July 15, 2003
From the desk of Jane Galt:All abortion, all the time
I'm sorry. But I just found another good article on the subject, this one on why Americans, unlike Europeans, can't seem to move beyond the debate.
Posted by Jane Galt at July 15, 2003 2:07 PM | TrackBack | Technorati inbound linksI can't see the article, but the easiest explanation about why the US can't move beyond the debate is that the Supreme Court never allowed the debate to happen at all.
Only just catching up with back issues of the economist, Megan?
Point of information: Abortion in the UK was legalized by David Steele (later leader of the Liberal Party) in a private members bill, i.e. the bill wasn't backed by any of the party whips. MPs voted according to their individual consciences.
Problem is, MPs don't face primaries in the same way as congresspeople do; they're selected by constituency parties (with considerable suasion from the national parties and, for the Labour party, trade unions), and UK voters tend to vote much more on a straight party ticket.
The United States did not deal with abortion as Europe did. As a result, the issue divides the country as bitterly as ever
ANNIVERSARIES don't get much more controversial than this. On January 22nd, America will mark the thirtieth anniversary of the Supreme Court decision that declared abortion a constitutional right. Anti-abortionists will march in Washington in their thousands, carrying gruesome photographs. Supporters of abortion rights will retort that Roe v Wade, the decision in question, was one of the great milestones in the long march for women's rights—a heroic decision that has saved thousands of women from death by coat-hanger or back-street butchery. The two sides will end the day even more polarised than ever.
Since 1973, about 75 countries have liberalised their abortion laws (the most recent being Switzerland and Nepal last year). In most countries, that was enough to settle the debate. Not in America.
The Supreme Court's ruling immediately created a furious backlash. State legislatures passed laws restricting the rights of minors to obtain abortions, usually by requiring the consent of one or both parents. In 1976 Henry Hyde, an Illinois congressman, sponsored legislation eliminating Medicaid funding for abortions except in extreme cases (such as rape, incest or where a woman's life was endangered by her pregnancy). Some extremists took to blowing up clinics and shooting abortion doctors (who, in turn, took to coming to work wearing bullet-proof vests).
. . .
Why does abortion remain so much more controversial in America than in the other countries that have legalised it? The fundamental reason is the way the Americans went about legalisation. European countries did so through legislation and, occasionally, referenda. This allowed abortion opponents to vent their objections and legislators to adjust the rules to local tastes. Above all, it gave legalisation the legitimacy of majority support.
Most European countries provide abortion free. But they have also hedged the practice with all sorts of qualifications. They justify abortion on the basis of health rather than rights. Many European countries impose a 12-week limit (America, by contrast, allows abortion up to about 24 weeks and beyond, and many abortion-rights advocates seem to oppose any restrictions.) Frances Kissling, head of Catholics for a Free Choice, also points out that the Europeans have been careful to preserve a patina of disapproval. Even in England, the country with the most liberal abortion laws in Europe, women have to get permission from two doctors.
America went down the alternative route of declaring abortion a constitutional right. (The only other country that has done anything comparable is South Africa.) . . . It would be hard to design a way of legalising abortion that could be better calculated to stir up controversy. Abortion opponents were furious about being denied their say. Abortion supporters had to rely on the precarious balance of power on the Supreme Court. Legalisation did not have the legitimacy of majority support. Instead, it rested on a highly controversial interpretation of the constitution (abortion rights are clearly not enshrined in the constitution in the same plain way that free speech is). By going down the legislative road, the Europeans managed to neutralise the debate; by relying on the hammer-blow of a Supreme Court decision, the Americans institutionalised it.
A second reason is the continued importance of religion in American life. The Pew Global Attitudes Project recently revealed that six in ten (59%) of Americans say that religion plays a “very important” role in their lives. This is roughly twice the percentage of self-avowed religious people in Canada (30%) and an even higher proportion when compared with Japan and Europe. To find comparable numbers, you need to look at developing countries.
. . . The third reason why abortion is so controversial is the American fondness for arguing about fundamentals. Europeans routinely turn moral issues into technical ones—and then hand them over to technocratic elites. America is a country of fundamentalists, thanks to its constitutional tradition, its legal culture and perhaps its Puritan heritage. For Americans, abortion can never be just about health. It has to be a clash of absolutes: the right to choose versus the right to life. Add to that the openness of the American political system, which makes it impossible to hand controversial questions over to technocratic elites, and you have the making of an endless argument about fundamentals.
. . .
American politics is now deeply coloured by both religion and abortion. Regularity of church attendance is a much more reliable predictor of voting intentions than income. Anti-abortion groups such as the Family Research Council (FRC) and Focus on the Family are among the most powerful components of the Republican coalition. The Democratic Party is so intertwined with NARAL Pro-Choice America, the rebranded National Abortion Rights Action League, that all the party's prospective presidential candidates have been invited to dine at its headquarters on January 21st to celebrate the anniversary.
There are still pro-choice Republicans (like Colin Powell) and anti-abortion Democrats. But they are swimming against the tide.
. . .
Roe has left the American legal system hopelessly politicised. The Democrats destroyed Robert Bork's chances of sitting on the Supreme Court in part because of his presumed views on abortion. Abortion politics are even poisoning the appointment of lower-level judges (despite the fact that they have almost no discretion over abortion), creating ever more vacancies on the bench and denying many eminent lawyers the promotion they deserve. The Senate confirmed 95% of Ronald Reagan's circuit-court nominees in his first two years, and 86% of Bill Clinton's; so far, it has confirmed 53% of Mr Bush's.
The abortion debate has more practical implications, too. The number of doctors willing to practise this branch of medicine is declining, in part because of fear of violence. It took years for RU486, the “abortion pill” that is common in Europe, to make it to the United States. Mr Bush, sensitive to pressure from the Christian right, severely restricted embryonic stem-cell research in the United States, a decision that some scientists think could cost America its lead in a vital area of research.
Abortion politics have also had a marked influence on foreign policy. Since the 1970s, America has introduced strict rules governing the distribution of family-planning assistance to developing countries. In 1973 Jesse Helms, an intractable former senator from North Carolina, introduced an amendment to the Foreign Assistance Act prohibiting the use of federal money to support abortions overseas. In 1984 the Reagan administration imposed the “Mexico City Policy” prohibiting overseas NGOs from receiving American funds if they performed or promoted abortions, even if they did so with their own money. (This has since become the subject of much symbolism: one of the first things Mr Clinton did on coming to office was to abolish this rule, and one of the first things Mr Bush did was to reimpose it.) In December last year the head of the American delegation caused a stir at a United Nations conference in Bangkok when he declared that America “supports the sanctity of life from conception to natural death”.
Where is abortion politics going? The abortion-rights camp believes that their position is as perilous as it has been for 30 years. This is the first time since 1973 that the president, the leader of the Senate and the leader of the House have all been opposed to abortion.
Many anti-abortionists are also quietly convinced that they are winning the battle for people's minds. They have highlighted rare practices like “partial-birth abortion” that most people find repugnant: the name in itself is a propaganda coup. They are busy building what they call a “coalition of the vulnerable”, arguing that, if people are prepared to dispose of inconvenient fetuses, they will start disposing of inconvenient old people, sick people and poor people. According to a Gallup poll, the proportion of the public who believe that abortion should be legal in all cases has gone down from 34% in 1992 to 24%.
Anti-abortionists have also relentlessly whittled away at abortion rights. Every year new legislation restricting abortion is introduced in statehouses across the country. A long queue of anti-abortion bills is awaiting consideration in Congress. The Child Custody Protection Act makes it a crime for anybody other than the parent to transport a minor across state lines in order to have an abortion. The Unborn Victims of Violence Act (which is similar to bills introduced in many states) creates a new offence: killing or injuring a fetus during the commission of a federal crime. The Bush administration has made fetuses eligible for the State Children's Health Insurance Programme, and directed the Advisory Commission on Human Research Protection to consider embryos as “human research subjects” on a par with children.
. . .
Abortion is now better regulated than ever before. Many of the restrictions on abortion rights imposed by anti-abortionists have had the paradoxical effect of making the practice more acceptable. More than half of all abortions are now performed in the first eight weeks of pregnancy, up from under 40% in 1973, and 89% in the first 12 weeks. A report just released by the Alan Guttmacher Institute also shows abortions at an all-time low of 21.3 per 1,000 women aged 15-44, compared with the 1980-81 peak of 29.3.
Lastly, Republican presidents are terrified of pushing the abortion issue too far. They are happy to throw a few bones to the religious right (which is why development aid is such a convenient target). But they realise that challenging the central principle of Roe would doom them with moderate voters—particularly women. In his confirmation hearings, John Ashcroft, the attorney-general, was following White House instructions when he described Roe as “the settled law of the land”. “The Supreme Court's decisions on this have been multiple, they have been recent, and they have been emphatic,” he said.
Emphatic indeed. The court reaffirmed Roe's central principle—that states cannot ban abortions—as recently as 1992, by a five-to-four majority, in the case of Planned Parenthood v Casey. In doing so, it cited the need for stability in the law. In 2000, the same majority struck down Nebraska's ban on partial-birth abortion. And even if the court should revisit the case, there is little chance that it will reverse itself and make abortion illegal. The most that anti-abortion justices such as Antonin Scalia argue for is taking the decision away from the Supreme Court and handing it back to the legislatures. The betting is that almost all legislatures would uphold the right to abortion.
Is there any chance that the opposite will happen—and that abortion will become as uncontroversial in the United States as it is in Europe? Not really. The last 30 years of abortion politics have seen the creation of two pressure groups with a vested interest in keeping the debate as fierce as possible. Ken Connor of the FRC is thoroughly connected to the Republican establishment. And the best way for Kate Michelman, the head of NARAL Pro-Choice America, to shake the liberal money trees is to insist that Roe is on the verge of being overturned. There is no chance of America becoming “European” in its attitude to abortion.
