Not much to discuss, PZ. It seems to be a pretty bang-on appraisal of religious attitudes toward women. They are nothing but subjugated baby-factories whose only reason for living is to squeeze out one potential believer after another.
That's pretty funny. I wondered when others would bother to notice that, very literally, an unborn human is about as valuable as a sheep or goat from a strict biblical perspective and has no rights or even a value you might place upon any other production instrument in an agrarian economy.
The specific situation mentioned in the Exodus text is precisely the same as is currently covered by the Unborn Victims of Violence Act, which means that the law is more draconian than the biblical law, which is hard to do.
All I could possibly add is that it wasn't until the 18th century (I think -- I'm not 100% sure about the date) that the Catholic Church decided to oppose all abortion at any stage of a pregnancy. Before then, their position had been that the soul entered the body at "quickening" -- i.e., when the fetus started moving inside the womb -- and that abortion was okay before that.
Of course, once they'd established the new policy, it had always been true for all time.
Oh, and I'd also add this: Yes, it's about keeping women under control. But I think it's also about keeping the birth rate high, and thus preserving and expanding the ranks of the faithful.
Catholic arguments against abortion go back quite a bit further than the 18th century - but on the grounds that abortion was the concealment of evidence of the crime of fornication or adultery. The purported personhood of a fetus is a modern addition.
Numbers 005:027 seems to be a recipe for how a priest can magically induce abortions for pregnancies caused by adultery (unless you can come up with another translation for the euphemism "... and her belly shall swell, and her thigh shall rot ...").
The fundamental question remains unanswered. When does a fetus become an individual with rights to be respected?
Clearly, a fertilized egg is not an individual except by religious decree. However, is a just born infant an individual? Two hours before birth? 1 week before birth? 1 month before birth? There is a transition, and science must define a credible point.
Birth does not seem to be such a credible point. If it were, then insurance companies could well deny any pre-mature birth care.
So, at some point the argument shifts from the rights of the mother to the rights of both the mother and the child.
If abortions were being performed 2 weeks before birth, you'd have a point, George. As it is, if there must be a time for the rights to "transfer" from mother to child (insinuating that we can safely assume that some pregnant women are not rights-bearing citizens), how about when they're separate people? Why have a situation where some pregnant women, for semi-arbitrary reasons, become non-rights-bearing people? Setting personhood at birth is the best way to make sure we don't punish women for getting pregnant, and you can rest easy about the imaginary women who get abortions for shits and giggles the day before they give birth. That's a fantasm of the religious right, not a real occurence.
That's a fantasm of the religious right, not a real occurence.
True that.
I'm so fucking sick of the absolutely ridiculous specters and doomsday scenarios the wingnuts fabricate on a regular basis. They are not rooted in reality whatsoever, and are nothing but shameless attempts to whip the flock into a frenzy of hangwringing and draconian legislation.
Life Insurance companies won't insure a baby until it has survived outside the womb 90 days...
So going by your definitions, a baby is a 'medical condition' while it's in the womb, then a non-person for the first 90 days outside the womb, and then alive? Does that make post-partum abortion legal for 90 days?
I'd also like personhood established for my vehicle and possessions, so that when I get in an accident, I can be charged with attempted vehicular manslaughter too.
George: A number of events occur at birth, no matter how premature the birth, that make it a credible time to consider "personhood" to begin. The most obvious of these is the shift from a low-oxygen intrauterine environment to a high-oxygen extrauterine environment. Without the extra oxygen, it is likely that the fetal neocortex is essentially non-functional, no matter how developed it is compared to a premature infant.
I would claim that one can make a case for restricting third trimester abortion to cases of fetal anomaly or risk to the mother's life if and ONLY if abortion is freely available in the 1st 20-24 weeks. If it is, then one can state that being pregnant and doing nothing about it constitutes implicit permission for the fetus to use the pregnant woman's body as a support system for as long as it needs, unless it begins to endanger her. But if obstacles are placed such that it is not possible for her to obtain an abortion until very late, then the argument is obviously not sound.
My point is simply that there is a question of when a fetus gains rights as an individual, if it does. The argument simply laid out the obvious. If we agree that a fetus two weeks before term is an individual with rights, then when did that designation take place?
You can have a silly knee-jerk reaction that abortion is not common close to birth, but so what. I agree that abortion is a right of a woman up to a point, because there are no competing rights to deal with. Unfortunately, I don't know where that point is. This leaves unacceptable ambiguity. We need a scientific, rational approach. Religious or emotional knee-jerk approaches for any view are not acceptable either. The only other choices are birth or conception, neither is acceptable nor rationally defendable.
BTW- I am not aware of a car or home that has insurance. Only the owners / operators have insurance.
There's no point in getting into quoting the Bible at fundies. They've been doing this longer than we have, and they care while we fundamentally don't. On Exodus 21:22 and abortions, a quick Google search finds:
George, as a pro-choicer who occasionally goes so far as to describe himself as "pro-abortion" (because jebuz knows, there are so many instances when an abortion should have occurred but did not), I will acknowledge that there are times the reason for using birth as the point aren't always obvious to me. I tend to think the real point could even be on the other side of birth (in a strict philosophical sense), but I suppose that's a discussion for another day. For the time being, though, I see it as such: clearly no rational person equilibrates "embryo" with "baby", and most rational people aren't infanticidal. Those being the case, birth is the by far the most enormously important event that occurs between the two. That, and I think most feminists would tell you is birth is the first time the fetus isn't a leech on another person's organs, and we don't force anyone to donate organs.
@ George:
Richard carrier covers some of those topics you're asking about in a debate he had in 2000 (though it is somewhat outdated, and his position has been updated in his book). Specifically, he says:
Until the 20th week, the cut-off date for an actual "abortion" to occur, there is no complex cerebral cortex and no major central nervous activity. That is a condition universally regarded as a state of death in adults. ...
...None of this individualization can occur before the existence of a complex cortex that can be individualized (pre-fifth-month)--certainly none before there is a central nerve organ of any kind (pre-third-month). Therefore, an individual human (as opposed to a vacant body) cannot exist when a medically-defined abortion occurs. This entails that abortion cannot counter our shared value for individual human existence.
There's more available at the link to the debate and in the book, and it's well worth the read - Carrier always seems able to find the implicit assumptions in our values and our support for them, and clearly explain the logical implications of them.
Also, I think Dianne's proposal is a good legal way of implementing a "scientific" distinction like Carrier's.
I would be able to like this if not for the fact that women as a whole women are more anti-abortion than men. So women are trying to keep themselves under control? It's entirely possible when deranged by religious beliefs but still a bit perplexing for me.
So women are trying to keep themselves under control?
No, just other women. Someone here once linked to a list of tearful testimonies from pro-lifers finding themselves in need of the services of an abortion clinic.
While many gained some empathy for the 'baby-killing' mothers they'd previously terrorised, a few looked at the doctors and said point-blank "You're going to Hell" mere moments after they'd had the procedure.
A fetus becomes an individual (baby) as soon as it can survive without the use of a woman's body. Usually this happens at birth. So, it's pretty simple, but obviously depends on the situation cause it becomes about probabilities of survival the later you get into pregnancy.
The question of a fetus's 'rights' is irrelevant as even you as an individual can't demand the use of another person's body to keep you alive.
To completely sidestep the ethical issue here, I fail to see how any change in environmental oxygen matters - the brain is not exposed to air. One could say that with the move from fetal to regular hemoglobin, the available oxygenation to the brain from the blood goes down.
Unfortunately, Jesus and Mo are quotemining the Bible. The penalty for causing pre-mature birth is a fine. If the fetus is actually harmed, the penalty is equal to the harm (eye for eye, etc.). Therefore, the penalty for abortion (using the logic of the cartoon) is death, per Ex. 21:23.
Is anyone else wondering why Mo(hammed, I assume) is wearing a Sikh-style turban? None of the muslim men I go to school with (and there are a shitload) wear headdresses like that.
Quote mining, eh? Nice try, but the consensus interpretation of the Exodus passage you reference is that it refers to harm to the mother, not the fetus.
"If men who are fighting hit a pregnant woman and she gives birth prematurely but there is no serious injury [i.e., to the mother], the offender must be fined whatever the woman's husband demands and the court allows. But if there is serious injury [i.e., to the mother], you are to take life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot..."
Louisiana has elected a total wingnut asswipe as governor, Bobby Jindal. He has the worst of religious backgrounds. He is from a hindu background but converted to Catholicism. Now he says he is 100% against abortion. No ifs, ands, or buts.
A fetus becomes an individual (baby) as soon as it can survive without the use of a woman's body. Usually this happens at birth.
Actually, as premature birth demonstrates, many unborn fetuses could survive without the mother, but stay in the womb longer. So I would say that very rarely do the time when the baby can survive without the mother and the time when the baby is born actually coincide.
Furthermore, if "survival on its own" is the defining limit, then many premature babies aren't individuals by that definition, because they actually can't survive without the woman's body or a substitute (which we often provide in the form of medical care - but it doesn't change the fact that they couldn't survive on their own). Yet we spend quite a bit of time taking care of premature babies as if they really are individuals. If you're going to say that those cases of premature births preclude individuality, then what about people on life support, or who need organ donations? Though they do not have a right to "demand" the use of another's body, they don't lose their status of personhood simply because they can no longer survive without the use of another's body.
I guess I really don't see a logical connection between "can survive on its own" and "is an individual."
The question of a fetus's 'rights' is irrelevant as even you as an individual can't demand the use of another person's body to keep you alive.
But it's a little more complicated than that, isn't it? Because you could argue that by engaging in sex, the woman has already consented to allowing another individual to use her body in order to develop, right? (I personally don't accept that argument as a valid reason to prohibit abortion, but it points out the difference between pregnancy and other cases where one human needs the use of another's body to survive.) And our laws also require that parents provide for their children - so children, while they are individuals, do have a right to demand the use of another person's (at least) resources, if not their body, to keep them alive.
I think you were correct when you said that your explanation was "simple" - and I think that's a pretty good sign that it doesn't really cover the issue, because it isn't a simple issue.
I fail to see how any change in environmental oxygen matters - the brain is not exposed to air.
The fetus obtains oxygen through the umbilical vein, which has a pO2 of around 35-40. Arterial blood in a person with normal lung function breathing room air has a pO2 of around 80, so a newborn has far more oxygen available to it than a fetus. The cerebral cortex is highly sensitive to oxygen deprivation and simply doesn't work under low oxygen conditions. Fetal hemoglobin, as you mentioned, has a higher oxygen affinity than adult hemoglobin, which is good for getting oxygen from the umbilical artery, but less good for getting it released to the tissue efficiently, so I'm not sure what kind of effect it would have in the end.
I remember it. I remember the dripping condensation some those women had that only they were informed/intelligent enough to make that choice that should be restricted from others who didn't possess their special intelligence and unusual circumstance and how it "wasn't their fault," etc.
I just shook my head in disbelief. Just like I do when I find out about the Ted Haggards, etc., in this world.
Note my correction of 'can survive' to 'survives.' Once a fetus survives outside the body, it is a baby, whether it was premature or born normally.
You are right in that consenting to having sex is not waiving your right to bodily autonomy. I think this is one of the main differences in worldview between 'pro-lifers' and us.
People who need donor tissues and DON'T GET THEM do cease to become individuals i.e. they die. They don't have a right to force anyone to give up a part of their body or the use of their body in order to keep being alive.
Morally, yeah, it's really nice to help another human keep living (or be brought into the world) but that's not the issue. It's ideal but shouldn't be compulsory.
Also, monetary resources etc. are not the same thing as your physical body.
@11 what bout the innervation of the cortex ( around 17-22th week ) without a cortex there can't be any human thought nor any personality, so prior to (say 15th week) we can safely assume nobody gets killed by an abortion, because, well, nobody's at home yet. ( is it scientistifical enough ? :-) )
@33 we have some evidence of fetal memory, and can record fetal EEG, so, apparently, fetal brain DOES some function in spite of low oxygen level.
I take it back - Mo must have been reading the New American Bible:
"When men have a fight and hurt a pregnant woman, so that she suffers a miscarriage, but no further injury, the guilty one shall be fined as much as the woman's husband demands of him, and he shall pay in the presence of the judges."
Of course, the true meaning of that verse is probably long lost in the ashbin of history. Not that it should have any bearing on the question in modern society, which is not governed by religious principle.
"The fetus obtains oxygen through the umbilical vein, which has a pO2 of around 35-40. Arterial blood in a person with normal lung function breathing room air has a pO2 of around 80, so a newborn has far more oxygen available to it than a fetus."
Nah. PO2 refers only to dissolved oxygen in the plasma; 98+% of anybody's blood oxygen is bound to hemoglobin and not in solution. Because of its higher affinity, fetal hemoblobin ought to be about 80% saturated at a PO2 of 35. That's plenty of oxygen. I'm not buying the oxygen-deprived brain thing.
But it's a little more complicated than that, isn't it? Because you could argue that by engaging in sex, the woman has already consented to allowing another individual to use her body in order to develop, right?
What's that argument, then? I don't see why consenting to have sex should be regarded as consenting to complete a pregnancy resulting from the sex.
(I personally don't accept that argument as a valid reason to prohibit abortion, but it points out the difference between pregnancy and other cases where one human needs the use of another's body to survive.)
Not at all. Suppose a child needs a life-saving kidney/blood transfusion/bone marrow donation. Its mother is the only potential donor match. Do you think it would be reasonable to claim that the mother consented to make that donation when she consented to have the child? If not, why would it be reasonable to claim that a woman consents to complete a pregnancy when she consents to sex?
@laurelin #36
I still don't see "survival outside the womb" as a valid point to distinguish, as a baby that is about to be born could (and would) survive outside the womb if you let it. Why the distinction right there, if it's essentially exactly the same being? There's no difference in brain structure or content or bodily being, so what's the real distinction there? Breathing? Because we don't use breathing as a personhood distinction later on in life - if someone stops breathing and they're resuscitated, we don't think of them as a completely different person. So why should birth be considered the line between being a person and not a person?
That's correct that people who don't get tissue donations die - but we're talking about people who need someone else's organs, not someone who needed them and didn't get them. Yes, a dead human being is not an individual, nor is a dead fetus. But what about a live person who needs it, or a live fetus inside their mother? You're claiming that one is an individual and one isn't. I'm saying that your current opinions on personhood later on in life (based on my assumption regarding your beliefs about a person who needs an organ donation) are contradictory to the line that you've drawn for fetuses.
@Jason #41:
Do you think it would be reasonable to claim that the mother consented to make that donation when she consented to have the child?
There's a difference between having a child, which is the expected result from sex, and being the only donor match for a child which needs a kidney transplant, which occurs extremely rarely - one should be an expected consequence of the action, and the other is caused by uncommon circumstances that are out of the mother's control.
My point was that they're two completely different circumstances: in one, having a living thing be dependent on your body is completely expected and mostly under one's control, whereas in the other it's not. I'm not saying that we should use that as the deciding factor in whether or not an abortion should be allowed - I'm saying exactly the opposite. I'm saying that having a living thing dependent on your body to survive doesn't decide whether or not it's an individual or whether or not it's within your rights to refuse to allow it to depend on you.
