Why I Can't Be Pro-Life (But Wish I Were)
I waded in late to Katievs's abortion thread on the member feed -- rather than risk running it off the rails -- I thought I'd start my own.
Despite caring deeply about abortion, I have a hard time articulating a position on it. My reason is simple: I find both of the logically consistent positions on it to be morally troubling and downright terrifying in their implications.
The sanctity-of-life variety of the pro-life position argues that all individual humans are fully-ensouled persons from the moment of conception. They are, therefore, of equal moral value to the rest of us. As the Catechism of the Catholic Church puts it:
Human life must be respected and protected absolutely from the moment of conception. From the first moment of his existence, a human being must be recognized as having the rights of a person - among which is the inviolable right of every innocent being to life.
As beautiful as I find that idea, it means that when my girlfriend and I get married and start trying to have kids, nearly a half-dozen fully-ensouled persons are likely to die as a result of our efforts (22% of all conceived zygotes fail to implant). Not to put too fine a point on it, but I would find that -- and the fact that our government sanctions mass-murder of children -- utterly horrifying.
The alternative can best be called the "personhood" argument argument, which holds that we have moral value only by virtue of the level of our moral and intellectual cognition. Or, as professor Peter Singer puts it:
[The argument that a fetus is not alive] is a resort to a convenient fiction that turns an evidently living being into one that legally is not alive. Instead of accepting such fictions, we should recognise that the fact that a being is human, and alive, does not in itself tell us whether it is wrong to take that being's life.
Therefore, babies and young children are of no moral consequence and can be killed with no more concern than we might grant a cow. That, too, I find horrifying (more so than the other position, for the record).
As much as I dislike it, this is why I'm morally most comfortable with what I concede is an intellectually squishy position: that our emotional intuition about the increasing value of human life -- rising sharply during pregnancy and then leveling out over time -- is correct. This why we send flowers to a friend who has had an early miscarriage, but stop everything when the same friend's toddler dies.
As such, I'm comfortable with keeping abortions legal during the first trimester, and am equally uncomfortable with allowing mid- to late-term abortions (the usual caveat of danger to the mother's life aside). I don't particularly like this position, but it's the only one that lets me sleep at night.
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Comments:
Jun '10
Re: Why I Can't Be Pro-Life (But Wish I Were)
Barkha Herman
A grandma attached to life support is no less human than a fetus. The word "human" is not the magic bullet.
IF you think that removing grandma from life support is OK, then it can be argued that removing a fetus that is not viable on it's own is also OK. · 18 minutes ago
Yee-Haw - I have not heard this one before. Succinct and powerful.
Jun '10
Re: Why I Can't Be Pro-Life (But Wish I Were)
Barkha Herman
Joseph Stanko
The claim that a fetus is anything other than a living human being, though, is simply denying reality. It really is not even debatable. · 38 minutes ago
A grandma attached to life support is no less human than a fetus. The word "human" is not the magic bullet.
IF you think that removing grandma from life support is OK, then it can be argued that removing a fetus that is not viable on it's own is also OK. · 12 minutes ago
I think we're saying the same thing, aren't we?
That's what I'm saying, do you agree?
Apr '11
Re: Why I Can't Be Pro-Life (But Wish I Were)
Tom Meyer
Apology accepted. And I mean in all sincerity that I envy you your faith, even if my own understanding of the facts doesn't lead me to share it. · 3 hours ago
Tom. You are the most decent of men. Your humility and openness . . . your patient listening and courage in engaging those more certain of their paths . .
Lucky or blessed are those whose lives you touch.
Edited on August 28, 2012 at 2:39amApr '12
Re: Why I Can't Be Pro-Life (But Wish I Were)
Barkha HermanIf the same 110 year old is attached to life support, and one simply removes the life support, then is it a murder? Doctors / families make that decision all the time.
It is the same for a fetus. Yes, technically, life may start at conception but it's on life support. · 28 minutes ago
Well, no.
All abortion techniques I know involve actual physical harm of the fetus-- analogous to stabbing the guy on a breather machine in the heart, or pumping poison in his drip system.
