Comparing Abortion and Capital Punishment is in many ways rather flawed. Let’s look at what passes for justifiable homicide in US:***********************
A PRO-LIFE CASE
by Lignus Vitae
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
(United States Declaration of Independence)
TABLE OF CONTENTS
I. INTRODUCTION
II. TERMINOLOGY
III. CHOOSING WEAPONS
IV. DRAWING THE LINES OF BATTLE
V. MARCHING ORDERS
VI. ROE v. WADE
VII. PERSONHOOD
VIII. LIFE
IX. FERTILIZATION VS. BIRTH
X. SPECIOUS PRO-CHOICE ARGUMENTS
XI. PRO-CHOICE ARGUMENTS
XII. CONCLUSION: THE INVINCIBLE PRO-CHOICE ARGUMENT
I. INTRODUCTION
This essay is intended as a systematic exposition of a pro-life argument. It begins, however, with two disclaimers--one a matter of locale, and the other a matter of fair warning.
First, the matter of locale. This essay was written by an American, about the American abortion scene and American abortion laws. This means that parts of this essay may or may not be applicable to readers of other nationalities--notably the analysis of the government's position, which consists almost exclusively of Roe v. Wade. However, the essay as a whole should remain applicable.
Secondly, the matter of fair warning. This essay is going to offend many people on both sides of the debate. It makes no allowances for what the alleged public would find palatable, or for the kind of public-relations shenanigans that the media allow many individuals on both sides of the debate to get away with. It attempts to be comprehensive and consistent--two qualities of which few on either side of the debate can boast. If it doesn't make you uncomfortable, then in all likelihood, you haven't thought your position through.
While the conclusion that this essay will reach is apparently foregone, the process by which we will arrive at that conclusion is not. This essay has been designed to mirror the author's own progressive analysis of the issue, which resulted in his taking a pro-life position. As such, it attempts to begin from a neutral ground, and develops accordingly.
II. TERMINOLOGY
When dealing with an emotionally-charged subject such as abortion, it is important to maintain as neutral a tone as possible. Tempers will flare as is; there is no need to further alienate either side if it can be avoided. Thus, this essay begins by addressing the question of names.
Since the issue in question is abortion, the most obvious solution to the question of labeling would be to use that very term, i.e. "pro-abortion" and "anti-abortion." However, while those who would be labeled "anti-abortion" have no objection to this arrangement, those who would be labeled "pro-abortion" often do. Such a label, they maintain, implies that they are promoting the practice of abortion itself, and not merely the right to procure it; and while some might see this--with some justification--as a mere exercise in semantics, there is a certain legitimacy to the argument.
The two sides involved have, of course, taken names for themselves, ones that emphasize what they believe to be the most important issues at stake. Thus, those who would be "pro-abortion" have named themselves "pro-choice," while those who would be "anti-abortion" have named themselves "pro-life."
This is all well and good…but many involved then proceed to label the opposition in terms of their own rhetoric. Thus, we find the debate peppered with rants about the evils of the "anti-choice" and "anti-life" movements, respectively.
THIS IS NAME-CALLING. It is childish, inflammatory, and ultimately counter-productive. The LAST thing anyone interested in a true resolution to the abortion issue should want is to have the discussion degenerate into a shouting match; certainly, neither pejorative will be seen again in this essay.
This still leaves the question of what we are to call the two sides in doubt. The media, according to The Associated Press Stylebook and Briefing on Media Law, have chosen to retain the "anti-abortion" label while renaming those who would be called "pro-abortion" as "abortion rights" plus whatever noun seems appropriate. This is both wordy and awkward; as such, the author of this essay chooses not to use this solution.
Instead, the author has chosen to utilize the two sides' own names for themselves. Thus, this essay shall cast the debate as "pro-life" vs. "pro-choice." It is far from a perfect solution, but it must suffice.
Likewise, the question of what to call the human being prior to birth is a thorny question. The pro-life movement has turned unborn (or preborn) child into a campaign slogan, while the pro-choice movement has turned fetus (in reality simply a stage of development, as is infancy or puberty) into a pejorative and epithet; neither can be used without seeming to display a prejudice towards one side or the other. As such, the author has decided to use the term "prenatal human." Again, it is not a perfect solution, but it will have to do.
III. CHOOSING WEAPONS
The next step in our reasoning must be to decide what will and will not constitute acceptable arguments. Again, this is doubly important because of the nature of the issue; not only should objectivity be sought to avoid unnecessarily alienating either side, but "Don't force your beliefs on me!" is a refrain commonly heard in abortion debates. Indeed, there exist a considerable number of individuals who argue that the abortion issue is by its very nature one of private beliefs, and as such not a legitimate subject for debate.
If there is to be a resolution, such individuals must necessarily be refuted; indeed, doing so is a key goal of this essay. To accomplish this, we must restrict the debate to so-called "common ground," where both sides may argue evenly. Because of this, any argument based in religion or philosophy (or morality, which is often rooted in the previous two) cannot be accepted, as using such arguments would indeed constitute forcing one person's beliefs upon another.
What remain to be utilized are arguments based in science and logical reasoning. These fields are relatively objective, operating under clearly-defined rules (in theory, at any rate); as such, they are not based on private beliefs, and should provide a level playing field.
IV. DRAWING THE LINES OF BATTLE
Now, we finally begin to address the question of abortion itself. The forms are similar to any other debate, in that one side seeks to change the status quo (the Affirmative) while the other seeks to maintain it (the Negative). The burden of proof ALWAYS lies with the Affirmative; the Negative is required merely to refute the other side's arguments.
The status quo as of this writing is legalized abortion. As such, the Affirmative in this debate is the pro-life side, while the Negative is the pro-choice side.
IT IS VERY IMPORTANT THAT THIS BE KEPT IN MIND, BECAUSE IT MEANS THAT THE PRO-LIFE ARGUMENT CONTROLS THE DEBATE. It is the responsibility of the pro-life debater to establish his/her case; the pro-choice debater has only to refute the pro-life debater's arguments.
