How Not To Debate Abortion
UPDATE: The best summation of the abortion debate in the US, for my money, can be found here (sound required).
What better way to start the weekend than with an intra-blog squabble?
Over at his bioethics blog, our own KTK has a post concerning the abortion debate. And I’m afraid I have to take issue with it. Essentially, the problem is that he starts with a solid premise, but then goes off his meds and takes the angry train into insultville.
Sometimes, of course, this can be warranted. But I’m not so sure this is such a time.
Let me start by saying that by and large, with a couple of notable exceptions, I agree with KTK’s argument. KTK argues that the abortion issue is not nearly as complicated as some have made it, and I agree. He argues that the pro-choice movement has been far too complicit in allowing the pro-life movement to set the terms of the debate, and I agree. He further argues that the arguments the most prominent tactics and arguments used against abortion range from irrelevant to disingenuous to patently false (and are often used in combination with one another), and I agree.
Where he loses me is in his characterization of those who don’t agree. First, he seems far too eager to impugn the motives of those who consider themselves pro-life, assuming their primary motive is to repress women’s sexual freedom, and in so doing to return women to their “proper” subservient role. Make no mistake, there is that element to the pro-life movement, and it’s disproportionately powerful within the movement, but I still think he paints with far too broad a brush. Second, he basically describes the rest of the pro-life movement as “too stupid” to recognize that the basis for their position is at best wholly arbitrary, and at worst fatally flawed. And third, he uses terms like “anti-choice” and “anti-woman,” which, however accurate they may be, are extremely emotionally charged (much like the pro-life movement’s use of “pro-abortion” or “pro-murder“) — two wrongs don’t make a right. That’s not exactly a great way to win friends and influence people.
What I think KTK is too quick to overlook is the idea that there are people who genuinely believe that abortion is morally wrong, with no malicious intent, and that they simply haven’t heard or considered the serious arguments against the pro-life position and for the pro-choice position. By his own admission, these arguments are almost totally absent from the public debate. As such, it would behoove us to get them back into the public debate. But if someone’s first exposure to these arguments were this particular KTK rant, their knee-jerk reaction would be to dismiss it (and I can’t entirely blame them).
(Much more below the fold.)
When KTK makes arguments like this, he’s on to something:
The morality of abortion has nothing to do with whether the fetus has fingerprints, or a beating heart. It has nothing to do with whether aborted tissue is pleasant to look at. “It’s a baby, not a choice” doesn’t even make sense: no physical object is a “choice”, a choice is a mental process, and the choice in question refers to the abortion procedure, not the fetus.
..snip…
[A]bortion has nothing to do with whether a fetus feels pain, or is viable at this or that week of development, or has genetic defects, or doesn’t have genetic defects, or whether the Nazis were against genetic defects, or whatever other irrelevant and obscurantist confusion they drag in. Being able to feel pain does not give any person the right to live inside another person’s body against their will – still less the non-person fetus. Being able to live outside a person’s body does not give any person the right to live inside another person’s body – still less the non-person fetus.
…snip…
Because the answer to the question of abortion rights arises from the liberty interests of the woman at the center of the issue, and from the incommensurability of her moral rights and interests against the non-existent moral interests of the fetus which lacks moral standing entirely, there is only one way to coherently counter the claim to the right of abortion. That argument must rest on an assertion of fetal interests in claiming the woman’s body for its own benefit outweighing those of the woman herself to use her own body according to her own values. And that argument, again, has nothing to do with, and is not strengthened by, any signs, slogans, pictures, or consideration of the fetus’s bodily organs, appearance, or what have you.
…snip…
If moral personhood depends upon any functional capacity at all higher than the cellular level – consciousness, self-awareness, sentience, viability, whatever – then the early zygote or embryo cannot be a moral person, because it has no such capacities for quite some time into development. QED. Game over. That’s it. There is no possible argument whatever to the conclusion that the early embryo is a moral person, IF moral personhood depends upon any functional capacity beyond cellular-level biochemistry and embryonic developmental processes. And the further you go in insisting that personhood depends on actually morally relevant capacities, such as having thoughts, interests, or desires, the further back on the developmental timeline you push the personhood threshhold.
Unfortunately, you have to do some sifting to get to those salient points, skipping across counterproductive, condescending, and often insulting stuff like this:
In fact, the issue is so simple that I won’t bother giving the moral argument for it, because you all know what it is.
…snip…
Even so, the fact that they are part of the debate at all, and the anti-choicers think they matter, implies either that they think their opponents are so dumb as to be that badly confused on what the issue is really about, or, the obviously correct alternative, the anti-choicers themselves are that dumb.
…snip…
Invariably, that assertion is prompted by some sort of religious belief, but there are, famously, no good reasons for adopting religious beliefs other than one’s own arbitrary act of will, and similarly there is no reason for accepting moral assertions grounded on religious belief other than that you, personally and for yourself alone, choose to do so.
I’m no debate champion, but I don’t think insulting and talking down to the very people you need to convince to your side are good ways of achieving that objective. And because of this invective, I’m afraid what is otherwise a very solid argument is hopelessly undermined. I’ve often chided my Christian friends for this very same thing, and I think it applies here, as well: What’s presented is an argument that stands almost no chance of convincing anyone who doesn’t already agree with its conclusions.
Which is a shame, because as I said, I think there’s much substance to the argument. It’s just that the presentation, in my opinion, does more harm than good.
Let me reiterate that I like and respect KTK, and I certainly don’t intend to insult him with this critique. Indeed, I’ve been known to go off my meds and write angry, counterproductive rants from time to time myself. Haven’t we all? I just thought this was a good topic for weekend discussion.
