Daylight Atheism > On the Morality of: Abortion

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On the Morality of: Abortion

Although abortion is stereotyped as the most controversial and divisive social issue there is, I think the moral issues at stake are actually fairly unambiguous. This installment of "On the Morality Of" will explain why.

Pared down to its essence, the moral question posed by abortion is a simple one: is an unborn fetus a human being, with all the moral rights and protections that pertain thereunto; or is it a non-human, an assemblage of cells, the existence of which may be terminated without wrongdoing?

The answer to this question, of course, depends critically on how you define a human being. Is a fetus a human being if it has a face, or arms and legs, or a beating heart? None of these criteria seem to me to be definitive. Being a human is far more than a matter of superficial physical appearance - we do not grant humanity to department-store mannequins, after all. Nor is humanity the mere arrangement of internal organs. If a person's heart or lungs are failing and they need to be kept alive by machinery, does that deprive them of their moral personhood? Obviously not.

What if we were to define a human being as a living organism which possesses a certain, characteristic set of genes? This definition seems somewhat closer, but again, I think it misses the mark. If humanity consists of being a living organism which possesses human DNA, then we would also have to grant personhood rights to HeLa cell colonies, or to fetuses with anencephaly (warning: disturbing image). More to the point, if a living thing with human DNA is human, then every single one of our cells should be considered to be a human in its own right, and the millions of them that are naturally sloughed off our bodies each day would constitute a holocaust of unthinkable proportions. Obviously, this is absurd.

I submit that there is one and only one defining characteristic of a person, one thing which sets us apart and gives us our unique moral worth. That thing is consciousness - the facility for self-aware thought. That is what most clearly differentiates us from all other species on this planet, and it is also what gives us the uniqueness and individuality that is rightly viewed as a key component of moral worth.

Taking consciousness to be the defining characteristic of humanity gives us a clear dividing line to use in deciding whether abortion is immoral. Ending the existence of something which does not possess the ability for conscious thought - whatever else it may be - is not the destruction of a human being. Ending the existence of something which does possess that ability is the destruction of a person. This is a solid, rational standard. It's a good sign that this position also neatly mirrors the common position on end-of-life care and euthanasia: once a human being has suffered brain death, or any other injury that results in the irreversible cessation of consciousness, they no longer possess moral personhood and we are under no obligation to ensure their physical continuance.

So, when does consciousness begin? This is a question which has an empirical answer. As Carl Sagan wrote on the topic:

Different kinds of mental activity show different kinds of brain waves. But brain waves with regular patterns typical of adult human brains do not appear in the fetus until about the 30th week of pregnancy—near the beginning of the third trimester. Fetuses younger than this—however alive and active they may be—lack the necessary brain architecture. They cannot yet think.

This boundary line - which is the same boundary line the U.S. Supreme Court drew in Roe v. Wade, although for different reasons - is a feasible and defensible standard. It safeguards the autonomy of the woman, and her moral right to exercise control over her own body and not be forcibly subjected to the risks and burdens of pregnancy, without compromising the important principle that every human life should be protected. If a woman wishes to obtain an abortion, it seems to me that half a year is more than adequate time for her to become aware of her pregnancy, make the decision to abort, and obtain access to medical services.

As Sagan points out, six months is actually a conservative boundary, since regular brain waves are often absent in fetuses. Also, it's conceivable that a fetus could possess them and still lack the ability for conscious thought. Nevertheless, it's still a good standard and not one we should seek to push. When we know, based on our physiological understanding of how the brain functions, that consciousness cannot exist, then no person is present and we are under no corresponding ethical obligation. However, if there's a rational possibility that consciousness may exist, then we should err on the side of caution and defend that life, just as it would be immoral to shoot into a closed box without knowing if there's a person inside. Of course, if continued pregnancy would pose a threat to the life or health of the mother, then terminating the pregnancy is an unambiguous matter of self-defense.

Until the capability for conscious thought exists, a fetus cannot have the same moral status as a person. Doubtless, the fetus is a potential person. But potentiality is not the same as actuality, and a person who only potentially exists cannot claim moral rights which match or supercede the rights of an actual, living, conscious person. (The language is imprecise here; in truth, a person who only potentially exists does not exist, and a non-existent person cannot claim anything. There is no one to make the claim.) Therefore, no harm is done when a woman aborts a pregnancy before this point. There is no person for harm to be done to.

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202 Comments

This is a very difficult issue and your criterion seems to be equivalent
to the time necessary for a fetus to have a nonzero chance of survival outside the
womb. I visit a friend in a nursing home and quite frequently see some of the
residents there who clearly are vegetables. One in particular has been in that
state for over 20 years. A strong case can be made that such an individual is
not self aware. Having this idea in mind, a re-reading of the following sentence
makes for an interesting conundrum:

"Ending the existence of something which does not possess the ability for conscious thought - whatever else it may be - is not the destruction of a human being."

Myself, I would draw the line much earlier. Once a brain stem and the beginnings
of a brain begin to form, it seems to me that personhood has been attained. This
is easy to determine with high-resolution mri for example.

Comment by: uhclem | April 28, 2008, 9:10 am

Philip K Dick addressed this in one of his shorter stories. He wrote about a future society where people were aborted if they were unable to understand calculus.

The problem for both sides is that the distinction is usually a very arbitrary line. Do we take independent life as "life", or thinking life or concious/self aware life as 'life'? Successive governments have weighed in on this, usually in a knee-jerk reaction. I think the UK approach is the fairest - but then I'm pro-choice ;)

Comment by: Ray | April 28, 2008, 9:19 am

This is precisely why I find the term 'pro-choice' to be so infuriating, because it completely misses the point. If I believed that a human life began at conception (ignoring the vagaries of what that would actually entail) then it follows that I would also believe that abortion was wrong. I would still sympathise with women bearing unwanted children, but I wouldn't support their 'choice' to murder another life. But, as you show, human life clearly does not begin at conception in any meaningful sense.

I do get slightly confused when anti-abortion activists then switch into talking about protecting the 'potential' for human life, which seems to concede that it isn't actually a human life in the early stages at all, but just would be if it was left to continue without interference. And then it's another just example of making a grand and sweeping claim about society ("I can tell the future!") and then only applying it to one specific realm ("...on cable television"). If we're now going to legislate on the basis of potential, then shouldn't we also prosecute car drivers who drive on roads with pedestrian crossings, because if they hadn't taken the interfering action of braking there was the potential for a messy collision up ahead?

(Luckily, the abortion debate has historically been fairly quiet over here, and there's a tradition of not making it a party political issue, hence every vote on abortion in Parliament is a free one.)

Comment by: Dominic Self | April 28, 2008, 9:34 am

As a feminist (and you, know, a women, who's body this debate is being talked on), I see a slightly different take. First and foremost, while I think the six month mark is a pretty good mark, (from a legal, if not moral sense), I still want the ability to get one if there is a complication in the last trimester (it happens). It seems like people seem to argue about whether or not a fetus is a human being, while completely ignoring the fact that I am human, and part of being human is the ability to control my own body to the best of my ability and the technology that exists. Pregnancy is a unique example, because there really is no analogous experience to explain it to guys.

Comment by: Antigone | April 28, 2008, 9:45 am

Having spent some time around newborns, I don't like the definition of human as something with consciousness. Newborns are pretty much entirely driven by instinct. They don't ponder the mysteries of life, they don't even think about how stuff works or what things are made of or anything like that. They pretty much just eat, sleep, and poop and that's the extent of it. So for me, I have trouble defining a human as something with conscious thought without saying "OK, so we can kill newborns too."

Personally, I don't care where we place the human/non-human boundary. In fact, as far as I am concerned, fetii ARE human. I know that when my cousin was pregnant, it was a person she carried - a person we all cared for and loved and considered a real baby. That's an emotional attachment and, honestly, no amount of scientific reasoning will break it.

And yet, I am radically pro-choice. Why? Because I don't believe that any person ought to be able to use another person's body without their permission. No man should be allowed to rape me, no doctor should be allowed to take one of my kidneys (even if it will save a life! Even if I am the only possible match for someone!), hair dressers don't even have the right to take my hair clippings to make wigs for cancer patients without my permission. My body is mine and mine only and only I can determine what happens to it, regardless of the circumstances. Even if losing one kidney when I have another perfectly healthy one won't affect me much and will mean the difference between life and death for someone else, it's still mine.

That's what pregnancy is like to me - being asked to give a kidney for someone. Pregnancies are very uncomfortable (like surgery) and there CAN be complications that can cause disability or even death (just like surgery). Not to mention that even the most easy pregnancy with no complications will still irrevocably change your body forever - just like losing a kidney. So if I don't want to give of myself for another person, that's my choice. I may be called selfish for making that choice and, maybe under some circumstances that's true - but it doesn't matter. It's still my choice to make and I can say 'no' for any reason and I certainly don't need to justify it to anyone.

If we had a way to simply remove the fetus without any extra discomfort or damage to the woman in a way that would allow it to live and grow, I'd support that as an alternative to abortion. Again, it's because I think of a fetus as a person and for someone to kill it when there's a perfectly viable alternative strikes me a revenge thing. But until that happens, abortion ought to be completely legal. If we have any respect for humanity at all, we need to respect people's rights to their own body at the very least.

Comment by: Grimalkin | April 28, 2008, 9:52 am

I became an atheist/freethinker about a month ago, and since I've been a pro-life evangelical christian my whole life, I've had a hard time understanding the morality of abortion. When I became an atheist, I began to find the idea of abortion even less palatable than I did when I was a christian. After all, as a christian, I "knew" that the fetus would ascend to heaven after the abortion. There are, of course, no such guarantees as an atheist. Most atheist arguments for abortion are terrible. They simply talk about how potential people have no rights. All that really means is that they're completely helpless and can be killed or circumcised (just after birth, they're just as helpless) without being able to claim a right to life or liberty.

This article clearly defines a defense of abortion that will not lead philosophically to infanticide. I agree completely that consciousness is the best indicator of personhood.

Comment by: Jesse | April 28, 2008, 9:57 am

I agree with what you write here, but I think we need to consider more than just the mental state of the foetus. There's also the question of general human health and what the consequences are of outlawing abortions. In countries & states which have restricted abortions, women still get abortions so far from achieving the ostensible goal of saving lives, it doesn't reduce the number of abortions and instead increases the number of injuries and deaths as a result of botched abortions.

If people genuinely want to reduce abortions and genuinely care about human life (as opposed to using this as a cover for misogynism or theocracy), then they need to provide a better response than outlawing abortions.