There is also no truth in the predictions that abortion is about to be banned. The practice has become too much of a safety-net for middle-class women to be marginalised, let alone removed. Debates will flicker on the margins as opponents of abortion grapple with the potential of stem-cell research to cure terrible diseases, and as supporters grapple with the full horror of what it means to abort a fetus at 28 weeks. But, for the most part, the prospect is stalemate.
Roe v Wade may have liberated many women; yet it has also trapped America in an irresolvable clash of absolutes. The one safe prediction is that the issue will continue to shape the war between left and right for years to come—and that the fortieth anniversary of Roe v Wade will be just as acrimonious as the thirtieth.
Editor's Note from Jane: This has been trimmed to "fair use" size.
Debate? What debate? The various sides (there ARE more than two) are doing nothing but talk past each other.
What is often forgotten is that, by the time of the Roe decision, abortion was legal in almost half the states probably (I say "probably" because it was legal in California and New York, among the "almost half the states") covering more than half the population. If the Supreme Court hadn't gotten involved, most state legislatures would probably have removed most abortion restrictions by the end of the 1970's.
The only thing that irritates me about the abortion debate relates to the alleged inconsistency of abortion regulation by free-market supporters. These things are not comparable at all.
I don't have strong opinions about abortion because I find it unclear as to when life begins. There's no doubt in my mind that this point pre-dates birth (I think most people concede this, particularly those with children), but it's not at all clear that life begins at conception.
But the issue here is when life begins and nothing else. If life does begin at conception, abortion is murder and no rationalization suffices to explain this away. The idea that Republicans are inconsistent on this is silly. You might as well claim that Republicans are inconsistent for supporting murder statutes (or any other criminal statute) while also supporting free-markets.
What Republicans (generally in theory) support is free-market economics. If they supported this in fact I might consider myself one.
Thanks for saying that for me MJ. You saved me a bunch of typing.
The article seems to make the point that the center of American public opinion is generally in much the same place as the center of European public opinion -- a veneer of disapproval over a desire to keep the procedure available. I thus see the real issue to be why the opposite poles of the debate are so much louder in the US thatn in Europe. It seems to me that the article sets forth plausible reasons; the uniquely religious nature of the US driving one side of the debate, and the uniquely rights-based political culture of the US driving the other side.
I don't find the argument about the US Supreme Court "short-circuiting the debate" to be terribly persuasive. Look at mj's comment above, for instance. For people holding such views, why would legalized abortion be any more acceptable simply because it had been enacted by a state legislature?
"I don't find the argument about the US Supreme Court "short-circuiting the debate" to be terribly persuasive."
It isn't persuasive since it isn't particularly accurate. From what knowledgeable people have told me, it wasn't so much the SC's decision that set anti-abortion people off, it was the fact that abortion procedures had to be covered by, for example, government programs, insurance and so forth, and anti-abortionists believed that they were--albeit indirectly--supporting abortion, at least financially. That was what really set them off.
Raj,
I'd like to point out that, while about half the states (and more than half of the physical country most likely), did allow women to have access to legal, safe abortions by 1973, there was absolutely no evidence that the other half of the country would have allowed the same laws to pass (or repeal the old laws).
That's like saying, since half the country in 1985 didn't have laws banning sodomy, it's clear that 15 years later no state would have a law banning sodomy. We know how untrue that is.
I personally think that Fundamentalism is the root of the abortion debate in the US. A strong reaction from a group in one direction, causes and even stronger reaction by the opposite group in the other direction. Realisticly, I believe there should be restrictions put on abortions (that aren't done with the express purpose of either saving the mother's life or reproductive organs), but if you make statements like that then you invariably get into a "slippery slope" argument. Another example of this type of slippery slope, as it relates to another issue is the arguement that The NRA and people who are against gun control make. They would probably agree with me that we shouldn't sell guns to 15 year olds or people who are violent and have mental problems, but by agreeing to that then they are limiting gun rights and that leads them down the potential slippery slope.
Personally I think it sucks that we can't all be rational about this and come to a compromise, but people on neither side will ever be willing to concede, so we're stuck with this debate.
Raj, your theory on the pitch of the abortion debate is a bit odd since in fact the US government does not pay for abortions. Most government health programs and many private helath programs do not pay for abortions. How can this be the defining problem?
Sebastian H:
I can't see the article, but the easiest explanation about why the US can't move beyond the debate is that the Supreme Court never allowed the debate to happen at all.
Don't be ridiculous. There is probably more debate about abortion in America than in any other country in the world.
mj:
But the issue here is when life begins and nothing else. If life does begin at conception, abortion is murder and no rationalization suffices to explain this away.
Nonsense. Even if "life begins at conception" that obviously does not imply that abortion is, or is morally equivalent to, murder. Refusing to allow your body to be used to gestate a developing fetus, even if you consider the fetus to be the equivalent of a born child, is not the same thing as murder. Even most opponents of legal abortion admit this, which is why they support exceptions for rape and life-of-the-mother cases, and why they oppose treating women who have abortions in the same way as women who commit infanticide.
The idea that Republicans are inconsistent on this is silly.
Republicans are hopelessly inconsistent on abortion.
"There is probably more debate about abortion in America than in any other country in the world."
Hence the inability to move beyond the debate. :)
The words in the middle of sentences are sometimes important.
Sebastian H:
Hence the inability to move beyond the debate. :)
No, of course not. The fact, contrary to your claim, that abortion is vigorously debated in America does not imply that that debate will be resolved or "moved beyond" (whatever that means) in the near future.
Kate:
Personally I think it sucks that we can't all be rational about this and come to a compromise
What kind of compromise would meet with your approval?
There is nothing new in the thesis that the Supreme Court's decision in Roe short-circuited the political process that might have led to a civil resolution of the abortion debate. [I rather suspect that the result of a political settlement would have looked somewhat more restrictive than Roe, which is where a majority of Americans have always been.] I remember reading in the early 80's some pundit - perhaps George Will - make the point that Roe ignited the anti-abortion cause, much to the surprise of the Supreme Court which thought that it would spike the issue with its Roe decision. In that regard, at least, the Roe Court showed that it had the political instincts of the Dred Scott Court. I think, frankly, that the recent decision in Lawrence suffers from the same vice.
Peter Sean Bradley:
There is nothing new in the thesis that the Supreme Court's decision in Roe short-circuited the political process that might have led to a civil resolution of the abortion debate
How would there have been a civil resolution of the abortion debate in the absence of Roe?
In that regard, at least, the Roe Court showed that it had the political instincts of the Dred Scott Court. I think, frankly, that the recent decision in Lawrence suffers from the same vice.
It's not a vice, it's a virtue. It's a fundamental feature of the American political system. The whole point of having a Bill of Rights and an independent judiciary empowered to interpret it and strike down laws that violate it is to act as a check on the powers of the other branches of government. American constitutional democracy is not, and was never intended to be, simple majoritarianism. The court has not just the power, but the duty, to strike down laws that it finds to be unconstitutional, even if those laws are supported by a majority of the people.
Don,
"Even if "life begins at conception" that obviously does not imply that abortion is, or is morally equivalent to, murder."
Purposefully ending a life is not the same as murder? Who knew?
In my experience, pro-lifers who support exceptions generally do so for political reasons. I'm not sure what your last comment means. Do you believe "regulation" of abortion is inconsistent with free-market economics or is this just a gratuitous shot at Republicans?
mj:
Purposefully ending a life is not the same as murder? Who knew?
No, purposely depriving a life of the physical use of your body to sustain it is not murder. Do you seriously believe that refusing to donate a kidney to someone who will die without it is murder? If not, why do you believe that refusing to allow one's uterus to be used to sustain a developing fetus is murder, even if you equate the fetus with a born person? As a matter of law and culture, terminating a pregancy and refusing to donate a life-saving organ have never been viewed as even remotely comparable to murder.
In my experience, pro-lifers who support exceptions generally do so for political reasons.
"Political reasons" means that the exception is necessary for the proposed restriction to have a realistic chance of attracting enough support to pass. And the only reason attracting that support is difficult is because so many people would refuse to support the restriction without the exception. Polling data consistently shows that most people who support a general restriction on abortion would do so only if it includes an exception for rape cases.
MJ wrote, "If life does begin at conception, abortion is murder and no rationalization suffices to explain this away."
I have always been fascinated by the debate about whether a blastocyst is human, or whether it is a person, or whether it has legal rights. But lately I have come to believe that this is largely a spurious philosophical point.
Let's accept for the moment that life begins at conception, that the fetus is human and a person with legal rights protected by the constitution. Would the killing of this person be "murder?"
Murder is wrongful homicide. There are other kinds of homicide, through negligence, for example. There is also a class of actions called "justifiable homicide," as with the killing of another person--who had legal rights--to defend onself from violence.
Why don't the pro-abortion folks drop all their equivocations about where life begins, etc., and just label abortion as a class of justifiable homicide? Would this make it too ugly for them to support it? Would this expand the meaning of "justifiable" too far for our comfort in other cases, such as self-defense?
I'm not sure. But I think if we treated a spade as a spade, we might have a better idea what to do about it. Seems to me the whole nature of the "debate" over abortion is about whether or not the killing of the unborn is justifiable, morally, politically, and/or pragmatically. Why not start the debate in those terms, rather than, "fundamental right" versus "murder." Or does actually needing to come up with a justification muddy the waters too much, compared to the trump of a "fundamental right?"
sweetums:
Why don't the pro-abortion folks drop all their equivocations about where life begins, etc., and just label abortion as a class of justifiable homicide?
I think most Pro-choice advocates don't believe that life begins at conception and don't believe that abortion is a form of homicide at all, at least not in most cases.
But I think if we treated a spade as a spade, we might have a better idea what to do about it.
I agree. But it's pro-lifers who refuse to treat a spade as a spade. It is clear from their support for a rape exception, their reluctance to treat abortion as murder, their almost complete indifference to the millions of embryos lost to spontaneous abortion and to the fate of embryos created through IVF, that they don't really believe that "human life," in the important moral sense that a born person is a "human life," begins at conception. They just pretend to believe that for rhetorical purposes. That is the dirty little secret at the heart of the pro-life movement.