However, this also means that the pro-life debater enjoys the privilege of attacking the issue however s/he pleases, whereas any pro-choice argument that does not attempt to directly refute a pro-life argument is extraneous. At best, these extraneous pro-choice arguments may constitute a distraction; at worst, by refuting arguments that the pro-life debater never raised in the first place, they may constitute an outright evasion of the pro-life arguments--a deceptive and widely frowned-upon debating tactic more commonly known as a "straw man."
V. MARCHING ORDERS
Now that we have established the ground rules, we may begin to establish the pro-life case. While there are many variants, the strongest pro-life case is also the most basic. It revolves around one objection to abortion, and one objection only: that abortion is homicide; that is to say, that it kills a person.
It is important to note what this argument does. It concedes all other elements of the issue to the pro-choice debater. It concedes the right to privacy, the right to control one's body, and so forth. Indeed, it is an all-or-nothing proposition; if the pro-life debater fails to prove his/her case, then not only would there be no justification for prohibiting abortion, there would be no justification for restricting it, either. An abortion would be no different than surgically removing a tumor--harmless, and potentially beneficial.
At the same time, though, the pro-life objection is strong enough that, if proven, it would override all those elements conceded to the pro-choice debater. As such, that contention is the whole of the abortion debate, and will take up much of the remainder of this essay.
VI. ROE v. WADE
Before beginning our examination, however, it is worthwhile to see what the United States government had to say about the issue. The defining case was set forth in the Supreme Court decision Roe v. Wade. The Court touched briefly on the question of personhood:
There are two problems with the Court's reasoning:The appellee and certain amici argue that the fetus is a "person" within the language and meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment. In support of this, they outline at length and in detail the well- known facts of fetal development. If this suggestion of personhood is established, the appellant's case, of course, collapses, ((p157)) for the fetus' right to life would then be guaranteed specifically by the Amendment. The appellant conceded as much on reargument.(51) On the other hand, the appellee conceded on reargument(52) that no case could be cited that holds that a fetus is a person within the meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment.
The Constitution does not define "person" in so many words. Section 1 of the Fourteenth Amendment contains three references to "person." The first, in defining "citizens," speaks of "persons born or naturalized in the United States." The word also appears both in the Due Process Clause and in the Equal Protection Clause. "Person" is used in other places in the Constitution: in the listing of qualifications for Representatives and Senators, Art. I, § 2, cl. 2, and § 3, cl. 3; in the Apportionment Clause, Art. I, § 2, cl. 3;(53) in the Migration and Importation provision, Art. I, § 9, cl. 1; in the Emolument Clause, Art. I, § 9, cl. 8; in the Electors provisions, Art. II, § 1, cl. 2, and the superseded cl. 3; in the provision outlining qualifications for the office of President, Art. II, § 1, cl. 5; in the Extradition provisions, Art. IV, § 2, cl. 2, and the superseded Fugitive Slave Clause 3; and in the Fifth, Twelfth, and Twenty-second Amendments, as well as in §§ 2 and 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment. But in nearly all these instances, the use of the word is such that it has application only postnatally. None indicates, with any assurance, that it has any possible pre-natal application.(54)((p158))
All this, together with our observation, supra, that throughout the major portion of the l9th century prevailing legal abortion practices were far freer than they are today, persuades us that the word "person," as used in the Fourteenth Amendment, does not include the unborn.
(Roe v. Wade, 410 US 113, Section IX)
-It is an argument from silence. It is a long-standing axiom of logic that a negative cannot be proven by the mere absence of the positive. The fact that no other area of the Constitution has a prenatal application does not in and of itself preclude the Fourteenth Amendment from having such an application.
-It is historically illogical. The Fourteenth Amendment was not ratified until 1868, well into the second half of the 19th century. Moreover, its passage came in the midst of a cascade of state laws banning abortion that would continue into the early 20th century. To use the prevailing legal norms of the decades before the Amendment was ratified--legal norms that were already being changed--to determine that the Amendment does not apply is shoddy reasoning, at best.
Because of these errors, the Supreme Court's determination is fatally flawed for the purposes of this debate, and can be safely dismissed.
VII. PERSONHOOD
A. UNIVERSALITY
Now, we get to the meat of the issue--the pro-life contention that abortion kills a person. This is the point in the debate where the relativists--those who would argue that the abortion issue cannot be resolved without resorting to personal beliefs--must be refuted. So, we begin with a simple axiom:
A rock is not a person.
Is there anyone who will seriously dispute this claim? Yet accepting this assertion destroys the entire relativist position. If universal agreement can be reached that anything--anything at all--is or is not a person, then there are universal standards for determining personhood.
B. INTRINSICALITY
The author will make a further very important assertion, namely that personhood is intrinsic--that is to say, it is an inherent quality of every person, absent from every non-person, and not something that can be imputed by an outside source or authority--only recognized. Historical justification for this assertion can be found in the treatment of virtually every oppressed minority in the history of civilization, from slaves to Jews to Native Americans and so forth. Our hindsight recognition of their personhood does not magically grant it to them, any more than their own governments' non-recognition of that same personhood magically denied it to them.
Beyond this, the intrinsic character of personhood can also be established through use of a logical tool: the indirect proof. Such a proof assumes the opposite of what is to be proven, and then through logical reasoning arrives at a contradiction, thus demonstrating that the assumed premise is false.
So, we begin with the Premise: Personhood is not intrinsic, but extrinsic.
1. This means that one's personhood must be dependent solely on one or more outside sources or authorities that we'll collectively call X.
2. Persons exist; therefore, X also exists.
3. Personhood is continuous; therefore, one's dependence on X for personhood must also be continuous.
4. Because this dependence is continuous, the removal or revocation of X at any time must constitute the removal of one's personhood, rendering one a non-person.
5. Because one's personhood depends solely on X, it must be possible for the restoration of X to also restore a non-person's personhood.
6. Such an X does not exist.
7. Steps 2 and 6 are in direct contradiction; thus, we have shown that the premise--that personhood is extrinsic--is false.
