Doghouse Riley shreds an abortion column by William Saletan in a post I highly recommend. He points out that one aspect to the abortion debate is that the premises of the “pro-life” crowd are rarely challenged. In fact, that’s so much the case, that I have a hard time finding a label other than “pro-life” that doesn’t sound odd for lack of use: “anti-reproductive freedom, pro-state-control-of-the-uterus crowd.”
And, he leaves us with a fact about which I had not been aware:
Here’s an experiment for you. Go among the Holiest of Holies and the Demiest of Demagogues and try to tell them that Abortion was perfectly legal, openly practiced, even advertised, until after the Civil War. See what diversity of opinion you get then. Were you aware of that yourself?
No, in fact I was not. Now I am.
There’s ample evidence of abortion throughout the historical record – all time periods, cultures, etc. In colonial America, it was acceptable and allowed, provided that the termination of the pregnancy took place before “quickening” i.e. before the mother could feel the fetus move.
You’ll have to do more than simply throw out a historical reference to bolster the “pro-choice” side of the abortion debate.
First, lemming is right, the quickening was the reference point by which the Catholic church, for many years, used to decide if the abortion was killing a human life. A reading of Roe v. Wade will bring to light the court used some of this historical background as the basis for its decision. But that position has obviously changed as public knowledge of the issue (and the science behind it, see below) has evolved as well. Its also misleading to simply throw out a statement that this was “done in the past” when in fact it was rare, much different than the procedures done today and again, the physiology behind it was not well understood.
Second, our understanding of science, physiology and abortion are vastly different than the ones held by pre-Civil War abortionists. The “procedure” before the Civil War, if one can even call it that, was crude at best.
Riley states:
The so-called “right to privacy” was originally found in the Supreme Court’s decision in Griswold – the court could of course cite no particular constitutional provision but largely relied on the “pneumbras” of many of the amendments in the Bill of Rights. Even if we accept a right to privacy, extending the argument to a right to abortion is an additional step without constitutional support. Roe merely took the abortion debate off the political table, and could of course cite no constitutional basis for its decision.
The establishment clause in the first amendment: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion.” This has nothing to do with the abortion debate. The crux of the issue is whether or not abortion kills a HUMAN life. There’s no religion involved in the debate at all, although certainly proponents on both sides bring it into the debate.
Riley doesn’t really say anything new here. He calls pro-life supporters “anti-reproductive freedom, pro-state-control-of-the-uterus crowd,” which is basically just conclusory BS that ignores the ESSENTIAL ISSUE of the debate: is the fetus a human life or not? If it is, as I would maintain, then OF COURSE the freedom to KILL a HUMAN LIFE should be taken off the table. OF COURSE the state should control the issue. He’s got strong opinions – everyone in the abortion debate does – but he’s got nothing to add to the debate.
How about anti-legal abortion? Anti-choice is a pretty commonly used descriptor by activists who support legal abortion.
I think the abortion argument brings out the worst in people rhetorically. For instance, this Civil War argument. You know what else was legal before the Civil War? Slavery. That’s what it was all about. So was child labor. So was wife-beating, at least de facto. Now, I’m not suggesting for a minute that people who support legal abortion are comparable to supporters of slavery or child labor. But the notion that the antebellum legality of abortion is persuasive seems pretty weak in light of what we think of other practices of the day.
I think your problem on this issue, Doug, is that you are so convinced of your position that you simply can’t accept that anyone on the other side could hold his or her position in good faith. Take your post below, noting that no one could actually believe that abortion is the moral equivalent of murder based on the fact that they aren’t reacting as they would to mass-murder of five years olds. I don’t buy it. I’m opposed to a lot of things: genocide, urban poverty, illiteracy, etc. I can’t say I have done a whole lot about those things. I’m curious, what would a purportedly pro life person have to do to convince you of his sincerity? Bomb an abortion clinic, thereby killing the fetuses along with their mothers and doctors? I think that the vast majority of those who oppose legal abortion have (thankfully) made the judgment that violence wouldn’t actually solve anything, given the state of the law and the fact that it’s nearly impossible to actually “save” a perceived victim by acting violently.
It’s not that I don’t believe that people who oppose abortion rights are acting in good faith. However, I do seriously question whether most of them have seriously examined their precise rationale for valuing human life above other kinds of life and whether those reasons apply to an embryo, fetus, zygote, or blastocyst.
Is it the particular arrangement of chromosomes that make human life special?
For my part, I’m not saying that human life isn’t special — I’m saying that the reasons for it being special – our capacity for self-awareness, to think, feel, and act as moral beings are the types of things that make us special. But, those qualities as opposed to, say, a mere biological arrangement of chromosomes, lead to some murky, difficult line drawing problems. So difficult, in fact, that it makes it inappropriate for the government to step in and require a woman to use her uterus to nurture that life when it’s against her will.