Don P.,
Don't bite my head off, I'm pro-abortion! I just don't necessarily think that allowing people to have abortions in thier 7th month is a good idea and I'm not willing to support it just because of the slippery slope aregument.
But speaking of Republican's being inconsistant on this issue, in the immortal words of John McCain when he was asked, as someone who was anti-abortion, what he would advise his daughter if she were to get pregnant after being raped, "I would tell her it was her choice."
Whoopse!
Kate:
Don't bite my head off, I'm pro-abortion!
Why do you call yourself "pro-abortion" rather than pro-choice?
I just don't necessarily think that allowing people to have abortions in thier 7th month is a good idea
Why not? What about their 5th month? 6th? 3rd? Where do you draw the line, and why? What if continuing the pregnancy significantly endangers the woman's health or life? What if she has a sick child or elderly parent who suddenly needs her full-time attention? What if she discovers that the fetus has a major abnormality like anencephalia or cystic fibrosis?
Don P wrote:
I think most Pro-choice advocates don't believe that life begins at conception and don't believe that abortion is a form of homicide at all, at least not in most cases.
Which means then that there are a number of pro-abortion advocates who do believe that life begins at conception and that abortion is a form of homicide and nevertheless support it.
I agree. But it's pro-lifers who refuse to treat a spade as a spade.
Really? Don P was the one who just tacitly admitted that at least some pro-abortion advocates support abortion while believing it is a form of homicide. It seems then they (or at least some of them) are the ones who refuse to treat a spade as a spade.
It is clear from their support for a rape exception,
This is simply a ridiculous strawman. Making a political exception for the minority of cases of an abortion being performed in a case or rape or incest (so as to defuse that issue in order to restrict or ban the majority of cases in which abortion is used as birth control) is no more condoning the practice then adopting the Three-Fifths Compromise in order to restrict the Congressional power of slave-holding States was an endorsement of slavery. So long as the exception moves the ball forward (which it does when it prohibits the majority of abortions which are for birth control purposes rather than rape, incest, or to save the life of the mother) it is perfectly consistent to legally ban the majority while working to persuade the mother not to have an abortion in the latter case. (1)
their reluctance to treat abortion as murder,
I’d have no problem with that.
their almost complete indifference to the millions of embryos lost to spontaneous abortion
Which is another silly strawman argument since the political battle over abortion for pro-lifers is about stopping the intentional ending of a human life which is quite a bit different then one which ends by natural causes (read: something other than having another human being intentionally try to end it).
and to the fate of embryos created through IVF
Missed out on the stem-cell debate did we? You know the one in which the POTUS decided to prohibit the creation of embryos for the purpose of destroying and harvesting allowing existing lines to already be used.
that they don't really believe that "human life," in the important moral sense that a born person is a "human life," begins at conception.
Actually as a matter of law since a human being is usually declared “dead” when their brain activity ceases, human life ought to be considered to have “started” when brain waves are detectable. Which by my estimation would be at about 42 days. I’d be more than happy to have that serve as the legal standard and regard any abortion performed after that period (except to save the life of the mother) be treated as a homicide.
TW
(1) Note there are a number of pro-lifers such as Libertarians for Life who make the argument that a person who voluntarily copulates assumes the risk of pregnancy and has a duty to any child that results. This of course would not be true in the case of rape or incest in which the mother (presumably) did not consent and arguably would not have a duty to the child in her womb. Such an argument does not argue about when life does or does not begin but rather deals with what a parent’s legal duty to a child ought to be under what circumstances. It still leaves open the argument that abortion in those rare and exceptional cases is still the ending of a human life but as sweetums suggested may not necessarily be murder but some other form of homicide.
Don P wrote:
I think most Pro-choice advocates don't believe that life begins at conception and don't believe that abortion is a form of homicide at all, at least not in most cases.
Which means then that there are a number of pro-abortion advocates who do believe that life begins at conception and that abortion is a form of homicide and nevertheless support it.
I agree. But it's pro-lifers who refuse to treat a spade as a spade.
Really? Don P was the one who just tacitly admitted that at least some pro-abortion advocates support abortion while believing it is a form of homicide. It seems then they (or at least some of them) are the ones who refuse to treat a spade as a spade.
It is clear from their support for a rape exception,
This is simply a ridiculous strawman. Making a political exception for the minority of cases of an abortion being performed in a case or rape or incest (so as to defuse that issue in order to restrict or ban the majority of cases in which abortion is used as birth control) is no more condoning the practice then adopting the Three-Fifths Compromise in order to restrict the Congressional power of slave-holding States was an endorsement of slavery. So long as the exception moves the ball forward (which it does when it prohibits the majority of abortions which are for birth control purposes rather than rape, incest, or to save the life of the mother) it is perfectly consistent to legally ban the majority while working to persuade the mother not to have an abortion in the latter case. (1)
their reluctance to treat abortion as murder,
I’d have no problem with that.
their almost complete indifference to the millions of embryos lost to spontaneous abortion
Which is another silly strawman argument since the political battle over abortion for pro-lifers is about stopping the intentional ending of a human life which is quite a bit different then one which ends by natural causes (read: something other than having another human being intentionally try to end it).
and to the fate of embryos created through IVF
A sin of omission rather than commission at worst although there are quite a few pro-lifers who oppose the practice as well or who believe that the unused embryos should not be destroyed.
that they don't really believe that "human life," in the important moral sense that a born person is a "human life," begins at conception.
Actually as a matter of law since a human being is usually declared “dead” when their brain activity ceases, human life ought to be considered to have “started” when brain waves are detectable. Which by my estimation would be at about 42 days. I’d be more than happy to have that serve as the legal standard and regard any abortion performed after that period (except to save the life of the mother) be treated as a homicide.
TW
(1) Note there are a number of pro-lifers such as Libertarians for Life who make the argument that a person who voluntarily copulates assumes the risk of pregnancy and has a duty to any child that results. This of course would not be true in the case of rape or incest in which the mother (presumably) did not consent and arguably would not have a duty to the child in her womb. Such an argument does not argue about when life does or does not begin but rather deals with what a parent’s legal duty to a child ought to be under what circumstances. It still leaves open the argument that abortion in those rare and exceptional cases is still the ending of a human life but as sweetums suggested may not necessarily be murder but some other form of homicide.
Don P wrote:
I think most Pro-choice advocates don't believe that life begins at conception and don't believe that abortion is a form of homicide at all, at least not in most cases.
Which means then that there are a number of pro-abortion advocates who do believe that life begins at conception and that abortion is a form of homicide and nevertheless support it.
I agree. But it's pro-lifers who refuse to treat a spade as a spade.
Really? Don P was the one who just tacitly admitted that at least some pro-abortion advocates support abortion while believing it is a form of homicide. It seems then they (or at least some of them) are the ones who refuse to treat a spade as a spade.
It is clear from their support for a rape exception,
This is simply a ridiculous strawman. Making a political exception for the minority of cases of an abortion being performed in a case or rape or incest (so as to defuse that issue in order to restrict or ban the majority of cases in which abortion is used as birth control) is no more condoning the practice then adopting the Three-Fifths Compromise in order to restrict the Congressional power of slave-holding States was an endorsement of slavery. So long as the exception moves the ball forward (which it does when it prohibits the majority of abortions which are for birth control purposes rather than rape, incest, or to save the life of the mother) it is perfectly consistent to legally ban the majority while working to persuade the mother not to have an abortion in the latter case. (1)
their reluctance to treat abortion as murder,
I’d have no problem with that.
their almost complete indifference to the millions of embryos lost to spontaneous abortion
Which is another silly strawman argument since the political battle over abortion for pro-lifers is about stopping the intentional ending of a human life which is quite a bit different then one which ends by natural causes (read: something other than having another human being intentionally try to end it).
and to the fate of embryos created through IVF
A sin of omission rather than commission at worst although there are quite a few pro-lifers who oppose the practice as well or who believe that the unused embryos should not be destroyed.
that they don't really believe that "human life," in the important moral sense that a born person is a "human life," begins at conception.
Actually as a matter of law since a human being is usually declared “dead” when their brain activity ceases, human life ought to be considered to have “started” when brain waves are detectable. Which by my estimation would be at about 42 days. I’d be more than happy to have that serve as the legal standard and regard any abortion performed after that period (except to save the life of the mother) be treated as a homicide.
TW
(1) Note there are a number of pro-lifers such as Libertarians for Life who make the argument that a person who voluntarily copulates assumes the risk of pregnancy and has a duty to any child that results. This of course would not be true in the case of rape or incest in which the mother (presumably) did not consent and arguably would not have a duty to the child in her womb. Such an argument does not argue about when life does or does not begin but rather deals with what a parent’s legal duty to a child ought to be under what circumstances. It still leaves open the argument that abortion in those rare and exceptional cases is still the ending of a human life but as sweetums suggested may not necessarily be murder but some other form of homicide.
Thorley Winston:
Which means then that there are a number of pro-abortion advocates who do believe that life begins at conception and that abortion is a form of homicide and nevertheless support it.
A number of pro-choice advocates, yes. As I said, the legal and moral questions concerning abortion rest on more than just the issue of whether a fetus is a person.
Don P was the one who just tacitly admitted that at least some pro-abortion advocates support abortion while believing it is a form of homicide. It seems then they (or at least some of them) are the ones who refuse to treat a spade as a spade.
As I just explained, the question of whether abortion is a form of homicide is different from the question of whether abortion should be legal. The answer to one of those questions does not dictate the answer to the other. Abortion opponents are dishonest for the reasons I explained in my previous post.
Making a political exception for the minority of cases of an abortion being performed in a case or rape or incest (so as to defuse that issue in order to restrict or ban the majority of cases in which abortion is used as birth control) is no more condoning the practice then adopting the Three-Fifths Compromise in order to restrict the Congressional power of slave-holding States was an endorsement of slavery.