Comment by: Adrian | April 28, 2008, 10:20 am

I find the brainwave criterion a bit tricky because of the potentiality issue that Dominic Self mentioned above. Say, for example, that someone is in a coma and their brainwaves indicate that they are unconscious. Does this mean they're no longer alive and can be casually killed? Somehow I doubt you're nodding right now, because we'd first want to hear an expert opinion on their chances of recovery. Just because someone isn't conscious now doesn't mean they aren't extremely likely to become conscious in the future. But if you switch to a "potential for consciousness" criterion, you get a nasty problem of determining what the threshold is (51% chance of becoming conscious? 33%? 96.8%?) and then determining when that threshold is crossed.

That said, I do not support making abortion illegal. My feelings, however, would rankle most humanists: I just don't value human life qua human life. Instead, I think the value people have comes from who they are as individuals. I value my girlfriend, my parents, my sister, my friends, and even people like you, who I haven't met, for what they mean to me and what they have contributed to the world (emotional + practical value). Since a fetus has obviously contributed nothing to the world yet, if the mother does not value it then I see no reason to stop her getting rid of it.

Comment by: Joel | April 28, 2008, 10:24 am

I believe the right to abortion should be understood as the right to not be pregnant, as opposed to "the right to murder a potential baybee!" as it tends to be hysterically understood by pro-lifers. I believe abortion services should be readily available and not regulated until the point of viability, and that a healthy, viable fetus should be protected from abortion. As Antigone points out, some third trimester fetuses are not healthy, or even viable. In these cases an abortion may be necessary to protect the mother's health or life. If a fetus has reached viability and is not threatening the mother, it should be carried to term. If it's viable but the mother's health is being threatened to the point where she needs to exercise her right to not be pregnant, an attempt should be made to deliver the fetus rather than aborting, if that's reasonably possible. I also believe that the determination of whether the fetus is viable or whether an attempt at delivery is feasible should be made by a doctor directly involved with the case, never a politician.

I also believe that any woman in her right mind who wants to abort will attempt to do so as soon as she knows that she is pregnant and has made that decision, and therefore essentially all third-trimester pregnancies where abortion has come into question are wanted pregnancies that have gone wrong. Nobody just walks into a clinic eight months along and says, "Oh, I decided I don't want to have this baby anymore." Therefore, I think the only real point of discussions like the above about what to do with healthy, viable, third trimester fetuses whose mothers want to abort them is to placate the squeamish. :p

Comment by: Chicken Girl | April 28, 2008, 10:24 am

Antigone makes a good point, but I rather think that the experience of the mother (whilst of course being an incredibly important factor in practice!) has little or no bearing on the original (theoretical)argument, which concerns itself only with the human/non-human status of the foetus. A mother would be well within her rights to consider termination in the third trimester in a number of circumstances, but the ethical considerations would then concern whether it was correct to kill a human being, rather than an embryo.

I find Ebon's argument to be refreshingly rational and highly convincing - but rationality is rarely high on the list of qualities displayed in the abortion debate, so I suspect the conflagration will continue to rage.

Comment by: yunshui | April 28, 2008, 10:30 am

I'm of the opinion that the "all life begins at conception" thing is part of a straw man argument intended to shroud the pro-lifer's real belief: that all life is sacred because humans were created in God's image.

This is precisely what many try to sidestep in asserting their claim, as such a religious argument won't fly in a secular court. Try getting a pro-lifer to admit that, though; it's like trying to nail Jell-O to the wall.

Comment by: Ingersoll's Revenge | April 28, 2008, 10:58 am

Chicken Girl - You are assuming that she has a) realized that she is pregnant, and b) had access to abortion services.

The number of women who simply do not realize that they are pregnant until labour pains set in isn't high, but it exists. Denial plays a part, but there may also be other things going on in her life that allow her to justify what's happening. For example, she may think that she is getting fat, that she isn't getting her period because of stress (assuming that she isn't - it is possible to continue bleeding regularly for at least the first few months of a pregnancy), and so forth.

As for access, she may be underage, she may not know where to go, there may not be a clinic in her area, she may not have the support of her parents who may go through extraordinary means to delay her until she can't legally get an abortion anymore, or she may have been tricked by a pro-life clinic in disguise (these will frequently offer abortion but then delay the procedure until the point of viability has been reached). Or her circumstances may have changed. For example, she might be dependent on the father helping out and believed that he would, but he dumps her 6-7 months along (and if she already has children, that complicates matters even more).

The point is, we can't just assume that everyone in situation X got there the same way and for the same reason. Everyone has something special and unique going on in their lives and the fact is that we cannot simply pass a blanket law that assumes that everyone is the same.

Ingersoll's Revenge - I'm not sure I agree with you. If you've encountered enough pro-lifers, they tend to either have not thought about it much and accept pro-life as the default, or they tend to be rather misogynistic. The idea that "sluts shouldn't be going around having unprotected pre-marital sex anyway" comes up again and again, even from the most rational opponents of abortion. The idea that pregnancy is an adequate punishment for immoral behaviour is firmly rooted in the pro-life argument. It gets covered up with expressions of concern for the "unborn babies," but even that is a very hollow sentiment given how few pro-lifers tend to support measures that would provide health-care for lower income pregnant women - something that is an absolute necessity for the wellbeing of the "unborn babies."

Comment by: Grimalkin | April 28, 2008, 11:23 am

As Playboy (pardon the introduction of such a base source) once opined: If abortion is murder, then masturbation is mass murder.

Comment by: Thumpalumpacus | April 28, 2008, 12:21 pm

By outlawing abortion you give a fetus MORE rights than regular human beings. For example, I don't have the right to take your kidney, your blood, or use any part of your body without your express consent. Even if it would save my life. So I'm not really sure why fetuses should get the right to use my own personal uterus without my consent. I'm not property, I'm not for anybody's use.

Antigone makes a good point about 3rd trimester abortions. The floozy who waltzes in to the clinic at 8.5 months to get an abortion on a whim is a myth. Believe it or not, women are rational human beings who know what they want, and unless prevented by ridiculous anti-choice waiting periods, will get their abortion in a timely manner. 3rd trimester abortions typically happen when something has gone horribly wrong. So to outlaw those abortions would only mean endangering women.

Comment by: Entomologista | April 28, 2008, 12:52 pm

I don't think that it's all that clear at all that humans are the only species with self-awareness.

You use that constantly to make you points as if it were fact, yet I never saw you defend that point itself and why.

I agree that self-awareness by itself should grant you some rights. I just do not agree that those rights must then be exclusively human, if all you are basing it on is self-awareness.

Comment by: Petrucio | April 28, 2008, 1:04 pm

Ebon and anyone else,

As Sagan points out, six months is actually a conservative boundary, since regular brain waves are often absent in fetuses. Also, it's conceivable that a fetus could possess them and still lack the ability for conscious thought. Nevertheless, it's still a good standard and not one we should seek to push. When we know, based on our physiological understanding of how the brain functions, that consciousness cannot exist, then no person is present and we are under no corresponding ethical obligation. However, if there's a rational possibility that consciousness may exist, then we should err on the side of caution and defend that life, just as it would be immoral to shoot into a closed box without knowing if there's a person inside. Of course, if continued pregnancy would pose a threat to the life or health of the mother, then terminating the pregnancy is an unambiguous matter of self-defense.

What about the children that are killed after the 30 weeks? If you hold this view of consciousness as the boundary for being human, I have to assume that you would consider those children killed after the 30 weeks as being murdered in the womb?

And what about the Thirty weeks: does personhood begin at midnight of the 30th week, or 1 am or 2 am?? Or do we become human the second brain activity is recorded? How can we possible know this for every child being born? Should you not pushing for fetuses to be constantly checked for brain waves...at midnight on the 30th week...or every minute starting the 28th week...or whenever you feel we should start checking for these brain waves? I see a lot of grey area here.

We need to protect our unborn children, and if you think that we are only human when we have brain waves, then why not make an effort to protect those children for being killed, because it is happening, at least 9,643 times in 1999, after 21 weeks: see statistics from the CDC link

Scroll down to see the charts.

Comment by: Adam | April 28, 2008, 1:45 pm

Ray: Maybe that PKD story has a point, but I found it to be the most shrill thing I have read in a long time. It was based on such a mischaracterization of the pro-choice position, but he didn't let it stop him from attacking that strawman anyway. That story was what caused me to lose a lot of respect for PKD.

Comment by: Chris Granade | April 28, 2008, 1:50 pm

I submit that there is one and only one defining characteristic of a person, one thing which sets us apart and gives us our unique moral worth. That thing is consciousness - the facility for self-aware thought /.../ Ending the existence of something which does not possess the ability for conscious thought - whatever else it may be - is not the destruction of a human being.

Although it seems to be implicit in your thoughts that you do not consider people who are asleep, are knocked unconscious or are in a coma they are very likely to recover from to be non-persons. Then it's not explicit enough, so you should keep that in mind. That's ofcource if that's there and I'm not reading it into your text.

The second thing is that you seem to be using "person" and "human being" as synonyms, which is either sloppy or foolish. At least in philosophical literature "human being" refers to a creature from the biological speciec homo sapiens and "person" refers to something else, for example any creature who is capable of rational deliberation or smth.

Comment by: mcv | April 28, 2008, 1:53 pm

I'm sorry there should be a tag, at the end of the first paragraph.

Comment by: mcv | April 28, 2008, 1:54 pm

My problem with biological criteria for giving human rights to something growing in a woman's womb is just as Ingersoll stated, the whole argument is nothing more than a strawman. The real issue for anti-abortionists is a question of when God himself decides to upgrade the fetus with its very own soul. This argument will never be settled by any scientific standard.

My second problem with having a 6 month limit is twofold. One, as Antigone and Entomologista stated, there are still legitimate reasons to get a late term abortion.

Two, it's naive to think that the decision to keep a baby is made by the woman alone - there are incredible anti-abortion pressures from family, partners, and communities. Some of these people, including doctors, will do everything in their power to manipulate women to think that an abortion is a dangerous and immoral decision, and setting arbitrary limits just helps their cause.

It also furthers the perception that this really is something controversial and immoral and that's why there are limits. The effect of these limits are clear - it sends a message to women that a bunch of fuzzy issues surrounding the rights of fetuses should take precedent over the clear-cut, easy to define rights of a woman to her own body.

