Posted 4 years ago around lunchtime by oso
This is the fourth time I’ve started writing my thoughts about the abortion debate. The other three times? My arguments all had flaws or contradictions. I’ve learned a lot this past week. Besides all the thoughtful comments that followed HispanicPundit’s post, I’ve also been reading articles from both sides about the abortion debate. I’ve been talking to all my friends; mostly playing devil’s advocate and arguing HP’s position. I’ve tried to keep my mind as open as possible and after it all, I’ve only been able to come to one conclusion. Before I say that conclusion, though, let me make a couple points.
First, I have a problem with Alan Keyes’ analogy between abortion and slavery. That analogy equates yet to be developed fetuses with fully developed Africans and African-Americans. It argues that a collection of dividing cells (see picture1) deserves the same rights and protection as fully grown adults.
In fairness, as HP points out, Susanne’s analogy between a fetus and an adult with “no brain activity” is also flawed. A fetus has the potential to become a living human being while a comatose adult does not.
My earlier three arguments for choice all relied on the assumption that a fetus is not a human being and does not deserve the same protection as a new born baby. But then I realized I needed to draw a line marking where life starts and when it should be protected. And as Peter Singer and HP point out, what’s the difference between a prematurely born baby and a yet to be born fetus?
Finally something clicked and I felt like I was able to see the abortion debate for what it is. I believe that each camp (pro-choice and pro-life) has its own guiding moral principle. Those in the pro-choice camp seek to diminish suffering as much as possible. Those in the pro-life camp seek to protect each individual life.
Pro-choicers realize that an unwanted pregnancy could cause suffering for the mother, father, the child, society, and the environment. They also understand having an abortion can cause suffering for the mother and father, but they don’t believe (and science supports this), that it causes suffering to the fetus (at least, not in the first two trimesters). In the end, they believe it is up to the individual to choose whichever decision would cause less suffering. This argument also applies to brain dead adults (to end suffering versus protecting life) and to Keyes’ slavery analogy. That is, slavery was abolished to end suffering; not because one day the world realized that Blacks were now part of the human species.
Pro-lifers are guided by a different moral principle and that is the protection of life. The absolute protection of each individual life trumps the suffering it might cause. Obviously, forcing a 13-year-old girl who was raped by her father to go ahead and have the child causes much more suffering than aborting the fetus would. But it is in order to protect the developing human being which has already been created, no matter what the circumstances.
Once I understood the two guiding moral objectives of each side, I realized - at a philosophical level - that neither one was more “right.” Instead they are just different. Do we want to diminish personal, subjective suffering or do we want to enforce societal, objective protection of life.
It’s a personal decision and something that should be kept in mind when you vote. In the end, I agree with HispanicPundit in that we should do whatever the majority of our democracy wants. I will always vote and advocate free choice because I personally believe diminishing suffering is more important than protecting life. But that is a personal choice and thanks to our discussion here, I understand the other side much better.
If you disagree with me. Or if you have any thoughts at all about my take, please leave a comment. I know a lot of you are sick of discussing abortion and want to move on to the next topic. Well, we do to. But we’re going to wait just a couple days more to let people respond to both HP’s take and this post here and then we’ll move on. I think economic policy is next, then school vouchers, and then we’ll leave it open to suggestions.
Pretty keen commentary. I think it’s perhaps prophetic with respect to our future discussions with HP that you’ve discovered a subjective/objective, actual/potential split here. Without going any further, I expect this split to show up again when we talk about capitalism and vouchers.
Good show.
I respect your effort to encapsulate the views of both sides, but unfortunately you’re wrong about the pro-choice argument.
The pro-choice argument is, simply, that the developing fetus is not a person, no moreso than a fingernail paring or a hair clipping.
Mitch,
Thanks for stopping by. You’re going to have to elaborate a little more for me to understand what you’re saying though.
To me, you can’t compare a fetus with a fingernail paring or a hair clipping because fingernails and hair are ends of a biological process whereas the fetus is the beginning of a biological process.
Oso–I don’t know any better way to elaborate it. The fetus is just not a person.
I don’t know when it becomes a person but it’s certainly not at conception.
The medieval standard was “quickening”—when the fetus starts to move. That’s certainly too late.
Whether the fetus is, or is not, the beginning of a biological process, is irrelevant.
Likewise, Keyes’s argument would make perfect sense—if, in fact, the fetus were a person. Which it’s not. Simply saying that it is, or comparing fetuses to black people, or Jews, won’t make it so. Logic and reason won’t make it so either.
There is no common ground on this issue.
Well, I certainly didn’t expect everyone to agree. Just to clarify though, I’m not saying that the fetus is a person, only that it can become a person.
Actually, I regret posting as I did—I’ve turned your description of both sides of the abortion issue into the opening salvo of an abortion debate. Which, as everyone knows, is one of the three big waste-of-time subjects on the Internet.
Still, I do think you’ve mischaracterized the pro-choice argument. There are two pro-choice arguments, actually.
One is the one I stated above: The fetus is not a person. Abortion is surgery like any other.
The second argument is that determining the moment when human life begins is a religious decision, and therefore the government has no business making it. Hence the name: “pro-choice,” not “pro-abortion.”
Hey Oso,
Great response. I appreciate your honesty, and I am moved by your effort to understand both sides of the aisle on this, it definitely says a lot about your character, and your search for truth. Again, great job.
However, I think the abortion debate goes much deeper than your post. Before I get into that, though, let me start off with certain areas that struck me while reading your post, than we can move onto my overall areas of disagreement.
You write:
There are two things that strike me as wrong here. First, your picture is misleading. The vast amount of abortions is performed after the women missed her first period. That puts the abortion in the second, maybe even third month of pregnancy. So to be more accurate, you should use 7 or 8-week pictures at least, maybe even 10, 11 week ones.
For you to use the earliest one you could find would be like me using 8 or 9 month unborn pictures to argue against abortion. I’m sure you’d agree that that doesn’t give a balanced view of the situation.
Second point is with regard to your statement:
Both of these statements are in fact very close to my racism analogy. Correct me if I’m wrong here, but your statement leads me to conclude that you are dividing human value on either stage of development (yet to be developed…) lines, or appearance (a collection of dividing cells…). Which are both very closely related to racism.
