When is it legitimate to use images in moral arguments? The use of foetal imagery in anti-abortion campaigns as an exemplar of an illegitimate instance of a legitimate practice

Abstract

We aim to interrogate when the use of images in moral persuasion is legitimate. First, we put forward a number of accounts which purport to show that we can use tools other than logical argumentation to convince others, that such tools evoke affective responses and that these responses have authority in the moral domain. Second, we turn to Sarah McGrath’s account, which focuses on the use of imagery as a means to morally persuade. McGrath discusses 4 objections to the use of imagery, and outlines responses that may be used to legitimate the use of imagery in moral arguments. Assuming that we accept her account and that the invocation of affect has authority in the moral domain, we, using McGrath’s responses, examine whether the use of foetal imagery in anti-abortion campaigns is a legitimate instance of this practice.

Keywords

Abortion affect foetal imagery Sarah McGrath moral persuasion

Images are a powerful tool in a social movement’s arsenal. A single image can capture the hearts and minds of the broader public and come to symbolize a movement. (Rohlinger and Klein, 2012: 173)

The use of medically generated images, and the human artifice that involves, does nothing to improve the quality of the abortion debate and is to be regretted. (Kirklin, 2004: 426)

In this article, we aim to interrogate when the use of visual images in moral persuasion is acceptable.¹ In order to do this, we will first set the stage by putting forward a number of accounts which in their varying focuses purport to show that we are able to use tools other than strict logical argumentation to convince others, that certain tools evoke affective responses and that these responses have authority in the moral domain. These accounts, which we endorse, reject an opposition between affect – understood as emotional responses – and reason. Second, after this stage-setting, we will turn to an account, put forward by Sarah McGrath, which focuses particularly on the use of imagery as a means to morally persuade. McGrath discusses 4 possible objections to the use of imagery in moral persuasion, and outlines responses to these objections that may be used to legitimate the use of imagery, in general, in moral arguments. For this article, we accept that pictures can be used as tools of moral persuasion and accept that the invocation of affect has authority in relation to the ethical sphere. Finally, then, using McGrath’s 4 objection responses, we will examine whether anti-abortion campaigns present a legitimate instance of this practice.

McGrath’s paper is, in her words, a ‘qualified defense [sic] of the use of pictures’ (2011: 269), and one that outlines a general case for their use. While making the general argument, she concedes that there should be a case-by-case examination of both undue influence and claims of distortion, and that ‘one should be judicious in the use that one makes of pictures’ (ibid.: 283) in moral arguments. The premises on which such distinctions may be made are, however, unclear. Our article, then, is a rejoinder to McGrath in terms of starting to gain clarity around how to adjudicate the legitimate and illegitimate use of images in moral persuasion by examining the use of foetal imagery in anti-abortion activism as an example.

Anti-abortion campaigns have long used images of aborted foetuses in an effort to convince people of the moral repugnance of abortion by revealing the so-called truth that words cannot convey.² The images used in these campaigns, typically printed on posters and presented on anti-abortion web-sites, evoke powerful affective responses meant to persuade the viewer that abortion is murder and thereby lead to anti-abortion action. As such the images are presented as non-moral facts – purely descriptive information – that, when viewed, will lead to a moral position that is anti-abortion.

The use of tools other than strict argumentation in moral persuasion

To begin, it should be mentioned that it was long taken for granted in the philosophical community that only argumentation – providing logical and systematic verbal (or written) arguments in support of conclusions – provides a legitimate means of changing the minds of individuals, particularly when it comes to moral matters.³ Or put differently, changes of mind over moral matters were taken to be reasonable only when facts relayed in words served to undermine and eliminate prejudice and inferential error, resulting in reflective equilibrium – a position in which one has arrived at a comprehensive and coherent view on a subject that has taken into account all plausible conceptions of and arguments about the matter.⁴ Anything other than argument was often taken to be manipulation, and the use of imagery, in particular, was thought to be purely rhetorical – a manipulative effort to persuade.⁵ This approach was aligned with the Enlightenment movement, rationalism and cognitivism, all prevalent since the 17^th century and influenced by the work of, for example, René Descartes, John Locke and Immanuel Kant.

However, in the late 20^th century, a number of philosophers began to examine the role that emotions play in ethical scenarios and the development of knowledge. Ronald de Sousa famously argued that emotions are rational – ‘are determinate patterns of salience among objects of attention, lines of inquiry and inferential strategies … emotions ask the questions which judgment answers with belief’ (1979: 50–1). For de Sousa, emotions respond to value – are axiological – and so are related to ethics and enlarge the ethical sphere. While emotions respond to values, this does not mean they merely apprehend the world as it is. Rather, we must, he argues, acknowledge that certain values are created or invented, and that our emotions apprehend these values just as they apprehend ‘real’ values. Given this, we require a concept of authentic emotion, which de Sousa attempts to provide by employing the concept of a ‘paradigm scenario’ – an original situation, involving a characteristic object, target, or occasion of an emotion, in which the emotion in question is the ‘normal’ response to the situation, which gives meaning to our present responses. While an inauthentic emotion does not correspond with objective reality, an authentic emotion, he argues, is one which is the appropriate response to a paradigm scenario. He writes:

Emotional irrationality is a matter of muddled scenarios: a loss of reality … the ‘all-things-considered’ assessment of an emotion is determined in a complicated way: first, by determining whether the evoking situation is actually an instantiation of the paradigm, and secondly, by confronting it with other applicable paradigms and working the relations of compatibility, incompatibility, and hierarchic dominance between the relevant scenarios. This complicated process is at the centre of our moral life. (De Sousa, 1979: 58–61)

Similarly, Alison Jagger argues that our emotional responses may be necessary to the construction of knowledge. She claims that ‘recognizing certain neglected aspects of emotion makes possible a better and less ideologically biased account of how knowledge is, and so ought to be, constructed’ (1989a: 148). While Jagger is careful to point out that the very notion of emotion is difficult to conceptualize, given, for example, the broad range of emotions, she argues, contra positivism, that emotions are, unlike feelings, intentional, dispositional, contextual, and sometimes not a part of conscious awareness. She also argues against cognitivist approaches to emotion, claiming that these accounts replicate the very problem they are aiming to solve – the ‘artificial split between emotion and thought’ (ibid.: 149). Instead, Jagger proposes that emotions are social constructs; emotions require concepts that are ‘socially constructed ways of organizing and making sense of the world’ (1989b: 151). Jagger sees our emotional responses and concepts as interrelated insofar as emotions presuppose language and a social order and, like de Sousa, believes that our emotions are able to focus our attention, precisely because she also believes that emotions presuppose – are logically and conceptually connected to – values. For this reason, Jagger argues that the ‘dispassionate observer’ of traditional epistemology is a myth, which, she argues, serves a political function. As she puts it:

[The dispassionate observer] functions, obviously, to bolster the epistemic authority of the currently dominant groups … and to discredit the observations and claims of many people of color and women. The more forcefully and vehemently the latter groups express their observations and claims, the more emotional they appear and so the more easily they are discredited. The alleged epistemic authority of the dominant groups then justifies their political authority. (Jagger, 1989b: 158)

Given this, she argues that ‘outlaw emotions’ be seen as directions for investigation, and be seen as appropriate ‘if they are characteristic of a society in which all humans … thrive, or if they are conducive to establishing such a society’ (1989b: 161). Importantly, she argues that disadvantaged groups may have more appropriate emotional responses to situations in oppressive societies and ‘that discordant emotions should be attended to seriously and respectfully rather than condemned, ignored, discounted, or suppressed’ (ibid.: 163). She writes:

Our efforts to reinterpret and refine our emotions are necessary to our theoretical investigation, just as our efforts to reeducate our emotions are necessary to our political activity. Critical reflection on emotion is not a self-indulgent substitute for political analysis and political action. It is itself a kind of political theory and political practice, indispensable for an adequate social theory and social transformation … Emotions are neither more basic than observation, reason, or action in building theory, nor are they secondary to them. Each of these human faculties reflects an aspect of human knowing inseparable from the other aspects. Thus … the development of each of these faculties is a necessary condition for the development of all. (Jagger, 1989b: 164–5)

Like de Sousa and Jagger, Diana Tietjens Meyers defends the axiological nature of emotions. Meyers provides us with a plausible taxonomy of moral perception, which informs moral deliberation and moral judgement, as framed by moral outlook, which is constituted, first, by the concepts that allow for the generation of interpretations of situations, and, second, by our emotional attitudes. Given this taxonomy, our emotional attitudes, she argues, are crucial in the formation of our judgements of moral situations. Again, while she acknowledges that our emotional attitudes are intertwined with the concepts that allow us to interpret situations, she argues that since our emotional attitudes and responses can ‘outstrip’ our cognitive capacities, ‘it would be a mistake to collapse emotional attitudes into repertories of moral concepts’ (1997: 198). On the basis of this taxonomy, Meyers, like Jagger, suggests that certain heterodox (that is, unorthodox) emotional attitudes, like hypersensitivity, paranoia, anger and bitterness, should be given a certain amount of credence, because they allow those who suffer them (typically from subjugated groups, and, therefore, those who are not complacent) to identify injustice. According to Meyers, it is conventions of misinterpretation that block those who are ‘complacent’ about the status quo – the emotionally ‘vanilla’ – from accepting these kinds of responses as justifiable, but that it is precisely because convention blocks us from understanding these responses as justifiable that we should take them seriously, should give them their due. Her account, then, also shows our emotional attitudes as responding to facts in the world – facts like injustice, oppression and domination. Our emotional attitudes not only inform our moral outlook, which frames moral perception, they are also crucial in directing our attention to possible social ills.

Arguments such as these about the role and axiological nature of emotion allow philosophers like Cora Diamond to establish that means other than argument can be successfully and legitimately used to change the minds of others about moral issues.