(As a side note, I considered trying to rewrite KTK’s post in a more subdued tone, and may yet do so. But for some weekend flame bait, I thought this would be a good starting point.)
Talk about twisted rhetoric! To try to paint those of us who value the life of a precious unborn baby as less than compassionate is absurd. Orwell would be proud. Kill unborn baby=good. Compassion for unborn baby=bad.
I deny that a woman has the right to kill another’s life just because it will not fit into her life.
Thank you tgirsch, for defending the integrity of those who believe abortion to be morally wrong, even though you don’t believe so yourself. Yours is a much more effective and reasonable approach than KTK’s. And, in my opinion, more reflective of the ideals that our country is (at least theoretically) founded on.
Now, if only you had exhibited the same empathy in your next post
Fred clearly enjoys a spot of irony when it comes to ‘twisted rhetoric’…
Funny…the whole point of the post was how to discuss the abortion issue rationally, without resorting to name-calling and emotionally-charged rhetoric. Obviously, the point was missed by Fred.
Fred, the abortion debate is extremely complex, as are the reasons a woman may want to terminate her pregnancy. Theologians debate, and don’t agree, as to when life actually begins.
Let me ask you, if a woman’s life was threatened by her pregnancy, would you insist she carry the child to full term?
takes the angry train into insultville
Dude . . .
At any rate, my general reaction to your comments is that I may not have made the point of the post clear enough. (Guess I’ll have to add a few more choice phrases!)
It isn’t an argument for abortion rights. And, in that respect, it isn’t aimed at convincing anyone of the need for abortion rights, still less at convincing anti-choicers to change positions.
It’s essentially aimed at pro-choicers, as a call to recognize that almost all of the “debate” over abortion rights is (a) focused on utterly irrelevant or pointless issues, (b) in very large part disinenguous, intended to re-focus the debate away from the central moral issue, which is women’s autonomy, and (c) most importantly, unnecessary, because the actual moral argument for women’s rights is much simpler than many people think and faces no serious logical opposition. My post was a call to stop allowing the debate to be framed in terms of irrelevant issues, and to recognize, and forcefully assert, the fact of the matter in this “debate”: the abortion-rights position is no more morally controversial than the anti-slavery position, and the anti-choice position has no more intellectual weight than creationism – in both cases, we are not required to take the opposing point of view seriously. (In terms of political action, of course, the anti-choice forces have great influence, and that must be taken seriously. But their ideas and positions are almost wholly intellectually bankrupt, and it’s not just OK, it’s mandatory, to say that.) The post was aimed at people who already recognize the moral necessity of the right to abortion, and was intended to focus on their advocative strategy, not the actual position itself, which we all already understand and support.
As for others who may read the post and don’t like what they see, I don’t really think it’s insulting, and I didn’t intend to be engaged in mere insult, to say that certain lines of argument are stupid. They just are. And that’s what I meant by saying that the abortion-rights position is “not open to debate”. Of course people can oppose it, and they can give reasons for their opposition, just like white supremacists can come up with all kinds of moral-sounding arguments and superficially plausible “facts” in their favor. But the fetal supremacists are wrong, in the same way the white supremacists are wrong – objectively and unambiguously. Their position cannot be made right, because – to reiterate – the strongest counter to women’s autonomy rights, which is the assertion of moral personhood and autonomy righs for the fetus, is inescapably false if grounded on any factual description of the capacities of the fetus for engagement with the moral community, and is merely an arbitrary (and highly dubious) assertion if grounded on religious claims. In both cases, those assertions have no logically compulsory power – no one has to believe them – the former because it’s false, and the latter because it’s a matter of personal freedom, not provable fact, what religion one should adopt. Saying all that is, no doubt, frustrating to those who benefit from obscuring those points, but it’s still true.
I’m also not sure what was actually all that insulting in the post. I’ll concede that the middle quote in the last text box above was ill-spirited. But the ones above and below it are perfectly straightforward discussions of the arguments. (To clarify: In the first case I wasn’t saying that only a stupid person would not know the arguments about abortion; I actually was just saying that they were well known so I could skip them.) It’s true that I think much anti-choice rhetoric is ill-conceived – that was largely the point of the post – but that’s a legitimate point to make; if it’s unflattering to some, I don’t think that requires an apology. As for terminology, I think “anti-choice” is a precisely descriptive term; I don’t regard it as a rhetorical ploy. (“Fetal supremacists” is a rhetorical ploy!) And “anti-woman” is surely descriptive in practical fact, and accurate enough as an imputation of common motive that I’m inclined to let it stand.
However, you’re at least the second person who has commented that the post sounded angry. (You’re the first to use the phrase “taking the angry train to insultville”!) I may not have made it clear enough what I was trying to do. I’ve edited the post slightly by adding section headings to make the logical flow clearer – perhaps that will help. I haven’t changed the language, however. Anything can be improved, but I’m pretty content with this as it stands – at least until I start taking my meds again!
[...] UPDATE: Tgirsch, at my home blog Lean Left, has suggested that this post is unnecessarily angry and insulting. (Actually, he claims that it “takes the angry train to insultville”, which I presume means the same thing, though I really have no idea.) Along with Pejar, below, that makes at least two people who say so. This indicates to me that I have failed to make my meaning clear enough. In response, I have not edited the language of the post, but I have added section headings above to make the logical structure of the argument clearer. [link] [...]
KTK:
I think the “moral personhood” argument has more problems than you acknowledge here. The biggest problem with it is that your opponents will doubtless start taking these arguments and applying them to, say, newborns, or to the severely retarded. Almost no one thinks we ought to be able to kill these on a whim, even though they very well may be excluded from the definition of “moral person” as you’ve given it. While that may not score many points in a formal debate, it will do huge damage in a political one, so you have to be ready for it.
