Understanding
Abortion
By Paul Watson
Special
Thanks
I
would like to wish a special thanks to Rachel Watson for editing this essay. In
addition to being my sister and beloved friend, Rachel is a published writer
whose articles have appeared in The Gospel
Coalition and RELEVANT Magazine.
I would also like to thank Christina Billeci, a student at Mercy in Action
Midwifery School, for reviewing this essay for scientific accuracy.
Introduction
Both
my parents are conservative Christians and life-long Republican voters. I was
raised to follow both G-O-D and the GOP. I was vehemently opposed to abortion
before I even knew what it was. At the conservative Christian high school I
went to, opposition to abortion was literally part of the curriculum. All my
life, I was taught that abortion is the single greatest evil going on in the
world today. It’s a topic that demands to be understood. So, in order to do
that, I wrote this essay. I wanted to see what the facts really were and how
they bore on what I believed. I wanted to ask the hard questions and find the
best answers available. I wanted to make sure that I had an informed opinion,
and perhaps get closer to the truth.
Abortion
is charged, it’s contentious, it deals with sex, religion, gender roles, life
and death, and the very essence of what constitutes human nature. It’s also
difficult to write about. Not only is it hard to stay objective, but the sheer
size of the topic is daunting. I can’t address every issue or question, but I
will try to do my best to explain the process, the issues at play, what the
evidence says, and what I think it all means.
Why Men Can Talk About Abortion
I
have had people tell me that I, as a man, can’t have an opinion on abortion
because I can’t get pregnant and I don’t know what it’s like to be a woman. While
that’s obviously true, I am convinced it’s irrelevant.
Consider an example. A man and a
woman both agree that abortion is completely fine in all cases. They say a
woman has an absolute right to her body and everything that happens in her
body. They say this is true even if the unborn inside her is already a person.
So long as the woman has not delivered a live baby into the world, both the man
and the woman believe she should have the right to abort her pregnancy, and
that this right should be protected by the government.
On the other hand, we have my mom
and dad. They believe that a fetus is a person from the moment of conception,
that the morning after pill is murder, and that anyone who assists in the
performance of an abortion is a criminal. Now, just suppose that one side of
this argument is right. Is the man who holds the right belief any less right
than the woman who agrees with him? Is the man’s correct opinion simply to be
ignored? Is it invalid? What if all men believed in women’s absolute right to
abortion in all circumstances? Surely their feelings should not be
categorically excluded, nor would they be by the women who agreed with them.
It is true that I can’t get
pregnant, that I don’t know what women go through, and that I can’t appreciate
everything that women feel about pregnancy. I understand why some people think
this is a disqualifier, but I don’t think it’s so obvious that this has
anything to do with my ability to judge whether abortion is right or wrong. The
questions surrounding the legitimacy of abortion deal with philosophical
positions about the sanctity of human life and scientific evidence about stages
of the fetus’s development. Feelings should have nothing to do with it. Now,
that is not to say that the special knowledge women have about pregnancy is not
important. It does mean, however, that it is not relevant to this question,
specifically because it does nothing to answer the core questions of whether the
fetus is a person or not and whether it has a right to life in either case.
Both men and women can fully
understand the pregnancy process through the enlightenment of science. Without
the knowledge science provides us, all we have is a set of non-scientific
impulses. This comprises a body of knowledge that is totally irrelevant as it
regards the personhood of a fetus. This knowledge alone is not enough to make
rational judgments about whether abortion is legitimate or not. Since the only
type of knowledge that is truly helpful in judging whether or not the fetus is
a person is knowledge which can be understood to an equal degree by both men
and women, both men and women can have equally valuable opinions derived from
this knowledge.
Background
and Biases
I
mentioned earlier that I grew up in a conservative, fundamentalist home. At
first, I thought the same way my mom and dad did, but, as time went on, I began
to disagree with my parents on some political issues, and soon found that I was
not a neoconservative, like them, but a libertarian.
