[Note: Since today marks the the 35th anniversary of the Roe v. Wade decision, I've decided to repost this entry from 2004.]
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.
When you printed this 4 years ago I responded by pointing out the pervasive factual and logical errors that run through it. The post is simply wrong in almost every point it tries to make, and makes little sense besides. You must know that, because you've been told, and the evidence was given. Yet you choose to repeat claims that have been shown to be utterly groundless.
The best I can do is to repost my original refutation. Those who believe truth is relevant to argumentation may find it useful.
* * * * * * * * * * * * *
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:
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 intrusion 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:
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:
You say explicitly and unambiguously:
But the decision says:
The Court unambiguously 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 (in a discussion of the reasons why the fetus is not a person). It appears in Stewart's concurring opinion twice - once in a footnote, and once in an explicit list of legal rights which are not, by themselves, the ground for liberty rights in general. The word "property" does not appear anywhere at all in Rehnquist's dissenting opinion, which would be rather odd if property rights were in fact the basis for the majority opinion upholding abortion rights - but they're not. The concept you describe, quite simply, 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.
[to be continued]
[continued from above]
From there you go on to a very strange logical argument:
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 specific 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 an 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:
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.
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 other words, the right of privacy permits whatever a court arbitrarily decides it permits because there really is no logical reason for a court to allow abortion and then disallow the use of "medical marijuana", for instance.
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.
But the fetus is not a body part. Biologically it is a unique individual and biologically it is human. This distinguishes it from an appendix, a pancreas, or intestinal flora. It has the ability to grow and function independently of the mother. It is possible to kill the fetus without killing the mother and it is possible to kill the mother without killing the fetus. The same cannot be said for a pancreas, or an appendix.
Looking at your "disanolgies", they also fail:
1. Fetuses are physically undeveloped, unborn, and helpless;
Whether a fetus is born or not should be irrelevant to its status as a person. If we accept that, it means that a 6 month premie has more of the qualities that makes it a person than an 8 month in-utero, which is just silly. It's like arguing wine in a bottle isn't wine, it only becomes wine when it is poured into a glass. State of development, likewise, should be irrelevant. Infants are undeveloped (and helpless), but nobody would argue that they aren't people. Essentially this is an argument of geography, "personhood" is dependent on being located outside the womb. State of helplessness, likewise should be meaningless. Stephen Hawking is quite helpless, and without his machine is not much more able to communicate than an infant, but no sane person would argue that he is not a person.
Fetuses cannot survive outside another person's body
Sure they can. They do all the time and at fairly early stages of development. Here's an assignment for you. Visit a hospital with a NICU; you will see that 24 week (about 5.5 months) fetuses are considered viable.
Fetuses are unconscious, have no thoughts, desires, interests, or personalities
This is an unprovable assumption on your part. It also makes me wonder if you have ever had contact with a pregnant woman.
Fetuses arrive unwanted inside another person's body
Do you know how babies are made? It is typically not an involuntary process. It is also a process that is pretty well understood by the parties involved; no mystery there. Fetuses don't just arrive, they are put there by a specific mechanism. It's not like getting hit by a meteor, where you have no control; it's more like winning a contest in that take affirmative action by sending in your entry form.
Fetuses have no family connections, no loved ones, no family history or hopes for family legacy
Really? Again I wonder if you've ever met a pregnant woman
Kevin,
Is it necessary that the argument today be framed in the arguments of yesterday? Joe may need to restate the position, but it seems useful that he (the pro-life movement) can make full use of the property (owned body part) discussion and deal with that point, perhaps with some success. I believe you missed the implicit ownership of one's body, and that's scientific (biological and genetic) knowledge concerning the fetal human which has changed over the past 35 years.
In short, the unborn have never been recognized in the law as persons in the whole sense.
[Section IXB]
Children themselves are not recognized as persons in the whole sense, are they? I'm just asking. The issue of child autonomy is a sensitive one. Almost in no area does a child have a choice. They eat what their parents give them and they can exercise their own will only to the extent permitted by their parents. It seems to me at first blush Joe, that going in the direction you suggest could lead to dangerous interference with parental authority. We certainly don't want that. I don't know the answer. I'm just throwing this out for discussion.
I don't like responding to Joe's 'reruns'. First I doubt he reads the comments in detail and participates in the debate when he is just rerunning an old idea (I assume he does it because he is pressed for time anyway). Second, there's a bit of a balance of trade here....if we don't get a new idea from Joe why should we give Joe our new ideas. I have a blog that is woefully under posted to by myself!!!!
But here's my nutshell objection; whether or not the fetus is property doesn't really matter. What matters is that the woman is her own property and as a practical matter there is no way to remove a fetus from her body without abortion.