On the Right to Privacy. The Ninth Amendment is a good starting point:
Those who deny there is a right to privacy based upon it not being enumerated are seeking to deny or disparage its existence based on that fact.
On the subject of religion being infused into the debate – I would argue that it is being infused, *if* the rationale for valuing human life is based on God’s commandments or humans having a spirit or soul or some rationale that is strictly a matter of one’s religious faith. (I stipulate that there is reason to value human life as special, but I think there is a serious debate to be had on the reason for that specialness.) If there are alternate reasons, we have to ask a) at what point those reasons are applicable; and b) whether that point is clear enough and compelling enough to justify requiring a woman to use her body to nurture that life when she is unwilling to do so.
I wonder just how many “pro-life” proponents believe in:
the death penalty
warfare
police action shootings
mercy killing
defending their home/loved ones with lethal force
These are the same people who look at you incredulously when you try to tell them essentially the same thing about narcotics.
That said, “it was legal 150 years ago” is hardly a good argument as to why it should continue to be legal, and so I’m not sure what relevance it has to the present debate.
I think the fact that it was legal until modern times is relevant only insofar as those who oppose legal abortions attempt to paint Roe as a break from tradition.
And, just to be clear, I’m not suggesting that it’s impossible to deeply consider the nature of why human life is to be treated differently from other kinds of life and still come to a different conclusion from mine. I just don’t get the sense that most pro-lifers (or pro-choicers, frankly) have thought very hard about that particular aspect of the issue.
I agree that those things are at least part of what make human life special. The difficulty with using such characteristics as a basis for attaching full human rights only at the moment of birth is that in the first few weeks after being born, infants have much more in common, in their ability to think, feel, act, and be self-aware, with a third trimester fetus than they have in common with a five year old or an adult.
I don’t discount the autonomy issue. After birth, the baby’s life is no longer dependent on a direct connection to its mother’s body. But for the first weeks and months of a child’s life, the traits you mention are largely potential rather than actual. And there are profoundly mentally retarded people who never get past the infant stage. As you have often pointed out in the past, you consider it a stretch to treat an undifferentiated mass of cells as the moral equivalent of a five year old. Still, at the other end of the pregnancy, is it not problematic to treat an early third trimester fetus, which can do just about everything a full term baby can do, as no different morally or legally than that clump of cells?
That is the point, Doug (see, e.g., Newt Gingrich, the professor of History who has stated many a time that “abortion was murder in the 19th century”). I’ve been telling people this for thirty years now, and I’d guess about 1 in 20 could correctly identify the legal status of abortion in 1787, or the circumstances behind it becoming unlawful a century later.
But I think there’s more relevance than that; I’d argue–in my own illiterate fashion–that the “privacy” of abortion is subsumed under the Ninth as retention of rights under common law (whereas Griswold is a Fourth amendment case). Again, as an unlettered hick, if the contention of “privacy” is so egregious as to spur a forty-year Court-packing effort to overturn it, why hasn’t it been overturned on the merits in all that time?
I would like to point out that I wasn’t making an argument “in favor of” reproductive freedom. I was critiquing Saletan’s ice-cream pony “compromise” (whatever it was, exactly), which offered me no reason to negotiate away someone else’s rights (as though I could) beyond the idea that I would thereby be joined by more people calling for the likes of Jon and John to get over it, already. To which I expressly replied that I’d rather listen to them, not that that seems to have been appreciated.
Reproductive rights are the law. Arguments about When Life Begins are a metaphysical sideshow in the general and, as I said, a de facto religious argument in 98% of the cases. Typing in all caps doesn’t change that, anymore than wishing a flying pony would take you to planet Compromise gets you there. OF COURSE the state should control the issue? Of course, the state already does.
The privacy right – in a broad sense – seems like a great idea and something that should be constitutionally protected (I think the vast majority of Americans would agree). What concerns me with the privacy right found in Griswold is the way its been subsequently interpreted. Besides, Griswold was explicitly a case about the right to privacy WITHIN MARRIAGE. That being said, the court in Roe was likely to find abortion constitutional with or without a privacy right – what the constitution actually says on the issue be damned.
I don’t think anyone is arguing that reproductive “rights” are not (currently) the law – the question is, should the law be changed? When life begins is not a metaphysical concept, as you claim. Science can observe it/define it and thus the law can regulate it. (As John pointed out – look to the factors you’re using to define life) You seem to think that simply because you’re confused about when life begins, that we should just accept the way the law currently is. But isn’t life – our most precious asset – deserving of more protection than that? If there really is ambiguity as to when life begins, shouldn’t we give it the benefit of doubt? In any case, you already came to the conclusion that life begins post-birth (viability?) even if you didn’t directly negotiate the issue.
The religious argument is a nice straw man you’ve set up, but its just not relevant to the debate. If you’re asserting that many pro-lifers are religious, you’re right. Or that there are religious connotations associated with abortion, you’d also be right. But its just not relevant in determining if the law should sanction an act that is destroying life – a scientific, definable concept.
