{"id":4296,"date":"2022-06-16T13:46:11","date_gmt":"2022-06-16T12:46:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/medical-ethics\/?p=4296"},"modified":"2022-06-16T13:46:11","modified_gmt":"2022-06-16T12:46:11","slug":"are-we-still-allowed-to-teach-abortion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/medical-ethics\/2022\/06\/16\/are-we-still-allowed-to-teach-abortion\/","title":{"rendered":"Are we still allowed to teach abortion?"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Ezio Di Nucci.<\/p>\n

Something \u201cfunny\u201d happened to me recently (this was soon after the SCOTUS leak<\/a>): in reviewing possible changes to our medical ethics curriculum with the team, I made what I thought was the innocent suggestion of including an abortion case study (so far, the only abortion we have been teaching has been Philippa Foot on double effect<\/a>). I expected the team to conclude I was being cheap and newsy \u2013 riding the SCOTUS wave \u2013 but how could they possibly disagree? What\u2019s left of bioethics without abortion, after all?<\/p>\n

The reaction I got was different, and it ranged from the consideration that teaching abortion could be harmful to the young women who make up most of the aspiring doctors at our local med school to the claim that we can only teach abortion if we start from the indisputable assumption of women\u2019s bodily autonomy, which is non-negotiable. There was, in short, something of a consensus that abortion better be left alone, today \u2013 which I guess is what we \u201call\u201d wish SCOTUS would have done.<\/p>\n

Wait, though: the right<\/em> to abortion better be left alone, agreed. But does that apply to the abortion debate in teaching and research as well? I don\u2019t see how that argument is supposed to work. Indeed, the opposite directionality might be more plausible: that we need to teach and write about abortion for the very reason that SCOTUS won\u2019t leave it alone; and that the fact that, in 2022, SCOTUS is going back on abortion might in fact partially depend on us having \u201cmoved on\u201d from abortion \u2013 the progressive left in both science and politics, I mean. Guilty as charged, by the way \u2013 having just completed a large bioethics handbook with a loud absence: the abortion chapter<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The claim being, basically, that it is our fault as much as Trump\u2019s. The pig only delivered what he promised, after all: enough justices (in fact more justices in a single term than any democratic POTUS I can think of). Now, the above claim might be overblown for the simple reason that nobody actually reads philosophy. Still, if we are scared of the abortion debate, Trump wins. And how can we teach our students women rights if we don\u2019t teach them the abortion debate?<\/p>\n

It’s tempting to scale up these questions: abortion gets canceled the very same year SCOTUS abolishes it. But it\u2019s not an academic freedom issue: I made a suggestion, which was then criticized by colleagues, in the traditional way of philosophy. And yet I can\u2019t help noticing the way in which there certainly is one group which will celebrate when we stop teaching abortion, pro-lifers.<\/p>\n

Is that the surprising way in which polarization works \u2013 by closing the loop in the end? Think of it this way: group polarization emboldens the right to go for the big one, Roe v. Wade; they wouldn\u2019t have dared twenty years ago (too busy not finding WMDs). At the same time, group polarization emboldens the left to move on to the next right, abortion\u2019s in the bag.<\/p>\n

What both groups have in common, in the midst of these strong polarizing winds: one doesn\u2019t want to teach x because x is bad while the other doesn\u2019t want to teach x because x is boring\/done and there are new and bigger problems. So x doesn\u2019t get taught. But make no mistake: this is not a draw, because once it disappears from the classroom, its days are numbered. It\u2019s like when you close a school in a rural community: beginning of the end.<\/p>\n

Objection: am I making the beginner\u2019s mistake of confusing the philosophy of abortion with the politics of abortion? After all, it could be argued that the former belongs in the classroom (while the latter doesn\u2019t) and that SCOTUS is all about the latter and doesn\u2019t care for the former (even though that\u2019s not how lawyers actually write).<\/p>\n

