With Obama having visited Notre Dame while a Supreme Court judicial nomination is looming, the subject of abortion has been much in the news. Buzzcut over at Blue County in a Red State has been commenting frequently on our “abortionist in chief.” John Brownson at In the Agora offers unhappy words for Notre Dame as well.
My position is that I don’t support throwing women in jail for not carrying their pregnancy to term or otherwise outlawing or criminalizing abortions because I don’t view the life being carried by the woman as being fully human. Rather, I view it as being potentially human, much like sperm and human eggs, albeit further down the line. As such, the woman’s right to make decisions about her body trump any “right” the potential human might have to grow in her body.
And, let’s be clear, the argument is not whether we “like” abortions or “don’t like” abortions. This isn’t a policy discussion on the desirability of eugenics. Rather, the argument is about whether the government should intervene by outlawing abortions to impose a particular view of when a developing organism becomes endowed with human rights.
As I have posted here in the past and in a comment to one of Buzzcut’s posts:
If someone thinks abortion is murder in the same way killing a 5 year old is murder, then I don’t see how anyone can refrain from stopping that murder, violently if necessary.
If there were people openly and systematically butchering children in elementary schools, I wouldn’t be able to confine my opposition to words and peaceful protest if the government allowed it and did nothing. I would have to attempt to stop the murder with force, if necessary.
And, I think the lack of violent resistance demonstrates quite clearly that, at some level, pro-lifers understand that fetuses, zygotes, and blastocysts are less than fully human.
A careful reading of Justice Blackmun’s written majority decision of Roe v. Wade does not mention “choice†as a justification or reason for the decision. Blackmun spends a lot of time recognizing the history of abortion and the fact that laws opposing it were, for the most part, relatively modern in their implementation. He found that laws against abortion did not exist in Common Law, and that most written law, historically, and globally, did not proscribe abortion before what is known as “quickening,†that is, the noticeable and obvious movement of the fetus in utero.
Blackmun cited the First, Fourth, Ninth, and Fourteenth Amendments to the Constitution, as well as other high court decisions as precedent in the Roe decision. He cited within those precedents the implication and expression of the right to privacy as the most determinate factor in the 7-2 decision of Roe v Wade. It was also clear that this right was, according to Blackmun, nearly sacrosanct in the first trimester of pregnancy, but that the state could institute sensible laws to protect the interests of the state in the matter at later stages in the pregnancy, but that these laws would have to stand Constitutional muster.
When the State of Texas, in their argument to the high court, tried to defend their anti-abortion statutes on the grounds of due process, defining life as beginning at conception, and the right of the state to protect the life of the fetus, Blackmun rejected those claims. He noted that there was no clarity or certainty as to when life began, and felt that this was outside the scope of the court to define. He abjured from making that definition and noted that this was an argument to be decided by science, and other fields of study when, and if, consensus could be reached.
I believe his most compelling argument against the due process argument was made when he noted that every state statute at the time, outlawing abortion, including Texas, allowed therapeutic abortion for a narrow range of reasons, primarily to save the life of the mother. If, as Blackmun reasoned, the fetus was a human being, and the state allowed it to be aborted, even for a compelling reason, then the due process claim had no merit, for the state was, in essence, choosing one human life over another in making that decision, thereby making their argument moot.
There’s much more to be learned about Roe v Wade by actually reading the majority decision, but I’ve already went on too long about it. My main point in this comment is to note that Roe v Wade did not recognize and legalize a woman’s right to choose, though there may be a choice made in each individual implementation of abortion. What the Court recognized was the Constitutional right to privacy, though as Blackmun noted, those words do not appear in the Constitution. So when the anti-abortion activists hold up signs stating, “It’s not a choice, it’s a child,†I feel compelled to respond, “It’s not a choice, it’s a right.â€
Doug: Why do you give attention to Buzzcut? Why?
I’m with Pila, Doug: Don’t give the little stain any traffic. He should’ve bowed out of his liefest after he lied repeatedly about me and was slapped down. You’re encouraging him.
Doug,
To carry your argument to its logical conclusion would justify the legal killing of any human being as long as sufficient “debate” could be drummed up within a given society about whether particular individuals are endowed with human rights. Ruthless regimes deny human rights to undesirable groups all the time. Some regimes have denied those rights based on race, others religion or ethnicity.
Futhermore, an organism must become a human being at some point in order to ever acquire human rights. It is not some trivial debate to determine when that is. If a sufficiently large enough infanticide lobby develops, what philosophical underpinning exists in the pro-choice line of argument to continue to outlaw it?
What you or anyone else “view” that life to be is not the question. For those who claim that science out to regain its supposed lost supremecy, it is awefully untenable to argue that a zygote, fetus, or other post-conception human being is not scientifically or biologically a human being. It has begun its life cycle which, if allowed to continue unimpeded would normally result in birth, growth and maturity and natural death. A sperm or ovum does not contain within itself alone the means to carry on life in this way. Like any other human life, a zygote, fetus, etc. (all purposefully clinical, antiseptic, dehumanizing, guilt-assuaging terms used not often used by pregnant women) needs only nutrition, water, and oxygen and its genetic code will carry it along its developmental path. Yes, during gestation, that requires the mother. Post gestation, it requires even more active, vigilant care than before. That is the science of the matter.