In ‘Anything but Argument’ Diamond claims that appeals to the head may fail where appeals to the heart succeed. She writes:

I believe that underlying the idea that we ought to use [the standard] approach is the idea that when someone is reasonably convinced of something, the convincing will have to be proceeded by arguments … and the capacities of his [sic] head and not of his heart will be all that is involved. (Diamond, 1995: 293)

Opposing this view, Diamond claims that if an individual is not already inclined in the direction of the arguer, then the proposed argument, however reasonable, will likely fall on deaf ears. She argues, further, that this may be the case because the recipient of the argument has a limited moral imagination or an ‘intelligence inadequately trained’ (1995: 293). In her words:

Some hearts are not ‘already inclined’ some ways because their possessors have not exercised their imaginations in certain directions, have not been led to do so. (Diamond, 1995: 294)

Given the failure of reasonable argumentation to convince in certain cases, she claims that argument should be seen as only one way in which we may attempt to change the minds of others; and consequently that appeals to the heart may be called for rather than appeals only to the head. For Diamond, one particularly salient means of appealing to the heart is offered by literature, which she argues, providing examples from Charles Dickens, William Wordsworth, Henry James and Jane Austen, has the capacity to lead one’s interlocutor to ‘attend to the world and what is in it’ (1995: 296) and in so doing to exercise his or her moral imagination and sensibility. For Diamond, engagement with literature is able to teach us how to respond to the world appropriately – is able to educate the moral emotions – so that the affective judgements we make towards situations or objects in the world are thoughtfully engaged and not merely sentimental. She describes this process as learning how to think. She writes:

In a sense, someone who has not learned to respond with the heart in such ways has not learned to think … for thinking well involves thinking charged with appropriate feeling … the investigation of facts, facts, facts cannot show us what we need in order to respond well to the world. (Diamond, 1995: 298–301)⁶

Following Diamond’s lead, Christopher Cowley is also concerned to enlarge the category of legitimate means to change the minds of others over moral issues; he takes it that a legitimate means of convincing is ‘transparent’ and he takes a transparent method to be one that the newly convinced individual would endorse ‘in a way he would not have done if he had become aware of a deception’ (2005: 285). Cowley, too, concerns himself with appeals to the heart and imagination. Claiming that showing can be as legitimate as telling, Cowley says: ‘What I am trying to do in moral argument is to get the other to see things my way’ (ibid.: 281).

Mark Johnston, too, argues that affect has a particular authority in the moral domain. Like Diamond and Cowley, he believes that responding properly to the world requires ‘appropriate affective engagement’ precisely because affect, he claims, like de Sousa, Jagger and Meyers, is ‘value-disclosing’. The authority of affect, according to Johnston, lies in its ability to disclose values to us that make claims on us and structure our lives in terms of what we desire and do. He writes:

Many great moral wrongs become possible only because of the absence of appropriate affect. The reaction ‘How could anyone have done this?’ in the face of a horrible crime is typically not an expression of faith in the practical force of the Moral Law, but rather of sheer bewilderment at how any feeling human being could have failed to be repulsed by the horrible act in prospect … Absence of appropriate affect is an ethical defect. (Johnston, 2001: 193–4)

We agree that tools other than argument can legitimately be used to change the minds of others over moral matters and, further, that these tools will include ones that appeal to the heart rather than the head, that appeal to emotion. While Diamond’s argument pertains primarily to the use of literature in such attempts to persuade, and Cowley and Johnston speak about the authority and importance of affective responses simpliciter, Sarah McGrath directly defends the use of pictures as tools of moral persuasion. In turning to McGrath’s argument we draw nearer to the aims of this article – to interrogate whether the use of foetal imagery in anti-abortion campaigns is legitimate or illegitimate, and to explore what we can draw from this.

McGrath’s 4 objection responses

McGrath begins her 2011 paper by lauding the power of images to acquaint great numbers of people with a practice and to evoke in these people powerful visceral responses that arguments alone would probably fail to bring about. McGrath defends what she calls conversion experiences, which result from an individual’s having become acquainted with a practice through coming into contact with it either directly or, more likely, indirectly through a photograph.⁷ In the paper she sets out and responds to what she takes to be 4 primary reasons for objecting to the use of pictures as tools for moral persuasion. These objections and McGrath’s responses to them will frame the rest of this article.

First, it could be claimed, she thinks, that pictures provide an inadequate basis for generalization. Given our ordinary inductive practices and given that a picture represents only one instance of a practice, drawing a general moral conclusion from a picture could be considered bad epistemic practice. However, according to McGrath, this objection rests on an overly simplified understanding of inductive reasoning, and that, in some cases, one is warranted in drawing a general conclusion from a specific instance. She argues that whether such a case is warranted depends on ‘whether it is reasonable for [one] to believe that the other members of that class share the features in question’ (2011: 280).

Second, it could be objected that individual responses to pictures are too subjective to form the basis of a normative decision. However, McGrath argues that individuals respond differently to philosophical argumentation as well, and given that changes of mind brought about by philosophical arguments are taken to epitomize rational belief change, variations in individuals’ responses should not be taken to undermine the use of pictures as tools for moral persuasion.