I think the deciding line is where it is for every other time we assign personhood: in brain function. People are dead not when their heart stops beating (as it often does for surgery patients) or when they stop breathing (as happens when people need to be resuscitated), but when the brain stops functioning in a particular way that we assign sentience and individuality to. Exactly where that line is could be up for debate (is someone who is unresponsive but shows EEG function similar to a responsive person still an individual or not?), but it's the line that everyone uses for human beings after birth, so why would it be a different one before?
There's a difference between having a child, which is the expected result from sex,...
Huh? Since when is having a child "the expected result from sex?" The vast majority of sexual acts do not even produce a pregnancy, let alone a child. The premise of your argument here is just false.
My point was that they're two completely different circumstances: in one, having a living thing be dependent on your body is completely expected and mostly under one's control, whereas in the other it's not.
Also false. Having a child (that may need a donation of organs or tissue from you to survive) is obviously just as much under your control as having sex (that may subsequently produce a pregnancy).
I'm not saying that we should use that as the deciding factor in whether or not an abortion should be allowed - I'm saying exactly the opposite. I'm saying that having a living thing dependent on your body to survive doesn't decide whether or not it's an individual or whether or not it's within your rights to refuse to allow it to depend on you.
I understand that you're not advocating the criminalization of abortion. But your argument that abortion is relevantly different from the refusal to donate life-saving blood or tissue just doesn't work. I agree that the two situations are not the same, but they don't differ in the way your argument requires them to.
I don't think anti-abortionists have their opinion because they want to "control women". It seems far more plausible that they just have a moral intuition against killing things, which most people do have.
Please reconcile your perspective with the general absence of "pro-lifers" in the antiwar movement, and their abundant presence among the wars' supporters.
For extra credit, perform the same exercise regarding the political groupings around the death penalty and public health programs for children.
If we agree that a fetus two weeks before term is an individual with rights, then when did that designation take place?
A fetus two weeks before term is not an individual; it's only one component of a pregnancy.
The dividing line is delivery, namely the clamping of the cord. That's when a fetus acquires the ability to circulate blood, breath, excrete, etc. [And to be clear, a 1 day neonate in the NICU and a 90 yo in the ICU have nothing in common with a fetus in utero. Both the NICU/ICU patients can, say, breath; they don't because they're temporarily incapacitated . A fetus in utero cannot, and does not, breath.]
Also, a fetus already circulates its own blood... it doesn't spontaneously develop a circulatory system at birth. Maybe I'm not understanding what you meant.
It's not a moral intuition against killing 'things'. Carrots are things and are still alive when eaten.
That moral intuition you speak of, is actually more along the lines of squeeing over small animals with large eyes and a head/body ratio similar to a human baby.
Humans are not programmed to have strong emotional attraction to an actual example of the pharyngula stage of any animal, including a human one. There's no inclination to cuddle it, touch your nose to its scalp or start making high pitched babbling sounds.
Most arguments over abortion are at an intellectual level and do not address the underlying unspoken emotional basis for our point of view and yet the emotions are obviously there. Much advertising is addressed at the emotional level. Humans spend a surprising amount of time hiding their irrational motivations from themselves.
Optimal results for the human species for the forseeable future will not be achieved by maximizing birth rates. Outbreeding the competition may have been an obvious thing for a warrior priest to encourage in his tribe, thousands of years ago. Now it is a crime against our species and every other species on the planet.
These arguments are tiresome in the extreme. Does the bible condone abortion? That's supposed to matter? Because, guess what, fundi boys and guys, the bible may be silent on abortion, but is ain't silent on killing your own kid. Deuteronomy 21: 18-21 clearly states you can have your disobedient son stoned to death. And if you think this little rule is amoral, then you know that you need something else, not just the Bible, to determine morality. And if you need to use this extra-Biblical morality in the case of Deut 21: 18-21, then you need to use in regards to Exodus 21:22, regardless of how you interpret it.
So my question is, was anyone in biblical times put to death for killing their own kids? Anyone? Under any circumstances? Cause I can't think of a one. Shoot, we don't even fault Jehovah for killing his son Jesus, now do we?
So those individuals who have a "moral intuition" against killing things are stolid vegetarians then, right? And they always capture spiders they find in the house and release them outside unharmed, right?
And they see that according to their reservations about killing fetuses, they should also forgo that steak on the table, which came from an animal with more conciousness, sentience and capacity to feel pain than a human fetus could ever have, right?
Oh wait, no, people who claim to be pro-life really aren't. They don't ever seem to give a good godd*mn about people (especially children) already existing, so why do you think they care so very much about fetuses? Hint: It isn't because they wuv the pwecious widdle baybeez so much as they love having control over others.
If I recall, a living man contributes a living sperm to the living egg within a living woman. All of the man's and woman's ancestors were alive at the time that their living cells joined to create them, and their child carries the means to repeat the process.
Please, tell me once more, when does life begin?
This was my first reaction when I became aware of the "debate" about when (human) life begins. That would be some time before Roe v. Wade. Seemed to render the question moot then, seems to now. There can be no serious debate about when a human is biologically alive; has been since Ur-ancestor.
The argument at large is simply an attempt to answer a question without merit, that is, when is the "soul" installed along the production line? When does "our" god breathe the breath of life into lungs full of fluid? And how closely can we frame the question around the perceived "cuteness" or familiarity of a fetal face? And how can we use this to get everyone to agree that our beliefs need to be accommodated into the law of the land, forcing everyone to our glorious truth?
@Jason #44:
Okay - let's set aside the argument that because pregnancy is the natural biological result of sex, it should be an expected result of that. I only brought that up as a side point. I will concede that I gave a poor example of the distinction between pregnancy and organ donation. Do you disagree with my argument that there is more to the distinction of "personhood" than birth?
@Sailor #46:
Did you read what I said, or just glance briefly before commenting? Did you read the article I linked to? I don't see how my comments confirm the cartoon at all, and I'd appreciate if you explained your comment.
@ema #48:
The dividing line is delivery, namely the clamping of the cord.That's when a fetus acquires the ability to circulate blood, breath, excrete, etc. [And to be clear, a 1 day neonate in the NICU and a 90 yo in the ICU have nothing in common with a fetus in utero. Both the NICU/ICU patients can, say, breath; they don't because they're temporarily incapacitated . A fetus in utero cannot, and does not, breath.]
I don't see the distinction. A fetus in utero at a certain point in the pregnancy can breathe, it just does not because of the environment it's in. So why the sharp distinction between "has taken a breath" and "has not"? I don't see a logical reason to choose that line for personhood or not since we don't associate personhood with breathing any other time in life. Why the special case?
I will concede that I gave a poor example of the distinction between pregnancy and organ donation. Do you disagree with my argument that there is more to the distinction of "personhood" than birth?
With respect to the personhood of human beings, yes. I think a mature fetus is clearly a form human life, by any reasonable definition of "human" and "life," and I think it has certain rights (such as the right not to be subjected to pain), but I don't think it's a person. I think a human person begins to exist at birth.
Well, I'm about as pro-choice as it gets, and I refer to my 35-week-old fetus as my baby, and sometimes even as my daughter. Does that offend anybody here? I ask because I have offended some hardcore pro-choice (actually, I think they were pro-abortion) for using that "language."
My rationale? It's mine, I'm keeping it, so sod off! :P Nyah!
Then what exactly is the distinction between a person and a non-person? That is, what changes at that moment that moves the fetus from non-person to person?
Thanks for the link. I found a new web comic! Just two minor complaints:
1) Doesn't seem to be updated on a regular basis. I don't care if it's every day or once a week. I just don't like having to check out the page daily to see a new comic.
2) There's no "first comic" button so I had to read them in reverse order.
Like I said, no big problems. It's the best laugh I've had in a while.
I'm not talking about meconium [in the fetus nutrients are delivered via the placenta and umbilical vein, not via absorption from the GI tract], but rather about placental function (gas exchange, waste disposal, etc.) and adequate uteroplacental perfusion (maternal circulation).
Ooh, goody! Yet another abortion/right to life thread! We managed to get this one up to 400 posts.
One point that needs to be established, though, is that it is quite possible for an agnostic like myself to oppose abortion on grounds that have nothing at all to do with religious dogma or the subjugation of women.
There is the small question of the right to life of the unborn.
Then what exactly is the distinction between a person and a non-person? That is, what changes at that moment that moves the fetus from non-person to person?
The changes that occur through birth. A fetus is physically enclosed within and connected to its mothers body and is uniquely dependent on that physical connection for the oxygen, nutrition, hydration and warmth needed to sustain its life. And it has no, or virtually no, sensory interaction with the world. All babies are independent and sentient in ways that no fetus is. I am not suggesting that birth is the momentous event that pro-lifers typically claim fertilization is (one second, worthless tissue; the next, a full-blown human being). Birth is a threshold, the threshold that marks the beginning of personhood.
Ian, it has none. Plain and simple. Sounds cold but it's not.
Not "cold", 'cool'. It's cool to be pro-choice here.
I actually advocate legalizing abortion up to the 18th year.
I can see that appealing to the femdamentalists. Parenthood as a human rights violation. If having to carry the unborn child is a violation of the woman's rights then so is having to raise the unwelcome brat after it's born.
And it has no, or virtually no, sensory interaction with the world.
I think most mothers would disagree with you on that. I don't have direct experience with it, but from what I've heard, fetuses react to external stimuli constantly - kicking, moving around, etc.
And again - I don't see how dependence negates personhood. If you say that a fetus isn't a person because it's enclosed within a woman's body, I'd say that's essentially arbitrary because you have no comparable circumstances which verify that it's a logical position. The distinction between persons as a philosophical term and non-persons has generally had absolutely nothing to do with physical position.
And again, I'll point out that while a fetus is dependent on the mother at some point, there is also a point when the fetus is in the womb and dependent, but if removed from the womb at that point it would be able to survive on its own. So again, I don't see a distinction at all there.
The distinction I see is, as I stated, brain function. The particular way our brain functions is what distinguishes us from other animals. This theory of personhood also explains why we ascribe various gradual levels of personhood to animals. Animals which appear to have emotions, appear to feel pain, appear to be aware of their surroundings, we're more likely to have moral misgivings about causing harm or killing them. The more mental faculties they have, the closer we treat them to human beings. Your "birth" theory of personhood doesn't explain that behavior at all. If all that makes something a "person" is birth, then where does the distinction between animals and humans come into play?
You've stated that birth "marks" the beginning of personhood: and again I ask, what defines a person? What is it that appears at birth that was not there before, but is also part of a coherent theory of personhood that extends beyond this particular issue?
Y'all are going to have to get used to the fact that personhood is (1) a matter of degree and (2) not present until well after birth. A newborn is not a rational self-conscious creature.
We do, however, have good reasons for laws against killing babies. Those reasons have nothing to do with any supposed "rights" (moral rights are nonsense on stilts, anyway). Nor do they have anything to do with embryos or fetuses.
What is it that appears at birth that was not there before,
Cessation of complete physiological parasitism on the mother.
but is also part of a coherent theory of personhood that extends beyond this particular issue?
You're hunting for boojums, Eric.
Mazel tov if you actually manage to develop such a theory, but I'm betting against you--a lot of very smart people have gotten impaled on Arrow's impossibility theorem in the attempt.
The distinction I see is, as I stated, brain function.
Why brain function? And what exactly do you mean by "brain function," anyway? There isn't just one kind of "brain function" that a fetus either has or doesn't have. There are many types and dimensions of mental and cognitive function. Which ones must a fetus be capable of, and to what degree, in order to qualify as a person, in your view? I think any line you draw to define personhood will be just as "arbitary" as the ones you reject.
You've stated that birth "marks" the beginning of personhood: and again I ask, what defines a person? What is it that appears at birth that was not there before, but is also part of a coherent theory of personhood that extends beyond this particular issue?
I already described the changes that occur at birth.
I basically agree that newborn babies are not full persons in the same sense that older children and adults are. But if we're going to continue to draw a fairly bright line at birth in our laws and social conventions that divide permissible from impermissible killing (as I think we should), we need to put newborns in the same basic category as children and adults. I am sympathetic to Singer's idea that, under certain conditions, the parents of severely disabled newborn babies should be allowed to kill them, but I'm not sure such a policy would be socially desirable even if it were politically feasible (which I don't think it is).
Jason, I'm with Singer on this one. I don't know where you live, but in at least some parts of the world what Singer is saying a perfectly realistic political solution, as well as being, IMHO, desirable.
Ian, please don't mistake this for a dialogue. I just want to learn how many snowflake babies with a right to life that you, personally, have adopted?
As a father of two, who was some years ago far too close to being a father of three, I don't want to hear anybody talking about rights to life in a universe where contingency makes other plans. Is a right to life anything like a right to conceive, or to carry to full term, or to live birth?
I have to go with the proposal Sagan came up with some time ago. When shall we say life begins? That was some billions of years ago, and it has budded without interruption since then. Not every bud thrives autonomously, nor should it. As for notion of when the rights of the mother to terminate a medical condition should conflict with the rights of the State to intervene in that decision, Sagan also discussed the notion of "quickening", about 20 weeks or so in.
We live in a time when a brain-damaged 12 year old is mocked by Senators and by the MSM for relying on aid from the State to pay for his rehabilitation after a prolonged coma. Why should a fetus at 20 weeks have more rights than a child whose parents can't afford medical care? At this point, insurance companies have more rights than hospitals or patients. When an adult cold left my 6 month old daughter fighting for breath, heroic measures at the hospital saved her life. Such procedures were "not authorized," so my insurance company stiffed the hospital, no doubt in a package deal that traded off various expenses it would pay for vs. those it wouldn't. Without insurance, I live in a culture where I'd be a pariah, penalized for being unable to come up with $75K, making it even more difficult to raise my children.
One point that needs to be established, though, is that it is quite possible for an agnostic like myself to oppose abortion on grounds that have nothing at all to do with religious dogma or the subjugation of women.
Of course. And fortunately Ian's use of terms like "femdamentalists" for supporters of women's rights and his history in other threads of abject callousness with regard to the suffering of women faced with an unwanted pregnancy, occasionally prefaced by curt, summary claims of empathy on a par in sincerity with the eponymous "I'm not a racist, but...", unambiguously support that misogyny is not the basis of his position.
Well, I'm about as pro-choice as it gets, and I refer to my 35-week-old fetus as my baby, and sometimes even as my daughter.
You're completely certain it's female? Otherwise, that might be a bit awkward... ;/
Does that offend anybody here? I ask because I have offended some hardcore pro-choice (actually, I think they were pro-abortion) for using that "language."
My rationale? It's mine, I'm keeping it, so sod off! :P Nyah!
I doubt any reasonable person actually objects "on principle"; rather, I suspect it's a matter of them being reminded uncomfortably of the emotional-blackmail arguments commonly advanced by anti-choicers.
"Passionate debates about abortion derive from motivations to control female reproduction that are far older than any particular system of government, older than patriarchy, older even than recorded history. Male fascination with the reproductive affairs of female group members predates our species. Young women of my daughters' generation take for granted a historically unique situation. They regard birth control, precautions against sexually transmitted diseases, women's education and athletic teams, as well as open-ended professional opportunities for women, as innovations here to stay. They view the antiabortion movement in the United States, along with the emergence of powerful political lobbies seeking to substitute "abstinence only" for practical knowledge about human sexuality and reproduction, as too irrational to take seriously. Reports from far-off places like Taliban-controlled Afghanistan, where Islamic fundamentalists seek to deny women personal autonomy (forcing them to stay sequestered in their homes, keep their faces and bodies veiled, and marry as instructed) seem exotic and remote.
