[Note: Although I originally wrote this entry last year, I�m reposting it again with a few substantial changes in order to use it as the foundation of a future argument.]
Comparing the similarities between slavery and abortion is not a new approach. In fact, attempts to show a resemblance between the two has become so common that the argument has become trite and stale. While I have always recognized the connection, I found the conjointment less than compelling and all but useless in a real world discussion of the issue.
But then I realized what had been missing. Most pro-life arguments that highlight such comparisons tend to focus almost exclusively on the issue of personhood. Like slaves in pre-Civil War America, unborn children are defined as beings in which full humanity can be denied. This leads pro-life advocates to believe that if the definition of personhood were expanded and the unborn were recognized as human, then the rights of these children would be guaranteed protection under the law.
The fatal flaw in this argument lies not in the logic but in the application. In America, all rights are not equal. Even if they were provided legal protections, the rights of the fetus would remain subordinate to the rights of the mother. In a perceived conflict of interest, the unborn child will lose out in just the same way that the slaves lost out to their owners.
The conflict arises because throughout the history of our Republic natural rights have given way to the primacy of property rights. As historian James Huston notes in "Calculating the Value of the Union":
Fewer ideas had a more secure place in the minds of the Americans than the belief that civilization rested on property rights. As John Adams wrote in 1778, "Property is surely a right of mankind as really as liberty." �.In fact for many of the late eighteenth century, the equation linking civilization and property rights was perfect: to have civilization, one had to have property rights of individuals protected. If property rights were not protected, then civilization could not exist.
The supremacy of property rights trumps even right to personhood. Even after the humanity of the slaves was encoded into the law (e.g., Alexander Hamilton's "three-fifths compromise"), slaves were still classified and treated as property. Property, though, like speech, has not always retained the same denotation. At various times in our country's history, "property" has been defined in ways that included such "personal rights" as assembly, speech, the right to religious opinion, and the use of one's own talents and faculties.
The government, however, retains the power to define not only what will be protected under the concept of property but also which type of property rights* are more primary than others. Naturally, this has profound implications for the abortion debate. The government holds the power to define property and to determine that property rights are inviolable. Is it any surprise, then, that it took a Civil War to bring about abolition?
When Roe v. Wade appealed to the 14th amendment's Due Process clause, it decreed that the state cannot deprive a person of life, liberty, or property without due process. Since the fetus is a separate living entity from the mother (if it wasn't, then ending the life of the fetus would end the mother's as well) there is no deprivation of "life." In a similar manner the creation of the "right to privacy" cannot apply to the term liberty either, otherwise all laws against prostitution, drug use, suicide, etc. would have been struck down as well. The only are area that the clause can apply to is property.
The fetus is treated by Roe as a form of property in which the woman has certain specific and limited rights. The state can only interfere with these rights when they have a compelling interest and then only after the first trimester. Until that time the woman has the right to "dispose of her property" in any manner she chooses.
What then can be done? Is it even possible after thirty two years to redefine this right? I believe there are only three ways in which abortion law will be changed in America -- by fiat, by recognition of the personhood of the fetus, or by the rejection of the fetus as property. Using the law, whether the courts or the legislatures, to strike down so-called abortion rights would ultimately be ineffective since it would changes the legal status of the procedure without changing the culture that promotes the activity.
The second approach has also been less than effective. Three decades after Roe, medical technology has advanced to the point where we have a detailed and fairly comprehensive understanding of embryonic life. Even so, a vast portion of our populace still fails to find the personhood argument compelling. This leaves us with the issue of "property rights."
For far too long, the debate has been over the semantic terms that are allowed for public discourse of this issue. But the pro-abortion camp has finally realized that this fight over such terms as pro-choice and reproductive rights is unnecessary. They are free to discard labels with medical connotations such as fetus in favor of baby. The issue is a matter of choice and whether the child is called a fetus or a baby is irrelevant since they have no say in the matter.
In order to win the moral argument we must begin by co-opting the language of the abortion movement. An unborn child is either part, person, or property: an intrinsic part of a woman's body, a human person, or non-human property over which a woman has the right to dispose of as she chooses. Since the DNA of the fetus differs from the mother, it cannot be considered merely a part of her body. So it is either a person or property. If they deny it is a person, as they must since doing otherwise would concede their moral argument, then they must recognize the fetus as the property of the woman.
Abortion supporters will not want to accept this semantic shift. If pressed, though, they will have no logical alternative. Once is has been defined that the "right to choose" is a right to choose what can legally be done with one's property, the moral force of the pro-choice movement will dissipate. The real choice will be between choosing a side that venerates the dignity of human life or one that devalues humanity in the same way that slavery did.
Recognizing the link between abortion and property rights is crucial. The inviability of property rights allowed slavery to exist in our country for centuries. Unless we recognize that the pro-choice movement is hiding behind the same "rights", abortion is likely to be around just as long.
* I believe that the concept of property rights applies even though the phrase is not often applied to such issues as abortion.
1
Joe, I think you're on to something, but I also think that you might have over-simplified the history and the process that could be derived from its lessons. That, and I don't think our struggle with pro-abortion faction is entirely based upon rational discourse. If you've caught a glimpse of a few recent protests, then you'll see what I mean.
posted on 07.27.2004 1:51 AM2
Joe writes
"Since the DNA of the fetus differs from the mother, it cannot be considered a “part” of her body. So it is either a person or property."
This is a weak link in your argument, Joe, for at least the following reason: the DNA in the mother's germ cells (e.g., eggs) differs from the DNA of the mother, but "everyone" considers those eggs to be a part of the mother's body (until they are surgically removed or shed during menstruation). In other words, your "if then" argument doesn't hold water.
You might be want to say something along the lines of, "Since approximately at least half of the DNA in the fetus' or embryo's genome is of foreign origin, the fetus can not be considered a 'part' of the mother's body, just as the bacterial cells in a person with pneumonia are not considered a 'part' of that person's body."
Personally I don't think is very persuasive either, but you'll get about five times the mileage.
posted on 07.27.2004 2:13 AM3
Larry--You seem to be using the terms egg and fetus interchangeably. I don't know of anybody in the pro-life community that wants to confer "personhood" on an unfertilized egg. However, I do love your suggestion that the pro-life argument would be more compelling if we started comparing fetuses to pneumonia bacteria. Would it be even more compelling if we compared them to Ebola?
posted on 07.27.2004 6:13 AM4
"The issue is a matter of choice and whether the child is called a 'fetus' or a 'baby' is irrelevant since they have no say in the matter."
I think this pro-abortion argument is the predominate one. The precious "choice" to abort is considered the woman's own, and whether or not there are eternal consequences (so say abortion supporters) is between herself and God. Since the right to kill the unborn is the "law of the land", it will take a fiat (just like the judicial one that conferred the right in the first place).
I agree with Larry on the DNA issue, with a twist. I don't believe that just because a fetus has different DNA that it is not a part of the mother. Anything growing inside her body is part of her. The issue will turn on this question: Do property rights and "choice" and anything else you can think of trump an unborn child's right to live?
posted on 07.27.2004 8:46 AM5
Joe,
In this day and age I think you're too optimistic. Property rights are almost dead in many parts of this country. When you cannot shoot someone for breaking into your house in many parts of the country, when local governments routinely use eminent domain to redistribute land to wealthy developers and drug agents seize property on the rumor that drug money was involved, you have few real rights anymore.
Call me cyncial but I think you are operating under the pretense that these women won't simply choose less property rights. Look at that woman who aborted 2 of her triplets because she didn't want to have to buy "mayonaise in a big jar."
The women who tend to care about this issue so much are not exactly freedom-oriented women.
posted on 07.27.2004 9:03 AM6
Mike says
"Call me cyncial but I think you are operating under the pretense that these women won't simply choose less property rights. Look at that woman who aborted 2 of her triplets because she didn't want to have to buy "mayonaise in a big jar."
First of all that is a horrible example to use to make your point and not one that I am sure is clearly representative of everyone with that view point.
"The women who tend to care about this issue so much are not exactly freedom-oriented women."
Out of curiosity, and you are correct this may just be your cynicism speaking, can you clarify this statement for me? What did you base your opinion on? Hopefully not on your above example.
posted on 07.27.2004 9:29 AM7
Joe:
A nit:
Since the fetus is a separate living entity from the mother (if it wasn’t, then ending the life of the fetus would end the mother’s as well) there is no deprivation of “life.”Nonsense! A woman's left arm is not an "separate living entity" from the woman, and removing the arm (thus killing it) does not end the woman's life. Your logic here seems to imply that it would. posted on 07.27.2004 10:43 AM
8
The larger problem that I have with this argument is the same problem I have with most anti-abortion arguments: it concerns itself with how we can make abortion illegal, rather than concerning itself with how we can do away with abortion. I would think the latter would be far more important than the former, especially considering the well-established fact that the legality/illegality of abortion has almost no effect on whether women actually have abortions.