8. Therefore, personhood is intrinsic.
Step 6, obviously, is the point of contention. The author could think of only one real possibility for X--the air we persons breathe. But while the removal of air will kill a person (thus rendering him/her a non-person) the restoration of that air afterwards will not make that non-person a person again. Therefore, X is not the air. (Nor can X be the life that depends in part on the air, for life is at its root an intrinsic quality.)
C. HUMANITY
Now, then. We know that these standards exist; it remains only to determine what they are.
We have our rock as a universally agreed-upon non-person. Now, we need a universally agreed-upon person for contrast. Let's use former United States President Jimmy Carter as an example.
Now, two major differences between Carter and the rock should immediately jump out at you--first, that Carter is alive; second, that Carter is a human being.
We'll look at that second difference first. Since we're restricted to the venues of logic and science, the easiest way to define a human being would be in the biological sense--as a member of the species Homo sapiens. So, let's do that.
Is this a standard for personhood? We don't know yet. To learn this, we must first determine whether there exists a person who is not a human being.
The answer to this question is no. Only human beings are persons; even corporations, which are also legally persons, are nothing more than groups of human beings.
Is this sufficient for a standard of personhood, though? No. While we may have proven that all persons are human beings, we have not proven the converse, that all human beings are persons. Humanity alone is not enough to establish personhood. We will need to look further.
VIII. LIFE
Now, we return to our sample person, Jimmy Carter. Is there any circumstance which will render him a non-person? Yes, there is--his death. A corpse is not a person; it has no rights, and can take no actions (save for the matter of the will and testament, which were written while the corpse was still alive). It is nothing more than property.
When a person's life ends, his/her personhood ends with it. The logical contrapositive of this statement is that a person is alive--that is to say, life is a standard for personhood. It is further reasonable to argue that if personhood ends when life ends, personhood also begins when life begins.
Now, we return to the question of standards for personhood. Is this now sufficient? Yes, it is. Life provides a clear, distinct and universal boundary between human persons and human non-persons. Thus we have our standard of personhood: every person is a living human being, and every living human being is a person.
Of course, this still leaves the matter of defining life itself, and more particularly when it begins; here again, the Supreme Court in Roe v. Wade briefly addressed the question. The answer they came up with was no answer at all:
There are three major flaws in the Supreme Court's evasion of the question:We need not resolve the difficult question of when life begins. When those trained in the respective disciplines of medicine, philosophy, and theology are unable to arrive at any consensus, the judiciary, at this point in the development of man's knowledge, is not in a position to speculate as to the answer. ((p160))
It should be sufficient to note briefly the wide divergence of thinking on this most sensitive and difficult question. There has always been strong support for the view that life does not begin until live birth. This was the belief of the Stoics.(56) It appears to be the predominant, though not the unanimous, attitude of the Jewish faith.(57) It may be taken to represent also the position of a large segment of the Protestant community, insofar as that can be ascertained; organized groups that have taken a formal position on the abortion issue have generally regarded abortion as a matter for the conscience of the individual and her family.(58) As we have noted, the common law found greater significance in quickening. Physicians and their scientific colleagues have regarded that event with less interest and have tended to focus either upon conception, upon live birth, or upon the interim point at which the fetus becomes "viable," that is, potentially able to live outside the mother's womb, albeit with artificial aid.(59) Viability is usually placed at about seven months (28 weeks) but may occur earlier, even at 24 weeks.(60) The Aristotelian theory of "mediate animation," that held sway throughout the Middle Ages and the Renaissance in Europe, continued to be official Roman Catholic dogma until the l9th century, despite opposition to this "ensoulment" theory from those in the Church who would recognize the existence of life from ((p161)) the moment of conception.(61) The latter is now, of course, the official belief of the Catholic Church. As one brief amicus discloses, this is a view strongly held by many non-Catholics as well, and by many physicians. Substantial problems for precise definition of this view are posed, however, by new embryological data that purport to indicate that conception is a "process" over time, rather than an event, and by new medical techniques such as menstrual extraction, the "morning- after" pill, implantation of embryos, artificial insemination, and even artificial wombs.(62)
(Roe v. Wade, 410 US 113, Section IX)
-It establishes religious and philosophical beliefs as a basis for law. By using the disagreement among various sects as a justification for not making a legal determination, the Court strongly implied that agreement among various sects would justify such a determination. While this is not technically a violation of the First Amendment, which restricts only the Congress, it is a blatant contradiction of the "church-state wall" for which the Court was so well known in this period of time.
-It is legally irresponsible. It is a basic legal tenet that uncertainty does NOT excuse a defendant. If the author is about to tear down a building and is not certain whether there might still be someone inside, he MUST make sure that the building is empty before he proceeds. If he does not, he is legally liable for any injuries sustained by persons still in the building--guilty of criminal negligence, if not manslaughter. The Court professed this same uncertainty with regard to whether or not the prenatal human being is alive, but went ahead and authorized its destruction anyway.
-It is erroneous. The Supreme Court's litany of disagreements badly distorts both the Catholic and scientific viewpoints. "Mediate animation" was never a dogma of the Roman Catholic Church; while it did influence views as to the severity of the sin, there is ample evidence that abortion was always held to be a form of homicide (notably Chapter 2 of the [link]http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/0714.htm,Didache[/link], a Church document dating from the late first century AD).
The Supreme Court's treatment of "physicians and their scientific colleagues," with its emphasis on "viability," is similarly flawed. If the footnoted references are anything to go by, in addressing the question of when life begins, the Court did not turn to experts in the fields of genetics or embryology, as one might expect. It turned to obstetrics--a field whose authority in the question of fetal development is tangential at best, and restricted almost entirely to the latter stages of pregnancy. This betrays both a poor understanding of the question and, potentially, prior bias.