Sometimes a pro-life person is just someone who hasn’t had the need for an abortion yet. See John Fund (Wall Street Journal conservative commentator who paid for his girlfriend’s daughter to abort the product of his wayward seed).
Often that’s not the case, I’m sure. But certainly more than a few pro-lifers of means have quietly whisked their daughters away to some other town to have problems taken care of. The question of when life begins is often separate from the question of when life begins in one’s own teenage daughter.
Just sayin’.
(I posted this elsewhere, on an older thread, but it seems relevant here, too.)
Doug,
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 “normalâ€, even if only temporarily. Whatever “normal†may be and by whomever it may be defined.
Jon says that the position of the Church allowing early abortions was altered because of improved scientific understanding.
In fact, the “science” on which the Church changed its view was entirely false. Early microscopists examined sperm and claimed to see a tiny, fully-formed person contained within the wiggling cells! It was claimed that this little person went from the sperm into the egg and then grew into a person. Note the assumption that the male provides the person, the female just gives nourishment. See The ovary of Eve:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0226669521
Modern biology, of course, totally refutes this claim. A fertilized egg is a one-celled organism 0.1 mm across, only identifiable as human by its DNA. There is no “little person” in sperm. Yet once the Church decreed that a fetus was a human being from conception, the decision stuck.
“Forced pregnancy, forced birth” is the standard term used by the pro-choice crowd to describe (accurately) the outlook of the otherwise termed “pro life” group.
You seem to think that simply because you’re confused about when life begins, that we should just accept the way the law currently is.
Look, Jon, the distinction between discussion and dueling bullhorn rants across a police barricade is listening. I keep finding you refuting things I never said, apparently because they’re in your wheelhouse.
And I grant you, I talk much and still manage to be opaque. But Griswold, for example; all I ever said–on my own blog–was that “I was fine with the right to privacy” as one of several examples of the lack of a compelling reason to negotiate with Saletan’s self-declared majority opinion. I’ve said here since that, half-literate boob that I am, Griswold appears a Fourth amendment case (“and First, Second, Third, and Fifth”) while reproductive rights, which for us originate in English common law, depend on the Ninth. I’m not an attorney or a Constitutional scholar, and I based nothing but a rejoinder to Saletan on my keen understanding. Is there a point about Griswold that addresses that argument? Is there some black-letter rebuttal of my unlettered suggestion? If so kindly explain them to me. Use small words.
Or the above, wherein my contention–no, bald declaration–that the question of When Life Begins is a metaphysical one leads you to conclude I’m “confused”. How does that follow? I may be possessed of metaphysical certainty on the issue myself, and still allow that the question belongs to metaphysics. I can believe that Life begins at fertilization, implantation, heartbeat, quickening, first ex-utero breath, second trimester, or the third drink at dinner that evening and still believe in “privacy” or the primacy of the woman involved. I can believe the question is, literally, meaningless. I can agree with you and still maintain that the state has no epistemological argument for intervention, nor a practical one, or, for that matter, that you are entirely correct but the implications and practical demands of enforcement are unrealistic, intolerably intrusive, or unconstitutional. I can believe any of those things; I suggest none of that occurs to you because you are trying to blur the edges of a Manichaean religious argument to conform to the legal requirement of making a secular one, and it’s an impossible task. But don’t let me stop you.
Finally, we keep hearing from you about modern science “solving” this issue; I commented earlier on the missing evidence we were directed to “see below”. Care to share it with us? Seems curious that with all the heat generated by Roe over forty years an empirical solution would be reached without the rest of us hearing a word about it.
Maybe I’m confused as to what we’re arguing about here. Griswold was all across the board in terms of where a right to privacy could be found. Some justices thought one amendment in the Bill of Rights, others thought differently. Broadly, the right to privacy just came from the “pnumbras” or “emanations” of several amendments. The justices agreed the right to privacy existed, they just disagreed as to where it was derived from.
In any case, Roe is expressly predicated on the right to privacy (and cites Griswold). The court states: “This right of privacy, whether it be found in the Fourteenth Amendment’s concept of personal liberty [as] we feel it is, or [in] the Ninth [Amendment], is broad enough to encompass a woman’s decision whether or not to terminate her pregnancy.” So evidently the court views it as a 14th amendment case, but ultimately doesn’t think it matters since a right to privacy exists and the court believes abortion falls within that right.
I also believe the court makes a similar argument to the one you’ve made here: “We need not resolve the difficult question of when life begins. … the judiciary, at this point in the development of man’s knowledge, is not in a position to speculate as to the answer.” But of course the court DOES make a determination as to when it thinks life begins, because it went ahead and set out the trimester framework as to when a state has enough of an interest to regulate a woman’s decision to terminate her pregnancy. This really begs the question: if the court is so unsure as to when life begins, why ‘constitutionalize’ the issue? Why not AT LEAST let the states decide, once further information becomes available?