Third, it could be objected that pictures are able to distort our judgements through drawing our attention to features that are morally irrelevant; one’s opinion of a practice may be distorted by, for example, the ‘grisliness’ of a picture of a practice. McGrath counters this objection by contending that our normative judgements are always at risk of being influenced by irrelevant features in the way in which a case is presented to us. She argues for a case-by-case examination of undue influence, since, she claims, the opposite can also happen – viewing a practice can allow one to make up one’s mind ‘unmediated’ by the descriptions of others.⁸

Finally, it could be argued that pictures have a biasing effect because they present only some of the morally relevant features of a practice. They cannot, for example, represent temporal considerations that may play a central role in the moral permissibility of a practice, such as significant consequences in the future or causal factors in the past. McGrath responds to this objection by saying that this consideration should lead us to show more pictures rather than show no pictures at all. A subsidiary objection here concerns the net effect of seeing especially vivid pictures that, while representing morally significant features of a practice, overwhelm or ‘swamp’ other equally morally significant features. In this case McGrath suggests that we should be careful to temper the kinds of pictures that we show, especially if other relevant considerations are ‘not the kind of thing that admit of being captured in a provocative visual representation’ (2011: 285).

While we may think that McGrath’s responses succeed, and therefore may think that the use of images is legitimate as a means to morally persuade others, our acceptance of a general practice does not translate, as McGrath herself points out, into acceptance of every instance of this practice. For this reason, let us now turn to the use of imagery in anti-abortion campaigns as one instance of this kind of practice, to interrogate whether these campaigns are safe from criticism – that is, to ask whether the use of images of aborted foetuses in anti-abortion campaigns is a legitimate instance of a legitimate practice, and what we may learn from this example concerning the adjudication of the use of images in moral persuasion. One way of proceeding is to ask whether the responses that McGrath gives to the imagined objections above can equally be used by anti-abortion activists in defence of campaigns that use images of aborted foetuses. In other words, let us see whether anti-abortion activists are able to use McGrath’s responses in answer to the same objections.

McGrath’s objection responses in relation to the use of foetal images in anti-abortion campaigns

In what follows we will discuss each of the 4 objections outlined by McGrath. Putting McGrath’s imagined objections into the context of anti-abortion campaigns we can ask: (1) Do the particular images chosen for use in anti-abortion campaigns provide an adequate basis for generalization? (2) Are the responses to these pictures too subjective to form the basis of a normative decision? (3) Does the use of these images distort our judgements of abortion practices? And (4) Do they have a biasing effect by presenting only some of the morally relevant features?

Do the particular images chosen for use in anti-abortion campaigns provide an adequate basis for generalization?

Recall that McGrath responds to the objection that pictures provide an inadequate basis for generalization by saying that there is nothing that precludes the possibility of pictures providing warranted generalizations in the moral domain. A warranted generalization rests on the reasonableness of the assumption that other members of that class share the features in question. The particular pictures used in the anti-abortion campaigns in which we are interested are an excellent example of the lack of reasonableness of this assumption. Typically pictures are chosen for their pure shock value. To do this, they are mostly taken of foetuses of late abortions when the foetus is identifiable as such (rather than a mass of bloody tissue). Even under liberal legislation, like that found in South Africa, where abortion is legal on request by a woman up to 12 weeks of gestation, later procedures are performed only under restrictive conditions; for example, when the life of the woman is directly threatened by the pregnancy, when continued pregnancy will result in severe malformation of the foetus, or when there has been a late diagnosis of pregnancy. While the reality of these later procedures should be acknowledged,⁹ it is misleading to present these images as if they are typical. Given this, it seems clear to us that the use of these images does not provide an adequate basis for generalization precisely because very few abortions of this sort are performed. Put differently, given that the vast majority of abortions are performed in the first trimester of pregnancy and that later procedures are performed towards the end of the second and in the third trimester, images of foetuses aborted at this late stage do not represent the typical case of abortion and are therefore inadequate in terms of providing a basis for generalization. In the particular case of anti-abortion campaigns’ use of foetal imagery from late procedures, then, the objection stands and McGrath’s response cannot be used.¹⁰

Are our responses to pictures of aborted foetuses too subjective to form the basis of a normative decision?

The objector in this case argues that our responses to imagery are too subjective to form the basis of a normative decision. McGrath responds that our individual responses also vary when it comes to philosophical arguments, and, as such, that this is no reason to preclude the use of visual imagery. However, in the case of anti-abortion campaigns, we can ask a particular version of this objection. This version does not refer specifically to the subjective/objective distinction, but rather to the subjectivities that are being deliberately appealed to by the use of images of aborted foetuses. When presenting these images, particularly to women, one could argue that an appeal is being made either to the subjectivity of motherhood, and, of course, all of the social obligations that accompany motherhood, or to the subjectivity that accompanies ‘feminine nature’ – that those who are feminine will nurture and protect the weak.¹¹ One could object, that is, that the implicit understanding at work in the presentation of these images is that pregnancy is either equivalent to motherhood or appeals to that which is feminine within women, that in presenting these images one is deliberately invoking particular responses, and that these particular responses ought not to form the basis of a normative decision. While it may seem that an appeal to a maternal or feminine subjectivity is warranted in this case, since the maternal body and its relation with the foetus are arguably central to the question of abortion, our concern is directed at the implication that to be pregnant is already to be a mother or invokes a feminine response and that this prescribes the kind of relationship that the woman is supposed to have with the foetus. The prescription of this role overwhelms any and all considerations of a woman’s right to control her reproductive destiny.