As long as women get pregnant when they don't want to, there will be a substantial demand for abortion. You might not like it, but it's fact. The only way you will substantially decrease the number of abortions is to decrease the number of unintended pregnancies. And I'm sorry, but telling people "don't have sex if you don't want a baby" isn't going to cut the mustard.
All that said, we will never completely do away with abortion, and I don't think we should. There are enough cases where abortion is medically necessary or just medically prudent to warrant keeping the procedure around. It's the "for convenience" abortions that I believe could be eliminated through means other than prohibition.
Also, Joe: Following your logic to its ultimate conclusion, there is no logical reason why an unborn child resulting from rape or incest would have any less inherent right to life than any other unborn child. Is this actually how you feel?
posted on 07.27.2004 10:53 AM9
Rob Smith:
I don't know of anybody in the pro-life community that wants to confer "personhood" on an unfertilized egg.
Precisely Larry's point. Why not? According to Joe's logic, a fetus is a "separate living entity" from the mother, even though it cannot exist apart from the mother, because its DNA does not match the mother's. Neither does an unfertilized egg's DNA. So why the difference?
posted on 07.27.2004 10:54 AM10
Trish,
My point is that the average woman who really, really cares about her "reproductive rights" is not exactly a card carrying member of the libertarian party. The majority of the ones I've met in my life are more likely to at least be aligned with the democrats, or often among the younger ones, with the greens.
I'm a registered independent, but consistent supporter of the libertarian party so you can see that while my personal morality may lean toward socially conservative, my politics are essentially libertarian.
And you're right that wasn't the best example. However, I think that regardless it does illustrate the fact that many women in this country view a fetus as a "lifestyle tumor" and not a viable child.
Joe,
I think I can claim the nerdiest blogroll scheme now. My blogrolls are in Esperanto ;) (I just hope no one goes to the trouble of writing theirs in Klingon or Sindarin)
posted on 07.27.2004 10:55 AM11
tgirsch,
No, such a baby's worth wouldn't be reduced based on how it was made. The problem with selective abortions is that they breed a mindset over generations of "I get to decide what human life is worthy of life." A woman close to me once ranted on how we should "kill them all" in regard to stupid people. It didn't take more than 2 seconds for her to shut up when I reminded her "to some people, my dear, you are just as stupid as the people you criticize."
posted on 07.27.2004 10:58 AM12
Well an unfertilized egg cannot match her DNA because it has only 50% of her chromosomes :-P
posted on 07.27.2004 11:00 AM13
I think you're giving the undecideds on this issue too much credit.
If they're too dumb to see a picture of a living, breathing, moving human being, and still manage to ride the fence, how are esoteric applications of property law going to sway them?
That's like saying, "Gee, you don't understand how an extra $1,000 in your pocket from a tax refund will help your own finances and, by extension, the economy as a whole? Here, let me show you this chart on the Laffer Curve, then when you're done, read this article about supply-side economics."
Some people are just stupid, Joe, and they can't be helped. These discussions aid in strengthening our own positions on the issues, but I don't know if it'll do any good to take them outside, so to speak.
posted on 07.27.2004 11:49 AM14
tg--I'm really surprised that you need anybody to tell you the difference between a fertilized and un-fertilized egg, you usually seem pretty smart, even though I usually disagree with you. The most important (from a pro-life perspective) is that while an un-fertilized egg can never "live" separately from the mother, the fertilized egg can. Currently the fertilized egg (fetus) has a reasonable chance of surviving outside the mother at 20 weeks (obviously, not an ideal situation), but even before that it has it own internal organs and is able to respond to external stimuli independent of the mother. In essence, from the moment of fertilization, the egg becomes an individual human being. Whether you call it a child, an embryo, or a fetus, does anyone want to claim it is not a human being?
posted on 07.27.2004 12:07 PM15
"Following your logic to its ultimate conclusion, there is no logical reason why an unborn child resulting from rape or incest would have any less inherent right to life than any other unborn child. Is this actually how you feel?"
I hope that's the way he feels. Either life is sacred and worth protecting or it isn't. A child doesn't lose the right to live simply because of unfortunate parentage. No sin was committed by the fetus that it should be sentenced to death.
posted on 07.27.2004 12:10 PM16
In essence, from the moment of fertilization, the egg becomes an individual human being.
A clump of two, four, eight or eight hundred cells is not a human being. It is a clump of cells that may or may not turn into a human being in time. When you start getting near the end of the first trimester then you can start having arguments about responding to stimuli or having organs.
posted on 07.27.2004 12:13 PM17
An abortion kills the life of a baby after it has begun... Birth control merely postpones the beginning of life. ~ Planned Parenthood "Plan Your Children" pamphlet in 1963
Victims? Don't be melodramatic. Look down there. Would you really feel any pity if one of those dots stopped moving forever? If I offered you 20,000 pounds for every dot that stopped, would you really, old man, tell me to keep my money? Or would you calculate how many dots you could afford to spare? Free of income tax, old man, free of income tax. The only way you can save money nowadays. ~ Harry Lime
tgirsch
The larger problem that I have with this argument is the same problem I have with most anti-abortion arguments: it concerns itself with how we can make abortion illegal, rather than concerning itself with how we can do away with abortion.
Why not both?
Also, Joe: Following your logic to its ultimate conclusion, there is no logical reason why an unborn child resulting from rape or incest would have any less inherent right to life than any other unborn child. Is this actually how you feel?
This operates on the (circular) assumption that abortion is not child murder. It also makes the assumption that the rape victim will feel better if she is given the opportuinity to kill her child.
posted on 07.27.2004 12:32 PM18
MM--At what point does it become a human being? 801 cells? 1600 cells? more? Reality is, all anybody is is a big ol' clump of cells. My understanding of human development is that we start developing specialized organs fairly early in the pregnancy and that we are able to respond to external stimuli well before the end of the first 3 months.
posted on 07.27.2004 12:57 PM19
MM,
A clump of two, four, eight or eight hundred cells is not a human being.
This "clump" is an organism that is taking in nutrients and growing: It is a being. It has human DNA: He is human.
posted on 07.27.2004 1:29 PM20
Rob Smith
"Whether you call it a child, an embryo, or a fetus, does anyone want to claim it is not a human being?"
Yeah, I do. The fetus is certainly human, in the sense that it is of human origin and it consists of human cells. But it is not a "human being" any more than a fertilized chicken egg is a "chicken being".
posted on 07.27.2004 1:49 PM21
Tgirsch,
Joe: Since the fetus is a separate living entity from the mother (if it wasn’t, then ending the life of the fetus would end the mother’s as well) there is no deprivation of “life.”
Tgirsch: Nonsense! A woman's left arm is not an "separate living entity" from the woman, and removing the arm (thus killing it) does not end the woman's life. Your logic here seems to imply that it would.
Let’s examine the logic involved:
Premise 1 – The fetus is A (a separate living entity from the mother).
Premise 2 – The woman’s arm is not-A (not a separate living entity from the mother).
Conclusion 1: (My claim) Ending the life of A does not end the life of B (the mother).
Conclusion 2: (Your claim) Ending the life of not-A does not end the life of B (the mother).
You are saying that conclusion 1 and 2 are equivalent. That, however, is obviously (and logically) not the case.
As long as women get pregnant when they don't want to, there will be a substantial demand for abortion. You might not like it, but it's fact. The only way you will substantially decrease the number of abortions is to decrease the number of unintended pregnancies. And I'm sorry, but telling people "don't have sex if you don't want a baby" isn't going to cut the mustard.
Again let’s look at the logical form of your claim:
If A then B.
A
Therefore B.
A = women get pregnant when they don’t want to
B = there will be a substantial demand for abortion
The logic is sound but it doesn’t lead to a compelling conclusion since it could apply to almost any illegal activity. For example:
A = people do not have everything they want
B = there will be a substantial reason to steal
I agree that we should do everything possible to reduce the demand for abortion. But that does not mean that we shouldn’t also do something about the supply.
Also, Joe: Following your logic to its ultimate conclusion, there is no logical reason why an unborn child resulting from rape or incest would have any less inherent right to life than any other unborn child. Is this actually how you feel?
Of course. The innocence of the child is not affected by how it is conceived. But if we as a society believe that we are justified in aborting a child that results from rape or incest then I believe we should also give the death penalty to the rapist.