I don't care even if this fetus in the womb is passing Calculus exams and miraculously shoving gold cuff-links out the woman's vagina. It's her body! As a human being, with a soul, with a conscience, it still doesn't supersede the rights of another human being to their own body. I'm sorry but if Parris Hilton decides to get an abortion on the 11th hour of the 293rd day of her pregnancy, tough luck, but hand the baby a Darwin award and send it on its way out.

Comment by: bbk | April 28, 2008, 2:18 pm

I can't understand how abortion could rationally be considered "murder," even if we assumed that life started at conception. Pregnancy is not mystical, it's life support. During pregnancy, the fetus uses every organ in a woman's body (except, of course, her appendix) to keep itself alive in the hopes that it will eventually be able to support itself. In order for abortion to be murder, we'd have to assume that a fetus has a basic right to expect to use someone else's organs without their consent. In every other situation, this would be an absurd conclusion. For instance, once that fetus is 40 years old and has chronic renal failure, should he be able to use his father's kidneys for dialysis without his father's consent? I think that everyone would agree that, even if the few months on dialysis would give him enough time to find a donor, we wouldn't let the government force his father into it. We might say he should, we might say that God will hate him if he doesn't, but his father's right to control his own organs far outweighs his son's right to use someone else's organs to keep himself alive, even though he will die because of his father's choice. No person has the right to use someone's organs without their consent, and to give a fetus more rights than an adult person is indefensible. Unless God says so, of course.

Comment by: Cass | April 28, 2008, 2:22 pm

Ebon's morality is like that of any religion in that it applies its key tenet, "Always minimize both actual and potential suffering; always maximize both actual and potential happiness...”, to members of its own ingroup. Problems only arise with treatment of outgroups, who are typically denied any rights and deemed heretics, infidels, or other euphemisms for non-human, as Native Americans prior to 1537, and variously blacks, Jews, and Arabs even today. The common element is to isolate a specific trait that automatically entitles the bearer to moral rights and protections while those without this trait are non-human, an assemblage of cells, the existence of which may be terminated without wrongdoing. This trait has been variously light skin, baptism, Jewishness, and so on, and for Ebon it is consciousness, the facility for self-aware thought, that defines the ingroup.

While it is true generally that we possess a sophisticated sense of empathy...realized through physical adaptations such as mirror neurons... and highly developed rational thought, exceptions at both the Alzheimer's and embryo ends of the lifespan, and cases of retardation, comas, and sociopaths discussed on this blog make clear that this metric is no more useful than skin color or 'civilization' in differentiating us from other 'species' on this planet and bestowing on us moral worth. Other species as well have mirror neurons, self-awareness and a certain amount of empathy and altruistic behavior, to a degree that in some cases can exceed that in the marginal human cases, and...if there's a rational possibility that consciousness may exist, then we should err on the side of caution and defend that life. Workable legal standards aside, consciousness, and maybe humanity, is a matter of degree and no possible objective test exists for where or when it is present. Insisting on this specious eligibility test reduces this moral system to just one more cult claiming privileged status for their own arbitrarily-defined ingroup, however, there seems to be no barrier to
removing it and applying the key tenant above to members of the outgroup as well. One could then consistently say the virtue of compassion entails the earnest desire for the well-being of one's fellow living things.

Comment by: watercat | April 28, 2008, 3:02 pm

I see where you are going, and agree with the general gist of it, but I'm not sure that consciousness is enough. What of a 26 week fetus born prematurely? Most jurisdictions, even those with no restrictions on abortion, would treat that baby as identical to a full term infant. I'm not sure that a strong moral distinction can be made from scientific grounds, but once it's been "born", it's probably a baby nonetheless.

Secondly, consciousness probably needs to be pared with "possessing human DNA", as I have no doubt that my cats possess greater consciousness than a newborn baby. In the longer term, we need a more generalized approach we may end up creating non-human conciousnesses and will need to decide if they are people (in the legal sense) or not.

Comment by: David | April 28, 2008, 4:42 pm

I pretty much agree with ths article. I think that instead of a dividing line between pre-human and human, that we should look at the process of becoming human in shades of grey. So a fetus could gain more and more human rights as its ages and becomes more human. This could be part of the basis of laws to forbid pregnant women from smoking or drinking lots of alcohol if they plan to carry a baby to term since the activities can occur before the second trimester.

Comment by: Quath | April 28, 2008, 4:59 pm

I think this is one of the best arguements I've ever read on this issue! Thank you!

Comment by: Chris Swanson | April 28, 2008, 5:31 pm

I don't care even if this fetus in the womb is passing Calculus exams and miraculously shoving gold cuff-links out the woman's vagina. It's her body! As a human being, with a soul, with a conscience, it still doesn't supersede the rights of another human being to their own body. I'm sorry but if Parris Hilton decides to get an abortion on the 11th hour of the 293rd day of her pregnancy, tough luck, but hand the baby a Darwin award and send it on its way out.

Exactly right.

Comment by: Entomologista | April 28, 2008, 6:12 pm

I am not at all convinced by your argument on the morality of abortion, but I totally agree with you all the same.

How's that work? Well, I disagree with your basic premise that the moral question is "is an unborn fetus a human being...?". I think it is perfectly rational for a person to hold the moral question to be "does an unborn fetus have the potential to achieve human consciousness?". That is, I was not convinced by your dismissal of potential consciousness on the general moral question of whether or not abortion is wrong.

That said, I think it that your discussion is the perfect answer to what I see as the question that should decide the legal status of abortion: "when should we consider an unborn fetus independent of the woman carrying it?". Until that point is reached, the institution of the government has an obligation to protect the life, liberty, and happiness of the woman and not the fetus. Until that point is reached, deciding whether or not an abortion should be allowed is question of personal morals (and medical judgment. Medical need for an abortion should always be allowed.).

Thus, your fine argument that consciousness is the borderline for personhood is highly relevant just not, in my opinion, in the way you think. =)

Comment by: Erika | April 28, 2008, 6:18 pm

I don't care even if this fetus in the womb is passing Calculus exams and miraculously shoving gold cuff-links out the woman's vagina. It's her body! As a human being, with a soul, with a conscience, it still doesn't supersede the rights of another human being to their own body.

I agree that a woman has the right to control her own body, but that does not necessarily imply that every decision a woman has a right to make is morally correct.

Comment by: Erika | April 28, 2008, 6:20 pm

While I'm not won over by it on the abortion issue, basing our respect for an entity on its ability to experience life as a self-aware moral agent, is one of the best arguments for the right to abort before brain wave activity shows up. This stance also has the added advantage of being inclusive of non-human intelligence.

Of course, there are those who believe none of us are truly "conscious" in the common understanding of the word and the "self" itself is just an illusion(That's not my position).
All of us are non-conscious lumps of meat during certain cycles of sleep each night. Which then opens the question: is it alright to kill a non-conscious being before it wakes up? If not, then why not?

Comment by: Polly | April 28, 2008, 6:20 pm

All of us are non-conscious lumps of meat during certain cycles of sleep each night. Which then opens the question: is it alright to kill a non-conscious being before it wakes up? If not, then why not?

Polly, you may be interested in my comment (two above the one I'm responding to). I think it provides a clear framework for answering your puzzle.

Comment by: Erika | April 28, 2008, 6:34 pm

I only have one question, and I hope someone can clear this one up for me.

Babies can be born without a "self-awareness" (for example, hydranencephaly is a rare condition in which a baby is born without the cerebral hemispheres). Does this make them not human?

Comment by: Purple | April 28, 2008, 6:35 pm

Some of these people, including doctors, will do everything in their power to manipulate women to think that an abortion is a dangerous and immoral decision, and setting arbitrary limits just helps their cause.

For instance, the doctors that won't prescribe birth control because they think it is immoral...

Also, a cursory look through the phone book will find all kinds of prenancy or abortion crisis centers where the ads claim that you can get help for your pregnancy or counseling...and in the fine print you'll notice they don't have any doctors on staff. These are fronts for religious orgs that try to shame young women into forgoing abortions. It's sickening. (And, yes, I consider myself to be a feminist as well even though the "M" in "OMGF" stands for "Man".)

Comment by: OMGF | April 28, 2008, 6:41 pm

Babies can be born without a "self-awareness" (for example, hydranencephaly is a rare condition in which a baby is born without the cerebral hemispheres). Does this make them not human?

Purple, mcv's post referring to the philosophical difference between being a human and being a person may help clarify and answer this question for you.

Comment by: Erika | April 28, 2008, 6:46 pm

Life is precious.

There is no afterlife.

Life uninterrupted will become mature.

I worship life.

Comment by: Doug | April 28, 2008, 6:51 pm

Doug,

"Life is precious."

Who's life? In the event that some one you cared about was going to die unless she aborted the life in her womb, which life would you value more? And why would you vale that life over the other?

In other words, by what standard do you say life is "precious?"

"There is no afterlife."

I couldn't agree more with you on that point...

"Life uninterrupted will become mature."

What do you mean by "interrupted?" Do you imply that it's killed by human hands? Or are you refering to death of any sort (natural causes)?

"I worship life."

Not exactly the most everlasting of deities - as all life will eventually be thrown into that great void of death and disappear...

Comment by: Christopher | April 28, 2008, 7:11 pm

I said: Until that point deciding whether or not an abortion should be allowed is question of personal morals

That is completely wrong in that it implies that abortion should be illegal before that point, at complete contradiction with the rest of my statement. What I meant to say was "Until that point, deciding whether or not to get an abortion is a question of personal morals". That is, I meant to say that, as is the case now, a woman has to make a decision as to whether or not to get an abortion, and that decision most certainly has moral aspects to it, but she should have the freedom to make that decision.

Comment by: Erika | April 28, 2008, 7:34 pm

According to Ebon, a hydracephalic baby, since it lacks the capability for conscious thought, not only cannot have the moral status of a person (or human being), it is merely an assemblage of cells, to which nothing we do can be considered harmful. Disturbingly, whether it feels pain or suffers is not considered relevant.

Comment by: watercat | April 28, 2008, 7:47 pm

Whether intentionally or not, I think you are misconstruing Ebon's argument. He is only arguing that without consciousness, the life should not be considered a person. He never says that nothing done to a non-person should considered harmful. It is you who made the leap from "destruction of a fetus lacking consciousness is not destruction of a person" to "it is okay to destroy anything that is not a person".