Whatever its reasons, the Court's tunnel vision was very much out of step with the views of the scientific community at large. On April 23-24, 1981--less than eight years after Roe--a Senate Judiciary Subcommittee held a series of hearings on the question of when life begins. A number of internationally-renowned scientists testified before the Subcommittee...and their testimony was virtually unanimous. One, Dr. Richard V. Jaynes, said, "To say that the beginning of human life cannot be determined scientifically is utterly ridiculous." Another, Professor Eugene Diamond, called the Court's arguments "backwoods biology." A third, Dr. Jerome Lejeune (discoverer of the genetic cause for Down Syndrome, called by some "The Father of Modern Genetics") declared that life begins at fertilization, calling this determination "plain experimental evidence."
Because of these errors, Roe v. Wade is once again fatally flawed for the purposes of this debate, and can be safely dismissed.
There is very little question that, at least in a biological sense, the prenatal human is alive. In that sense, "life" is defined as the quality distinguishing living organisms from nonliving organisms, whether dead or inanimate. It is distinguished by a number of characteristics, as can be found in any basic biology textbook:
-cellular structure
-metabolism
-growth and development
-response to stimuli
-reproduction
-adaptation
The prenatal human possesses all these traits, either active or dormant, from fertilization onward.
However, the biological definition is far from the only possible standard for determining the beginning of life (which it would place at fertilization). Other milestones have been put forth as alternatives. Some, such as the presence of a heartbeat or brain waves, are simply arbitrary; there is no good reason to use one over another.
Viability, the Supreme Court's alternative of choice, is popular with many today. Unfortunately, it is not an acceptable standard, because we have already determined that personhood is intrinsic, and not dependent upon any outside source. Viability is dependent upon the technology available in society at the time, and may even vary from society to society within a single time period. For example, a prematurely born baby might be viable in New York City, while that same baby might not be viable in a rural African village.
Ultimately, there are only two credible competitors for the position of the beginning of life and personhood: fertilization and birth. Only these two standards offer a definite and immutable boundary between non-life and life. (Philosopher Peter Singer has proposed another standard, one that would place the beginning of life and personhood some time after birth. Such a standard's application with regards to this issue would be legally abhorrent; as such, it shall be ignored.)
IX. FERTILIZATION VS. BIRTH
How, then, are we to decide which of these two events/processes signals the beginning of life? Perhaps the best place for us to begin would be with a comparison of the changes each works within the prenatal human--before and after, if you like.
FERTILIZATION
BEFORE: The prenatal human consists of two haploid sex cells--a sperm cell from the father, and an egg from the mother. Each is recognizably a part of its source organism. Neither cell can grow, or metabolize, or adapt. Each has a single, specific function--to merge with its gender counterpart. If that function is not met within a very short timeframe, then the cells will die.
AFTER: The prenatal human consists of a single diploid cell. This single-celled organism possesses a unique genetic code, recognizably distinct from both father and mother. This organism is capable of metabolism, and has already begun to grow. Moreover, this organism already possesses a distinct genetic blueprint, complete with gender and physical characteristics; barring outside interference, s/he will continue to grow and develop along the lines of that blueprint.
BIRTH
BEFORE: The prenatal human has developed as much as s/he will be able to from within the womb. S/he has grown to a size where s/he can barely fit anymore. Though still receiving nourishment from his/her mother via the umbilical cord, s/he is capable of ingesting some food (such as his/her mother's milk or a baby formula) orally. S/he is capable of breathing, though s/he is still oxygenated through the umbilical cord, as there is no air in the womb.
AFTER: The prenatal human is no longer prenatal. S/he now resides outside the womb; with the severing of the umbilical cord, s/he no longer receives nourishment directly from the mother, and must now make use of his/her pre-existing ability to feed and breathe.
Both fertilization and birth offer a radical change in the condition of the prenatal human. Fertilization marks the beginning of genetic distinctness; birth marks the end of absolute dependence on the mother. Simply weighing the two in a value judgment is not an acceptable option; it would render the question a matter of personal opinion, resurrecting the relativist specter of abortion as a matter solely of private belief. Is there a clear winner?
Yes.
Recall once again that personhood is intrinsic. It is an innate quality which each person possesses; it is neither imputed by an outside authority nor dependent upon any outside source. It was this determination that disqualified viability as the beginning of personhood; it is this same determination that now disqualifies birth.
Personhood, because it is intrinsic, cannot be imputed by any outside authority. Birth, in arguing that personhood begins only with departure from her body, invokes the mother as just such an authority.
With birth eliminated as a candidate, we are left with only one possibility. Life--and with it, personhood--begins at fertilization.
Thus, all abortions are acts of homicide, killing a person.
X. SPECIOUS PRO-CHOICE ARGUMENTS
The pro-life case has now been established. It remains only to be seen if it can be refuted.
The pro-choice case, as seen in public, is formidable. It is widely employed. It is also, by and large, useless. Before addressing the pro-choice arguments actually deserving of a response, the author wishes to take a moment to dismiss a number of fundamentally flawed arguments that serve only to distract from legitimate challenges to the pro-life case.
The following is not intended to be a complete listing, but rather a representative sample; an exhaustive refutation of all the various possible pro-choice arguments could conceivably take a lifetime.
A. SOUND BITES AND CATCH PHRASES
These are the kind of things you might see on the back of bumper stickers, or on signs at rallies. Unfortunately, many pro-choice debaters, possibly not knowing any better, try to use them in debates. The results are not pretty.
-"Abortion is a woman's right." A classic example of intellectual condescension. Phrases such as this try to defeat the pro-life argument not by refuting it, but by dismissing it--refusing to even acknowledge its existence. The unspoken implication is that the pro-life argument is not even worthy of notice, let alone being taken seriously.
-"Abortion is the law of the land." "So there!" Hiding behind the status quo when that very status quo is what is under discussion is out-and-out laziness. In serious debates over abortion, this catch-phrase is essentially an admission of the pro-choicer's inability to answer the pro-life arguments put to him/her.