Of course it is. Claiming that abortion is murder, or tantamount to murder, while making an exception for rape constitutes taking the position that it’s okay to commit murder as long as the victim was conceived through from rape.
So long as the exception moves the ball forward (which it does when it prohibits the majority of abortions which are for birth control purposes rather than rape, incest, or to save the life of the mother) it is perfectly consistent to legally ban the majority while working to persuade the mother not to have an abortion in the latter case.
But as I explained, the only reason the rape exception is useful politically is because so many anti-abortionists (the majority of them, in fact) will not support bans on abortion without that exception. In other words, for the majority of abortion opponents, the rape exception is not a matter of political expediency, but a matter of morality. They think it’s okay to “kill an unborn baby” as long as that “baby” resulted from rape. Furthermore, the popularity of the rape exception proves that for the majority of anti-abortionists, the primary issue is not the life of the fetus, but the circumstances of the sexual act that led to its conception. In other words, it shows that the primary motive underlying opposition to legal abortion is sexual morality, not the desire to protect life.
Thorley Winston:
I’d have no problem with that.
I don’t know what this means. You don’t have a problem with treating abortion as murder? You don’t have a problem with the reluctance of pro-lifers to treat abortion as murder? Or what? Regardless, the point is that very few pro-lifers are willing to treat abortion as murder, either legally or merely in terms of social censure. This is yet more evidence that, notwithstanding their dishonest rhetoric, most pro-lifers do not view fetuses as equivalent to babies or abortion as equivalent to infanticide. If pro-lifers really did view these things as morally equivalent, they would treat women who have abortions as harshly as they treat women who murder their children.
Which is another silly strawman argument since the political battle over abortion for pro-lifers is about stopping the intentional ending of a human life which is quite a bit different then one which ends by natural causes (read: something other than having another human being intentionally try to end it).
Nonsense. If a fetus is a “human life” with rights and value comparable to those of a born person, it makes absolutely no sense to rail against induced abortion while virtually ignoring spontaneous abortion, which kills at least five times as many “unborn babies.” It’s like railing against infanticide while ignoring infant mortality from natural causes. As a society, we spend many billions of dollars to reduce the rate of infant mortality through immunizations, antibiotics, and the whole apparatus of modern pediatric medicine. A hospital may spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to save just a single premature baby. That is a measure of how much we invest to prevent children from dying naturally. If you seriously believe that fetus = baby, then you have a moral obligation to support efforts to prevent spontaneous abortion at least as great as the efforts you support to prevent infant mortality. And yet you essentially ignore the issue of spontaneous abortion completely. This also demonstrates that you do not believe your own rhetoric.
I hope that turned off the italics. Let's see.
Horse trading at its best:
Would people be willing to trade abortion for the death penalty? Let's say that it were possible to address both laws at the same time; so we would make abortion illegal (except for health of the mother, etc.) and we would ban the death penalty.
Call it the Great Catholic Compromise, if you will.
OK. My beef with Roe is that there is indeed a possible "consensus" position — I don't mean one everyone can accept, but one a considerable majority could — and the Court not only picked something different, but did it on such flimsy grounds that writing "the opinion that should've been Roe" is practically a whole subfield of legal scholarship.
A smallish minority of Americans think abortion should be illegal from conception. Another smallish minority think a fetus has (in George Will's memorable phrase) all the moral significance of a hamburger in the stomach. (I once got into a protracted argument online with a guy who argued, in perfect sincerity, that a fetus was not "alive" until it had drawn breath.)
The rest of us are open to compromise, which is the sort of thing legislatures are supposed to do. It would not surprise me at all if two-thirds of Americans were happy with abortion broadly available in the first trimester only, with exceptions (medical or otherwise) afterwards to be made by a judge or a medical panel or whatever.
The single most pathetic thing about NARAL, NOW, &c. is that they keep claiming simultaneously that huge majorities support "choice," and that the moment Roe is overturned, there will be no "choice." No, we'll just get to choose our choice, so to speak. Why not?
Oh, and Don P: Anencephaly and cystic fibrosis are not in the same category. An anencephalic infant basically has no brain and will inevitably die shortly after birth. I had a high school friend with cystic fibrosis; he was a mathematical whiz, and we met when our respective schools met for math competitions. I am rather glad that he was born.
Michelle Dulak:
OK. My beef with Roe is that there is indeed a possible "consensus" position — I don't mean one everyone can accept, but one a considerable majority could — and the Court not only picked something different, but did it on such flimsy grounds that writing "the opinion that should've been Roe" is practically a whole subfield of legal scholarship.
A “considerable majority” accepts Roe, according to repeated polls. It is not clear to me that a different legal regime would command a larger consensus than the one Roe created does. But your “beef” is based on a misunderstanding of the role of the courts, anyway. It is not their job to either create or satisfy a consensus. Their job is to uphold the Constitution, regardless of whether a majority of the American people agree with a particular ruling or not.
The rest of us are open to compromise, which is the sort of thing legislatures are supposed to do.
Legislatures are not supposed to deprive people of their constitutional rights, whether it’s done in the name of “compromise” or anything else. The whole point of having an independent judiciary empowered to interpret and enforce the Constitution is to protect those rights from being trampled by legislatures and other ordinary democratic processes. You may choose to attack Roe on the grounds that it is bad constitutional law, but the claim that it is somehow wrong or invalid because it does not reflect a compromise or because it is controversial is not a legitimate criticism. It's not supposed to be a compromise. It's not supposed to be noncontroversial. It's supposed to be what the Constitution requires.
The single most pathetic thing about NARAL, NOW, &c. is that they keep claiming simultaneously that huge majorities support "choice,"
Huge majorities do support choice.
and that the moment Roe is overturned, there will be no "choice."
I haven’t seen them make that claim. Their claim is that if Roe is overturned choice regarding abortion will be reduced, not eliminated altogether. But of course they exaggerate various things from time to time. All political organizations do. That's just the reality of retail American politics.
Michelle Dulak:
Oh, and Don P: Anencephaly and cystic fibrosis are not in the same category.
Depends what "category" you're referring to. They are both very serious medical disorders that for many women would justify having an abortion.
I had a high school friend with cystic fibrosis; he was a mathematical whiz, and we met when our respective schools met for math competitions. I am rather glad that he was born.
If you ever conceive a child with cystic fibrosis you are free to choose to take your pregnancy to term. You might want to investigate further the magnitude of the burden the disease imposes on those it afflicts, and their parents, before making that choice, however. In any case, other women in the same situation may feel differently than you do, and you should respect their right to make the choice for themselves regarding their own pregnancy.
Don P: I thought I had alluded to the flimsiness of Roe as Constitutional argument. Jurists who like the result don't like the way it was reached. I have seen abortion defended on a zillion Constitutional grounds not used in Roe. Let's see. There were the Free Exercise Clause and the Non-Establishment Clause — I can't remember now which was Ronald Dworkin and which was one of his critics. There was an argument using the 13th Amendment that compared pregnancy without abortion rights to involuntary servitude. There's the Equal Protection argument. There are the ever-popular 9th and 10th.
My point is that legal scholars have been rewriting this decision for three decades. This strongly suggests to me that even those who agree with the result think it very poorly reasoned. And one can't help noticing that the alternative reasons they find are all over the map. One might almost think that they found the result they wanted first and sought the best rationale afterwards. But that would be too cynical. ;-)
As to anencephaly vs. cystic fibrosis: I know what hardships CF imposes on its sufferers and their guardians. It's no fun to have your lungs vacuumed out every so often. I'm just saying that there's a difference between a "disease" that always results in death within a couple days of birth, and a disease whose sufferers can become individuals, with personalities and lives of their own.
Michelle Dulak:
Don P: I thought I had alluded to the flimsiness of Roe as Constitutional argument. Jurists who like the result don't like the way it was reached.
Well, some don’t, but that’s true of any important decision. Law reviews are full of articles by legal scholars analyzing and reworking major constitutional rulings on all sorts of issues. It’s a kind of intellectual game that’s common in the academic legal community. But as a matter of law, Roe enjoys very strong support amoung academics. For example, an amicus brief on behalf of nearly 1000 American law professors was filed in Casey affirming their concurrence that abortion is an aspect of the fundamental constitutional right to privacy as described in Roe. The American Bar Association, the largest legal organization in the world, has adopted repeated resolutions affirming its support for Roe. Abortion opponents like to play up the relatively small number of critics in order to create the false impression that Roe is much more controversial in the academic legal community than it actually is.
I have seen abortion defended on a zillion Constitutional grounds not used in Roe. Let's see. There were the Free Exercise Clause and the Non-Establishment Clause — I can't remember now which was Ronald Dworkin and which was one of his critics. There was an argument using the 13th Amendment that compared pregnancy without abortion rights to involuntary servitude. There's the Equal Protection argument. There are the ever-popular 9th and 10th.
There probably are constitutional grounds for abortion other than the right to privacy. The equal protection argument seems to me particularly strong. Many constitutional rights are supported by more than one provision of the Constitution, and the Supreme Court routinely cites a number of constitutional Amendments and provisions in its opinions. This is nothing unusual.
Michella Dulak:
As to anencephaly vs. cystic fibrosis: I know what hardships CF imposes on its sufferers and their guardians.
I don't think you really can know that unless you actually have to go through it yourself.
It's no fun to have your lungs vacuumed out every so often. I'm just saying that there's a difference between a "disease" that always results in death within a couple days of birth, and a disease whose sufferers can become individuals, with personalities and lives of their own.
Well, there are obviously differences between any two diseases. But you seem to be suggesting that it's clear that anencephaly is somehow much worse, and thus presumably a stronger justification for abortion, than CF. But that's just your opinion. Other people may reasonably feel that CF is the worse disease, by virtue of the greater and longer-lasting physical and mental suffering that it imposes on its victims and their families, and thus a stronger justification for abortion. The point is that it is the right of each individual pregnant woman to make this decision for herself. You're really not in a position to judge another woman's decision on a matter so intimate and personal as whether to take the pregnancy of a fetus with a severe medical disorder to term.
