abortion debate as dichotomous (secular view

Great Debates
1

I guess I should start by saying that while I consider myself very liberal my own views on abortion are still in the process of being hashed-out, hence this thread. I am not at all religious so I have tended to approach the debate in a purely secular manner based on my own ethics, morals, and (limited) understanding of human development. It seems to me that far too often the issue of whether we should allow abortion is separated into a “no abortions never” vs. “any attempt to restrict any type of abortion is an assault on a woman’s right to choose” dichotomy. This approach does not make much sense to me mainly because of the historical stances of the more extreme voices in these two camps: today, most people probably believe that contraceptives such as condoms are ok and most people also probably believe that infanticide is not-so-ok, but this has not always been the case. I can understand how opposition to things like legislation restricting “late-term” abortion have are partially based on the belief that one concession on an issue will lead to more down the road, but it seems to me that many of the interested parties are approaching the issue with a tactical, political bent and not addressing the single-most important question here, which is when (or at what stage) exactly does the act of destroying the product of a sperm cell and egg cell (or a sperm or egg cell itself, for that matter) constitute an immoral act. It seems reasonable to me that a woman should have control over a part of her body that could not exist without her supporting it (ie abortion in the early stages), but due to advances in medicine we now have the ability to keep some alive today which would have died outside of the woman’s body before, and we can only assume these capabilities will continue to change with further advances. Does this mean that the point in development at which such an act is immoral depends on the context of the scientific capabilities in which the pregnant woman lives (ie the immorallity of aborition is not a universal concept)? I guess my main issue is to try and determine where, if anywhere, we can draw a line in the span of a human’s development that seperates whether its destruction is moral or immoral. It seems like two easily definable points, ones that many have latched onto for their pro-life or pro-choice arguments, are the point of conception and the moment of birth. I don’t really think these two points are all that reasonable (partially for the reasons mentioned above) and I feel likethe vast majority of Americans agree with me. So is there some other easily definable point in our development that should serve as the marker? Is it when we become self-aware? (Is that even before we are born?) Is it when we are able to survive on our own, and, like I mentioned before, does that take into account the current state of medical technology in the society in which we live? I would be very interested to read what other people think about this issue.

ps - I found one other thread that seemed to touch on this subject, http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=29746, but it was old and the discussion broke down toward the end.

2

Easily definable? I doubt it. Fetal EEG and quickening have been suggested. The problem is the fetus develops gradually, but being a person is something most of us think of as all or nothing–“We hold these truths to be self-evident[Hah!], that all men are created equal. . . .”

3

My feeling is that once there is a capability to produce life, it is then not moral to terminate that life. Personally, I put that stage at implantation of the blastocyst. If there is no implantation, there is effectively no chance of survival, and thus attempting to prevent implantation of a fertilized ovum is to me a moral method of contraception.

What this does, effectively, is stick me right in the “no abortions” camp, but this is acceptable to me. If I believe that taking away the potential for life is morally equivalent to terminating a life that is produced, why not consider endpoints a reasonable place for determining the morality of abortion?

4

could you explain these?

5

[QUOTE=lel]
Personally, I put that stage at implantation of the blastocyst. If there is no implantation, there is effectively no chance of survival, and thus attempting to prevent implantation of a fertilized ovum is to me a moral method of contraception.

[QUOTE]

What exactly do you mean by this? Is the “implantation of the blastocyst” when the fused egg and sperm cell attaches itself to the uteran lining? Is it important in your view that the moment be a point after which both sets of genes (mother’s and father’s) have come together? Couldn’t it be argued that there are a great deal of other things that could happen after this point that would equally diminish chances of survival? Thanks for your response, I have been wondering about this question - and what other people think about it - for some time.

6

To give the 100% logical, secular, athiestic, and cold answer:

If the owner of a dog has the right to put his pet to sleep, based on the idea that a dog does not have the mental capabilites to even recognize itself as a living being, then this should carry through to any life-form. Now, currently it is my understanding that a full grown dog has a more highly developed mental system than a newborn baby. This would mean that for a time after the baby was born and up until the point where it had become more mentally aware than any other animal that society has deemed ok to execute for our own good, you should have the right to end its life (assuming you are the legal guardian of the baby.)