This argument would become relevant if it became possible to incubate a fetus outside a human womb or to implant a fetus in another woman's womb who wishes to carry a baby. In that case I would be more sympathetic to an argument that once the woman no longer had the fetus in her body she has no right to demand its destruction.
ps why is everyone's posts coming out in all italics? A bug in the blog?
Let's cut to the chase, and bring up a few facts about all human fetsus (fetii?)
1) They are genetically homo sapien.
2) They are all genetically different from their mother.
3) They are all lifeforms that, given sufficient time in the womb, will result in a new human life.
All three points taken together defeat the argument that a fetus is not a distinct human life from conception. A fetus cannot be just another part of a woman's body if all three of those points stand.
It is philosophy that has poisoned the abortion debate by allowing sophistic questions like "what really is a life" to be entertained. We know what a human life is. It is an organism of species homo sapien. All disagreements with this are ultimately just a way for someone to rationalize their own desire for abortion "rights."
MikeT
The first two of your points would also apply to sperm cells, egg cells and the various bacteria and other life forms (helpful, harmful and neither) that inhabit our bodies. The third is an IF THEN statement that weakens your argument considerabily. Yes IF various things happen THEN you get a new human life. IF I go to law school, pass the bar, go to med school, pass the exam THEN I'll be a doctor and a lawyer. But that doesn't make me either today.
ps why is everyone's posts coming out in all italics? A bug in the blog?
It looks okay if you follow the comments link from the main page, but on this page all the comments are italicized. Strange.
Collin:
My point is that Joe's post is simply wrong in most of its important claims. He states the facts of the case incorrectly, and makes logical inferences that are both unsound and invalid. And this was pointed out the first two times he ran this post - but he keeps saying the same factually false and illogical things over and over. This isn't a matter of personal preference or mere opinion - the things he says are simply false. You can look them up. I did. (The Roe decision has nothing at all to do with property rights - it isn't even an implicit concept in the decison, it's an explicitly rejected concept! [See Stewart's concurring opinion explicitly rejecting property rights as a ground for the liberty rights defended in Roe, and the complete lack of any discussion of property whatsoever in Rehnquist's dissent, for evidence of how irrelevant that concept is to the Roe decision.] His other arguments and examples are equally empty.)
The only conclusion is that he doesn't care whether his arguments are worthy or not. If he took his own arguments seriously he would stop saying things that can be proven false simply by looking up the answers, and, hopefully, he would stop using dishonest or offensive analogies that deliberately ignore the moral standing of the people he compares to fetuses, and hopefully he would avoid simplistic, exclusionary thinking such as blindly declaring that everything must fit into one of exactly three categories of his own devising with no explanation given. Not only does he not stop doing these things, he does them over and over after they've been exploded. Since these "arguments" have no defensible conceptual content, they must be intended as mere rhetorical strategems. In that role, they may well be successful, given the extraordinarily low intellectual standards of the religious right. But to knowingly offer false arguments in the hope of confusing those who don't know better is a very shameful form of advocacy.
As to your own point, briefly: It's interesting that the factual grounds for debate on the subject of abortion have not shifted that much since the Roe decision. It was at one time an article of faith on the right that Roe was "on a collision course with technology" - that the incremental advance in neonatal care would push fetal viability further and further forward and destroy the "trimester" framework of the abortion decision. In fact, the earliest recorded fetal survivals have shifted only a few weeks, and the borderline of probably viability (greater than even only 50% survival) has shifted very little. The increasing stream of fictional medical conditions associated with abortion - "Post-Abortion Trauma", "Breast-Cancer/Abortion Linkage", etc., have all been soundly refuted. The most recent one - the question of fetal pain - at best remains inconclusive, and that only by way of suggestions that fetuses feel pain in some undiscovered way differently from adults. As we understand more about brain function in relation to personhood, the distinction between persons and early fetuses only becomes clearer. In short, the relevant factual issues relating to abortion are much as they were 35 years ago, although our knowledge of each of them has increased. And certainly, the violence to women's lives and freedom from having their bodies taken from them and turned over to involuntary service to others' plans and whims is as real as ever.
Re: italics.
My bad. I think I left a tag open in my first response, and it affected everything lower down the page. Sorry.
In support of the pro-life cause,here are seven short essays against abortion:
http://www.michaelbauman.com/politics.htm
For the record, slaves were considered to be both persons and property. Fetuses are considered to be neither.
Seeing as how the Bible is energetically pro-slavery in both Old and New Testaments, I'm not sure you want to make too close an analogy between abortion and slavery.
And what is the deal with conservative Christians and false, but alliterating, trilemmas?
Kevin,
You may well be right (because I've not studied all of them) on the noted historical matters. But I think you're in error about the implications of what the post was saying.