Wow. If the question is meaningless, then how do you define life? Does life hold any value to you? That is, if you don’t care when life begins, then the government should be able to regulate irrespective of when life exists? Termination can occur at conception, at viability, after birth, at age 15, etc.? Life is highly valued in our society! When it starts defines the contours of the debate. When life begins is THE question in the abortion debate.
Even Roe said the interests of the state trumps the privacy interest of the woman at viability/third trimester [the important exception being the health, including mental health, of the woman].
The state’s argument, as the justices in Roe saw, is that if the fetus is a life, then the state has an extraordinarily strong interest to protect that right. You’ve got to address when life begins first. Once that’s been determined, then you weigh the interest of the fetus with the interest of the mother. So you’ve skipped to step two, with a default assumption that life begins at some point after an abortion can be performed.
I have no idea what you mean by a “Manichaean religious argument.” As I’ve stated previously, and you’ve simply ignored – religion is irrelevant to the debate. Stop trying to push it in.
Huh? First, the burden on defining life should fall to the pro-choice crowd since they are the ones seeking to terminate what is at least, in their view, potential life. Second, look to factors like John mentioned in Post 10. Or consider how life is defined scientifically – everything from single-celled organisms on up to elephants and you and me.
Or try comparing characteristics of the fetus to those of us on the other side of birth:
a) size (irrelevant, humans are large and small),
b) environment (the fact that the fetus exists in the uterus has no bearing as to whether or not its a human life),
c) awareness (many tests show the fetus can feel pain by 8 weeks),
d) dependency (hospital patients may be dependent on a variety of devices to continue to live and are still human), etc.
All that to say: the scientific evidence is there to show that life begins before birth. Is it just convenient for the pro-choice crowd to ignore it?
Child sacrifice was common at one time, too, in some cultures. And, of course, slavery itself was perfectly legal until after the War Between the States.
In other words, arguing that something is OK simply because it was legal and common at one time has no logical merit.
Sure, just don’t argue that prohibitions against abortion somehow represents something traditional.
(And, “War Between the States?” — that’s on down the spectrum toward the “War of Northern Aggression.” I don’t insist on “Treason in Defense of Slavery,” but Civil War is the common parlance, I think. Just to pick a nit.)
The pro-choice lobby wants to ignore the science and the bases for the legal protections afforded to all other classes of human beings and reserve unto itself the right to define on ad-hoc terms what constitutes valuable enough human life to be protected under the law.
Roe, and its proponents feign ignorance on a topic–when human life begins–which science has demonstrated. And, as the methods for demonstrating just how human the unborn are improve, they simply assert that the question is moot, or that we must define human life differently in this instance than we do in all others. Or, that we re-prioritize how we order rights–i.e., my convenience versus your life. How convenient!
Attempt to apply the logic of Roe or any other line of argument brought forward by the pro-choice lobby and assert a right of privacy to kill your three year old, as long as its in the privacy of your home and you would rightly be considered out of civilized bounds. Yet, asked to come up with some substantial distinction between a three day old infant and one in utero using criteria that could not also apply to some persons that we all agree should be granted protection under the law, the pro-choice enthusiast throws up his hands or ignores the question.
A cynic might conclude that the logic begins with a conclusion–the idealogical orthodoxy that unrestricted abortion is a prerequisite to civilized society–and works backward (or sideways, or circularly) to get to a legal and ethical “foundation.”
It’s really no wonder then, that clingers-on to Roe so desperately insist that nominees to the Supreme Court pass muster on the topic. They realize that a neutral jurist analyzing the decision on its merits, in light of new technology and knowledge, would find it riddled with holes. Maybe so, but it is the left wing’s idealogical “baby”, so to speak. Roe is to the left what a creationism litmus test would be on the right.
All right then, if pro-choicers are so irrational, let’s approach this in a slightly different fashion. Why do you think pro-choicers take the position they do? Is it simply because they hate babies? Or is there, just maybe, some other rationale.
Jon and Steve: Are you law students or attorneys with connections to the Christian Legal Society or (a) similar group(s)? The reason I ask is because both of you seem to be writng “talking” points that I would expect CLS (or a similar group) to make to argue for a pro-life position without making reference to Christianity or religion.
Well, what do you know? Not from CLS, but pretty much in line with what some are saying above. http://www.slaying-dragons.com/2007/04/abortion-issue-reasoned-approach.html
What science is showing that the unborn are more “human” than we knew them to be twenty or thirty years ago?
The pro-choice lobby tends to use terms that science has been using for a long time, such as “embryo”, and “fetus”. An embryo is human life, but it’s not a person. This in in contrast to the pro-life lobby, which tends to call anything after conception a “baby”.
