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.”
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.
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!
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.
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!
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.
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.
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.
HP you are missing the point and trying to cloud the base issue with spin. I say I would never have an abortion because that is my CHOICE. Given the CHOICE I would not do it. Even in this instance there is an exception. If by some miracle of science it was determined my baby would be born severly handicapped to the point of dying shortly after birth, I would abort the baby. Having your tonsils out and having an abortion are not the same thing. Even if I did need my tonsils removed, I would have a CHOICE on whether or not I want them removed. Life is not black and white, which is the base of your argument. You say that either abortion is taking an innocent life or it isn’t. It’s not that simple, you are dealing with human beings. This is why the pro-life movement can not be reasoned with, because it’s either black, or it’s white. If the pro-choice movement were to concede, even a little bit, the pro-life movement would use it as a stepping stone to having abortion in all cases declared illegal.
Beckie,
The very point of this conversation is to show that both sides can be reasoned with. I know that I have learned a lot and I am sure that HP has as well.
Your comment brings up a lot of good points though.
HP,
If abortion were made legal, would you advocate exceptions if it were clear the baby would be severely disabled and/or have a very short and suffering life span? Also, I think you owe it to us to explain your position on abortion in cases of rape and incest.
I am absurdly late to this conversation, but have read and feel like adding my two cents just so I can feel included. As far as where abortion fits with me personally, I would have an abortion before I would have my tonsils removed. Babies are far more real to me than my tonsils, so I get what would happen if I had the baby, but would have to trust others on the tonsils thing.
And generally speaking, I completely agree that abortion is murder. [I will not concede that it is the murder of innocents. Babies aren’t innocent. Cells aren’t innocent. If the opposite of innocent is guilt, or wrongdoing, then we just like to think babies are innocent to believe that at one point, we were. Eden’s gone.] I just don’t care. I’ve tried and I can’t get myself worked up about it. What happens when a woman has an abortion? I mean, besides death. Because death isn’t the point. We can’t avoid death. But typically, there’s “death and…(funerals, one less flower being pollinated, vice-president becomes president, light disappears, etc.)”
So if I concede that abortion is murder, is there a compelling reason to not support that particular type of murder (one in my mind that has no “and”), other than “because it’s wrong”?
Xeres,
I’m tempted to give you a standing ovation shouting bravo, bravo, but I think HP has already made a good argument for why abortion should be made illegal beyond that it’s just “bad.”
Why restrict the killing then just to the mother? Why not let everyone kill everyone else? Why impede natural selection? Why not gas the Jews? I have a rich Jewish friend who doesn’t even let me eat the beans and rice on his combo #4 at Fred’s. Why can’t I kill him?
Or are you just flirting with our favorite Anarchist, El Moreno?
Oso,
Because all of your examples have an “and”. I am fully aware of the consequences of murder when someone can explain to me what the consequences are. If there is no “and then…”, who cares? The idea that legalizing one form of murder will be a gateway to legalizing all murder is silly. (We already have legalized forms of murder – capital punishment, war, self-defense – and you still can’t gas Jews. And I’d also add that those forms, in my mind, have fairly obvious “ands…”) You can’t yell fire in a crowded theater, despite what the First Amendment says. There are all kinds of limitations on broader ideas in this country. So I’m still trying to figure out what’s so bad about just killing babies? Why anyone cares?
And no, no flirting. Just something in my eye.
I have to question the central premise of this discussion: that there is some problem of lack of understanding between pro-lifers and pro-choicers, which can be remedied by greater debate.
I don’t see any lack of understanding. I think I can summarize the pro-life position in two short sentences: Fetuses are people. Abortion is murder. I think HispanicPundit will agree with me that I’ve summed up his position pretty well.
And I can summarize the pro-choice position in two sentences: Fetuses are tissue. Abortion is surgery, with no greater moral or ethical component than removing a mole or having a tooth pulled.
There is no possibility of compromise on these positions. How can you say that, well, some murder is all right? And, likewise, how can you do anything but try to maximize people’s ability to make their own decisions on how to maximize their health and quality of life?