Why not? According to Joe's logic, a fetus is a "separate living entity" from the mother, even though it cannot exist apart from the mother, because its DNA does not match the mother's. Neither does an unfertilized egg's DNA. So why the difference?
You have a point about the DNA. I should have focused more on the fact that the fetus is a separate living being rather than just a different genetic being.
posted on 07.27.2004 1:59 PM22
Side note but somewhat on topic. Here in CA it is typically the left that supports abortion on demand as well as very liberal immigration policies. So it is fun when the two meet.
An 8 month pregnant woman was about to be deported as an illegal alien. Of course, if she had stayed here until giving birth, her child would automatically be a US citizen.
Her lawyer argued that the 8-month baby was capable of survival outside the womb and therefore should be considered a US citizen already and she should not be deported. The lawyer lost by the way.
Don't have a link, but it was on the regular local news on radio.
I would LOVE to ask certain liberal activists in my state how they would reconcile this issue.
posted on 07.27.2004 2:06 PM23
LL--Your belief that the fetus is not an individual human being can only be ideological. There is no scientific support for it.
posted on 07.27.2004 2:16 PM24
LL--You are right that a fertilized chicken egg is not a chicken, but the embryo growing inside the egg most certainly is.
posted on 07.27.2004 2:28 PM25
Rob Smith:
The most important (from a pro-life perspective) is that while an un-fertilized egg can never "live" separately from the mother, the fertilized egg can.Of course I understand the difference; Larry and I were merely using the example to point out the absurdity of Joe's "different DNA = different individual" logic. And to be fair, the fertilized egg can eventually live separately from the mother, but that won't generally be the case until at least six months in.
At what point does it become a human being? 801 cells? 1600 cells?I'm pretty sure I saw this suggested here, but I suppose you could use the same standard for the beginning of life that we typically use for the end of it: measurable brain activity in the frontal lobes. But that would likely make no one happy, since it would be to early in the stage of development for the pro-choice crowd and too late for the pro-life crowd.
Funky Dung:
No sin was committed by the fetus that it should be sentenced to death.No sin was (intentionally) committed by the mother, either, but she is still sentenced to carry great responsibility which she did nothing to invite or deserve. That's preferable to you?
Bevets:
Why not both?Because prohibition of abortion has been proven to be completely ineffective, and because there remain times when abortion is either medically prudent or medically necessary. If you started talking about late-term abortion bans that had the appropriate safeguards built in, I would not be opposed to such prohibitions.
This operates on the (circular) assumption that abortion is not child murder.You operate on the (circular) assumption that it is. So :p. By the way, if abortion is murder, isn't miscarriage then manslaughter? Shouldn't we begin prosecuting women who miscarry of reckless endangerment and/or manslaughter? If the "unborn child" is a person in their own right, and worthy of full state protection, then this would certainly follow, would it not?
Joe:
These Philosophy 101 games get tiresome, but I'll play for a moment. Let's revisit your statement, shall we? You said:
Since the fetus is a separate living entity from the mother (if it wasn’t, then ending the life of the fetus would end the mother’s as well) there is no deprivation of “life.”That is, if the fetus wasn't a separate living entity from the mother, then ending the life of the fetus would end the mother's as well. Put it your way:
Your claim: If A is not a separate living entity from B, then ending the life of A would also end the life of B.
I gave a counterexample that showed this is clearly not true. About the only way your "mother dies too" claim makes sense is if you assume A and B are mutually dependent entities, but that is also clearly not the case, and I don't think anyone on either side of the issue is making that claim. Perhaps you need to be more specific about the nature of the claim you're making.
The logic is sound but it doesn’t lead to a compelling conclusion since it could apply to almost any illegal activity.That's because you're using overly simplistic logic. In your theft example, you ignore whether or not there are easy and/or legal ways to obtain what people want and do not have. Now factor in the fact that in the case of sex, humans have a nearly insatiable biological craving for it -- one which you would argue God gave us -- and so people are biologically predisposed to having sex a lot more often than just when they want children. This is a reality which must be dealt with.
I agree that we should do everything possible to reduce the demand for abortion.Including making contraception (condoms and pills) freely available to all who want them? Including educating the public, from a very young age, about the efficacy of those methods, while simultaneously telling them that the only sure-fire bet is not to have sex? Somehow I doubt you'd be all in favor of those strategies, even though they've been proven to work fairly well in Western Europe.
Of course. The innocence of the child is not affected by how it is conceived.So you're willing to punish the mother, but not the child? The mother is an innocent victim here, but too bad. She has no choice but to live out the consequences.
Steve:
An 8 month pregnant woman was about to be deported as an illegal alien. Of course, if she had stayed here until giving birth, her child would automatically be a US citizen.The case is a lot more cut and dry than it seems. Citizenship is clearly bestowed upon anyone born inside the United States. Since the baby was not yet born, it had no legitimate claim of citizenship. Thus, deportation can proceed as normal. posted on 07.27.2004 2:44 PM
26
tg--Actually, it is not uncommon for 20 week premies to live with little or no long term disability. That is less than 5 months (at 4.3 weeks per month). I wonder if medical science has hit the limit or will we be hearing about 16 week premies surviving in 10 years?
posted on 07.27.2004 2:53 PM27
tgirsch, I understand it is cut and dry. However, my fun would be in seeing the immigrant activist, who typically is also a strong abortion supporter in discussing it.
You know, sort of like when we get to watch Kerry in the debates come October try again to explain his abortion view with his understanding that life begins at conception but it is not a "person" yet. (Peter Jennings interview...I left out all the "ah" "um" and other stutterings as he fished for his answer (if you heard the interview)
So Senator, when does it become a person?
posted on 07.27.2004 2:58 PM28
tg--Are you really meaning to imply that birth control and sex education is not readily available? They start teaching sex ed to 4th graders for Christ's sake. I took my first sex ed class in the 6th grade (way back in 1977). Condoms are everywhere (even for free in middle schools) and the only way birth control pills could be more available is if they made them over the counter or put them in vending machines. I do assume that you would not want Norplant to be OTC, since we probably don't want teenage girls performing self surgery.
posted on 07.27.2004 3:00 PM29
Rob Smith
"Whether you call it a child, an embryo, or a fetus, does anyone want to claim it is not a human being?"
Yeah, I do. The fetus is certainly human, in the sense that it is of human origin and it consists of human cells. But it is not a "human being" any more than a fertilized chicken egg is a "chicken being".
Posted by: Larry
So when is the fetus a "human being?" And, how do you know this? Based on your answer/opinion, are you willing to kill human beings if you are wrong?
posted on 07.27.2004 3:01 PM30
Tgirsh,
Your claim: If A is not a separate living entity from B, then ending the life
of A would also end the life of B.
I gave a counterexample that showed this is clearly not true.
Your counter example fails because you cannot end the life of an “arm.” An arm is a part of a body and can never be viable on its own.
That's because you're using overly simplistic logic. In your theft example, you ignore whether or not there are easy and/or legal ways to obtain what people want and do not have. Now factor in the fact that in the case of sex, humans have a nearly insatiable biological craving for it -- one
which you would argue God gave us -- and so people are biologically predisposed to having sex a lot more often than just when they want children. This is a reality which must be dealt with.
Even if we buy your argument that humans are sex monkeys who can barely control their urges to rut, it still does not relieve them of the responsibility. If your point was valid then it would still hold true even after the child was born. Should an child be killed after it is born because it is unwanted?
Including making contraception (condoms and pills) freely available to all who want them?
If food, which is necessary for life, is not “freely available”, why should condom be different?
Including educating the public, from a very young age, about the efficacy of those methods, while simultaneously telling them that the only sure-fire bet is not to have sex?
From a very young age? How about from the age that they can deal with an unwanted pregnancy?
Somehow I doubt you'd be all in favor of those strategies, even though they've been proven to work fairly well in Western Europe.
Oh yes, Western Europe is an exemplar of the type of society we want to have. ; )
posted on 07.27.2004 3:03 PM31
This argument is quite odd.
For one thing, the historical grounding you attempt to give it is simply false. The "denotation" of "property," whatever it may have been in 1789, had little to do with the debate over slavery. That debate turned quite explicitly on the question whether the human beings who were slaves were to be regarded as persons - with it understood by both sides that if the answer to that question was "yes," slavery was thereby insupportable. That was the reason for the "3/5 compromise" in the Consitution. It was precisely a non-compromise on the question of the personhood of slaves. The issue was the census of the population to determine the number of Congressional Representatives each state should get. The conflict was obvious: if slaves were not persons, they should not be counted in the census, and slaveholding states would receive fewer votes in Congress. If slaves were to be counted in the census, then they were persons who should be granted freedom. The compromise was that slaves would be counted at a lower rate, but not given freedom - which represented no kind of breakthrough on the question of their personhood, just a resolution of a dispute between parties who had long held firm but opposing opinions on that question.