Comment by: Erika | April 28, 2008, 7:59 pm

This argument seems incomplete/unpolished to me. As a Libertarian, I'm pro-abortion, but I'm not sure the concept of 'personhood' has been articulated here. Brain waves might be challenged on the basis that a fetus can be shown to react to pain. But is it really aware of pain, or is it an autonomic response? Unknown. How much or how little brain activity is required for a 'person' to exist? Unknown. Since late term abortions are the exception, not the rule, I'm perfectly comfortable leaving things as they are until we've answered all these questions, meaning, squarely the decision of the mother, and no one else.

Comment by: AtheistCrusader | April 28, 2008, 8:05 pm

Spot on, that's always seemed the essence of it to me - potentiality isn't the same thing as actuality.

Comment by: Paul Maurice Martin | April 28, 2008, 8:07 pm

While everything that Ebon stated is right on the money---I don't want to encourage the slowdown of the current reproduction rate because at this rate, in a few hundred years, we should be accelerating off the planet at the rate of light. Won't that be fun?

Comment by: Jeff T. | April 28, 2008, 8:18 pm

One could then consistently say the virtue of compassion entails the earnest desire for the well-being of one's fellow living things.

One could say that, unless one were an animal who had to consume one's fellow living things on a daily basis in order to survive. In that case, if one were not a hypocrite, one would have to realize that lines must be drawn somewhere. Animal rights lobbyists just haven't thought the issue through enough - *all* life is related, not just animal life. Eating your relatives is mandatory: the only thing you have a choice about is precisely how distant relatives they are going to be.

I'm sorry, but considering non-sentient beings an "outgroup", discrimination against which is morally wrong, and then explicitly paralleling it to historical examples of *intra*-species discrimination is just absurd. If you want to make a case that (sufficiently developed members of) certain other species belong in the "person" category, go ahead: I certainly think that personhood should be extended to other species with the characteristics of it, and whether or not any extant Earth species displays those characteristics is a factual question open to evidence.

But it's a long leap from "chimpanzees might be people too" to "therefore, unformed lumps of cells are people too, how dare you murder them". A leap that jumps right over a substantial fraction of the *food supply* of the only species we know *does* possess the characteristics of personhood. This happens to be our own species, which makes the judgment appear self-serving; but AFAWK no other species is *capable* of making the judgment, or even framing the question, so it may be something more like the anthropic principle (no pun intended). Until we make contact with another intelligent species we won't really know who, if anyone, will try to define them as non-people undeserving of what we presently call human rights.

Comment by: Chris | April 28, 2008, 8:59 pm

I agree that a woman has the right to control her own body, but that does not necessarily imply that every decision a woman has a right to make is morally correct.

Erika, you are correct that having the right to do something does not make the outcome morally correct. But the moral correctness that we're getting into here is on the same level as throwing away a half eaten apple when there are starving children in this world. Both are regrettable actions and there is roughly the same amount of lost opportunity. But it is a right and taking away that right is much more intractable than making the wrong choice when exercising that right.

Comment by: bbk | April 28, 2008, 9:13 pm

Besides, as a culture, we are not at a point yet where we can start to have legitimate discussions of how to mitigate wrongful decisions concerning abortions. 50% of the people who are in favor of limiting the legality of abortion do so because they believe that it's because the baby has a soul. Another 25% think that women are vapid bimbos who shouldn't be allowed to make up their own minds. And the remaining 25% just want to appease the other 75% in hopes that we can all get along.

Comment by: bbk | April 28, 2008, 9:30 pm

It's her body! As a human being, with a soul, with a conscience, it still doesn't supersede the rights of another human being to their own body. I'm sorry but if Parris Hilton decides to get an abortion on the 11th hour of the 293rd day of her pregnancy, tough luck, but hand the baby a Darwin award and send it on its way out.

This is the paradigmatic example of the wrong way to think about this problem.

I could use this same argument to demonstrate that laws against drunk driving are an intolerable infringement on people's freedom. How dare a bunch of government bureaucrats tell me what I'm not allowed to put into my own body! I have bodily autonomy, damn it, and therefore it's my absolute right to ingest whatever substances I want at whatever time I want. No one has any right to tell me otherwise, regardless of the consequences to anyone else.

I hope we're agreed that this conclusion is absurd. There are situations, when there are others who stand to suffer harm from one's actions, in which bodily autonomy should not be absolute. I'm not saying that the right of bodily autonomy isn't important. Of course it is; it's extremely important, which is why I believe abortion should be the free choice of the mother for as long as possible. But in some cases, such as late-term pregnancy, I don't believe it's so overwhelmingly important as to automatically trump any other moral principle that's brought to bear.

If the fetus is nonviable, or if the mother's health is seriously threatened, then by all means, abortion should be legal at any stage of pregnancy. I would hope there's not even a question about that. But, in the extremely unlikely hypothetical scenario that bbk describes above, I would not be opposed to outlawing abortion. (In reality, as several commenters have said, late-term abortions of convenience occur exclusively in the imaginations of pro-lifers. But just because this is unlikely to ever happen doesn't mean we can't use it as a hypothetical to illuminate the moral principles at stake.)

Is this a violation of the woman's autonomy? I don't think it is. I would argue that, by permitting the pregnancy to proceed to that point, the woman has granted implicit consent for the fetus' use of her body. Because she possesses autonomy, a woman can deny that consent - through abstinence, through the use of birth control, or through early-term abortion. But I would say that, if she takes none of those steps prior to the point where the fetus achieves the capacity for consciousness, she has implicitly granted consent. And it doesn't follow that, having once granted it, she can then arbitrarily revoke it at any later time. It's absolutely true to say that no doctor can take one of my kidneys without my consent, not even to save another person's life. But if I do decide to be altruistic and freely donate a kidney, I do not retain the right to cancel that agreement and demand it back later on.

Some of these people, including doctors, will do everything in their power to manipulate women to think that an abortion is a dangerous and immoral decision, and setting arbitrary limits just helps their cause.

I agree, setting arbitrary limits does help the anti-choice cause. That's why this post proposes a non-arbitrary limit, one that's based on a fundamental and widely agreed defining criterion of moral personhood.

Comment by: Ebonmuse | April 28, 2008, 10:03 pm

Life is precious.

There is no afterlife.

Life uninterrupted will become mature.

I worship life.

Well, I hope you don't masturbate Doug. I hope you don't swat at flies or gnats. I hope you don't scratch your skin. I hope you don't breathe or walk. In all those cases you are destroying life. Or were you simply conflating life with personhood?

Would you rush into a burning IVF clinic to save the frozen embryos?

Comment by: OMGF | April 28, 2008, 10:04 pm

** ideologies of pronatalism and unlimited population growth undermine humanity **

In the US, fundies and RCs alike espouse an ideology which is pro-birth at any cost. (Pronatalism is a branch of social darwinsim -- actually created by Herbert Spencer.)

It should be obvious that pro-birth is *not* pro-life. In fact their ideology is pro-Death -- creating disease, poverty and ignorance worldwide through overpopulation, damning safe non-reproductive sex, and blocking responsible medical research.

Humanity today has safe and effective means to control conception. Problems which are population dependent -- global warming, access to water, adequate food . . . will be eased by lowering populations intelligently rather than letting malthusian remedies take their course.

There is no need for looking to science to draw some sort of demarcation criterion for viability. There is no need to alter existing concepts of person which function in developed countries.

bipolar2

Comment by: bipolar2 | April 28, 2008, 10:11 pm

Myself, I would draw the line much earlier. Once a brain stem and the beginnings
of a brain begin to form, it seems to me that personhood has been attained.

By that logic, hagfish are people too.

Comment by: Alex Weaver | April 28, 2008, 10:36 pm

I also believe that any woman in her right mind who wants to abort will attempt to do so as soon as she knows that she is pregnant and has made that decision, and therefore essentially all third-trimester pregnancies where abortion has come into question are wanted pregnancies that have gone wrong. Nobody just walks into a clinic eight months along and says, "Oh, I decided I don't want to have this baby anymore." Therefore, I think the only real point of discussions like the above about what to do with healthy, viable, third trimester fetuses whose mothers want to abort them is to placate the squeamish. :p

I wish that were true, but with the number of anti-choice fanatics, and sociopathic partners, in this society, I think that for the time being there's a moral imperative for an exemption for women in the third trimester who can show that they were prevented from obtaining an abortion by malicious and illegal actions on the part of someone else. Hopefully it will cease to be necessary.

Comment by: Alex Weaver | April 28, 2008, 10:45 pm

Poor example. Driving a vehicle is a privilege, not a right. So is drinking alcohol. It's not simply doing something to your own body, but making improper use of highly regulated goods and services that are not in any way related to any fundamental human right. Moreover, there is no conflict between your rights and others' rights. It's not a zero sum game. If you injure someone on the roadway while DUI, you are clearly infringing on the basic human rights of a disinterested third party who was neither adding or taking away from any of your fundamental human rights. And on top of that, you're doing so without exercising any basic human right of your own.

Comment by: bbk | April 28, 2008, 11:02 pm

According to Ebon, a hydracephalic baby, since it lacks the capability for conscious thought, not only cannot have the moral status of a person (or human being), it is merely an assemblage of cells, to which nothing we do can be considered harmful. Disturbingly, whether it feels pain or suffers is not considered relevant.

You ever step on a snail, accidentally, because you weren't looking where you were going?

How would jail time for negligence leading to a death sound?

Why not? It can't think, but it certainly responds to pain, so presumably it's "suffering" in any sense of the term that is not dependent on conscious thought...

Comment by: Alex Weaver | April 28, 2008, 11:17 pm

Life is precious.

There is no afterlife.

Life uninterrupted will become mature.

I worship life.

Would it be too close to flaming to ask who interrupted yours?

(Seriously, this is the most cringeworthily shallow argument I've heard on this subject in years that wasn't scrawled on a bumper sticker).

Comment by: Alex Weaver | April 28, 2008, 11:25 pm

I don't see what personhood has to do with it at all. No person, conscious or not, has the right to tenancy in another person's body against their will. It's unfortunate that the eviction of the squatter often results in their death, but that's hardly the landlord's problem.

Body sovereignty is absolute, as far as I can see.

Comment by: Chet | April 28, 2008, 11:26 pm

...by the way, I looked up "hydrocephalus" and I think you're thinking of "anencephaly," which Ebon mentioned.

Comment by: Alex Weaver | April 28, 2008, 11:27 pm

How dare a bunch of government bureaucrats tell me what I'm not allowed to put into my own body! I have bodily autonomy, damn it, and therefore it's my absolute right to ingest whatever substances I want at whatever time I want.

