teaching abortion ethics paper, pt. 1

Dr. B: D'you think you could, pretty please, do a blog post or a few blog posts about the teaching of abortion ethics thing?

This is that thing you refer to when you talk about acting all girly to get men to do what you want, isn't it. It works.

The post below the fold is adapted from the first part of the teaching abortion ethics paper I am working on. Before you read it, though, I recommend looking at Nyarly's story. I noticed it when it was posted, but coulnd never bring myself to read it, because tales of family strife are not a fun way to distract yourself from grading. But you should read it. Also read the story from Josephine in the comment thread.

(If those stories make you too sad, read Jo(e)'s summer meme, also picked up by Dr. B.)



some background for nonphilosophers

Classes on ethics ethics, especially medical ethics frequently include a section on abortion. The motivation for this is fairly simple: abortion is an ethical issue that students can relate to and that professional philosophers have written good essays on. Many teachers of ethics have given up on this, though, because they find their students can never get beyond the slogans that have been provided for them by the public debate. In worst case scenarios, classes degenerate into shouting and crying. I have never personally had that happen, though. My experience is that early in the class a few students establish the dominant view of the conversation, and dissenters simply shut up.

The failure of some classes is a pity, because abortion is a profound subject, an issue where basic modes of ethical thinking, value commitments, and even meta-ethical theories are near the surface of discussion. Taught properly, a unit on abortion in an introductory level ethics class can give students a solid grasp of important concepts such as moral status, autonomy, and privacy; introduce important ideas in feminism; and in general greatly hone their ability to reason ethically.

The problems of teaching abortion ethics are componded by the cultural difference between teachers and students. A large portion of us were raised in homes that were far more secular and liberal than most of America. Even if we weren’t, our graduate education was devoted to acculturating us to contemporary academic philosophy, which is slightly more liberal than the rest of America, and a lot more secular. To boot, we were trained to prize rigor and abstraction. This is why we often think that Judith Jarvis Thomson’s “A Defense of Abortion” (1971) is incisive and deep, while our students generally find it otherworldly, callous, and bizarre. Even as undergraduates we were more likely to be pursuing education for its own sake, in contrast to the more utilitarian motivations of most college students.

So basically abortion ethics presents an incredible opportunity that teachers consistently fail. In the last smidge of this post, I will talk about the current strategies for teaching abortion ethics, and why they contribute to the failure of abortion classes. If you aren't interested in this part, you can skip to the next post, which will deal with the arguments students typically give in class regarding abortion.

The problem with current methods

The standard way to teach applied ethics in North America is to begin with a whirlwind review of ethical theory and then spend the bulk of the class studying units on different hot button issues, like abortion and euthanasia. Different instructors might alter the ratio of theory to practical issues. In medical ethics, those teaching future medical professionals might choose issues that are more important from the practitioner’s perspective than the patient’s. The basic framework remains the same, however.

I diagnose two problems. First, the ethical theory that these texts introduce—generally in a perfunctory chapter at the beginning of the book on figures like Kant and Mill with a dash of critical thinking thrown in—is too far removed from the ethical principles that are actually at stake in the abortion debate, such as moral status and autonomy. There is also a problem with the readings used in the section of the textbook that directly addresses abortion, readings like Thomson (1971) or Marquis (1989). These essays are excellent pieces of philosophy, and they address ethical principles that are directly at stake in the abortion debate, but they are so far removed from student thinking that they cannot have an impact unless one builds up to them somehow. A better design for a unit on abortion would begin where students are, and work up to ideas like those of Thomson or Marquis.

references

Marquis, Donald. 1989. Why Abortion Is Immoral. Journal of Philosophy 68:183-202.

Thomson, Judith Jarvis. 1971. A Defense of Abortion. Philosophy and Public Affairs 1 (1):47-66.