For all the supposed anti-scientific sectarianism behind the pro-life movement, the pro-choice crowd seems more than comfortable with the position that if they don’t “view” a human life as human enough, despite what that being is scientifically, they are comfortable with permitting, if not applauding, its legal extermination. As you have said on this blog before, to you Doug, it’s more about “biography than biology.” (I’m confident that’s an accurate quote.)
Doug, why do you not travel to Darfur to violently oppose the genecide there? Do you not view these people as fully human? Can we draw any conclusions about your position vis-Ã -vis the humanity of inner-city young men based on the fact that you haven’t violently opposed the violence there?
Good questions, deep ones, and probably not ones I should be attempting before coffee.
The most comfortable approach is to say that all life is sacred. But, a cursory approach shows that’s not true — kill a fly, and very few people have an objection. It’s killing of humans to which we frequently object — what is it about human-ness that makes killing humans objectionable where killing other animals is not? Is it the mere biological fact of human life that makes us special? I don’t think so. I think there has to be a biographical component.
I think it has to do with a human’s ability to think, perceive, feel, and care that justifies treating humans differently — as opposed to humans simply having a particular arrangement of chromosomes coupled with physical life. This is, I suppose, a troublesome proposition, since it creates duty with other animals with similar capacity to think, perceive, feel, and care. Which life is more precious: an intelligent, loyal, dog in its prime; or the brain-dead husk of Terri Schiavo? I’m going to pick the dog in that case. I know others will pick differently, whether through firm religious conviction, because they haven’t reflected on their foundation for preferring human life and whether it actually applies in that case, or for rational reasons I haven’t though of.
As to one’s responsibilities Darfur or any number of other distant places – that’s a great issue. At some point, in a philosophy class about valuing life, I came across an author with a theory of duty that corresponds with one’s social proximity. Those in your household are a higher priority than those in your community; etc. That winds up creating a greater duty to one’s own dog, for example, than to the fully human victims half way around the world.
All of this results in messy line drawing problems for me – line drawing problems that don’t justify the government stepping in to mandate that women continue to use their uterus in a certain way. As I understand it, those who support laws prohibiting women from obtaining abortions do not recognize that there are any lines to be drawn. If that’s the case, then the fetus in their community is every bit as human and deserving of moral rights as the 5 year old and, consequently, their duty to with respect to the abortion clinic in their community (same social proximity) is equivalent to their duty to a facility dedicated to killing school children, if one existed.
While you do not accept that biological human-ness alone endows one with a particularly special right to life, I would argue that our law and jurisprudence do, in fact, recognize biological humanity as sufficient for bestowing all rights accruing to human beings. That is, in all cases EXCEPT the unborn. (Even with the death penalty, there is individual due process involved as laid out in the Constitution. Not so for the unborn.)
I agree that certain qualities of human beings distinguish them from other categories of animals–such as the ability to feel, care, rationalize, etc., but each human being possesses these qualities in different degrees depending on any number of factors, including age, health, environment, etc. Obviously, a three-month old baby does not have an equal ability to empathize with its mother as the family dog might, but we (the law) does not conduct an empathy-meter litmus test on the two beings to determine which is more entitled to Constitutional rights. That the baby is biologically human AND that our law endows human beings with rights is sufficient for the three-month old to enjoy its right to life. If a criminal shoots up the house, killing both the dog and the baby, the murderer is going to get the book thrown at him for killing the child, not the dog!
Nor does our jurisprudence conduct a dependency litmus test to determine right to life. In no case that I know of is one person entitled to actively kill another–merely as a function of that individual’s physical dependency on the would-be killer, or anyone else. In fact, laws of negligence and neglect acknowledge the duties that all human beings have in varying degrees to each other. As you stated, proximity plays a role: we treat as quite egregious crimes committed against one’s own dependent children precisely BECAUSE of their dependency. Yet, with abortion, that dependency is held up as a defense for active killing.
It is certainly no defense in court to argue that you killed your three year old, but should not be subject to prosecution because his continued existence would require you to allocate your money, your time, or your resources in ways disagreable to you. Even your body is involved in the care of a child. Hands must be used to feed and diaper and hug. Ears must be available to listen for cries and weary legs to respond to those cries in the middle of the night. That parts of another human body are involved in the providing of nutrition and sustenance to a child does not entitle the responsible party actively to kill the dependent one. Except, legally, in the case of abortion.
Since, as I have pointed out, the law treats the condition of the unborn child and the born child much differently, I would argue that the burden of proof falls to the side which would strip any humans of their right to life to conclusively demonstrate how that human being is substantially different from others to whom legal protection is afforded. I’ll refer you to my previous post on biological humanity and why any fetus, zygote, or embryo meets it.
I find the subjective criteria you laid out–traits that exist in any human individual in varying degrees–to be insufficient, and without legal precedent. Furthermore, this conclusion does not have to be reached through religious conviction whatsoever.
To apply your line of argument fully, one would also have to accept as less criminal (or not criminal at all) murders committed in nursing homes, hospitals, maternity wards, or the corner bar where any one individual therein can be ascertained to be able to think, perceive, feel, and care less fully than “normal”, even if only temporarily. Whatever “normal” may be and by whomever it may be defined.
Whereas, I would argue that the burden falls to the person who would force a human being to use her body to grow another life against her will upon penalty of criminal sanction.