A recent showing of the documentary, My Foetus, stirred discussion both of the morality of abortion, and also of the propriety of showing an abortion on television.
My Foetus, was made by Julia Black. After an abortion, she came to regret that she and others were ill informed about what happens in an abortion. She later bore another child. In the program, the different fates of the two pregnancies represent the choices that are set before women. Julia Black continues to believe that women should have the right to make that choice.
There are good arguments for and against showing films of an abortion. The argument used by Julia Black, which I find compelling, is that if in our society we engage in practices which raise serious moral issues, then those involved in these practices and in public conversation about them should be pressed to imagine in realistic ways what the practice involves. This is as true of abortion as it is of capital punishment, torture, corporal punishment, going to war, detaining children or restricting asylum seekers to Temporary Protection Visas. The fact that we may turn our eyes away from what is involved in these practices does not prove automatically that they are morally unjustifiable. But arguments used to justify them must confront the reality of what happens in war, detention, abortion and judicial killing. They cannot rest on euphemisms like supporting alliances, border protection, or surgical procedures.
In the case of abortion, the images of the documentary make us recognise that the potential life of the foetus cannot be described like that of a plant seed or of a collection of cells. It must be imagined as the life of a foetus who resembles us in uncanny ways. The image offers imaginative support to the argument against abortion for those who, like myself, insist on the continuity of human life from conception to death. It invites the question whether, in treating living beings—even dependent ones—as means to an end, we risk diminishing respect for life at all its stages. It also asks how questions of choice should be related to questions of morality.
There is also good argument against showing such scenes. They may, for example, make people insensitive to the reality depicted. Many argue on these grounds against showing actual scenes of violence on television, and against depicting violent and brutal actions realistically in films. Instead of being repugnant,