Does the use of images of aborted foetuses distort our judgements of abortion practices?

In answering the above question it is of interest to distinguish between two different types of foetal images used in anti-abortion campaigns. The first type of image pictures ‘grotesque’ and bloody, sometimes dismembered, aborted foetuses. The second type of image, in contrast to the ‘grisliness’ of the first, is rather beautiful. Importantly, while the first type of image is obviously of an aborted foetus the second type of image – exemplified by the artistic photography of Lennart Nillson – represents the foetus as still alive, inside the womb, although this is not the case. Nilsson’s photographs, used by anti-abortionists since the 1970s (and still in current usage),¹² are breathtakingly beautiful and romanticize the foetus as a person despite the fact that they are taken of aborted foetuses.

Let us begin by examining the second type of image, since it seems to us that the case in favour of them distorting our judgements is, in certain respects, clearer than that of the first. The use of these romantic types of images by anti-abortionists can be attacked on two grounds.

The first draws upon a popular critique among feminist scholars that such images present the foetus as independent and autonomous. This critique, or versions of it, can be drawn from the work of, for example, Rosalind Pollack Petchesky, Elizabeth Maier-Balough, Ingrid Zechmeister and Joanne Boucher.¹³ In each case, medicalized foetal images – purportedly uncoded, objective, empirical and informational snapshots of reality – are criticized for decontextualizing the foetus from the womb, representing the foetus as isolated – floating freely in space – and, thereby, as autonomous and independent of the woman’s body. As Petchesky puts it:

Fetal imagery epitomizes the distortion inherent in all photographic images: their tendency to slice up reality into tiny bits wrenched out of real space and time. (Petchesky, 1987: 268 [sic])

The foetus, in these images, is presented as ‘already a baby’ or, as Zechmeister puts it, as a tiny, independent human being separate from the pregnant woman. Maier-Balough claims that the use of such images ‘[buttresses] the logic of fetal personhood’ (2010: 4 [sic]). The pregnant woman within whose body the foetus resides is rendered invisible. Given this, Boucher argues that images of the public foetus are ‘never politically neutral or innocent’ (2004: 70).

The second ground focuses more particularly on the features of photographs briefly mentioned above: that photographs are taken to be uncoded, objective, empirical and informational snapshots of reality. Philosophers of photography capture this feature by describing photographs as transparent, as traces of reality. Transparency here literally refers to seeing reality – to seeing the world as it is. A photograph, in this sense, positions viewers in front of what is represented and gives them immediate access to that which is photographed. Given this, we are said to be able to experience and learn about the world through photographs in the same way that we would if we were in fact present at the place where the photograph was taken.

This second critique is rather obvious, especially insofar as Nilsson’s photographs are concerned. Remember that while Nilsson’s photographs purport to represent the reality of pregnancy, of the foetus as living inside the womb, they do not represent what they depict. As already briefly mentioned, these photographs were taken in Nilsson’s studio and of aborted foetuses where Nilsson was able to manipulate the lighting and the position of the foetus – say, as sucking its thumb – for example. Given that these photographs do not in fact depict what they purport to portray, the question, glossed over by McGrath, concerning the veracity of images arises. McGrath starts the section in which she responds to the 4 objections outlined above with the caveat: ‘Let us set aside the case of pictures that have been doctored or that present their subjects in a misleading light’ (2011: 278). While McGrath uses this as a foundation to argue for her qualified defence of the use of images, the question of the transparency of images is crucial to distinguishing between the legitimate and illegitimate use of images. In this case, the viewer has access only to the romanticized world of foetal life as depicted through Nilsson’s artistry and imagination. Again, while these images are represented as medical images, they are not; these foetuses are not alive inside the womb but aborted and positioned by Nilsson himself.

Let us, then, turn our attention to the first type of image used by anti-abortionists, the grislier type of image meant to evoke in the viewer a response of disgust towards the practice of abortion through the shocking nature of the images used.

One of the most famous of these campaigns was launched by the Pro-Life Alliance in Britain in 1997 – although it was censored as the images used ‘were deemed too shocking to be screened on British television’ (Cull, 1997: 517). Nicholas J. Cull describes some of the images used:

We see a severed head. A bisected head is lifted. Its mouth is open. Tiny fingers curl round forceps. Pieces of leg and hand are lifted on a gloved hand. Gloved hands cradle a large fetus, and caress its head, making a powerful visual claim that the remains shown are those of a human infant. A large fetus is held over a tape measure. An eyeball falls loose from a pile of fetal material. The sequence ends with the caption: ‘Some choices are wrong’. (Cull, 1997: 516)

Both the BBC and ITV refused to show the broadcast while it contained these images, claiming that they offended against standards of decency and taste. After losing an appeal, the Alliance censored the broadcast but included the following statement: ‘If something is so horrifying that we are not allowed to see it, perhaps we should not be tolerating it’ (Cull, 1997: 518).