The discussion of the role of "property rights" in Roe is even more confused. You assert that that decision obviously does - as a point of logic - regard the fetus as property, because:
When [the Roe opinion] appealed to the 14th amendment’s “Due Process clause”, it decreed that the state cannot deprive a person of life, liberty, or property without due process. Since the fetus is a separate living entity from the mother (if it wasn’t, then ending the life of the fetus would end the mother’s as well) there is no deprivation of “life.” In a similar manner the creation of the “right to privacy” cannot apply to the term “liberty” either, otherwise all laws against prostitution, drug use, suicide, etc. would have been struck down as well. The only are area that the clause can apply to is “property.”
This is wrong on the biology, wrong on the logic, and wrong on the historical facts.
First, whether a fetus is "separate living entity" is of no particular significance, but at any rate that is certainly not proven by the claim that "ending the life of [a non-separate entity] would end the mother's life as well." Surely your appendix, your pancreas, and your Plasmodium parasites inside your blood corpuscles are all non-separate living entities within your body, but killing them does not kill you.
Also, it does not logically follow that recognizing a right to privacy that permits abortion requires that that right also permit prostitution, drug use, or any other thing. The court could certainly recognize that the right to privacy admits of restrictions that require balancing competing personal, state, and public interests, and that that right does permit certain things but not permit others. In fact, this is exactly what the court has done: for example, the justification of abortion treads on a matter of such great personal significance that the court has ruled state intrustion must be tightly circumscribed, while privacy in purely sexual matters has been given lesser - but increasing - protection, and privacy in the question whether to take one's own life with medical assistance has, so far, been ruled to be proscribed by overriding state interests. Thus, the court has recognized different levels of protection for privacy issues depending on the relative significance of the personal and state interests involved. There is no reason why it is logically compelled to vacate any possible restrictions on privacy just because it grants some freedoms for reasons of privacy - and it has not done so. Note the court's own language from Roe, where they explicitly reject the conclusion you argue is necessary - as a means of limiting the right to abortion that they do recognize as a privacy right in the same decision:
The privacy right involved, therefore, cannot be said to be absolute. In fact, it is not clear to us that the claim asserted by some amici that one has an unlimited right to do with one's body as one pleases bears a close relationship to the right of privacy previously articulated in the Court's decisions. The Court has refused to recognize an unlimited right of this kind in the past.
[Section VII]
More than that, though, your statement about the court's reasoning is simply wrong. You declare - as a result of the flawed deduction above - that the court did not mean to refer to the "liberty" clause of the 14th Amendment in Roe, but rather the "property" clause. But here is the language of the decision itself:
This right of privacy, whether it be founded in the Fourteenth Amendment's concept of personal liberty and restrictions upon state action, as we feel it is, or, as the District Court determined, in the Ninth Amendment's reservation of rights to the people, is broad enough to encompass a woman's decision whether or not to terminate her pregnancy.
[Section VII - immediately above the previous quote - emphases added]
You say explicitly and unambiguously:
The fetus is treated by Roe as a form of property in which the woman has certain specific and limited rights.
But the decision says:
We, therefore, conclude that the right of personal privacy includes the abortion decision . . .
[Section VII]
The Constitution does not define "person" in so many words. . . . [I]n nearly all these instances [in which it is used], the use of the word is such that it has application only postnatally. . . . All this, together with our observation, supra, that throughout the major portion of the 19th century prevailing legal abortion practices were far freer than they are today, persuades us that the word "person," as used in the Fourteenth Amendment, does not include the unborn.
[Section IXA]In short, the unborn have never been recognized in the law as persons in the whole sense.
[Section IXB]
The Court unambigously bases its decision on a pregnant woman's privacy right, backstopped by the observation that the fetus is not a person. Privacy rights are not the same as property rights, and the Court does not say that the fetus is property in the standard meaning of the term. I have searched the entire text of the majority opinion in Roe; the word "property" appears exactly once, in reference to inheriting property. The concept you describe appears nowhere in the decision.
So, your discussion of what it means to be "property," and what that implies about Constitutional rights, is incorrect, and your discussion of the Supreme Court's reasoning regarding property rights in Roe v Wade - that a liberty right in one's body prohibits any restrictions at all on personal behavior, and that for this reason the Court based its ruling on the property clause of the 14th Amendment - is contradicted in both points by the explicit language of the decision. In fact, the Court takes on the standard argument over "personhood" of the fetus, and concludes that the law does not and cannot assert a specific answer to that question (which is why it is a "private" matter). Shifting the abortion debate to a question of property rights as a way of re-interpreting Roe can't work, because that concept flatly has nothing to do with Roe.
From there you go on to a very strange logical argument:
An unborn child is either part, person, or property: an intrinsic part of a woman’s body, a human “person“, or “non-human” property over which a woman has the right to dispose of as she chooses.
Since the DNA of the fetus differs from the mother, it cannot be considered a “part” of her body. So it is either a person or property. If they deny it is a person, as they must since doing otherwise would concede their moral argument, then they must recognize the fetus as the property of the woman.
Abortion supporters will not want to accept this semantic shift. If pressed, though, they will have no logical alternative. Once is has been defined that the “right to choose” is a right to choose what can legally be done with one’s property, the moral force of the pro-choice movement will dissipate. The real choice will be between choosing a side that venerates the dignity of human life or one that devalues humanity in the same way that slavery did.
Again, you're wrong on the logic and wrong on the facts.
First, your tripartite set of incompatible alternatives is wrongly conceived. A fetus does not have to be any of the things you say. Courts have long imbued body parts with a kind of unique status: part of one's body, yet removable from one's body, yet still falling under the control of the donor once removed, and not quite like ordinary property. (Suits over disposal of medical waste and use of tissue samples for research have confirmed that people have a controlling interest in what happens to their body parts; laws prohibiting sale of organs confirm that they are not property.) Fetuses could be treated the same way: yours to control, but not yours to sell.
Second, the DNA argument means little or nothing. You are essentially asserting that one has no moral authority over another "entity," and that having unique DNA makes on an unique entity. Neither of these is an accepted moral or scientific principle - both, in fact, are proposed largely by anti-abortion activists who invented them for the abortion debate and then cite them in support of their own arguments. In fact, having unique DNA is no indication of unique personhood: identical twins have the same DNA but are distinct people; conjoined ("Siamese") twins can have either identical or different DNA but are clearly different people; yet, a certain number of individuals are "genetic mosaics" - essentially conjoined twins whose early embryos became so completely fused they developed into just a single, perfectly normal-looking, body - with two distinct sets of tissues with different DNA, but forming only one person. Personhood requires a specfic developmental sequence that has much to do with the anatomical development of the body and brain, not just with genetics.
More importantly, "personhood" as usually defined is very different from biological existence; this definition is taken as far more significant, by most thinkers, than the mere question what genome and individual has, or whether it has "life" in some mechanical sense. This is the sense in which the "personhood" of the fetus is significant to the abortion debate, and your argument misses that entirely.
Finally, your argument that if the fetus is seen as property - a point no abortion-rights supporter makes, and the Supreme Court never made - then that will be an embarrassment to the pro-choice faction is . . . bewildering. Why it should be an embarrassment to them that you claim the fetus is property I can't see. And it can't be embarrassing to them that you claim that they claim the fetus is property, because . . . well . . . they don't.
But all that notwithstanding, it's still not clear how this could boomerang back on the pro-choice side even if you managed to trick them into accepting your terms for the debate. If the fetus is said to be property, that is offensive - and therefore embarrassing to those who claim it is - only if there is something similar, in saying the fetus is property, to saying other offensive things such as that slaves were property. But of course the reason the "abortion is slavery" argument has never gotten any traction - and is especially resented by blacks - is that fetuses are nothing like slaves.
You can argue that both are "oppressed" and have their "interests violated" by their "masters" - but only if you want to stretch that analogy to the point of stupidity. And those are the only points of comparison you can make. The disanalogies that you must overlook to make the comparison are very telling:
- Fetuses are physically undeveloped, unborn, and helpless; slaves were fully developed, mostly grown adults
- Fetuses cannot survive outside another person's body; slaves were perfectly capable of making their own way, and lacked only the freedom to do so
- Fetuses are unconscious, have no thoughts, desires, interests, or personalities; slaves were fully developed persons with interests, desires, and hopes of their own
- Fetuses arrive unwanted inside another person's body - abortion removes a fetus from where it is not wanted; slaves were physically torn from their own homes, or sold or born in physical captivity - slavery physically constrains a person to remain where they do not want to
- Fetuses have no family connections, no loved ones, no family history or hopes for family legacy; slaves had extensive family ties which were often brutally broken by death, abuse, and the sale of slaves - one of slavery's lasting legacies is the loss of connection and even information in the family histories of many descendants of slaves.