Additionally, there are other historical matters where you are weak. The field of genetics has taken serious leaps forward since Roe. Matters of technology that have gone forward include great improvments in the viability of premature infants as well as inutero surgery.
Right now the pro-abort rhetoric is quite reductionist, unwilling to deal with science (which today is completely ignored because it is inconvenient) and resorting to the rhetoric of a radical individualism, as Erica Jong stated on today's HuffPo:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/erica-jong/if-men-could-get-pregnant_b_82467.html
But should a woman be forced by the law to give birth if she has health issues, a dead baby, twins or triplets, or can't get to a hospital or must be accompanied but a male relative--who may be at war or dead or unwilling?
If men could get pregnant, abortion would be a sacrament.
She will not deal with the humanity of the unborn, one of the notable scientific advances. It seems convenience and ad absurdum arguments, and cliche are all she has.
Collin
http://evangelicalperspective.blogspot.com/
Collin:
Genetics contributes nothing to the abortion debate. In fact, it is a sign of the weakness of the forced-childbirth position that advocates continually natter about DNA as a support for their deliberately equivocal argument about "humanity", without ever offering a reason why either of those issues matters.
The claim you make is about the "humanity" of the fetus, and that it has supposedly been ignored by pro-choice advocates. But this word is ambiguous and is deliberately used in an ambiguous fashion. There is no question that a human fetus is "human" in a biological sense; genetics is not required for, and adds nothing to, determining that. But the phrase "human being" is often (and very unfortunately) used to mean "moral person"; the early fetus, and likely every fetus, is not a "human being" in that sense, and being biologically "human" does not prove that, and is irrelevant to the question whether one is, a "human being" in the moral sense anyway. Nothing that has been or can be learned about genetics establishes the moral personhood of the human fetus - and in fact, as we learn how complicated genetics and developmental biology are, we discover how impossible it is to craft any genetically-based definition of personhood (if such a concept even made sense) that does not include obvious non-persons and exclude those who obviously are persons. (The standardly-offered, poorly-conceived, genetic criteria in this regard are complete failures: a "unique" genome implies that identical twins are not persons; a "normal human" genome implies that those carrying new mutations are not persons; a "merely human" genome implies that a dermoid cyst resulting from a partially-absorbed, undeveloped conjoined twin [fairly common, actually] is a person [i.e., the cyst is a person]; and so on.)
Similarly, operations performed on fetuses in utero are even more irrelevant. How is that possibly a definition of moral personhood? "If you can operate on it, it's a person?" Where does that come from. I once operated on a rat in a biology lab, but I don't feel obligated to put it through college, still less let it live inside my body against my will.
Some other comments: I don't know what you mean by accusing pro-freedom advocates of being "reductionistic" in "ignoring science". For one thing, science is generally taken to be the quintessential form of reductionism. For another, everything we know about science supports abortion rights - it demonstrates the lack of personhood of the early fetus, and it documents the consistent and significant safety benefits of early abortion compared with childbirth. (It also documents the abject failure of "abstinence only" campaigns and the consequences of lack of birth control, as related matters.) And when science is invoked in support of forced childbirth - as in claims of bogus psychological consequences of abortion, or breast cancer, or sterility, and so on - the truth has in every case turned out to be the opposite.
Finally, I don't know what you mean by "radical individualism". That concept seems to have nothing to do with abortion. As near as I can tell, you mean to say that those who favor autonomy for women don't always insist that every embryo is more important than every woman regardless of circumstance or consequence, and do insist on caring about women and their needs, rights, and choices. That certainly is the pro-liberty position regarding abortion; there's no secret about that. But note that that is all Jong said in your quote. She asked nothing more than why a woman should be forced by the law to surrender their freedom to make their own decisions, even in the most burdensome cases. Her implied suggestion is no more than that women should not be forced into such a position. It's hardly a very radical moral claim, and it has little to do with "individualism". I suppose it does imply that individual women matter, and have at least some degree of moral autonomy. I'm sorry to hear how radical that seems.
She asked nothing more than why a woman should be forced by the law to surrender their freedom to make their own decisions,
Of course, the reality is that all people (not just women) are "forced by the law to surrender their freedom to make their own decisions" on matters much less morally significant than abortion. So this point is interesting, but irrelevant.
The claim you make is about the "humanity" of the fetus, and that it has supposedly been ignored by pro-choice advocates. But this word is ambiguous and is deliberately used in an ambiguous fashion.
You mean like when abortion advocates use terms like person or, "personhood"? As far as I can tell, a person is someone abortion advocates don't want to kill. Once that person becomes inconvenient, it is no longer a person.
Similarly, operations performed on fetuses in utero are even more irrelevant. How is that possibly a definition of moral personhood?