If my premise that the unborn child, from conception forward, is in fact a human being is true, than you are basically dividing human value based on either appearance, or based on human functions.
If you base it on appearance, than what separates you from the racist who basis his seperation of human value on appearance?
In addition, there is another problem.
Francis Beckwith writes,
On the other hand, if you define humanity on human function, than what is the dividing line where enough human functions are reached for the entity to be classified as a human person, and more importantly, who decides? For example, nobody denies that an infant is just as human, and therefore valuable, as an adult, yet the infant posses much less human functions(reproductive ability, speech, logical abilities,etc) than an adult. Is the infant now less valuable in your definition, if not, why? If the value doesn’t diminish when comparing infant to adult, than why does it diminish when comparing embryo to infant? I don’t think you would agree that an infant is any less ‘human’ than an adult, yet you ascribe to that same premise in this argument.
The minute you move from defining a human being based on inherent ability(my definition, and I would say, most people’s intuitive definition) you must move into the area that you have now entered, defining human beings based on human functions(as the old saying goes, ‘you have confused the smoke for the fire’). The term I’ve seen describe your definition is ‘functionalism’. Peter Kreeft, Professor Of Philosophy at Boston College writes this,
He also writes,
I have not seen an argument that justifies the pro-choice side based on ‘functionalism’ that does not also justify infanticide.
If you think I am wrong here, just look at the man you quoted, Peter Singer.Peter Singer, ethicists at Princeton University, is a strong supporter of animal ‘rights’ (to use the term broadly), and a strong believer in the ‘pro-choice’ side of this debate. In addition, he also argues for the right to kill severely disabled children, both before birth, and after. He even goes so far as to say that killing born infantsis not the same as killing an adult.
He writes:
He goes on to conclude the only reason why you shouldn’t have the right to kill fully healthy infants is because of the bond of the mother…nothing intrinsic in the child.
My point here is not to argue whether he is right or not, but to show you where your argument leads, if you are to remain logically consistent. Even though I strongly disagree with Peter Singer on many issues, I strongly value his moral consistency. But are you prepared to go that far? I am not, and if you are, than you have clearly drawn the line in the sand between the conservative and the liberal. Between the pro-choice and the pro-life.
My definition on the other hand is very simple; it basically boils down to one simple moral that all cultures, and all people throughout all of history have agreed too. “Do not kill innocent human beings”. Simple as that.
Now, to continue with your post, you write:
This is not true at all. I argued that a fetus has the potential to become a ‘fully functioning human being’, but is already a human being. To say that the fetus ‘has the potential to become a living human being’ is a misnomer. It is like me saying that an infant ‘has the potential to become a living human being’. They both are already human beings, with the potential within them to develop all human functions, but they are already fully human beings, just at different stages of development.
Remember Oso, it is vital that you understand that you did not come from a zygote, you once were a zygote; you did not come from an embryo, you once were an embryo; you did not come from a fetus, you once were a fetus; you did not come from an infant, you once were an infant; you did not come from an adolescent, you once were an adolescent. Consequently, each one of us has experienced these various developmental stages of life. None of these stages, however, imparted to us our humanity.
Now, to answer your main point. Your whole support for the pro-choice cause seems to boil down to which side reduces the most pain. You write:
You really can’t escape the central question in abortion, namely, is or is not the unborn child a full human being deserving of all its rights. For if it is, than you are basically advocating that killing an innocent human being is acceptable if it results in less suffering to the world around him, compared to her/his suffering. Are you sure you are ready to go that far in support of abortion? I am not.
Also, your post misses the distinction between hurt and harmed and the experience of harm with the reality of harm. One can be harmed without experiencing the hurt that sometimes follows from that harm, and which we often mistake for the harm itself. For example, a temporarily comatose person who is suffocated to death “experiences no harm,” but he is nevertheless harmed. Hence, one does not have to experience harm, which is sometimes manifested in hurt, in order to be truly harmed.
To use your analogy, you write
Let me pose a question to you. Say that we had an instance of slavery where the slave was not being harmed, in fact, was living under better than average circumstances. Under those circumstances, would you say that slavery was acceptable? I am guessing you would still answer in the negative.
In addition, one can take your argument even further. One could conclude that it is acceptable to kill any human being if the pain they endure is less than the ‘inconvenience’ posed by unborn infants to their mothers. Like the unborn at an early, these individuals are all at the moment of no pain. Yet to countenance their executions would be morally reprehensible. Therefore, one cannot countenance the execution of some unborn entities simply because they are not able to feel pain.
A further point that needs to be addressed here is that no matter how bad the mothers’ circumstances are, they all (except for maybe rape and incest) basically boil down to lifestyle. No one has an absolute unconditional right to a lifestyle. It is always governed by its effects on others. There are thousands of restrictions on us including no-smoking provisions, noise and zoning ordinances, etc. Finally, is it reasonable for society to expect an adult to live with a temporary inconvenience if the only alternative is killing a child?
I am sure that by now you have seen that there is no way to escape the central question in abortion.
Mitch Wagner writes,
Agreed. This is an argument made in favor of abortion. However, I’d like to point out that the burden of proof is on the pro-choicer, not the pro-lifer, to prove the fetus is not a person. For if it is true that we don’t know when full humanness begins, this is an excellent reason not to kill the unborn, since we may be killing a human entity who has a full right to life. It is like driving over a man-shaped overcoat in the street, which may be a drunk or may only be an old coat. It is like shooting at a sudden movement in a bush which may be your hunting companion or may be only a pheasant. It is like fumigating an apartment building with a highly toxic chemical not knowing whether everyone is safely evacuated. Ignorance of a being’s status is certainly not justification for killing it.
He also writes,
Agreed. Another argument commonly used in abortion debates. But this would cut both ways. For isn’t the belief that a woman has abortion rights a philosophical belief that cannot be proven scientifically and over which people obviously disagree? But if the pro-life position cannot be enacted into law because it is philosophical (or religious), then neither can the abortion-rights position. Now the abortion-rights advocate may respond to this by saying that this fact alone is a good reason to leave it up to each individual woman to choose whether she should have an abortion. But this response begs the question, for this is precisely the abortion-rights position. Furthermore, the pro-lifer could reply to this abortion-rights response by employing the pro-choicer’s own logic. The pro-lifer could argue that since the abortion-rights position is a philosophical position over which many people disagree, we should permit each individual unborn human being to be born and make up his or her own mind as to whether he or she should or should not die. In sum, it seems that the appeal to ignorance is seriously flawed.