Don P,
I don't buy the "intellectual game" thing — I have no access to Lexis or any other database, but I doubt that there's a literature on, say, Bakke comparable to the literature on Roe — I mean "comparable" in the sense of defending the result while substituting a different rationale. That's what seems exceptional to me.
Don P,
No, CF is much worse in many ways; for one thing, it's very expensive.
Here is a question for you: An infant is born with Down Syndrome, and also with the birth defect often accompanying it, that blocks the path from mouth to stomach. There is simple surgery to correct this. Is this a question for "the parents and their medical adviser," or is it a simple case of "don't starve the kid"?
This came up early in the Reagan Administration, and people were shocked that Reagan would treat it as a case under the then-new ADA. But why not? The baby in question ("Infant Doe") was being denied medical care because it was retarded.
Anyway, wondering where you stand on that one.
Michelle Dulak:
I don't buy the "intellectual game" thing — I have no access to Lexis or any other database, but I doubt that there's a literature on, say, Bakke comparable to the literature on Roe — I mean "comparable" in the sense of defending the result while substituting a different rationale. That's what seems exceptional to me.
So what? Affirmative action, although a significant and controversial issue in our society, is not nearly as significant and controversial as abortion. There is less interest in revisiting constitutional decisions on most other issues because there is less interest in those issues, period. But the kind of analyzing and reevaluating and rewriting of established constitutional decisions is common in the academic legal community. Here, for example, is an entire book devoted to attempts to provide alternative constitutional arguments for the decision in Brown v. Board of Education. If you think this kind of thing is exceptional you are simply mistaken.
Michelle Dulak:
No, CF is much worse in many ways; for one thing, it's very expensive.
Well then. The important point is that in cases of medical disorder as severe as anencephaly or CF the decision belongs to each individual pregnant woman who is faced with the situation.
Here is a question for you: An infant is born with Down Syndrome, and also with the birth defect often accompanying it, that blocks the path from mouth to stomach. There is simple surgery to correct this. Is this a question for "the parents and their medical adviser," or is it a simple case of "don't starve the kid"?
It's a difficult question, and I'd need a lot more information to make an informed decision, but based only on what you state above if I were a judge I would be inclined to order the surgery, even against the parents' wishes. Obviously, this is different from the question of aborting a fetus under the same circumstances.
Don P,
Affirmative action, although a significant and controversial issue in our society, is not nearly as significant and controversial as abortion.
I am not so sure that's true. Affirmative action, for one thing, directly affects many more people than abortion does.
But notice this: Bakke merely left state universities free to seek "diversity"; it didn't mandate "diversity. If it had, you'd have seen "controversy" that've made the busing squabbles look tame.
And you mention Brown — but Brown is really about the only case besides Roe I know of that gets eternally rewritten like this. And it's for much the same reason: the result was welcome but the argument was a mess. The argument in Brown was narrowly focused on education, but the decision was used to overturn segregation in all manner of public accommodations. In other words, everyone took Brown to say "Racial segregation is wrong," and yet the opinion didn't quite say that. It should have. Hence all the revisionist rewriting.
Michelle Dulak:
I am not so sure that's true. Affirmative action, for one thing, directly affects many more people than abortion does.
That seems very unlikely. About 43% of American women have at least one abortion during their lifetimes. I rather doubt that AA directly affects even remotely as many people. And the magnitude of the effect of a pregnancy on a woman's life (not to mention on those of her husband/boyfriend and children), whether wanted or unwanted, would seem to be considerably greater than that of affirmative action.
But notice this: Bakke merely left state universities free to seek "diversity"; it didn't mandate "diversity. If it had, you'd have seen "controversy" that've made the busing squabbles look tame.
Um, maybe. And the point is....?
And you mention Brown — but Brown is really about the only case besides Roe I know of that gets eternally rewritten like this.
Well that's probably because you don't read academic law journals very often. Second-guessing the courts is absolutely routine amoung legal scholars, as I have already explained.
And it's for much the same reason: the result was welcome but the argument was a mess.
No, the argument was not a "mess" in either case. Tell me, if Roe was a "mess," why was it upheld by the Supreme Court, twice? Why did nearly 1000 law professors make a point of expressing in writing their support for its central argument that the constitutional right to privacy encompasses abortion? Why has the ABA repeatedly affirmed its support for Roe? You appear to have been taken in by the conservative media campaign against the decision that I mentioned before. And if your claim is that abortion is not a constitutional right, the existence of legal scholars who think that Roe was correctly decided but on the wrong grounds doesn't support your position anyway, because the outcome is the same regardless of the constitutional argument used to support it. Indeed, the fact that the constitutional right to abortion has been supported by a diverse set of arguments might be interpreted to imply that that right is especially deeply rooted in constitutional law and principle.
To paraphrase what you said to me earlier, one might almost think that you find the result you want first (abortion is not a constitutional right) and then try to come up with rationales to dismiss any argument to the contrary. But that would be too cynical ;-)
Sebastian: "Raj, your theory on the pitch of the abortion debate is a bit odd since in fact the US government does not pay for abortions."
Sorry, Sebastian, it was not MY theory. It was related to me by knowledgeable people who are at least sympathetic to the anti-abortion movement.
Kate "I'd like to point out that, while about half the states (and more than half of the physical country most likely), did allow women to have access to legal, safe abortions by 1973, there was absolutely no evidence that the other half of the country would have allowed the same laws to pass (or repeal the old laws)."
This is true, but I would like to point out the fact that the people who would be most likely negatively impacted by this are underaged and poor women. They would be less likely to have the ability to travel from states in which abortion was illegal to states in which abortion was legal.
My point was that there seems to be an pervasive impression that, prior to the Supreme Court's decision in Roe, abortion was illegal in every state, and that the decision suddenly removed that proscription. That wasn't the case--not by a long shot.
Don P "About 43% of American women have at least one abortion during their lifetimes. I rather doubt that AA directly affects even remotely as many people."
There is an entire industry that has developed around AA. Anyone who works for a major corporation in the US is affected to a greater or lesser extent by AA. The idea that AA does not have a significant affect on people in the US is idiotic in the extreme.
BTW, Brown was correctly decided, but for the wrong reason. The SC should have used the sociological evidence that segregation denigrated black people to buttress their decision, and relied on the text of the 14th amendment as the basis for their decision. And have completely overruled Plessy--which was obviously counter to the text of the 14th amendment--in the process. But instead in Brown they used the sociological evidence as the basis for their decision, which was dumb.
And BTW, Brown has nothing to do with AA. You can "blame" (if you wish) AA on the 1963 and 1964 civil rights acts. The 14th amendment does not impact private industry, but the civil rights acts did.
I'm pro-choice; I believe a woman has a right to end an unwanted pregnancy up to the 18th year.
Seriously, while some might claim that a developing fetus is not a person, it is clearly living. Hence, when someone describes themselves as pro-life it is an accurate description. Pro-choice on the other hand is a vague euphemism, designed to be as bland and non-evil sounding as pro-abortion which seems to imply a fondness for abortion. Choices made prior to becoming pregnant aren't included in its umbra.
I think one thing that both sides can agree (and could/should be the starting point for dialog) is that fewere abortions are preferable to more abortions. And that children having (needing to have)abortions is not desirable.
Don,
"Political reasons" means that the exception is necessary for the proposed restriction to have a realistic chance of attracting enough support to pass. And the only reason attracting that support is difficult is because so many people would refuse to support the restriction without the exception. Polling data consistently shows that most people who support a general restriction on abortion would do so only if it includes an exception for rape cases."
Let's remember that we are only discussing the matter as related to "proof" of when a fetus becomes a baby.
Clearly your statement is now true. My point is that this position is related to uncertainty. People in the middle (such as myself) can't justify such an outcome based on the supposition of when life begins. Many opinions would change if science could prove when a fertilized egg becomes a baby. You seem to think societal opinions on these matters would not change. Maybe that's true for some. But this is one of those disagreements I'm happy to let stand. If the fetus becomes a baby before birth there is absolutely no difference between abortion after that point and infanticide.
Parents have a duty of care to their children both morally and legally. In the circumstance we are discussing that duty begins earlier. Thus, I don't buy your opinion that a mother doesn't need to allow the baby use of her organs.
Don P, where on earth did you get that statistic? Just running some simple math in my head: 1.3m abortions a year, 150m women in the country, and most people having abortions have had at least one abortion before -- indicates that this number is in the highly-unlikely-to-mathematically-impossible range.
I note that the pro-choice members of the board are assuming that the only acceptable compromise involves free access to abortion in all fifty sates. Why is that a necessary component? Leaving it to the states would certainly defuse it as a national issue, and mostly as a local one -- most activists aren't interested enough to pick up and go make trouble halfway across the country, any more than you see a lot of pro-lifers going to Sweden to agitate (or pro-choicers to Saudi Arabia, for that matter. Fat lot of good that it would do them.)
Jane Galt:
Don P, where on earth did you get that statistic? Just running some simple math in my head: 1.3m abortions a year, 150m women in the country, and most people having abortions have had at least one abortion before -- indicates that this number is in the highly-unlikely-to-mathematically-impossible range.
Nonsense. Of course it's not "highly unlikely," let alone "mathematically impossible." The figure comes from the Alan Guttmacher Institute, as reported, for example, here, by the National Institutes of Health.
I note that the pro-choice members of the board are assuming that the only acceptable compromise involves free access to abortion in all fifty sates.
I have seen no one make that assumption, and it's hard to see how "free access to abortion in all fifty states" would represent a "compromise," anyway? From what even less restrictive policy would "free access to abortion in all fifty states" be a compromise? As a practical matter, American abortion law is essentially abortion-on-demand at any time during pregnancy, but that's more a consequence of the inherent limitations of criminal law than deliberate policy.