Embryos are human life, with the potential of becoming people. But something at three weeks that doesn’t have a formed spinal cord, beating heart, or eyes is not a person yet. Around six weeks the heart starts beating. I would posit that part of personhood is having a beating heart. So in that regard, I wouldn’t give a pre-six week fetus rights equal to mine.
@T: I’m not in favor of that article, as it is rather vague, but Jon and Steve (and perhaps others) seem to be making similar arguments.
Doghouse Riley said what I meant to say in his post at #17.
Er, make that pre six-week embryo.
First, haven’t we straightened out the “that’s so 150 years ago” argument? Yes, chattel slavery was once legal (not “perfectly” though, Scott; by the time of the Constitutional Convention it was already illegal in Vermont, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Connecticut, and Rhode Island, and would be shortly in New York; this is why we had that “Compromise”; the importation of slaves would be banned in 1808), but you will note that even such egregious violations, by our standards, were addressed constitutionally, as they must be–slavery by the 14th and 15th amendments, the disenfranchisement of women by the 19th, Native American citizenship subsumed under the 14th in 1924, child labor–the subject of the proposed 20th amendment–finally, by the reversal of previous Court decisions in U.S. v. Darby (1941). All by the last proceed by appending excluded persons to existing rights of citizenship; the last creates “minors” as a specially protected class.
No one is required to defend chattel slavery or 18th century medical practices in order to defend one’s rights, any more than modern religious organizations have to defend the French Wars of Religion or the Inquisition to be accorded the right of Free Exercise. The matter is properly seen in the reverse: as no such thing as the “right to life” was accorded the human blastocyst in the Constitution, and as the practice at least since English common law permitted abortion until quickening, then such should not be removed without proper redress, something which is not achieved by some guy making a good argument for it on the Internets. Which was my original, and only, point.
As to #24, would you posit that someone on a heart-lung machine is suddenly not a person due to the absence, even temporarily, of a beating heart? Is a blind person who lost his eyes or never had them, a person?
That you personally want to define personhood as the acquisition or retention of some accidents (philosophical term) of being human doesn’t jive with the existing jurisprudence in matters other than abortion. No one has yet addressed that point in this thread.
The problem that I see with the line of argument that posits that beings become more “persons” as they acquire more adult-like, “normal” attributes is that it attempts to freeze-frame one moment in the life cycle–adulthood–ascribe to it the term “personhood” and devalue all the prior and subsequent stages. There is no logical way of arguing along the lines that you do in #24 and wind up not declassifying as persons the mentally handicapped, the chronically ill, the elderly, and infants. If one arbitrarily acquires personhood at a stage of development rather than at the moment of coming into existence, it is wholly logical to conclude that one can lose personhood at some equally arbitrary point of losing the same attributes through disease, aging or accident. Yet, the law allows for no such declassification. Personhood ends with death. It logically begins with the beginning of life.
3-D ultrasound technology, for example, cannot be considered helpful to the pro-choice cause, since it reveals the degree to which fetuses have developed the features that make them visually resemble more mature babies often by the time a woman would be seeking an abortion. So much for the “blob of cells” argument that held so much sway in the ’80s.
As to #23, I am neither a lawyer, nor a law student. Nor have I even heard of the organization you referenced. I just find it utterly obnoxious that it’s become so easy for the pro-choice movement to dismiss as religious zealots those who are pro-life, as though none other than religious arguments can be made for granting civil rights to the unborn. It doesn’t help when letters to the editor on the matter from the pro-life side always quote Scripture, as this is unhelpful in the secular sphere.
As to #22, I think this is a superb question. I cannot fully address it because I have concluded differently. I think the pro-choice movement regards abortion as a means to escape the natural consequences of behavior when those consequences interfere with the living out of one’s lifestyle choices. To put it bluntly, those on the pro-choice side have come to the conclusion that the personal convenience of a pregnant woman outweighs the rights of the being growing inside her, because to conclude otherwise would subject her to the natural consequences of being pregnant and giving birth. As we all realize however, we cannot ever fully escape the natural consequences of our behavior, especially when doing so impinges on the rights of others.
As to #27, since pre-Roe, states had the right the restrict abortion within their jurisdiction, there was a recognition in law that the individual states could have an interest in protecting that life. How did Roe constitutionally address this matter? It did so by asserting gratutiously that the unborn are non-persons, just as the Court did in Dred Scott, except in that case, at that time, there was a Constitutional foundation for doing so. Did that make Scott the right decision?
At four weeks, the embryos of humans, apes, and dogs all look very similar. Therefore, I guess they all should have the same rights.
And what of ectopic pregnancy? Why would that embryo have any less right to life.
Ultrasound technology hasn’t given us much new information, really. We already had intact and dissected embryos and fetuses from the various stages of development.
My argument about hearts, eyes, etc., was an illustration that shouldn’t be that hard to grasp. A blastula doesn’t have any of those things, and never did. Most people would be able to differentiate between that and a person on a heart-lung bypass.