It is hard for my daughters and their generation to believe that such forces could ever intrude upon their own lives. Even when the sequestering of women is shown to have measurable costs to the health and well-being of wives and children (as has recently been documented for Afghanistan), they are saddened, but not apprehensive for themselves. They see no connection between innate male desires to control women in earlier times and the attitudes toward women and family that inspire sermons to all-male audiences of "Promise Keepers," or that motivate elected officials to debate endlessly over who has the right to choose whether and when a woman gives birth. Few Westerners take seriously the possibility that old tensions between maternal and paternal interests could explode one day in their own country and transform a world they take for granted. I am not nearly so confident. If age-old pressures are allowed to erode hard-won laws and protections, it is far from certain that the unique experiment we have embarked upon can persist."
Ian H Spedding wrote: "I can see that appealing to the femdamentalists. Parenthood as a human rights violation. If having to carry the unborn child is a violation of the woman's rights then so is having to raise the unwelcome brat after it's born."
I think the point is that parenthood should be a choice. Forcing a woman to continue a pregnancy she doesn't want IS a violation of her rights, she herself choosing to become a parent is not. If a woman changes her mind about raising the child once it is born, she can give it up for adoption easily and legally. But, choosing to raise it doesn't violate her rights. It's all about choice. Giving a woman the absolute iron clad right to make that choice is the only decent moral thing to do.
So those individuals who have a "moral intuition" against killing things are stolid vegetarians then, right? And they always capture spiders they find in the house and release them outside unharmed, right?
For the record, I do, and I'm not a vegetarian.
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While I am at it, I should probably mention the Austrian Solution. (Keep in mind that "Austrian Solution" is a technical term, and not necessarily a solution.) Here goes: after the 3rd month, abortion is considered murder, except when the fetus has a handicap, though most people seem not to know about that last part; up to the 3rd month, it is forbidden but not prosecuted and not punished -- a few specialized clinics exist; women who go there are harrassed by small groups of religious zealots, but no bombing or anything has ever happened.
It being an Austrian Solution, almost nobody dares talking about it, no matter what their private views. It is not a topic in the media or elsewhere in the public discourse. Even the Catholic Church keeps its mouth shut practically all of the time, and even the radical lefties (who have little access to media) who want abortion (which costs hundreds of euros) to be covered by the (of course public) health insurance don't mention it on every occasion.
It goes without saying that sex education is mandatory (as part of the biology lessons) at the age of 13 or 14, and that AFAIK nobody listens to the church on contraception.
It also goes without saying that we're talking about a law made by Parliament, not about an exegetic court decision.
"Legal, safe, and rare" said the best Republican president you've ever had...
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Okay - let's set aside the argument that because pregnancy is the natural biological result of sex, it should be an expected result of that.
Let's just say "unprotected vaginal sex" instead of "sex".
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Er, whoops. Sorry for all the multiple posts; my internet cut out and I couldn't check whether my comment got through.
If you can't check whether it got through, that proves it has gone through. The Scienceblogs software works like that.
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Why should a fetus at 20 weeks have more rights than a child whose parents can't afford medical care?
This is a classic example of a wrong question. No society should allow the possibility to exist that any of its members can't afford medical care. There shouldn't be any parents who can't afford medical care, so the question of whether a fetus at 20 weeks should have more rights than a child of such hypothetical constructs is like the question of why Napoleon crossed the Mississippi. Instead of trying to answer that question, US voters should introduce public healthcare already.
You're completely certain it's female? Otherwise, that might be a bit awkward... ;/
Well, at least 95% sure. Of course, we made the mistake of telling our families that it was *probably* a girl, and ended up getting a bunch of pink crap - I even said, "Boy, I sure hope it really is a girl, since ultrasound isn't 100% accurate!"
It's a good thing we kept all of those gift receipts. :P
Oh, and to anyone who ever has a kid: Never EVER tell people the sex. You WILL regret it!
I have to say, as a (very) pregnant woman, I can't fathom why someone would wait until the third trimester to have an abortion (unless there is something wrong with the fetus, of course). I also suspect that this sort of thing is incredibly rare.
I still believe that it comes down to personal choice... though I might, in my own mind, question the integrity of a woman who decides at the "last minute" that she wants an abortion. I think she should have the right to terminate the (normal, healthy) pregnancy if she wishes, but I personally would not think very highly of that woman if she did.
But then, not my body, not my baby. Not my business.
We do, however, have good reasons for laws against killing babies. Those reasons have nothing to do with any supposed "rights" (moral rights are nonsense on stilts, anyway).
That depends on your concept of "rights".
I don't view rights as some sort of 'natural' or 'God-given' law. We decide what they should be. That doesn't mean I regard my - or your - right to life or to free expression, for example, as "nonsense on stilts".
I have to say, as a (very) pregnant woman, I can't fathom why someone would wait until the third trimester to have an abortion (unless there is something wrong with the fetus, of course). I also suspect that this sort of thing is incredibly rare.
I am unware of a single case of this. It probably has occurred, but I would be amazed if such cases constituted even a tenth of a percent of late-term abortions, which themselves are a tiny percentage of all abortions. To the best of my knowledge the only reasons a woman would be expected seek an abortion late in the pregnancy are a threat to the life or health of the mother, the discovery of a severe, crippling or potentially fatal birth defect, or having been prevented from seeking one earlier, either through unavailability of legal abortion or through being prevented by illegal means (fraud, kidnapping, etc.) from seeking an otherwise legal abortion. I suppose there might be a few cases where a woman or couple's financial situation changed catastrophically, such that she would no longer be able to support the child, but I'm willing to bet that most women in that kind of situation would give the child up for adoption if it occurred that late in the pregnancy.
David Marjanović: ... US voters should introduce public healthcare already.
Good idea, David! There are only three obstacles in our way:
* The Republican Party;
* The Democratic Party;
* An electoral system strongly biased against "third" parties.
As for the abortion issue: please note that "the fetus" serves as a symbolic surrogate for the powerless, and thus arouses passionate defensiveness on the part of many who are pushed around by a system they do not understand but dare not confront directly.
I tried to add a trackback, but I can't get it to work. I'll get hubby to figure it out later. I don't really care all that much about traffic on my little blog - I hope people who want to respond would do it here to keep it all together.
It really saddens me to think of the number of children who are unwanted in this country (indeed, in the world). My baby has been long and impatiently awaited, and is very, very much wanted. Her dad and I are already in love with her - isn't that strange? In love with a creature that hasn't even been born yet! :)
I feel extremely fortunate (if I were a religious person, I might even say "blessed" :P), but my heart goes out to those unwanted children and to their parents who didn't have the sense or strength to make the right decision.
A fetus in utero at a certain point in the pregnancy can breathe, it just does not because of the environment it's in.
No, a fetus in utero cannot breath at any point (it's not the environment, it's the anatomy/physiology). Delivery is required for that to occur.
...we don't associate personhood with breathing any other time in life...
[Except when you get to pronounce someone. (/joke)] We associate "personhood" (definition?) with the capacity to perform certain vital function, either unassisted or assisted. A fetus lacks that capacity.
Wow Ian... So after dismissing every pro-choice person here as just being "cool" you then take a (admittedly) flip comment and turn it into an attack on feminism, or rather, your warped view of feminism.
@ Russell #73:
Carrier says (in the debate I linked to earlier):
It is also true that rational creatures have a greater scale of value and thus are afforded greater rights--we recognize this implicitly when we confer greater rights on adults than on children, even children who are quite capable of performing "personal acts." But this does not entail that killing a twelve-year-old is not immoral. Nor does this entail that a four-year-old is not a person, for though he is an underdeveloped person he is considered a person nonetheless. So there must be more to what we really value as a "person."
It isn't just rationality that we use as criteria for personhood - if it was, there'd be a lot of full grown religious nuts who wouldn't qualify.
@thalarctos #74:
Cessation of complete physiological parasitism on the mother.
Again I'll point out that this condition is rather arbitrary since it is never otherwise used as a condition for personhood. I don't think it's really that farfetched to first develop a coherent definition of personhood, and then apply it to the abortion debate, rather than developing an opinion on abortion and then applying it to your view of personhood (which seems to be what's occurring if you define personhood as starting at birth).
@Jason #75:
I know you already stated what occurs at birth. I'm asking why you chose that as a dividing line.
Why brain function? Because, as I already stated a few times, that's what we use at every other point in a human being's life (or other animals, for that matter). What makes up a "person" is a collection of behaviors, memories, actions, etc. Those things are stored and implemented through a particular brain structure and activity. In the debate I linked to, Carrier says in his first rebuttal:
It is a matter of established scientific fact that even newborn babies exhibit, and thus possess, personality traits--one can see this described in almost any introductory college psychology textbook (and especially texts on developmental psychology). And it would be incredible if these traits simply "didn't" exist until the baby left the womb, for we cannot even conceive of a mechanism that would trigger such a fundamental physiological change under such simple circumstances (since any significant psychological change corresponds to a comparable physiological change, as science has generally proven). We know that these and other personality traits are the product of a complex cerebral cortex, and such a cortex exists well before a baby is born (as I noted, it is typically in place between the fifth and sixth month--in other words, at the onset of the third trimester). We thus have solid, objective grounds to suppose that an individual personality begins to exist from the sixth month of gestation. In other words, this is when a person exists.
@ ema #91:
No, a fetus in utero cannot breath at any point (it's not the environment, it's the anatomy/physiology).
Perhaps this is my ignorance of physiology, but what physiological changes take place at the instant of birth that allow a fetus to breathe that were not present before that point?
We associate "personhood" (definition?) with the capacity to perform certain vital function, either unassisted or assisted. A fetus lacks that capacity.
I agree with the first statement, I disagree with the second. Yes, we associate personhood (the definition of which is disputed, but which can at least be demarcated normatively by classifying humans as persons and lower animals as not humans) with a certain vital function - but I struggle to find a single instance other than the current discussion where breathing is that vital function. As far as I can tell, in every other instance, some type brain function is used as the defining characteristic. And a fetus does not lack that capacity.
@ All who are arguing that personhood starts at birth:
It seems to me that you are starting from the assumption that abortion should be allowed at any stage in pregnancy, and then building your view of personhood from there, rather than the other way around. I don't see any other way to come to the conclusion that breathing should be the beginning of personhood. That's a rather backwards way to build your philosophy, because instead of following the facts to a value system that matches them, it starts with a value system and then assumes facts that support it - which is exactly the type of reasoning that many people here criticize in the religious types.
And just to be clear, I'll state my position on the issue: I do not think that abortion is immoral up to the point where a fetus gains complex cerebral activity. While I think that our scientific ability has not yet sufficiently progressed to allow us to tell exactly when that occurs, I believe that the 20th week is both early enough to say that it has not occurred, and late enough to allow women the opportunity to have an abortion. My personal belief is that after that point, it is unethical to have an abortion and it infringes on the rights of the fetus as a person. However, I'm not advocating making it illegal after that point, mostly due to the inability to determine when exactly personhood should be conveyed (and therefore rights as well), combined with the fact that special cases occur where legislation would make an already difficult late term abortion (whether because of danger to the mother or genetic or developmental defects, etc.) even more difficult. I'm not sure if there's a better solution than we have now, but I don't think that it is as simple as saying "it's their body" or "it's not breathing, so it doesn't count" (and I am equally as annoyed when it is oversimplified on the other side, e.g. "it's murder" or "it becomes alive at conception").
Alright. This mammoth comment is done, and I'm bowing out for now. If you want to discuss it more, send me an email at xanthan1485@hotmail.com and I'd be willing to expound more on my views - though I would ask that you at least read the debate that Carrier has first, because his position covers most of my views rather well.
I just want to learn how many snowflake babies with a right to life that you, personally, have adopted?
Oh, probably about as many as the number of fetuses a pro-choicer like yourself has personally aborted. Is that supposed to prove something?
As a father of two, who was some years ago far too close to being a father of three, I don't want to hear anybody talking about rights to life in a universe where contingency makes other plans. Is a right to life anything like a right to conceive, or to carry to full term, or to live birth?
As you've noticed, the universe plainly doesn't give a toss about us. If we want rights, we have to forget about 'nature' or some deity granting them to us, we have to set them up for ourselves.
I have to go with the proposal Sagan came up with some time ago. When shall we say life begins? That was some billions of years ago, and it has budded without interruption since then.
I think you'll find even Sagan thought that life on Earth began at some point.
But that's beside the point. We aren't talking about when life in general began. The question is when can the life of an individual human being be said to begin since it is individual human beings that are entitled to rights, not vague notion of life.
Not every bud thrives autonomously, nor should it.
Really? Says who? God? Nature? You?
We live in a time when a brain-damaged 12 year old is mocked by Senators and by the MSM for relying on aid from the State to pay for his rehabilitation after a prolonged coma.
I'm sorry, am I supposed to be surprised that the media can be crass and shallow or that politicians are despicable?
Why should a fetus at 20 weeks have more rights than a child whose parents can't afford medical care? At this point, insurance companies have more rights than hospitals or patients. When an adult cold left my 6 month old daughter fighting for breath, heroic measures at the hospital saved her life. Such procedures were "not authorized," so my insurance company stiffed the hospital, no doubt in a package deal that traded off various expenses it would pay for vs. those it wouldn't. Without insurance, I live in a culture where I'd be a pariah, penalized for being unable to come up with $75K, making it even more difficult to raise my children.
You won't get any arguments from me about the shortcomings of a private healthcare system. It provides excellent treatment for those that can afford it. I know. But it doesn't change the fact that one of the reasons it is so good because there are 45 million of the poorer - and less healthy - members of society it doesn't have to cover.
Don't make up imaginary rights, Ian.
Why not? Where else do you think rights come from?
Wow Ian... So after dismissing every pro-choice person here as just being "cool" you then take a (admittedly) flip comment and turn it into an attack on feminism, or rather, your warped view of feminism.
Am I missing something? I thought "cool" was an expression of approval, that something was fashionable.
And if I intended to attack feminism in general I would have written 'feminists".
I used "femdamentalists" as a label for the wingnutty branch of the movement which views all men in much the same light as creationists view Darwin and his theory of evolution - in other words, as the root of all evil.
I don't think it's really that farfetched to first develop a coherent definition of personhood, and then apply it to the abortion debate
Have at it, then. Don't forget to show all your work.
Remember, though, it's not coherent if you de-personify the pregnant woman to give personhood rights to the fetus, so at some point, you will have to deal with the ramifications of that pesky impossibility theorem. Crack *that* particular nut, and you'll truly be famous.
We're looking forward to reviewing and evaluating your coherent definition of personhood and its application to the abortion debate.
Not every bud thrives autonomously, nor should it.
Really? Says who? God? Nature? You?
Any gardener with any taste, and a pair of pruning shears. Cross those legs, Ian.
Don't make up imaginary rights, Ian.
Why not? Where else do you think rights come from?
If you're at least half this charming with the ladies in person, Ian... If you're looking to hook up with anybody with slightly more functional brain cells to incubate your spawn than Terry Schiavo... The only reason I can imagine you're so keen on subordinating women to the status of wombs on demand is because you're unlikely to rouse any voluntary cooperation on that front.
