Modus Tollens and the Epistemic Limits of Moral Intuition in Bioethical Reasoning: a Response to Gabriel Andrade

Gabriel Andrade’s recent article, published in Monash Bioethics Review, employs a modus tollens argument to claim that abortion cannot be murder by contending that, if it were, violent resistance (e.g. bombing abortion clinics) would be justified under Just War theory. Because such violence is widely condemned, he concludes that abortion is not murder. This paper critically examines the underlying ethical and legal assumptions of that argument. By interrogating the premises related to Just War theory, and supplementing the critique with counter-modus tollens arguments derived from contemporary foetal homicide statutes and the concept of conditional moral status, this paper demonstrates that reducing the moral status of abortion to the permissibility or impermissibility of violence is both conceptually and practically flawed. This paper calls for an ethical framework that respects legal consistency, competing rights claims, and the importance of procedural restraint in resolving bioethical challenges.