Leaving it to the states would certainly defuse it as a national issue,
How have you determined that leaving it to the states would "certainly" defuse the issue? It seems likely to me that if abortion were being fought over in state legislatures and referenda in each of the 50 states, it would become even more contentious and divisive than it is now. But in any case, as I have already explained, the states do not have the power to deprive people of their constitutional rights, no matter how unpopular those rights may be in a particular state. The Supreme Court has determined, on at least two separate occasions, that abortion is a fundamental, constitutional right and is thus beyond the power of the states to ban.
raj:
There is an entire industry that has developed around AA. Anyone who works for a major corporation in the US is affected to a greater or lesser extent by AA. The idea that AA does not have a significant affect on people in the US is idiotic in the extreme.
I didn't say that AA does not have a "significant" effect; I said that it has a much lesser effect than abortion. And the proportion of educational or employment opportunities gained or lost as a result of AA is small. The vast majority of decisions regarding who gets hired for a job or who gets admitted to college turn on factors other than those considered under AA policies. That is why racial minorities are still massively underrepresented in the nation's elite colleges and in top corporate positions despite the presence of affirmative action. Even if AA were eliminated entirely, most hiring and admission decisions would be unaffected, because AA policies are not the decisive factor in most such decisions.
BTW, Brown was correctly decided, but for the wrong reason.
No, it was correctly decided for the right reason, although there may also be other "right" reasons that support the decision.
mj:
My point is that this position is related to uncertainty. People in the middle (such as myself) can't justify such an outcome based on the supposition of when life begins. Many opinions would change if science could prove when a fertilized egg becomes a baby.
This is silly. Science cannot "prove" when a "baby" begins to exist--"baby" in this context meaning an entity with the moral status and rights we attribute to human persons--because it's not a scientific question. Personhood is an abstract quality that we attribute to something, not an objective characteristic that is discoverable by science. Science can tell us about the physical characteristics of an egg, zygote, embryo, fetus, etc., and that information may inform our moral judgments, but science cannot tell us when a "human life," in the important moral sense that we consider born people to be human lives, comes into existence, because that's a moral and philosophical (and for some people, a religious) question, not a scientific one.
If the fetus becomes a baby before birth there is absolutely no difference between abortion after that point and infanticide.
Nonsense. Of course there's a difference. A fetus is physically enclosed within a woman's body, physically connected to that body, and completely and uniquely dependent on that body to sustain its life. None of that is true of a born child. You're denying that there is any difference between the state of being pregnant and the state of caring for a born child, which is nonsense. Of course there's a difference.
Parents have a duty of care to their children both morally and legally. In the circumstance we are discussing that duty begins earlier. Thus, I don't buy your opinion that a mother doesn't need to allow the baby use of her organs.
So you think the state should have the power to force a woman (or man) to donate a kidney to save the life of her (or his) child, do you?
Or consider the famous thought experiment posed by the philosopher Judith Jarvis Thomson. Suppose you wake up one morning to find that your circulatory system has been plugged into that of another person. You are physically connected by tubes that circulate her blood through your kidneys to remove wastes and keep her alive. If you disconnect the tubes, she will die. You must remain in this state for 9 months, after which time the tubes can safely be disconnected. No one can take your place because you are the only match for her blood type.
What are we to say of the act of disconnecting the tubes? Would it be murder? Do you have an overwhelming moral obligation to remain connected to this woman for 9 months? Should the state have the power to force you to remain connected against your will? I think the answer to all three questions is clearly "no."
Don,
My original comment is that the relevant issue to abortion is when the fetus becomes a baby (life). If your objection is that science can't determine this, why have disputed the comment when I stipulated that exact point in my original post?
You can't conceive of a scientific determination that would satisfy you, and therefore conclude that one will never exist. I feel no need to predict the whole of scientific progress.
As to the rest of your arguments, I find them unpersuasive. You claim the difference between a born and unborn child is that one is enclosed in a woman's body. True. But relevant? This is like defending racial discrimination by observing there is a difference between the races, i.e. skin color (sorry to use such a political analogy, but it's what occurs to me). There's a vast chasm between there being a difference and said difference being relevant.
Essentially, you appear unwilling to grant the "if" in my comment. That's reasonable. I never said I expected science to prove this. But you also seem to want to argue the result of the "if" ocurring without granting its basis.
If science does determine that life begins at x-point pre-birth, birth becomes a step in life's process. Do we argue that a child isn't a child until it can walk, or until puberty? Yes, there is a difference between walking and birth. My point is that assumed "proof" that life begins pre-birth changes this. It seems to me that you are simply unwilling to concede the possibility that life begins pre-birth, but at the same time are preparing a defense just in case.
Your thought experiment fails for me as well. There is a difference between a natural death and life purposefully ended. Again, if you don't grant that the fetus is a baby (which it seems to me you are) you aren't limiting yourself to the situation I am discussing.
That thought experiment seems to be specifically designed to come to one conclusion. How about you wake up one morning inside the uterus of another person. You are connected to her circulatory system and are completely dependant on her for nourishment and the cleansing of waste, etc. You must stay in the uterus for 9 months after which you may be safely removed. However, that other person has the absolute right to rip you out, disecting your body into little pieces, at any time during the nine months, for any reason. At some point she decides that having you in her uterus for nine months interfers with her educational or career plans, so she goes to a doctor and has you cut to ribbons. Is that murder? Or reproductive choice?
mj:
My original comment is that the relevant issue to abortion is when the fetus becomes a baby (life).
And my response is that that is one relevant issue, but not the only one, and not the determining one.
You can't conceive of a scientific determination that would satisfy you, and therefore conclude that one will never exist. I feel no need to predict the whole of scientific progress
No, I can’t conceive of a scientific determination because “babyhood” is by its nature not a scientific question. There is no physical characteristic of “babyhood” that we can determine through observation or experiment. I don’t know why you can’t understand this.
You claim the difference between a born and unborn child is that one is enclosed in a woman's body. True. But relevant?
Yes, of course it’s relevant. A fetus is completely and uniquely dependent on a physical connection to a woman’s body in order to survive, just like the person whose life is sustained by the physical connection in Thompson’s thought experiment. If you dispute this, you are claiming that there is no moral difference murdering someone and disconnecting yourself from the kidney patient. Is that in fact your position?
This is like defending racial discrimination by observing there is a difference between the races, i.e. skin color
No it isn’t. Skin color is not a morally relevant characteristic.
If science does determine that life begins at x-point pre-birth, birth becomes a step in life's process.
Look, there is a scientific definition of “life” (actually multiple definitions) in terms of physical processes like biological metabolism, reproduction, growth, ingestion of food, and so on. Any cell in your body may be alive or dead by some scientific definition. But this obviously doesn’t tell us whether that cell is a “life” in the important sense of having moral value and rights. Similarly, science cannot tell us whether a fertilized egg or an embryo is a “life” in this important sense, either. It’s not a scientific question. It’s a moral and philosophical one.
If you claim that “life” in the moral sense begins before birth, then let’s see your arguments in support of that claim.
Your thought experiment fails for me as well. There is a difference between a natural death and life purposefully ended.
But in both cases, the ending of the life is a purposeful act. In the case of induced abortion, it is the abortion that causes the life of the fetus to end. And in the case of disconnecting yourself from the kidney patient, it is the act of disconnection that causes the life of the patient to end. Both are purposeful acts.
One distinction to the above: the woman puts you in her uterus.
nobody:
That thought experiment seems to be specifically designed to come to one conclusion.
No, the thought experiment is designed to take the circumstances of abortion and put them in a different context to help clarify our moral analysis of the situation.
How about you wake up one morning inside the uterus of another person. You are connected to her circulatory system and are completely dependant on her for nourishment and the cleansing of waste, etc. You must stay in the uterus for 9 months after which you may be safely removed. However, that other person has the absolute right to rip you out, disecting your body into little pieces, at any time during the nine months, for any reason.
Well, she may not have the right to dissect you into little pieces, but if the situation you describe above were possible, she would have the right to remove you from her uterus. But it's not possible. In Thompson's thought experiment, do you think the state should have the power to force you to remain physically connected to the kidney patient for 9 months? If you decide to disconnect yourself before 9 months have elapsed, causing the patient to die, do you think the act of disconnection is morally equivalent to murder?
"No, I can’t conceive of a scientific determination because “babyhood” is by its nature not a scientific question"
You defined the term in such a way as to preclude modern science from answering. This says nothing about the future. Nor do I necessarily accept your definition. But again, you're arguing the "if", not the result. Why don't you just say that science will never reach such a conclusion?
"Skin color is not a morally relevant characteristic"
If you accept that life has begun, Whether the child is in the womb or out is irrelevant. Again, you have refused to accept the premise of my comment.
"If you claim that “life” in the moral sense begins before birth, then let’s see your arguments in support of that claim."
More proof that you're missing the point. I'm not claiming either way. In fact I support choice for this very reason. I said IF this can be proven it is the relevant issue.
Let's try this: I respond to your thought experiment that a person would never wake up to find themselves attached to another person and dependant on their circulation. Would you accept this as evidence of anything? This is just what you've done.
I think you're so used to arguing this topic you didn't bother to read what you're denying.
Don P,
Just a quick note that Thomson (not Thompson) stated the problem differently. In her formulation, the patient was a famous violinist, whose admirers have kidnapped you and are holding you captive tied to a bed next to his.
When I first read this parable, I wondered how more thoroughly Thomson could have stacked the deck. The "fetus" analogue is famous, presumably rich, and male — and has a load of thuggish followers who don't ask first if they could borrow some of your blood, please, but just bash in and take it (and you). You aren't just pregnant, you're strapped to a bed in an "undisclosed location" for nine months, and presumably no one knows what's happened to you. Yep, this is just exactly like your average pregnancy.
A more realistic example would involve entering a charitable lottery in which the winner (loser?) would be obliged to give daily blood transfusions to an orphaned Guatemalan girl, who will die unless she gets them.