The fundamental question remains unanswered. When does a fetus become an individual with rights to be respected?
There is an answer: Roe v. Wade, which is justified (not necessarily well) in terms of the history of common law (read the decision). There really isn't any answer beyond that -- rights are a social construct.
I used "femdamentalists" as a label for the wingnutty branch of the movement which views all men in much the same light as creationists view Darwin and his theory of evolution - in other words, as the root of all evil.
And why would those women find legalizing abortions up to 18 years old appealing? Is that because they want to kill all men?
I've found that any man thinks there are such women is a sexist ass that has a huge chip on his shoulder about women generally. That seems to fit here.
We aren't talking about when life in general began. The question is when can the life of an individual human being be said to begin since it is individual human beings that are entitled to rights, not vague notion of life.
The former is a scientific question; the latter is confused. There is no objective basis upon which to answer such questions, thus it comes down to policy. People who don't like the current policy try to claim some sort of objective basis for opposing it, but there isn't any. And since there isn't any, there is no "it can be said" -- we each have our own say. And entitlements to rights are defined by policy, and depend on circumstance. If it were up to me, the right to abort a fetus -- or child, if you wish -- would last up until abortion is no longer applicable. American society has chosen to make the right more restricted, and I can live with that, but I do what I can to oppose further erosion of the right.
Cessation of complete physiological parasitism on the mother.
Again I'll point out that this condition is rather arbitrary since it is never otherwise used as a condition for personhood. I don't think it's really that farfetched to first develop a coherent definition of personhood, and then apply it to the abortion debate, rather than developing an opinion on abortion and then applying it to your view of personhood (which seems to be what's occurring if you define personhood as starting at birth).
What "otherwise used"? There's no debate as to whether Terry Schiavo was a "person". The notion of "personhood" is specifically used to place limits on abortion. I think it's a ridiculously abstract notion that has no bearing on anything I care about. I'm much more concerned with cognitive states and personality. And since those are so much more developed in the mother, I take her concerns as primary.
I know you already stated what occurs at birth. I'm asking why you chose that as a dividing line.
Uh, because before birth killing a fetus consists of a surgical operation on the mother, whereas afterwards it doesn't. Giving people the right to control actions performed on their bodies and contents is not "arbitrary". Consider a number of people who will die unless some medical procedure is performed; one of those actions is removing your kidney, as it's the only compatible one available. Which of these procedures should you have the right to veto? Do you really think that a distinction between that action and other actions that don't impinge upon you is "arbitrary"? Do you really need to ask why your right to control your body is chosen as the dividing line?
Okay - let's set aside the argument that because pregnancy is the natural biological result of sex, it should be an expected result of that.
Let's just say "unprotected vaginal sex" instead of "sex".
Not all unprotected vaginal sex results in pregnancy, but some does. No all protected vaginal sex results in pregnancy, but some does. If pregnancy is a natural result of unprotected vaginal sex, it is also a natural result of protected sex (it just doesn't happen as often).
It's worth noting that, when unwanted pregnancy results from unprotected sex, the lack of protection is usually due to irresponsibility by and often coercion (I'm not talking about rape) from the male -- but it is the female who bears the brunt of the consequences, including the moral judgments -- mostly from males. It's very hard to disentangle opposition to abortion from misogyny -- which of course was the original point of this thread.
But if we're going to continue to draw a fairly bright line at birth in our laws and social conventions that divide permissible from impermissible killing (as I think we should), we need to put newborns in the same basic category as children and adults.
This simply does not follow -- the line is drawn based on the mother's control of her body. No one has a right to soak in alcohol a kidney needed to save a life ... unless it's a kidney located in their own body (but they should be strongly urged not to). Likewise, a pregnant woman should also be allowed to get drunk every day (but she should be strongly urged not to).
"And it has no, or virtually no, sensory interaction with the world."
I think most mothers would disagree with you on that. I don't have direct experience with it, but from what I've heard, fetuses react to external stimuli constantly - kicking, moving around, etc.
What makes you think this has anything to do with "sensory interaction with the world"?
One point that needs to be established, though, is that it is quite possible for an agnostic like myself to oppose abortion on grounds that have nothing at all to do with religious dogma or the subjugation of women.
There is the small question of the right to life of the unborn.
You say "We decide what they should be" -- well, we have decided that the unborn don't have such a right -- therefore, by your own lights, there is none. Your insistence that, nonetheless, there is one seems dogmatic, and your lack of consideration for the rights of women is rather well established.
"I think a human person begins to exist at birth."
Then what exactly is the distinction between a person and a non-person? That is, what changes at that moment that moves the fetus from non-person to person?
Being inside of, attached to, and drawing nutrients from the body of a woman might have something to do with it. It's not a bad basis for defining the beginning of a person. And if we define it that way, there's no need to go looking for additional "distinctions" or "changes".
That moral intuition you speak of, is actually more along the lines of squeeing over small animals with large eyes and a head/body ratio similar to a human baby.
Yup; people care a lot more about seal pups they see on TV than about skunks on the side of the road.
Most arguments over abortion are at an intellectual level and do not address the underlying unspoken emotional basis for our point of view and yet the emotions are obviously there. Much advertising is addressed at the emotional level. Humans spend a surprising amount of time hiding their irrational motivations from themselves.
Indeed. And there's not much that's more irrational than talk about "the right of the unborn to life". There have been some good South Park episodes based around the right of pieces of human feces to respect and dignity. Of course this comparison elicits a highly emotional reaction from many non-introspective people.
I don't think anti-abortionists have their opinion because they want to "control women". It seems far more plausible that they just have a moral intuition against killing things, which most people do have.
It's hard to be more intellectually dishonest than that.
Because you could argue that by engaging in sex, the woman has already consented to allowing another individual to use her body in order to develop, right?
It's handy to be a complete ignoramus about anything at all that undermines one's view. Many many unwanted pregnancies come from protection that fails, not having protection while thinking one did, not having sex education (opposed by abortion opponents), and being coerced/pressured by men and peer groups to have sex. So sure, you can argue it, the the argument is invalid and misogynist.
Unfortunately, Jesus and Mo are quotemining the Bible.
Not at all. As the source that melior offered says:
From here we turn to specific Biblical evidence for ensoulment and personhood. Pro-choice activists have a near-argument stopper in Exodus 21:22-23:
"If men who are fighting hit a pregnant woman and she gives birth prematurely but there is no serious injury [i.e., to the mother], the offender must be fined whatever the woman's husband demands and the court allows. But if there is serious injury [i.e., to the mother], you are to take life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot..."
The traditional interpretation of this text, which even rabbinical scholars accepted for thousands of years, is this: if a man hurts a woman enough to cause a miscarriage, he reciprocates according to how much injury he caused her, i.e., an eye for an eye, etc. However, if the miscarriage resulted in no injury to the woman, then all the assailant had to pay was a monetary fine. The fact that the Bible does not equate the assailant's life with the stillborn's life is proof that the Bible does not count the fetus as a person.
This was the traditional interpretation -- until recently, that is, when pro-life Christians became alarmed by the pro-choice side's successful use of it in the debate on abortion. They took a close second look at the passage, and discovered a second possible interpretation. The text actually turns out to be ambiguous. It does not say who exactly suffers the "mischief" or harm; it could be the fetus as well as the mother. In that case, a miscarriage resulting in a live birth was punishable by a monetary fine, but a miscarriage resulting in fetal injury or death would call for the same from the assailant.
This new interpretation suffers from three drawbacks. First, the Jews, who know their own tradition best, have always accepted the first interpretation. Second, the laws of surrounding cultures (Assyrians, Hittites, Sumerians, Babylonians, Hammurapi and Eshnunna) were similar to Israel's, due to widespread copying of laws. There is no ambiguity in their laws; any harm caused clearly refers to the mother. Finally, miscarriages in ancient times almost always resulted in stillbirths; saving premature babies is an achievement of modern science.
I would be able to like this if not for the fact that women as a whole women are more anti-abortion than men. So women are trying to keep themselves under control? It's entirely possible when deranged by religious beliefs but still a bit perplexing for me.
Are you perplexed by men trying to keep men under control?
Your perplexity comes from misuse of group nouns.
Even considering the fact that the controllers and controllees are not necessarily the same set, women are often enculturated into misogynist practices. E.g., it is women who carry out clitoridectomy and infibulation (outrageously misnamed "female circumcision").
Ian, if someone claimed that there is a moral right to freedom of speech I'd say they were talking nonsense.
If they say there is a provision in the American bill rights that forbids Congress enacting laws that abridge freedom of speech they are stating a legal fact. If they say there is a constitutional right to freedom of speech they are using legitimate shorthand. If they say it's a widely-accepted principle in a liberal society that people should have freedom of speech, then I'll agree - this is a sociological fact. If they say this is a good thing, then we need a standard of evaluation, but my standards it is, indeed, a good thing.
I'm happy with rights talk that is used precisely, but much of it is not used precisely, tries to take an intellectual shortcut (avoiding the real evaluative work), and is indeed nonsense.
We're looking forward to reviewing and evaluating your coherent definition of personhood and its application to the abortion debate.
You mean looking back, as your curiosity and eagerness already led you to read both the debate and the book I linked to, which (as I already stated) covered it pretty well. I'm looking forward to your review and evaluation.
the debate and the book I linked to, which (as I already stated) covered it pretty well
As I mentioned to you earlier, depriving the pregnant woman of bodily and medical autonomy renders such a definition incoherent.
You have three interested parties here: the mother, the father, and the fetus. It's the election paradox all over again: the order in which you choose to define and apply specific personhood rights (to life, to bodily autonomy, to control one's own reproduction) directly determines the results. Those results will not be the same in all cases--it's mathematically impossible. You still have to choose criteria and validate them.
Your book does not provide a solution to that problem.
Here are my criteria and justifications, as an example:
1) Both the man and the woman (as well as the fetus, although it doesn't directly apply here) have the right to control their own reproduction; in the case of an irreconcilable conflict (to abort or not), I privilege the woman's decision, simply because of the higher medical investment on her part.
2) Both the woman and the fetus (as well as the man, although it doesn't directly apply here) have the right to go on living (so you don't get to cause a pregnant woman to miscarry without repercussions, whether or not she could have chosen to abort: that is simply irrelevant). Pregnancy unavoidably involves an indeterminable risk to both lives, so in the case of an irreconcilable conflict (to abort or not), I privilege the woman's decision about whether or not she chooses to undertake that risk, simply because of the higher medical investment on her part.
3) The woman and the man and the fetus all have the right to bodily autonomy, so as soon as the fetus is delivered, you don't get to actively kill it (under this, I do not include parental decisions to withhold extremely aggressive medical care). In the case of a conflict between the woman and the fetus, again, I privilege the woman's decision because of her greater medical investment, in the same way we encourage bone marrow or kidney or liver donation, but we do not compel the donor against her will. A parental medical judgment to abort, on the grounds that a painful, wasting, inevitably fatal genetic disease such as Carnavan's or Tay-Sachs' disease will make the very limited time and bodily autonomy of the fetus of such poor quality as to make avoiding it desirable, would also fall under this category.
I don't pretend it's grand or all-encompassing, but I have provided my justification for evaluation. Rules based on arbitrary timeframes, or on purported grand theories of "personhood", on the other hand, break down in application to real biological problems such as reproduction. So they don't meet your standard for coherent, because you either have to make a lot of ad hoc exceptions, or discard the rule, or categorically deprive the woman of the very rights you claim to uphold.
You can apply the rights differently, of course, but just like in the election paradox, your outcomes will be different.
Not every bud thrives autonomously, nor should it.
Really? Says who? God? Nature? You?
Any gardener with any taste, and a pair of pruning shears. Cross those legs, Ian.
Plants are living things, mutilated and butchered by hortimentalists in the name of some arbitrary notion of aesthetics and you see that as some sort of justification for abortion?
Interesting.
Don't make up imaginary rights, Ian.
Why not? Where else do you think rights come from?
If you're at least half this charming with the ladies in person, Ian... If you're looking to hook up with anybody with slightly more functional brain cells to incubate your spawn than Terry Schiavo... The only reason I can imagine you're so keen on subordinating women to the status of wombs on demand is because you're unlikely to rouse any voluntary cooperation on that front.
I see ad hominem. I don't see an answer to my question.
There is the small question of the right to life of the unborn.
You say "We decide what they should be" -- well, we have decided that the unborn don't have such a right -- therefore, by your own lights, there is none.
That's right.
Your insistence that, nonetheless, there is one seems dogmatic, and your lack of consideration for the rights of women is rather well established.
I'm not insisting there is a right to life for the unborn, I'm arguing that there should be one.
[Blackadder] Ian, I'm a busy man, and I can't be bothered to mock you at the moment. Here is my fist. Kindly run towards it as fast as you can.[/Blackadder]
Ian, if someone claimed that there is a moral right to freedom of speech I'd say they were talking nonsense.
When you write "talking nonsense" are you simply rejecting the claim that there are moral rights or are you claiming that the concept is inherently nonsensical?
If they say there is a provision in the American bill rights that forbids Congress enacting laws that abridge freedom of speech they are stating a legal fact. If they say there is a constitutional right to freedom of speech they are using legitimate shorthand. If they say it's a widely-accepted principle in a liberal society that people should have freedom of speech, then I'll agree - this is a sociological fact. If they say this is a good thing, then we need a standard of evaluation, but my standards it is, indeed, a good thing.
So you are arguing that a prescriptive claim, to be persuasive, should be justified in some way, perhaps by an appeal to consequences? Abortion, for example, is justifiable on the grounds that it relieves the woman of the burden of an unwanted pregnancy and society of the burden of taking care of an unwanted child?
I don't know if that is what you do believe but my immediate response would be that if the convenience of women or of society in general were an overriding consideration, why not dispose of the old and the infirm in a similar way since they are also a burden on society?
[Blackadder]Ian, does it have to be this way? Our valued friendship ending with me cutting you up into strips and telling the prince that you walked over a very sharp cattle grid in an extremely heavy hat?[/Blackadder]
I don't know if that is what you do believe but my immediate response would be that if the convenience of women or of society in general were an overriding consideration, why not dispose of the old and the infirm in a similar way since they are also a burden on society?
If the old and infirm were only capable of surviving by hijacking another person's body, then it seems likely that we would.
I'm trying to remember whether Ian ever responded to my challenge to claim with a straight face that he would still adhere to his absurd beliefs if he were female and therefore had a possibility of experiencing an unwanted pregnancy. I'm quite certain the real answer is "no", but I wonder whether he's even being honest with himself about it.
I'm trying to remember whether Ian ever responded to my challenge to claim with a straight face that he would still adhere to his absurd beliefs if he were female and therefore had a possibility of experiencing an unwanted pregnancy. I'm quite certain the real answer is "no", but I wonder whether he's even being honest with himself about it.
That really is dumb.
Obviously, there is no way I'm ever going to know what it feels like to be a woman or, more particularly, a pregnant woman.
But let's suppose for the sake of argument that I do and it's as disruptive, unpleasant and excruciatingly painful as has been described. Let's say it's something any sensible person would try to avoid at almost any cost. Then, yes, I can imagine that abortion might seem like a very attractive option.
That's not the question, though.
The question is: should I have a right to avoid all that by killing the fetus?