Science is quite clear about when life begins. So, if we’re going to rely on science, then abortion should be illegal.
My favorite irony here is that those who are pro-choice are either ignorant of the science &/or eschew science to rely on metaphysical arguments (e.g., personhood). I thought Christians were supposed to be the anti-science or a-scientific rubes who rely so much on statements of faith. Hilarious!
By the way, Marvin Olasky’s Abortion Rites: A Social History of Abortion in America is indispensable on this topic.
As to #29: Regardless of what four-week old embryos of different species look like, they are not the same thing. A human embryo will not suddenly morph into an ape or dog embryo. The point about 3-D ultrasound is not to say that rights are confered because of appearance, but only to suggest that old lines of argument on the pro-choice side that what is involved in an abortion is no more meaningful than a blob of cells is difficult to maintain given the widespread use of technology that gives visual evidence to the contrary to most pregnant women.
I have no trouble grasping your argument about eyes, hearts, etc., but do not see the relevance to the personhood of the entity involved. That a blastocyst or embryo does not yet have the physical traits you mention is no more relevant to personhood than whether my five-year-old has learned to read, or whether a teenage boy does not yet have facial hair. A blastocyst is a distinct human being in a different stage of the life cycle than an infant who is in a different stage than a teenager, who is in a different stage than a middle-aged person who is in a different stage than an elderly person.
When a blastocyst, an embryo, a fetus, a 10 year-old or a 100-year-old dies, what has ended is a human life. That you personally assign a great deal of relevance to the development of certain body parts or functions doesn’t address how the development of these impart personhood. Nor does it explain why the pro-choice side accepts equally as persons human beings just on the safe side of birth who have a lot more in common developmentally with the 4 or 5 month old fetus to whom no rights accrue, than with an 18-year-old adult.
I supposed we’re just supposed to “get it”.
As for ectopic pregnancy, the embryo involved is still a human being. Unfortunately, the end result of ectopic pregnancy is that the embryo cannot survive and the life of the mother is truly in danger. In removing an ectopic pregnancy, it is not the desired end to kill the embryo, but an unfortunate consequence of saving the mother’s life in a situation when the death of both would be the outcome. Maybe someday, science will facilitate the ability to transplant ectopic pregancies into the uterus, which would be a great advance, in my perspective.
I’m not so sure it is, but more to the point, it is definitely not so clear about when human life begins.
Clearly life alone is not sacrosanct. We kill flies because they bother us, to take an example. What’s the extra component that obligates us to treat human life differently and when is it sufficiently clear that that component (or components) are present in developing humans such that their rights justify government intervention, if necessary, to force an unwilling woman to use her body for that life’s benefit?
Really? Can you cite one piece of science that says something different?
I don’t mind metaphysical arguments per se (although some are more impressive than others); I’m simply saying I enjoy the irony of the feet on which they (and the aversion to science) are worn.
The problem with defining life, as I understand it, is that around the fringes, the line between living organism and inanimate object isn’t all that clear.
This is just some site I found on the Internet, and I’m not pretending it’s any kind of authority. But the author does seem to cover some of the ground I recall from high school biology about how difficult it can get to definitively separate organisms from objects.
Or, to take an example, is a virus “alive” or not?
But how does any of that relate to defining when biological life begins for the embryo in the womb?
Well eric (or Jon, or anyone else), be a friend and share your knowledge. Cough up. A citation to an appropriate peer-reviewed scientific journal which demonstrates that you’re correct. Personally, I’ll settle for a single article defining When Life Begins with empirical rigor. Not “what some other poster said.” Not “you should read this book by a Journalism professor.” Not your anthropomorphic reactions to watching the wonder of those 4-D ultrasounds. One. Peer-reviewed. Scientific. Publication.
I was expanding upon my lack of certainty that it was clear when life began. But, it contributes to my larger argument that life is something of a fuzzy notion and that, in any case, the mere fact of life is not important in terms of whether it’s appropriate or inappropriate to terminate that life. There are all kinds of life we kill routinely — weeds, bugs, viruses, bacteria, etc.
So, it can’t be the mere fact of life that makes a human special. There is an additional component that makes human life more valuable to us. The critical questions in the abortion debate are: a) what is/are those additional components beyond mere life; and, even more to the point, b) when does a developing human partake in that/those additional components sufficiently to justify government intervention, if necessary, to force a woman to use her body to nurture that life against her will?
The first thing I find under Google: http://www.princeton.edu/~prolife/articles/embryoquotes2.html
Let me know if you want me to dig around a little more…
Biological life begins at conception. When else could it begin?
Doug makes an interesting tangential point: allowing that it’s life, when does it have the right to live? But these are philosophical, utilitarian, metaphysical question– aside from the science.