That\u2019s a misunderstanding of our role as teachers, I would argue \u2013 but it\u2019s no surprise in today\u2019s entrepreneurial university<\/em>. We are not here (only) to provide students with value-free technical skills: we must embrace the simple fact that we are also, inevitably but mostly intentionally, bilding<\/em> citizens (from the German: Bildung<\/em>).<\/p>\n

Further objection: if you wanted to scale up the question of not teaching abortion while SCOTUS abolishes it, you could also consider the future of liberalism. As in: the left tried Marxism (hasn\u2019t worked, yet<\/em>) then played along with liberal social democracy but it hasn\u2019t gotten it anywhere (I don\u2019t just mean abortion reversal, just look at inequality), so maybe the problem is liberal democracy after all?<\/p>\n

That\u2019s a big question that goes too far beyond philosophy (we are still stuck at interpretieren<\/em>, after all); but even if there were any merit in it (and indeed the post-war consensus isn\u2019t doing too well in Ukraine just now; and that\u2019s just Russia, which amounts to less than 10% of China), that wouldn\u2019t \u2013 or anyway shouldn\u2019t \u2013 change our responsibility in the classroom. Teach it.<\/p>\n

Author:<\/strong>\u00a0Ezio Di Nucci<\/p>\n

Affiliation:<\/strong>\u00a0Centre for Medical Science and Technology Studies<\/em><\/a>, University of Copenhagen<\/p>\n

Competing interests:\u00a0<\/strong>None declared<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Ezio Di Nucci. Something \u201cfunny\u201d happened to me recently (this was soon after the SCOTUS leak): in reviewing possible changes to our medical ethics curriculum with the team, I made what I thought was the innocent suggestion of including an abortion case study (so far, the only abortion we have been teaching has been […]<\/p>\n

Read More…<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":354,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8059],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4296","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-abortion"],"yoast_head":"\nAre we still allowed to teach abortion? - Journal of Medical Ethics blog<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/medical-ethics\/2022\/06\/16\/are-we-still-allowed-to-teach-abortion\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Are we still allowed to teach abortion? - Journal of Medical Ethics blog\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"By Ezio Di Nucci. Something \u201cfunny\u201d happened to me recently (this was soon after the SCOTUS leak): in reviewing possible changes to our medical ethics curriculum with the team, I made what I thought was the innocent suggestion of including an abortion case study (so far, the only abortion we have been teaching has been [...]Read More...\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/medical-ethics\/2022\/06\/16\/are-we-still-allowed-to-teach-abortion\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Journal of Medical Ethics blog\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2022-06-16T12:46:11+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Hazem Zohny\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Hazem Zohny\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"4 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/blogs.bmj.com\\\/medical-ethics\\\/2022\\\/06\\\/16\\\/are-we-still-allowed-to-teach-abortion\\\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/blogs.bmj.com\\\/medical-ethics\\\/2022\\\/06\\\/16\\\/are-we-still-allowed-to-teach-abortion\\\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Hazem Zohny\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/blogs.bmj.com\\\/medical-ethics\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/e73152f6aa4e164c7d625d77cf4fed35\"},\"headline\":\"Are we still allowed to teach abortion?\",\"datePublished\":\"2022-06-16T12:46:11+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/blogs.bmj.com\\\/medical-ethics\\\/2022\\\/06\\\/16\\\/are-we-still-allowed-to-teach-abortion\\\/\"},\"wordCount\":885,\"commentCount\":0,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/blogs.bmj.com\\\/medical-ethics\\\/#organization\"},\"articleSection\":[\"Abortion\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\\\/\\\/blogs.bmj.com\\\/medical-ethics\\\/2022\\\/06\\\/16\\\/are-we-still-allowed-to-teach-abortion\\\/#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/blogs.bmj.com\\\/medical-ethics\\\/2022\\\/06\\\/16\\\/are-we-still-allowed-to-teach-abortion\\\/\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/blogs.bmj.com\\\/medical-ethics\\\/2022\\\/06\\\/16\\\/are-we-still-allowed-to-teach-abortion\\\/\",\"name\":\"Are we still allowed to teach abortion? 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