What it demonstrates is that the fetus is a biologically distinct human individual. While it resides in the mother temporarily, it is not a part of the mother. It has its own distinct human genetic code and its own physiological (cardiac, pulmonary, neurological, etc.) systems separate from the mother. It is possible to harm or kill the fetus without killing the mother, and conversely it is possible to harm or kill the mother without killing the fetus. This distinguishes the fetus from an appendix or a finger. An appendix or a finger cannot survive independently, a fetus can.
Kevin,
Genetics contributes nothing to the abortion debate? We now know that the unborn is a human at conception. That's science.
Human is an ambiguous term? "Fetus" is a Human Fetus, not any other type. It's not an impersonal object, and being Human is evident.
Inutero technology and premature viability can affect abortion availability in many states.
Forced childbirth? Now you're picking up the political talking points and contributing nothing to the discussion.
Collin
ucfengr
Of course, the reality is that all people (not just women) are "forced by the law to surrender their freedom to make their own decisions" on matters much less morally significant than abortion. So this point is interesting, but irrelevant.
Perhaps but then again you'll be hard pressed to find a freedom as significant that people are forced to surrender by law. To see this imagine a reverse policy. Imagine, say, a state ordering people to get pregnant as part of a population expansion program. Or imagine a state forcing certain women to get abortions (say chronic welfare cases, those with a history of neglect, genetic illnesses etc.). It would be pretty silly to compare that infringement on freedom with, say, a zoning law that doesn't let you add a their level to your house.
What it demonstrates is that the fetus is a biologically distinct human individual. While it resides in the mother temporarily, it is not a part of the mother. It has its own distinct human genetic code and its own physiological (cardiac, pulmonary, neurological, etc.) systems separate from the mother. It is possible to harm or kill the fetus without killing the mother, and conversely it is possible to harm or kill the mother without killing the fetus.
Possible but nonetheless the two are linked and that link cannot be broken with out technology without causing harm (at least in the early stages of pregnancy).
This distinguishes the fetus from an appendix or a finger. An appendix or a finger cannot survive independently, a fetus can.
Except it can't. It can survive with sci-fi technology that doesn't exist (artifical wombs). It can survive in some cases with massive technological intervention but the fact is for the most part a fetus cannot survive without its mother. It's interesting that in their quest to build arguments to defend their positions, many pro-lifers end up degrading the role of the mother. In these endless analogies they seem to think the relationship between a mother and unborn child is more like the relationship between two next door neighbors who rarely talk!
Collin
Genetics contributes nothing to the abortion debate? We now know that the unborn is a human at conception. That's science.
Actually science also says human before conception. Last I checked it is human egg and sperm cells before conception....
Forced childbirth? Now you're picking up the political talking points and contributing nothing to the discussion.
Nothing but honesty. That is what outlawing abortion is. What's the point of having a dicussion if we can't be honest about that.
It's interesting that in their quest to build arguments to defend their positions, many pro-lifers end up degrading the role of the mother. In these endless analogies they seem to think the relationship between a mother and unborn child is more like the relationship between two next door neighbors who rarely talk!
If I were to accept the premise, it is at least marginally better than the pro-choicers, who view the mother and child as adversaries locked in a conflict to the death.
Except it can't.
It's kind of silly to follow this statement with this:
It can survive in some cases with massive technological intervention but the fact is for the most part a fetus cannot survive without its mother.
So your point is that the fetus can't survive separate from the mother, except when it can. And truthfully, perhaps you should visit a modern hospital. The technology required to save even very early premies (24 weeks) is pretty common.
FWIW and despite my personal dislike for the practices, In Vitro Fertilization and Surrogate Motherhood pretty much put the subject of viability with respect to the fetus versus finger or appendix to rest. While it may one day be possible to coax an appendix or finger to grow In Vitro, the only obvious outcome would be for transplant to replace a missing or diseased appendix or finger in the person from whom the appendix or finger was grown. To use them for another person would require a strict regime of drugs to inhibit rejection. The same is not true for fertilized eggs with respect to Surrogate mothers.
"Human is an ambiguous term? "Fetus" is a Human Fetus, not any other type. It's not an impersonal object, and being Human is evident."
A human fetus is still a fetus...its not in any way comparable to an actualy human being.
"Inutero technology and premature viability can affect abortion availability in many states."
It would certainly be preferable to find means of removing an unwanted fetus without killing it and at no more cost than an abortion...lets call that the ideal solution.
"Forced childbirth? Now you're picking up the political talking points and contributing nothing to the discussion."
Thats actualy a statement of fact,not a political talking point...if you forbid a woman from ending her pregnancy,she is then forced to go through with it as there is no third alternative here.
"Human is an ambiguous term? "Fetus" is a Human Fetus, not any other type. It's not an impersonal object, and being Human is evident."