Again, it is essential to bear in mind here that anti-abortionists claim to be showing us the truth behind abortion – a non-moral fact (the foetus has an autonomous, independent life) that should influence our moral position on abortion (abortion is murder and therefore morally abhorrent). These photographs are the hardest to deal with because for all intents and purposes they are, unlike the framed or artistically designed photographs already discussed, purporting to depict the aborted foetus as it is ‘in reality’. What you are seeing in these pictures is ‘real’ insofar as what you are presented with – an aborted foetus – is precisely that. One could argue that these photographs are also mediated by the photographer – that they are shot in a certain way, in a certain light, from a certain angle or that the contents of the photograph have been ‘cleaned up’ so that we can recognize what we are seeing as a human foetus rather than, say, a mass of bloody tissue. While these objections may hold some force, what seems more relevant, and what is not covered specifically by McGrath, is the manner in which these pictures are framed.

Typically the images are accompanied by verbal arguments, which the images are meant to reinforce. At times, the framing is simple punchy statements, as suggestive of a world of words as the images are. For example, one poster places a picture of the limbs of an aborted foetus underneath the word ‘choice’ – capitalized and placed within scare quotes. This image is framed in such a way as to make the discourse of a woman’s right to choose what happens to and in her body repulsive. Another image is accompanied with the statement, ‘Since 1973, way over 40 MILLION innocent babies have been chopped up and slaughtered in the American abortion mills’,¹⁴ and asks the question whether politicians will stop the American abortion holocaust.

Let us take the latter example further in terms of arguing that it is not simply the images that are important, but also how they are framed. Likening the practice of abortion to genocide is not new in anti-abortion circles. These campaigners believe that showing us grisly images of aborted foetuses is just the same as showing us pictures of the victims of the Holocaust, for example. To show us these pictures is to put us in touch with ‘reality’, for us to literally see the heinousness of the crime we are allowing to take place and are thereby complicit in. In other words, the main purpose of the analogy is to refer to the number of abortions that have taken place and to imply complicity in a terrible crime, thereby heightening our affective responses. However, this analogy cannot work because foetuses are not being targeted qua foetus, as the Jews were during the Holocaust or the Tutsis were during the Rwandan genocide, but are rather aborted for individual and varying reasons in each case.

The question of how an image is framed is not addressed by McGrath and yet we believe that this should be central in adjudicating the legitimacy of the use of images in moral persuasion, and we return to Diamond’s input for guidance in this regard. Recall that Diamond argued that literature is able to educate the moral emotions in ways that ensure that the affective judgements we make are thoughtfully engaged rather than emotive or sentimental responses. Extending this to our own example, the manner in which images used in moral argument are framed should ensure that the affective judgements we make on the basis of the images are thoughtfully engaged.

Does the use of images of aborted foetuses have a biasing effect by presenting only some of the morally relevant features of the practice?

Let us now turn to the final objection that photographs – as representations of time slices – fail to represent potentially morally significant events that take place in both the past and future that would potentially alter the way in which we think about a moral issue. In the case of abortion we find this to be especially pertinent. However, before we go on to discuss this particular objection, we must note some concerns about the very notion of bias itself.

A number of feminist scholars, particularly feminist philosophers of science and epistemologists, have put forward arguments defending the importance of situated knowledge, which in various ways challenge the concept of bias. Donna Haraway writes:

I would like to insist on the embodied nature of all vision and so reclaim the sensory system that has been used to signify a leap out of the marked body and into a conquering gaze from nowhere … I would like a doctrine of embodied objectivity that accommodates paradoxical and critical feminist science projects: Feminist objectivity means quite simply situated knowledges. (Haraway, 1988: 581)

Nancy Hartsock, too, refers to our necessarily ‘situated knowledge’, and the importance of knowledge available to (primarily) subordinated groups located in a particular social and collective time and space. She argues that

… rather than insist on the false dichotomy of the neutrality of reason as opposed to bias, these views from below [situated knowledge] recognize the multiple and contradictory nature of their reality. Lack of neutrality need not mean lack of knowledge. (Hartsock, 1990: 32)

Similarly, Helen Longino argues that ‘scientific inquiry should be expected to display the deep metaphysical and normative commitments of the culture in which it flourishes’ (1987: 55), an argument that undermines the very idea of an unbiased or ‘value-free science’. Sandra Harding, in discussing feminist epistemologies, problematizes the notion of bias still further. In her discussion of these epistemologies – notably feminist empiricism and feminist standpoint theories – Harding notes that the concept of objectivity is, on these accounts, no longer held apart from value-neutrality, but, rather, that certain commitments to, for example, emancipatory values increase the objectivity of science. While Harding discusses problems inherent in these epistemologies, she notes that ‘logical incoherencies’ brought to light by feminist epistemologies bring to the fore concerns about epistemology and scientific inquiry simpliciter.¹⁵

If we agree with these accounts then bias should be conceived more like a shifting horizon of understanding that accommodates situated knowledge.¹⁶ However, remember that, in this context, McGrath is speaking about a particular biasing effect, which results either from being presented with an image that depicts only some (and therefore neglects other) morally relevant features of a practice, or from being presented with images that are so powerfully evocative that they ‘swamp’ any consideration of other morally relevant features. For the sake of argument, we follow McGrath in her particular use of the concept.