My answer is: no, I should not.
In spite of certain similarities, an embryo is not a parasite. Neither is it a tumour. If you cannot tell the difference then you really should look up the biology.
It is an unborn child. An individual human being in the very early stages of development. Of course it does not possess an adult personality or consciousness, neither does a newborn, or infant or even teenager, yet we still allow them the right to life - although the wisdom of that decision in the case of some teenagers is questionable.
Society, however, has decided that the unborn child does not have the right to life. I disagree with that decision. I think it is ill-founded. I would like to see it changed but, for the present, at least, there is no choice but to live with it.
So those individuals who have a "moral intuition" against killing things are stolid vegetarians then, right? And they always capture spiders they find in the house and release them outside unharmed, right?
For the record, I do, and I'm not a vegetarian.
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While I am at it, I should probably mention the Austrian Solution. (Keep in mind that "Austrian Solution" is a technical term, and not necessarily a solution.) Here goes: after the 3rd month, abortion is considered murder, except when the fetus has a handicap, though most people seem not to know about that last part; up to the 3rd month, it is forbidden but not prosecuted and not punished -- a few specialized clinics exist; women who go there are harrassed by small groups of religious zealots, but no bombing or anything has ever happened.
It being an Austrian Solution, almost nobody dares talking about it, no matter what their private views. It is not a topic in the media or elsewhere in the public discourse. Even the Catholic Church keeps its mouth shut practically all of the time, and even the radical lefties (who have little access to media) who want abortion (which costs hundreds of euros) to be covered by the (of course public) health insurance don't mention it on every occasion.
It goes without saying that sex education is mandatory (as part of the biology lessons) at the age of 13 or 14, and that AFAIK nobody listens to the church on contraception.
It also goes without saying that we're talking about a law made by Parliament, not about an exegetic court decision.
"Legal, safe, and rare" said the best Republican president you've ever had...
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Okay - let's set aside the argument that because pregnancy is the natural biological result of sex, it should be an expected result of that.
Let's just say "unprotected vaginal sex" instead of "sex".
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Er, whoops. Sorry for all the multiple posts; my internet cut out and I couldn't check whether my comment got through.
If you can't check whether it got through, that proves it has gone through. The Scienceblogs software works like that.
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Why should a fetus at 20 weeks have more rights than a child whose parents can't afford medical care?
This is a classic example of a wrong question. No society should allow the possibility to exist that any of its members can't afford medical care. There shouldn't be any parents who can't afford medical care, so the question of whether a fetus at 20 weeks should have more rights than a child of such hypothetical constructs is like the question of why Napoleon crossed the Mississippi. Instead of trying to answer that question, US voters should introduce public healthcare already.
Contentious? Indisputable isn't it?
Not much to discuss, PZ. It seems to be a pretty bang-on appraisal of religious attitudes toward women. They are nothing but subjugated baby-factories whose only reason for living is to squeeze out one potential believer after another.
Brilliant.
You know what this means, PZ's beloved squids are not alive. They do not breath and therefore never had the "breath of life". Discuss.
That's pretty funny. I wondered when others would bother to notice that, very literally, an unborn human is about as valuable as a sheep or goat from a strict biblical perspective and has no rights or even a value you might place upon any other production instrument in an agrarian economy.
The specific situation mentioned in the Exodus text is precisely the same as is currently covered by the Unborn Victims of Violence Act, which means that the law is more draconian than the biblical law, which is hard to do.
Haven't you heard? God is pro-choice
@#4: Nah. We commonly speak of fish and squid "breathing water" instead of air. Squid even ventilate the mantle cavity.
All I could possibly add is that it wasn't until the 18th century (I think -- I'm not 100% sure about the date) that the Catholic Church decided to oppose all abortion at any stage of a pregnancy. Before then, their position had been that the soul entered the body at "quickening" -- i.e., when the fetus started moving inside the womb -- and that abortion was okay before that.
Of course, once they'd established the new policy, it had always been true for all time.
Oh, and I'd also add this: Yes, it's about keeping women under control. But I think it's also about keeping the birth rate high, and thus preserving and expanding the ranks of the faithful.
Catholic arguments against abortion go back quite a bit further than the 18th century - but on the grounds that abortion was the concealment of evidence of the crime of fornication or adultery. The purported personhood of a fetus is a modern addition.
Numbers 005:027 seems to be a recipe for how a priest can magically induce abortions for pregnancies caused by adultery (unless you can come up with another translation for the euphemism "... and her belly shall swell, and her thigh shall rot ...").
The fundamental question remains unanswered. When does a fetus become an individual with rights to be respected?
Clearly, a fertilized egg is not an individual except by religious decree. However, is a just born infant an individual? Two hours before birth? 1 week before birth? 1 month before birth? There is a transition, and science must define a credible point.
Birth does not seem to be such a credible point. If it were, then insurance companies could well deny any pre-mature birth care.
So, at some point the argument shifts from the rights of the mother to the rights of both the mother and the child.
@#8: How dare you quash an argument by bringing in the facts. Because as those of us of a certain age know: "Facts are stupid things."
Great, according to George's insurance companies' theory of personhood my car and my home now are individuals with rights to be respected!
If abortions were being performed 2 weeks before birth, you'd have a point, George. As it is, if there must be a time for the rights to "transfer" from mother to child (insinuating that we can safely assume that some pregnant women are not rights-bearing citizens), how about when they're separate people? Why have a situation where some pregnant women, for semi-arbitrary reasons, become non-rights-bearing people? Setting personhood at birth is the best way to make sure we don't punish women for getting pregnant, and you can rest easy about the imaginary women who get abortions for shits and giggles the day before they give birth. That's a fantasm of the religious right, not a real occurence.
We should start worshipping ventilators according to Bible.
That's a fantasm of the religious right, not a real occurence.
True that.
I'm so fucking sick of the absolutely ridiculous specters and doomsday scenarios the wingnuts fabricate on a regular basis. They are not rooted in reality whatsoever, and are nothing but shameless attempts to whip the flock into a frenzy of hangwringing and draconian legislation.
@George
Life Insurance companies won't insure a baby until it has survived outside the womb 90 days...
So going by your definitions, a baby is a 'medical condition' while it's in the womb, then a non-person for the first 90 days outside the womb, and then alive? Does that make post-partum abortion legal for 90 days?
I'd also like personhood established for my vehicle and possessions, so that when I get in an accident, I can be charged with attempted vehicular manslaughter too.
George: A number of events occur at birth, no matter how premature the birth, that make it a credible time to consider "personhood" to begin. The most obvious of these is the shift from a low-oxygen intrauterine environment to a high-oxygen extrauterine environment. Without the extra oxygen, it is likely that the fetal neocortex is essentially non-functional, no matter how developed it is compared to a premature infant.
I would claim that one can make a case for restricting third trimester abortion to cases of fetal anomaly or risk to the mother's life if and ONLY if abortion is freely available in the 1st 20-24 weeks. If it is, then one can state that being pregnant and doing nothing about it constitutes implicit permission for the fetus to use the pregnant woman's body as a support system for as long as it needs, unless it begins to endanger her. But if obstacles are placed such that it is not possible for her to obtain an abortion until very late, then the argument is obviously not sound.
My point is simply that there is a question of when a fetus gains rights as an individual, if it does. The argument simply laid out the obvious. If we agree that a fetus two weeks before term is an individual with rights, then when did that designation take place?
You can have a silly knee-jerk reaction that abortion is not common close to birth, but so what. I agree that abortion is a right of a woman up to a point, because there are no competing rights to deal with. Unfortunately, I don't know where that point is. This leaves unacceptable ambiguity. We need a scientific, rational approach. Religious or emotional knee-jerk approaches for any view are not acceptable either. The only other choices are birth or conception, neither is acceptable nor rationally defendable.
BTW- I am not aware of a car or home that has insurance. Only the owners / operators have insurance.
There's no point in getting into quoting the Bible at fundies. They've been doing this longer than we have, and they care while we fundamentally don't. On Exodus 21:22 and abortions, a quick Google search finds:
http://www.christiancourier.com/articles/read/does_exodus_21_sanction_a…
and I can't imagine anything more tiresome than arguing about biblical translations with fundamentalists.
George, as a pro-choicer who occasionally goes so far as to describe himself as "pro-abortion" (because jebuz knows, there are so many instances when an abortion should have occurred but did not), I will acknowledge that there are times the reason for using birth as the point aren't always obvious to me. I tend to think the real point could even be on the other side of birth (in a strict philosophical sense), but I suppose that's a discussion for another day. For the time being, though, I see it as such: clearly no rational person equilibrates "embryo" with "baby", and most rational people aren't infanticidal. Those being the case, birth is the by far the most enormously important event that occurs between the two. That, and I think most feminists would tell you is birth is the first time the fetus isn't a leech on another person's organs, and we don't force anyone to donate organs.
@ George:
Richard carrier covers some of those topics you're asking about in a debate he had in 2000 (though it is somewhat outdated, and his position has been updated in his book). Specifically, he says:
There's more available at the link to the debate and in the book, and it's well worth the read - Carrier always seems able to find the implicit assumptions in our values and our support for them, and clearly explain the logical implications of them.
Also, I think Dianne's proposal is a good legal way of implementing a "scientific" distinction like Carrier's.
I would be able to like this if not for the fact that women as a whole women are more anti-abortion than men. So women are trying to keep themselves under control? It's entirely possible when deranged by religious beliefs but still a bit perplexing for me.
So women are trying to keep themselves under control?
No, just other women. Someone here once linked to a list of tearful testimonies from pro-lifers finding themselves in need of the services of an abortion clinic.
While many gained some empathy for the 'baby-killing' mothers they'd previously terrorised, a few looked at the doctors and said point-blank "You're going to Hell" mere moments after they'd had the procedure.
Anyone remember that link?
A fetus becomes an individual (baby) as soon as it can survive without the use of a woman's body. Usually this happens at birth. So, it's pretty simple, but obviously depends on the situation cause it becomes about probabilities of survival the later you get into pregnancy.
The question of a fetus's 'rights' is irrelevant as even you as an individual can't demand the use of another person's body to keep you alive.
correction: 'can survive' = 'survives'
To completely sidestep the ethical issue here, I fail to see how any change in environmental oxygen matters - the brain is not exposed to air. One could say that with the move from fetal to regular hemoglobin, the available oxygenation to the brain from the blood goes down.
Unfortunately, Jesus and Mo are quotemining the Bible. The penalty for causing pre-mature birth is a fine. If the fetus is actually harmed, the penalty is equal to the harm (eye for eye, etc.). Therefore, the penalty for abortion (using the logic of the cartoon) is death, per Ex. 21:23.
Is anyone else wondering why Mo(hammed, I assume) is wearing a Sikh-style turban? None of the muslim men I go to school with (and there are a shitload) wear headdresses like that.
Quote mining, eh? Nice try, but the consensus interpretation of the Exodus passage you reference is that it refers to harm to the mother, not the fetus.
"If men who are fighting hit a pregnant woman and she gives birth prematurely but there is no serious injury [i.e., to the mother], the offender must be fined whatever the woman's husband demands and the court allows. But if there is serious injury [i.e., to the mother], you are to take life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot..."
Louisiana has elected a total wingnut asswipe as governor, Bobby Jindal. He has the worst of religious backgrounds. He is from a hindu background but converted to Catholicism. Now he says he is 100% against abortion. No ifs, ands, or buts.
@laurelin #25:
Actually, as premature birth demonstrates, many unborn fetuses could survive without the mother, but stay in the womb longer. So I would say that very rarely do the time when the baby can survive without the mother and the time when the baby is born actually coincide.
Furthermore, if "survival on its own" is the defining limit, then many premature babies aren't individuals by that definition, because they actually can't survive without the woman's body or a substitute (which we often provide in the form of medical care - but it doesn't change the fact that they couldn't survive on their own). Yet we spend quite a bit of time taking care of premature babies as if they really are individuals. If you're going to say that those cases of premature births preclude individuality, then what about people on life support, or who need organ donations? Though they do not have a right to "demand" the use of another's body, they don't lose their status of personhood simply because they can no longer survive without the use of another's body.
I guess I really don't see a logical connection between "can survive on its own" and "is an individual."
But it's a little more complicated than that, isn't it? Because you could argue that by engaging in sex, the woman has already consented to allowing another individual to use her body in order to develop, right? (I personally don't accept that argument as a valid reason to prohibit abortion, but it points out the difference between pregnancy and other cases where one human needs the use of another's body to survive.) And our laws also require that parents provide for their children - so children, while they are individuals, do have a right to demand the use of another person's (at least) resources, if not their body, to keep them alive.
I think you were correct when you said that your explanation was "simple" - and I think that's a pretty good sign that it doesn't really cover the issue, because it isn't a simple issue.
I fail to see how any change in environmental oxygen matters - the brain is not exposed to air.
The fetus obtains oxygen through the umbilical vein, which has a pO2 of around 35-40. Arterial blood in a person with normal lung function breathing room air has a pO2 of around 80, so a newborn has far more oxygen available to it than a fetus. The cerebral cortex is highly sensitive to oxygen deprivation and simply doesn't work under low oxygen conditions. Fetal hemoglobin, as you mentioned, has a higher oxygen affinity than adult hemoglobin, which is good for getting oxygen from the umbilical artery, but less good for getting it released to the tissue efficiently, so I'm not sure what kind of effect it would have in the end.
He's also an explicit advocate of teaching "intelligent design" in public schools.
I remember it. I remember the dripping condensation some those women had that only they were informed/intelligent enough to make that choice that should be restricted from others who didn't possess their special intelligence and unusual circumstance and how it "wasn't their fault," etc.
I just shook my head in disbelief. Just like I do when I find out about the Ted Haggards, etc., in this world.
Note my correction of 'can survive' to 'survives.' Once a fetus survives outside the body, it is a baby, whether it was premature or born normally.
You are right in that consenting to having sex is not waiving your right to bodily autonomy. I think this is one of the main differences in worldview between 'pro-lifers' and us.
People who need donor tissues and DON'T GET THEM do cease to become individuals i.e. they die. They don't have a right to force anyone to give up a part of their body or the use of their body in order to keep being alive.
Morally, yeah, it's really nice to help another human keep living (or be brought into the world) but that's not the issue. It's ideal but shouldn't be compulsory.
Also, monetary resources etc. are not the same thing as your physical body.
umbilical artery
Gah! Umbilical vein.
@11 what bout the innervation of the cortex ( around 17-22th week ) without a cortex there can't be any human thought nor any personality, so prior to (say 15th week) we can safely assume nobody gets killed by an abortion, because, well, nobody's at home yet. ( is it scientistifical enough ? :-) )
@33 we have some evidence of fetal memory, and can record fetal EEG, so, apparently, fetal brain DOES some function in spite of low oxygen level.
I take it back - Mo must have been reading the New American Bible:
"When men have a fight and hurt a pregnant woman, so that she suffers a miscarriage, but no further injury, the guilty one shall be fined as much as the woman's husband demands of him, and he shall pay in the presence of the judges."
Of course, the true meaning of that verse is probably long lost in the ashbin of history. Not that it should have any bearing on the question in modern society, which is not governed by religious principle.
"The fetus obtains oxygen through the umbilical vein, which has a pO2 of around 35-40. Arterial blood in a person with normal lung function breathing room air has a pO2 of around 80, so a newborn has far more oxygen available to it than a fetus."
Nah. PO2 refers only to dissolved oxygen in the plasma; 98+% of anybody's blood oxygen is bound to hemoglobin and not in solution. Because of its higher affinity, fetal hemoblobin ought to be about 80% saturated at a PO2 of 35. That's plenty of oxygen. I'm not buying the oxygen-deprived brain thing.
Eric Davison,
But it's a little more complicated than that, isn't it? Because you could argue that by engaging in sex, the woman has already consented to allowing another individual to use her body in order to develop, right?
What's that argument, then? I don't see why consenting to have sex should be regarded as consenting to complete a pregnancy resulting from the sex.
(I personally don't accept that argument as a valid reason to prohibit abortion, but it points out the difference between pregnancy and other cases where one human needs the use of another's body to survive.)
Not at all. Suppose a child needs a life-saving kidney/blood transfusion/bone marrow donation. Its mother is the only potential donor match. Do you think it would be reasonable to claim that the mother consented to make that donation when she consented to have the child? If not, why would it be reasonable to claim that a woman consents to complete a pregnancy when she consents to sex?
Here's the link mentioned earlier:
http://mypage.direct.ca/w/writer/anti-tales.html
@laurelin #36
I still don't see "survival outside the womb" as a valid point to distinguish, as a baby that is about to be born could (and would) survive outside the womb if you let it. Why the distinction right there, if it's essentially exactly the same being? There's no difference in brain structure or content or bodily being, so what's the real distinction there? Breathing? Because we don't use breathing as a personhood distinction later on in life - if someone stops breathing and they're resuscitated, we don't think of them as a completely different person. So why should birth be considered the line between being a person and not a person?
That's correct that people who don't get tissue donations die - but we're talking about people who need someone else's organs, not someone who needed them and didn't get them. Yes, a dead human being is not an individual, nor is a dead fetus. But what about a live person who needs it, or a live fetus inside their mother? You're claiming that one is an individual and one isn't. I'm saying that your current opinions on personhood later on in life (based on my assumption regarding your beliefs about a person who needs an organ donation) are contradictory to the line that you've drawn for fetuses.
@Jason #41:
There's a difference between having a child, which is the expected result from sex, and being the only donor match for a child which needs a kidney transplant, which occurs extremely rarely - one should be an expected consequence of the action, and the other is caused by uncommon circumstances that are out of the mother's control.
My point was that they're two completely different circumstances: in one, having a living thing be dependent on your body is completely expected and mostly under one's control, whereas in the other it's not. I'm not saying that we should use that as the deciding factor in whether or not an abortion should be allowed - I'm saying exactly the opposite. I'm saying that having a living thing dependent on your body to survive doesn't decide whether or not it's an individual or whether or not it's within your rights to refuse to allow it to depend on you.
I think the deciding line is where it is for every other time we assign personhood: in brain function. People are dead not when their heart stops beating (as it often does for surgery patients) or when they stop breathing (as happens when people need to be resuscitated), but when the brain stops functioning in a particular way that we assign sentience and individuality to. Exactly where that line is could be up for debate (is someone who is unresponsive but shows EEG function similar to a responsive person still an individual or not?), but it's the line that everyone uses for human beings after birth, so why would it be a different one before?
Eric Davison,
There's a difference between having a child, which is the expected result from sex,...
Huh? Since when is having a child "the expected result from sex?" The vast majority of sexual acts do not even produce a pregnancy, let alone a child. The premise of your argument here is just false.
My point was that they're two completely different circumstances: in one, having a living thing be dependent on your body is completely expected and mostly under one's control, whereas in the other it's not.
Also false. Having a child (that may need a donation of organs or tissue from you to survive) is obviously just as much under your control as having sex (that may subsequently produce a pregnancy).
I'm not saying that we should use that as the deciding factor in whether or not an abortion should be allowed - I'm saying exactly the opposite. I'm saying that having a living thing dependent on your body to survive doesn't decide whether or not it's an individual or whether or not it's within your rights to refuse to allow it to depend on you.
I understand that you're not advocating the criminalization of abortion. But your argument that abortion is relevantly different from the refusal to donate life-saving blood or tissue just doesn't work. I agree that the two situations are not the same, but they don't differ in the way your argument requires them to.
I don't think anti-abortionists have their opinion because they want to "control women". It seems far more plausible that they just have a moral intuition against killing things, which most people do have.
Eric Davison's posts provide a perfect confirmation for the cartoon.
Brendon -
Please reconcile your perspective with the general absence of "pro-lifers" in the antiwar movement, and their abundant presence among the wars' supporters.
For extra credit, perform the same exercise regarding the political groupings around the death penalty and public health programs for children.
If we agree that a fetus two weeks before term is an individual with rights, then when did that designation take place?
A fetus two weeks before term is not an individual; it's only one component of a pregnancy.
The dividing line is delivery, namely the clamping of the cord. That's when a fetus acquires the ability to circulate blood, breath, excrete, etc. [And to be clear, a 1 day neonate in the NICU and a 90 yo in the ICU have nothing in common with a fetus in utero. Both the NICU/ICU patients can, say, breath; they don't because they're temporarily incapacitated . A fetus in utero cannot, and does not, breath.]
Ema: Sometimes excretion does take place before delivery... ew. :)
Also, a fetus already circulates its own blood... it doesn't spontaneously develop a circulatory system at birth. Maybe I'm not understanding what you meant.
It's not a moral intuition against killing 'things'. Carrots are things and are still alive when eaten.
That moral intuition you speak of, is actually more along the lines of squeeing over small animals with large eyes and a head/body ratio similar to a human baby.
Humans are not programmed to have strong emotional attraction to an actual example of the pharyngula stage of any animal, including a human one. There's no inclination to cuddle it, touch your nose to its scalp or start making high pitched babbling sounds.
Most arguments over abortion are at an intellectual level and do not address the underlying unspoken emotional basis for our point of view and yet the emotions are obviously there. Much advertising is addressed at the emotional level. Humans spend a surprising amount of time hiding their irrational motivations from themselves.
Optimal results for the human species for the forseeable future will not be achieved by maximizing birth rates. Outbreeding the competition may have been an obvious thing for a warrior priest to encourage in his tribe, thousands of years ago. Now it is a crime against our species and every other species on the planet.
These arguments are tiresome in the extreme. Does the bible condone abortion? That's supposed to matter? Because, guess what, fundi boys and guys, the bible may be silent on abortion, but is ain't silent on killing your own kid. Deuteronomy 21: 18-21 clearly states you can have your disobedient son stoned to death. And if you think this little rule is amoral, then you know that you need something else, not just the Bible, to determine morality. And if you need to use this extra-Biblical morality in the case of Deut 21: 18-21, then you need to use in regards to Exodus 21:22, regardless of how you interpret it.
So my question is, was anyone in biblical times put to death for killing their own kids? Anyone? Under any circumstances? Cause I can't think of a one. Shoot, we don't even fault Jehovah for killing his son Jesus, now do we?
@#45:
So those individuals who have a "moral intuition" against killing things are stolid vegetarians then, right? And they always capture spiders they find in the house and release them outside unharmed, right?
And they see that according to their reservations about killing fetuses, they should also forgo that steak on the table, which came from an animal with more conciousness, sentience and capacity to feel pain than a human fetus could ever have, right?
Oh wait, no, people who claim to be pro-life really aren't. They don't ever seem to give a good godd*mn about people (especially children) already existing, so why do you think they care so very much about fetuses? Hint: It isn't because they wuv the pwecious widdle baybeez so much as they love having control over others.
Pierce (#47): Thank you!
Brendon: We're waiting...
If I recall, a living man contributes a living sperm to the living egg within a living woman. All of the man's and woman's ancestors were alive at the time that their living cells joined to create them, and their child carries the means to repeat the process.
Please, tell me once more, when does life begin?
This was my first reaction when I became aware of the "debate" about when (human) life begins. That would be some time before Roe v. Wade. Seemed to render the question moot then, seems to now. There can be no serious debate about when a human is biologically alive; has been since Ur-ancestor.
The argument at large is simply an attempt to answer a question without merit, that is, when is the "soul" installed along the production line? When does "our" god breathe the breath of life into lungs full of fluid? And how closely can we frame the question around the perceived "cuteness" or familiarity of a fetal face? And how can we use this to get everyone to agree that our beliefs need to be accommodated into the law of the land, forcing everyone to our glorious truth?
@Jason #44:
Okay - let's set aside the argument that because pregnancy is the natural biological result of sex, it should be an expected result of that. I only brought that up as a side point. I will concede that I gave a poor example of the distinction between pregnancy and organ donation. Do you disagree with my argument that there is more to the distinction of "personhood" than birth?
@Sailor #46:
Did you read what I said, or just glance briefly before commenting? Did you read the article I linked to? I don't see how my comments confirm the cartoon at all, and I'd appreciate if you explained your comment.
@ema #48:
I don't see the distinction. A fetus in utero at a certain point in the pregnancy can breathe, it just does not because of the environment it's in. So why the sharp distinction between "has taken a breath" and "has not"? I don't see a logical reason to choose that line for personhood or not since we don't associate personhood with breathing any other time in life. Why the special case?
You mean this one?
You mean this one?
You mean this one?
You mean this one?
Eric Davison,
I will concede that I gave a poor example of the distinction between pregnancy and organ donation. Do you disagree with my argument that there is more to the distinction of "personhood" than birth?
With respect to the personhood of human beings, yes. I think a mature fetus is clearly a form human life, by any reasonable definition of "human" and "life," and I think it has certain rights (such as the right not to be subjected to pain), but I don't think it's a person. I think a human person begins to exist at birth.
Well, I'm about as pro-choice as it gets, and I refer to my 35-week-old fetus as my baby, and sometimes even as my daughter. Does that offend anybody here? I ask because I have offended some hardcore pro-choice (actually, I think they were pro-abortion) for using that "language."
My rationale? It's mine, I'm keeping it, so sod off! :P Nyah!
Then what exactly is the distinction between a person and a non-person? That is, what changes at that moment that moves the fetus from non-person to person?
Thanks for the link. I found a new web comic! Just two minor complaints:
1) Doesn't seem to be updated on a regular basis. I don't care if it's every day or once a week. I just don't like having to check out the page daily to see a new comic.
2) There's no "first comic" button so I had to read them in reverse order.
Like I said, no big problems. It's the best laugh I've had in a while.
LM,
I'm not talking about meconium [in the fetus nutrients are delivered via the placenta and umbilical vein, not via absorption from the GI tract], but rather about placental function (gas exchange, waste disposal, etc.) and adequate uteroplacental perfusion (maternal circulation).
You mean this one?
Er, whoops. Sorry for all the multiple posts; my internet cut out and I couldn't check whether my comment got through.
Ooh, goody! Yet another abortion/right to life thread! We managed to get this one up to 400 posts.
One point that needs to be established, though, is that it is quite possible for an agnostic like myself to oppose abortion on grounds that have nothing at all to do with religious dogma or the subjugation of women.
There is the small question of the right to life of the unborn.
Eric Davison,
Then what exactly is the distinction between a person and a non-person? That is, what changes at that moment that moves the fetus from non-person to person?
The changes that occur through birth. A fetus is physically enclosed within and connected to its mothers body and is uniquely dependent on that physical connection for the oxygen, nutrition, hydration and warmth needed to sustain its life. And it has no, or virtually no, sensory interaction with the world. All babies are independent and sentient in ways that no fetus is. I am not suggesting that birth is the momentous event that pro-lifers typically claim fertilization is (one second, worthless tissue; the next, a full-blown human being). Birth is a threshold, the threshold that marks the beginning of personhood.
Ian, it has none. Plain and simple. Sounds cold but it's not.
I actually advocate legalizing abortion up to the 18th year.
Vitis01 wrote:
Not "cold", 'cool'. It's cool to be pro-choice here.
I can see that appealing to the femdamentalists. Parenthood as a human rights violation. If having to carry the unborn child is a violation of the woman's rights then so is having to raise the unwelcome brat after it's born.
I think most mothers would disagree with you on that. I don't have direct experience with it, but from what I've heard, fetuses react to external stimuli constantly - kicking, moving around, etc.
And again - I don't see how dependence negates personhood. If you say that a fetus isn't a person because it's enclosed within a woman's body, I'd say that's essentially arbitrary because you have no comparable circumstances which verify that it's a logical position. The distinction between persons as a philosophical term and non-persons has generally had absolutely nothing to do with physical position.
And again, I'll point out that while a fetus is dependent on the mother at some point, there is also a point when the fetus is in the womb and dependent, but if removed from the womb at that point it would be able to survive on its own. So again, I don't see a distinction at all there.
The distinction I see is, as I stated, brain function. The particular way our brain functions is what distinguishes us from other animals. This theory of personhood also explains why we ascribe various gradual levels of personhood to animals. Animals which appear to have emotions, appear to feel pain, appear to be aware of their surroundings, we're more likely to have moral misgivings about causing harm or killing them. The more mental faculties they have, the closer we treat them to human beings. Your "birth" theory of personhood doesn't explain that behavior at all. If all that makes something a "person" is birth, then where does the distinction between animals and humans come into play?
You've stated that birth "marks" the beginning of personhood: and again I ask, what defines a person? What is it that appears at birth that was not there before, but is also part of a coherent theory of personhood that extends beyond this particular issue?
Y'all are going to have to get used to the fact that personhood is (1) a matter of degree and (2) not present until well after birth. A newborn is not a rational self-conscious creature.
We do, however, have good reasons for laws against killing babies. Those reasons have nothing to do with any supposed "rights" (moral rights are nonsense on stilts, anyway). Nor do they have anything to do with embryos or fetuses.
Cessation of complete physiological parasitism on the mother.
You're hunting for boojums, Eric.
Mazel tov if you actually manage to develop such a theory, but I'm betting against you--a lot of very smart people have gotten impaled on Arrow's impossibility theorem in the attempt.
Eric Davison,
The distinction I see is, as I stated, brain function.
Why brain function? And what exactly do you mean by "brain function," anyway? There isn't just one kind of "brain function" that a fetus either has or doesn't have. There are many types and dimensions of mental and cognitive function. Which ones must a fetus be capable of, and to what degree, in order to qualify as a person, in your view? I think any line you draw to define personhood will be just as "arbitary" as the ones you reject.
You've stated that birth "marks" the beginning of personhood: and again I ask, what defines a person? What is it that appears at birth that was not there before, but is also part of a coherent theory of personhood that extends beyond this particular issue?
I already described the changes that occur at birth.
Russell,
I basically agree that newborn babies are not full persons in the same sense that older children and adults are. But if we're going to continue to draw a fairly bright line at birth in our laws and social conventions that divide permissible from impermissible killing (as I think we should), we need to put newborns in the same basic category as children and adults. I am sympathetic to Singer's idea that, under certain conditions, the parents of severely disabled newborn babies should be allowed to kill them, but I'm not sure such a policy would be socially desirable even if it were politically feasible (which I don't think it is).
Jason, I'm with Singer on this one. I don't know where you live, but in at least some parts of the world what Singer is saying a perfectly realistic political solution, as well as being, IMHO, desirable.
Ian, please don't mistake this for a dialogue. I just want to learn how many snowflake babies with a right to life that you, personally, have adopted?
As a father of two, who was some years ago far too close to being a father of three, I don't want to hear anybody talking about rights to life in a universe where contingency makes other plans. Is a right to life anything like a right to conceive, or to carry to full term, or to live birth?
I have to go with the proposal Sagan came up with some time ago. When shall we say life begins? That was some billions of years ago, and it has budded without interruption since then. Not every bud thrives autonomously, nor should it. As for notion of when the rights of the mother to terminate a medical condition should conflict with the rights of the State to intervene in that decision, Sagan also discussed the notion of "quickening", about 20 weeks or so in.
We live in a time when a brain-damaged 12 year old is mocked by Senators and by the MSM for relying on aid from the State to pay for his rehabilitation after a prolonged coma. Why should a fetus at 20 weeks have more rights than a child whose parents can't afford medical care? At this point, insurance companies have more rights than hospitals or patients. When an adult cold left my 6 month old daughter fighting for breath, heroic measures at the hospital saved her life. Such procedures were "not authorized," so my insurance company stiffed the hospital, no doubt in a package deal that traded off various expenses it would pay for vs. those it wouldn't. Without insurance, I live in a culture where I'd be a pariah, penalized for being unable to come up with $75K, making it even more difficult to raise my children.
Don't make up imaginary rights, Ian.
Of course. And fortunately Ian's use of terms like "femdamentalists" for supporters of women's rights and his history in other threads of abject callousness with regard to the suffering of women faced with an unwanted pregnancy, occasionally prefaced by curt, summary claims of empathy on a par in sincerity with the eponymous "I'm not a racist, but...", unambiguously support that misogyny is not the basis of his position.
You're completely certain it's female? Otherwise, that might be a bit awkward... ;/
I doubt any reasonable person actually objects "on principle"; rather, I suspect it's a matter of them being reminded uncomfortably of the emotional-blackmail arguments commonly advanced by anti-choicers.
Also, congratulations.
Sarah Blaffer Hrdy, excerpt from Mother Nature (1999)
http://www.nytimes.com/books/first/h/hrdy-mother.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
"Passionate debates about abortion derive from motivations to control female reproduction that are far older than any particular system of government, older than patriarchy, older even than recorded history. Male fascination with the reproductive affairs of female group members predates our species. Young women of my daughters' generation take for granted a historically unique situation. They regard birth control, precautions against sexually transmitted diseases, women's education and athletic teams, as well as open-ended professional opportunities for women, as innovations here to stay. They view the antiabortion movement in the United States, along with the emergence of powerful political lobbies seeking to substitute "abstinence only" for practical knowledge about human sexuality and reproduction, as too irrational to take seriously. Reports from far-off places like Taliban-controlled Afghanistan, where Islamic fundamentalists seek to deny women personal autonomy (forcing them to stay sequestered in their homes, keep their faces and bodies veiled, and marry as instructed) seem exotic and remote.
It is hard for my daughters and their generation to believe that such forces could ever intrude upon their own lives. Even when the sequestering of women is shown to have measurable costs to the health and well-being of wives and children (as has recently been documented for Afghanistan), they are saddened, but not apprehensive for themselves. They see no connection between innate male desires to control women in earlier times and the attitudes toward women and family that inspire sermons to all-male audiences of "Promise Keepers," or that motivate elected officials to debate endlessly over who has the right to choose whether and when a woman gives birth. Few Westerners take seriously the possibility that old tensions between maternal and paternal interests could explode one day in their own country and transform a world they take for granted. I am not nearly so confident. If age-old pressures are allowed to erode hard-won laws and protections, it is far from certain that the unique experiment we have embarked upon can persist."
Ian H Spedding wrote: "I can see that appealing to the femdamentalists. Parenthood as a human rights violation. If having to carry the unborn child is a violation of the woman's rights then so is having to raise the unwelcome brat after it's born."
I think the point is that parenthood should be a choice. Forcing a woman to continue a pregnancy she doesn't want IS a violation of her rights, she herself choosing to become a parent is not. If a woman changes her mind about raising the child once it is born, she can give it up for adoption easily and legally. But, choosing to raise it doesn't violate her rights. It's all about choice. Giving a woman the absolute iron clad right to make that choice is the only decent moral thing to do.
Just my $.02 worth.
Cheers,
Ray
For the record, I do, and I'm not a vegetarian.
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While I am at it, I should probably mention the Austrian Solution. (Keep in mind that "Austrian Solution" is a technical term, and not necessarily a solution.) Here goes: after the 3rd month, abortion is considered murder, except when the fetus has a handicap, though most people seem not to know about that last part; up to the 3rd month, it is forbidden but not prosecuted and not punished -- a few specialized clinics exist; women who go there are harrassed by small groups of religious zealots, but no bombing or anything has ever happened.
It being an Austrian Solution, almost nobody dares talking about it, no matter what their private views. It is not a topic in the media or elsewhere in the public discourse. Even the Catholic Church keeps its mouth shut practically all of the time, and even the radical lefties (who have little access to media) who want abortion (which costs hundreds of euros) to be covered by the (of course public) health insurance don't mention it on every occasion.
It goes without saying that sex education is mandatory (as part of the biology lessons) at the age of 13 or 14, and that AFAIK nobody listens to the church on contraception.
It also goes without saying that we're talking about a law made by Parliament, not about an exegetic court decision.
"Legal, safe, and rare" said the best Republican president you've ever had...
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Let's just say "unprotected vaginal sex" instead of "sex".
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If you can't check whether it got through, that proves it has gone through. The Scienceblogs software works like that.
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This is a classic example of a wrong question. No society should allow the possibility to exist that any of its members can't afford medical care. There shouldn't be any parents who can't afford medical care, so the question of whether a fetus at 20 weeks should have more rights than a child of such hypothetical constructs is like the question of why Napoleon crossed the Mississippi. Instead of trying to answer that question, US voters should introduce public healthcare already.
Well, at least 95% sure. Of course, we made the mistake of telling our families that it was *probably* a girl, and ended up getting a bunch of pink crap - I even said, "Boy, I sure hope it really is a girl, since ultrasound isn't 100% accurate!"
It's a good thing we kept all of those gift receipts. :P
Oh, and to anyone who ever has a kid: Never EVER tell people the sex. You WILL regret it!
Also: Thanks!
I have to say, as a (very) pregnant woman, I can't fathom why someone would wait until the third trimester to have an abortion (unless there is something wrong with the fetus, of course). I also suspect that this sort of thing is incredibly rare.
I still believe that it comes down to personal choice... though I might, in my own mind, question the integrity of a woman who decides at the "last minute" that she wants an abortion. I think she should have the right to terminate the (normal, healthy) pregnancy if she wishes, but I personally would not think very highly of that woman if she did.
But then, not my body, not my baby. Not my business.
Russell Blackford wrote:
That depends on your concept of "rights".
I don't view rights as some sort of 'natural' or 'God-given' law. We decide what they should be. That doesn't mean I regard my - or your - right to life or to free expression, for example, as "nonsense on stilts".
I am unware of a single case of this. It probably has occurred, but I would be amazed if such cases constituted even a tenth of a percent of late-term abortions, which themselves are a tiny percentage of all abortions. To the best of my knowledge the only reasons a woman would be expected seek an abortion late in the pregnancy are a threat to the life or health of the mother, the discovery of a severe, crippling or potentially fatal birth defect, or having been prevented from seeking one earlier, either through unavailability of legal abortion or through being prevented by illegal means (fraud, kidnapping, etc.) from seeking an otherwise legal abortion. I suppose there might be a few cases where a woman or couple's financial situation changed catastrophically, such that she would no longer be able to support the child, but I'm willing to bet that most women in that kind of situation would give the child up for adoption if it occurred that late in the pregnancy.
Good idea, David! There are only three obstacles in our way:
* The Republican Party;
* The Democratic Party;
* An electoral system strongly biased against "third" parties.
As for the abortion issue: please note that "the fetus" serves as a symbolic surrogate for the powerless, and thus arouses passionate defensiveness on the part of many who are pushed around by a system they do not understand but dare not confront directly.
PZ, I usually hate when people do this on blogs, but by the time I got to the bottom of the second page, I realized I had something too long for here. I hope you don't mind that I mention that my response is here: http://www.alisonblogs.com/wordpress/index.php/2007/10/23/it-became-an-…
I tried to add a trackback, but I can't get it to work. I'll get hubby to figure it out later. I don't really care all that much about traffic on my little blog - I hope people who want to respond would do it here to keep it all together.
Allison: Excellent post. I agree completely.
It really saddens me to think of the number of children who are unwanted in this country (indeed, in the world). My baby has been long and impatiently awaited, and is very, very much wanted. Her dad and I are already in love with her - isn't that strange? In love with a creature that hasn't even been born yet! :)
I feel extremely fortunate (if I were a religious person, I might even say "blessed" :P), but my heart goes out to those unwanted children and to their parents who didn't have the sense or strength to make the right decision.
A fetus in utero at a certain point in the pregnancy can breathe, it just does not because of the environment it's in.
No, a fetus in utero cannot breath at any point (it's not the environment, it's the anatomy/physiology). Delivery is required for that to occur.
...we don't associate personhood with breathing any other time in life...
[Except when you get to pronounce someone. (/joke)] We associate "personhood" (definition?) with the capacity to perform certain vital function, either unassisted or assisted. A fetus lacks that capacity.
@#71
Wow Ian... So after dismissing every pro-choice person here as just being "cool" you then take a (admittedly) flip comment and turn it into an attack on feminism, or rather, your warped view of feminism.
Damn...
@ Russell #73:
Carrier says (in the debate I linked to earlier):
It isn't just rationality that we use as criteria for personhood - if it was, there'd be a lot of full grown religious nuts who wouldn't qualify.
@thalarctos #74:
Again I'll point out that this condition is rather arbitrary since it is never otherwise used as a condition for personhood. I don't think it's really that farfetched to first develop a coherent definition of personhood, and then apply it to the abortion debate, rather than developing an opinion on abortion and then applying it to your view of personhood (which seems to be what's occurring if you define personhood as starting at birth).
@Jason #75:
I know you already stated what occurs at birth. I'm asking why you chose that as a dividing line.
Why brain function? Because, as I already stated a few times, that's what we use at every other point in a human being's life (or other animals, for that matter). What makes up a "person" is a collection of behaviors, memories, actions, etc. Those things are stored and implemented through a particular brain structure and activity. In the debate I linked to, Carrier says in his first rebuttal:
@ ema #91:
Perhaps this is my ignorance of physiology, but what physiological changes take place at the instant of birth that allow a fetus to breathe that were not present before that point?
I agree with the first statement, I disagree with the second. Yes, we associate personhood (the definition of which is disputed, but which can at least be demarcated normatively by classifying humans as persons and lower animals as not humans) with a certain vital function - but I struggle to find a single instance other than the current discussion where breathing is that vital function. As far as I can tell, in every other instance, some type brain function is used as the defining characteristic. And a fetus does not lack that capacity.
@ All who are arguing that personhood starts at birth:
It seems to me that you are starting from the assumption that abortion should be allowed at any stage in pregnancy, and then building your view of personhood from there, rather than the other way around. I don't see any other way to come to the conclusion that breathing should be the beginning of personhood. That's a rather backwards way to build your philosophy, because instead of following the facts to a value system that matches them, it starts with a value system and then assumes facts that support it - which is exactly the type of reasoning that many people here criticize in the religious types.
And just to be clear, I'll state my position on the issue: I do not think that abortion is immoral up to the point where a fetus gains complex cerebral activity. While I think that our scientific ability has not yet sufficiently progressed to allow us to tell exactly when that occurs, I believe that the 20th week is both early enough to say that it has not occurred, and late enough to allow women the opportunity to have an abortion. My personal belief is that after that point, it is unethical to have an abortion and it infringes on the rights of the fetus as a person. However, I'm not advocating making it illegal after that point, mostly due to the inability to determine when exactly personhood should be conveyed (and therefore rights as well), combined with the fact that special cases occur where legislation would make an already difficult late term abortion (whether because of danger to the mother or genetic or developmental defects, etc.) even more difficult. I'm not sure if there's a better solution than we have now, but I don't think that it is as simple as saying "it's their body" or "it's not breathing, so it doesn't count" (and I am equally as annoyed when it is oversimplified on the other side, e.g. "it's murder" or "it becomes alive at conception").
Alright. This mammoth comment is done, and I'm bowing out for now. If you want to discuss it more, send me an email at xanthan1485@hotmail.com and I'd be willing to expound more on my views - though I would ask that you at least read the debate that Carrier has first, because his position covers most of my views rather well.
Ken Cope wrote:
That's okay. I'll just heckle.
Oh, probably about as many as the number of fetuses a pro-choicer like yourself has personally aborted. Is that supposed to prove something?
As you've noticed, the universe plainly doesn't give a toss about us. If we want rights, we have to forget about 'nature' or some deity granting them to us, we have to set them up for ourselves.
I think you'll find even Sagan thought that life on Earth began at some point.
But that's beside the point. We aren't talking about when life in general began. The question is when can the life of an individual human being be said to begin since it is individual human beings that are entitled to rights, not vague notion of life.
Really? Says who? God? Nature? You?
I'm sorry, am I supposed to be surprised that the media can be crass and shallow or that politicians are despicable?
You won't get any arguments from me about the shortcomings of a private healthcare system. It provides excellent treatment for those that can afford it. I know. But it doesn't change the fact that one of the reasons it is so good because there are 45 million of the poorer - and less healthy - members of society it doesn't have to cover.
Why not? Where else do you think rights come from?
Ray wrote:
That seems simple enough.
Unless the unborn child has rights too.
Then it gets more complicated.
Vitis01 wrote:
Am I missing something? I thought "cool" was an expression of approval, that something was fashionable.
And if I intended to attack feminism in general I would have written 'feminists".
I used "femdamentalists" as a label for the wingnutty branch of the movement which views all men in much the same light as creationists view Darwin and his theory of evolution - in other words, as the root of all evil.
Exactly.
Have at it, then. Don't forget to show all your work.
Remember, though, it's not coherent if you de-personify the pregnant woman to give personhood rights to the fetus, so at some point, you will have to deal with the ramifications of that pesky impossibility theorem. Crack *that* particular nut, and you'll truly be famous.
We're looking forward to reviewing and evaluating your coherent definition of personhood and its application to the abortion debate.
That's okay. I'll just heckle.
but, you're a tiresome bore.
you should try heckling yourself sometime, Ian, just to see how boring you are.
Not every bud thrives autonomously, nor should it.
Any gardener with any taste, and a pair of pruning shears. Cross those legs, Ian.
Don't make up imaginary rights, Ian.
If you're at least half this charming with the ladies in person, Ian... If you're looking to hook up with anybody with slightly more functional brain cells to incubate your spawn than Terry Schiavo... The only reason I can imagine you're so keen on subordinating women to the status of wombs on demand is because you're unlikely to rouse any voluntary cooperation on that front.
Cross those legs, Ian.
LOL
I wonder if Ian realizes that instead of heckling, he's the one that gets heckled in these threads?
I'm guessing no.
You know what this means, PZ's beloved squids are not alive. They do not breath and therefore never had the "breath of life". Discuss.
Clue: PZ doesn't use the bible as a dictionary.
The fundamental question remains unanswered. When does a fetus become an individual with rights to be respected?