A human fetus is still a fetus...its not in any way comparable to an actualy human being.
"Inutero technology and premature viability can affect abortion availability in many states."
It would certainly be preferable to find means of removing an unwanted fetus without killing it and at no more cost than an abortion...lets call that the ideal solution.
"Forced childbirth? Now you're picking up the political talking points and contributing nothing to the discussion."
Thats actualy a statement of fact,not a political talking point...if you forbid a woman from ending her pregnancy,she is then forced to go through with it as there is no third alternative here.
Boonton,
Honesty? It's actually nothing more than the contrived rhetoric of 60s feminism.
If I were to accept the premise, it is at least marginally better than the pro-choicers, who view the mother and child as adversaries locked in a conflict to the death.
Actually they don't. For the most part they recognize a clash of interests which is what the situation is.
So your point is that the fetus can't survive separate from the mother, except when it can. And truthfully, perhaps you should visit a modern hospital.
Missing the point, the fetus is not independant unless it is provided with a massive amount of high-tech. One can imagine a finger being supported by a massive life-support machine, perhaps even having an entirely new body grown to attach it to (ala The Fifth Element). That doesn't make a severed finger an 'independent lifeform'.
smm
FWIW and despite my personal dislike for the practices, In Vitro Fertilization and Surrogate Motherhood pretty much put the subject of viability with respect to the fetus versus finger or appendix to rest.
No they don't. These things only work when done inside the mother or done in a lab and then immediately put inside the mother. We do not have the technology for one woman to 'donate' an unwanted fetus to another woman who wants to carry one (or to an artifical womb or whatnot). AS I said, I would agree with the viabity argument in that case, if a fetus could be removed from a woman her right to abortion would be limited only to having the fetus removed from her body....she'd have no right to prevent the fetus from growing elsewhere.
Ever heard of frozen fertilized eggs? But the crux of it does not really come down to viability or the fetus being a separate being from the mother and father, as has been pointed out before, it comes down to being unwanted and the fetus is treated like property. Imagine how I would be treated if I tried to walk away from a month or two old automobile I bought on loan by paying out just $300 or $400 to get it totalled out.
Yes I have heard of frozen fertilized eggs. As I said that is done in a test tube. I'll say it again, we do not have the technology to 'transplant' a fertilized egg from one woman to another woman.
And it isn't so much about treating the fetus like property but treating your own body like it is your own property...which legally it is. If it isn't, then whose is it? The States? The Church's?
Joe, I hate to say I have to go with Mr. Keith on the whole. I think he gets a little shrill and goes to far with his objections, but nothing wrong with a little scorched earth now and again either. I absolutely agree that reframing as property won't stir the spectre of slavery in their bosoms.
That said, you are correct in the sense that it is most akin to property. While I understand and agree with your distinction with "part" I don't think it will be generally persuasive. (I think both Boonton and Keith have addressed this.)
However, if you want to reframe and give something for the pro-abortion advocates to chew on then don't reframe at all. Just carry out the logical and equal rights extension of their arguemnt:
Her body, her choice. Her choice, her responsibility.
With any sense of sanity the putative He cannot have any say over what she does with her body. Therefore he shares no obligation in the responsibilities that arise from there.
Likewise it is Her Right. If the state will subsidize abortions then it need subsidize the poor in making a personal choice to exercise other Rights. Such as guns, printing press access, suits against government etc. We already do this with public defenders of course.
They claim "forced birth" -- otherwise known as a natural process as predetermined as the passing of puberty -- is an injustice and you will not convince them or the fence-sitters otherwise. Instead let them defend the justice they create. If you want to put a vision of moral hazard in front of the fence-sitters this is the way to do it. Appeals to equality rather than appeals to what they say as religious dogma.
Missing the point, the fetus is not independant unless it is provided with a massive amount of high-tech.
What is your point? Stephen Hawking isn't independent unless he is provided with a massive amount of "high-tech", neither was Christopher Reeves. What about people with Jarvik hearts? Are they not people because they are dependent on very sophisticated technology. Heck, what about diabetics? Insulin is pretty low tech now, but it wasn't always. For that matter, it wasn't that long ago that antibiotics were "high-tech". Lot's of people are dependent on "high-tech" for their independence and even their lives; are they not people?
So if somebody touches my hand (my property) I can chop them up into little bits and dispose of them because they were taking up space on my property? Nice.
So if somebody touches my hand (my property) I can chop them up into little bits and dispose of them because they were taking up space on my property? Nice.
So carrying a child is like someone accidently brushing your hand in line at the Shoprite? Nice.
Likewise it is Her Right. If the state will subsidize abortions then it need subsidize the poor in making a personal choice to exercise other Rights. Such as guns, printing press access, suits against government etc. We already do this with public defenders of course.