-"Her body, her choice." This same phrase can refer to two different arguments. One is legitimate (a justification for abortion, treated later in this essay under the heading "The Violinist Analogy"). The other is simple, mindless repetition, ignoring the pro-life assertion that the matter in question does not only involve the mother's body...perhaps in hopes that the pro-lifer will go away.
-"It's not a person, it's a fetus." / "It's just a blob of tissue." One would hope that by this point in the essay, readers can understand that cavalier and amateurish rebuttals such as these have no place in any serious abortion discussion.
"I'm personally opposed, but..." Most often heard from politicians attempting to (unsuccessfully) embrace a pro-choice position without alienating any pro-life constituents, but occasionally put forward as a serious argument as well.
Whether put forth by a debater or a politician, the argument falls apart under a single question: "Why are you personally opposed to abortion?" Opposition on the basis of homicide amounts to an admission of the pro-life case, with a relativist bent that has been refuted elsewhere in this essay. (When put forth by a politician, it also raises serious questions about that individual's fitness for office. As John Walker put it in a 2003 [link]http://www.l4l.org/library/persoppo.html,essay[/link]: "If an abortion-choice Governor thinks the preborn are persons with rights yet it's OK to kill them, a question comes to mind: Who's next?")
The author would be very interested in hearing other bases for "personal" opposition to abortion, seeing as the pro-choice movement has gone out of its way to refute most of them (e.g. health concerns).
B. AD HOMINEM ATTACKS
Ad hominem is Latin for "to the person." The term is used to refer to arguments that attack not the points that a debater raises, but the character of the debater him-/herself, in the hopes of discrediting everything s/he says without actually refuting the content of his/her arguments. Name-calling is only the most common form of this insidious breed of parasite.
Anti-woman
It is perhaps inevitable that a movement so eager to wrap itself in the cloak of the women's rights movement--to the extent that the two are now virtually synonymous in the eyes of the public--would also seek to brand its opposition as being opposed to women's rights.
Not just a specific women's right, mind you. All women's rights. Abortion somehow becomes the litmus test by which all who would seek to support women's rights on any issue must first be judged. If they are found wanting on the one, they are unworthy to support any of the others.
The women's rights lobby in America has by and large adopted this policy, and thereby deprived itself of an inestimable number of potential supporters on issues such as wage equity and sexual harassment. But that is only tangential to this debate; as far as the argument goes, suffice it to say that even if it is granted that abortion is an issue of women's rights (and the author does not grant that assumption--see the Conclusion) it does not then automatically follow that a person opposed to abortion is opposed to all other women's rights as well.
Pro-fetus, anti-mother and child
On the surface, this argument often appears as a call for supporting both mothers and those children already born, as well as those mothers who are pregnant. This is a praiseworthy and entirely worthwhile effort, and both pro-life and pro-choice organizations work to achieve it.
However, when used in the context of a pro-choice case, this argument carries the unspoken implication that the pro-life debater should be doing this instead of challenging abortion. This is based on the flawed assumption that the need to address one evil justifies permitting another evil to flourish.
It is also sometimes used as a pressure tactic--an effort to counter specialization within the pro-life movement and diminish the movement's effectiveness overall by trying to make individual members spread themselves too thin. One would be hard-pressed to find a more effective counter-example to this pressure than the woefully inefficient "do-everything" federal government.
Attention, men: SHUT UP
The previous two ad hominem attacks sought to discredit the pro-life debater's motives. This one seeks to disqualify male pro-life debaters altogether.
Though rarely explicitly spelled out, the argument goes something like this: Only those with a vested interest in this issue should have a say. Only women can get pregnant; therefore, only women have a vested interest in this issue. Therefore, only women should have a say.
It should immediately be clear why the argument is so rarely spelled out. It is fundamentally flawed at every step of the way.
The idea that discussion of an issue of law--especially one dealing with the rights of others--should be restricted to the immediate parties is flat-out ridiculous. One might as well argue (to use the last issue as controversial as abortion for an example) that only slave owners had a right to discuss the issue of slavery, because only they had a vested interest. (The slaves? They weren't citizens--thus decreed Dred Scott v. Sanford--so they didn't get a say.)
Even if one grants the requirement of a vested interest, the idea that pregnancy is the only way one can have a vested interest in the abortion issue dismisses the father out of hand. Of course, if personhood does not begin until birth, fatherhood does not begin until then, either--but that is the issue in question. The man cannot be dismissed in this fashion without assuming what needs to be proven--a logical fallacy known as circular reasoning.
But, even assuming this, the author (who is not a father, and will not be in the forseeable future) has in the past offered another form of vested interest: He was born in 1979, well into the era of legalized abortion. He is alive today solely because his mother decided he should live; in other words, he was a "wanted" child.
Well over a million of his immediate peers--and millions of others since--were not so fortunate.
C. SCARE TACTICS
A more refined form of ad hominem, arguments in this category attack not the individual debater, but the pro-life movement as a whole. They paint pictures of the horrors that will befall society should the Sinister, Evil Pro-Lifers (TM) carry the day.
The back-alley clothes hanger
The symbol of abortions pre-Roe in the public's eyes is also a symbol of what, it is claimed, is waiting for helpless women should the pro-life movement prevail. Abortions, it is argued, must be kept safe for the unwilling mother, and for that they must be kept legal.
Setting aside the question of the quality of abortions should abortionists be deprived of legal sanction--and it is an open question--the argument, in what should by now be a common theme, ignores the pro-life arguments altogether. Though pro-choice advocates will undoubtedly take great umbrage at the mere suggestion, one must ask why the safety of the participants in an act of homicide should be a concern. By that same rationale, bomb-building facilities and materials should be provided to non-suicidal terrorists, so that they don't accidentally blow themselves up.
The pregnancy police
Big Brother lives in the imaginations of pro-choice debaters who espouse this scenario. The outlawing of abortion, they argue, will inevitably lead to witch hunts. Every miscarriage will be cause for a full murder investigation; random, Prohibition-style raids seeking illegal abortions will become commonplace; and so forth.