To make your analogy - which, again, only you are making - you must treat slaves as unborn, undeveloped, unconscious, helpless, having no personality, no thoughts, no memories, no intentions, no plans, no desires, no hopes, no family ties, no abilities, no projects, no independent place in the world, and you must ignore many of the most important harms resulting from slavery. In saying that abortion is wrong for the same reason that slavery is wrong, you are saying that what is wrong with slavery is simply whatever could be wrong with abortion. In other words, you are saying that what slaves are like and what they suffer in a lifetime of slavery is what fetuses - or even fertilized eggs - are like and what they suffer in not coming to term. A slave is not merely a child, for you - not even a baby - hardly an unborn baby. A slave for you is not just the moral equivalent of a fertilized egg cell, but apparently the social and psychological equivalent too. At least, it appears that a slave's harms, frustrations, pains, deprivations, and humiliations, the destruction of a slave's family, the destruction of a slave's dreams, ambitions, and hopes, the physical torture and abuse of slaves, the maltreatment, disease and suffering in slavery, are of no moral significance at all - since a fetus suffers none of these things, and a fetus is identical to a slave in every morally relevant respect, and the wrong of abortion is exactly the same as the wrong of slavery.
A more reasonable - and more human - understanding of the situation might suggest that these aspects of slavery do matter. And if they do - if they have a moral weight of their own, if they are in any way part of the reason why slavery is wrong, then slavery is not just like abortion, and treating slaves as "property" is not just like treating fetuses as unwanted tissue, and your argument needs to be made on more reasonable, less offensive, grounds. But, as I've said before, that's for you to decide, since you're the only one suggesting that the fetus is property and that that "fact" has anything to do with abortion.
posted on 07.27.2004 3:40 PM32
tgirsch
Following your logic to its ultimate conclusion, there is no logical reason why an unborn child resulting from rape or incest would have any less inherent right to life than any other unborn child. Is this actually how you feel?
This operates on the (circular) assumption that abortion is not child murder.
You operate on the (circular) assumption that it is. So :p.
So we agree that your rape/incest 'concern' is a red herring
This accounts for 1% of actual cases, but is the first thing pro aborts bring up to justify 100% abortion on demand.
What restrictions on abortion do you support? Why?
Shouldn't we begin prosecuting women who miscarry of reckless endangerment and/or manslaughter? If the "unborn child" is a person in their own right, and worthy of full state protection, then this would certainly follow, would it not?
Prosecutors would need to prove maternal negligence beyond reasonable doubt. How do you propose this might happen?
posted on 07.27.2004 4:21 PM33
tgirsch,
No sin was (intentionally) committed by the mother, either, but she is still sentenced to carry great responsibility which she did nothing to invite or deserve. That's preferable to you?
and
So you're willing to punish the mother, but not the child? The mother is an innocent victim here, but too bad. She has no choice but to live out the consequences.
So, all the great philosophy and learning of mankind has been reduced to this? "It is better that a life should end rather than for someone be responsible for that life." Or perhaps you meant, "The wrong of rape or incest should be compounded by destroying the product of such an act, regardless of the personhood of said product or the potential thereof." Or maybe, "The possibility of another life is never more important than the temporal comforts of an established life and the goodness and worth of a new life cannot possibly outweigh the evil of rape or incest."
"Kindness cares not whether its object becomes good or bad, provided only that it escapes suffering", while Love "would rather see [the loved ones] suffer much than be happy in contemptible and estranging modes". - C.S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain
34
Joe:
Your counter example fails because you cannot end the life of an “arm.” An arm is a part of a body and can never be viable on its own.My counterexample does not fail in refuting your original logic as stated. Only after several revisions do we have an inkling of what you were actually trying to say, and you still haven't stated it succinctly. Mind you, this is a logical argument that is -- to me, at least -- completely irrelevant to the larger discussion. I was merely pointing out that your parenthesized bit about "the mother's [life] ends as well" was a complete non-sequitur, which it is.
If your point was valid then it would still hold true even after the child was born. Should an child be killed after it is born because it is unwanted?Apples and oranges. Once the child is born, it is no longer physically dependent upon the mother; anyone so inclined could take care of the child, so killing it would be extreme at best. Now if you've got a safe, effective way to transfer the fetus from the unwilling woman to a willing one, and a steady stream of willing surrogate recipients, then you'd be on to a viable alternative to abortion.
If food, which is necessary for life, is not “freely available”, why should condom be different?For starters, in many cases food is freely available. As to why condoms should be different, it's their potential to reduce the cost to society. Much cheaper to provide condoms than to feed all those extra mouths from all those unintended pregnancies, no? (In 2000 alone, it was about 2.6 million unintended pregnancies, half of which were aborted. Methinks that would have dramatically increased the welfare rolls.)
From a very young age? How about from the age that they can deal with an unwanted pregnancy?I would suggest that the education must begin before puberty. Rather like a warning of the urges that are yet to come.
Oh yes, Western Europe is an exemplar of the type of society we want to have.Just because you might not want to completely model our society after theirs does not mean that we should refuse to learn from them in those areas where they do better than we do (and yes, those areas do exist).
Bevets:
This accounts for 1% of actual cases, but is the first thing pro aborts bring up to justify 100% abortion on demand.That's because it's an important point of detail. Once you accept that it's ever justifiable to have an abortion, then you're arguing about the terms under which it's acceptable, rather than whether or not it's acceptable.
Personally, I'm a lot more pragmatic than that on the issue. History has shown us that our choices are safe/legal abortion or unsafe/illegal abortion. "No abortion" has simply never been an option. So given the remaining two choices, give me safe & legal any day.
What restrictions on abortion do you support? Why?I would not be opposed to a ban of late-term (third trimester) abortion when the life and health of the mother are not in danger, because by this time, the fetus is likely viable outside the womb. But while I wouldn't oppose such a ban, I wouldn't outright support it either. Less than 1% of all abortions in the US occur in the third trimester, and I'm willing to be that most of those are for medical reasons rather than "convenience" reasons. posted on 07.27.2004 5:01 PM
35
Rob Smith:
Are you really meaning to imply that birth control and sex education is not readily available?What I actually mean is that they're currently half-assed available. When I took sex ed (maybe 1982), it was a pretty sterile, clinical version, and it was not ongoing, and birth control methods were only orthogonally. Further, such programs are hamstrung by social conservatives who pooh-pooh honest, open teaching of stuff like masturbation, actually encouraging the use of contraception for those who decide to become sexually active, etc. So while there are skeleton programs out there, they're still highly wanting. I also suspect not all school systems teach sex ed, even though by now most probably do.
Funky Dung:
How about "more life is not necessarily better?" Honestly, when weighing the rights and concerns of a potential life against those of an existing, actual, self-aware life, I will side with the existing life every time. It's really that simple.
posted on 07.27.2004 5:12 PM36
murder: killing an innocent person when you have the ability not to kill that person.
person: someone with unique human chromosomes that will continue to grow if provided with nutrition and protection. The only reason to suggest ANY other definition is to justify killing other people.
child: a person with 2 parents
abortion = child murder
Kevin T. Keith
Second, the DNA argument means little or nothing. You are essentially asserting that one has no moral authority over another "entity," and that having unique DNA makes on an unique entity. Neither of these is an accepted moral or scientific principle - both, in fact, are proposed largely by anti-abortion activists who invented them for the abortion debate and then cite them in support of their own arguments. In fact, having unique DNA is no indication of unique personhood: identical twins have the same DNA but are distinct people; conjoined ("Siamese") twins can have either identical or different DNA but are clearly different people; yet, a certain number of individuals are "genetic mosaics" - essentially conjoined twins whose early embryos became so completely fused they developed into just a single, perfectly normal-looking, body - with two distinct sets of tissues with different DNA, but forming only one person. Personhood requires a specfic developmental sequence that has much to do with the anatomical development of the body and brain, not just with genetics.
The DNA is unique meaning that there was never a similar strand before conception. Your torturous circumlocutions will not obfuscate simple reality.
posted on 07.27.2004 5:37 PM37
How about "more life is not necessarily better?" Honestly, when weighing the rights and concerns of a potential life against those of an existing, actual, self-aware life, I will side with the existing life every time. It's really that simple.