Rights are usually not subsidized. Although the state can subsidize certain choices. Your church donation is tax deductable. Public defenders are more nuanced, it's really a limit on gov't power. The gov't can't convict you of a crime unless it provides for an acceptable defense.
They claim "forced birth" -- otherwise known as a natural process as predetermined as the passing of puberty -- is an injustice and you will not convince them or the fence-sitters otherwise
Perhaps but it is nonetheless accurate despite Collin's belief that truth is determined by whether or not something was said by feminists in the 1960's. And no it's not a natural process that's predetermined. If I stab you in the heart I could say you're bleeding to death is a natural process predetermined as the passing of puberty...that hardly makes your death no different than the 80 year old man who dies naturally of a heart attack.
I've said this before and I'll say it again. I think the pro-life movement cost themselves a lot in the 1970's when they decided that 99% of the fight over abortion was a legal fight. Since then we've had a huge amount of energy devoted to the creation of convoluted legal argument, strained analogies and spurious reasoning. The pro-life movement forgot that legal briefs are a poor substitute for winning public opinion.
AS a result pro-lifers are amazingly tone deaf when it comes to women. Look at the arguments here, women seem to have been pushed into bit players in the topic of bearing children! People equate carrying a child to, ohhhh someone accidently touching your hand or having an annoying next door neighbor.
A while ago I prosposed a simple idea. A flat no questions asked $2,500 bounty paid to any woman who gave birth. They could put the kid up for adoption or raise it themselves, doesn't matter. Of course this would be paid for by taxpayers. Of course some women might get pregnant just to get the $2,500 but considering it takes 9 months to bear a child they would be better off getting a min. wage job.
Considering that most decisions to have abortions are made on the margin (the woman would probably have the child if things were just a little bit easier), such a policy could prevent maybe 40% of all abortions overnight. A lot less work than trying to do that by standing in the cold and yelling profanities at women going into clinics, no? Even pro-choicers would be hard pressed to argue against such a policy. After all, it implicitly recognizes women's bodies as their own and compensates them for using their bodies for the benefit of others.
Did I say accidentally?
Well? Did I say accidentally?
"Forced childbearing" deserves consideration because of the shallowness that is obvious.
A The woman became pregnant because of Choice. (Obviously except for rape.)
A1 That means she is bearing a child, not out of coercion, but out of Choice.
A2 Nobody forced her. She made her Choice.
B The unborn is a distinct human being from the moment of conception. That's science.
B1 The unborn is doing no intentional harm to the mother.
(Where an abortion is done to protect the physical life of the mother is not a general issue. The greater concern is the elective abortion.)
B2 The unborn has no voice.
Forced child bearing is fallacious because it presumes that the woman, with the abortionist as her agent, is protecting herself or her "rights" to her own body by terminating another human life.
** A woman has a right to her own body, but no rights to the body of another person.
Unfortunately Boonton is neither willing to think nor willing to apply science to his own position.
Collin
http://evangelicalperspective.blogspot.com
Forced child bearing is fallacious because it presumes that the woman, with the abortionist as her agent, is protecting herself or her "rights" to her own body by terminating another human life.
But if she does have a right to her own body (and if she doesn't then what does anyone have a right to?) then that's exactly why it isn't fallacious.
Terminating another human life is not a right in itself but a consquence of one right trumping another. It happens elsewhere with hardly a peep from anyone. My right to my body, for example, is causing others to die. I could donate blood, bone marrow, one of my kidneys, even a portion of my liver without killing myself...yet I do not and as a result people die. Perhaps the state could mandate that everyone submit to tissue testing and 'draft' them as donars when 'their type' was needed by others. Yet no one proposes that and if they did I doubt pro-lifers would give them much support.
Causing others to die? That is patently false. The cause is disease or injury that you had no involvement in, and your lack of donation doesn't exactly get you involved in their lives either. When was the last time you were sued for wrongful death because you didn't donate?
And the cause of a fetus's death is its inability to survive outside the womb. As I pointed out, if the technology existed for artifical wombs or transplants to the wombs of willing women abortion would not mean death for the fetus. While I would say in such a situtation the woman couldn't demand death for the fetus once removed (which she may want to, to avoid being a mother), would you say a woman would have a right to an abortion if such technology was available?
"When was the last time you were sued for wrongful death because you didn't donate?"
It's easy to construct such a possibile scenario. Suppose you need a kidney and I'm a match. I tell you I will donate to you. We schedule the operation for Monday...another donar kidney is available but you pass it on because you're getting mine. On Monday, on the table, I get cold feet and change my mind. As a result you die because the kidney you passed up is gone and no new one becomes available in time.
I've done a lot more to put you in that position than, say, a teenage girl experimenting with sex. Your family could even sue me. What they could not do, though, is ask a court to force me to go through with the operation against my will.