HispanicPUndit - Like I said, there is no possibility of compromise on this issue. True compromise means that everyone walks away satisfied. No matter which way teh law goes on this issue, someone’s going to believe that fundamental human rights have been violated in the name of folly.
Oso, your value differentiation between pro-choicers and pro-lifers is interesting. I had not thought of it in that way before. I agree with Mitch that it isn’t what most pro-choicers think of intellectually, but I do believe that if it were possible to evaluate the overall values of pro-choicers out there vs pro-lifers, that there could be some merit to your hypothesis. I know that sounds weird, but what I mean to say is that most pro-choicers I know are either a-religious or not strictly religious and therefore do not tend to have faith in the concepts of “universal truths” etc. This is NOT saying ALL pro-choicers and pro-lifers are only a certain way, it’s a generalization. =) Anyway, I enjoyed that you wrestled with your own thoughts and observances and then had the chutzpah to abstract it out. That’s what discussion is all about to me, re-evaluating, hypothesizing, and learning.
As for what you see as my “flaw” on brain activity, I think we both agree that they are “brain-dead” but we differ on what potential vs actual is. See my new comment in the original entry. =)
HP:
And yet I was not a sperm and an ovum. Conception is merely one step on the process of life, which starts with generation of sperm and the ovum and ends in death. There is no more reason to draw a line at conception and say, “Here, humanity begins,” than at any other time.
Many reasonable people believe that euthanasia is morally wrong but that the do not resuscitate order (DNR) order is not wrong; indeed, it can be perfectly humane. If we say abortion is illegal, we are saying that a woman is under a legal obligation to provide sustenance to another person, to nurture that other person within her own body. You draw the analogy to slavery. I can think of no greater form of slavery than to be forced by law to give sustenance to another person with—literally—your own life’s blood.
I wish pro-choice groups would partner with the pro-life groups and come to a compromise that education and a proactive approach is absolutely necessary at this point in time, in my view.
Actually, I’m starting to warm to Oso’s hypothesis.
Either the fetus is a person, in which case abortion is murder.
Or the fetus is not a person, in which case depriving a woman of a right to choose whether to have an abortion is depriving her of the right to make a decision about her own medical care, forcing her into indentured servitude to suit another person’s superstitious beliefs, and requiring her risk death (even in the 21st Century, affluent, health women with the best medical care die in childbirth) without her consent.
I don’t know for sure that a fetus is not a person. But I do know for sure what the consequences are of banning abortion. So I choose to be pro-life.
Also: I’m a man. The whole discussion is kinda theoretical for me, isn’t it?
And we haven’t yet touched on the social consequences of banning abortion. The wealthy will always be able to get safe abortions, and they always will get them. It’s just the poor that will be screwed. Free financial advice: if abortions are banned, it’s a good time to invest in coat-hanger manufacturers.
That is opinion, not fact. There is simply no conclusive medical evidence that a fetus is or is not a person, or at what point it becomes a person.
I pose this question regarding the status of “personhood” in ascribing rights:
If a fetus is not a person, when does it become a person? During the second trimester? The third trimester? At birth? At age 1?
I think most people who are pro-choice would tend to argue something like the third trimester or birth, but really what is the difference between all of these stages, and is that difference sufficient for you to ascribe it the absolute end-all requirement for “personhood”? Is it autonomy in a sustainability sense (early on)? Is it the existence of mental processes (much later)? Is it the awareness of oneself in the world (much, much later)?
And if it is pure physical autonomous sustainability, are you willing to tell me that ANY human being/entity that is autonomously sustainable in the way that a baby is (i.e., they have the necessary parts and they all work, although they still need serious assistance to actually live, like someone to take care of them) is a “person”? What does that do to the euthanasia argument, then?
I think that the question of what makes a “person” is something much more serious and difficult to determine than most people are willing to deal with. And I think the only way to satisfy such a debate is by defining it.
Right now all we have are arbitrary lines of demarcation.
Hello Everyone,
I only have a few minutes. Just came back from TJ with my roommate…I’m about to go to bed. Let me take the time to respond to one post I was able to read, that of Mitch Wagner.
Mitch, you write,
Sperm and ova do not have a right to life because they are not individual genetic human beings, but are merely parts of individual genetic human beings. They are only genetically human insofar as they share the genetic codes of their owners, but this is also true of their owners’ other parts (e.g., hands, feet, kidneys, etc.). Sperm and ova cease to exist at conception when the zygote, an individual genetic human being, comes into existence.
There is a clear difference between being forced in the unnatural sense, and being forced in the natural sense. It is a fact of nature that if you have sex, you take on the risk of getting pregnant. So the women who is ’stuck’ in the position of being pregnant is in someway there by her own actions. So the ‘forcing’ argument doesn’t work here. Pregnancy is a natural occurance that everybody knows is a possibility. Factor that in to the fact that you are left with a choice between killing an innocent person, and a lifestyle (although drastic) change, the choice should clearly be evident…
PS: I realize that this doesn’t answer the rape scenario, but like I said in my previous post, I don’t put much thought into that scenario, since it is so infrequent. Besides, I have an answer for that too, its just too long to post here…
I will post more tomorrow night. Have a good night everyone.
Someone mentioned above that most pro-choicers are a-religious or not that religious at all. I’d like to note that I am a faithful Presbyterian, and I’m pro-choice. It is possible for people of faith to believe that women deserve this right. That’s all I really wanted to add, except that I wish more females were involved in this conversation. It has been very interesting to read!
Damn, I didn’t expect to wake up to all of that. It’s going to take me a while to read every argument in every comment, but I’ll try to put up some sorta response later tonight.
Susannity’s comment on HP’s post is fixed. (there was an unclosed tag)
And when quoting another comment within your own, instead of using italics, this would be the best html to use:
<blockquote cite="http://the-url-of-the-comment-youre-quoting">The quote</blockquote>Peace y’all.