Some forms of "removing life support" are as simple as removing the machine that force them to breath.
Most of those that make the news involve removing their food and water, so they starve to death.
The Catholic Church makes the kinda obvious, very clear, differentiation between the two.
Apr '12
Re: Why I Can't Be Pro-Life (But Wish I Were)
Fred Cole So your question is When does life become valuable?
Yikes! That's a very subjective measure.
Valuable by whose standard?
....Fred, are you trying to kill me!?!?! I agree with you. Again.
Apr '12
Re: Why I Can't Be Pro-Life (But Wish I Were)
#104 cont:
Or shoving them out a window when you're on floor 20.
It ain't passive, it's active.
Jul '11
Re: Why I Can't Be Pro-Life (But Wish I Were)
Joseph Stanko
I think we're saying the same thing, aren't we?
That's what I'm saying, do you agree? · 21 minutes ago
To be perfectly honest, I am undecided on the entire abortion thing. As a libertarian, I struggle with the entire individual liberty thing. In the case of abortion, two individuals are of concern.
Mar '11
Re: Why I Can't Be Pro-Life (But Wish I Were)
Joseph Stanko
Mendel:
Contrary to what Joseph Stanko wrote above, the statement "a fetus is a human being" is not fact
But it is a fact, one that even Peter Singer acknowledges in the quote Tom cited:
A zygote is alive. It has unique human DNA. It is a member of the specieshomo sapiens. That is a proven scientific fact.
Joseph, we are arguing over semantics. I take the definition of "human being" from the Collins dictionary:
to mean that a zygote is not necessarily a human being. Obviously no one disputes that a zygote is a unique genetic organism containing human DNA, but I am not sure if that is sufficient to meet the criteria of "human being." Either way, change the term to "person" and we are on the same page.
May '10
Re: Why I Can't Be Pro-Life (But Wish I Were)
Mark Lewis
Barkha Herman
A grandma attached to life support is no less human than a fetus. The word "human" is not the magic bullet.
IF you think that removing grandma from life support is OK, then it can be argued that removing a fetus that is not viable on it's own is also OK. · 18 minutes ago
Yee-Haw - I have not heard this one before. Succinct and powerful. · 35 minutes ago
Barkha/Mark
Would it be ok to take grandma (or any person) off life support if after only a few more weeks, or at the very most 9 months, they would have fully restored and functioning organs that could see them through another 78.7 years (on average)?
Edited on August 28, 2012 at 3:22amMar '12
Re: Why I Can't Be Pro-Life (But Wish I Were)
Joseph S: I think we're saying the same thing, aren't we?
That's what I'm saying, do you agree?
Should the mother to be found with cancer, and a medical course of action be taken that involves chemotherapy and/or radiation, it may be taken even though the unborn child is truly endangered.
What is not acceptable is to abort (directly end the life of) the child.
In one case, the death of the child is not primary or desired. In the other case, no matter the reason, the primary and desired end of the abortion is the death of the child.
Do we agree?
Aug '12
Re: Why I Can't Be Pro-Life (But Wish I Were)
Why not leave Catholicism out of this completely? What we need to know, we can get from science. A fertilized embryo, at the time of conception, has unique and separate DNA from both parents, and is, in fact, a complete human being. If that human being does not survive to birth, or adulthood, or even implantation through natural causes, we mourn but are not monsters. If we deprive that human being of his or her life willfully, we are. Simple and rational - and lets you sleep at night.
Aug '12
Re: Why I Can't Be Pro-Life (But Wish I Were)
As a person who deals with end of life issues regularly, I will strenuously argue that Grandma's breathing machine is in no way analgous to uterine fetal support. Everyone shares a final destination, more likely to occur with each passing year. Grandma's potential for recovery and any wishes she expressed before she became unable to communicate determine the family members' (incredibly emotionally turbulent) decisions on whether we should continue with life support.