While my political outlook has shifted,
I remain a devout Christian, and some fine points of systematic theology tend
to inform my personal feelings on the matter. Christians believe that the human
body is inhabited by a soul, which for all practical purposes to this essay is
the same thing as personhood, and it’s commonly inferred that the soul is
present in a human embryo from an early point, usually conception. The debate
over when and how the soul enters the human body is really a topic for those
directly interested in systematic theology, and therefore exceeds the scope of
this essay. These questions do, however, influence my personal view on the
topic, and could therefore be considered a bias. It should be noted, though,
that my personal view is not necessarily linked to my political view, because,
as a libertarian, I can find no justification for using the authority of
government to force other people to comply with my personal viewpoint.
Libertarians are generally characterized
as being pro-choice, but about a third of libertarians describe themselves as pro-life,
and libertarians on both sides of the issue generally respect the other side’s
opinion. The reason that there is division among libertarians is that they are split
on the interpretation and application of the Non-Aggression Principle, which
states that it is inherently immoral for a person to initiate aggression
against another person, and the related Harm Principle, which states that the
only legitimate use of force (applied through law by the government) is to
prevent harm from befalling another person. The point of division for
libertarians hinges on whether or not a fetus is a person. If fetuses are not
persons, then the Non-Aggression Principle does not apply. I generally believe
in this principle as a fundamental basis for moral philosophy and secular law,
and it greatly influences my perspective on this issue as well as many others.
Where pro-choice libertarians differ
from many other pro-choice advocates is in their belief that abortion is a
private issue. Conversely, if the fetus is a person, the issue becomes public,
because the state has an interest in protecting human life. No right is more
fundamental than the right to life, and the purpose of government, if you join
me in believing John Locke, is to protect the natural rights of human beings
from infringement by other human beings, or, in short, to enforce the
Non-Aggression principle. The very question of personhood makes abortion at
least potentially a public matter, and this means that there is no such thing
as a neutral position on this issue. If you choose not to oppose abortion, you
are in effect saying it is a private issue, and that opinion is, in essence, a
pro-choice position.
It is important to note an
assumption I’m making about the concept of rights. I believe in the idea of
natural rights, which means that we, as humans, have certain rights that belong
to us just because we exist. This includes the most basic rights like right to
life, right to one’s own property, and the right to freedom of speech,
religion, &c. This framework of rights is what the founding documents of
the United States are based on. There are many other theories of rights out
there, but the depth and length that a fair treatment of that topic would
require is well outside the scope of this essay. I will therefore make
allusions to rights throughout and generally assume the natural rights view,
but will not be making any kind of systematic defense for them.
Defining Our Terms
Abortion is an emotionally charged
topic, and it’s difficult to find objective words to use when describing the
subject matter. Some people object to the usage of the word “fetus” because
they feel it is dehumanizing. At a point, it becomes impossible to please both sides
with one’s word choices. I have chosen to follow scientific convention in using
the word “embryo” to refer to a developing human from the moment of conception
until about eight weeks in, and to use the word “fetus” to refer to a
developing human offspring until the moment of birth. I feel that using the
word “baby”, even for extremely late stages, is decidedly not objective. “Baby”
will only be used to refer to a human child which has already been born.
Perhaps
the foremost question in this essay deals with personhood. It is therefore
prudent to address the verbiage relating to that question. The word “human”
will be used as an adjective to refer to characteristics of humanity in
general, and, when used as a noun, will refer only to human beings that have
been born and are therefore universally agreed to be people. The term “person”
will be used more abstractly. The question of what “personhood” actually means
is vitally important to this issue, and it is, unsurprisingly, almost
impossible to define. However, I will use it to refer to a distinct, individual
human entity which possesses a right to life like any born human.
It
has been my experience that the word “life” is often used in vague and unhelpful
ways in the abortion discussion. Setting aside the perhaps oversimplified label
“pro-life”, I find the phrase “life at conception” to be nearly meaningless.
Those who use it mean to convey that the embryo is a person from the moment of
conception. No one can seriously deny that the zygote/embryo/fetus is alive in
the purely scientific sense. But life is not unique to human people. Dogs are
alive. Plants are alive. Individual human cells are alive. None of these things
is a human person. I will therefore not discuss whether the zygote/embryo/fetus
is alive, but rather whether it is a person or not.
Finally,
the word “extreme” is most often used to describe an opinion at the far end of
a spectrum, and is meant in a purely mathematical sense. It should not be
construed as derogatory. Both pro-life and pro-choice arguments will be
described as “extreme” in this essay, and those views falling in the middle
will be described as “moderate”, but only because they can be arranged in a
linear fashion.