Let's take it a step more, even if you had a contract with me and had paid me (pretend organ selling wasn't illegal). While you could sue to get your money back you still couldn't sue to take my kidney.
"A woman has a right to her own body, but no rights to the body of another person."
but isent that an impossible scenario..if she has a right to her own body,as you admit,she has a right to chose to CEASE to be pregnant at any moment..and if you say she doesnt,then that means she cease to have any rights as a person as long as "another" one is growing inside her. And lets say that abortion is abolished as a legal practice in the US...what then?...would it be legal for woman to get abortions say in Canada or elsewhere? or would she be indicted as a murderer if she did so? and then where do we go from there? Dangerous or stressfull activities (such as sports or even the day to day events of a demanding carreer)that harm the unborn fetus or cause it to be lost also landing women in the slammer? The murky depths to which this all too slippery sloape can sink to is really terrifying...doubly so due to the massive history of those paternalistic organisations rushing down the sloape with the treatement of woman as a form of property. I personally believe abortion to be a disgudting practice but i am forced to place my support behind it because i absolutely dont trust the cultists,whatever their pet denomination, to stop at the banning of abortion.
Ludwig,
It is you who created the slippery slope.
It sounds like you'd rather abort your own conscience than bring real solutions.
Collin
"It is you who created the slippery slope."
I didnt create any slope...i merely pointed to the one that allready exists.
"It sounds like you'd rather abort your own conscience than bring real solutions."
returning woman to the status of property to be disposed of at man's whims is NOT a solution,real or imaginary. yet that is precisely the inevitable end result of the position you advocate...therefore i contend that it is you who arent inteested in any real solution.
returning woman to the status of property to be disposed of at man's whims is NOT a solution,real or imaginary.
What about women who are pro-life? Are they really saying that they would prefer to "return to the status of property, to be disposed of at a man's whims? Susan B. Anthony was pro-life; what was she fighting for? The right to be the property of a man? Somehow I don't think so.
"What about women who are pro-life? Are they really saying that they would prefer to "return to the status of property, to be disposed of at a man's whims? Susan B. Anthony was pro-life; what was she fighting for? The right to be the property of a man? Somehow I don't think so."
Oh but there are plenty of women who have been raised on the belief that the natural (or supernatural god ordained) way of doing things is with women as subordinates to men. Maybe Susan B Anthony is like me reppelled with the very idea of abortion but,unlike me,believe that the cultists who are behind the pro life movement will stop at banning abortion as a legal practice while researching alternate REALISTIC and fair solutions to the situations that created the whole debate to begin with. It is unfortunately not a belief that is grounded in any substancial knowlege of cultist mentality and history, which reflects quite clearly that to these people,victory must always be absolute,unconditional and without compromise and that they prefer to punish those people who opposed them rather than go through any meaningfull effort to convince them why their way is really better in the end.
How many people have you done that to? How many people have been sued for wrongful death lately because they didn't even volunteer to donate anything at all? I don't think a court would even consider hearing such a case.
It's damn hard for a fetus to survive inside the womb when somebody sticks knives, lye or acid in there to get rid of it too... but the cause is not the inability to survive outside the womb.
Oh but there are plenty of women who have been raised on the belief that the natural (or supernatural god ordained) way of doing things is with women as subordinates to men.
Yeah, that's it, all those Christist Stepford Wives out there. You really don't know many religious folk do you?
Unfortunately Boonton is neither willing to think nor willing to apply science to his own position.
It is puzzling how willing atheists, the ostensibly rational among us, are to through off science when it doesn't suit their position. In this they remind me of Young Earth Creationists. They persist in trying to equate a fetus with an appendix or a finger when there is no scientific basis for the comparison. A finger does not grow independently of the person, nor does an appendix. A fetus does. A finger can never reach a point where it can survive and thrive independently of the host. A fetus can. A finger cannot respond independently of its owner, a fetus can. If you kill the host, the finger dies; a fetus does not necessarily do so.
The sad thing about this whole discussion is that, unlike YEC'ers, Boonton, et. al. know that the fetus isn't a part of the mother, but they persist in the fiction because if they were to admit that abortion really is the taking of innocent human life, they would have to accept that it isn't Christians that are the real monsters in this debate.
ucfengr
What about women who are pro-life?
They should refrain from having abortions. Likewise the state should not be able to force anyone to have an abortion against their will.
Here's a question. Suppose it becomes possible to safely tranplant a fetus from one womb to another (or to a artifical womb). What about women whose wombs are unsafe places for a fetus? This could be women who abuse drugs but it could also be women who...say...have a genetic profile that makes them at high risk for a miscarriage.
