Abortion Rights And Wrongs

The Problem of Potential

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Thinking about the nature of personhood leads to another question that is important for the debate over abortion: What is the moral importance of potential personhood?

This question is important for all sides in the debate. If you adopt a narrow definition of personhood, you must explain why potential is not important. (After all, a 3 month old fetus clearly has the potential to become a person like you or I.) If you adopt a broad definition, you must explain why potential is important. (Despite its potential, a 3 month old fetus lacks all of the characteristics we associate with people in everyday life.)

On the one hand, we do not ordinarily claim that being a potential X gives anyone the status or rights or benefits of actually being an X. For example, being a potential voter does not give someone the right to vote. If one is a potential X it does not logically follow that one is an X or that one has the status of an X. Joel Feinberg has called this the "logical point about potentiality." But it does not follow that potential has no importance whatever. Perhaps being a potential X sometimes deserves respect or some other special attitude or treatment based on the importance of being an X?

On the other hand, in some cases potential seems to be very important. Robert Wennberg has pointed out that most of us think that killing infants is morally impermissible and that we think it is wrong because it harms the infant. Yet the infant has not yet actualized the qualities of persons. It seems to have its value and rights (whatever they are) because of its potential to become like you or I. In this case, it seems that potential carries enormous moral weight.

In developing a position on abortion, the problem of potential arises over and over again. How would you resolve it?

Reference: Joel Feinberg, "Abortion," Part I, Section 4, reprinted in Matters of Life and Death edited by Tom Regan. See also Robert Wennberg, Life in the Balance, p. 57.
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