen participants took part in the study. All participants had Polish nationality and spoke the Polish language. We excluded participants who did not agree to participate in the study after reading the instruction ( n  = 6), did not answer attention check questions ( n  = 3), and one man from the sample. We also excluded participants ( n  = 27) with too short (less than 3:30 min.) or too long (more than 28 min.) survey completion times, defined by logarithms outside the interquartile range of [ Q 1–1.5 IQR , Q 3 + 1.5 IQR ] 1 .

The analyzed sample consisted of 479 women, split into two groups: pro-choice women ( n  = 332, M age 26.34, SD  = 7.53) and pro-life women ( n  = 147, M age 27.84, SD  = 7.20). Among pro-life women, n  = 123 (83.7%) declared being Catholics, n  = 11 (7.5%) reported being atheists, and n  = 13 (8.8%) declared being other than Catholics (i.e., Buddhists, Protestants, other and not specified). Among pro-choice women, n  = 158 (47.6%) reported being Catholics, n  = 155 (46.7%) declared being atheists, and n  = 19 (8.8%) declared being other than Catholics (Buddhists, Judaists, Orthodox Catholics, Protestants, other and not specified). However, it is worth noting that 177 (53.3%) pro-choice women practiced religion, and 11 (7.5%) pro-life women were not religious.

Group check

Our two groups were distinguished by asking women if they were pro-choice or pro-life. However, to ensure that women correctly divided themselves as pro-choice or pro-life, we asked them about more detailed attitudes to abortion (see section Measures ).

Attitude to abortion

Women were asked about their attitudes to abortion in three ways. First, respondents answered a single question about whether they were pro-choice or pro-life (“If you had to define your own attitude towards abortion clearly, you are: pro-choice/pro-life”). This question was used to identify the two subsamples. Second, the participants expressed their views on four detailed issues concerning the new abortion law in Poland. The first question, “What is your attitude to the verdict issued by the Constitutional Court?” was answered on a scale from 1 ( I definitely do not support ) to 7 ( I definitely do support ) (variable: Attitude to New Rule in Table  1 ). The other three questions were about the potential impact of a new law on them personally (variable: Personal Influence in Table  1 ), on their close others (variable: Influence on Close Others in Table  1 ), and generally on other women (variable: General Influence in Table  1 ) and they were answered on a scale from 1 ( definitely negative ) to 7 ( definitely positive ). Third, participants read six statements about attitudes to abortion and evaluated to what extent they agreed with the statements using a scale from 1 ( I disagree ) to 5 ( I agree ). The first three statements were: “I support the full right to abortion, which is the inalienable right of every woman”, and “Abortion is a woman’s personal matter, and no one else can decide for her whether she should have an abortion or not”, “Abortion should be allowed regardless of the reason”. Averaged answers for these three statements created the index of Full Abortion Support (Cronbach α  = 0.92). Similarly, the following three statements: “Abortion should be allowed only if the pregnancy threatens the life or health of the mother ”, “I support the introduction of the full right to abortion, but only up to the 12th week of pregnancy”, and “Abortion is allowed only when we are sure that the child will be born with a genetic defect” were to create the Conditional Abortion Support index, however, due to its low consistency ( α  = 0.11), we decided to analyze them separately.

Descriptive statistics and differences between pro-choice and pro-life women in religious practice, political views, and attitudes to abortion

The numbers in brackets are the variable’s scales

Moral Foundations Questionnaire

We used a Polish adaptation (Jarmakowski-Kostrzanowski & Jarmakowska-Kostrzanowska, 2016 ) of the Moral Foundations Questionnaire (MFQ; Graham et al., 2009 ) to measure the degree to which the participants endorsed five sets of moral intuitions (i.e., care, fairness, loyalty, authority, and purity) in moral decision-making. The scale consists of 30 items that measure the moral foundations in two ways: a relevance subscale (15 items) showing how important each one of the moral foundations is for a person, and a judgments subscale (15 items), which measures the extent to which people agree with various moral opinions connected with the different moral foundations. An example item for care is “It can never be right to kill a human being”; for fairness: “When the government makes laws, the number one principle should be ensuring that everyone is treated fairly”; for loyalty: “People should be loyal to their family members, even when they have done something wrong”; for authority: “Men and women each have different roles to play in society”; and for purity: “People should not do things that are disgusting, even if no one is harmed”. A 1 to 6 response scale was used for all items, where 1 was not at all relevant or strongly disagree , and 6 was extremely relevant or strongly agree . Responses were averaged to give an overall score for each foundation. Cronbach alphas were found to be moderate for care ( α  = 0.61) and fairness ( α  = 0.56) and high for loyalty ( α  = 0.77), authority ( α  = 0.76), and purity ( α  = 0.82).