The decision to abort a pregnancy occurs within a context that is essential to understanding the moral dimensions and permissibility of the practice. Quite apart from certain pregnancies that threaten the lives of women, and pregnancies that result from rape or incest – in certain countries where abortion is legal, these are the only reasons taken to justify it – there exist further socio-cultural, traditional, financial, or religious reasons that could be taken to justify an abortion. Indeed, proponents of a reproductive justice approach argue that the overarching socio-economic inequalities, racism and gendered power relations that shape women’s lives as well as the range of contextual circumstances – such as partner selection, sexual assault, trafficking and sexual exploitation, STIs and HIV, health care practices and contraceptive availability, as well as the fact that legalizing abortion significantly reduces maternal morbidity and mortality – should all shape our judgements concerning abortion.¹⁷ McGrath alludes to this in indicating that:

One can witness an abortion, or pictures of aborted foetuses. But if the fact that carrying a pregnancy to term would involve significant hardships for the woman, some of those hardships might not be the kinds of thing that admit of being pictured, even in principle. (McGrath, 2011: 285–6)

In this, McGrath refers to ‘downstream’ consequences, but it could equally well be argued that the circumstances that led to the woman having an unwanted and unsupportable pregnancy do not easily lend themselves to highly provocative images and yet are no less significant in the moral argumentation around abortion.

Moreover, recall the concern, raised by Petchesky, Maier-Balough, Zechmeister and Boucher, that foetal imagery fails to present the foetus within the body of the pregnant woman, but rather presents the foetus as independent and autonomous. We initially raised this concern in light of the potential of this imagery to distort our judgements of abortion practices but it is equally important here. That is, we can equally well argue that the images of aborted foetuses chosen for anti-abortion campaigns bias us by failing to present the woman within whose body the foetus is housed. We saw earlier that the pregnant woman’s body and thereby her self literally fade out of view in these images. We are presented only with the foetus seemingly floating freely in space. Making the foetus visible in this way results, according to Petchesky, in the invisibility of the woman and consequently in the negation of her role ‘as [agent] of [her] reproductive [destiny]’ (Petchesky, 1987: 279). The images used in anti-abortion campaigns, then, must be seen to bias us by failing to present all of the morally relevant features of the practice precisely because the woman, her desires and surrounding circumstances are absent. The personal and social locatedness of the woman’s actions must be taken to be morally relevant.

Conclusion

It may seem strange that we have set this debate up in terms of appeals to the heart – to affective responses – since the anti-abortionists themselves see their use of imagery as revealing the truth of abortion that words cannot convey. Revealing the truth, it may seem, is precisely to appeal to the head and not the heart – to appeal to rationality and not to sentiment. However, affective responses, as we have shown through presenting the arguments of de Sousa, Jagger, Meyers, Diamond, Cowley and Johnston, should not be seen as opposing rationality. Indeed, affective responses themselves by disclosing value, directing our attention and making available to us our inherent moral judgements should not be seen as merely sentimentally evocative. Rather, they presuppose rationality.

McGrath’s qualified defence of the use of images in moral arguments is persuasive. If we accept that images may be used in this way, then the question remains: How do we judge the legitimate or illegitimate use of images? In this article we have taken the images of aborted foetuses used in anti-abortion campaigns as an exemplar of what we consider to be an illegitimate use of images. Using McGrath’s objection responses we argued that the particular images chosen by anti-abortionists provide an inadequate basis for generalization, that they appeal to particular kinds of subjectivity that prompt particular responses, that they distort our judgements of abortion practices, and that they present only some of the morally relevant features with regard to abortion. In addition, we argued that elements glossed over or ignored by McGrath, namely the veracity of the images and the framing thereof, require consideration. If we are correct, then the current, typical use of foetal imagery in anti-abortion campaigns is an illegitimate instance of a legitimate practice – is an illegitimate means of appealing to affect in the hopes of morally persuading.

But what follows from this? Can we now generalize from this case to other cases, or should we, following McGrath, accept that we must conduct a case-by-case examination of the use of images? While we cannot generalize from the argument presented here to general principles concerning the determination of illegitimacy, we can point to ways in which we might question the particular use of certain images as tools for moral persuasion. Precisely because we have shown that the anti-abortionist cannot respond to the objections McGrath sets out with the responses that she provides, we are able to suggest that the objections and responses McGrath sets out, as well as concerns we have raised, be used as rough guidelines in any particular case examination. During an examination we might consider, then, whether other members of the class share the features in question, whether they appeal to particular subjectivities and whether these subjectivities ought to form the basis of a normative decision, whether the images distort the judgement of the viewer or present only some of the morally relevant features of a practice, as well as the veridical nature and framing of images.

Footnotes

Funding

The research for this article was funded by the National Research Foundation of South Africa.

