Morally:
I think we probably all agree that it’s just wrong to kill a certain type of being–generally described as a competent, innocent being. The question is why, and the answer comes from the riders put on the phrase ‘being.’ ‘Innocent’ means that the being in question is relatively guiltless; we reserve the right to use violence in self-defense, for instance, or often in retribution–but only against someone who started the violence himself. ‘Competent’ means the adult has some ability to make decisions; some people say it’s okay to kill someone who’s totally brain-dead (I’m one of them) or even partially braindead or retarded, but we’re all going to agree that a fully functional adult who can make decisions for himself is off-limits. This also explains why human beings are traditionally accorded a special place in morality: they’re distinct from other animals in the ability to be competent decision-makers. Thus, even if this thread explodes and causes havoc, no matter how mad we get we still can’t kill Priceguy for getting us into this mess; he’s not started violence, and he has the ability to make decisions. Even if it turns out Priceguy’s an alien from another planet (not entirely unlikely, considering the fact that his question suggests some willingness to approach this issue rationally and uncombatively), his demonstration of the ability to make decisions and his lack of moral guilt (assuming he didn’t actually intend to set off the brawl) still puts him off-limits.
The second idea–making decisions–is curious. The purpose of the first limit is obvious; the purpose of the second is less so. The reasoning, I believe, is that people should be allowed to make decisions for themselves. In brief, people disagree on things. In theory, reason should reveal which person is right, except both believe that reason proves them right. For one person to decide unilaterally that he is right and impose his belief on another is in effect, then, a claim to special knowledge of revealed truth–whether an explicit religious claim is made or not. It’s claiming that my belief is somehow superior to yours, and thus I can force mine on you. We work from the assumption that this kind of forcing is bad, and thus people capable of thinking forming opinions should not have opinions forced on them. The criterion for the right to be free from force, then, is rationality.
But how does this cover senile/retarded people? Well, for the completely brain-dead, I’d say it doesn’t (completely brain-dead meaning exactly that–no brain activity at all. You can keep the heart beating almost indefinitely–for that matter, I bet you could take a week-dead corpse and make the heart beat again hooked up to the right machine. If the brain is totally gone–in a total lobotomy, for instance–there’s no one there. The person is dead already). But for the others, I’d say there’s still some sort of mental functioning. Senile/retarded people may not be as competent or in control as you or I, but they’re still capable of some thought processes and some level of thought. Now, some will object that animals have ‘some level of thought’; but this isn’t on the same level (at least, if the people I’ve talked to are right. I don’t interact with animals much myself, but from my mother’s stories, cows are just…well…stupid). Animals have instinctual reactions to stimuli; people have language and the ability to learn. Even if someone is so crippled he has the mental age of a three-year-old, he’s still set ahead of the cow and chicken by language, curiosity, ability to associate in the abstract…
And this brings me to the next group–children. Children are specifically excluded from the original premise group (competent, innocent adults) by the word competent. But children, once again, display traits unknown to most animals. Even babies have a limited ability to associate and learn; they show curiosity and seek to learn about their environment. Of course, you can say the same of some monkeys and dolphins; but that would rather make me uneasy eating dolphin meat than comfortably killing infants. It’s entirely possible that other animals have at least enough limited rational capacity that they should be guaranteed the life free-from-force; I can’t prove that dolphins do, but the fact that I can’t prove they don’t means I’d be inclined not to assault them.
So if we say infants have the right to life, where do we draw the line between unkillable infants and rightless cell clusters? Presumably somewhere between (inclusive between) conception and birth. Now, I don’t see a real argument that the eight-cell clump has the ability to think. On the other hand, I don’t see a substantive difference between the baby two days after birth and the baby two days before birth. So I’d put the line somewhere between those two. In fact, I think the line would have to be sometime after the baby’s brain begins firing (someone cited a figure of six weeks, I think?), because before then it’s obviously not engaging in thought. On the other hand, the line has to come before the baby is viable (I think) because even premature babies display the curiosity/intellectual abilities of newborns (I think? If someone can prove me wrong, tell me?). Some people are going to say that abortion is wrong as soon as the brain starts firing. But animals (that we think it’s okay to kill) have brains with firing neurons; so it’s probably not rationality-enabled right then. But I’d tend to be conservative (if I put two bags in front of you, said one of them contained a living person, and told you I’d pay you a thousand dollars to destroy one bag without knowing whether it contained the person, would you do it? Do you want to risk killing a living, righted being?), so I’d put the line somewhere closer to brain-start than viability. Since we already define stuff by the trimesters, let’s put the line at the first-trimester mark (give or take a few weeks; if anyone has better data on fetal development, feel free to pitch in).
But what of the second condition–innocence? Perhaps the fetus is invading the mother’s body, or otherwise forcing itself on her (this occurred to me as an interesting idea as I wrote this post)? I would respond that the woman (assuming she wasn’t raped) chose the action that created the fetus; thus, she has chosen the risk of its creation. On the other hand, this would be an interesting argument for allowing abortions for rape victims.
But politics is a whole different animal. The same argument I used to say people should be free from coercion comes around to bite me when I want to enforce my will through government: we disagree, so the government shouldn’t force my ideas on you. I thus have a strong bias against government action under any circumstances. On the other hand, it seems the explicit purpose of government is to protect innocents from use of force against them; we don’t let the thief claim that his conception of morality is different, so you can’t force yours on him. We allow all to practice their own ethical codes in peace, as long as they allow others the same right. Thus, the government should protect the innocent (in this case, the fetus) from harm. But the argument about conservatively placing the line cuts the other way now: now the user of force is the one trying to stop an abortion. So, taking advantage of the trimester system again, we place the legal line at the second trimester (at which point the fetus is pretty much viable, has a well-developed if not exercised brain).
Some say the woman has a countervailing right to privacy, to own her body. While I agree she has rights over her own body, that doesn’t mean she has rights over other beings within her body (the fact that the fetus has separate rights was the purpose of the bulk of this post. If you disagree now, we basically just disagree). I can’t kill an innocent person just because he’s in my house: if we were to decide Priceguy’s guilt for starting this thread, I can’t invite him to my house, wait for him to come in, then kill him. Similarly, once the woman’s chosen the fetus’s existence (or at least the risk), she can’t kill it just because it’s in her body.
I well understand the problem of implementing an abortion ban, though limiting the ban to the third trimester should limit these: anyone who wants an abortion should be able to manage within six months. I see the practical difficulties; but there are practical difficulties in trying to prevent murder, too. We’ll never stop rape or murder completely, but we can try to make them so unsafe that they happen rarely. If abortion is the same crime, should we not do the same?