Again, I don’t mind metaphysical questions– and believe me, I see a valid place for such things. But DR’s flat-earth views of science and Doug’s insistence on the metaphysical is the sort of thing I’m used to hearing about the caricature of (Christian) fundies.
@Steve: I’m not part of any movement, nor was I dismissing you and Jon as religious zealots. I asked a simple question based upon what I think may be going on here. It wouldn’t be the first time that someone or several people have appeared on this blog to give “secular” arguments on topics that are usually associated with religious beliefs.
About a year or so ago, someone who claimed to be a pharmacy tech or pharmacy student tried to tell us that a pharmacists’ conscience bill that was being considered in the Indiana legislature wasn’t really about religious beliefs, it was about protecting the pharmacist from liability in case a pregnant woman or girl received a birth control prescription. When some of us called the person out with the clear language of the bill, and actually did some research to back up our claims, the person disappeared. I don’t think she’s shown up here since.
I’m familiar enough with the Christian Legal Society and with evangelicals and other conservative Christians to know that they may have people watching blogs and websites who are prepared with “secular” answers to counter the pro-choice movement, as you call it. I know from experience that evangelicals and other conservative Christians are not above hiding their Christianity when it would enhance their credibility to do so. That practice is one of the main reasons that I no longer consider myself evangelical.
It appears that both you and Jon, whether associated with the Christian Legal Society or just opinionated Christians (nothing wrong with that) are getting pre-fab arguments from somewhere. Doghouse notwithstanding, people who have not been to law school typically know virtually nothing about Griswold v. Connecticut or Roe v. Wade. They may have heard of Roe, but probably not Griswold. I don’t know any people who have not been in law school who would try to argue that there are holes in the logic of Griswold and/or Roe. Therefore, while I admit that I could be wrong, I have to wonder whether you and Jon are getting your arguments from somewhere. Some of the phrases and arguments both you and Jon use seem to be from the religious pro-life point of view, but without any references to God or Christianity.
So is pregnancy that results from rape or incest the “natural consequence” of a woman’s behavior? What about instances when a couple decides to abort a child rather than carry it to term because the child will not survive or because the woman’s health and/or life is at risk? Seems to me that you are being dismissive and judgmental here. Are you suggesting that women, being floosies and such, use abortion as a form of late birth control? Are you suggesting that women (or couples) who choose to have abortions because of serious health issues are merely being selfish? You are full of easy answers, but you are not answering the hard questions.
Like Doghouse, I too would like some proof, other than assertions, that science has established when human life begins. If you’re going to use science as the foundation of your arguments, then give us some citations, please.
No, eric. Not “the first thing you find on Google.” Nor “a collection of quotes culled without apparent understanding, or anything approaching relevance, from school biology texts”. Do I have to go on with the litany of Things That Aren’t Peer-Reviewed Scientific Journals? You’re the one who came in here saying the science was “clear” and your opponents cowering in Bronze-Age superstition from the terrible comet of your sparkling wit.
One. Peer-reviewed. Scientific. Publication.
That’s not ambiguous, right? Nor is it unreasonable, especially given your apodictic certainty. It’s not a request for a Summer Reading List, a jacket blurb for an Evangelical journalist you admire, or the definition of zygote. It’s an invitation for you, and others who made similar claims, to back up bald statements with evidence. With one instance in the forty years of post-Roe agitation. It shouldn’t send you to Google. It ought to embarrass you not to have it stored in your own head.
One. Peer-reviewed. Scientific. Publication. Where Science takes place. Nothing more, nothing less.
Pila, it’s interesting that you had a strong, factual argument against the “pharmacy tech”. But here, the primary focus is some sort of guilt by correlation or guilt because Steve knows too much. (Is knowledge of Griswold really that arcane? I guess I’m more of a nerd than I thought.)
I don’t know why you would find it all that bothersome that “evangelicals and other conservative Christians are not above hiding their Christianity when it would enhance their credibility to do so”. Biblically, although one might argue that these are special cases: the examples of Rahab, Esther, and Paul come quickly to mind. Beyond that, secular people hide their beliefs all the time.
You’re correct to correct Steve about pregnancy from rape and incest, but quite incorrect to imply that these are anywhere near the heart of the pro-choice movement. Only the fringes of the pro-life movement debate the life of the mother– and again, that’s quite rare. (“Health” of the mother is hopelessly subjective.) The very-near-term death of a child allows for some difficult questions, but again, is rare and nowhere near the heart of the p-c movement.
To paraphrase your final line: You are full of marginal questions, but you are not answering the hard questions. I think if I were “pro-choice” on abortion, I would embrace Steve’s point, but then allow that people have the right to behave in such a manner. Of course, that introduces other hard questions…
Steve:
As to #27, since pre-Roe, states had the right the restrict abortion within their jurisdiction, there was a recognition in law that the individual states could have an interest in protecting that life. How did Roe constitutionally address this matter? It did so by asserting gratutiously that the unborn are non-persons, just as the Court did in Dred Scott, except in that case, at that time, there was a Constitutional foundation for doing so. Did that make Scott the right decision?