Following the logic presented here, the state would have the right to force these women to give up their unborn babies and have them implanted in wombs that it deems are 'safer'. After all, if the fetus is NOT the property of the mother then on what grounds can she object to it being moved to a safer location? If the fetus has the right to demand the state protect it against abortion then why wouldn't it also have the right to demand additional protections. AFter all, no one really questions removing a baby from a home that is unsafe?
It is puzzling how willing atheists, the ostensibly rational among us, are to through off science when it doesn't suit their position. In
1. I have never claimed to be an atheist.
2. It's always amazing how willing pro-lifers are to ignore the actual arguments made and fight pretend arguments that were never made. For example....
The sad thing about this whole discussion is that, unlike YEC'ers, Boonton, et. al. know that the fetus isn't a part of the mother,...
Now I should ask you if you feel stupid making this statement. After all, I've said several times now that the legal issue here is the property right the woman has to her own body which creates the conflict of rights with the fetus. That would clearly seem to imply that we are talking about two different entities here rather than one single entity.
Yet I'm not going to ask you if you feel stupid because it would be pointless. We've gone around this circle a thousand times and here even on a rerun it's clear your arguments aren't really with pro-choicers but with imaginary people who do not actually make any of the arguments you spend so much time refuting.
smmtheory
How many people have you done that to? How many people have been sued for wrongful death lately because they didn't even volunteer to donate anything at all? I don't think a court would even consider hearing such a case.
I doubt you could find such a case. The property right to your own body is pretty solid. Which was my argument to begin with.
It's damn hard for a fetus to survive inside the womb when somebody sticks knives, lye or acid in there to get rid of it too... but the cause is not the inability to survive outside the womb.
Again the womb is not the property of the fetus but the mother. The cause remains as I said, even if abortion was carefully done to remove the fetus intact it would quickly die outside the womb.
And what is it about your commentary that should lead people to believe otherwise?
And the property right to its own body is not pretty solid for the fetus? The unborn child is to be deprived of its property rights without any hearing, without any recourse, without any justice, even that afforded to born children, the losing end of the conflict of property rights because it was thrust into a trespass situation it had no control over? That's pretty heartless to my way of thinking, and a miscarriage of justice.
And I dispute your interpretation again, the cause would be the forced removal from the womb. When a new life should be celebrated and protected as in the nature of the design of mother and child, your side instead portrays the new life as a parasite or trespasser unworthy of rights or even the protection afforded the already born. How soon before you people try to enable retroactive abortion?
The unborn child is to be deprived of its property rights without any hearing, without any recourse, without any justice, even that afforded to born children,
Sort of like in my kidney example you're deprived of your property right to life without any recourse?
And I dispute your interpretation again, the cause would be the forced removal from the womb. When a new life should be celebrated and protected as in the nature of the design of mother and child, your side instead portrays the new life as a parasite or trespasser unworthy of rights or even the protection afforded the already born.
Actually you portray the woman as little more than a vessel. To bad for you they were 'designed' with both mouths and brains. But why don't we move this at least a little bit beyond the circles we've been spinning here. Why don't you address the questions I raised in the second paragraph of post 46.
Atheism
And what is it about your commentary that should lead people to believe otherwise?
Since ucfengr seems unable to actually read the commentary he wants to comment on I think the problem lies in laziness more than anything else.
Prove it.
To what purpose? You always seem to start from a different assumption than that the unborn child deserves protection of its rights from both the mother and the state. Your questions just carry on the same assumption, and in the same vein as nanny-state do-gooder logic used by Child Protective Services (or otherwise named bureaucratic organizations). That's not moving beyond any circle you've been spinning in at all.
So, let me clarify then... considering all of the commentary you have ever been involved in here, in this comment thread, AND in all the others... what is it about all of your commentary that should lead people to believe that you are not atheist?
Translation: You cannot answer those question, you cannot defend your position and you'll essentially do the textual equalivant of holding your fingers in your ears and yelling "na nana nana can't hear you!!!"
So, let me clarify then... considering all of the commentary you have ever been involved in here, in this comment thread, AND in all the others... what is it about all of your commentary that should lead people to believe that you are not atheist?
Since you are barely able to speak for yourself why do you insist on speaking for ucfengr?
I am quite able to speak for myself, and in fact was speaking for myself, not ucfengr. If anything I say is lost in translation, it is on your side, not mine.
As if you tried to prove that assinine assertion ('Actually you portray the woman as little more than a vessel.') you made. I'm sure you consider your questions compelling enough to advance your argument, but you are wrong to suggest they are a logical extension to the pro-life argument. If anything, they look like a tantrum response that somebody on the pro-abort side would propose in backlash to losing abortion rights. It is a repugnant suggestion to which my only response is - may God have more mercy on you than you would have on unborn children.