In a paper that has outraged many, and rightly so, Alberto Giubilini and Francesca Minerva argue that there is no moral difference between a fetus and a newborn, neither of whom has the moral status of a person, therefore “‘after-birth abortion’ (killing a newborn) should be permissible in all the cases where abortion is, including cases where the newborn is not disabled.”

While I do find this proposal morally abhorrent, I do think that the argument that there is no difference in the moral status of fetus and a newborn is worth considering. If the difference between a fetus and a newborn is merely passage through the birth canal, then indeed I find it difficult to see why this change of geography should constitute a significant change in moral status. Being pro-choice, I have been trying to grapple with this problem for quite some time. The problem is most people have the impression that if abortion is morally permissible, then this permission extends right to the very last moment of gestation, the moment before the baby is born. This leads to a very counter-intuitive picture: It is morally okay to kill a baby right before it’s born, but it is morally wrong to kill a baby right after it’s born. The mere act of delivery itself cannot justify such a radical change of moral status.

The mistake here is to believe that the moral status of a fetus remains constant and uniform through out the course of pregnancy. I believe it is otherwise. There is a huge difference in the moral status of a first trimester fetus and a third trimester fetus. People are misguided in thinking that it is the time of delivery that constitutes the definitive moral moment between abortion and infanticide. I believe the definitive moral moment is the age of viability, the age at which it is possible for a fetus to survive outside the uterus. The age of viability not just depends on the developmental capacities of the fetus but also on the available medical technology that is required to keep the pre-term infant alive, and therefore it is imprecise. In the Western world the age of viability is currently 20 weeks of gestation, which puts it in the mid of 2nd trimester. In the developing countries it ranges from 24-28 weeks of gestation. I take late-term abortion to be the termination of pregnancy that is after the age of viability, and I do not think that there is much difference (even though a difference is there) in the moral status of a late-term abortion and infanticide. If that is so, then indeed it is hard to avoid the conclusion that infanticide should be permissible in all the cases where a late-term abortion is. But I do not think that infanticide is morally permissible, and therefore I do not think a late-term abortion is morally permissible, despite being pro-choice. For me the age of viability is the morally decisive line, not the day of delivery.

Saying that Quran is not inherently a patriarchal text does not automatically imply that Quran is inherently feminist either. Of course, feminist interpretations of Islam are possible but patriarchal interpretations are not just possible, they are already existing and dominant, and one cannot see much objective reason as to why a feminist interpretation should have more theological validity than a patriarchal interpretation as being the true interpretation, apart from the fact that it corresponds to feminist morality. If Quran cannot be read and understood at all without some sort of interpretation being imposed on it during the process, as the enthusiastic liberal Muslims who play the interpretation card would like to believe, then it implies that the text alone is devoid of meaning and there is nothing inherent to the Quran. It is inherently neither patriarchal nor feminist; it becomes either of these by virtue of the interpretation we choose to see it through. Yet this conclusion is something that would make most Muslims feminists uncomfortable, because they would like to believe that the “true Islam” conforms to their moral values of feminism. Apart from the uncommon Islamic variants which de-emphasize the centrality of textual interpretation in religion, such a deconstructed view of scripture is indeed awkward for most practising Muslims.

Some Islamic feminists say that Islam recognizes men and women as equal but prescribes different gender roles for them given their biological differences. Sounds neat, but it is a problematic position from a feminist point of view. It is not entirely clear how much biological gender can determine social gender roles. The tendency has been to view gender as primarily a socio-cultural construct (‘One is not born a woman, but becomes one’) and feminism has been in many ways a rebellion against the social norms of what women are and aren’t supposed to do. If Islam does indeed prescribe different gender roles, and it is a conclusion hard to avoid unless you resort to radical leaps of interpretations, then it is rendering itself an easy target for feminist attacks. All prescriptions of gender roles have a certain oppression about them. Furthermore, this is guilty of a binary conception of gender and ignores androgyny in its entirety.