In contrast, a fetus' healthful, well, natural state of being is in utero. I liked the comment that a full "recovery" is expected in 9 months. Many families choose to continue life support despite much worse odds with far less long term function. A vast majority of the physicians I've met would counsel a family to keep life support given a certain 100% recovery in just months. (I would say "all" here, but don't want to fall prey to hyperbole.)
Dec '11
Re: Why I Can't Be Pro-Life (But Wish I Were)
Joseph Stanko
Barkha Herman
Joseph Stanko
The claim that a fetus is anything other than a living human being, though, is simply denying reality. It really is not even debatable. · 38 minutes ago
A grandma attached to life support is no less human than a fetus. The word "human" is not the magic bullet.
IF you think that removing grandma from life support is OK, then it can be argued that removing a fetus that is not viable on it's own is also OK. · 12 minutes ago
I think we're saying the same thing, aren't we?
That's what I'm saying, do you agree? · 58 minutes ago
1 is false. Sperm are alive. Eggs are alive. They themselves arise from already living tissue. They are alive while they unite. At no point are they ever not alive. Life does not begin. Life merely continues.
Feb '11
Re: Why I Can't Be Pro-Life (But Wish I Were)
Joseph Stanko
JB
One single cause. I imagine, that with enough time an effort, at the expense of not making progress in a variety of other areas, we could very drastically decrease the rate at which fertilized embryos fail to attach to the uturs. If we, as a society, valued these embryos as much as we valued our born children, we'd already be doing this. · 16 minutes ago
Diarrhea kills 1.5 million children every year worldwide.
So why aren't we spending millions of dollars on that?
Because in practice we don't value all life equally. We value the lives of our own born children over the lives of children we've never met, be they born children in developing countries or zygotes. · 1 hour ago
Abortion kills 1.5 million in this country every year. One single cause. Abortion, the willful killing of unborn children, kills more than spontaneous miscarriage, even assuming that 22% is correct. Elective abortion ends about 25% of pregnancies in the US.
Dec '11
Re: Why I Can't Be Pro-Life (But Wish I Were)
Devil's advocate: Define "complete."
Jul '11
Re: Why I Can't Be Pro-Life (But Wish I Were)
Katie O
Barkha/Mark
Would it be ok to take grandma (or any person) off life support if after only a few more weeks, or at the very most 9 months, they would have fully restored and functioning organs that could see them through another 78.7 years (on average)? · 18 minutes ago
Edited 3 minutes ago
Katie - I've thought about that. If a mother / father does not want the child, let's say we can extract the fetus and keep it viable for the 9 months. What happens after that? Who funds this contraption to keep the fetus alive? Who takes care of it? If adoption does not occur, does government then support the unwanted babies?
What if the parents are not interested in letting their genetic material out there in the world? What if they used contraception and it failed? Are they forced to raise the child or have it be raised by strangers or government without any rights? Are those the only options?
Do we have any control over our genetic material? Is abstinance the only answer?
Sep '10
Re: Why I Can't Be Pro-Life (But Wish I Were)
Could artificial wombs end the abortion debate?
Jun '12
Re: Why I Can't Be Pro-Life (But Wish I Were)
Here is a libertarian perspective from Dr Walter Block. I'm not advocating it, just putting it out there. One term that helps if you google it for a shorter synopsis is evictionism.
Compromising the Uncompromisable: A Private ... - WalterBlock.com
Oct '10
Re: Why I Can't Be Pro-Life (But Wish I Were)
Just what consititues functional human being ?
May '10
Re: Why I Can't Be Pro-Life (But Wish I Were)
raycon Do you believe, then, that God has no purpose for His Creation other than the live birth and natural death cycle. That the soul has no other eternal purpose?
God's love for His creation transcends mankind's limited period called life. Our understanding of God is limited to that arena simply because we cannot have any other perspective than our humanity.
That is a limitation of our theology, not God's creative purposes.
Raycon, there is profound wisdom in what you write. But I recognize therein a wisdom that, like Job's, is the fruit of a life experienced in enduring "suffering" while yet recognizing God's active hand in it. Not all are blessed to have experienced the suffering and been granted the gift of wisdom to learn from it.