And that is where the issue becomes more complicated than you give it credit for. I think that early-term abortion ought to be every bit as non-controversial as you claim, but as the term progresses, it becomes more complicated. Is a fetus three days before birth really all that different from a baby three days after birth?
The liberty rights of the woman are absolutely critical, and absolutely important, but they’re not the only factor, as you seem to argue — at least not later on. For much (I’d argue most) of pregnancy, the liberty interests of the woman do indeed outweigh any interests the fetus might have, but I suspect that there comes a point where that’s no longer the case. (To me, that point is when the fetus could be just as easily delivered as aborted, but I’m open to movement on that.) As long as your argument amounts to “the fetus has no relevant interests at any stage of development,” or even can be spun as amounting to that, it’s going to be a political loser.
Personally, I think the best pro-choice approach to the issue is demonstrated in Sagan and Druyan’s excellent essay on the subject.
your opponents will doubtless start taking these arguments and applying them to, say, newborns, or to the severely retarded.
At least one well-known ethicist argues that infanticide is morally permissible, largely for reasons such as I’ve adduced. You can make the argument that way, if you set the bar for personhood high enough. Not everyone agrees it needs to be that high.
But, this can’t be an argument against my position. If the right definition of personhood excludes early infants, then it just does. Politically, you’re right, that’s a suicidal position to take, but if it’s morally right then it’s not an argument against other morally right arguments.
You can certainly argue, however, that very young infants are not moral persons and that they’re not open to infanticide. There are lots of good reasons to prohibit infanticide, whether or not the infant is a person. The key point is that prohibiting infanticide does not trespass on another person’s most central moral rights, in a way that imposing forced pregnancy and forced childbirth does.
Finally, none of those arguments would apply to mentally disabled persons who show even the most minimal mental capacities. The defensible definition of personhood requires only that the person be able to participate in the moral life – that they are aware of and experience their own lives and interests. You have to be close to or at the point of persistent vegetative state to fail to pass that test.
Is a fetus three days before birth really all that different from a baby three days after birth?
In terms of its capacity for moral personhood, not much. (Though there are some differences, and not merely incrementally – the fetus outside the uterus undergoes a number of rapid anatomical changes, and is processing vastly more sensory input that rapidly forms mental states completely different from those in utero. But that’s not my point here.)
What is vastly different, and decisive, in terms of the question how it should be treated – as opposed to the question whether it is a moral person – is the small and frequently overlooked fact that it’s not living inside another persons’ body against her will at that point. That makes all the difference.
Janusz: “Let me ask you, if a woman’s life was threatened by her pregnancy, would you insist she carry the child to full term?”
Fred: No. Self-defense is reasonable. Killing an unborn baby for the convenience of the woman is not.
The newborn problem (why newborns must be given moral respect) can be solved by ceasing to regard personhood as the be all and end all as far as morality goes. Instead, it can be a graded scale of interests, so that even non-persons deserve some respect.
Finally, none of those arguments would apply to mentally disabled persons who show even the most minimal mental capacities. The defensible definition of personhood requires only that the person be able to participate in the moral life – that they are aware of and experience their own lives and interests. You have to be close to or at the point of persistent vegetative state to fail to pass that test.
I don’t think you can be right here. Mentally disabled people can fall below the mental level of foetuses before birth and some animals. Either give personhood to these or set personhood a bit higher and exclude these. In any case, as I said above, they should still be treated with moral respect because they have interests.
I agree that the right to dignity and autonomy can trump the right to life in the case of foetuses (and I would agree with Tgirsch about the point at which abortion must no longer be acceptable). The thing is, once we move away from people who say that life is sacred and towards those who only oppose abortion in later stages, it is encumbant on us to persuade others that these rights are more worthy than the right to life. That, in the end, is a value judgement.
Pejar wrote: “I agree that the right to dignity and autonomy can trump the right to life in the case of foetuses (and I would agree with Tgirsch about the point at which abortion must no longer be acceptable).”
Perhaps the crux of this argument is whether the fetus is actually alive or not, something that is not universally agreed upon by scientists, theologians, doctors etc. I think it can be said that a first trimester fetus has a *potential* for life, but it certainly can’t survive on its own, sensory, brain and other functions are still extremely primitive. I think at this stage, we need to defer to the woman’s rights.
Something that I think also gets lost in the Rowe vs Wade debate is, if abortions were illegal in the US, and if a wealthy or middle-class woman needed to terminate her pregnancy, she would have the resources to do so, flying to Canada or Europe if necessary for a safe, legal operation. Women of little means, the disenfranchised, poor single mothers, would not have that option. Outlawing abortion would disproportionately affect the people at the lower end of the income scale.
Fred wrote: “…self-defense is reasonable.”
You’re kidding me, right?
I thought we were talking about innocents here, and you’re talking self defense? If all else is equal, and it appears that is what you’re proposing, and the life of the potential child is equal to that of the woman, why should the right of the woman to live trump that of the child?
What you mean to say, though you are not honest enough to admit it, is that the right of someone who is walking, breathing and thinking needs to take preference over something that may eventually live (or may not) sometime in the future. I think most people would agree with that.
Hey Fred, in the future, if you want to discuss abortion, stop with the talk of “baby-killers” and “murderers of children”. It’s shrill and dishonest, and contributes nothing to the argument.
janusz: You’re kidding me, right?
I thought we were talking about innocents here, and you’re talking self defense? If all else is equal, and it appears that is what you’re proposing, and the life of the potential child is equal to that of the woman, why should the right of the woman to live trump that of the child?