Thank God there are countless numbers of wonderful people who were willing to accept the inconvenience of pregnancy and childbirth to bring forth new lives. To them, a potential self-aware life is worth the "trouble". Even more precious are those who do not see pregnancy as an undesireable burden, but rather as something beautiful to be cherished.
posted on 07.27.2004 5:41 PM38
tgirsch
Following your logic to its ultimate conclusion, there is no logical reason why an unborn child resulting from rape or incest would have any less inherent right to life than any other unborn child. Is this actually how you feel?
This operates on the (circular) assumption that abortion is not child murder.
You operate on the (circular) assumption that it is. So :p.
So we agree that your rape/incest 'concern' is a red herring
This accounts for 1% of actual cases, but is the first thing pro aborts bring up to justify 100% abortion on demand.
That's because it's an important point of detail. Once you accept that it's ever justifiable to have an abortion, then you're arguing about the terms under which it's acceptable, rather than whether or not it's acceptable.
You have already admitted that this is a circular justification, but continue to use it as a foundation for allowing 100% abortion on demand.
What restrictions on abortion do you support? Why?
I would not be opposed to a ban of late-term (third trimester) abortion when the life and health of the mother are not in danger, because by this time, the fetus is likely viable outside the womb. But while I wouldn't oppose such a ban, I wouldn't outright support it either. Less than 1% of all abortions in the US occur in the third trimester, and I'm willing to be that most of those are for medical reasons rather than "convenience" reasons.
You have played both sides. Can you suggest any situation (e.g. partial birth abortion for entertainment) that should be illegal? You have already suggested that there may be, please elaborate.
posted on 07.27.2004 6:37 PM39
Bevets believes (and believes it is logical to assert) that:
"abortion = child murder"
Okay. Let's see if Bevets can walk the walk. Let's assume that you are right about this "abortion = murder" concept, Bevets. And let's assume that it's 2004 and Li'l Boy Bush steals the election again. And let's assume that somehow manages to appoint a couple of conservatives to the Supreme Court and they overturn Roe v. Wade. Fundamentalists everywhere, of all stripes, are jumping for joy.
And fairly quickly then a few conservative states do the math and come to the conclusion that they can survive an economic boycott and they pass legislation declaring that abortion is illegal. Indeed, abortion is first degree murder.
Let's just assume, Bevets, that you live in one such state. That state has a death penalty. If you believe what Joe Carter says, then the Bible mandates that convicted murderers must be executed.
Let's pretend, Bevets, that someone actually elected you to be a state representative. In the case where a woman convicted of an abortion-style "murder" shows no remorse, and admits that she'd do it again if given the chance and she knew she wouldn't get caught, do you want the death penalty to be available to the state as a possible punishment for this woman? Why or why not?
Let's assume that you are on the jury with just the facts I've given you. Thumbs up or thumbs down on the state execution of this woman? Why or why not? Would you feel that you were doing God's work if you personally pulled the switch on this woman? Why or why not?
Please note that this is not a dumbass hypothetical or a silly logical puzzle. I'm merely taking the path that has been laid out in no uncertain terms by Joe Carter and others, a path which very few Christians seem willing to walk down, although these same Christians do not hesitate for one moment to point their fingers at a women who terminated her pregnancy at 5 weeks and label her a "child murderer."
posted on 07.27.2004 8:11 PM40
Rob Smith says
"LL--Your belief that the fetus is not an individual human being can only be ideological. There is no scientific support for it."
It's not ideological, Rob. It's political. And at least with respect to human embryos, there is certainly plent of scientific support that they aren't "individual human beings."
Question for Rob Smiith: Do you understand why or do I need to explain that to you?
Rob Smith also said,
"You are right that a fertilized chicken egg is not a chicken, but the embryo growing inside the egg most certainly is."
Oh really? So if you order chicken and someone serves you the contents of an egg fertilized the previous day, you've got no problems with that? The joke's on you, is that it?
Sorry, Rob. You're word games don't "fly."
Neither embryos or fetuses are human *beings*, just as fetal calves are not cows, and just as fetal kittens are not cats.
Humans, fortunately, have invented a phrase which describes the point at which fetuses lose their status as fetuses: "being born." Why do Christians hate the traditional idea of being born? Why do Christians insist on redefining the concept of birth? Why do Christians seek to destroy the traditional meaning of childbirth, the very pillar of the traditional family for eons? Surely when Christians succeed in destroying the very pillars which breathe meaning into the term "family", they will immediately seek to destroy every other tradition in our hallowed nation. You have been warned.
posted on 07.27.2004 8:37 PM41
FunkyDung:
Thank God there are countless numbers of wonderful people who were willing to accept the inconvenience of pregnancy and childbirth to bring forth new lives. To them, a potential self-aware life is worth the "trouble".I agree that many women who make that choice are admirable. But at the end of the day, it's still a choice.
Bevets:
You have already admitted that this is a circular justification, but continue to use it as a foundation for allowing 100% abortion on demand.Oh, really? Where exactly did I do any of that? First, I never conceded the circular reasoning argument (you know, the one you always use in every debate you enter, but never bother to substantiate); I merely pointed out the abusrdity of it by turning it around on you. Recognize that tactic? You should. You use it all the time.
Second, I don't use that supposedly circular justification as the basis for justifying anything. My reason for supporting abortion-on-demand (and not 100%, I might add) is that I view it as a least of evils. Until we live in a world where a woman would never, ever get pregnant unless she absolutely wanted to, there will always be unwanted children. And I'd rather have early-term abortions than, say, more mistreated, neglected fully-formed babies, or worse, dumpster babies.
So as I said, I'm pragmatic about the issue. But then, that didn't fit into your neat little everyone-who-supports-abortion-is-ignorant-or-evil worldview, so you chose to ignore it.
Can you suggest any situation (e.g. partial birth abortion for entertainment) that should be illegal? You have already suggested that there may be, please elaborate.I have already given you an example: late-term abortions for non-medical reasons. For example, a woman who is eight months pregnant, in perfect health, carrying a perfectly healthy fetus, decides "nevermind, I don't want it any more," I would not have a problem with taking away that choice.
I wouldn't go so far as advocating a law making that illegal, however, for the same reason I don't advocate mandating seat belts on school buses -- there's no indication that it's a pervasive problem in need of legislation to solve it. All of the evidence seems to indicate that these abortions rarely happen. 99% of abortions occur within the first 20 weeks of pregnancy (that's 4.6 months for you math-challenged folks); most women are barely even showing by then. That leaves a mere 1%, of which many are likely obtained for a variety of what most reasonable people would consider legitimate reasons -- terminating a dead fetus; medical threats to the woman; severe injury or deformation to the fetus, etc. This leaves but a small percentage of the very small percentage that we can agree we should do away with.
You might argue that if even one such abortion can be prevented by such prohibition, it would be worth it, and that's a legitimate stance to take. But I would argue that we have much bigger fish to fry, such as providing a decent education and decent health care to the born children who are already here.
Further still, we know that outlawing something does not eliminate it; all the law does is prescribe what punishment should be levied against the people who commit the crime. This requires us to first agree that the act is indeed a crime (we have no such consensus -- not even close -- with abortion); we must then agree that it is a crime worthy of punishment; and then we must agree precisely what punishment fits the crime. Since we can't even agree on the underlying premise, how are we as a society expected to act on this?
No, leaving it to personal choice is the best course of action. In 2000, about 78% of women who get pregnant in the United States chose not to abort, so why not get to work on the other 22% rather than passing ineffective laws?
posted on 07.27.2004 9:18 PM42
Larry,
do you want the death penalty to be available to the state as a possible punishment for this woman?
For the record, I'm a Christian who vehemently opposes the death penalty. Not every Christian thinks the death penalty is supportable by the teachings of Christ. Life should be protected from conception to the moment of natural death.
Humans, fortunately, have invented a phrase which describes the point at which fetuses lose their status as fetuses: "being born." Why do Christians hate the traditional idea of being born? Why do Christians insist on redefining the concept of birth?
Now you've gotten yourself into a bit of a philosophical pickle. Why is a human offspring considered a child, and thus given the full protection of the law, the nanosecond he exits the birth canal, but just a fetus the nanosecond before doing so? Is there a lack of continuity? Did the offspring change in some way other than in physical location? Is there any defensible reason to consider a nearly born child merely a fetus which may be destroyed?
So often, pro-aborts try to put the burden of proof on pro-lifers. "Tell us definitively when personhood begins and we'll think about banning abortions after that point." Since abortion potentially involves the destruction of a human being, the burden of proof should lie with the pro-aborts. "Tell us definitively when personhood begins and we'll entertain the notion of abortions before that point." The Roe v. Wade decision didn't say anothing about life starting at birth, thus permitting abortion up to that point. It merely states that the government does not have the constitutional right to determine that life begins at conception and thus forbid all abortions.