Now, I generally consider myself a logical, secular, and atheistic guy–and the above timing still isn’t a law I would ever want to have passed. So obviously logic has very little to do with this situation and moreover thinking ourselves actually logical is probably largely false.

IANAParent, but my current level of what seems okay is that if it hasn’t been born, the doctor says it is safe for the mother, and that the foetus/baby will not suffer…well then I’m still ok. I don’t know where that point is, but I am ok up to that point.

[side comment]

Somehow a discussion with my mother came to a point where I opined that women are probably more pro-abortion than men. Based on the idea that a baby is going to be 9 months of pregnancy, a painful birth, and no guarantee that dad is going to stick around.
My mom stated that actually men tend to more pro-abortion than women. The reason being that…well, because men are pigs. I.e. abortion adds another safety-net if you’re sleeping around.

Dunno which is true. But does make you wonder.

[/side comment]

7

The idea that the fetus becomes a person when it has an EEG is the flip side of you stop being a person at brain death, i.e. no EEG. Quickening? Um, if the fetus is moving on its own, it’s more like an independent being? My mother believed in pro-choice before quickening, and although Mom wasn’t too keen on philosophy or moral dilemmas, I think her reasoning was: The question here is when should we feel empathy for a fetus the way we feel for a living, breathing, out-of-the-womb baby. Well, when does a good mother feel that way? When she feels the baby moving inside her; that’s when the pregnancy becomes real.

Gotta use my sig in this thread.

8

Heartbeat is another.

My own feeling is that is should be whatever the state uses to determine death – sustained heartbeat, brain activity, etc.

9

For me, the OP isn’t asking the right question. Again for me, the status of the fetus isn’t important. If the Dalai Lama could be miniaturized and stuck inside someone’s body, I would never agree that person wouldn’t have the right to kick him out, even if it meant his death.

If there were a method for removing the fetus alive without any added risk to the woman, I’d be for that. The death of the embryo/fetus is, right now, an unavoidable side-effect of the woman’s right not to lose intimate control over the fate of her body.

10

Welcome to the SDMB! Good luck with this thread.

I’m a little confused about the point you are trying to get at in the OP. Read on:

I struggle to understand questions of “morality” outside the context of ones personal ethics. I don’t buy into moral absolutism (and am not aware of too many “liberals” or “secularists” who do).

This I understand, and I agree that this is the “main issue” for individuals deciding their own moral position on the issue.

But the “dichotomy” issue you use as a preface isn’t about individuals reaching their own position about the morality of abortion. You talk about “whether we should allow abortion.” I think you are talking about the law, which in this country (and most others), is inherently political (and not strictly morality based).

We will not all agree, ever, about where to draw this line. Can we at least agree on this point?

To me, the interesting question isn’t where someone might draw the line (or argue where it should be drawn), but at what point should a woman’s right to draw that line be overruled by the interests of the state.

I oppose abortion. I am pro-choice. I oppose late term abortion legistlative bans.

This has little to do with my personal ethics on the issue of abortion. It has to do with my moral position that it isn’t appropriate, generally, for me to attempt to impose my moral beliefs on others (and the golden rule, where I don’t want others to atttempt to impose their morals on me).

So, what is it you really want to discuss/debate? Where each of us choose to draw the line, based on our moral compass, or where we, as a society, should allow [or not allow] abortion?

11

Neither side is entirely honest about what they actually want and consider vital to their concerns in these debates.

The prochoice folks’ are probably simpler and what we want is closer to what we say we want: that pregnancy should not be an involuntary experience. Many of us, possibly most of us, would consider trading away some abortion rights in exchange for bulletproof, safe, sideeffect-free, affordable, simple-to-use, default-position birth control for both sexes (i.e., you set yourself and your kids up with it and you dont’ get pregnant from sex unless you specifically do something to deactivate it) plus genuine sex education so that the average 12-year-old knows as much about pregnancy and birth control as they do about cell phones and instant messaging. The cost of such a tradeoff would be those areas where someone opts to get pregnant and then their circumstances change and they need to terminate the pregnancy. But if first-trimester abortion remained available, I suspect most of us would regard it as a useful tradeoff, as long as the right-to-life movement faded away and wasn’t around agitating for more changes etc.