The problem of reconciling Islam and Feminism becomes all the more apparent when we consider a topic like homosexuality. In this case Islamic feminists who support homosexuality have to explain away many Quranic verses (story of Lot, for instance) and hadiths which admonish against homosexuality, and even if we presume that this explaining away can be done successfully, there is still nothing left that is in favor of homosexuality. It may be possible to say that Islam can be interpreted in a way that makes it compatible with homosexuality, yet no one can demonstrate that Islam supports homosexuality, that Islam argues for homosexual rights. There is simply no textual evidence in positive acceptance of homosexuality, and this leaves a big chasm at the very heart of Islamic feminism. Clearly, the justified and well-cherished feminist support of homosexuality cannot be derived from the Quran. Therefore, feminism has at least some moral values on which Quran is, at best, silent.

Another example that can be brought up is that of the moral status of pre-marital consensual sex. Western Feminists are vastly accepting of consensual sex regardless of the marital status and do not deem it to be morally objectionable. Islamic Feminists tend to tip-toe around this. We may see them arguing that Islam doesn’t treat fornication as a legal crime, even though it does; the 4 witnesses requirement may be an unlikely possibility to fulfill in practice but it exists in theory. Let us give the benefit of doubt to the Islamic feminists and suppose that this can be successfully explained away and consensual sex is de-criminalized. Nonetheless, there is still no moral approval or acceptance of a casual sexual encounter in Islam. Islam morally prohibits pre-marital sex and all Islamic feminists who may believe that consensual sex is not to be morally judged and disapproved have a lot of explaining to do. And all Islamic feminists who disapprove of consensual sex also have a lot of explaining to do because it is a seemingly un-feminist stance to morally restrict sex to marriage.

These examples can be used to demonstrate the two grades of Islamic Feminism: 

Weak Islamic Feminism: Islam and feminism are not mutually exclusive.

Strong Islamic Feminism: The feminist principles and values are already present in Islam and can be derived from them.

The feminist support of homosexuality and consensual sex, among other things, is in my view a refutation of Strong Islamic Feminism. Weak Islamic Feminism is a position that can be consistently argued for, though it still requires feats of creative interpretations, and has the accompanying (awkward) conclusions that Islam is not inherently feminist and that there are at least some feminist moral values that are meta-Quranic. Either way it shows that Islamic Feminism is yet to explore these questions in philosophical depth and is not likely to be successful unless it is accompanied by a broader reformative theology that tackles the problems of textual interpretation.

@AfiaAslam raised a question on twitter whether it is ethical to preserve diaries after the death of their writers. Here are my thoughts on the matter:

While some may say that a diary is, by default, meant to be for author’s eyes only, the situation is not entirely so clear in real life, where people attach different degrees of privacy to their diaries. Some may wish to guard them obsessively, others may not be so averse to their being read, especially after they are dead. In situations where the wishes of the author are not known, and in the absence of any clues that may indicate what the author would have preferred, or if such a desire is not evident through the contents of the diary, and the material in the diary is not of a personal and sensitive nature, then I do not see any reason why it should constitute a moral violation.

If the writer had expressed a desire that the contents of the diary be kept private and/or the material in the diary is of a personal and sensitive nature, then the ethical thing would be to honor that wish.

However, if the contents of the diary are of potentially great literary worth (such as Kafka’s or Plath’s) then it would put the custodian in a utilitarian dilemma, where he would have to weigh respecting the wishes of the deceased against benefitting humanity with the work of a literary genius. If the work is sufficiently valuable, one may treat the wishes of the author as we treat their self-destructive tendencies while they are alive — that is, just as we think it morally justified to attempt to save a man from killing himself, we may consider it morally justified to save a literary masterpiece from destruction.

‘It is so,’ says religion. ‘It could not be so,’ says humanity. Eventually, religion yields. When it doesn’t, it produces monstrosities.

We are fortunate that even those who believe that everything is permitted in theory are in majority of cases not capable of everything in practice. 

The research of Kiley Hamlin from the University of British Columbia demonstrates how infants possess almost adult-like moral understanding, developed somewhere between fifth and eighth months of life.

This is yet another bit of evidence in favor of universal moral grammar.

(See my previous post: Universal Moral Grammar and Implications)