No one will ever win an abortion arguement, there is no middle ground. The pro-choice movement wants it to remain legas for a myriad of sensible reasons and pro-life wants it illegal for religious reasons. It comes down to what the woman wants, if you don’t believe in abortion then don’t have one. My personal belief is no one has the right to tell me what I can do with my body. No one has the right to force a woman who has been raped or a child who has been the victim of incest and has become impregnated to have that child. If you are going to outlaw abortion because you say a fetus is a human being and it is murder, then you need to also outlaw the death penalty because a murderer is a human being too.
There is actually a logical, scientific and non-religious basis for the pro-life argument, and your characterization of each argument makes your assumption that compromise is impossible a self-fulfilling prophecy. Obviously if one side is sensible and the other is not, then I guess we should all just agree with the sensible side. But that is not the case. People have been saying all along that the concern is over whether or not a fetus is a living person who is entitled to the protection of life as are all other persons in this country. It may be a moral argument, but then it is a moral argument on both sides, not just on the pro-life side. I find it reprehensible that you simply dismiss the legitimate and soundly-based opinions of a large group of people because you assume it is a wholly religious opinion. Until you realize the legitimacy of those whose opinions differ from your own and seek to actually understand WHY they think the way they do (instead of dismissing it as religious or fanatical), there will be no compromise. But that doesn’t mean compromise is impossible.
Oh, and by the way, I’m against the death penalty as well.
What possible compromise is there? Right-to-lifers will accept no position other than an outright ban on abortions.
Nor would I, if I believed a fetus were human.
I don’t think compromise is the goal here. Rather, an attempt to better understand the opinions of our fellow citizens and to understand how they reach those opinions. Nobody should compromise their opinions, but they should certainly understand them and those of others as well. Nobody thinks we are solving the issue here, but I think there is certainly a lot to be learned.
We can’t talk about abortion without talking about several related, and important issues.
One of them is, of course, ssex. Pro-lifers seem to believe that people shouldn’t be having sex outside of wedlock anyway.
I, and I suspect other pro-choicers, think that nobody has a right to tell me how to live my sex life, and I don’t have a right to tell you how to live yours. Indeed, the right to make your own choices about sex is a fundamental human right, and a very important one. Forcing someone to have sex is rape—and forcing someone to be celibate is almost as bad; sex is a fundamental way we express love and affection. We know that children deprived of touch at an early age will have severe psychiatric problems in later life, I suspect the same is true of adults who are forced to be celibate by someone else’s choice rather than their own.
You think that sex outside of marriage is wrong? Fine, that’s your business.
By the way, I sometimes think that those of us who are sexually tolerant must appear to be libertines ourselves to those who are more religious. In fact, I’m not—I’ve been married (to a woman) for the past 11 years, and monogamous with her for a year or two longer than that; I intend that she will be the only person I have sex with until—as the saying goes—death do us part. Even before that, my sex life was pretty tame, at least by the standards of the time and place. I’ve always been monogamous, my only sex partners have been women, I don’t have any fetishes. When I get together with my divorced men friends and the subject turns to wild sexual excapades, I get quiet. I got nothing to bring to the conversation.
And I hope the preceding paragraph wasn’t more than you wanted to know.
Other subjects that we can’t avoid discussing when we discuss abortion: class, economics, social welfare programs, and women’s rights.
Banning abortion will lead to millions of additional unwanted babies born to single mothers. Many of those mothers will be unable to afford decent prenatal care, and they’ll become a burden on the public health system—or, if the public health system doesn’t help them, they’ll just get sick and many of them will die. Many of the women who get sick will infect others. Likewise, many of the babies will either be burdens on the public health system, or they’ll just get sick and die.
Those unwanted babies will grow up to have a higher rate of unemployment and crime than their wanted counterparts.
The poor will bear an unfair proportion of these hardships. The rich will always be able to get safe abortions, it’s the poor women who will either have to go to term with an unwanted pregnancy, or face the medical consequences of a back-alley abortion.
Now, if you believe that abortion is murder, none of that will be a hindrance to banning abortion. We don’t look at the financial cost of putting murder laws on the books. But you’d better be prepared to deal with the consequences of your social policy. You’re either going to be spending massive amounts on public health, more cops, more prisons, more executioners, or all of the above. Unfortunately, there’s no option where you get to ban abortion and not suffer enormous financial consequences. And the money has to come from somewhere. You planning on raising taxes? Or cutting spending somewhere else?
Abortion is also tied in with discussions of sexism. In a society where abortion is banned, women will bear a disproporotionate amount of risk in sexual encounters. It is no coincidence that the madonna-whore distinction about women thrives in environments where abortions are illegal or difficult to come by. In those environments, men refuse to have unmarried sex with women they respect, but do have sex with whorse and sluts. Women are either celibate, whores or sluts.
HispanicPundit:
That’s handwaving. You’ve started with a defintion, that a zygote is a human being, and then reasoned backwards as to why.
I could as easily say that the sperm and ovum are each human beings because they contain the genetic material of human beings.
Your reasoning reminds me of ancient Greek philosophers who came up with beautiful logical structures to show that the ancestors of men and women were, in fact, individual organisms containing both genders. Or medieval phisophers who believed that life generated spontaneously from decomposing animal matter. All beautifully proven—and all false.
I wrote:
You responded:
I saw you palm that card, HispanicPundit—there is no such thing as “unnatural” medical care and “natural” medical care; human beings are part of nature, everything we do is perfectly natural.
Furthermore, do-not-resuscitate orders don’t always require withholding of high-tech medical procedures; in the final stages of terminal illness, it is common to withhold food from a dying patient, rather than prolong suffering. Is that also wrong?
And you’re pretty quick to dismiss the benefits of sex as a “lifestyle choice,” as though sex was just a peculiar hobby, like collecting Beatles memorabilia or living in Cleveland.
I’d be very interested to read your thoughts on this subject, because it seems to me to be central to this issue. If abortion is murder, then it’s murder even if the woman was raped. And in that case, the pro-life advocate can’t say, “She chose to have sex, she must accept the consequences,” because there’s no choice involved by the woman.
Bobby:
Yeah, that whole blockquote-cite thing makes my brain hurt. Indeed, I hope I got my HTML right on this simple post, because there doesn’t seem to be any preview button….
Whew! Looks like I did it right!