There is an answer: Roe v. Wade, which is justified (not necessarily well) in terms of the history of common law (read the decision). There really isn't any answer beyond that -- rights are a social construct.
I used "femdamentalists" as a label for the wingnutty branch of the movement which views all men in much the same light as creationists view Darwin and his theory of evolution - in other words, as the root of all evil.
And why would those women find legalizing abortions up to 18 years old appealing? Is that because they want to kill all men?
I've found that any man thinks there are such women is a sexist ass that has a huge chip on his shoulder about women generally. That seems to fit here.
We aren't talking about when life in general began. The question is when can the life of an individual human being be said to begin since it is individual human beings that are entitled to rights, not vague notion of life.
The former is a scientific question; the latter is confused. There is no objective basis upon which to answer such questions, thus it comes down to policy. People who don't like the current policy try to claim some sort of objective basis for opposing it, but there isn't any. And since there isn't any, there is no "it can be said" -- we each have our own say. And entitlements to rights are defined by policy, and depend on circumstance. If it were up to me, the right to abort a fetus -- or child, if you wish -- would last up until abortion is no longer applicable. American society has chosen to make the right more restricted, and I can live with that, but I do what I can to oppose further erosion of the right.
Cessation of complete physiological parasitism on the mother.
Again I'll point out that this condition is rather arbitrary since it is never otherwise used as a condition for personhood. I don't think it's really that farfetched to first develop a coherent definition of personhood, and then apply it to the abortion debate, rather than developing an opinion on abortion and then applying it to your view of personhood (which seems to be what's occurring if you define personhood as starting at birth).
What "otherwise used"? There's no debate as to whether Terry Schiavo was a "person". The notion of "personhood" is specifically used to place limits on abortion. I think it's a ridiculously abstract notion that has no bearing on anything I care about. I'm much more concerned with cognitive states and personality. And since those are so much more developed in the mother, I take her concerns as primary.
I know you already stated what occurs at birth. I'm asking why you chose that as a dividing line.
Uh, because before birth killing a fetus consists of a surgical operation on the mother, whereas afterwards it doesn't. Giving people the right to control actions performed on their bodies and contents is not "arbitrary". Consider a number of people who will die unless some medical procedure is performed; one of those actions is removing your kidney, as it's the only compatible one available. Which of these procedures should you have the right to veto? Do you really think that a distinction between that action and other actions that don't impinge upon you is "arbitrary"? Do you really need to ask why your right to control your body is chosen as the dividing line?
Okay - let's set aside the argument that because pregnancy is the natural biological result of sex, it should be an expected result of that.
Let's just say "unprotected vaginal sex" instead of "sex".
Not all unprotected vaginal sex results in pregnancy, but some does. No all protected vaginal sex results in pregnancy, but some does. If pregnancy is a natural result of unprotected vaginal sex, it is also a natural result of protected sex (it just doesn't happen as often).
It's worth noting that, when unwanted pregnancy results from unprotected sex, the lack of protection is usually due to irresponsibility by and often coercion (I'm not talking about rape) from the male -- but it is the female who bears the brunt of the consequences, including the moral judgments -- mostly from males. It's very hard to disentangle opposition to abortion from misogyny -- which of course was the original point of this thread.
But if we're going to continue to draw a fairly bright line at birth in our laws and social conventions that divide permissible from impermissible killing (as I think we should), we need to put newborns in the same basic category as children and adults.
This simply does not follow -- the line is drawn based on the mother's control of her body. No one has a right to soak in alcohol a kidney needed to save a life ... unless it's a kidney located in their own body (but they should be strongly urged not to). Likewise, a pregnant woman should also be allowed to get drunk every day (but she should be strongly urged not to).
"And it has no, or virtually no, sensory interaction with the world."
I think most mothers would disagree with you on that. I don't have direct experience with it, but from what I've heard, fetuses react to external stimuli constantly - kicking, moving around, etc.
What makes you think this has anything to do with "sensory interaction with the world"?
"Wow Ian... So after dismissing every pro-choice person here as just being "cool" ..."
Am I missing something? I thought "cool" was an expression of approval, that something was fashionable.
Gee, what could Ian be missing? Perhaps honesty:
"So after dismissing every pro-choice person her as just [doing something fashionable] ..."
One point that needs to be established, though, is that it is quite possible for an agnostic like myself to oppose abortion on grounds that have nothing at all to do with religious dogma or the subjugation of women.
There is the small question of the right to life of the unborn.
You say "We decide what they should be" -- well, we have decided that the unborn don't have such a right -- therefore, by your own lights, there is none. Your insistence that, nonetheless, there is one seems dogmatic, and your lack of consideration for the rights of women is rather well established.
"I think a human person begins to exist at birth."
Then what exactly is the distinction between a person and a non-person? That is, what changes at that moment that moves the fetus from non-person to person?
Being inside of, attached to, and drawing nutrients from the body of a woman might have something to do with it. It's not a bad basis for defining the beginning of a person. And if we define it that way, there's no need to go looking for additional "distinctions" or "changes".
That moral intuition you speak of, is actually more along the lines of squeeing over small animals with large eyes and a head/body ratio similar to a human baby.
Yup; people care a lot more about seal pups they see on TV than about skunks on the side of the road.
Most arguments over abortion are at an intellectual level and do not address the underlying unspoken emotional basis for our point of view and yet the emotions are obviously there. Much advertising is addressed at the emotional level. Humans spend a surprising amount of time hiding their irrational motivations from themselves.
Indeed. And there's not much that's more irrational than talk about "the right of the unborn to life". There have been some good South Park episodes based around the right of pieces of human feces to respect and dignity. Of course this comparison elicits a highly emotional reaction from many non-introspective people.
I don't think anti-abortionists have their opinion because they want to "control women". It seems far more plausible that they just have a moral intuition against killing things, which most people do have.
It's hard to be more intellectually dishonest than that.
There's a difference between having a child, which is the expected result from sex
Eric gets to the nub of it, which was the point of the cartoon: opposition to abortion is largely about blaming and punishing women for having sex.
Because you could argue that by engaging in sex, the woman has already consented to allowing another individual to use her body in order to develop, right?
It's handy to be a complete ignoramus about anything at all that undermines one's view. Many many unwanted pregnancies come from protection that fails, not having protection while thinking one did, not having sex education (opposed by abortion opponents), and being coerced/pressured by men and peer groups to have sex. So sure, you can argue it, the the argument is invalid and misogynist.
Unfortunately, Jesus and Mo are quotemining the Bible.
Not at all. As the source that melior offered says:
The question of a fetus's 'rights' is irrelevant as even you as an individual can't demand the use of another person's body to keep you alive.
This point remains unassailed, despite Eric's valiant attempts at obfuscation.
I would be able to like this if not for the fact that women as a whole women are more anti-abortion than men. So women are trying to keep themselves under control? It's entirely possible when deranged by religious beliefs but still a bit perplexing for me.
Are you perplexed by men trying to keep men under control?
Your perplexity comes from misuse of group nouns.
Even considering the fact that the controllers and controllees are not necessarily the same set, women are often enculturated into misogynist practices. E.g., it is women who carry out clitoridectomy and infibulation (outrageously misnamed "female circumcision").
This leaves unacceptable ambiguity. We need a scientific, rational approach.
Is this meant as a parody of scientism? This "unacceptable" ambiguity is a consequence of the is/ought dichotomy.
Ian, if someone claimed that there is a moral right to freedom of speech I'd say they were talking nonsense.
If they say there is a provision in the American bill rights that forbids Congress enacting laws that abridge freedom of speech they are stating a legal fact. If they say there is a constitutional right to freedom of speech they are using legitimate shorthand. If they say it's a widely-accepted principle in a liberal society that people should have freedom of speech, then I'll agree - this is a sociological fact. If they say this is a good thing, then we need a standard of evaluation, but my standards it is, indeed, a good thing.
I'm happy with rights talk that is used precisely, but much of it is not used precisely, tries to take an intellectual shortcut (avoiding the real evaluative work), and is indeed nonsense.
@thalarctos #97:
You mean looking back, as your curiosity and eagerness already led you to read both the debate and the book I linked to, which (as I already stated) covered it pretty well. I'm looking forward to your review and evaluation.
As I mentioned to you earlier, depriving the pregnant woman of bodily and medical autonomy renders such a definition incoherent.
You have three interested parties here: the mother, the father, and the fetus. It's the election paradox all over again: the order in which you choose to define and apply specific personhood rights (to life, to bodily autonomy, to control one's own reproduction) directly determines the results. Those results will not be the same in all cases--it's mathematically impossible. You still have to choose criteria and validate them.
Your book does not provide a solution to that problem.
Here are my criteria and justifications, as an example:
1) Both the man and the woman (as well as the fetus, although it doesn't directly apply here) have the right to control their own reproduction; in the case of an irreconcilable conflict (to abort or not), I privilege the woman's decision, simply because of the higher medical investment on her part.
2) Both the woman and the fetus (as well as the man, although it doesn't directly apply here) have the right to go on living (so you don't get to cause a pregnant woman to miscarry without repercussions, whether or not she could have chosen to abort: that is simply irrelevant). Pregnancy unavoidably involves an indeterminable risk to both lives, so in the case of an irreconcilable conflict (to abort or not), I privilege the woman's decision about whether or not she chooses to undertake that risk, simply because of the higher medical investment on her part.
3) The woman and the man and the fetus all have the right to bodily autonomy, so as soon as the fetus is delivered, you don't get to actively kill it (under this, I do not include parental decisions to withhold extremely aggressive medical care). In the case of a conflict between the woman and the fetus, again, I privilege the woman's decision because of her greater medical investment, in the same way we encourage bone marrow or kidney or liver donation, but we do not compel the donor against her will. A parental medical judgment to abort, on the grounds that a painful, wasting, inevitably fatal genetic disease such as Carnavan's or Tay-Sachs' disease will make the very limited time and bodily autonomy of the fetus of such poor quality as to make avoiding it desirable, would also fall under this category.
I don't pretend it's grand or all-encompassing, but I have provided my justification for evaluation. Rules based on arbitrary timeframes, or on purported grand theories of "personhood", on the other hand, break down in application to real biological problems such as reproduction. So they don't meet your standard for coherent, because you either have to make a lot of ad hoc exceptions, or discard the rule, or categorically deprive the woman of the very rights you claim to uphold.
You can apply the rights differently, of course, but just like in the election paradox, your outcomes will be different.
Ken Cope wrote:
Plants are living things, mutilated and butchered by hortimentalists in the name of some arbitrary notion of aesthetics and you see that as some sort of justification for abortion?
Interesting.
I see ad hominem. I don't see an answer to my question.
And this is not dialogue, right?
truth machine wrote:
That's right.
I'm not insisting there is a right to life for the unborn, I'm arguing that there should be one.
[Blackadder] Ian, I'm a busy man, and I can't be bothered to mock you at the moment. Here is my fist. Kindly run towards it as fast as you can.[/Blackadder]
Russell Blackford wrote:
When you write "talking nonsense" are you simply rejecting the claim that there are moral rights or are you claiming that the concept is inherently nonsensical?
So you are arguing that a prescriptive claim, to be persuasive, should be justified in some way, perhaps by an appeal to consequences? Abortion, for example, is justifiable on the grounds that it relieves the woman of the burden of an unwanted pregnancy and society of the burden of taking care of an unwanted child?
I don't know if that is what you do believe but my immediate response would be that if the convenience of women or of society in general were an overriding consideration, why not dispose of the old and the infirm in a similar way since they are also a burden on society?
man, a Red Dwarf reference in one thread, now Blackadder appears in another.
makin' me all nostalgic.
[Blackadder:Queenie]If we went around punishing people for being stupid, Ian would have been in prison all his life.
[/Blackadder]
[Blackadder]Ian, does it have to be this way? Our valued friendship ending with me cutting you up into strips and telling the prince that you walked over a very sharp cattle grid in an extremely heavy hat?[/Blackadder]
and we'll have Blakes 7 if Orac shows up, although I'm betting he's got much better sense than to get involved in this slow-motion train wreck.
[Blackadder]Ian as Melchett: If nothing else works, a total pig-headed unwillingness to look facts in the face will see us through. [/Blackadder]
Ichthyic wrote:
"It's only pig-headed if you're wrong. If you're right we call it sticking to your principles."
HOUSE MD (Hugh Laurie)
If the old and infirm were only capable of surviving by hijacking another person's body, then it seems likely that we would.
I'm trying to remember whether Ian ever responded to my challenge to claim with a straight face that he would still adhere to his absurd beliefs if he were female and therefore had a possibility of experiencing an unwanted pregnancy. I'm quite certain the real answer is "no", but I wonder whether he's even being honest with himself about it.
Azkyroth wrote:
That really is dumb.
Obviously, there is no way I'm ever going to know what it feels like to be a woman or, more particularly, a pregnant woman.
But let's suppose for the sake of argument that I do and it's as disruptive, unpleasant and excruciatingly painful as has been described. Let's say it's something any sensible person would try to avoid at almost any cost. Then, yes, I can imagine that abortion might seem like a very attractive option.
That's not the question, though.
The question is: should I have a right to avoid all that by killing the fetus?
My answer is: no, I should not.
In spite of certain similarities, an embryo is not a parasite. Neither is it a tumour. If you cannot tell the difference then you really should look up the biology.
It is an unborn child. An individual human being in the very early stages of development. Of course it does not possess an adult personality or consciousness, neither does a newborn, or infant or even teenager, yet we still allow them the right to life - although the wisdom of that decision in the case of some teenagers is questionable.
Society, however, has decided that the unborn child does not have the right to life. I disagree with that decision. I think it is ill-founded. I would like to see it changed but, for the present, at least, there is no choice but to live with it.
For the record, I do, and I'm not a vegetarian.
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While I am at it, I should probably mention the Austrian Solution. (Keep in mind that "Austrian Solution" is a technical term, and not necessarily a solution.) Here goes: after the 3rd month, abortion is considered murder, except when the fetus has a handicap, though most people seem not to know about that last part; up to the 3rd month, it is forbidden but not prosecuted and not punished -- a few specialized clinics exist; women who go there are harrassed by small groups of religious zealots, but no bombing or anything has ever happened.
It being an Austrian Solution, almost nobody dares talking about it, no matter what their private views. It is not a topic in the media or elsewhere in the public discourse. Even the Catholic Church keeps its mouth shut practically all of the time, and even the radical lefties (who have little access to media) who want abortion (which costs hundreds of euros) to be covered by the (of course public) health insurance don't mention it on every occasion.
It goes without saying that sex education is mandatory (as part of the biology lessons) at the age of 13 or 14, and that AFAIK nobody listens to the church on contraception.
It also goes without saying that we're talking about a law made by Parliament, not about an exegetic court decision.
"Legal, safe, and rare" said the best Republican president you've ever had...
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Let's just say "unprotected vaginal sex" instead of "sex".
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If you can't check whether it got through, that proves it has gone through. The Scienceblogs software works like that.
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This is a classic example of a wrong question. No society should allow the possibility to exist that any of its members can't afford medical care. There shouldn't be any parents who can't afford medical care, so the question of whether a fetus at 20 weeks should have more rights than a child of such hypothetical constructs is like the question of why Napoleon crossed the Mississippi. Instead of trying to answer that question, US voters should introduce public healthcare already.