Moral Foundations Vignettes

It measures moral foundations based on evaluating other people’s behavior violating them (MFV; Clifford et al., 2015 ). The randomized set of 21 vignettes was used in our study, three vignettes per moral foundation. Apart from using five classic moral foundations, it includes a liberty foundation and two types of care, i.e., sensitivity to emotional harm to humans or non-human animals (care emotional) and sensitivity to physical harm to humans or non-human animals (care physical). An example item for care emotional is “You see a woman commenting out loud about how fat another woman looks in her jeans”; for care physical: “You see a zoo trainer jabbing a dolphin to get it to entertain his customers”; for fairness: “You see a boy skipping to the front of the line because his friend is an employee”, for liberty: “You see a man forbidding his wife to wear clothing that he has not first approved”; for loyalty: “You see the US Ambassador joking in Great Britain about the stupidity of Americans” [changed into Polish Ambassador in Germany]; for authority: “You see an employee trying to undermine all of her boss’ ideas in front of others”; for purity: “You see an employee at a morgue eating his pepperoni pizza off of a dead body”. The 5-point scale was used from 1 ( not at all wrong ) to 5 ( extremely wrong ). We did translation-back-translation of MFV (see Materials at OSF). Cronbach alphas were satisfactorily high for care emotional ( α  = 0.88), fairness ( α  = 0.71), liberty ( α  = 0.72), authority ( α  = 0.71), and loyalty ( α  = 0.76), and moderate for care physical ( α  = 0.68) and purity ( α  = 0.56).

Religious practice

Participants were asked to evaluate their level of practicing religion on a scale from 1 ( I don’t practice at all ) to 8 ( I am a very practicing person ). Additionally, we asked about which type of religion they practiced (if they practiced any).

Political views

We asked participants two questions about their political views, one related to economic issues (“Please indicate on the following scale your political views relating to economic issues”) on a scale from 0 ( State participation should be very small ) to 7 ( State participation should be very high ), and the other one related to social issues (“Please indicate on the following scale your political views relating to social, cultural issues”) on a scale from 0 ( very conservative ) to 7 ( very liberal ).

Descriptive statistics and differences between pro-choice and pro-life women in religious practice, political views, and attitudes to abortion are shown in Table  1 . The two groups differed (Welch t-tests) significantly in practicing religion (lower among pro-choice) and political views on social issues (higher liberal views among pro-choice), but there was no difference between the groups in views on economic issues. Pro-choice and pro-life women differed in full support for abortion, meaning the two groups differed in their extreme views on abortion. Moreover, pro-life women had stronger beliefs that the new abortion rule in Poland would positively impact themselves personally, their close others, and women in general. In contrast, pro-choice women believed more that the new law would harm all women, themselves, and their close others.

Regarding conditional support, women pro-life agreed more with two statements allowing abortion conditionally when the pregnancy threatens the mother’s life or health and when one is sure that the child will be born with a genetic defect. Women pro-choice agreed more with the third statement allowing the right to abortion until the 12th week of pregnancy (Table  1 ).

Summing up, the observed differences, especially in full support of abortion, show that women accurately classified themselves into one of the two groups, and we can be sure that the groups indeed evaluate abortion from different standpoints (however, see the limitation section for elaboration on improving such classification).

Next, we run analyses to see if moral foundations measured in two ways (i.e., MFQ and MFV) correlated. As shown in Table  2 , we received positive correlations among analogous dimensions of moral foundations, replicating past results (Clifford et al., 2015 ).

Pearson correlations between moral foundations measured by MFQ and MFV

* p  < .05, ** p  < .01, *** p  < .001 two-sided.