If you cannot tell me why an offspring is not a child the moment before birth, how can you tell me it's "just" a fetus the hour before? the day? the month? What assurance can you possibly offer that abortion does not end a human life?
posted on 07.27.2004 9:27 PM43
Funk
"What assurance can you possibly offer that abortion does not end a human life?"
None. What assurance can you offer me that there aren't innocent people on death row? Note that everyone will agree that innocent adults should never be executed by the state. In contrast, there are a hundred different views about whether abortion is equivalent to murder. That is why abortion -- at least at some stages of a woman's pregnancy -- will always remain legal in this country. And that is why the death penalty will soon be unconstitutional.
Fyi, that stuff about the pillars of family being destroyed was a jokey riff on the way some conservatives characterize the gay marriage debate (another debate the conservatives will surely lose as the steamroller of history and progress flattens out their bigotry just as it did to the substantial number of white supremacists who used to exist in this country).
My advice: if you're unhappy, try a new salad dressing.
posted on 07.27.2004 9:56 PM44
"Startling Beauty - From Rape to Restoration" by Heather Gemmen
posted on 07.27.2004 10:07 PM45
Quote: A clump of two, four, eight or eight hundred cells is not a human being.
Wrong:
Human: any living member of the family (Hominidae) to which the primate (a kind of animal) belongs.
Living: having the properties of reproduction,growth, metabolism, and homeostasis.
Being: to have an present objective existence : have reality or actuality :
Therefore;A human being is a animal that belong belongs to the family Hominidae and in this context our perticular species (Homo sapiens sapiens) that has current living existance.
Blastula: early stage of an embryo produced by cleavage of an ovum; a liquid-filled sphere whose wall is composed of a single layer of cells; during this stage (about eight days after fertilization) implantation in the wall of the uterus occurs
Embryo: an animal in the early stages of growth and differentiation that are characterized by cleavage, the laying down of fundamental tissues, and the formation of primitive organs and organ systems
Therefore a Blastula is a kind of embryo which a kind of animal.
Therefore if the blastula is living embryo (which it is evidence by its growth) then its a living animal.
Therefore: A living human Blastula is a living human animal.
Since animals are beings, a human blastula is a human animal, therefore a human blastula is a human being.
Quote: This is a weak link in your argument, Joe, for at least the following reason: the DNA in the mother's germ cells (e.g., eggs) differs from the DNA of the mother, but "everyone" considers those eggs to be a part of the mother's body (until they are surgically removed or shed during menstruation). In other words, your "if then" argument doesn't hold water.
They aren't "germ" cells you idiot (germs...are something entirely different). They are gametes; haploid cells. The other cells are somatic cells. Its not a separate DNA code its 22 of the same autosomes +1 sex chromosome. You can't compare a DNA differences between two different diploid cells (46 chromosomes) with a haploid cell (n=23). Larry its quite apparent that you don't know anything about Biology...if you still think are do; go over to the ARN forum and debate ID vs. Evo to your hearts content (you probably won't understand the first word on the first post and say hi to Salvador for me).
posted on 07.28.2004 12:18 AM46
LL--Ideological vs political is a distinction without much of a difference. Looks like you are the one playing word games here.
Please feel free to cite some this scientific evidence that the embryo is not a biologically separtate unit from the mother.
This chicken thing is another example of your word games. I eat chicken and I eat eggs (preferably in an omelet with bacon, cheese, and peppers). I really don't care if the egg has been fertilized or not, but I don't eat human beings or human embryos. What's the joke.
posted on 07.28.2004 6:07 AM47
tg--I am pretty sure that it is not just repressed Christians who would object to the state (through the education system) teaching children how to masturbate, though I am pretty sure that there would be no shortage of volunteers to teach the 15-17 year old girl's class. Perhaps we could get Catholic priests to teach the pre-teen boys class (cheap shot, but I couldn't resist).
Seriously, how would you structure such a class? Would you use stale, clinical visual aids or would you use a safe-sex version of "Debbie Does Dallas"? Many would argue that in addition to having sex, many children will also drink (and possibly drive), and use drugs. Should we teach them be teaching them how to do that safely as well? Granted there are no 100% safe ways to drink and drive or shoot heroin, for example (just like there is no 100% safe sex), but should we teach them how to do these things more safely just in case.
posted on 07.28.2004 6:29 AM48
Rob Smith:
The drinking / drugs analogy falls flat, because while those behaviors are common, they are not inevitable. People are not biologically predisposed to taking drugs and drinking. People are biologically predisposed to having sex. Virtually everyone will eventually do it. Because of the inevitability of it, I would suggest we recognize that inevitability and deal with it.
As for how classes could differ, for one thing, as I already suggested, they could be ongoing. Rather than the two-days-and-a-diagram version I received. In fact, sex wasn't really discussed very much at all in our sex education class. Just a sort of "this is the penis, this is how it works, wet dreams are natural" kind of stuff.
As for masturbation, you can teach about masturbation without teaching kids to masturbate. The biggest thing is teaching postpubescent kids that masturbation is healthy and natural -- it is -- which is what the religious (not just Christian, mind you) conservatives get all funny about.
I'm not suggesting we go this far, of course, but masturbation and "outercourse" are much safer alternatives to actual sexual intercourse, that can help to control the sexual urges that every person naturally gets.
Septeus7:
If your clump of four or eight embryonic cells constitute a human being just like any other, then why do we not have funerals for every early-term miscarriage? Stillbirths and miscarriages late in the term of pregnancy are often treated differently; in that case, they often do give lsat rites or have a funeral or whatever. Why should this behavior change? Because people naturally understand that the embryo / early fetus hasn't achieved personhood yet.
posted on 07.28.2004 10:35 AM49
The drinking / drugs analogy falls flat, because while those behaviors are common, they are not inevitable
tg--The analogy only falls flat if you assume that teenagers having sex is inevitable.
posted on 07.28.2004 12:18 PM50
tg--The goal of AO education is to help children avoid sex until they are emotionally able to deal with the consequences.
"As for masturbation, you can teach about masturbation without teaching kids to masturbate. The biggest thing is teaching postpubescent kids that masturbation is healthy and natural -- it is --
If masturbation is healthy and natural, what's wrong with teaching kids to masturbate?
While "outercourse" is physically safer than intercours, without the risks of preganancy, it can still introduce emotional issues that children are not prepared to deal with. Plus, who really stops at outercourse?
posted on 07.28.2004 12:32 PM51
Rob Smith --
"LL--Ideological vs political is a distinction without much of a difference."
No, it's a huge difference, Rob. Ideologically, I can believe all sorts of things. But whether such ideologies can be floated politically is a completely different question. This gets back to what tgirsch and I have been saying. These people referred to as "pro-abortion" are not "pro-abortion". Nobody wants to maximize the number of abortions in this country. The question is what is the most pragmatic and Constitutional way to minimize abortions? THAT is where ideology takes a back seat to politics.
It's the (perhaps unsurprising) inability of fundies to appreciate this fact which dooms their efforts. The equation is simple: if abortion is murder (as the fundies claim) and if the death penalty is mandated for convicted murderers, then the evangelical fundies want to murder women who terminate their pregnancies.
Am I missing something? Nope. All I am missing is acknowledgement from the loudmouth idealogues that this is true. Of course, when the issues are laid out this nakedly, the loudmouths tend to shut up real fast. Why is that I wonder?
"I really don't care if the egg has been fertilized or not, but I don't eat human beings or human embryos. What's the joke."
The joke is that you completely miss the point. The point is that you insist that embryos and fetuses are equivalent to born animals for purposes of terminating pregancies but FOR EVERY OTHER PURPOSE THEY ARE TREATED DIFFERENTLY. When you have breakfast in a cafe, you do NOT order your "chicken" over easy. When someone asks you how many dogs you have, you do NOT include the fetal pups in your bitch's womb. If your wife is pregnant next year, will you add another child to your tax form before it is born? Nope. Why not? We all know why. The difference is that you aren't willing to admit it.
Septeus 7, that is the most laughable argument for why an embryo is a human being that I have ever seen. I didn't know bootstraps could be stretched that far.
posted on 07.28.2004 1:25 PM52
The equation is simple: if abortion is murder (as the fundies claim) and if the death penalty is mandated for convicted murderers, then the evangelical fundies want to murder women who terminate their pregnancies.