Well, you can, Ebon. You can drink whatever you like. You just don't have the right to take advantage of a privilege at that point, the privilege of driving a motor vehicle on the state's roads. The government doesn't tell you what you can or can't ingest; they're making a decision about what people, under what conditions, can or can't drive on their roads. And I think that's fair. So, no, your counterexample doesn't really apply. It's not an example of body autonomy.

But no human being has the right to tenancy in another's body! What an absurd right to even propose.

I would argue that, by permitting the pregnancy to proceed to that point, the woman has granted implicit consent for the fetus' use of her body.

Consider the abortion consent revoked. (And I'm very uncomfortable with the very idea of "implied consent" in the first place. For something as important and life-endangering as pregnancy, consent should always be explicit.)

But I would say that, if she takes none of those steps prior to the point where the fetus achieves the capacity for consciousness, she has implicitly granted consent.

And then explicitly revoked it. I mean how else to interpret her desire for an abortion? You're implying that the consent, once given, cannot be withdrawn; but you're simply jumping to that conclusion without any explanation at all that I can see. What gives?

And you seem to be ignoring the multiple roadblocks - designed, in most cases, to "run out the clock" for as many women as possible - set in the way of women seeking early term abortions. Waiting periods. Financial hurdles. Transportation/access problems. The list is quite long. In a great many cases, women wind up with late-term abortions because early-term abortions were set behind insurmountable obstacles until it was too late. Does that constitute "not taking any steps" in your view?

But if I do decide to be altruistic and freely donate a kidney, I do not retain the right to cancel that agreement and demand it back later on.

Because it's not yours, anymore; it's the recipients'. You'd have to violate their body autonomy to get it back. And you do have the right to cancel the agreement any time up to the implantation of the kidney into their body; right up until the point where it's a part of their body, not yours. And certainly your "implied consent" earlier in the process doesn't prevent you from explicitly revoking that consent at any point in the process.

Comment by: Chet | April 28, 2008, 11:43 pm

My right to bodily integrity is the wrong way to think about the problem? Excuse me? Isn't it convenient that the ONLY time it is ok to use another person's body without their consent is when it's a woman's body? Pregnancy is apparently a magical time that strips women of their rights.

Your argument also works for date rape, by the way. By allowing the make-out session to proceed to heavy petting, the woman has granted implicit consent for the use of her body. I can revoke my consent at any time I please. It's not like "Oh, you consented to sex! No take-backs!" And you can cancel your kidney donation right up until the time it is cut out of your body. Consent is never implicit, and I find your line of reasoning deeply creepy.

Comment by: Entomologista | April 28, 2008, 11:43 pm

That's why this post proposes a non-arbitrary limit, one that's based on a fundamental and widely agreed defining criterion of moral personhood.

Might I suggest an even more widely agreed-upon, and fundamental, criterion for the onset of moral personhood: birth? We've been doing it that way for, oh, ten thousand years or so. What's the problem with reckoning birth as the beginning of life, exactly?

Comment by: Chet | April 28, 2008, 11:46 pm

bbk, you say: But the moral correctness that we're getting into here is on the same level as throwing away a half eaten apple when there are starving children in this world.

That is your opinion. I happen to think that it is wrong, but that is neither here nor there. We both agree that a woman should have a right to make this decision. However, you should not trivialize the moral nature involved. When a woman gets an abortion she is killing a fetus that would, with good probability, become someone we would all agree is a conscious human being. Potential is not personhood, but squashing potential by way of death is still a serious moral decision that any woman getting one should consider.

Comment by: Erika | April 29, 2008, 12:00 am

And just to be clear about where I stand, I do not think abortion (at least in the first 2 trimesters) is murder. I think that the moral wrong of abortion is on level with the moral wrong of teaching your children to be ignorant, science denying creationists. Both decisions squash potential, just in different ways.

Comment by: Erika | April 29, 2008, 12:10 am

Isn't it convenient that the ONLY time it is ok to use another person's body without their consent is when it's a woman's body?

Women are the ones who have the babies. That's a biological fact that is not under my control. It's unfortunate that any decision about the legality of abortion only directly affects women, but that's how it is.

Your argument also works for date rape, by the way. By allowing the make-out session to proceed to heavy petting, the woman has granted implicit consent for the use of her body.

That analogy simply doesn't work. Consent to one type of sexual activity does not automatically translate into consent to a different type of sexual activity. With abortion, however, there's no comparable problem. The issue at stake is whether the developing fetus may use the resources of the woman's body, and that issue remains the same throughout pregnancy.

Consent is never implicit...

That's a very strange argument to say the least. Implicit consent occurs all the time. Should I not be subject to the laws of the United States unless I've signed a paper explicitly agreeing to abide by them?

EDIT: Ignore that last example - I thought of a far stronger and more relevant one. Implicit consent occurs in the institution of parenthood. If a couple chooses to forego abortion and has a child, they implicitly consent to the responsibility of raising and caring for that child - or at the very least, delivering the child to someone who will care for him or her. I don't think anyone is going to seriously argue that parents can withdraw their consent to be parents at any time and abandon their kid by the side of the road, even if they never signed anything promising not to do that.

Comment by: Ebonmuse | April 29, 2008, 12:18 am

But no human being has the right to tenancy in another's body!

I agree completely. However, that doesn't alter the moral principle I've proposed: if a woman becomes pregnant, has access to abortion services, but chooses not to make of use those services in a timely manner, that can readily be viewed as the granting of consent for continued pregnancy. Similarly, I don't have the right to tenancy in a landlord's apartment; but having accepted my application and granted me residence, the landlord cannot then change his mind and kick me out with no advance notice.

You're implying that the consent, once given, cannot be withdrawn; but you're simply jumping to that conclusion without any explanation at all that I can see.

In general, I find no problem with the principle that certain obligations, once freely entered into, cannot be unilaterally canceled. Refer again to my example of the landlord. What about that is strange to you?

In a great many cases, women wind up with late-term abortions because early-term abortions were set behind insurmountable obstacles until it was too late. Does that constitute "not taking any steps" in your view?

I agree that inadequate access to abortion services is a serious problem, which is why I support all reasonable measures to make those services as widely and easily available as possible. It's heartbreaking if a woman wants an abortion but can't obtain one; if she's deceived by religious "crisis pregnancy" centers or other such operations designed to confuse and stonewall her, that's infuriating.

Unfortunately, from my perspective, that doesn't change the basic moral issue at all. If there's any point at which a fetus becomes a person deserving of protection, then I think we have to grant that protection regardless of how that point was arrived at. Knowing what I know about the spotty access and legal roadblocks to obtaining an abortion in the United States, I don't like that conclusion. But for my position to be consistent, I can't avoid it.

What's the problem with reckoning birth as the beginning of life, exactly?

Birth is an arbitrary criterion: the only thing it changes about the unborn child is its location. Surely, location should not be the deciding factor when we're trying to determine whether a living thing is a person with all the corresponding rights. Birth does not give a child any cognitive or developmental abilities that child didn't previously possess.

Comment by: Ebonmuse | April 29, 2008, 12:34 am

I believe abortion should be the free choice of the mother for as long as possible

Is it possible that while I view abortions as a right, you view it as a freedom? Do you care to make this a distinction? Freedom encompasses both rights and privileges, but lack of freedom does not alter whether or not something is fundamentally a right.

For the sake of argument, I think a better example than DUI laws are gun control laws, just because many people consider uncontrolled gun ownership to be a right. Supposing that gun ownership is actually a right, there are still ample reasons to implement gun control laws in order to prevent immoral results from improper exercise of that right.

So we can argue that both gun ownership and abortion are rights. But the difference between gun control laws and abortion control laws is that we can provide scientific evidence showing the former results in less overall human rights transgressions while for the latter we have no such scientific evidence.

We have evidence about the effects of restricting abortion such as that unwanted babies fare poorly in life, including higher crime rates and lower self esteem. We have evidence that uneducated mothers feed into a vicious cycle of poverty that can go on for generations. But we have very little evidence to show that this is really enough, this amount of abortion rights is really all that women need, this is the 80/20 rule that will work best for society. In other words, if we have no observable positive outcomes as a result of restricting this right, then we should just leave it alone.

As a counter examples to the idea that limited options are enough, consider a surrogate mother in her last trimester whose intended parents got arrested for some terrible crime against humanity and wants an abortion. Or less extreme, consider a young woman whose husband just ran off on her. Or someone whose parents just got disabled in an accident and she decides the right thing to do is cancel the pregnancy for a couple more years while she devotes herself to care of her family.

The point is, why is it that a woman should have to prove that she has "real" reasons for wanting that late abortion, and what should constitute as a good enough answer?

That's why this post proposes a non-arbitrary limit, one that's based on a fundamental and widely agreed defining criterion of moral personhood.

While there is philosophical precedent for using these criteria, it still remains a philosophical precedent, but far from a consensus and even further from what could pass for a scientific theory. That was the problem with outlawing abortion in the first place - it was decided by religious precedent, no consensus and no scientific fact. We have no scientific basis for defining what consciousness even is, let alone when it starts.

There are arguments about the differences between consciousness and self-awareness, which animals possess it and which don't, whether or not machines can ever achieve it, or even if we ourselves aren't just machines who "fake" awareness. Consciousness itself has strong roots in mysticism and religion. It was first used in the modern sense by John Locke. Before that, it was often thought of in the Christian sense as that heavy feeling of knowing you did something wrong that God will punish you for. Remember - consciousness was not discovered by science, it was invented by man. It is likely to continue being reinterpreted over time as science does actual research.

I've been reading a few computer science books on artificial intelligence and I can say that the jury is pretty much still out on what it means for something to be self-aware. I can write a little program that prints "ouch" on your screen every time you press a key but does that mean the computer feels pain? Incidentally, maybe we can give the Turing test to fetuses - if they passes, we'll stop letting women get abortions.

Comment by: bbk | April 29, 2008, 12:48 am

Grimalkin: "Chicken Girl - You are assuming that she has a) realized that she is pregnant, and b) had access to abortion services."

Well, yeah, I am making a bit of a "in a perfect world..." conjecture. As evidenced by the fact that in my scenario medical decisions are being made by doctors and not politicians. :p I forgot to add that in my perfect world health care is free for everyone, including birth control and abortions, and there's an abortion clinic in every county, a chicken in every pot... *looks at nickname* uh... skip that last one...