(I’ll say this for the pro-life position: It’s pithier.)
There can, however, be common ground: we can all agree that abortion should be minimized. The label “pro-choice” is not a euphemism; no rational person is in favor of abortion; all surgery is dangerous and should be avoided whereever possible. Prevention is better than treatment for any medical condition.
But, even there, means of minimizing the frequency of abortion is the subject of heated argument: pro-lifers also tend to be pro-abstinence, while pro-choicers will likely favor greater accesss to birth control.
Perhaps you all wanted this to die down…if so, sorry 🙂 I just wanted to add a few comments as a Christian female student of religion and government who is vehemently pro-choice but would personally never have an abortion. (also i’m brand new to the site, hi).
The most important thing as far as I’m concerned is the fact that the “abortion debate” is not actually a debate about whether or not abortion is “wrong” – it is rather a debate about government policy. Even if abortion is “wrong” that doesn’t necessarily mean that the government should ban it. For me it all comes down to the double whammy that 1.) A ban on abortion won’t *work* because it’s fundamentally unenforceable. It’s like outlawing suicide or self-mutilation. How are you going to stop me from injuring myself (convenient miscarriage triggered by accident with coat hanger…oops. oh and the massive hemorrage was a real downer of a side effect too)? If it’s illegal, I’ll just be more desperate and endanger two lives instead of one. So then the question is – if the law won’t *work* is it really worth it? 2.)One might argue that the principle of the thing makes it worth it – we undermine the concept of the sanctity of life (thus leading to all kinds of slippery-slope shenanigans) by permitting abortion. This argument has validity, but is just too profoundly outweighed by the real damage (oso’s “suffering”), and by the infringement upon several other moral entities held to be sacred in the American version of the social contract (liberty, happiness, moral agency, etc) to win the day (in my judgement). I think abortion is wrong, immoral, a sin – but it’s the lesser of two evils in many cases. The question of when it’s the greater vs. the lesser evil is ambiguous enough and functionally irrelevant enough (given the inefficacy of any law banning abortion, as discussed) that it should be left to churches and individuals to oppose it in the practical sense. Ideally, this opposition would take the form of helping to make it unnecessary.
Others have made the point about the ambiguity of the term “person” – I would like to add support to the notion that it’s not an either/or thing – the term encompasses a range of states, each of which entail differing legal rights. People have argued for millenia about what exactly constitutes a “person” – personally I would hope it’s more than a functioning body…I’d like to think a “person” is necessarily an individual with attributes like free will, agency, personality, etc. A fetus is in the grey area. It is a person in many ways, but in other ways it is not. There are, additionally, legal labels for “killing a person” – there’s murder in the first, second, manslaughter, etc. It’s easy to say that it’s either murder or surgery, but it’s not that simple. (And we don’t have to make it that simple because we want to say abortion is “wrong.” and again, we don’t have to say abortion isn’t wrong to say it should be legal).
We live in a fallen world. My ex-boyfriend’s grandmother brought a 10th child into to the world a few months after an elder brother died of starvation. That’s just awful. I wish she’d believed in birth control, and had focused more on not endangering the lives of the children she already had. I wish pastors made more money so she could have afforded to feed her children.
My cousin has a dysfunctional heart and learning disabilities because his mother was doing serious drugs while pregnant. And he’s had no health insurance to take care of such things for most of his life because his father’s 1.) not very smart and 2.) not very rich.
People endanger life every time they get in a car, every time they smoke, every time they buy a product made in a factory that pollutes a stream that flows into a lake innocent children swim in. The world is a messy complicated place. Even if abortion is “killing a person” instead of “killing tissue” – it’s a kind of killing that’s a lot closer to an act of self-defense than it is to murder. It’s a tragedy, but sometimes it’s necessary. I wouldn’t have an abortion myself (unless the pregnancy would almost certainly kill me), and I don’t know if I could actually kill someone even in self-defense…but I don’t want either to be illegal.