That would preserve the essentials: (1) Almost every woman who gets pregnant had sex of her own free will, and entered the "lottery" knowing that she might get pregnant; (2) Pregnancy is not comparable to being abducted by strangers and held strapped to a bed for nine months; it is something that quite ordinary women manage to work with, and through, almost until they are "due"; and (3) The "victim" in an abortion is not a rich guy with a caste of eager minions surrounding him, but something utterly defenseless.
So your card came up in the lottery. Daily transfusions are wearying and somewhat painful, and they take a couple hours out of your schedule too. Do you just bail?
mj:
You defined the term in such a way as to preclude modern science from answering. This says nothing about the future. Nor do I necessarily accept your definition. But again, you're arguing the "if", not the result. Why don't you just say that science will never reach such a conclusion?
You still don't seem to get it. Science is descriptive, not prescriptive. Science can explain how the world works, but it cannot explain how human beings ought to behave. Science can't tell us whether it's right or wrong to kill a bacterium, an ape, a fetus or a baby. These are not scientific questions. They are moral and philosophical questions. Comprendez?
Let's try a different tack. Explain to me how you think that science could conceivably answer the question of when "babyhood" or "personhood" or "human life"--in the sense of a creature or being that it is immoral to destroy--begins to exist. What conceivable scientific observation or experiment could answer this question?
If you accept that life has begun, Whether the child is in the womb or out is irrelevant.
Why is it irrelevant? Why is the burden that unwanted pregnancy and childbirth imposes on a woman morally irrelevant?
Let's try this: I respond to your thought experiment that a person would never wake up to find themselves attached to another person and dependant on their circulation.
Just assume that the situation actually exists. What is your answer to the question I asked? Do you think disconnecting the kidney patient from your body constitutes an act of murder?
Michelle Dulak:
Just a quick note that Thomson (not Thompson) stated the problem differently. In her formulation, the patient was a famous violinist, whose admirers have kidnapped you and are holding you captive tied to a bed next to his.
I don't think it matters whether it's a famous violinist or your next door neighbor. Do you think that disconnecting him from your body constitutes an act of murder?
The "fetus" analogue is famous, presumably rich, and male
So, as I said, assume it's just an ordinary person rather than someone who is famous and rich. Do you think that disconnecting him from your body constitutes an act of murder?
— and has a load of thuggish followers who don't ask first if they could borrow some of your blood, please, but just bash in and take it (and you).
But this is analogous to a woman who becomes involuntarily pregnant, as through rape, for example. If it's not an act of murder for you to disconnect yourself from the kidney patient, why is it an act of murder for a rape victim to terminate her pregnancy, even if the fetus is considered a full-blown human person?
You aren't just pregnant, you're strapped to a bed in an "undisclosed location" for nine months, and presumably no one knows what's happened to you. Yep, this is just exactly like your average pregnancy.
Assume that everyone knows what happened to you. Assume that you retain some mobility while you're connected to the kidney patient. Do you think that disconnecting him from your body constitutes an act of murder? Do you think that the state should have the power to force you to remain connected to him for nine months?
A more realistic example would involve entering a charitable lottery in which the winner (loser?) would be obliged to give daily blood transfusions to an orphaned Guatemalan girl, who will die unless she gets them.
Giving daily blood transfusions, assuming they involve small quantities of blood, is not remotely as great a burden as nine months of unwanted pregnancy followed by childbirth.
But let's assume that the blood transfusions are substantial. Let's assume that they leave you feeling weak and exhausted (like pregnancy). Let's assume they induce vomiting, nausea, cramps, weight gain, water retention, and back pain (like pregnancy). Let's assume that they substantially interfere with your ability to care for your family, and substantially interfere with your ability to do your job (like pregnancy). Let's assume they pose significant risks to your own health and well-being (like pregnancy). Let's assume they create a significant risk of clinical depression or other mental/emotional trauma (like an unwanted pregnancy). Let's assume that they also require you to undergo an invasive surgical procedure (like c-section, which under current practise is indicated in one out of four live births). Let's assume these blood donations go on for 9 months. Let's assume that these blood donations impose a mental, physical and emotional burden on you, and interfere with your life in other ways, to a degree comparable to the burden imposed by an unwanted pregnancy.
Do you think that refusing to donate the blood would constitute an act of murder? Do you think that the state should have the power to force you to donate the blood? As a matter of law, we are not required to donate even a small quantity of blood, even if the potential recipient will die without it. In no context does the government require one person to assume a burden even remotely as great as the burden of completing an unwanted pregnancy in order to save the life of another person (let alone the life of a fetus).
Don P,
You are leaving out the "lottery" part of my parable. You are understood to have played the game and your card came up. It is not as though the evils of pregnancy (I've never been pregnant myself, but I've known a lot of pregnant women) have come upon you unawares.
If I'd consented to such a lottery, then yes, I would feel duty-bound to see it through, even if the transfusions made me sick and faint and nauseated and otherwise miserable. For some reason millions of women seem to be able to handle it; I suppose I could too.
Don P,
I left out the fact that I can't even donate blood. You are automatically barred if you've lived too long in the UK — you might be a carrier of mad cow disease.
Michelle Dulak:
You are leaving out the "lottery" part of my parable. You are understood to have played the game and your card came up. It is not as though the evils of pregnancy (I've never been pregnant myself, but I've known a lot of pregnant women) have come upon you unawares.
I ignored it in order to focus on those pregnancies that are most like Thomson's kidney patient scenario; i.e., involuntary pregnancies, such as those resulting from rape. I assume you agree that a pregnant rape victim is no more responsible for her condition than the person who is involuntarily plugged into the kidney patient in Thomson's thought experiment.
Is disconnecting yourself from the kidney patient morally equivalent to murder? If not, why is it morally equivalent to murder for a rape victim to terminate her pregnancy?
If I'd consented to such a lottery, then yes, I would feel duty-bound to see it through, even if the transfusions made me sick and faint and nauseated and otherwise miserable.
Perhaps you would. But other people may not. If they had made a good-faith attempt to avoid being connected to the kidney patient (as a woman may make a good-faith attempt to avoid pregnancy by conscientious use of contraception) but found themselves connected against their wishes anyway (as a woman may become pregnant despite her best efforts to avoid it using contraception), would they still have a moral obligation to assume the burden of remaining connected for 9 months? If not, why would a woman who becomes pregnant despite her best efforts to prevent it using birth control have a moral obligation to complete the pregnancy?
For some reason millions of women seem to be able to handle it; I suppose I could too.
Of course they do. Many or most women want to have children and are willing to bear the burden of pregnancy to achieve that goal. Some women even enjoy the state of being pregnant, though I think they're a minority. That doesn't mean pregnancy is not a great burden, especially when the pregnancy is unwanted. It is a very great burden, as numerous women attest and as the biological and social consequences of pregnancy make clear. As I said, in no context does the government require one person to assume a burden even remotely as great as an unwanted pregnancy in order to save the life of another person (let alone the life of a fertilized egg, an embryo, or a fetus). We don't even require anyone to donate a small amount of blood, even if another person's life depends on it. We consider living people who donate organs like kidneys to save another person's life to be morally virtuous, even heroic. We certainly don't think that they are morally obliged to make such a sacrifice. So why is a woman faced with an unwanted pregnancy, and the substantial burden such a condition imposes on her life, morally obliged to complete it (let alone so strongly obliged that she should be forced to complete it under criminal law)?
DOn P: my sincerest regards for posting with thoughtfulness, accuracy and vigor.
My 2 bits. Many people want abortion to be safe, legal, and rare. To those who think that abortion should be prohibited, I'd like to know what societal effects you are willing to tolerate.
Can women who seek an abortion be imprisoned? Restrained? Force-fed?
On the moral issue: if the reason for abolishing abortion is that the fetus is "alive", how do you explain rape and incest exceptions? The law does contain the idea of justifiable homicide, but it requires that the perpetrator generally be in mortal peril. While forcing a rape victim to carry her unwanted fetus to term may be one of the cruelest things I've ever heard, you can't really claim that the harm to her justifies murder. Put it this way. No where else in the law is the burden so low for committing murder and getting away with it.
cheers. flame away.
fdl
Don
I "get" your points just fine. I just don't agree with you.
I have nowhere claimed science should tell us how to act. I have stated that IF science can determine the point at which a fetus becomes a baby that information would lead me to conclude abortion should be illegal past that point. Frankly, I find it astonishing that anyone would argue against this. Certainly the question of whether we will discover this is unclear to say the least. But according to you there is no difference between killing cell tissue and killing a baby.
Your next comment has already been answered. I feel no need to predict what science will determine in the future. Your point boils down to "since we don't know now, we never will". Do you think Aristotle could have envisioned the experiments that would prove relativity? Did that failure make relativity impossible to discover?
Science might answer this, or it might not. If you're so certain science will never answer this why are you bothering to argue the remainder?
IF a fetus becomes a baby in the womb, that baby's right to life clearly outweighs the mother's discomfort. (With exception of mother's life endangerment, in which case abortion would be considered self-defense). If a mother kills her child is it an accepted defense to claim the child was a burden? Absolutely not. At whatever point the life is recognized it attains rights. Currently, that point is birth. At some point in the future it might not be.
None of your evaluations have actually allowed that the fetus has become a baby. If they did, your analysis would be consistent with how children are treated now. Logically, when I limit my comments to "IF science proves X" you can't counter with analysis that doesn't accept X. Are you going to support a woman's right to end a child's life after birth?
Your thought experiment is irrelevant. Let's change it slightly to something appropriate. A woman affixes another person to herself in some fashion requiring her circulation to keep him alive. She then pulls the plug, and he dies. Is this murder?
You bet it is.
Anyway, I'm done. I've said what I have to say, and I can see you don't have any new arguments.
mj:
I have nowhere claimed science should tell us how to act. I have stated that IF science can determine the point at which a fetus becomes a baby that information would lead me to conclude abortion should be illegal past that point. Frankly, I find it astonishing that anyone would argue against this.