However, in a scenario like that where someone has missed the signs or their body betrayed them and there were no signs and they find themselves 8 months pregnant... it may be unfair to the woman who finds herself in that situation but I do think a healthy, viable 8 month fetus should be protected from abortion. I think the moral thing to do in that case is to stick it out for another month and give the baby up for adoption. If she absolutely does not want to be pregnant one more minute, she should induce labor or have a c-section. But I have enough (irrational?) faith in humanity that I don't think any sane, rational woman would have the heart to kill a viable late-term fetus if they can get what they want and deserve (to not be pregnant) without doing that. I really do think it's only moral and only fair to give the kid a shot, in that case.

Comment by: Chicken Girl | April 29, 2008, 12:55 am

Is it possible that while I view abortions as a right, you view it as a freedom?

Bodily autonomy is certainly a right, but, as Ebon's consent examples imply, a right can be given up with a person's consent. For example, one gives up one's right to bear arms all the time when one chooses to work at a company that does not allow it.

The difference between contracts and outlawing late abortion is that one can back out of a contract if one is willing to accept consequences. So perhaps a similar model should be used for pregnancy. There is some point (perhaps consciousness) where a woman's consent has been implicitly given (assuming the woman had access to birth control, earlier abortion, etc.). After that point, a woman may still legally have an abortion, but anyone who can claim a vested interest in the pregnancy (such as the father; maybe only the father) can sue her for breach of contract. It could then be decided on a case by case basis whether or not the abortion was justified.

Now, I think this whole idea is kind of silly, but it would be reasonably consistent with other areas of law where people are able to give up their rights.

Comment by: Erika | April 29, 2008, 1:06 am

Erika,

I didn't say that throwing away a half eaten apple was a trivial matter. Look at the current food crisis caused by ethanol production. The thing to take out of the analogy is that while it is a moral issue, we don't normally treat it as such because it isn't practical. A big thing that mitigates the potentiality of that life lost from an abortion is the fact that you can get pregnant again later if you want.

Comment by: bbk | April 29, 2008, 1:14 am

Women are the ones who have the babies. That's a biological fact that is not under my control.

That's what people say to justify all kinds of horrendous anti-woman policies and attitudes. NOBODY GETS TO USE MY BODY. There is no argument that that would ever make me agree that forced pregnancy is a moral good. Which, if you're being honest, is what you're advocating for.

What should the punishment be for a woman who gets a 3rd trimester abortion that is not medically necessary? Should it be illegal for pregnant women to work in dangerous environments? To what extent are you willing to go to prevent a woman from harming the fetus, if she is determined to self-abort?

Comment by: Entomologista | April 29, 2008, 1:25 am

I am not a location. I am a person.

After that point, a woman may still legally have an abortion, but anyone who can claim a vested interest in the pregnancy (such as the father; maybe only the father) can sue her for breach of contract.

Abusers would have a field day.

Comment by: Entomologista | April 29, 2008, 1:38 am

Erika, Chris
Ebon claims that “Until the capability for conscious thought exists....There is no person for harm to be done to” and contrasts a person/human, with “a non-human, an assemblage of cells, the existence of which may be terminated without wrongdoing”. It doesn't take a leap to rephrase that as "it is okay to destroy anything that is not a person". If I leap it is by reading into it at least an implication that anything we do to non-persons is acceptable.
My example, that in 1537 the Catholic Church issued a decision changing the official status of Native Americans from non-human to human, was not an historical parallel with *intra*-species discrimination. Prior to that decision there could be no such thing because Americans were not admitted as members of our species---instead they were members of that non-sentient outgroup, whose existence the Church held, like Ebon, may be terminated without wrongdoing. My position is that they had rights even then. After the Papal edict they were human beings,“with all the moral rights and protections that pertain thereunto”, which just serves to illustrate the problems with arbitrary tests of personhood, such as whether or not a creature is civilized or conscious. For a legal framework such tests may be needed, but most commenters here agree that consciousness is not all or nothing, but gradient, with cats, chimps, and fetii interspersed amongst various human conditions, so that awarding moral rights is not a simple yes or no decision either, and realistically some persons and/or non-persons have more of it than others.

Comment by: watercat | April 29, 2008, 1:47 am

The abortion debate will always ultimately come down to a few questions that need to be answered in this general order:

1) Are fetuses people?
-No. They aren't counted on any government survey, rely exclusively on the woman's body to survive, and until very late term cannot survive outside the woman's womb. Likewise, miscarriages do not make a woman an accomplice to murder.

2) If no, When does a fetus become a person?
-At birth. Until they are born, they lack personhood, simple as that. Until that point they rely on the mother's body, and while at certain ages could survive outside the womb, would require the mother to consent to surgery for their removal or induced labor, neither of which are particularly pleasant outcomes.

3) If abortion is illegal at a certain point, what is the punishment?
- Pregnant women who choose to abort will abort that fetus at a very early stage of development most of the time; the longer the pregnancy goes on the less likely she is to abort. Suppose abortions are illegal at third trimester, is the punishment different for a woman who aborts the night before, the day of, the week after, or the month after? And what will that punishment be? Not to mention the point of determining if every miscarriage past that point was self-induced or unintentional. Will an accident that results in the death of fetus be a manslaughter charge? What good is served by jail time, or fines? There are endless webs of subtiles that would need to be waded through in order to figure out each new case. If a fetus is a person though, at whatever point, you would need to judge the loss of a fetus equal to the loss of a person; accidental or unintentional, neither tend to excuse murderers from a sentence. They also need to be counted on surveys, and in the case of an emergency or complication, their life needs to be weighed equally against the life of the mother. There's a lot to consider, but if the line will be drawn, I say let it be drawn once the infant is no longer taking up residence inside the mother.

Comment by: Mrnaglfar | April 29, 2008, 2:00 am

oh, and to add onto that last point:

If a mother worked in an environment dangerous to the third-trimester fetus, and a miscarriage resulted, couldn't she be charged with negligence, or child endangerment? If fetuses are people at that point, every third trimester abortion, intentional or not, would require that the law research each case of miscarriage past the third trimester. And what about doctors? Suppose there's a medical complication and the doctors have to abort the fetus; could they be charged with murder as well? The granting of rights to a developing fetus creates complication where they shouldn't be any; so long as the fetus is in the mother's body, it's not a person; once it's out, it is. Works the same way with the organ transplant example mentioned above; you have until it gets taken out of your body to remove your consent, but once it's out, no take-backs.

Comment by: Mrnaglfar | April 29, 2008, 2:06 am

Chris
"therefore, unformed lumps of cells are people too, how dare you murder them" is just silly, which is why I never said anything like it. Also I agree that most “Animal rights lobbyists just haven't thought the issue through enough - *all* life is related, not just animal life. Eating your relatives is mandatory”. You raise an unavoidable issue that a simple +/- test (human, conscious, Baptist, Islamic, whatever) just weasels out of facing. Once we admit that members of the outgroup have rights too, even if only limited ones, we have to reconcile an evolutionary taste for sirloin, and the inevitability of killing, with Ebon's second Virtue: “The virtue of compassion entails the earnest desire for the well-being of one's fellow living things.” (http://www.daylightatheism.org/2007/01/be-compassionate.html) That includes fetuses, but being compassionate doesn't exclude killing lumps of cells, or snails, or people. When I raised rabbits I killed them because we had to eat. Right up until the instant they died, quickly and painlessly, they were the healthiest, happiest rabbits I could possibly make them. Because regardless of their state of consciousness, rationality or intelligence, they had that right. In my turn I have the same rights to life and happiness that they did, until some microscopic critters kill me. The rabbits, and me, and the fetuses and mothers, all have a right to life and happiness as long as practical, but it has to be weighed against other factors; and whether it's human or not, sometimes it's just better to kill it.

Comment by: watercat | April 29, 2008, 3:07 am

Your use of "consciousness" as a prerequisite for humanness has as many holes as any of the other criteria. Only it's harder to refute because "consciousness" is more difficult to define than physical form or genetics.

Am I not human during deep sleep? After a blow to the head? During a coma?

And, how can you be sure no other species is "conscious"?

I get the feeling that there's some faulty thinking going on around this issue as can be seen with the old question of "When does human life start?" Life started on this planet billions of years ago and we're each the latest manifestation in an unbroken line back to the beginning.

Comment by: colluvial | April 29, 2008, 7:06 am

Entomologista, I have no idea why you're treating me like the enemy. Let me recap the positions I've taken in this thread:

• The woman's bodily autonomy is a vitally important right that should be respected as much as possible.
• Abortion should be legal during the first six months of pregnancy for any reason, no questions asked.
• Abortion should be legal at any time during pregnancy in the case of a nonviable fetus or a threat to the mother's life or health.
• Access to abortion services should be safe, legal and widely available as possible. (I'd even support the position that health insurance should pay for them just as it would for any other form of contraception.)
• "Crisis pregnancy" centers and other religious organizations which try to stonewall women from having an abortion are deceptive and infuriating and should be harshly dealt with.

The only restriction I've advocated is that after the first six months, once the fetus' brain has developed, abortions should be restricted to those of medical necessity and not of choice. As you yourself agreed, late-term abortions of convenience are an anti-choicer myth, so this situation is unlikely to ever arise in practice. But even so, this one caveat suffices to make me an advocate of "forced pregnancy"? Is that how you seek out allies in your cause?

My argument is twofold: one, that once the fetus' brain has passed a certain developmental milestone, it can rightfully be considered a person whose moral rights must be weighed against the freedom of the woman; and two, that by permitting the fetus' development to proceed to that late point without seeking to interfere, a woman has arguably consented to complete the pregnancy, just as couples who choose to have a child implicitly consent to parenthood. I really don't think either of these are unreasonable positions. You are not helping your argument by implying that anyone who wants to restrict abortion for any reason can only be driven by misogyny. Chicken Girl, upthread, took a position very similar to mine; would you say the same thing to her that you've said to me?

Comment by: Ebonmuse | April 29, 2008, 9:07 am

However, that doesn't alter the moral principle I've proposed: if a woman becomes pregnant, has access to abortion services, but chooses not to make of use those services in a timely manner, that can readily be viewed as the granting of consent for continued pregnancy.

Which is then revoked, explicitly, by the desire to have an abortion.

Explicit always trumps implicit. It's ok, probably, to rely on implicit consent when no other indications of intent are given, but the mother's desire to obtain an abortion clearly indicates an explicit revocation of her consent, and again, it's not clear on what principle you're attempting to override her explicit desire.

In general, I find no problem with the principle that certain obligations, once freely entered into, cannot be unilaterally canceled.

Only because you have a human right to shelter. No such right to inhabit a woman's body exists.

And you really believe that your principle is universal? Really? Even when we're talking about "obligations" for which the risk of death is quite high? Pregnancy, after all, is the leading cause of death worldwide for women aged 12-18. I'm going to need a little more than a principle of dubious provenance before I agree with consigning thousands of women to forced birth.

Since that is what you're talking about; mothers giving birth against their will. I find that abhorrent. You seem to think it's nothing less than what they deserve, for being sluts perhaps, or for the even greater sin of taking too long to make up their minds.

Birth is an arbitrary criterion

Hardly, Ebon. It's a reliable diagnostic criterion - birth is obvious, objective - it's universal - everyone alive now was born at some point - and it's used, already, as both the legal and cultural beginning of life in nearly every nation. You've failed to explain "the problem" you referred to earlier that makes overturning 10,000 years of precedent such a good idea.

What's arbitrary is using a specific time limit as a stand-in for a developmental milestone, a time limit at which various individual fetuses may have exceeded, or may be lagging behind. Time limits are always arbitrary, even when they represent the "average" level of development at that time. Some fetuses may be more or less developed. Some fetuses might not have developed the requisite brain patterns at even 6 months. What's your rationale for preventing the abortion of those pregnancies?

the only thing it changes about the unborn child is its location.

It's truly amazing how quickly the woman and her body seems to disappear from the conversation, completely. Why, you'd almost think that being born was just a matter of moving from New York to California, or something - instead of the termination of an incredibly intimate and physically draining relationship with the mother's body.

Is that how you seek out allies in your cause?

LOL! I find it incredibly ironic for you to ask the exact same question so-called "religious moderates" always ask when our criticisms of religion hit a little too close to home.

If having you as an ally, Ebon, means a dilution of the fundamental right not to have unwanted humans stealing your body's resources, then it's not at all clear why we would want you as an ally.

Again - you seem to think that your radical redefinition of the beginning of human life solves some kind of problem, but you haven't been explicit about exactly what problem it solves. Certainly you've convinced many here that you're talking about the problem of anti-choicers, but they'll never be satisfied by any "compromise" that isn't absolute capitulation to their demands.

So I begin to wonder if the "problem" you're talking about is women with just a little too much control over who's living inside their bodies. Maybe you could be a little clearer on that point.

Comment by: Chet | April 29, 2008, 9:51 am

Ebon, don't you think that the decision should still remain between a woman and her doctor? What possible punishment would befit a woman who had an abortion at any time? Did you ever notice how most people agree that this is a choice belonging to the woman, but the consensus is that it's the doctors who should be punished instead.

I could consent to a system where a woman is required to receive counseling by a qualified doctor about all of her reproductive options before receiving any pregnancy services at any facility - whether medical, religious, or secular. Before 6 months, the woman can request one no question asked, but after 6 months her provider should be required to have a little heart to heart with her to determine why she decided to get one so late in spite of being counseled on it. If necessary, this information could be used to develop better counseling techniques, revoke the license of anyone who lied to her during counseling, or revoke the license of any provider who tried to deceive the woman by providing false information that contradicted the counseling. Or the counselor could determine that some unforeseen event put the woman in a difficult choice that, had this been known some time ago, the woman would have aborted. Perhaps if earlier pregnancy services were covered by an insurer, a later abortion would require some refund if the counselor deems that the late decision is due to the woman's negligence. At any rate, this would not affect the woman's ability to receive the abortion for any reason that she ultimately comes up with.

Comment by: bbk | April 29, 2008, 10:12 am

I don't think that you're a bad guy, and I don't think of you as the enemy at all. I love reading your blog and I agree with you on the majority of things you write about. Just not this. And I want you to realize the implications of what you're suggesting.

In a perfect world, where everybody had free and easy access to a full spectrum of reproductive health care and child services, this wouldn't even be an issue. You wouldn't even have to outlaw late term abortions, because hardly anybody would be seeking them. But we live in a world where men hold women hostage, where there is maybe one abortion clinic per state, where mandatory waiting periods and high costs mean that women might not be able to abort until the 3rd trimester. We don't live in a world where we can assume that a woman has consented to be pregnant.

Comment by: Entomologista | April 29, 2008, 10:33 am

But we live in a world where men hold women hostage

This is why I don't see eye to eye with feminists. Men don't hold women hostage any more than other women do. In some cases, women are some of the primary culprits who hold up archaic religious views. In Britain, for example, more Muslim women than men believe that wearing the veil is important to their individual identity. All over the world, there are more male atheists while the majority of church attenders are women. Go to a pro-life protest and look at the sheer number of women. It's a sad state of affairs, but if you ask me, men are a whole lot more progressive than women. When it comes to finding allies with the opposite sex, to be a progressive male is a lot more difficult than to be a progressive female. Progressive men are persecuted by regressive women just as much as the other way around.

Comment by: bbk | April 29, 2008, 10:49 am

Hi Ebonmuse,

I disagree with your criteria for humanity. I think that the genetic criteria is better. I think that your refutation based on the fact that we kill human cells does not hold. I think this because abortion is not killing one or two or even one hundred cells on the fetus, it is killing all of the cells of the fetus, thus killing the fetus.

Now if we are discussing a cell colony, I think that it is rather extreme to extend the definition. There are biochemical differences between cell lines and human fetuses. This is why there is such a problem growing new organs. The cells are different with different characteristics and different potentials.

I also think that the example of anencephaly is not applicable because it represents a clearly pathological condition. We are not discussing the abortion of fetuses with anencephaly, but the abortion of ones without it.

I think that the important matter that is being overlooked is the neonate status of a human. It is normal in the development of a human that there is a stage where there is incompletely developed cognition and indeed a lack of cognition. This does not mean that the fetus is not human at this point, it is a *young human*.

There are clear quantifiable differences between human embryos and cell colonies as well as between human embryos and hair and skin cells which are sloughed off regularly. Furthermore there are clear biological differences between the gamets, or sex cells, and a human embryo.

If one wants to abort fetuses, I think it is better to just say, we don't care that they are human and we are just going to do what we want because we can and move on with life. That is a much better thing than pretending that because they have not yet developed the cognitive capacities of an adult that they are not human yet. It is a metaphysical justification.

It is like pretending that God exists so that we can feel good about our lives when in fact, God is imaginary. It is better to bite the bullet and fess up to reality.

Cheers,

Matt

By the way, I think your website is great and it helped me escape religion. I am not angry about your post and I respect your opinion. I just disagree with it on the above grounds. Personally I hold you in high regard for what you are accomplishing here.

Comment by: Matt R. | April 29, 2008, 11:50 am

....I also want to add that I an not addressing the moral argument here as much as the criteria of what is "human". I think that abortion as a medical procedure is acceptable and necessary. As a form of convenience, I think it is not very respectful to the fetus, but I also recognize that people must find their own paths. I am, however, very glad that my mother chose to bear me.

Cheers,

Matt

Comment by: Matt R. | April 29, 2008, 11:54 am

Women are the ones who have the babies. That's a biological fact that is not under my control.

That's what people say to justify all kinds of horrendous anti-woman policies and attitudes.

No offense, Entomologista, but how is it anyone else's fault that you were born a woman?

Comment by: Ingersoll's Revenge | April 29, 2008, 12:38 pm

Matt: where would your schema place the teratoma-with-an-umbilical-cord that shared a uterus with my daughter?

Comment by: Alex Weaver | April 29, 2008, 1:02 pm

Hi Alex,

Well, to be completely correct, it is not "my system". It is the taxonomical system that defines what a human is. Taxonomy has a long history. Taxonomy does not generally deal with pathological entities, however the medical field does. So within this system which I have described, but is not "my system" the teratoma is a pathological entity consisting of various tissues of the three germ layers from which all tissues are derived.

Based on a quick look at some sources, it appears that the source of teratomas is in debate, there is even some speculation that certain types of teratomas may be the result of twinning. It really depends on what type of teratoma it is for me to specificaly say what it is, hoever, it is definitiely a pathological entity that may have sprung from your daughter, or another egg or embryo during incubation. I am by no means an expert on this and can not speak with any great authority.

The important point is that you are using a pathological entity to try and compare to a non-pathological entity. Again, no one is determining the human status of teratomas, but of fetuses.

Cheers,

Matt

Comment by: Matt R. | April 29, 2008, 1:17 pm

Matt: the problem is that defining humans in primarily genetic terms makes it almost impossible to produce a definition that applies to healthy fetuses but not to clumps of random human tissues with am umbilical cord.

Chet and others: my personal position is that I agree with Ebon on the moral aspects of this issue, and with Entomologista on the fact that there are complications that arguably outweigh those moral aspects, due to the attitudes and actions of the people we share this world with. I would generally be comfortable with the legal status Ebon is suggesting, but I consider it morally imperative to incorporate an exemption for women who have been kept pregnant, against their wishes, past the deadline due to the malicious actions of others, but still wish to seek an abortion, both for the sake of the woman's psychological health and to reduce the motivation for others to take such malicious actions - or at least make it more difficult to carry them out effectively - on the grounds that such actions not only violate human rights but are destructive of the safety and stability of society as a whole.

That said...

Since that is what you're talking about; mothers giving birth against their will. I find that abhorrent. You seem to think it's nothing less than what they deserve, for being sluts perhaps, or for the even greater sin of taking too long to make up their minds.

There is absolutely no intellectually honest way to arrive at such an interpretation of Ebon's statements - either you have a childishly black-and-white view of this debate and are classing him in a massively polyphyletic category of "people who believe there should be any restrictions on abortion" which you've labeled "generic anti-choice" and are projecting the motives and mindset of the average anti-choicer onto him, you didn't even read his posts, or you're deliberately misrepresenting him. Each of these is dishonest and irresponsible.

If you're the same Chet I remember from certain Pharyngula threads, I am disappointed that you haven't outgrown this sort of behavior.

Comment by: Alex Weaver | April 29, 2008, 1:33 pm

Oh, and as for the "sleep" bit a few of you have brought up as a supposed regutation to the consciousness requirement...

Frankly, that's logically equivalent to a man going in to the police office and claiming that his car has been stolen, being denied filing the report once it's determined that he didn't actually own a car, and then arguing that this means the police think it's okay to steal cars as long as they aren't running at the time.

