Prolife hypocrisy: why inconsistency arguments do not matter

Abstract

Opponents of abortion are often described as ‘inconsistent’ (hypocrites) in terms of their beliefs, actions and/or priorities. They are alleged to do too little to combat spontaneous abortion, they should be adopting cryopreserved embryos with greater frequency and so on. These types of arguments—which we call ‘inconsistency arguments’—conform to a common pattern. Each specifies what consistent opponents of abortion would do (or believe), asserts that they fail to act (or believe) accordingly and concludes that they are inconsistent. Here, we show that inconsistency arguments fail en masse. In short, inconsistency arguments typically face four problems. First, they usually fail to account for diversity among opponents of abortion. Second, they rely on inferences about consistency based on isolated beliefs shared by some opponents of abortion (and these inferences often do not survive once we consider other beliefs opponents of abortion tend to hold). Third, inconsistency arguments usually ignore the diverse ways in which opponents of abortion might act on their beliefs. Fourth, inconsistency arguments criticise groups of people without threatening their beliefs (eg, that abortion is immoral). Setting these problems aside, even supposing inconsistency arguments are successful, they hardly matter. In fact, in the two best-case scenarios—where inconsistency arguments succeed—they either encourage millions of people to make the world a (much) worse place (from the critic’s perspective) or promote epistemically and morally irresponsible practices. We conclude that a more valuable discussion would be had by focusing on the arguments made by opponents of abortion rather than opponents themselves.

The Moral Significance of Abortion Inconsistency Arguments

“…Before his collaboration (Colgrove et al 2020) with Blackshaw and Rodger, Colgrove (2019) raised a different criticism of Berg's (2017) inconsistency argument. Berg argues that because miscarriage is so common, if we believe fetuses matter, we ought to devote more medical resources to protecting them.…”

“…They say, "Inconsistency arguments simply are not equipped to undermine OAs' views; at most, they reveal what OAs should do (or believe)." (Colgrove et al 2020) This is uncharitable. First, while some inconsistency theorists (Ord 2008;Berg 2017) might believe that OA do not really believe fetuses are persons from conception, these arguments identify apparent inconsistency, but need not take a stance on how OA ought to resolve this inconsistency.…”

“…Nicholas Colgrove, Bruce Blackshaw, and Daniel Rodger (2020) set out to show that inconsistency arguments "do not matter"; by inconsistency argument, they mean to pick out a variety (Fleck 1979;Murphy 1985;Ord 2008;Lovering 2013Lovering , 2014Lovering , 2017Lovering , 2020Berg 2017;Simkulet 2016Simkulet , 2017Simkulet , 2019aSimkulet , b, c, 2020Bovens 2006;Schlumpf 2019) of disparate criticisms identifying apparent inconsistencies in how opponents of abortion (OA) treat fetuses. Unfortunately, this term is misleading, as practically all philosophical arguments involve identifying some form of inconsistency, confusion, or misunderstanding.…”

“…Critics of the prolife anti-abortion position argue that OA hold inconsistent moral beliefs; they claim to believe that fetuses are persons from conception, but they neglect the welfare of fetuses who are spontaneously aborted by natural causes, and overlook the well-being of the surplus frozen human embryos created for IVF. Perhaps the strangest argument that Colgrove et al (2020) label as an inconsistency argument comes from Sister Joan Chittister (Schlumpf 2019), who chastises those who call themselves "pro-life" for neglecting the welfare of born persons. Proponents of inconsistency arguments argue that OA hold inconsistent moral beliefs, arguing that upon revision, they will conclude that they either (i) need to do more, or (ii) need not oppose abortion.…”

“…Proponents of inconsistency arguments argue that OA hold inconsistent moral beliefs, arguing that upon revision, they will conclude that they either (i) need to do more, or (ii) need not oppose abortion. Colgrove et al (2020) contend that such arguments "do not matter." This paper interprets this as the claim that inconsistency arguments are morally irrelevant for any (widely held) OA view.…”