Sorry, but once a thread goes past four comments I have difficulty tracking it by call number.
I think we all know the emotional satisfaction that comes from placing yourself on the side of the Angels, but again, I am no more required to defend Scott than 18th century technology. (It’s an easy game to play, Steve: Why, controlling a woman’s uterus is like breeding African slaves! Let’s stick to the issues.)
Your construction is faulty. The fact that states restricted abortion pre-Roe does not imply that Roe created a “new” right, but rather that those restrictions were unconstitutional all along. (Though we should also note that neither does the existence of restrictions abnegate the right: there are restrictions on Free Speech, Assembly, Religion, gun ownership, even the right of non-self-incrimination.)
The rights of citizens under English common law were incorporated into the Constitution, and reiterated under the Bill of Rights for good measure.
DR, I’ll do some digging and get back to you. I thought it was patently obvious, but you’re correct that I ought to have it in hand– or should be able to find it quickly enough.
Given our mutual certainty, I’m sure that one of us will quit making a bad argument after this exchange.
While I’m looking around, can you take the time to find one citation on your position? I’m sure you have that stored in your head. Thanks!
http://cat.inist.fr/?aModele=afficheN&cpsidt=20200273
The authors look to tweak the standard definition by defining biological life as conception given “biparental origin of the chromosome set”.
What position is that, eric? That the question of When Life Begins is metaphysical and not epistemological? There’s no such thing as an Appeal to Authority in philosophy, apart from the several hundred versions of the One True Religion, that is, and none of them has ever managed to solve the problem to the other metaphysician’s satisfaction, let alone those of us with little interest in dancing angels and pinheads.
But, okay, I’ll play to this extent, since it points up something that’s been missed: it’s a metaphysical question because it requires a declaration of an Ultimate Truth (“What is Life?”). The question is outside the strictures of Science, because Science requires adequate, not approximate, description and rigorous physical proof.
Now, one the problem with saying “Life begins at fertilization” is that it simply begs the question. Why fertilization? Why doesn’t life begin at ovulation, or ejaculation, or at the first sideways glance across a crowded room? Are those not potential Lives? On what authority, or by what argument, do you claim to have established the lower limits of the debate? If I shoot a man in the testicles, if a woman refuses to have unprotected sex, if I turn left instead of right and never meet that fecund breeder down the block, is Life destroyed? Why not, other than it’s obviously insupportable to argue it?
Saying it’s a metaphysical argument does not preclude you making one, but you opt for claiming Science is on your side where it clearly cannot answer the question. This sort of thing–forty years of avoiding the issue because of pleorophoric certainty–might cloud the issue with the public, but it hasn’t advanced the legal argument any. Forty years. There’s no Right to Life consensus on contraception, no agreement about rape or incest, no clear and simple calls to charge women who terminate pregnancies and the doctors and other medical professionals who perform it with premeditated murder once you overturn Roe. Why? It sure isn’t because Life, in the form of a blastocyst, cares whether Daddy was a devoted husband, drunken one-nighter, or a rampaging Arab terrorist. It’s because taking sides would result in an immediate fracture of political support. Yet we keep hearing “the matter should be decided by the States”, or “an exception made for the life of the mother”. Isn’t murder Murder?
http://cat.inist.fr/?aModele=afficheN&cpsidt=20200273
The authors look to tweak the standard definition by defining biological life as conception given “biparental origin of the chromosome setâ€.
Forgive me, but do you actually know what that means? You’ve found a scientific paper–that’s a start–unfortunately behind a pay wall, but that can’t be helped. We do get an abstract, which happens to have this as its opening sentence:
“Conception sometimes results in products that are not capable of developing into an embryo and fetus.”
In other words, the mere fact that conception occurs does not automatically mean the product has the potential to develop into an embryo/fetus/child. (This is not exactly news, eric; it’s the starting point of their study.) The authors apparently–little difficult to tell without the article to read–are proposing an operant definition of the potential for embryonic development that excludes certain common abnormal growths resulting from conception. Tell me what issue this solves and I’ll spring for the article.
DR,
On #48: As I have said repeatedly in this thread, I don’t mind metaphysical arguments at all. I’ve simply pointed to the humor/irony here– that the standard, “intellectual” position is an inordinate respect for “science”, when as you note, such things cannot be settled by science alone. (The failure to see capital-E Evolution [as a supposedly comprehensive “explanation” for the development of life] as far more narrative than science is the most obvious example.)
On #49, as I said in #47, the authors want to tweak *the standard definition of biological life* for humans. I agree that there’s no discovery here. (We had friends who struggled with one of these a few years back.) But apparently, in the literature, a more precise definition was not yet published which accommodated these categories. They want to move the standard definition from conception to conception given X.
I’m still looking forward to getting an article from you…