UPDATE: Just in case it’s not clear, the thesis of the post below is “If abortion were wrongful murder, then lying to stop it or reduce the amount of it would in many cases be permissible.” The thesis is not “If you think abortion is wrongful murder, then you may lie to stop it.” Notice the difference.

A few days ago, a video went viral which appeared to show a Planned Parenthood administrator haggling over the price of aborted fetal parts. At first I presumed the video was fake, because it only appeared on far right wing websites of poor repute, but it turns out the video isn’t staged. Rather, it really does show a dialogue between a PP admin and an undercover investigator, but the video has been edited in a deceptive way.

Tomorrow, I’ll write something about the ethics of commodifying fetal parts. Right now, let’s briefly consider the deceptive editing. Was it wrong for the video editors to deceive the American public?

I think that depends on whether abortion is the wrongful murder of rights-bearing babies. Suppose for the sake of argument that it is, or, at least, that at 23 weeks, the fetus acquires personhood status, or at least sufficient moral status that killing it would normally be wrongful murder. (Add in whatever exceptions you want about exceptions to protect the mother, etc.) In short, suppose that the pro-life side is correct.

If that were the case, wouldn’t it be perfectly reasonable, and justifiable, to deceive the American public about Planned Parenthood, in order to stop them from murdering babies, or reduce the number of babies they murder?

Lying is usually wrong, by default. However, the prohibition against lying is not absolute. Not even Kant thought so! Instead, lying is not merely excused, but justifiable under certain circumstances. In particular, it can be justifiable to lie to wrongdoers in order to prevent them from causing severe harm or injustice to innocent others. For example, if the Nazi murderer at the door asks you where the hidden Jews are, you may lie to protect them. It can also in some cases be permissible to lie to people who aren’t acting wrongly, if doing so is necessary to protect innocent others from being severely harmed or killed by a third party. So, for instance, suppose I know that if I tell you, a nice person, that I’m hiding Jews in the attic, the Nazi murderer is likely to learn this from you (by eavesdropping on you or reading your diary or whatnot). I could be justified in deceiving you. Call all this the doctrine of defensive lying. Defensive lying might also be governed by a doctrine of necessity: when a non-deceptive alternative is equally effective at stopping the wrongdoer from committing injustice, then perhaps it is wrong to lie.

Now consider another case. Suppose McDonald’s systematically murdered toddlers in Asia. For whatever reason, McDonald’s executives don’t consider Asian toddlers’ rights-bearers or moral patients. Every year, they murder 2 million of them. Now suppose that while many people consider this wrong and evil, the governments of the world, as well as the majority of your fellow citizens, wrongfully disagreed. They mistakenly believe that killing Asian toddlers is just fine–it’s anybody’s choice. They even say stuff like, “If you think it’s wrong to kill Asian toddlers, you’re a sexist who wants to oppress Asian women.” Now, suppose you could stop, or at least significantly reduce the amount of, Asian toddler murder by putting together a bullshit video in which you make it seem like McDonald’s has bad business ethics practices. You interview some McDonald’s execs, and then selectively and deceptively edit the video to make it seem like they’re offering you a loan at usurious rates. For whatever reason, while the American public is morally indifferent to mass toddler murder, they are outraged by high interest rates! And so your video has some chance of putting McDonald’s out of business, or at least contracting their business, and, as a result, saving some Asian toddlers’ lives. Worse case scenario, people discover your deception, and McDonald’s continues murdering toddlers at normal rates.

By the doctrine of defensive lying, this all seems permissible, indeed, praiseworthy. You’re lying in order to protect innocent others. The people you lie to for the most part are not innocent–they’re complacent in allowing mass Asian toddler murder. (Indeed, most of them think mass Asian toddler murder is of no moral consequence.)

Again, all of this is conditional upon a controversial premise, namely, that abortion is in fact wrongful baby murder. (Or, perhaps, that you, the lying agent, justifiedly believe that it is.) If not, then none of this other stuff follows. However, when you combine 1) that abortion is wrongful baby murder, with 2) commonsense moral ideas about the morality of defensive lying, then 3) it looks like editing the Planned Parenthood video in a deceptive way would be permissible. It didn’t work, but why not give it another shot?

Just to be clear, since people are going to mess this up: The doctrine of defensive lying doesn’t say you can lie just whenever you think or believe it’s necessary to protect others. Rather, this has to at least be a justified belief.

Extra credit: What would the commonsense doctrine of defensive killing (in defense of others) imply?

If in the comments, you start debating whether abortion is actually wrongful baby murder, you’ve misunderstood this post. I’m neither asserting nor denying that it is–this post takes no stance on that. Rather, I’m just asking what would follow if it were.