For some reason, many people feel that removing the feeding tube on a comatose patient and letting them die is acceptable, but actually euthanizing them is immoral. This has always struck me as bizarre, but it has led me to an interesting line of thought.
Suppose that, instead of actually aborting the fetus, doctors merely induced premature labor in the expectant mother. Then, if a three month old fetus can’t survive in the world outside the womb, well, nothing we can do about that, but at least we didn’t kill it ourselves.
Pro-lifers-- would this practice be more moral than actually terminating the fetus? If it started becoming commonplace, would you advocate for it’s banning along with abortion?
Pro-choicers-- would this practice be an acceptable alternative to conventional abortion, if that’s what it takes to finally put the issue to rest?
Doctors-- is there some reason that this isn’t (to my knowledge) being done today?
No.
I believe abortion should be kept legal even though it’s morally wrong, and my knee-jerk answer is a firm “No.” A three-month old fetus doesn’t stand a chance of surviving outside the womb and, if it does, from what little I know, chances are the child would be so severely handicapped it would be extremely difficult to find anyone willing to adopt it. There are already far too many handicapped children waiting to be adopted as it is.
What you’ve proposed strikes me as a very cruel, callous method of washing one’s hands of something. Now, as someone who is strongly politically pro-choice, I’m very aware that there are those who’d characterize that stance as cruel and callous, but I see a rather large difference between the two, even if I’m not sure if I can articulate it at 6:00 in the morning.
Why three months? Why not two, or a week, or the two daughter nuclei just after conception and meiosis? Or even, should it ever be medically possible, the two cells before conception (ie. a baby grown in a ‘vat’ from a separate sperm and egg)?
All such dates are arbitrary. We currently base our arbitrary instance at which we may no longer exterminate the organism like a plant with an appeal to brain function. We say that if the foetus, or the coma patient, falls short of some neurophysiological measurement of brain activity, they are essentially pieces of meat to be disposed of at the behest of the next of kin.
Anencephalic organisms such as early foetuses and brain-dead (or near dead) adults are “human” only by outward appearance.
This method would suck. It’s no different from pushing somebody off an ocean liner or through an airlock in space; it’s killing. I have a hard time seeing that anybody would view this method as morally superior to abortion.
Best alternative we’ve got available right now is comprehensive training in sex education, human sexuality and relationships, and birth control before the age of 13. Obviously some people some of the time get pregnant on purpose and then something goes awry and they wish to terminate, but the vast majority of abortions are consequences of unintended pregnancies.
Best improvement in that alternative would be development of easily reversible birth control that is not systemically invasive (i.e., not like most hormonal or pharmaceutical methods), and that is default (i.e., like sterilization, where you have to deliberately do something to render yourself fertile, rather than where you have to deliberately do something to prevent pregnancy regularly or shortly before sex). And then convince most of the population to have their kids (both sexes by the way) set up with it before puberty.
Siege,Priceguy, out of curiousity – what is your position on euthanasia?
As I said, I based hypothetical on the widely accepted idea that withholding treatment is okay, but actually euthanising the comatose isn’t. Since you have said that leaving a baby out to die is morally equivalent to killing him, can I assume that you feel that starving a comatose patient to death and giving them a lethal dose of anasthetic are morally equivalent?
I don’t have one. In principle, I think anyone should be allowed to choose when to end their lives, and that hopeless cases should be allowed to die instead of living in agony for weeks for no good reason… but the effect this could have on doctors and the “pressure” that might evolve to end one’s life are factors that make me an undecided.
That is the worst idea I’ve seen in a while… let the fetus suffer and die … instead of just dying !? I’m all pro-choice… but not “killing” by neglect !