What you mean to say, though you are not honest enough to admit it, is that the right of someone who is walking, breathing and thinking needs to take preference over something that may eventually live (or may not) sometime in the future. I think most people would agree with that.
Hey Fred, in the future, if you want to discuss abortion, stop with the talk of “baby-killers” and “murderers of children”. It’s shrill and dishonest, and contributes nothing to the argument.
Fred: No, I am not kidding and you don’t need to tell me what I mean to say. I do not have any trouble expressing what I mean.
If the baby is the one who is causing the problem, then the mother has the right of self-defense. If you were in the water and an innocent person who was drowning grabbed you, who should be saved? Certainly it is a great ethical delimma that I don’t take lightly.
The best way to keep from being called “baby-killers” and “murderers of children” is to quit doing it. Problem solved. I would be interested to have you cite the posts where you quote me.
BTW, a baby in the womb is not “something that may eventually live (or may not) sometime in the future.” It is already alive. I think most people would agree with that.
BTW, a baby in the womb is not “something that may eventually live (or may not) sometime in the future.” It is already alive. I think most people would agree with that.
I think on this you are completely right. It definitely fits the biological definition of alive. Doesn’t mean that it’s a person (based on its faculties, if we would call it a person then many animals would also fall into that category), and doesn’t mean that it’s limited interests (which certainly increase with time from non-existant at conception to the level of a new-born baby) outweigh those of the woman who very definitely is a person and so has the full range of interests. But yes, it is alive.
Fred:
The best way to keep from being called “baby-killers” and “murderers of children” is to quit doing it.
I can’t speak for Pejar or Janusz, but I have never had an abortion, nor have I ever performed one on anybody else. So by the standard you’ve just set, I’m neither a “baby-killer” nor a “murderer of children.” Glad we can agree upon that.
Of course, if you divorce the action from its circumstances and its intent, as you seem to want to do, then one could just as easily classify, say, a bomber pilot as a “baby killer” and a “murderer of children,” since many of these do both, and generally on a much larger scale.
tg: So by the standard you’ve just set, I’m neither a “baby-killer” nor a “murderer of children.” Glad we can agree upon that.
Fred: Yes, we can agree that I’ve never called someone a “baby killer” who has never killed an unborn baby.
Janusz, re your comment about wealthier individuals being more able to circumvent a law banning abortion than less affluent folks. I agree with you, and I would take this one step further. People of means are, and always will be more able to avail themselves of regionally prohibited substances, procedures, practices, etc than their less fortunate neighbors.
However, I don’t see this as a justification for legalized abortion (of which I am a reluctant supporter).
Ten of ten for calling for civility. But we’re not prolife because we’ve just not heard the prochoice stand put forth coherently. We’re prochoice because abortion is as self-evidently wrong to us as it seems self-evidently acceptable to you.
Nevertheless I applaud your efforts to bring civility to the debate. (I fall into nastiness myself, so the chastisement cuts both ways.) You’re being added to my roundup for the day.
Christina, since a civil debate seems to be what we all crave, I think all on the pro-choice side here would appreciate it if you or anyone on your side could put forward a civil explanation of why you believe abortion to be wrong, particularly (because for us it seem the most clear cut) in the case of early term abortion.
It is the contention of many of us here that the only possible explanation can be religious. In my view it requires the belief that only God’s value of our lives is important, essentially treating us solely as God’s property, and not our own interests in themselves (as most people would I think imagine).
If you have a reason for your stance which does not require this basis, we would all like to know it. In the case of early term abortions, the foetus has absolutely no perceptions at all, so it seems to all of us that it can have no rights or interests that can be violated. Being genetically human has no moral value (unless you go with the uniquely religious analysis above) so for me the pertinent question is what can be wrong about killing such a foetus?
I will be the first to admit that once the foetus develops and gains perceptions, the matter becomes more difficult. But I do not believe that we can make any headway there until the issue of early term abortions is addressed.
Ted:
I would agree with you that, in a strictly legal argument, income probably wouldn’t be a consideration. From a more sociological perspective I think it does come into play. For a family struggling to get by, another mouth to feed could mean the difference as to whether children get the food, clothing, toys (necessary for early development, not just a luxury item) they need, the attention and guidance to grow and interact effectively, and possibly the educational opportunities needed to break out of the poverty cycle. But just a thought.
I would also agree with you that abortion is not something to take lightly, particularly since there are alternative forms of birth control available. Family planning eduction and services would most likely help, and again, that sort of education seems less easily spread in the poorest communities.
Forget the mentally retarded.
I have yet to hear an argument that the unborn are not moral persons that does not impose such requirements on moral personhood that no one qualifies while asleep. Like the perceptions mentioned just above: sleeping people don’t perceive the outside world.
Mary:
Okay, here it is. By coincidence I have just discussed this on my own blog, so I will basically copy-paste what I said:
“I would argue that the better view is one where interests are violated wherever the capacity for them is lost. In killing any conscious being, we are robbing it of its faculties, and so violating its interests. This is more wrong the more developed these faculties are, but it is wrong (barring justifications) with any conscious being. This actually solves the old problem of what is wrong with killing a person in their sleep. It is not just that their preferences have been thwarted, but that their faculties have been destroyed. Their memories, plans, preferences and personality have been ended, and that is the great wrong of killing.”
So for me, the wrong of killing (along with any pain and suffering caused) is what it robs the person of – their faculties. While we may not use these faculties while we sleep or are unconscious, we still have them and robbing us of them is a great wrong.