The right-to-life folks are more complicated to generalize: I think there are a lot of folks in the movement who just think “killing people is bad, abortion is killing people, end of story”. Theoretically, we ought to be able to compromise with them politically because better birth control and sex ed would reduce abortion rates more markedly than making abortion illegal would. But the problem is there’s another contingent and they are very heavily represented among the RTL politicians and leadership, and their agenda and “bacon” is different: they specifically want to ensure that sex carries with it the risk of pregnancy and that, once pregnant, one must bear the child so as to make sex outside of marriage socially unacceptable. If more than one in a hundred of these types gives a rat’s ass about a fetus’s life expectancy, I’ll eat an umbilical cord. Their agenda is to unravel and roll back the accomplishments of the sexual revolution and feminism, and there’s no more chance for prochoicers to compromise with them politically than for Kahane Chai and Al Qaeda to form a coalition party to set policy throughout the Middle East.

12

jsgoddess:

Well, the Dalai Lama, sure…he’s going to get re-incarnated.

<g,d&r>

13

One of the main problems with the abortion debate is that for many people it is not an abstract debate on ethics, but a real and personal evaluation of themselves and their actions. This debate effects peoples lives, and therefore it is one that generates a lot of emotionally charged positions.

In terms of the arguments on both sides one of the major problems is that the two sides are using two very different arguments, and for the most part each does not really understand the other.

The pro-life people use the general argument

  1. A feotus is a life
  2. It is wrong to terminate life
    Therefore
  3. Abortion is wrong.
    Given the truth of the first two premises, the conclusion that abortion is wrong is a logical conclusion. Therefore to denounce the pro-life argument the pro-choice people have to disprove one of the two premises of the argument. In general the pro-choice movement instead uses the argument that women should have a right to choose. The problem though is that this argument doesn’t address what the pro-life people are saying, and if the pro-life argument is valid is actually irrelevant anyway.

So for instance very few people today argues for the right to own slaves. The reason being that we feel that the right of a person to have freedom trumps whatever right there is to own slaves. The same can be said of abortion. If a feotus has a right to life, and a right to life is really the most fundamental of all rights then this should trump the right of a women’s autonomy over her body.

Anyway I am firmly pro-life. My reasons for being pro-life are found in the definition of what is “human”. In the abortion debate there are two main definitions. One is whether or not something is of the category “human”. The second is whether or not something is human in the sense of having human rights.

In the first sense a feotus is clearly human. A feotus is not a plant, or a dog, or anything else. If it is not human, then what exactly is it? If pressed I would guess that both sides of the debate would agree that a feotus is “human” in that sense.

It is in the second sense of “human” that the debate lies. The pro-life people see that the two definitions of “human” are identical. If something can be classified as human then there is no sense in which it is not human, and therefore deserves human rights. The pro-choce people however add other categories onto their definition of fully human. So for instance the position that a feotus is a human only when outside the mother’s womb adds on an additional requirement for the definition of human. In this definition you have to be both genetically human and also have particular spacial co-ordinates before you become fully human.

I see two main problems with this approach. The first is that all additional categories are inherently arbitrary. The fact that there are so many (ie: outside the womb, heartbeat, able to survive outside womb, brain activity, sentience) suggests there there is really nothing definitive about any of them. Also many of them lead to inherently absurd situations. Take for instance the criteria that a feotus has to be able to survive outside the womb. The problem with this one is that it depends on the level of medical care available to a feotus when it is coming out. So for instance a feotusin a first world country living next to a hospital has a larger chance of surviving a premature birth then one living in a third world country far away from a hospital. So then, what happens if a woman in a first world country crosses the line where her baby can be expected to survive outside her. She then goes to a thrid world country where the standard of medical care is much less, and the feotus is not expected to survive. What happens to the humanity of the feotus? Did the woman “kill” him, since she effectively changed something that was human into something not human. Should she be able to get an abortion in the third world country since now her feotus is not technically human? What if she goes back to the first world, does the feotus become “human” again?