“Us conservatives are not so fond of letting the government have so much power, especially with regard to something so important (human life).”
WHAT????
Please explain to me how you came to say something like this. It seems so completely wrong I can’t even wrap my mind around it…it seems to me you want to give the government ALL the power. What power is being retained by the woman in your scenario? You’re essentially saying that people can’t be trusted to make morally correct decisions, are you not? Paternalism vs functionalism?
I have a profound problem with the definitional lines you’ve drawn (I had missed the other thread last time). I have to go to a concert now, but will come back and more fully articulate those tproblems. I just had to ask the question about the power issue because I was so completely floored by your statement.
Also, if you could point out to me where you defined “the sanctity of human life ethic”? This also does not seem to me to be self evident, nor incompatible with what one might call “the quality of human life ethic”…but it would be helpful if I had a definition so I could just focus on what you’re actually talking about instead of all the different versions I might postulate the term….
Hello Alison, I am writing a blog on it now, over at my website. I will link to it as soon as I finish it up, but it probably won’t be until sometime at the beginning of the week(finals are here).
I apologize I can’t respond more now.
Damn edit button, I don’t have it on this post, this is what I meant to say above on the last two paragraphs,
On the other hand, if you answer yes, and still think you are on the pro-choice side, I disagree. You already are pro-life, your moral intuitions are on the pro-life side, you just (IMO) haven’t thought through your views enough. You are holding two inconsistent views. The debate with you will involve flushing these inconsistencies out.
Now, if you answer no, and believe in the pro-choice side, than you truly are pro-choice. The debate with you will be at a much higher level, and will involve which philosophy is better, sanctity of life, or quality of life. But you don’t suffer from an inconsistency problem.
HP, for such a bright guy like yourself, that’s the most idiotic “test” I’ve ever heard of. An infant is an infant and an adult is an adult. That’s why we have two different words.
The value of any person or object depends on the beholder. Saying everyone is exactly equal is an admirable (and liberal) ideal, but it’s ridiculous policy.
I’m sorry if I sounds pessimistic, but this discussion is starting to go in circles.
I’m gonna be outta town this weekend, but I’ll give you a call tomorrow.
Oh and, let me know when you want me to stop responding. This is your blog afterall, and we can let this die down anytime you wish. 🙂
If pro-lifers were so concerned with protecting life, why are they typically the ones so pro-war? They draw a distinction somehow, that the life of the unborn is more valuable than the one who is already born. They practice preference. They are pick and choose which life is more important and that by itself makes no sense. (Oh, and I do not care to read about the “sacrifice” an adult life lost in war has made for the benefit of other lives here at home . . . it’s propaganda).
The same hypocrisy could be charged of those that are pro-choice, anti-war as the same inconsistencies apply.
I didn’t ask if an infant was an adult, I asked if they were both persons.
— HP
Yes, they are both persons. I believe in the Roe case…..lawyers referred to a “person” in a post natal sense. So again, an infant and an adult are both persons. 😉
If pro-lifers were so concerned with protecting life, why are they typically the ones so pro-war?
–Deb
Although war is ugly, it is sometimes necessary.
How many people should a tyrant kill before the U.S. puts an end to that situation. Is there a magic number. For instance, Saddam has killed over 600,000 Shiites. He believed in ethnic cleansing.
Should the United States waited until he killed over 1 million Shiites? What about when Saddam would pay terrorists’ families to strap bombs on themselves and kill Israelites?
Saddam was a tyrant and payed terrorist between 10K – 12K.
Pro-lifers generally are not “pro-war” but are the type of people who believe in helping those who cannot help themselves. Tyrants like Saddam and Hitler need to be stopped. These kinds of people will continue, and continue, and continue to kill if they are not stopped.
No?
I’ll respond more tomorrow afternoon…My final is tomorrow from 12:30pm to 3:30pm…
But trust me, I got a lot to say…;)
Hello Deb,
You write, “If pro-lifers were so concerned with protecting life, why are they typically the ones so pro-war?”