First off, I re-read my first response above, and it seems the picture I wanted to include did not get included. I was trying to say that Oso included a very early stage(less than 30 hours after conception) picture to argue for abortion. I was asking him to include a much more realistic picture. I see now he already did that. So this correction is moot.
Now, I need to go back and address some of the responses. But before I do that, let me state that I get most of my responses from Francis Beckwiths, Professor Of Philosophy at UNLV, great book on the subject. I recommend that anybody who is more interested in this subject purchase this book. It is great.
Hello Mitch,
You write,
Wow. I had gotten the wrong impression…I thought you were ‘pro-choice’.
You also write,
This reminds me of the response I read once in an abortion debate, the pro-lifer responded, “Arguments don’t have penises, people do”.
You also write,
Awww, yes, the poor people argument. We can’t have too many poor people with babies, now can we?
But we did go over that aspect(ad nauseam) to abortion. Read the comments here if your interested.
Hello Beckie,
You write,
Its odd you say that when I haven’t quoted one bible(or Koran, or whatever) passage in my defense against abortion. I grant that it is primarily religious people who are against abortion, but that doesn’t make it a religious issue.
You also write,
It’s much deeper than this. *If* the unborn is not a human being, than I would agree with the above. But that is a big *if*, and that is precisely what the abortion debate breaks down to.
You also write,
The death penalty and abortion are fundamentally two different things. Although both involve taking human life, abortion also involves innocent human life. So the two are fundamentally different.
This is a very interesting discussion. It’s been too much for me to digest, and I’ll have to check back sporadically to read everything in pieces and think them through. I just want to thank Oso and everyone else for providing some great reading.
The death penalty is not fundamentally different from abortion (from your stated premises) so long as we cannot ensure the guilt of the convicted. It is the same argument that if you can’t be sure of when life begins then you should err on the side of caution. Well, if you can’t be sure that a person is guilty (as demonstrated by the countless people freed over the last few decades from DNA and other evidence) then you should err on the side of caution. Our judicial system will never be 100% correct and thus the death penalty will inevitably result in the killing of “innocent” people. Personally, I hold the view that the government should never be involved in the execution of their own citizens, but that is an entirely different proposal. I probably should have saved this comment, but I don’t think the issue is very complicated and the topic is certainly on point.
“The death penalty is not fundamentally different from abortion (from your stated premises) so long as we cannot ensure the guilt of the convicted. It is the same argument that if you can’t be sure of when life begins then you should err on the side of caution.”
Fair enough, Point taken. I was assuming 100% likihood of being guilty.
Hello Mitch,
You bring up several things in your post, allow me to respond to each individually.
You write,
Excuse me? This is news to me. There are two seperate ‘pro-lifers’ in the abortion debate. There are those that use religious arguments(biblical passages, etc) in support of their premise, and than their are the rest of us. Please try and seperate the two. Although we work for the same goal, we approach the issue completely differently.
For example, I can careless how many girls(or guys for that matter) you have slept with.
You also write,
Yet you answered it yourself with the statement,
Couldn’t have said it better myself.
The financial cost in regard to abortion is about as persuasive to those of us on the anti-abortion side as, to again use the slavery analogy, the argument that abolishing slavery will have a negative impact on our economy is to those who are against slavery.
However, I’d like to add something else, although still secondary to the question of whether or not the unborn child is a person. A common saying in the study of economics is, “if you want more of something, subsidize it”. Yet that is essentially what we have done with abortion. Granted its just a hunch of mine, but I believe that abortion, although indirectly, gives an escape for those women who have gotten pregnant, and so in essence, creates more of the situation it is trying to stop(I even read somewhere that there are now many more unwanted children than before abortion was legalized). I grant that making abortion illegal will result in a significant amount of ‘unwanted’ children, but I also believe that making abortion illegal creates a sort of negative feed back to society that will add a correction factor that will significantly bring down ‘unwanted pregnancies’. Granted, it won’t completely eliminate all unwanted babies, but it will definitely reduce the number significantly from the almost 1.5 million abortions performed a year.
You also write,
Very good point.
I had stated,
To which you responded,
Allow me to elaborate. Sperm and ova, unlike the zygote, are not individual genetic human beings, but are merely parts of individual genetic human beings. They are no different than the other parts (e.g., hands, feet, kidneys, etc.) of their respective owner. On the other hand, to borrow from my response to Sussanity, the zygote is the sexual product of human parents. Hence, insofar as having human causes, the zygote(conceptus) is human.
Second, not only is the zygote human insofar as being caused by humans, it is a unique human individual, just as each of us is. Resulting from the union of the female ovum and the male sperm, the conceptus is a new – although tiny – individual. It has its own unique genetic code, which is neither the mother’s nor the father’s. From this point until death, no new genetic information is needed to make the unborn entity a unique individual human. Her (or his) genetic make-up is established at conception, determining her unique individual physical characteristics – gender, eye color, bone structure, hair color, skin color, susceptibility to certain diseases, etc. That is to say, at conception, the “genotype” – the inherited characteristics of a unique human being – is established and will remain in force for the entire life of this individual. Although sharing the same nature with all human beings, the unborn individual, like each one of us, is unlike any that has been conceived before and unlike any that will ever be conceived again. The only thing necessary for the growth and development of this human organism (as with the rest of us) is oxygen, food, and water, since this organism – like the newborn, the infant, and the adolescent – needs only to develop in accordance with her already-designed nature that is present at conception.
So the two are fundamentally different.
You also write,
I knew you were going to respond with that…;) Let me try and answer that a different way.
Correct me if I am wrong but I believe the heart of your argument rested on this statement,
Since you refuse to accept my ‘normal’ explanation, lets see if we can answer this with a few analogies. Again, I must state that I take these arguments, almost verbatum, from Beckwiths book on the subject.
Suppose a couple has a sexual encounter that is fully protected by several forms of birth control short of surgical abortion (condom, the Pill, IUD) but nevertheless results in conception. Instead of getting an abortion, the mother of the conceptus decides to bring it to term, although the father is unaware of this decision. After the birth of the child, the mother pleads with the father for child support. Because he refuses, she takes legal action. Although he took every precaution to avoid fatherhood, thus showing that he did not wish to accept such a status, according to nearly all child-support laws in the United States he would still be obligated to pay child support precisely because of his relationship to this child. As Michael Levin points out, “All child-support laws make the parental body an indirect resource for the child. If the father is a construction worker, the state will intervene unless some of his calories he expends lifting equipment go to providing food for his children.”(Michael Levin, review of Life in the Balance by Robert Wennberg, Constitutional Commentary 3 (Summer 1986): 511.)
But this obligatory relationship is not based strictly on biology, for this would make sperm donors morally responsible for children conceived by their seed. Rather, the father’s responsibility for his offspring stems from the fact that he engaged in an act, sexual intercourse, that he fully realized could result in the creation of another human being, although he took every precaution to avoid such a result. This is not an unusual way to frame moral obligations, for we hold drunk people whose driving results in manslaughter responsible for their actions, even if they did not intend to kill someone prior to becoming intoxicated. Such special obligations, although not directly undertaken voluntarily, are necessary in any civilized culture in order to preserve the rights of the vulnerable, the weak, and the young, who can offer very little in exchange for the rights bestowed upon them by the strong, the powerful, and the postuterine.
In the same fashion, there is a certain responsibility tied to the actions of the mother.
In addition, if I take your response to its logical levels, it would be fatal to family morality, which has as one of its central beliefs that an individual has special and filial obligations to his offspring and family that he does not have to other persons.
Philosopher Christina Sommers writes:
For it [the volunteerist thesis] means that there is no such thing as filial duty per se, no such thing as the special duty of mother to child, and generally no such thing as morality of special family or kinship relations. All of which is contrary to what people think. For most people think that we do owe special debts to our parents even though we have not voluntarily assumed our obligations to them. Most people think that what we owe to our children does not have its origin in any voluntary undertaking, explicit or implicit, that we have made to them. And “preanalytically,” many people believe that we owe special consideration to our siblings even at times when we may not feel very friendly to them . . . . The idea that to be committed to an individual is to have made a voluntarily implicit or explicit commitment to that individual is generally fatal to family morality. For it looks upon the network of felt obligation and expectation that binds family members as a sociological phenomenon that is without presumptive moral force. The social critics who hold this view of family obligation usually are aware that promoting it in public policy must further the disintegration of the traditional family as an institution. But whether they deplore the disintegration or welcome it, they are bound in principle to abet it.(Sommers, “Philosophers Against the Family,” 744-45.)
Furthermore, assuming that there is such a thing as a special filial obligation, a principle that does not have to be voluntarily accepted in order to have moral force, it is not obvious that the unborn entity in ordinary circumstances (that is, with the exception of when the mother’s life is in significant danger) does not have a natural prima facie claim to her mother’s body. There are several reasons to suppose that the unborn entity does have such a natural claim.
a. The unborn entity is a human being who by her very nature is dependent on her mother, for this is how human beings are at this stage of their development.
b. This same entity, when she becomes a newborn, has a natural claim upon her parents to care for her, regardless of whether her parents wanted her (see the story of the irresponsible father). This is why we prosecute child abusers, people who throw their babies in trash cans, and parents who abandon their children. Although it should not be ignored that pregnancy and childbirth entail certain emotional, physical, and financial sacrifices on the part of the pregnant woman, these sacrifices are also endemic of parenthood in general (which ordinarily lasts much longer than nine months), and do not seem to justify the execution of troublesome infants and younger children whose existence entails a natural claim to certain financial and bodily goods that are under the ownership of their parents. If the unborn entity is fully human, why should the unborn’s natural prima facie claim to her parents’ goods differ before birth?
As Stephen Schwarz points out, “the mother “does have an obligation to take care of her child, to sustain her, to protect her, and especially, to let her live in the only place where she can now be protected, nourished, and allowed to grow, namely the womb.”(Stephen D. Schwarz, The Moral Question of Abortion (Chicago: Loyola University Press, 1990), 118. )
I am not saying that the unborn entity has an absolute natural claim to her mother’s body, but simply that she has a prima facie natural claim. For one can easily imagine a situation in which this natural claim is outweighed by other important prima facie values, such as when a pregnancy significantly endangers the mother’s life. Since the continuation of such a pregnancy would most likely entail the death of both mother and child, and since it is better that one human should live rather than two die, terminating such a pregnancy via abortion is morally justified.
PS: Again, I ignored the rape scenario. But that answer involves much more, and quit frankly, I dont have the energy.
Also, keep in mind that my responses did not question your rather bleak comparison to pregnancy(slavery). Something that is questionable within itself and further removes the ground on which you make your argument. I feel that what I have already posted addresses your main concern, so I dont need to bring all of that up(Also, because it is simply too time consuming
)
You also write,
There are a number of problems with this analogy. There is the examples I mentioned above, in that the mother has some ’say’ in the fact that she is pregnant.
Levin argues, “the person who withdraws [or withholds] his assistance is not completely responsible for the dependency on him of the person who is about to die, while the mother is completely responsible for the dependency of her fetus on her. When one is completely responsible for dependence, refusal to continue to aid is indeed killing”. For example, “if a woman brings a newborn home from the hospital, puts it in its crib and refuses to feed it until it has starved to death, it would be absurd to say that she simply refused to assist it and had done nothing for which she should be criminally liable.”(Levin, Feminism, 288-89. )
Or consider the following case, which can be applied to the case of pregnancy resulting from rape or incest. Suppose a person returns home after work to find a baby at his doorstep. Suppose that no one else is able to take care of the child for nine months (after that time a couple will adopt the child). Imagine that this person, because of the child’s presence, will have some bouts with morning sickness, water retention, and other minor ailments. If we assume the unborn child is as much a person as you or I, would “withholding treatment” from this child and its subsequent death be justified on the basis that the homeowner was only “withholding treatment” of a child he did not ask for in order to benefit himself? Is any person, born or unborn, obligated to sacrifice his life because his death would benefit another person? Consequently, there is no doubt that such “withholding” of treatment (and it seems totally false to call ordinary shelter and sustenance “treatment”) is indeed murder.
But is it even accurate to refer to abortion as the “withholding of support or treatment”? Professors Schwarz and R.K. Tacelli make the important point that although “a woman who has an abortion is indeed ‘withholding support’ from her unborn child . . . abortion is far more than that. It is the active killing of a human person — by burning him, by crushing him, by dismembering him”(Stephen D. Schwarz and R.K. Tacelli, “Abortion and Some Philosophers: A Critical Examination,” Public Affairs Quarterly 3 (April 1989): 85.)
Euphemistically calling abortion the “withholding of support or treatment” makes about as much sense as calling suffocating someone with a pillow the withdrawing of oxygen.
This is a topic I can’t really discuss because I am firm in my pro-choice belief and will never be swayed. I deal with rape victims on a consistent basis and if the day ever comes that Plan B is withheld from them because of a legal reversal of Roe vs. Wade I am seriously going to consider moving to a more compassionate country that actually takes women’s rights seriously instead of paying lip service.
It’s all well and good to be “morally against” abortion if you are a man, but if abortion becomes illegal you aren’t going to see men dying of a botched abortion. It’s the women that do the dying. All the quoting of philosophers and legal mumbo jumbo isn’t going to change the human cost.
Personally I have never had an abortion nor would I have one. I have been married for over 2 decades to the same man and have children. I do not believe in using abortion as birth control. However, I am not willing to give up the need for abortion in cases where it is truely needed and warranted because of a few that use it for birth control.
First of all, I’d like to thank everyone for all the thoughtful comments and arguments. Just to repeat what Abogado already touched on, we’re not looking for a solution here, but rather to display the process, to dissect the arguments of each side and leave it up to the future readers to make their own decisions. I posted earlier today about what I hope these discussions can turn into.
OK, let me start by saying I am still in disagreement with those of you who maintain that the only issue is whether or not the fetus is a person. I ask those of you who claim a fetus is not a person to explain to me the difference between a premature born 8 months after fertilization and an 8 month old fetus and why the former deserves more protection.
HP brings up a very good point about legislating inequality given the reasoning of my argument:
I assume when HP says “racism” he really means “discrimination.” There is nothing about my argument that is biased against any ethnicity. It does however value the welfare of a woman over that of an unborn fetus.
Unfortunately, that sort of legislated inequality - valuing different lives differently - is common throughout the world and especially America. Let me give three examples.
1.) We tell our secret service guards to die for the President because we value the function, if not the life, of the President more.
2.) If a country has a draft, we demand our young men (or men and women in Israel’s case) to face death in order to protect the lives of other citizens. In the case of the US, with the GI bill, we encourage those who can’t afford college to risk their lives for those of us who can.
3.) Our health system does not treat all individuals equally. Those who can afford the best care get the best care and we therefore discriminate against the lives of the poor to save the lives of the rich.
This is all functionalism built into the system. I’m not say it’s right. And I’m not saying abortion is right, but if abortion is made illegal to protect each and every life equally, then the same logic should apply above.
HP, you use the clever analogy of killing “a temporarily comatose person who is suffocated to death.” You are right, neither the fetus nor the comatose person experience any suffering. But there are other aspects you must take into consideration. Has that person formed any bonds in society? Does he have any experience or memory of experience in society? Has he contributed to society?
Likewise, I would strongly advise any pregnant woman who has formed a bond with the fetus inside her not to get an abortion. But you cannot regulate that by law.
Now, you can use the analogy of a grown man who was born in a cave, left there alone from day one, never participated in society, knows absolutely nobody, then fell into a coma and was suffocated by some passerby who felt the cave man would negatively impact his/her life after awaking from the coma. But even in that hypothetical situation, you would have to assume the cave person had a long history of consciousness, which a fetus does not.
So again, I am valuing life inequally. But it’s not just function and awareness of pain. Experience in society, bonds formed with others, and consciousness (self-awareness) all must be factored in as well.
I’m just skimming here, but let me just jump in and address one point:
I wrote:
HP responded:
Actually, you are wrong–the heart of my argument is that the fetus is not a person.
And now I’m off to the dentist.
Hello Beckie,
You write,
I am curious, lets assume then that abortion was illegal except for cases of rape. Would that be acceptable to you?
The reason I ask is because you also wrote,
Yet it is a fact that the vast majority of abortions (more than 9 out of 10) are done precisely as a means of birth control.
You write,
I have to ask, why would you never have an abortion?
The reason I ask this is to show that once the pro-choicer in anyway grants some type of moral difference to abortion than say, removing your tonsils, the pro-choicer has given too much ground to the pro-lifer. Abortion is either the taking of an innocent life or it’s not, if it’s not, than there is absolutely no reason to say ‘I personally would never have an abortion,’ since abortion becomes as harmless as having your tonsils removed. It wouldn’t make sense to hear someone say, “I would never have my tonsils removed,” would it? However, *if* abortion is the taking of an innocent human life, than that statement makes sense. But instead of absolutizing that moral (do not kill an innocent human life), the pro-choicer argues to make it relative to the person. Something that I believe is counter-intuitive to our moral intuitions (the taking of an innocent human life should be an absolute, not a relative moral) and already siding more than half-way with the pro-life conclusion.
It reminds me of a story I read a while back. I read that early in the abortion debate a president of a prominent abortion group ( I can’t remember which one) got reprimanded by her colleagues because she was on TV discussing abortion and said something very similar to what Beckie wrote. The pro-choicers immediately recognized what her statement would lead to. Which is why now the pro-choice industry, when speaking about abortion, makes no moral distinction between abortion and any other surgery. Shoot, they even have a shirt that proudly says, “I had an abortion”. Although I am horrified at what I see as the moral callousness of that group, I at least applaud their moral consistency. I just don’t think the average American realizes that abortion goes that far.
One more thing, as Oso and others have pointed out, we are not trying to solve the abortion debate here. We are not trying to debate abortion and see who wins the argument. I was asked merely to present the reasons for my beliefs, and explain them when needed.
Hello Oso,
I think we are starting to arrive at the point where the true disagreement lies between the pro-choice and pro-life sides. A lot of people don’t realize (as is evident by many of the responses) that the ‘higher level’ debates regarding abortion concede that the unborn child is a human being. With the advancement of recent scientific discoveries (DNA, for example) it has been extremely difficult (I would say impossible) for the pro-choice side to maintain that the unborn child is not a human being. Which is why the higher level debates mirror much closer to where I see you going with this, conceding that the unborn child is a human being, and evaluating it from that point.
I’d just like to make a few comments, you write,
Doh. Yes, that is what I meant. I often (erronously) use the terms interchangably. You get the idea though.
As far as your examples of legislated inequality are concerned, (IMO) they all have at least one central difference between them and abortion.
Number 1 is not the same because the goal there is to save life, not end it. It would be more comparable to a mother undergoing the birth of her child when the doctors say that birth might cause her to lose her own life. Although this may be a noble cause, it is still her decision (as ultimately it is the secret services) and not her obligation.
Number 2 is somewhat the same, but still significantly different. I agree that the draft implies the government has the right to force you to do something against your will for a cause the state finds desirable(winning a war). In the case of the draft, the state obviously finds the war in question worth fighting, and thereby forces you to fight it. However, abortion is much more fundamental than that. While the justification for particular wars may be debatable, almost everybody would agree that preventing someone from killing an innocent person is a desirable goal for the government. So one can be against (or, for that matter, support) the concept of the draft, and still be strongly against abortion. Comparing the two would be analogous to someone arguing that if you are for laws that prohibit rape, you must be for the draft. The two clearly are on seperate scales.
Number 3 is also different. First, in health care, the goal of the health care industry is to save the most lives, it is just forced to do that with limited resources. For example, let’s assume there is a medic in a war field who only has one life saving syringe, yet is forced to choose between two equally ill patients. If he chooses the one that offers him a greater financial benefit some might find that morally repulsive, but nobody would conclude that the medic killed the second patient. Contrast that to abortion, where the mother chooses to terminate the unborn child’s life.
My point here is not to argue for or against any of the above examples. I am merely trying to point out their differences from abortion. In abortion, unlike any of the cases above, you have the direct killing of an innocent person for no other reason than (fundamentally) a choice of lifestyle. Not very many things in life reach that degree of ‘morality.’ (If you factor in the fact that it is the mother doing the killing, abortion becomes even more horrific, that is why, IMO, Mother Theresa said ‘if abortion is not wrong, nothing is wrong’, since you are hard pressed to find something worse, morally speaking, that is.)
In short, I guess I am saying that I still don’t see how abortion and the beliefs above are so tightly tied together that you can conclude, ” but if abortion is made illegal to protect each and every life equally, then the same logic should apply above.”
More importantly, you write,
And so we have now arrived at the main differences between the pro-choice and pro-life community. Those of us on the right would argue that it is completely irrelevant whether a human being has ‘formed any bonds in society’, or ‘have any experience or memory of experience in society’, or ‘contributed to society’. We on the right feel that the value of human life is valued in itself, apart from any of the above (this is primarily why Christians naturally find abortion wrong. Those in that community take it as an axiom that we are all equally valuable by our nature - in the eyes of God, they say. Historically this was a very revolutionary idea, and one could argue, fundamental to the birth of democracy).
In other words, if you are a human being you are ipso facto a person deserving of all human rights.
Those of us on the right would find it equally(or more so) repulsive to kill an infant as an adult. Or, to put it more bluntly, to kill Bill Gates as to kill some poor Compton kid that serves no real ‘contribution to society’. If both are innocent, given the same circumstances, both lives are equally valued.
It is fundamentally the sanctity of life (Pro-life view) verses the quality of life (Pro-choice view) debate all over again.
To accept functionalism brings in a myriad of different conclusions. As my quotes above from Philosophy Professor Peter Kreeft demonstrate (scroll up and re-read them), functionalism becomes a very subjective measuring stick. One could use functionalism to argue for a variety of different things. You have moved from the easily verifiable and scientific (are you a member of the species homo sapien) to the highly opinionated and subjective. Who is to say what function is of importance, and why?
Also, functionalism is a much more difficult topic to argue. For example, how do you argue with someone that doesn’t agree that stealing is wrong, or that rape is wrong? How would you go about showing them they are wrong? In most ethical discussions those beliefs are taken as a given and built upon. To question the fundamental moral axioms of society is a lot like questioning the fundamanetal axioms of math (like disagreeing that A*B = B*A), there is no direct proof one can offer.
Like in math, one could use the absurdity of the contrary. I could show you the results that would naturally follow if you accept functionalism. For example, I could point you to the new direction in the medical community, as Wesley J. Smith has pointed out. He writes,
” What is so alarming is that the movers and shakers of the bioethics movement generally reject Hippocratic medical values, the sanctity/equality of human life, and believe that moral value is not based on being a human being. Rather than accepting an “equality of life” ethic, they propound a “quality of life” ethic. Thus, they have created a way to divide life — whether human or animal — between those deemed as having ultimate moral worth, generally called “persons,” from those with less value, generally called “non persons.” Many bioethicists believe that some animals are persons and some people — generally, those with poor cognitive capacity — are non-persons. And even bioethicists who reject animals as persons accept the premise of the human non-person who can be used as an object rather than a subject. Thus, some look at non-persons as sources of organs or as available for “us” to use in medical experiments. Some even posit that non-persons can be killed morally. The most famous of these is Princeton’s Peter Singer, but he is certainly not alone.
What is really disturbing is that these folk are not fringe thinkers but are at the heart of the elite: They serve on presidential bioethics commissions, work with Congress to create public policy, testify in court, teach the doctors and civic leaders of tomorrow in our most elite universities, advise HMOs, etc. They are among our society’s most influential people.”
But even this would be somewhat begging the question. For this assumes that the person you are showing this to holds the same ethical premises you yourself hold. But this is not the case, it is precisely those ethical premises that are under discussion.
In the end, neither the pro-quality of life (functionalism), nor the pro-sanctity of life side can truly prove their case. Like all battles of axioms, it really boils down to who you can convince, a war of ideas really. That is why this is referred to as the ‘culture wars’, since fundamentally that is precisely what it is. A fight between the Judeo-Christian culture this great country has held for so long against a new culture, a new way of looking at the world where a human being is valued by his ‘quality of life’.
Many books have been written about this new ‘war’, for those more interested.
One of the things that will surprise you as you start to delve deeper into these higher level debates is how significant the differences are on both sides. Things that you may take as obvious truths are no longer obvious when talking to a pro-quality of life person. Aside from what I mentioned above, some of the people on that side of the aisle have a sympathetic view to infanticide, a grim view of pregnancy (some even call it a disease), a grim view of the traditional family unit, and a grim view of the woman who decides