The most succinct dissection of this disastrously flawed line of reasoning was laid out in the 1996 essay [link]http://www.l4l.org/library/fetalrts.html,Fetal Rights: Enforceable in Principle[/link] by Edwin Vieira Jr., a member of the group Libertarians for Life. To it the author can add only that this argument once again completely ignores the pro-life case.
XI. PRO-CHOICE ARGUMENTS
Arguments such as those in the preceding section make up the vast majority of pro-choice arguments. In point of fact, they so dominate the discussion that the earliest versions of this essay, now over a decade old, concluded that the serious pro-choice argument is a myth--that it simply does not exist.
Since then, happily, this conclusion has been refuted. A number of serious pro-choice arguments do in fact exist; they will be treated in this section.
These arguments generally fall into three categories:
-Challenges to the prenatal human
-Challenges to personhood
-Justifications for abortion
As with the previous section, the following is not intended as an exhaustive listing.
A. CHALLENGES TO THE PRENATAL HUMAN
For the most part, challenges of this sort take the form of alternative standards of life and personhood, and have been dealt with in the pro-life case proper. However, there are a few arguments that aim not to establish a competing standard, but simply to tear down the prenatal human. Two in particular are worthy of examination, not so much for the arguments that they express as for the principles behind them, and a third--parasitism--is also frequently seen.
Appearance
Pro-choice activist Joyce Arthur, in a 2001 essay, concludes a litany of physical features (including "eyes on stalks," "giant heads," and "alien-looking faces") by asking:
Appearance is here put forward as a standard for personhood. In essence: S/he's not a person because s/he looks funny.Considering that the early fetus does not even look recognizably human, cannot engage in normal human perception or thought, and does not have the most basic human body functions, can we call it a human being?
(Arthur, [link]http://www.prochoiceactionnetwork-canad ... Personhood: Is a Fetus a Human Being?[/link])
Forty years after the American civil rights movement challenged the concept of appearance-based discrimination, the author would hope that no readers find this funny.
Age/Development
Often closely tied to the argument about appearance is an argument about development. Arthur even touched on it briefly in the above quote. This is, simply put, an extension of the argument that the development of a certain feature is the boundary between personhood and non-personhood.
As noted in the body of the case, there is no justification for using one feature over another; it's a completely arbitrary judgment. But the point to be made here is that, both before and after that arbitrary boundary, the prenatal human is at its proper stage of development.
In essence, age is put forward as a standard for personhood. And if there is such a thing as a human too young to be a person (with certain capabilities not yet developed) it's not out of the question that there can be such a thing as a human too old to be a person (with certain capabilities deteriorated to the point that they are no longer available).
Parasitism
This argument charges that the prenatal human is a parasite, and thus deserving of no protections. The first question that must be asked is what, exactly, is meant by "parasite."
If the term is used biologically, then it refers to a type of symbiotic relationship. Such a relationship involves two organisms of different species, and comes primarily in three varieties: mutualism (both organisms benefit), commensalism (one benefits while the other is unaffected), and parasitism (one benefits while the other is harmed).
The first and most obvious problem with this definition of parasite is that the prenatal human is the same species as the mother. A second is the question of how exactly pregnancy harms the mother (and given that this is the means by which the human race reproduces and survives, it's a legitimate question).
If the term is used socially, then it falls under the category of justifications, which are dealt with below.
B. CHALLENGES TO PERSONHOOD
The definition of "personhood" put forth in this essay is a radical one, and a key component of the author's pro-life case. As such, it is subject to challenge.
Functionalism
Most philosophical discussions define a person from the framework of a school of thought known as Functionalism: not in terms of what s/he is, but in terms of what s/he does. Traits such as consciousness, reasoning, self-awareness, the ability to communicate, etc. are offered as standards of personhood. The pro-choice assumption of such standards naturally leads to claims that the prenatal human is merely a potential person, because s/he does not immediately and fully manifest these traits.
The problem with such standards is twofold: they are inconsistent, and they are arbitrary. Removing one does not automatically render a subject a non-person. (For example, the author is not conscious while he is asleep, yet no one would suggest that he is not a person during these times.) But if the absence of one is not enough to disqualify someone as a person, then how many absences are required? The argument falls into the same trap as beginning-of-life standards such as brain waves and a heartbeat: there is no good reason to prefer one to another. Such standards are completely arbitrary.
This is a fundamental flaw in all Functionalist claims about personhood: they mistake the smoke for the fire, so to speak. Or, to quote writer [link]http://catholiceducation.org/articles/a ... html,Peter Kreeft[/link]: "Functioning as a person is a sign and effect of being a person. It is because of what we are, because of our nature or essence or being, that we can and do function in these ways."
Rather than bother with such relativistic uncertainties as to what things persons do that make them persons (which, being based as they are on private philosophical beliefs, are not legitimate arguments at any rate) this essay bypasses them, using contrasting examples to determine simply what is and is not a person.
The hypothetical alien
The stuff of science fiction it may be, but the presence of humanity in the standard of personhood will inevitably lead to the proffering of an intelligent alien race as a counter-example. This hypothetical alien is a person, yet he/she/it is not a member of the species Homo sapiens; therefore, the definition of "person" put forward is inadequate.
And therefore, the argument implies (though it does not say so outright) we have no recourse but to scrap the entire definition. And this is where the pro-life defense rests, for the argument severely underestimates the robustness of our definition of personhood.
Keep in mind that personhood is intrinsic. It does not change, regardless of whether or not we recognize it. We arrived at our definition not by thinking up conditions, but by comparing existing samples of universally agreed-upon persons and non-persons. Rather than exhaustive, the definition is minimalist--the most general boundaries possible to contain all persons and exclude all non-persons. It can be changed to accommodate new evidence. If a person who does not fall within those boundaries is found, then the solution is simply to expand the boundaries--and that expansion, of necessity, will not exclude persons previously included.
In the meantime, though, absent such an alien our current boundaries--a living human being--will work just fine. The arguments justifying those boundaries have not been refuted.