Abortion, *if* it involves the killing of a human being, is of the worse kind of murder. Not only does it involve an innocent person, but it involves the most defenseless members of society(children) and is being performed by the mother, the very person who should love this child the most.
So the proper question isn’t why are pro-lifers typically pro-war, the real question is why anti-war advocates are typically pro-choice.
Hey DD,
You write, Yes, they are both persons. I believe in the Roe case…..lawyers referred to a “person” in a post natal sense. So again, an infant and an adult are both persons.
Which reminds of the (circular) justification the supreme court used to allow abortion.
Francis Beckwith rights,
Many who defend the viability criterion argue in a circle. Take, for example, Supreme Court Justice Harry Blackmun’s use of it in his dissenting opinion in Webster v. Reproductive Health Services (1989):
The viability line reflects the biological facts and truths of fetal development; it marks the threshold moment prior to which a fetus cannot survive separate from the woman and cannot reasonably and objectively be regarded as a subject of rights or interests distinct from, or paramount to, those of the pregnant woman. At the same time, the viability standard takes account of the undeniable fact that as the fetus evolves into its postnatal form, and as it loses its dependence on the uterine environment, the State’s interest in the fetus’ potential human life, and in fostering a regard for human life in general, becomes compelling. (Webster v. Reproductive Health Services (1989) in United States Law Week 57 (July 1989):5040)
Blackmun first tells us that viability is the time at which the state has interest in protecting potential human life because the fetus has no interests or rights prior to being able to survive outside the womb. But then we are told that viability is the best criterion because it “takes account of the undeniable fact that as the fetus evolves…and loses its dependence on the uterine environment, the State’s interest in the fetus’ potential human life… becomes compelling.” In other words, Blackmun is claiming that the state only has an interest in protecting fetal life when that life can live outside the womb. But why is this correct? Because, we are told, prior to being able to live outside the womb the fetus has no interests or rights. But this is clearly circular reasoning, for Blackmun is assuming (that the fetus has no interests or rights prior to viability) what he is trying to prove (that the fetus has no interests or rights prior to viability). This argument is no more compelling than the one given by the political science professor who argues that democracy is the best form of government because the best form of government is one run by the people (which, of course, is democracy). Such arguments are circular because they provide no independent reasons for their conclusions.
I wonder if the “cloned baby” thing is real. I mean I know scientists can clone sheeps but I have not found out whether or not scientists are experimenting with cloning humans. I heard a lot of rhetoric a while back, and HP’s discussion sort of had me wondering. Anyone know?
HP,
Even the most extreme pro-lifers understand (perhaps subconsciously) the difference between a fetus and an adult. Otherwise, as I said before, abortion would amount to an annual Holocaust and you could very well make a great argument for killing ever pro-choicer today in order to save the lives of fetuses for centuries down the road.
But, unlike going into WWII, no sane person would ever propose that because they do in fact realize the difference between a fetus and an adult.
Now, if you say you’d be against using violence to end violence, then we’re going to have some very interesting conversations when foreign policy is up.
I am arguing that it is morally wrong to kill a human being, regardless of the stage of development that human being is presently in.
–HP
I’m beginning to think that the use of the word “moral” is a red flag.
I agree with you HP, it is unjust to kill, that is why I am so against abortion. Not only that, the effects of having an abortion on women are horrible. I have visited a few websites in which some have reached out to women who have had abortions. Perhaps if abortion doctors would address the after affects, maybe, just maybe the decision in having an abortion might be reconsidered? 😕
Yawn.
Quickening determined the definition for personhood because of technology, not because of morality. Before quickening, nobody could guarantee that the unborn child was alive, hence the reduced sentence.
Beckwith writes,
*John Warwick Montgomery, Slaughter of the Innocents (Westchester, IL: Crossway, 1981), 37. For more on quickening, see ibid., 103-19; and David W. Louisell and John T. Noonan, “Constitutional Balance,” in The Morality of Abortion, 223-26.
Yawn.
I just wanted to make sure I was number 69.
Good to see you updated.
Email coming tonight.