This makes the issue of early term abortions very easy. There are no interests being violated, and so it is not even in the area of moral wrong. Admittedly, it is more complicated when the foetus develops faculties. For me at least, even if the foetus had the full faculties of a person, it would not justify robbing the pregnant woman of her dignity and autonomy to force her to maintain it. In a similar way, we do not require people to continuously donate blood against their will, despite the fact that it would keep people alive. It would be a violation of autonomy and dignity.
So for the sake of someones dignity it is all right ot kill well as long as the women doesnt have to suffer well im all for it why not kill everyone that embasses me that way i dont get emmbassed it would make life easier for me
So for the sake of someones dignity it is all right ot kill
The balance depends on the situation. The kind of dignity and autonomy interests in question with abortion are much deeper than when one is merely embarrassed. I’m saying that they mean here that the woman is not obliged to keep the foetus alive. Same as with the famous violinist example, or blood donation as I mentioned above.
In a similar way, we do not require people to continuously donate blood against their will, despite the fact that it would keep people alive.
In the exactly opposite way, we do not require people to continuously donate blood against their will, despite the fact that it would keep people alive.
If you leave a prospective blood donor alone, he will still have his blood. If you leave a pregnant woman alone, she will still give birth to the baby. The person who actively wants the blood donation, and the woman who wants the abortion, must actively seek out and use force on the body of someone else to obtain what they want for their own bodies.
While we may not use these faculties while we sleep or are unconscious, we still have them and robbing us of them is a great wrong.
And someone says, “Nonsense. We don’t have those faculties when we are asleep.” How would you refute that?
It is always strange to see the “living in the woman against her will” argument applied to a baby about to be born, as if that were a capital crime.
I find the notion that pro-lifers are anti-women to be humorous. I teach pro-life reasoning classes and volunteer at a Crisis Pregnancy Center where 95% of the volunteers are women.
Mary:
The person who actively wants the blood donation, and the woman who wants the abortion, must actively seek out and use force on the body of someone else to obtain what they want for their own bodies.
Uhh, this helps your case how? This analogy only works if we forced blood donations, which we do not. The correct analogy here is that donating blood and giving birth both require a sacrifice be made (albeit a much smaller one in the former case than in the latter). In both cases, this sacrifice should be completely voluntary. (And in neither case do I mean any negative connotation surrounding “sacrifice” other than the most basic meaning that there are things you must endure and go through.)
And someone says, “Nonsense. We don’t have those faculties when we are asleep.” How would you refute that?
By pointing out that we do indeed have them. They may not be in use at the time, but they’re there. If my computer is turned off, it doesn’t mean that I don’t have a computer until I turn it on again. It just means that it’s off at the moment.
Neil:
It is always strange to see the “living in the woman against her will” argument applied to a baby about to be born, as if that were a capital crime.
Actually, being a fetus is no more a “crime” than having an abortion. Neither is criminal, or anything like it, in any meaningful sense. As to abortion itself, it’s in and of itself a morally neutral proposition, in my estimation. The circumstances surrounding an abortion determine its morality.
I find the notion that pro-lifers are anti-women to be humorous.
I agree that that assertion is a bit heavy-handed. However, it’s not a strech to say that pro-lifers generally are anti-women’s-liberty (even if not knowingly), insofar as the most basic freedom a woman has is the freedom to choose whether and when to have a baby, and much of the pro-life movement opposes this freedom. (I’d personally take the movement a lot more seriously if they advocated for comprehensive sex education and encouraged effective contraceptive use, but generally speaking, they oppose these things, too, which makes their agenda as much anti-sex as it is anti-liberty.)
This is going to be lengthy, but I can’t help being condescending..you can skim through to the parts that matter to you. I don’t care. I shall divide the posts on subject area and post it to the blog accordingly.
Well, I must admit that Mary screwed that one, but it’s not like tgirsch has a solid foot to stand on here even with the ‘faculties’ point.
I must congratulate you, though, tgirsch. You actually got me thinking about that one for about 20-40 seconds. That has to be some sort of record for me where the abortion debate is concerned. Abortion supporters almost never construct an argument that requires more thought than would be required to hammer a nail into a board.
Now, it didn’t get me thinking because it had the potential of dismantling my prolife views. No, because I do not believe that human worth is dependent on whether the entity in question is or is capable of experiencing anything (more on that later). It got me thinking because I do what a lot of prolifers do – try to expose the inconsistencies of your value judgment on human life.
You see, I use the sleep analogy often. You know, for about five seconds, tgirsch, I actually thought that you got me there. Then, something just didn’t feel right about it. The rest of those seconds was just a matter of determining how I was going to articulate the problem of your view.
Here it is:
let’s assume you are correct in assigning ‘personhood’ to an entity based on their ability to experience life.
You are implicity stating that human worth is derived from the act of experiencing. It would be wrong to kill somebody in their sleep because they have the hardware to experience life, even though they don’t experience it at the moment.
This makes some sort of economic sense (if we choose to think of people like objects rather than…human beings). After all, the value of a computer is derived from what use we can make of it. The hardware may look pretty when you take that computer apart, but it’s not going to be worth a lot unless you can use it somehow. So, the hardware always has value even *when* the computer is shut down (or even damaged but still reparable). A person will spend thousands of dollars on a laptop because they know that soon they will be able to use it. This is similar (if not identical) to your view of human brains having the faculty to experience life and this faculty being what assigns them ‘personhood’ or human worth. (I find it very strange to think of human rights on the basis of brain function – it just sounds so arbitrary. No rational basis is given for it. It’s just so because you wish it to be so.)
Unfortunately for you, though, tgirsch – people aren’t objects. You are fully aware of this. Most of you judge the issue on the basis of ‘personal autonomy’ and the ‘interests’ of the entity in question. A fetus doesn’t have ‘interets’ because you don’t think it has the ability to experience anything. Since value is derived from the use we (‘we’ meaning human beings that experience life – a non-experiencing entity can’t value anything) can make of certain objects or entities, though, it is logical to say that an unconscious or sleeping person *can not* have any interests because a person with ‘interests’ has to experience the having of those interests. He only values himself and the world around him when he is conscious and aware. Somebody can’t be said to have lost anything if he is dead and never saw his death coming, unless you are willing to resort to metaphysical arguments which we both know is supposedly ‘out of bounds’ because it’s too ‘religious.’ *rolls eyes* – more on that, later.
Of course, an easy pushback to this tgirsch, is that it’s not solely about whether that person values himself. I mean, that person has relatives, family – and our larger society values his life enough to prosecute his murder. But this isn’t an argument from personal autonomy or the private property rights of the sleeping person or his own self-interest – this is an argument on the basis of might makes right: Such-and-such is illegal because the larger society says it must be (i.e. somebody else values that morality/human being enough to use force to prosecute for it). That isn’t a rational basis from which to say that anything should be legal or illegal, unless you have a Darwinian concept of ‘rights’.
As for the whole religious argument thing –
well, I find that mildly amusing. You act as if the prolife view can only be defended on religious points. Yet, I’ve had the experience of being a prolife agnostic. Plus, one example is l4l.org – set up by an athiest prolifer. Quite frankly, I *know* that you are incorrect in this assumption.
Of course, you are incorrect for another reason: to deny views derived from a religious perspective would, in effect, disenfranchise religious people from the debate. You might as well go all the way and take away their right to vote! I know of not one religious person (and this includes the abortion supporting ones) who are not influenced by their beliefs, just like I know of not one agnostic/atheist who isn’t influenced by theirs.
This disenfranchising of religious perspective would be a marvelous coup on your part, since you have absolutely no basis from which to assert that humanist or non-religious arguments are *more* valid than religious ones except – again – for your personal preferences. But that is might makes right – all over again.
Oh, yes, that separation of church and state thing – well, sorry, but no one is supporting the establishment of any sort of church organization within government. They are only supporting the right of religious folks to have a say (notice, I didn’t say *the* say) in the final outcome.
Of course, I can make a better case for dismissing your views *because* they dismiss God, than you can make a case for dismissing views because they are religious.
Before I do that, let me first of all explain that even as an agnostic, I knew that abortion should be illegal because I was taught that it is wrong to murder human beings. Basic reproductive biology is quite clear that a new human entity is created at conception – hence my previously ungodly rationale for opposing abortion. Oh – btw – I did not grow up in a religious household. I’ve always defined ‘person’ as ‘human being’ for what should be obvious reasons (notwithstanding my own dictionary). Abortion is wrong because it kills babies and every parent should be legally obligated to care for their offspring. For you to be consistent with your private property rights appeal (i.e. ‘it’s the woman’s body!’), you would also have to dismantle child neglect laws since no child owns their parent’s house or their food, either. The ‘get your hands off my uterus’ rationalization only works if the woman in question owns her uterus. Lucky for you, everyone does recognize that she has private property rights over her body. It doesn’t get you very far though because of parental responsibility. Sorry for the repetitiveness, but I often find it’s necessary.
Back to the religious angle.
Pejar is actually correct in more ways than he/she is aware.
It is the contention of many of us here that the only possible explanation can be religious. In my view it requires the belief that only God’s value of our lives is important, essentially treating us solely as God’s property, and not our own interests in themselves (as most people would I think imagine).
Pejar, this is the only way we can have rights at all. You truly are not so arrogant as to assume that you have created yourself. Human rights aren’t rationally derived by the very act of wishing for them (because, again, that is a personal preference argument). If God is the Creator, then we are His property. Period. Which means He has the right to do whatever He wishes with you. It’s only your sin nature/flesh that rebels against this concept.
Oooooh…doesn’t that sound scary? Soon, I will be supporting a theocracy!
Actually, no.
Pejar, think about this. Assuming God exists (and I’m not going to debate over the existence of God in this thread), he is right now giving you the right to do or say whatever the hell you want. This implies that – at least for the moment – He is withholding His judgment. He is *giving you* a right to live your life however you choose. Now, isn’t that a pro-choice God? Huh? Well, not necessarily in the way that you might imagine, but I’m not going to delve into theology with you..just consider the term ‘pro-choice’ while you think about this.
Look at the Declaration of Independence. I shall copy and paste portions of it here since it is the document that provided a rationale for the Revolutionary War:
This document states the necessity of human rights derived from the Creator that are ‘inalienable’. It also states that government exists to safe guard these God-derived rights.
Now, without a God that appreciates things like the right to life, the right to property, the right to self-autonomy, etc – all of our rights would be derived from the philosophies of other human beings (i.e. the state).
You implicitly give the government that much say-so, and you are on your way to imposing ‘rights’ that aren’t inalienable, that are subject to whatever seems or feels good to those who are more powerful. This is why the US fought against Britain – they felt that the King was putting the rights of the colonists under subjection to his own desires.
The necessity for the religious argument is that without a God-oriented basis for human rights, human rights *and* freedoms does not rationally exist except on the basis of the personal preference of those who happen to be in power at the time. That would mean that the only reason that the United States was right in rebelling against Britain is because they were able to beat them!
Private property rights cannot exist without God or God-derived rights, because the issue would no longer be about who has the ‘right’ to own/take property, but who has the ‘force’ to own/take property. You should know this already – since this is a ‘leftleaning’ blog and leftists are famous for giving the state rights to things that don’t belong to them (income and property taxation, for example). That is actually why I always find it hilarious when socialists, Democrats, or left-liberals argue for abortion on the basis of ‘personal autonomy’ and ‘interests’. It’s like they are blinded to their own cognitive dissonance. Collectivism *is* might makes right. It’s not about the interests of individuals.
Following from this, does that mean abortion should be illegal?
On the basis of parental responsibility and human rights and freedoms, yes. The child didn’t force its way in there. The parents put the child there, so the parent has an obligation to care for the child as long as it cannot take care of itself (I’d say lower the age of minority to 13 or 14, but it’s debatable).
Does it matter that it hasn’t developed the ability to experience life (I don’t think that anyone can say that they ‘know’ that, but I’m assuming it for the sake of argument)? No, because even a sleeping person doesn’t experience anything, and I already explained why tgirsch is wrong in using that as a basis and I, at least, wish to be philosophically consistent.
I believe that we are equal on the basis that human rights are inhered to the individual, not acquired.
I understand that you may disagree with that. That is fine, but let’s be honest for a second.
This isn’t about how smart either side is. I used to think that way, you know. I – as a prolifer – thought that if abortion supporters knew the facts about human development in utero, they would change their minds and the world would be a better place. Time passed and I realized that it isn’t about how smart either side is. It’s just that abortion supporters are either evil, or supporters of evil.
(It’s highly affirming to my views that many abortion supporters are willing to assign ‘nonpersonhood’ to newborn infants.)
This argument is about whose values should have the supremacy. You don’t value human life. I do. To me, that makes you on the same lines as the islamofascists, and I make it my goal to help ‘my side’ against a philosophy that does not value human life.
Don’t worry, though. I don’t hate or despise any of you or anything. I just don’t think you have a right to say that any human being is less worthy of life than the other.
As for KTK’s presentation style, well, what with those straw men and smear tacticks that he uses constantly, I don’t really take him seriously. I’ve thought about criticizing his (and I say this loosely) ‘arguments’, but it’s just not worth my time. If it’s worthy of anything, it’s worthy of insults on the same level as he hurls against prolifers.
tgirsch, you made this worth my time by making me think for about 30 seconds. So, thank you. I applaud the minimal effort you put into your argument. You almost had me going there.
Grump,
Ironic that you show such disdain for KTK’s style, insofar as yours closely parallels his in several ways.
Grump:
My apologies for replying to the bits you aimed at Tgirsch, I will try to focus on the parts aimed at me:
Since value is derived from the use we (’we’ meaning human beings that experience life – a non-experiencing entity can’t value anything) can make of certain objects or entities, though, it is logical to say that an unconscious or sleeping person *can not* have any interests because a person with ‘interests’ has to experience the having of those interests. He only values himself and the world around him when he is conscious and aware.
I’m afraid this really is astounding. Firstly, I am pretty sure Tgirsch never even suggested that we should only look at the interests of others. Secondly, your assertion is ridiculous. If I steal something from a sleeping person, their interest is harmed even though they do not realise. Surely you do not think that the interest is only lost if / when someone notices? Just as you can have property interests when asleep or unconscious, so you can have other interests like in autonomy and the continuance of your faculties.
You act as if the prolife view can only be defended on religious points.
Personally, I would assert that it can only be defended in a non-arbitrary fashion by arguing from religion. The only possible argument to explain why biological humanity is the moral determinant is it is important to God (however arbitrarily) and that this is what we should focus on. Otherwise there is no moral explanation for the ethical distinction between an just-fertilised embryo and a tree (both are alive but with no consciousness or ethically relevant faculties.
to deny views derived from a religious perspective would, in effect, disenfranchise religious people from the debate.
Shockingly enough, I agree with you. In the end, ethics is a human invention (a beautiful and praiseworthy one, but human nevertheless). The basis of any ethical system is a value judgement of some kind, not verifiable objectively. I don’t think that one value judgement should be entirely rejected as a basis of government policy just because it is only consistent with religion, where the alternatives are equally subjective. I still think your ethical basis is terrible though, as I will explain below.
even as an agnostic, I knew that abortion should be illegal because I was taught that it is wrong to murder human beings.
Sorry to be snarky, but so you even know what you just said?? You knew it because you were taught this. Um, well done. Could it not be that the rationale underpinning that teaching might have been religious or just ignorant?
Pejar is actually correct in more ways than he/she is aware.
*Takes a bow*
If God is the Creator, then we are His property. Period.
Wow. Thank you for so neatly providing evidence for my assertion that this underpins any rational pro-life argument. We are God’s property. Period. Um, hang on, but wasn’t the idea that people could be property thrown out rather a long time ago? Or is slavery actually okay as long as we have a nice owner? Frankly, I think it would disturb a hell of a lot of people to know that this is how they are viewed by so many pro-lifer’s – nothing more than God’s property.
Look at the Declaration of Independence.
Um, not being American I actually don’t set a huge store by it when it comes to matters of ethical philosophy. Nevertheless, there is something interesting here:
they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights
Surely if God owns us, then he can can do what he wants to us, right? But then, these rights are not unalienable. They are alienable by God. You know, if God thought that owning people was wrong, maybe he gave up ownership and gave them rights…would seem to be the right thing to do, huh?
Now, without a God that appreciates things like the right to life, the right to property, the right to self-autonomy, etc – all of our rights would be derived from the philosophies of other human beings (i.e. the state).
Um, yes. Well, in that the only existing rights are those given by the state. ‘Moral rights’ are an important debating tool for establishing what people believe to be right or wrong.
You implicitly give the government that much say-so, and you are on your way to imposing ‘rights’ that aren’t inalienable, that are subject to whatever seems or feels good to those who are more powerful.
You see, this is where that lovely Constitution of yours (and many others for other countries, of course) come in handy, making them inalienable (notice it is the Constitutions, not God). However, in almost all cases these protections can still be done away with at the popular vote (amendment). Horrific as this might be, it is the consequence of trusting people with governing themselves. If people’s ethics change, then their legislation often changes. Fact of life.
Private property rights cannot exist without God or God-derived rights, because the issue would no longer be about who has the ‘right’ to own/take property, but who has the ‘force’ to own/take property.
True, but the point of society is to make this fair by setting down rules for when the state will give the necessary force to constitute such a right. Furthermore, and I will forgive you for not knowing property law, the State necessarily legislates rules for how property can be passed, lost and acquired. Do you mean to say that unless these happen to coincide with God’s laws, they have no effect? If so, I would imagine that 90% of world property law is actually ineffectual! No, you accept that the state regulates ownership (to give a simple example, by declaring under what conditions one may gain ownership of something found under a right of salvage). The state creates rights.
It’s just that abortion supporters are either evil, or supporters of evil.
Um, aren’t supporters of evil generally therefore evil? Or are you saying that they are making an innocent mistake? In either case, if your rather direct dichotomy is true, I hope I am merely in the latter category
.
(It’s highly affirming to my views that many abortion supporters are willing to assign ‘nonpersonhood’ to newborn infants.)
I think this may in part be because you misunderstand the way ‘person’ is used in any real philosophical argument (on both sides). It is about faculties and ability to take place in human life. For what it is worth, I don’t think that newborns are persons (to lower the threshold that far would allow a number of animals in) but I still think they have interests which we should be loathe to disrespect.
The correct analogy here is that donating blood and giving birth both require a sacrifice be made (albeit a much smaller one in the former case than in the latter).
The correct analogy is that donating blood and getting your brains sucked out, or having your limbs torn off, or being shot full of a lethal solution, both require a sacrifice be made. It’s true but irrelevant that the blood donor is making a much smaller one than the baby.
In both cases, this sacrifice should be completely voluntary.
Yes. And since the baby can not volunteer, it is wrong to make it make the sacrifice.
The correct analogy here is that donating blood and giving birth both require a sacrifice be made (albeit a much smaller one in the former case than in the latter).
And someone says, “Nonsense. We don’t have those faculties when we are asleep.” How would you refute that?
By pointing out that we do indeed have them. They may not be in use at the time, but they’re there.
No, we don’t, and they aren’t. Except in the same sense that an newly conceived baby does. Both of us have the potential to engage in faculties, the sleeping one in his developed organs, and the baby in the DNA, but if the potential is the same as the reality, the baby is being deprived of faculties, too.
Humm. My second comment got truncated
The correct analogy here is that donating blood and giving birth both require a sacrifice be made (albeit a much smaller one in the former case than in the latter).
Or, if you want another analogy: the correct analogy is that suffering a blood disease that can be alleviated by blood transfusion and giving birth can both inflict suffering, but as they are the consequence of your body’s operation, you are not thereby entitled to do things to other people’s bodies as a consequence.
Over 3,500 terminations per day, 1.3 MILLION per year in the United States alone.
50 or 60 MILLION per year World Wide.
I am a pro-lifer who has no religious convictions at all . I didn’t need the fear of god or anything else to come to my decision, just a good sence of what is right and wrong.
You see we were all once a fetus. Is it beyond the realm of possibilities that when your mother first learned she was carrying you, she may have considered her options? What if she had decided to terminate? Would that have been OK?
You would not exist, if you have children they would not exist, and your (husband or wife) would be married to someone else. You would have been deprived of all your experiences and memories. In this day and age with terminations being so readily available and so many being carried out, if you make it to full term
you can consider yourself lucky. Lucky you had a mother that made the choice of life for you. Don’t you think they all deserve the same basic human right, LIFE?
I’m all for contraception, prevention is certainly better than termination.
Did you know you can get an implant that is safe, 99.9% effective, and lasts for three years? Just think girls not even a show for three years, wouldn’t that be great? I think too many people rely too heavily on the last option (abortion), I think if abortions weren’t so readily available people would manage their reproductive system far better resulting in a fraction of the number of unwanted pregnancies.
World wide there are over 50 MILLION aborted pregnancies each year. In America 3,500 terminations carried out every day, that’s over 1.3 million every year, 50% of all cases CLAIMED that birth control had been used, 48% admitted they took no precaution, and 2% had a medical reason. That’s a stagering 98% may have been prevented had an effective birth control been used. Don’t get me wrong, I suspect the percentages in Australia would be much the same.
Just a lot of unnessessary killing.
I am convinced that in the not too distant future, people will look back at many of the practices of today with disbelief and horror.
At the point of conception is when life began for you. This was the start of your existance. Your own personal big bang. Three weeks after conception heart started to beat. First brain waves recorded at six weeks after conception. Seen sucking thumb at seven weeks after conception.
Have you checked out (abortionclinnicdays)-the reality show.
ausblog
UPDATE- At this point in time there are 1.3 million couples in America looking to adopt…(thats scary)…
Want to know how to find humanity-?
True humanity can only be achieved, by concidering others/ caring about others, as much as, if not more than yourself.
Until we do we are no more than an uncivilisation, with all the uncivilised things that we do…
If you think the point of conception is NOT when life begins, and all you have is a clump of cells and not a living human being.
Then at least concider this -
Soon after you were conceived you were no more than a clump of cells.
This clump of cells was you at your earliest stage, you had plenty of growing to do but this clump of cells was you none the less. Think about it.
Aren’t you glad you were left unhindered to develope further.
Safe inside your mother’s womb until you were born.