My position on abortion is what I call "pro-conscience", which I outlined in this piece. The core ideas are
- People can disagree in good faith about the moral status of the unborn at the earliest stages of pregnancy. In the absence of agreement, the law must respect freedom of conscience.
- Past a certain point, however, the unborn deserve the benefit of the doubt and the protection of the law.
- Within constitutional limits, moral disagreements should be resolved by democratic processes, not judicial fiat.
I have long wanted to return to this topic and develop my ideas further, but I have been unable to answer several related questions to my satisfaction:
How do we define the "earliest stage of pregnancy", in which the issue can be left individual conscience to decide, and the later stage at which the state must protect the unborn? I suggested 9 weeks in my earlier piece, based on developmental milestones, but I would like to have a firmer ground to stand on. 12 weeks after conception is the limit for elective abortions in some European countries (10 weeks in Portugal). This doesn't solve the question in principle but it could in practice. What's good enough for secularist France should be good enough for pro-choicers in the US, and pro-lifers should recognize that pushing the ban much beyond that will not end abortions but will only drive them underground, creating a black market for abortions, as is currently seen in countries where abortion is completely illegal.
What would really happen if Roe v. Wade were overturned? Few on either side of the debate have offered honest answers to this question; both use the fear/hope of overturning RvW as a political talking point and don't offer any serious analysis of the consequences. If RvW is overturned, then the abortion debate would be moved to the state level -- unless it is codified at the federal level, which Biden has promised to do, but, like overturning the Hyde amendment, this is really up to Congress. The possibility of discarding the filibuster complicates this question.
What are the limits of local moral standards? If the abortion question were in fact returned to the states to decide, it seems highly likely that some states would keep it legal and others would not. This raises the broader practical philosophical question of what degree of local autonomy on moral questions is permissible. Currently, prostitution is legal in a few places in the US. After Prohibition was repealed, some localities continued to ban alcohol. Marijuana has been legalized in several states, though it is nominally still illegal at the federal level. Some states allow capital punishment. Slavery, however, is no longer left to individual states to permit or outlaw. What kind of questions can be decided at the state or local level, and what kinds of things rise to the level of inalienable rights that must be universally respected?
Since Biden's election, many new restrictions on abortion have been passed at the state level and some are currently scheduled to come before the Supreme Court, including a Mississippi law that outlaws abortions after 15 weeks.
Here is a summary of proposed laws around the US.