Finally, we run analyses to see if the groups differ in moral foundations (ANOVA) and when controlling for political views and religious practice simultaneously (ANCOVA).

Preregistered analyses

Do pro-choice and pro-life women differ in moral foundations.

Yes. As shown in Table  3 , when we analyzed differences between groups (ANOVA) using the classical measure of moral foundations (i.e., MFQ), we found that pro-life women had significantly higher binding foundations than pro-choice women, i.e., loyalty (medium effect size), authority (medium effect size), and purity (large effect size). We observed a different pattern of results when using the MFV (with small effect sizes for all results), a more indirect measure of moral foundations. For binding moral foundations, only loyalty seemed to play a role here, i.e., pro-life women had a higher level of loyalty than pro-choice women. However, pro-choice women had higher levels of both types of care (i.e., emotional and physical) and liberty than pro-life women. Fairness, authority, and purity did not differentiate those groups using MFV.

Tests of effects in ANOVA and ANCOVA

* p  < .05; ** p  < .01; *** p  < .001. The rows contain tests of one ANOVA with moral foundation as a dependent variable and attitude toward abortion as a factor, and one ANCOVA, extending the ANOVA with the set of covariates: religious practice, political views on economic issues, and political views on social issues

Exploratory analyses

Do pro-choice and pro-life women differ in moral foundations when we control religious practice and political views.

Yes. When we controlled for political views and religious practice simultaneously (ANCOVA), we found no differences between groups regarding declared moral foundations (MFQ). However, in the case of real-life assessments (MFV), we observed the same pattern of results for care and liberty as when using ANOVA, but now loyalty did not differentiate these two groups. Additionally, we observed differences in fairness, authority, and purity in such a way that women pro-life had higher levels of those foundations than women pro-choice. All found effects were small.

Past research tried to explain attitudes to abortion mainly by looking into religious and political differences between pro-choice and pro-life people. However, attitudes to abortion may also be related to an individual’s moral views (Jędryczka et al., 2022 ; Jonason et al., 2022 ), and sometimes moral foundations may even be an as good predictor of attitudes to abortion as a religious practice or political conservatism (Koleva et al., 2012 ). In the current research, we looked into the problem of attitudes to abortion more deeply by studying, directly and indirectly, moral foundations among pro-choice and women pro-life women.

When we asked about moral foundations directly (using MFQ of Graham and colleagues, 2009 ), we confirmed our preregistered hypothesis that pro-life women have higher binding foundations than pro-choice women. This result is consistent with past findings (Jonason et al., 2022 ). However, we found a different pattern of results when measuring moral foundations indirectly, i.e., by MFV (Clifford et al., 2015 ). For binding foundations, only loyalty seemed to play a role here, i.e., pro-life women had a higher level of loyalty than pro-choice women. Regarding individualizing foundations, pro-choice women had higher care (physical and emotional) and liberty levels than pro-life women. Fairness, authority, and purity did not differentiate those groups when applying MFV.

Moreover, when we additionally controlled for religious practice and political views (ANCOVA), we found no differences in moral foundations between groups regarding declared moral foundations (MFQ). However, in the case of real-life assessments (MFV), we observed higher care and liberty among pro-choice (just like in ANOVA) and higher fairness, authority, and purity among pro-life. We conclude that religious practice and political views may explain differences between pro-choice and pro-life, but only in the case of declared moral foundations (MFQ) and not in MFV (when individuals make moral judgments about real-life behaviors). Because we found differences between pro-choice and pro-life women (whether we controlled religious practice or political views or not), we conclude that studying indirect moral judgments (i.e., using MFV) may reveal hitherto unknown “hidden” differences between pro-choice and pro-life women.

Specifically, our results show intriguing nuances in the problem of abortion as we found that pro-choice and pro-life women differ in declared abstract moral principles (MFQ) and sensitivity to violating those principles in real-life situations (MFV). On the one hand (i.e., when using the MFQ), women who were pro-life were the women who intensely cared about binding foundations, which was also related to their more vital religious practices and higher conservatism on social issues. It simply means that women who were pro-life cared more about binding foundations than pro-choice women, so they declared that they cared about being loyal, listening to authorities, and not violating the purity foundation, which is strictly related to religious sanctity (and indeed, this foundation’s one of the first names was even sanctity ) (Graham et al., 2018 ). Indeed, past studies showed strong correlations between religion and binding moral foundations worldwide (Saroglou & Craninx, 2020 ) and conservative political preferences and binding foundations (Kivikangas et al., 2021 ). Similar associations were found between five moral foundations, religiosity, political preferences, and acceptance of the new abortion rule in Poland (Jonason et al., 2022 ) or between preference for group-based hierarchy and pro-life (Osborne & Davies, 2009 ). When we controlled for religious practice and political views, the differences between pro-choice and pro-life women disappeared, so we can conclude that – at least for declared abstract moral foundations – being religious and conservative plays a central role in the abortion problem.

On the other hand (i.e., when using the MFV), we showed that this is only one part of the story. We know it because when indirectly measuring preferences for moral foundations, the same women (i.e., pro-life) had higher levels of only loyalty foundation when compared to pro-choice women. The importance of loyalty to the abortion problem is consistent with theory and past findings (Jonason et al., 2022 ). Higher levels of loyalty are related to being more religious and conservative (Saroglou & Craninx, 2020 ). The more surprising result is that authority and purity foundations did not play an essential role in the abortion problem when measured indirectly. This result contradicted past findings when moral foundations were measured directly (Jonason et al., 2022 ). It may be related to a different approach to measuring moral foundations by MFQ and MFV. For example, purity is more directly connected to religiosity in MFQ than in MFV, and their operationalization is slightly different (Crone, 2022 ). We suspect it is the most reasonable explanation for finding no differences here. However, when we additionally controlled for religious practice and political views, we replicated the higher level of care and liberty among pro-choice, but we also found a higher level of fairness, authority, and purity among pro-life. Future researchers could try to explain those nuances more deeply, e.g., by conducting longitudinal studies or using more complex measurements of religiosity and political preferences. We observe inconsistent patterns of results for binding moral foundations measured via MFV, so we should be more tentative about the interpretation and conclusions from our study. We need more studies on this issue to understand why we observed such inconsistency.

Regarding the individualizing moral foundations (MFV), pro-life women scored lower in physical and emotional care and liberty foundations than pro-choice women (also when controlling for religious practice and political views). Regarding care, it simply means that pro-choice and pro-life women gave similar declarations about how important it is for them to care about others (MFQ). However, they differed in indirect measures of care in such a way that pro-choice women had higher levels of care than pro-life women (MFV). These results are the most intriguing for us. Women being pro-life sometimes argue that they care about all life, so abortion should be banned. Nevertheless, we did not find confirmation of this in empirical results. Surprisingly, those women who were pro-choice had higher levels of emotional and physical care than pro-life women. It means that when making moral decisions about other people, pro-choice women were more sensitive to violations of care foundation or, in other words: they disliked the suffering of others more than pro-life women. According to some approaches in moral psychology, the foundation of care is the most critical, and people make their moral judgments mainly based on a simple question: Is anyone hurt? (Gray et al., 2012 ; Schein & Gray, 2018 ). Future studies are needed to explain those differences in care, looking for possible sources of them, maybe in the levels of empathy (Zaki, 2018 ), moral identity (Aquino & Reed, 2002 ; Paruzel-Czachura & Blukacz 2021 ), moral absolutism (Vecina et al., 2016 ), or more general attitudes to violence (Vecina et al., 2015 ).

As MFQ does not allow measuring the liberty foundation, we only studied its level using the MFV, and we found that pro-choice women had a higher level of liberty than pro-life women. The importance of liberty is consistent with theoretical assumptions of being pro-choice (Foot, 1967 ; Singer, 2011 ; Thomson, 1971 ; Watt, 2017 ), and it is the first result confirming empirically that, indeed, being pro-choice is related to highlighting liberty when making moral decisions about what behavior is right or wrong.

Some individuals may say they are pro-life or pro-choice because of their religious or political preferences. Indeed, we found significant relations between stronger practicing of religion, conservative views on social issues, and being against abortion. However, we also found this may be too straightforward to describe this problem because there are atheists and believers in both groups of women, i.e., pro-choice and pro-life. We need more studies to understand the complex attitudes to abortion, for example, by studying only a sample of atheists. It is also worth highlighting again that past studies showed that moral foundations might be as good a predictor of attitudes to abortion as religious or political views (Koleva et al., 2012 ). Because of the importance of the abortion problem in our everyday lives, we need more studies to understand possible differences between pro-choice and pro-life people beyond simple explanations that abortion is just a matter of religion or politics.

Our study is not free from limitations. First, we tested only one sample. There is a possibility that different samples (e.g., from other cultural or religious backgrounds) would bring different results. We cannot know to what extent the results are dependent on the Polish context and the abortion protests, and this is a limitation that needs to be addressed in future research. We need replications of our study, especially in diverse samples, including countries where the abortion law changed, similar to Poland. Attitudes to abortion may be sensitive to changes in law, which made thousands of women protest for their rights on the streets in the case of Poland. Second, we did not study whether being pro-choice or pro-life is moderated by individual differences. For instance, attitudes or moral judgments may depend on personality (Pratto et al., 1994 ). Does personality matter for the abortion problem, and if yes, how? (Jonason et al., 2022 ). Third, we also did not study how situational factors may impact attitudes toward abortion, and some research shows that this issue is worth future investigations (Bago et al., 2022 ; Bilewicz et al., 2017 ). Fourth, two compared groups were identified based on a direct question about their position on pro-life or pro-choice. To cope with false self-identification, we asked additional questions about attitudes toward the abortion problem and the new law in Poland. Admittedly, we confirmed that women correctly assigned themselves to the group for or against abortion (see results: group check). However, we did not avoid the problem related to the situation that some participants who claimed to be pro-life or pro-choice had more mixed feelings about the rest of the questions. We conducted additional analyses to understand this issue more deeply ( Supplementary Materials ). Specifically, we presented the percentages of participants’ answers within the two groups on the six statements expressing full or conditional support for abortion (Table S1 ). This table shows that most participants correctly assigned themselves to the group. However, there were participants whose feelings were mixed. Moreover, we conducted the hierarchical cluster analysis on the three statements expressing full support for abortion and observed that some participants do not belong to the two obtained clusters (Table S2 ). Because we did not preregister to drop such participants out, we did not do it. However, we recommend implementing better control of this issue in future studies to ensure that such groups are created properly. Fifth, we measured religious practice and political views by only single items. In future studies, researchers could use more complex measures of those variables, e.g., the Centrality of Religiosity Scale (Huber & Huber, 2012 ) or the Resistance to Change-Beliefs Scale (White et al., 2020 ). Sixth, it is worth noticing that the correlations between the factors estimated through the MFQ and the MFV are mediocre, or some correlate not exactly as the theory would expect. For instance, MFV authority correlates with MFQ fairness. Perhaps different results with MFQ and MFV might be caused by the imprecision of the instruments in measuring moral foundations. Lastly, there is also a possibility that different results would be obtained in non-WEIRD samples (that are White, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic) (Henrich et al., 2010 ), as some research has suggested different patterns of moral judgments in non-WEIRD samples (e.g., Smith & Apicella 2022 ; Sorokowski et al., 2020 ; Turpin et al., 2021 ; Workman et al., 2022 ). Despite all the above limitations, we believe that because of our topic’s theoretical and practical relevance, our study brings an important puzzle to understanding polarization regarding the abortion problem.

Conclusions

We conclude that to understand the attitudes to abortion more fully, we must go beyond abstract moral declarations. Our research demonstrates that pro-choice and pro-life women differed in moral foundations when (a) they revealed abstract moral foundations (pro-life women cared more about loyalty, authority, and purity than pro-choice women) and (b) when they made moral judgments closed to real-life problems (e.g., pro-choice women were more concerned than pro-life women when the foundations of emotional and physical care and liberty were violated). Concerning the latest restrictions on abortion in many places worldwide, discussions about the abortion problem have become more common in our everyday lives. This issue touched many people so much that it sparked massive protests. Hence, it is essential that people are aware of these differences between pro-choice and pro-life women, and we definitely need more studies on this topic.