C. JUSTIFICATIONS
Justifications for abortion constitute the broadest category of serious pro-choice arguments. They are also the most easily dealt with, because they implicitly concede the pro-life case--that abortion kills a person--and argue that killing that person is justified anyway.
Because the pro-life case makes no distinction between a prenatal and a postnatal human, justifications for abortion can make no such distinction, either. Therefore, any justification for abortion must also work postnatally--that is, it must justify killing a born person, as well. Thus, we have an easy acid test for any justification put forward.
The following samples, while by no means exhaustive, are indicative of the group as a whole.
-The life/health of the mother
Legal norms concerning lethal self-defense are fairly straightforward:
-The defender must believe the victim threatens death or severe injury.
-The defender must believe no lesser force will suffice.
Under such circumstances, killing is acceptable, whether or not the victim has been born. Thus, this is a legitimate justification for abortion.
A note on health as a justification
While this essay is concerned with the overall question of abortion, and not incremental restrictions, the author here is compelled to point out that the above justification applies only to serious threats to the mother's health. This is an issue in America because Doe v. Bolton, (410 U.S. 179) the companion decision to Roe, expanded the definition of "health," as it applies to the necessity of an abortion, to include "all factors - physical, emotional, psychological, familial, and the woman's age - relevant to the well-being of the patient." (emphasis author's)
At the same time, Doe determined that there is no need for any administrative oversight whatsoever of such health determinations--the only doctor who need be involved in the decision is the abortionist him-/herself. Thus, under the current legal norms of the United States, it is entirely plausible, to use one of the more infamous examples, for a doctor to perform an abortion at eight or nine months on the grounds that not being able to fit into a dress would cause the mother emotional harm.
In addition to completely circumventing Roe's restrictions on second- and third-trimester abortions, this subtle trap places those who seek partial restrictions on abortion (such as the recent attempted bans on intact dilation and extraction, better known as "partial birth" abortions) in an untenable position. They have only two choices, both bad: either do not include a health exception and suffer the public relations wrath of the pro-choice movement (not to mention the legal wrath of the courts) or include a health exception that effectively renders the restrictions passed meaningless.
-Economic concerns
In its simplest terms, this justification contends that if a mother cannot afford to raise another child, s/he should be allowed to kill that child (i.e. have an abortion).
It should be immediately apparent that financial hardship is not a valid postnatal justification for homicide; thus, it is also invalid prenatally.
-Rape and incest
Along with threats to the life and health of the mother, rape and incest constitute the so-called "hard cases" that first opened the door for all legalized abortion. However, our approach remains unchanged.
Applied postnatally, this justification would sanction the arbitrary execution of any person conceived by rape or incest. The postnatal application is invalid; thus, the prenatal application is invalid as well.
A further note on rape/incest
To say that this is a difficult pill to swallow would be to drastically understate the case. All but the most "extreme" pro-lifers recognize this justification as valid, and pro-choicers, understandably, react to its rejection with even greater violence than they do the rejection of "health." However, accepting rape and/or incest as a justification for abortion undermines the integrity of the entire pro-life case; unpopular though this may be, hardship does not justify homicde, and a consistent pro-life argument must reject it.
Though it will be of little consolation to pro-lifers (the author included) agonizing over this (and it will be paid little heed by pro-choicers frothing at the mouth over the very idea of forcing a victim to carry the child to term) it should be noted that abortionists themselves concede that abortion does nothing to treat the trauma of rape:
-Fetal deformityVictims of sexual abuse and rape deserve special care. However, the abortion counselor should recognize that the emotional trauma experienced by the rape or incest victim cannot be treated adequately, if at all, in the abortion clinic setting.
All rape and incest victims, as well as victims of other kinds of physical abuse, should be referred for appropriate psychological counseling and support.
(Dr. Warren M. Hern, Abortion Practice, p. 84)
This is also sometimes treated as a "hard case," though not as often. A postnatal application of this justification sanctions the arbitrary execution of any handicapped person. The postnatal application is invalid; thus, the prenatal application is invalid as well.
-Good for the aborted
This justification comes in several stripes. Many, dealing in afterlife speculation, are overtly religious and thus unacceptable. The most popular of those remaining proposes abortion as a way to reduce child abuse, by eliminating unwanted pregnancies.
n short: In order to prevent child abuse, one should kill the potential victim(s).
This statement is absurd on its face--and is not even feasible unless one assumes 1) that most abused children are unwanted (an assumption that the [link]http://www.abortionfacts.com/online_boo ... n?,numbers[/link] do not back up) and 2) that future abusive parents will have both the foresight and the self-honesty to admit as much.
-Social parasitism
If the prenatal human is not a parasite in the biological sense, then s/he might be one in the social sense--that is, one who habitually mooches off others without offering anything in return.
This is not acceptable grounds for homicide. The postnatal application of this justification is invalid; thus, the prenatal application is invalid as well.
-Most of them die anyway
This argument takes the fact most pregnancies are not carried to term and from there imputes a reduced value to the prenatal human--a reduced value, it is then argued, that makes killing such persons acceptable.
A private philosophy such as this has no place in the abortion debate. (Indeed, it is an example of the pro-choicer seeking to force his/her beliefs on others--namely, all prenatal humans.)
D. SPECIAL JUSTIFICATION: THE VIOLINIST ANALOGY
This justification is perhaps the strongest pro-choice argument in existence today. It was first put forth by Professor Judith Tarvis Thomson of MIT in a 1971 essay entitled "A Defense of Abortion," in which Thomson offers the following:
Just as you would be perfectly justified in unhooking yourself, getting up and walking away, Thomson argues, so too is the mother justified in withholding the support of her body from the prenatal human, even if that results in his/her death."You wake up in the morning and find yourself back to back in bed with an unconscious violinist, a famous unconscious violinist. He has been found to have a fatal kidney ailment, and the Society of Music Lovers has canvassed all available medical records and found that you alone have the right blood type to help. They have therefore kidnapped you, and last night the violinist's circulatory system was plugged into yours, so that your kidneys can be used to extract poisons from his blood as well as your own. The director of the hospital now tells you, 'Look, we're sorry the Society of Music Lovers did this to you--we would never have permitted it if we had known. But still, they did it, and the violinist is now plugged into you. To unplug you would be to kill him. But never mind, it's only for nine months. By then, he will have recovered from his ailment, and can be safely unplugged from you.' Is it morally incumbent on you to accede to this situation? No doubt it would be nice of you if you did, a great kindness. But do you have to accede to it?"