Congratulations on your brilliant exposition of right-wing hypocrisy. Want a cookie? Pointing out how the death penalty is inconsistant with a pro-life agenda doesn't make abortion any more right. Your appeal to consequences fails to make any useful statement about the moral implications of abortion. If abortion becomes illegal again, and furthermore murder rather than manslaughter, you could and should bring up your point. Unless and until that happens, stick to the matter at hand.
By the way, a visit to "The Fallacy Files" website would do you some good.
posted on 07.28.2004 2:26 PM53
Funky writes
"Pointing out how the death penalty is inconsistant with a pro-life agenda doesn't make abortion any more right."
Dude, read what I friggin wrote. I said nothing about the death penalty being inconsistent with a pro-life agenda.
What I said is that the pro-life "agenda", at it's been articulated by the "abortion=murder" pro-lifers, is INTERNALLY inconsistent to the extent that some fundamentalist Christians apparently wish to treat a certain class of child murderers differently from other child murderers. And I have to see a coherent explanation for this that does not (impermissibly) recognize that a fetus is different from a born child.
But let's clear up the problem at least with respect to you, Funky: do you, like SteveinCorona, believe that, when abortion=murder, a woman who intentionally terminates her pregnancy without remorse should not be executed (in offense to the Biblically mandated punishment for murderers)? Speak up! Don't be afraid! It's a free country (at least, for the most part).
"If abortion becomes illegal again, and furthermore murder rather than manslaughter, you could and should bring up your point."
Yeah, right, Funky. Is that the way wide-sweeping legislation is passed: shoot first, ask questions later? I don't think so. You should watch C-SPAN sometime to see how our government works. Thankfully, our Congress doesn't consist entirely of evangelicals pointing to passages from scripture and saying we're all going to hell if we don't pass more laws.
posted on 07.28.2004 2:53 PM54
LL--The reason I don't claim my wife's and my unborn son on our tax returns is because I would go to jail, not because he is not a human being. Your whole chicken/egg riff is really nothing more than a silly word game. When I order eggs, I don't specify fertilized or un-fertilized (perhaps you do), and chances are that it is un-fertilized (chicken farms tend to use the fertilized ones to make more chickens), so it is an egg.
It seems you feel that you can really stick it to us "fundies" if we don't support the death penalty for woman who get abortion, but that assumes that all "fundies" support the death penalty for all murders. Please cite your supporting evidence. Where I live they restrict the death penalty to copkillers and serial killers, I generally support that, though I would probably include serial rapists and child molesters as well. I don't really see the inconsistency.
posted on 07.28.2004 2:54 PM55
Funky: do you, like SteveinCorona, believe that, when abortion=murder, a woman who intentionally terminates her pregnancy without remorse should not be executed (in offense to the Biblically mandated punishment for murderers)? Speak up! Don't be afraid! It's a free country (at least, for the most part).
I'm Catholic. As such, I do not believe that the death penalty is defensible in most cases to which it is applied.
Preserving the common good of society requires rendering the aggressor unable to inflict harm. For this reason, the traditional teaching of the Church has acknowledged as well-founded the right and duty of legitimate public authority to punish malefactors by means of penalties commensurate with the gravity of the crime, not excluding, in cases of extreme gravity, the death penalty.If bloodless means are sufficient to defend human lives against an aggressor and to protect public order and the safety of persons, public authority should limit itself to such means. - Catechism 2266-67
Furthermore, it is far more likely that illegal abortion would be deemed manslaughter, rather than murder. Many types of killing which are considered murder in the Judao-Christian sense are prosecuted as manslaughter. Manslaughter is an insufficient charge to earn capital punishment.
I do not believe that the death penalty is consistent with Christ's teachings or the 8th Amendment. Therefore, in answer to your question, I do not believe that those who'd illegally obtain abortions should be sentenced to death.
posted on 07.28.2004 3:22 PM56
Rob Smith:
The analogy only falls flat if you assume that teenagers having sex is inevitable.Not so. Their having sex as teens is not inevitable, but for all intents and purposes, that they will eventually have sex is.
Further, the analogy falls flat because it is important to teach kids about drugs, alcohol, etc., just as it is important to teach them about sex. All of these things -- sex, drugs, alcohol, etc. -- are going to tempt them, and probably sooner than later. The more they know about them before that temptation strikes, the more likely they are to make good decisions.
Now this becomes especially true of sex education because, in addition to the peer pressure and the mixed signals from society and the ever-present temptation (also true of drugs and alcohol), there is the additional component of biological predisposition. This, to me, makes comprehensive education more important, not less so.
And comprehensive sex education programs do not increase sexual activity in teens. So much for the "free license" argument.
The goal of AO education is to help children avoid sex until they are emotionally able to deal with the consequences.That may be the goal, but it doesn't seem to be the actual effect:
On to masturbation:"Current research findings do not support the position that the abstinence-only approach to sexuality education is effective in delaying the onset of intercourse."
Council of Scientific Affairs. Report of the Council on Scientific Affairs. [Action of the AMA House of Delegates 1999 Interim Meeting, SCA Report 7-I-99.] Chicago, IL: American Medical Association, 1999.
If masturbation is healthy and natural, what's wrong with teaching kids to masturbate?I imagine there would be some health & cleanliness concerns, for starters, that would rule out a "hands-on" (bad pun intended) course. But I suppose nothing, other than the fact that masturbation has irrationally been a taboo subject for decades, and it would be a tough sell.
While "outercourse" is physically safer than intercours, without the risks of preganancy, it can still introduce emotional issues that children are not prepared to deal with.Possibly so, but so does a death in the family, or a divorce, or alcoholism, etc. We can do the three monkeys routine and ignore these, or we can deal with them openly and honestly.
Plus, who really stops at outercourse?Several of my ex-girlfriends, actually... ;) Besides, once the male is "done," ain't nothing happening for at least another 15-20 minutes, whether they want to proceed or not. posted on 07.28.2004 3:33 PM
57
Funky
"I do not believe that those who'd illegally obtain abortions should be sentenced to death. "
Well, what do you know: we agree on something! :)
Now if only I could count on you to chastise your fellow Christians every time they equate abortion with murder, then we'd really be cooking with gas.
posted on 07.28.2004 4:53 PM58
Rob writes
"It seems you feel that you can really stick it to us "fundies" if we don't support the death penalty for woman who get abortion, but that assumes that all "fundies" support the death penalty for all murders. Please cite your supporting evidence."
I don't assume that "all fundies" support the death penalty for murder, Rob. If fact, if you read my posts with reasonable care you'll see that I am well aware of facts to the contrary.
My point is that abortion is not the intentional murder of a human being. Never was. Never will be. Fundies who say otherwise should be forced to admit the legal (and logical) repercussions of their argument or shut the hell up.
The annoying thing is that even Christians (like you) put up with it without protesting, or you fight like a dog to avoid discussion of this glaringly obvious and patently germane issue.
posted on 07.28.2004 4:59 PM59
LL-Perhaps if most of your posts weren't obnoxious rants, I would feel compelled to read them more carefully.
Your point is that it is YOUR OPINION that abortion is not (nor never has been) murder. I disagree, but that does not mean I have to support the death penalty for women who have abortion (though I would for doctors who perform such). It would be nice if you would concede that before 1973, abortion was illegal in many states, so while they may not have called it murder they knew it was wrong.
posted on 07.28.2004 8:04 PM60
Rob, I'll concede that before 1973, abortion was illegal in many states, so while the legislatures in those states may not have called it murder they felt compelled to pass laws restricting its practice.
Now, can you tell me what the punishment was for women who terminated their pregnancies in those states? Or for doctors who terminated women's pregancies in those states?
Was the punishment anything close to that for the intentional murder of a child by a person showing no remorse for the killing?
Was the punishment different for a doctor who terminated a pregnancy versus a women who terminated her pregancy on her own?
Just fyi, your position that women who terminate other women's pregancies should be executed is, in my opinion and in the opinion of the vast majority of Americans, incredibly extreme. There is no possible way that you can justify such a punishment (and again, how is it that the women who ASKS FOR THE ABORTION gets off scott free???? Can anyone explain this to me???)
posted on 07.28.2004 9:32 PM61
LL--Perhaps if you read my posts carefully, you would know that it has never been my position that the woman requesting the abortion get off "scot-free", only that she not be eligible for the death penalty. If abortion is ever made illegal, I am sure an appropriate punishment can be worked out through the legislative process. But in all honestly, my focus is not on punishing woman, but on saving unborn children.
Honestly, I don't know what the punishment for abortion was when it was illegal, and truthfully I fail to see its relevance.
posted on 07.29.2004 5:42 AM62
Okay Rob. I'll put you down as "abortion should be illegal but there needn't be any punishment for having one."
posted on 08.04.2004 8:36 PM