Frankly, I find it astonishing that you still do not understand that "the point at which a fetus becomes a baby" is not a scientitific question, period. No conceivable scientific experiment or observation could possibly answer this question. It's like suggesting that science could tell us whether fornication is wrong, or that science could tell us whether red is a more beautiful color than green. You still don't seem to understand the fundamental difference between empirical facts and moral judgments.
mj:
IF a fetus becomes a baby in the womb, that baby's right to life clearly outweighs the mother's discomfort.
So you keep saying. But just saying it over and over again is not an argument or justification for your claim. How is it "clear" that the baby's right to life outweighs the woman's right to terminate the pregnancy?
If a mother kills her child is it an accepted defense to claim the child was a burden? Absolutely not.
No, of course not. A born child can obviously be cared for by another person, or by the state if necessary. No such option is available to a pregnant woman who does not wish to gestate her fetus. That is the fundamental difference that you keep ignoring.
Your thought experiment is irrelevant. Let's change it slightly to something appropriate. A woman affixes another person to herself in some fashion requiring her circulation to keep him alive. She then pulls the plug, and he dies. Is this murder?
It would depend on the circumstances under which the other person was "affixed" and unplugged. Why is Thomson's thought experiment "irrelevant?" If it would not be murder to disconnect the kidney patient in the Thomson scenario, why is it murder for a woman to terminate her pregnancy, even if we assume that the fetus is morally equivalent to a child? Answer the question.
Don P,
A born child can obviously be cared for by another person, or by the state if necessary. No such option is available to a pregnant woman who does not wish to gestate her fetus. That is the fundamental difference that you keep ignoring.
Well, this isn't exactly true, is it? The parents of a "born child" are presumed in law to have certain responsibilities towards it. There are laws in several states now permitting women to drop off unwanted newborns at hospitals, no questions asked; this is designed to prevent them being dropped off in less suitable places, like dumpsters. But you can hardly do that with older children. There is no drop-off point for Terrible Two-year-olds.
No, I'm not in favor of the state forcing a woman to carry a pregnancy to term. I'm not saying that abortion is murder in a strict sense, but I'm also not willing to merely call it reproductive choice, either. That's what I was getting at, the all or nothing, murder or constitutional right, dichotomy that doesn't reflect the complexities of the issue. I think its somewhere in the middle, not a crime, but not a medical procedure either.
It has not been 'scientifically' established when a fetus becomes human and it is probably moot anyway as most decisions to abort are made well past that point (if there is one) anyway. My contention is that an abortion should be more properly called human fetal abortion, that is the fetus is a human one (as apposed to a canine fetus, for example) and the abortion is the halting of human development in its fetal stage. There is no doubt that barring disease or injury (perhaps caused by an abortion) the result of each pregnancy will result in a new, individual human being.
So the question, properly framed, is: Is it moral to halt the development of a human being in the fetal stage for reasons other than rape, incest or the health of the mother? Again, I'm not framing the question: is it legal? I'm pro-life in that I think life is good and should be valued and protected; I'm pro-choice in that I think choices need to be made much earlier in the process, perhaps prior to conception.
Don,
"Frankly, I find it astonishing that you still do not understand that "the point at which a fetus becomes a baby" is not a scientitific question, period. No conceivable scientific experiment or observation could possibly answer this question."
This is your opinion. You freely admit we do not understand the properties of life, yet are somehow certain its properties are not empirical. Again, if I cannot conceive an experiment to prove or disprove relativity does that mean it doesn't exist? Inability to distinguish between opinion and fact is the characteristic of a zealot.
If you need me to explain why a life outweighs convenience, I'd say that speaks for itself.
You appear to admit that your thought experiment leads to the conclusion of "it is murder" if the woman affixes the living person to herself before removing the life sustaining contacts. I'd say this concedes the argument.
In the interest of time, let's just say I'm willing to agree to an exception for immaculate conceptions.
Michaelle Dulak:
Well, this isn't exactly true, is it?
Yes, it is exactly true.
The parents of a "born child" are presumed in law to have certain responsibilities towards it.
Yes. But they have the option of turning those responsibilities over to someone else. A pregnant woman has no such option. She and she alone must suffer the burden of an unwanted pregnancy and birth if the fetus is to survive.
There are laws in several states now permitting women to drop off unwanted newborns at hospitals, no questions asked; this is designed to prevent them being dropped off in less suitable places, like dumpsters.
Sounds like a good idea to me.
But you can hardly do that with older children.
You can put them up for adoption, though.
I'm not sure what point you're trying to make about the morality or legality of abortion, exactly. Perhaps you could be more explicit.
nobody:
That's what I was getting at, the all or nothing, murder or constitutional right, dichotomy that doesn't reflect the complexities of the issue.
How is abortion being a constitutional right inconsistent with abortion being a morally complex issue? Lots of behaviors that are morally complex (or even clearly immoral, by common agreement) are nevertheless constitutional rights.
I think its somewhere in the middle, not a crime, but not a medical procedure either.
Of course it's a medical procedure. Whatever you think of the morality of abortion, it is obviously a medical procedure.
My contention is that an abortion should be more properly called human fetal abortion, that is the fetus is a human one (as apposed to a canine fetus, for example) and the abortion is the halting of human development in its fetal stage.
Whatever. I don't really think there is any serious confusion that when people discuss "abortion," they are talking about the abortion of human fetuses rather than dog fetuses or any other kind of fetus.
There is no doubt that barring disease or injury (perhaps caused by an abortion) the result of each pregnancy will result in a new, individual human being.
On the contrary, there is very grave doubt. Scientists estimate that at least 50%, and perhaps as many as two-thirds, of all pregnancies end in spontaneous abortion or miscarriage (God apparently didn't do a very good job when he designed the human reproductive system).
Don P,
No, you cannot "put up" your recalcitrant two-year-old for adoption. There are older children in foster care waiting for adoptive parents, but that's not because their parents have dropped them at the local equivalent of the pound, that's because their parents have been found abusive and lost custody. You can't get out of parental resonsabilities as easily as that.
Quick question: What difference, morally speaking, is there between a 7-month infant in a preemie ward and a 7-month fetus in the womb? And if the woman bearing the 7-month fetus really doesn't want to be pregnant any more, why is inducing labor worse than abortion?
The at would be "responsabilities." Proofread, dagnabbit.
mj:
This is your opinion. You freely admit we do not understand the properties of life, yet are somehow certain its properties are not empirical.
I haven't admitted any such thing, although it's hard to know what "the properties of life" is supposed to mean exactly. Science can discover empirical facts, but it cannot discover moral ones. It cannot discover when "life" in the sense of a creature with moral value and rights comes into existence. It will never be able to discover that because moral value and rights are not empirical characteristics.
Again, if I cannot conceive an experiment to prove or disprove relativity does that mean it doesn't exist?
No, of course not. It just means you don't know much about relativity. Relativity is an empirical theory that generates testable predictions that have been confirmed through observation and experiment. What testable prediction does the claim that "life begins at conception" (or wherever else it might be claimed to begin) yield?
If you need me to explain why a life outweighs convenience, I'd say that speaks for itself.
I described in some detail the substantial burdens an unwanted pregnancy imposes on a woman, including significant risks to her health, her job or career, her relationship with her family, and so on. If you dismiss this burden as a mere "inconvenience" then I would say that you are the fanatic, not me or anyone else who agrees with me about the nature of pregancy.
You appear to admit that your thought experiment leads to the conclusion of "it is murder" if the woman affixes the living person to herself before removing the life sustaining contacts.
I haven't admitted any such thing. I don't even know what "affixes the living person to herself before removing the life sustaining contacts" is supposed to mean.
Michelle Dulak:
No, you cannot "put up" your recalcitrant two-year-old for adoption.
Yes you can. You can give up a child for adoption at any age. And adoption is not the only possibility, anyway. Foster care, or care by a relative or other guardian, are other possibilities. No such options are available to a pregnant woman. As a matter of biological fact, the burden of sustaining the life of the fetus must be carried by her alone.
Quick question: What difference, morally speaking, is there between a 7-month infant in a preemie ward and a 7-month fetus in the womb?
A substantial moral difference. I don't know how you expect me to quantify the difference, if that's what you're looking for.
And if the woman bearing the 7-month fetus really doesn't want to be pregnant any more, why is inducing labor worse than abortion?
"Worse" in what sense? Morally worse? Medically riskier for the woman? Or what?
(me:) No, you cannot "put up" your recalcitrant two-year-old for adoption.
(Don P:) Yes you can. You can give up a child for adoption at any age. And adoption is not the only possibility, anyway. Foster care, or care by a relative or other guardian, are other possibilities.
Wow, you can just drop all responsibility for a child at any point? Who knew? Not all those guys paying child support, surely.
I don't know the law on this subject at all, but I don't think this can be right.
Re the 7-month infant vs. the 7-month fetus: I should say my question was obvious. You have a being in a woman's womb that is functionally identical to other beings that are being tended to with great care in the preemie ward. They are human beings and citizens, and killing them would be murder. The fetus is not yet a citizen, and killing it would not be murder; in most places it would not even be a crime.
The point is that you have a being that could survive outside the womb, and the means to get it outside the womb, so why the hell not? To put it bluntly, as someone did some time back, is the abortion right a right not to be pregnant, or a right to a dead fetus?
Michelle Dulak:
Wow, you can just drop all responsibility for a child at any point?
Not necessarily all responsibility, but most of it. And in some cases, yes, all responsibility. As I explained, you can put a child up for adoption or turn it over to the care of a relative or legal guardian. The state is not going to leave a child at serious risk of neglect or abuse with a parent who refuses to take responsibility for it. The child will be placed with a relative, or in foster care. I still want to know what you think this has to do with the morality and/or legality of abortion. Are you trying to make some sort of argument about abortion by reference to the care of born children? If so, what is that argument? Spell it out. I tire of t