Leaving aside certain inaccuracies in the analogy (involuntary entry into the situation, which would only be the case in rape; forced inactivity for the entire nine months of pregnancy; etc.) there are two major flaws in Thomson's reasoning:
-Passive withdrawal vs. active killing. While you would be justified, in the above example, in unhooking yourself from the violinist and walking away, you would not be justified in taking a pillow and smothering him, much less dismembering him (menstrual extraction, dilation and evacuation), poisoning him (saline abortions), jamming a knife into the base of his skull (intact dilation and extraction) or in any other manner actively killing him.
-Responsibilities and duties. This is perhaps best illustrated through another analogy. Let us take a woman, who one day hears a knock at the door. When she opens the door, she is faced with a homeless man she has never met before, who tells her that he is going to live with her for the next twenty years. She will be responsible for feeding him, clothing him, sheltering him, and in general seeing to his well-being, though he can offer her nothing in return. This woman would be completely justified in throwing this man out of her home and telling him to fend for himself.
Why, then, is this woman not justified in doing the same with her four-year-old son?
The answer should be immediately apparent--because the child is her son. Parents have a legal obligation to support their children; "unhooking yourself and walking away" in such a circumstance is child neglect, a serious crime.
XII. CONCLUSION: THE INVINCIBLE PRO-CHOICE ARGUMENT
There is one pro-choice argument against which this essay cannot stand. To it, the author can offer no response, no defense, and no rebuttal.
That argument is: "So what?"
To the author's best knowledge, no major pro-choice advocate has yet adopted this position. This is because they do not yet believe it could be employed effectively. It is this alone that gives the author hope that the prevailing pro-choice environment might yet be reversed.
It was stated at the outset that this essay would attempt to restrict itself to "common ground," where pro-life and pro-choice could argue equally. Part of that common ground is a set of norms which values the rights of the individual above virtually all else--a set of norms the United States professes to utilize. Life, being a prerequisite to the enjoyment of all other rights, is thus of supreme importance; as long as this is granted, the pro-choice case is doomed to fail.
Those at the forefront of the pro-choice movement realize this; their ultimate goal is to change these norms so that life is no longer of such supreme importance. This, as well as the larger movement of which the pro-choice movement is only the spearhead, was most famously expressed a few years before Roe v. Wade in an editorial from the journal of the California Medical Association (edited for length; emphases author's):
This is the heart of the matter--because ultimately, abortion isn't about privacy. It isn't about prenatal life. It isn't even about women's control over their own bodies. It's about doctors…and whether doctors should have the right to kill those under their care.The traditional Western ethic has always placed great emphasis on the intrinsic worth and equal value of every human life regardless of its stage or condition. This ethic has had the blessing of the Judeo-Christian heritage and has been the basis for most of our laws and much of our social policy. The reverence for each and every human life has also been a keystone of Western medicine and is the ethic which has caused physicians to try to preserve, protect, repair, prolong, and enhance every human life which comes under their surveillance. This traditional ethic is still clearly dominant, but there is much to suggest that it is being eroded at its core and may eventually even be abandoned. This of course will produce profound changes in Western medicine and in Western society. ...
... It will become necessary and acceptable to place relative rather than absolute values on such things as human lives, the use of scarce resources and the various elements which are to make up the quality of life or of living which is to be sought. This is quite distinctly at variance with the Judeo-Christian ethic and carries serious philosophical, social, economic, and political implications for Western society and perhaps for world society.
The process of eroding the old ethic and substituting the new has already begun. It may be seen most clearly in changing attitudes toward human abortion. In defiance of the long held Western ethic of intrinsic and equal value for every human life regardless of its stage, condition, or status, abortion is becoming accepted by society as moral, right, and even necessary. It is worth noting that this shift in public attitude has affected the churches, the laws, and public policy rather than the reverse. Since the old ethic has not yet been fully displaced it has been necessary to separate the idea of abortion from the idea of killing, which continues to be socially abhorrent. The result has been a curious avoidance of the scientific fact, which everyone really knows, that human life begins at conception and is continuous whether intra- or extra-uterine until death. The very considerable semantic gymnastics which are required to rationalize abortion as anything but taking a human life would be ludicrous if they were not often put forth under socially impeccable auspices. It is suggested that this schizophrenic sort of subterfuge is necessary because while a new ethic is being accepted the old one has not yet been rejected. ...
... The part which medicine will play as all this develops is not yet entirely clear. That it will be deeply involved is certain. Medicine's role with respect to changing attitudes toward abortion may well be a prototype of what is to occur. Another precedent may be found in the part physicians have played in evaluating who is and who is not to be given costly long-term renal dialysis. Certainly this has required placing relative values on human lives and the impact of the physician on this decision process has been considerable. One may anticipate further development of these roles as the problems of birth control and birth selection are extended inevitably to death selection and death control whether by the individual or by society, and further public and professional determinations of when and when not to use scarce resources.
(California Medicine, Sept. 1970; Vol. 113, No. 3)
That is why the question of abortion refuses to die, more than thirty years after Roe v. Wade. That is why abortion is the preeminent civil rights issue of our age.
That is why, as long as that triumphant "So what?" remains unsaid, the struggle will go on.
-October 29, 2004
Accidental: By force of nature or otherwise something happens beyond a persons ability to control that results in someone dying. As these are beyond a person’s ability to control it isn’t really justified to charge people unless there was clear gross negligence.
Self Defense Clause: In order to prevent great bodily harm to you or someone else you are authorized to use lethal force. However once doing so you will face a trial