Comment by: Alex Weaver | April 29, 2008, 1:53 pm

This is why I don't see eye to eye with feminists. Men don't hold women hostage any more than other women do. In some cases, women are some of the primary culprits who hold up archaic religious views. In Britain, for example, more Muslim women than men believe that wearing the veil is important to their individual identity. All over the world, there are more male atheists while the majority of church attenders are women. Go to a pro-life protest and look at the sheer number of women. It's a sad state of affairs, but if you ask me, men are a whole lot more progressive than women. When it comes to finding allies with the opposite sex, to be a progressive male is a lot more difficult than to be a progressive female. Progressive men are persecuted by regressive women just as much as the other way around.

While I wish that women would get out of the habit of expressing it in a fashion whose phrasing implies the summary dismissal of the possibility that any man could possibly be on the right side of the debate - or that a woman could be on the wrong side - it is certainly true that male dominance and male privilege are responsible for many of the difficulties specifically faced by women, and limitations on access to abortion are one of them. Granted, some women do seem to actually believe that all men are the enemy, but they're a tiny minority, do not speak for feminists as a whole, and in most cases arguably are not feminists at all due to the tendency to hold positions that are irreconcilable with the tenet (and fact) that men and women are morally equal and that women are not the intellectual inferiors of men. Dismissing "feminists" by attacking these lunatic-fringers is like blowing off the entire environmental movement due to the absurdity of the Anarcho-Primitivist position.

Incidentally, one of the striking things I've noticed is that I have yet to meet a secular woman who is anti-choice, though I've met several anti-choice atheist men.

Comment by: Alex Weaver | April 29, 2008, 2:02 pm

(Correction: "While I wish that certain women would get out of the habit...")

Comment by: Alex Weaver | April 29, 2008, 2:11 pm

Alex,

If one is dealing with taxonomy, one is dealing with difference between species, not between pathological entities within a species. Teratomas and other neoplasms are clearly pathologies present within the human species. So the teratoma is a human neoplasm, or a pathological state. There is no doubt that the fetus is not a pathological state. I am not sure where the confusion lies. Perhaps you are confused by my references to genetics. It is true that neoplasms have human dna in their cells. This DNA is slightly altered and that is what gives rise to the uncontrolled mitosis that causes neoplasms. As I said before, I am not specifically familiar with teratomas and do not know their mechanism of pathogenesis. There are good reasons to differentiate teratomas from fetuses, though, and I really do not see that there is a huge diffculty here.

cheers,

Matt

Comment by: Matt R. | April 29, 2008, 3:12 pm

For the group,

For those of you who think that fetuses are not human, I would be interested in knowing what sort of an organism you propose they are. Genetically they are distinct from their mother, therefore they are not part of her body. They are not pathological entities, generally, although an ectopic pregnancy is pathological, but these are exceptions. What is a fetus if it is not human? It certinly does not belong to a different species?

My answer is that it is an undeveloped human. So again, if you want to kill undeveloped humans, fine. Do it. But let us not pretend that they are not human. It is silly.

Cheers,

Matt

Comment by: Matt R. | April 29, 2008, 3:14 pm

3) If abortion is illegal at a certain point, what is the punishment?

It should be treated like a drug case.

I believe (I'm not pre-law), that during a drug busts the addict that comes forward to help the police bust the drug dealer is not charged. The police want to solve the problem by getting rid of the drug dealer.

This same concept would apply with abortions.

If abortion is illegal at any point, and a doctor is still performing the death wish, the charge should be on the doctor if a woman came forward to help the police search out the abortionist/baby killer.

Comment by: Adam | April 29, 2008, 3:29 pm

...and taxonomy entered into this when? O.o

Comment by: Alex Weaver | April 29, 2008, 3:34 pm

Adam,

If abortion is illegal at any point, and a doctor is still performing the death wish, the charge should be on the doctor if a woman came forward to help the police search out the abortionist/baby killer.

So then the situation you create in one were doctors will refuse to perform abortions, even if the mother's life is at risk, because they will then be investigated by the law. If the fetus is really a baby, as you suggest, then all miscarriages should be investigated as if a living person was killed. Even if it was a miscarriage, regardless of doctor's involvement. Data will also need to be collected and monitored on all women's pregnancies; after all, these fetuses are people to and we do the same for other living people. Likewise, families should be entitled to tax breaks if they're pregnant as if they had another actual child.

Because as your drug metaphor implies, the law doesn't just target drug dealers, it targets drug users as well. If the fetus is a person, whether the doctor is responisble for the death, or the mother intentionally acts to miscarry, then it would still be murder. Likewise, even if the doctor did it, unless he forced the woman to abort, she would be an accomplice to murder, because remember, this isn't drugs anymore, this is murder according to the fetus=person crowd. So the doctors and women should be jailed; along with anyone who knew about her intentions but didn't inform the law. Criminal negligence anyone?

And I don't feel these are out of line, because you would expect the same of any living person's death. Investigations as to why it happened, who knew, who might have been involved. Your attempt to pin all the responibility on the solo shoulders of doctors just works to dodge the question of the other ways of aborting, intentional or not that don't involve doctors, as well the massive legal work and government agencies that would need to be created to deal with the matter on a case-by-case basis, as the state does in actual murder cases. Women would need to be investigated in order to gather evidence for whether the miscarriage was intentional or not. Sounds more like the middle east where women can be killed for the offense; though the positions of the anti-abortion crowd seem to resemble them in many aspects.

Also, I think the drug metaphor is kind of apt, because the war of drugs is a tremendous failure that wastes money, imprisons too many people, and doesn't actually help drug addicts (unless you count prison as help).

Comment by: Mrnaglfar | April 29, 2008, 3:59 pm

If abortion is illegal at any point, and a doctor is still performing the death wish, the charge should be on the doctor if a woman came forward to help the police search out the abortionist/baby killer.

Yup, cause those poow wittle women can't actually think and decide for themselves to have an abortion. It's those strapping male, dominating doctors that force those women to have abortions or else they convince those women to have those abortions and turn their minds from the purity that is having a child within them.

This is such a cop-out.

Comment by: OMGF | April 29, 2008, 4:01 pm

BTW, if my words sound a bit harsh, it's because I get a little touchy at these types of arguments, which treat women as nothing but objects.

Comment by: OMGF | April 29, 2008, 4:04 pm

I'm not so much concerned with how the phrasing frames men because it's true that much of the problem for women is caused by male privilege. I'm concerned with the phrasing because it says nothing about all the other causes of inequality, not to mention ignores the fact that there are some areas where female privilege exists even side by side with male privilege.

Having encountered such views within feminism, my opinion is that feminism settled on this common language of male privilege precisely because it is the so inclusive of all these different feminists, even if they are nothing more than extremist man-haters. This language of feminism makes it difficult who is and who isn't mainstream, in fact I think it even confuses feminists themselves. While there are many atheist feminists, there are just as many who seem to believe in a "female" god. I've encountered writers such as bell hooks in college literature courses even though she is an irrational blowhard who fantasizes about killing white men while at the same time believes that the erosion of traditional religious institutions is a problem for black women. And as far as I can tell, most people feel that she's mainstream.

Comment by: bbk | April 29, 2008, 4:42 pm

OMGF,

The example I gave is not a cop-out at all. If abortion is illegal at any period during pregnancy, and the woman who had the abortion is caught, the police would ask her where she had the illegal abortion, and like the drug dealer the abortionist would be charged. There is no way doctors would risk jail time and their practices to do abortions if they were illegal.

poow wittle women

Did you mean poor little women?

Comment by: Adam | April 29, 2008, 4:43 pm

sorry - the above was intended for Alex Weaver for this comment

Comment by: bbk | April 29, 2008, 4:46 pm

Right, because no one risks jail time to sell drugs now that they're illegal.

Your proposal would not affect the number of abortions performed, it would merely affect the number of women who suffered or died because of unsafe back-alley abortions. You're not fooling anyone.

Comment by: Alex Weaver | April 29, 2008, 4:48 pm

Right, because no one risks jail time to sell drugs now that they're illegal.

Your proposal would not affect the number of abortions performed, it would merely affect the number of women who suffered or died because of unsafe back-alley abortions. You're not fooling anyone.

If you were a doctor who performed abortions, and then they became illegal, you would still do them?

And you're saying every doctor would continue to do them?

I would say that abortions would start to decline.

Comment by: Adam | April 29, 2008, 5:05 pm

That's just nonsense, Alex. I've presented the direct consequences of his framing of the issue. Since he can't be offering this position as a compromise with the anti-choicers - since they don't compromise with anyone - he clearly feels that late-term abortions, in and of themselves, are objectionable. Let's be honest. It's not like we were all milling about, wondering what we should consider the start of life. We had a criteria for that already - birth. Ebon wants to change it.

It's reasonable to wonder why he should want to change it, and change it in such a way as to prevent some amount of late-term abortions. What are we to conclude from that except that Ebon thinks too many women are having late-term abortions, and that that choice should be taken from them?

Ebon is, of course, free to offer his own rationalizations, but in several posts he failed to do so when directly asked. At that point there's nothing unreasonable about speculating on what, precisely, he's trying to accomplish with this. Ebon has offered his "solution to the problem." I'm trying to get at what precisely he thinks is the problem in the first place.

If you're the same Chet I remember from certain Pharyngula threads, I am disappointed that you haven't outgrown this sort of behavior.

I've posted at Pharyngula in maybe ten whole threads in my whole life. I'm certain you're thinking of someone else. I can't for the life of me believe that I'm anybody so memorable.

Comment by: Chet | April 29, 2008, 5:11 pm

The example I gave is not a cop-out at all. If abortion is illegal at any period during pregnancy, and the woman who had the abortion is caught, the police would ask her where she had the illegal abortion, and like the drug dealer the abortionist would be charged.

Oh, so if a group of conspirators murder someone, as soon as they find one of them and that person confesses, they get to go free so long as they give up the others in their group, right?

Really, this is nothing more than chauvinism. You are treating the women as if they aren't adult enough or have the mental faculties enough to decide on their own to get an abortion. Instead, you treat it as if the women are being enticed into it and don't really have control. It's rather telling, considering that anti-choicers are trying to control women's bodies anyway.

Comment by: OMGF | April 29, 2008, 5:12 pm

Chet,
Yes, it is unreasonable to cast the person attacks at Ebon that you've cast. Some of your arguments are good, and I happen to agree with probably all of them, but attacking Ebon in the manner you have is simply outrageous. There's no evidence that he wants to punish women for being sluts. Let's take the personal rhetoric down a level (I know it's a bit hypocritical after m