Notes

References

Boucher

Joanne

(2004) ‘The Politics of Abortion and the Commodification of the Fetus’, Studies in Political Economy 73: 69–88.

Callahan

Daniel

(2007) ‘Images, Arguments, and Interests’, Transaction, Social Science and Modern Society 44 (4): 22–5.

Chrisler

Joan C.

(2012) Reproductive Justice: A Global Concern. Santa Barbara, CA: Praeger.

Coleman

Renita

(2006) ‘The Effects of Visuals on Ethical Reasoning: What’s a Photograph Worth to Journalists Making Moral Decisions’, Journalism and Mass Communication Quarterly 83 (4): 835–50.

Cowley

Christopher

(2005) ‘Changing One’s Mind on Moral Matters’, Ethical Theory and Practice 8: 277–90.

Cull

Nicholas J.

(1997) ‘Censored! The Prolife Alliance’, Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television 17 (4): 515–22.

De Sousa

Ronald

(1979) ‘The Rationality of Emotions’, Dialogue 18 (1): 41–63.

De Sousa

Ronald

(1980) The Rationality of Emotion. Cambridge, MA: Bradford Books.

Diamond

Cora

(1995) The Realistic Spirit: Wittgenstein, Philosophy, and the Mind. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

10.

Gleeson

Kate

(2011) ‘Captured (and Disturbing for Some): A Last Look at the Abortionist’, Women’s Studies International Forum 34: 520–9.

11.

Haraway

Donna

(1988) ‘Situated Knowledges: The Science Question in Feminism and the Privilege of Partial Perspective’, Feminist Studies 14 (3): 575–99.

12.

Harding

Sandra

(1986) The Science Question in Feminism. Ithaca, NY and London: Cornell University Press.

13.

Hartsock

Nancy

(1990) ‘Postmodernism and Political Change: Issues for Feminist Theory’, Cultural Critique 14: 15–33.

14.

Hopkins

Nick

Zeedyk

Suzanne

Raitt

Fiona

(2005) ‘Visualising Abortion: Emotion Discourse and Fetal Imagery in a Contemporary Abortion Debate’, Social Science & Medicine 61: 393–403.

15.

Jagger

Alison

(1989a) Gender/Body/Knowledge: Feminist Reconstructions of Being and Knowing. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press.

16.

Jagger

Alison

(1989b) ‘Love and Knowledge: Emotion in Feminist Epistemology’, Inquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy 32 (2): 151–76.

17.

Johnston

Mark

(2001) ‘The Authority of Affect’, Philosophy and Phenomenological Research LXIII(1): 181–214.

18.

Kirklin

Deborah

(2004) ‘The Role of Medical Imaging in the Abortion Debate’, Journal of Medical Ethics 30 (5): 426.

19.

LeGrandeur

Kevin

(2006) ‘Digital Images and Classical Persuasion’, in Hocks

Mary E.

Kendrick

Michelle R.

(eds) Eloquent Images: Word and Image in the Age of New Media. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, pp. 117–36.

20.

Longino

Helen

(1987) ‘Can there Be a Feminist Science’, Hypatia 2 (3): 51–64.

21.

Maier-Balough

Elizabeth

(2010) ‘Maternal Integrity and the Fetal Image: Ultrasound in the Abortion Rights Debate’, Journal of the Undergraduate Writing Program (Columbia University): 1–8.

22.

McGrath

Sarah

(2011) ‘Normative Ethics, Conversion, and Pictures as Tools of Moral Persuasion’, in Timmons

Mark

(ed.) Oxford Studies in Normative Ethics. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 268–96.

23.

Meyers

Diana Tietjens

(1997) ‘Emotion and Heterodox Moral Perception: An Essay in Moral Social Psychology’, in Meyers

Diana Tietjens

(ed.) Feminists Rethink the Self. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, pp. 197–218.

24.

Palmer

Julie

(2009) ‘Seeing and Knowing: Ultrasound Images in the Contemporary Abortion Debate’, Feminist Theory 10 (2): 173–89.

25.

Petchesky

Rosalind Pollack

(1987) ‘Fetal Images: The Power of Visual Culture in the Politics of Reproduction’, Feminist Studies 13 (2): 263–92.

26.

Pickert

Kate

(2013) ‘What Choice? Abortion-rights Activists Won an Epic Victory in Roe v. Wade. They’ve Been Losing Ever Since’, Time (14 January 2013): 38–46.

27.

Rohlinger

Deana A.

Klein

Jesse

(2012) ‘Visual Landscapes and the Abortion Issue’, American Behavioral Scientist 56 (2): 172–88.

28.

Wade

Lisa

(2009) ‘Visualising the Fetus’, The Society Pages, accessible @: www.thesocietypages.org/socimages/2009/04/30/visualing-the-fetus/

29.

West

Robin

(2009) ‘From Choice to Reproductive Justice: De-Constitutionalizing Abortion Rights’, Yale Law Journal 118 (7): 1395–1432.

30.

Zechmeister

Ingrid

(2001) ‘Foetal Images: The Power of Visual Technology in Antenatal Care and the Implications for Women’s Reproductive Freedom’, Health Care Analysis 9: 387–400.