Below is the link to the electronic supplementary material.

(DOCX 24.2 KB)

Author contributions

MPC and MN contributed to the study conceptualization. MPC and AD wrote the draft. MPC and MN contributed to data collection and data preparation. AD analyzed the data. All authors accepted the final version.

Data availability

Declarations.

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

1 We did not pre-register dropping those participants out. However, when we repeated the analyses for the full sample, we observed the very similar values of Cronbach alphas, the same pattern of correlations and differences between groups, and similar p-values in the performed statistical tests.

Publisher’s note

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Deciphering the Pro-Choice Perspective: a Comprehensive Exploration Beyond the Abortion Debate

How it works

In today’s socio-political climate, the term “pro-choice” often surfaces in heated debates, carrying with it a plethora of emotions, misconceptions, and, at times, contentious arguments. The pro-choice stance, predominantly linked with the discourse on abortion, indeed revolves around this issue, yet it encapsulates a broader philosophy of individual autonomy and decision-making. This essay aims to delve into the nuanced understanding of the pro-choice definition, exploring its dimensions beyond the binary narrative often presented in public discourse.

At its essence, being pro-choice fundamentally advocates for the right of individuals, especially women, to make informed decisions about their own bodies.

This includes but is not limited to the decision to have an abortion. The crux of the pro-choice argument lies in the belief that such deeply personal decisions should not be dictated by governmental policies, societal norms, or religious beliefs but should be left to the individual’s discretion. This perspective does not inherently champion abortion as a practice but rather defends the right to choose as a fundamental human right. This distinction is vital, as it reframes the debate from the morality of abortion to the broader concept of autonomy and self-determination.

However, the application of the pro-choice philosophy extends beyond reproductive rights. It embodies a wider ethos of respecting and upholding personal freedoms and choices in various aspects of life. This can range from choosing one’s career path to making lifestyle choices that align with personal values and beliefs. In this broader sense, pro-choice becomes synonymous with advocating for personal agency and resisting the imposition of one-size-fits-all solutions on complex, individualized matters.

The pro-choice stance also invites a critical examination of the socio-economic factors that influence reproductive decisions. This perspective acknowledges that choices are often made within a context of constraints and pressures, be they financial, social, or cultural. For instance, the decision to have a child or to terminate a pregnancy is not made in isolation but is influenced by factors such as economic stability, access to healthcare, social support systems, and educational opportunities. Therefore, advocating for pro-choice also involves striving for conditions that allow individuals to make truly free and informed choices.

In the arena of public policy, the pro-choice position calls for a nuanced understanding of the complexities surrounding reproductive rights. It demands policies that not only protect the legal right to choose but also ensure access to safe, affordable, and non-judgmental reproductive healthcare services. This includes comprehensive sex education, access to contraception, and support for those who choose to carry pregnancies to term. The goal is to create an environment where choices are genuinely free and not limited by external barriers or stigmas.

In conclusion, the term pro-choice encapsulates a philosophy that champions individual autonomy and the right to make informed decisions about one’s body and life. It is a stance that recognizes the complexity of human experiences and the multitude of factors that influence personal decisions. By advocating for the right to choose, the pro-choice position upholds the principle that personal freedom and respect for individual agency are paramount in a just and equitable society. Understanding pro-choice in this broader context allows for a more empathetic and comprehensive approach to one of the most polarizing topics in contemporary discourse.

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Home — Essay Samples — Social Issues — Abortion — Persuasive Pro Choice Abortion Stance

Persuasive Pro Choice Abortion Stance

• Categories: Abortion Women's Rights

About this sample

Words: 1127 |

Published: Mar 25, 2024

Words: 1127 | Pages: 2 | 6 min read

Table of contents

Introduction, body paragraph 1: bodily autonomy and reproductive rights, body paragraph 2: consequences of restrictive abortion laws, body paragraph 3: personal beliefs and abortion attitudes, body paragraph 4: specific abortion policies and their impact, body paragraph 5: additional consequences of restrictive abortion laws, body paragraph 6: further exploration of counterarguments related to the pro-life perspective, counterarguments: addressing the pro-life perspective.

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