The second problem with adding on categories for humanity is where does it end? If you set some standard of performance for what is considered human, who decides how high to set the standard? New-born infants and toddlers aren’t really that much more mentally developed then a dog, why give then human type rights, yet deny them to smarter animals?

One of the interesting things about who generally is anti-abortion is that disability groups are often anti-abortion. The reason is that they can see the writing on the wall. Once you start setting performance criteria for who is human, who is to say that they aren’t human? So for instance a person with Down’s syndrome typically is mentally sub-standand compared to most other “normal” people. If we are setting performance criteria on who is human, why not declare them non-human?

Many of the evils of the past have been justified by just this argument. So for instance slavery in America was bolstered by the argument that since Africans were so intellectually low performing (since they didn’t have the same language and customs as white people :rolleyes: ) then it was fine to treat them badly, because they weren’t really human.

And if you look around abortion is being used for all sorts of new evils. So in parts of India and China there is a grossly disproportionate number of males (around 70-90%) being born. The reason is that in these cultures women are seen as less valuable then men, and so parents are using ultra-sound to dermine the sex of their unborn child, and if it is female they are having it aborted. Of course this is going to cause huge problems in the future as this society matures. In many ways you have to be careful what you wish for, because you just might get it.

Onesimus.

14

The Center for the Advancement of Women, headed by former Planned Parenthood president Faye Wattleton, comissioned a report from Princeton Survey Research Associates on contemporary women’s issues, which was published in June 2003. Of 3,329 women surveyed, 51 percent wanted to ban abortion altogether or to limit it to cases of rape, incest, and where the mother’s life is endangered. Another 17 percent said the procedure should be available under stricter limits than now apply.

15

Interesting point.

Again, logically, the only thing differing humanity from any other lifeform is our awareness of our own existence and not operating simply on preprogrammed instinct that we have no control over.
So in a logical world, it wouldn’t be a matter of declaring a person non-human, it would be a matter of having scientifically proven a lifeform to lack self-awareness.

This will be a very important distinction when AI is invented, dogs gain human level of awareness, and we first encounter the Klingon empire. I personally think it will greatly ease the forming of new law–in fact entitely removing the need to create new law at all.

Interesting. I would never have guessed that it was over half–or even anywhere near that–for a total ban.
Assuming that men, then, are significantly lower–one does hope that this is a matter of their exercising more logic on the topic than because “men are pigs.”

  • Recalls the supposed statistic that 75% of men have slept with a prostitute *

Going to take me a while to kick the ass of all the other men in the world you know. sigh

16

OneSimus

I blame our leadership for shying away from it too often. A foetus is a life. So is a bacterium (albeit not a human life; don’t even bother, I’ll stipulate that a foetus is a human life). So is Terry Schiavo and so are enemy soldiers attacking our soldiers in the field. Not all killing (even killing of human beings) is murder. Most of us prochoice folks don’t consider a foetus to be much of a life (yet); we figure if the Mom, who has the most invested here, says it’s best all around if this one be aborted, it’s not the same kind of loss as you have with the death of fully conscious humans with memories and lifeplans and so forth. It is essentially for this type of reason that we also think the death of Terry Schiavo is (will be) not a tragedy: no conscious human with memories and intentionalities and a personality would be discarded there. In the case of Schiavo, such things are past tense, in the case of the foetus, they lay off in the potential future.

But I understand that you are squeamish about killing off the foetus and are uncomfortable with the idea, even if I am not. Read my previous post. Are you doing anything, or supporting any activists who are doing anything, to reduce abortion rates aside from trying to make abortion illegal? Given that we care strongly about not having involuntary pregnancy re-enter our part of the world as a major player on the social scene, are you prepared to offer any compromises to lure us into making some concessions to your sensitivities? Or are you content to continue to be enemies in the struggle?

17

It isn’t. Re-read what I wrote.

18

Bah. Read correct the first time, then got wrong when I went back to verify as I responded. Though that is a pretty big “or.” :dubious: