Moral Methodology in Maternal-Fetal Conflicts

Abstract

This essay will examine the position of those ethicists who interpret the moral act using an intentionalist approach. This approach focusses on the “intention ,” which the intentionalist understands as “what one means by what one is doing,” as the criterion for determining the morality of a human act. This approach is at odds with traditional ways of viewing the role of intention, viz., what one chooses to do, when one acts. These two ways of looking at the moral act have recently been deployed in the case of maternal-fetal conflict, which occurs when the continued presence of the unborn child immediately poses a threat to the mother’s life, and one cannot save both the mother and the unborn. Intentionalists argue that a doctor may directly kill the unborn child, if that is the only way to save the mother’s life, because the doctor’s “intention ” is to save the mother’s life and not to kill the unborn child. I challenge this claim, contending that the traditional approach offers a more realistic assessment of actors and activities in vital conflict situations. The intentionalist methodologies I examine are, in my view, deficient in their attempts to justify a termination of pregnancy in vital conflict situations. There is too little congruence between what is done and what they claim they are doing. I fear that accepting these other methodologies will blur the lines between indirect abortions and therapeutic abortions.