Timeline of Pregnancy
Before we can discuss abortion in
any reasonable sense, we have to understand pregnancy. The level of a fetus’s
development affects the question of personhood. After all, an embryo at the
beginning of a pregnancy is, quite literally, a tiny blob of cells, and, at the
end of pregnancy, it has taken the form of a human body. Understanding how that
process takes place and at what point various developmental milestones are
reached is foundational to the entire topic. The following is an informal
timeline of relevant events:
Sex Intercourse
results in sperm entering the body.
Fertilization/Conception The sperm and egg cells unite to form a new cell, the
zygote.
30
minutes to 5 days after sex
Implantation The
blastocyst (bundle of cells arising from the zygote; a young embryo) implants
in the uterine wall. This is typically defined as the beginning of a pregnancy,
although some say pregnancy begins at conception.
7-10
days after fertilization
Segmentation twinning
no longer possible
14-21
days after fertilization
Body Development Basic
organ and skeletal growth begin
2-8
weeks
Neuromaturation (Stage 1) Brains waves become detectable from the low brain/brain stem
6-8
weeks
Quickening Fetus’s
movements felt by mother
17-20
weeks
Viability Fetus
could survive outside the mother’s body; due to advancing medical knowledge,
viability is being reached sooner all the time
20-28
weeks
Neuromaturation (Stage 2) Brain waves become detectable from high brain/cerebral cortex
22-24
weeks
Birth Pregnancy
ends with a human baby leaving the body
38-40
weeks
With
this timeline in mind, we can finally tackle the key questions of abortion: is
the embryo or fetus a person? If so, at what point, and why? What role does the
woman’s right to her own body play? And what responsibility does the woman
have, if any, to the fetus inside her?
Personhood
Perhaps
the central question of abortion’s moral status is this: when is the fetus a
person? There is a wide range of answers out there. Some people say that
personhood starts at the moment of conception. Some look for the development of
uniquely human characteristics like higher brain function. Some correlate the
ability to survive outside the mother’s body with independence and, therefore,
personhood. Still others claim that personhood is irrelevant if the fetus is
within the mother, saying that the fetus is an invader and is only welcome to
the use of the mother’s body if the mother decides it is welcome to do so. The
span of possible answers stretches from one extreme to the other with numerous
alternatives in between.
The
elephant in the room here is that there is no universally agreed-upon set of criteria
for what makes something a person, which makes discussion over when personhood
begins a little like discussing beauty. Some people are obviously beautiful,
just as some humans are obviously people. But beauty is subjective. One person
may be beautiful to some people but ordinary or even ugly to others. There is
no rule of science that tells us when someone is beautiful. Whether we think
they are beautiful or not depends on our own personal tastes, the influences
that have acted on us throughout our lives, and even our emotional state. The
term “beautiful” is entirely descriptive, just as “person” is. The subjectivity
of personhood makes it difficult, maybe impossible to discuss in objective,
scientific ways. All I can do is discuss the knowable facts, what they might
mean, and what people believe about them. The science is not clear on the
question of personhood because personhood is a topic entirely outside of
science. The very concept of personhood is a philosophical construct.
Personhood at Conception
The
first extreme position asserts that personhood begins at conception. This would
give the embryo the right to life from its inception, meaning that any
termination of the pregnancy kills a person. The claim of personhood here is
not tied to the possession of any developmental characteristic or capability,
but rather to the fact that the embryo is living human organic material and
possesses a set of DNA which is distinct from that of its mother. This is an
important point. There are things within all human bodies that have DNA
different from their host, such as parasites and viruses. These, however, are
not human. Also, there are cells, tissues, and other structures within the body
that are living human material but have DNA identical to the host’s. This
combination of human life and distinct DNA is unique among things that take up
residence in the human body. These traits are shared with only one other groups
of entities: born human persons.
Proponents
of this position point out that the embryo is a distinct human organism, and
they posit that all human organisms are people. They use this definition to
shift the burden of proof towards those who claim that the fetus is not a
person. Advocates of personhood at conception point out that, in order to say
personhood begins at a point other than conception, one must qualify the
definition of a “person” beyond it simply being a human organism. For example,
in order to say that personhood begins at viability, one would have to define a
person as a human organism that is able to survive independent from its
mother’s body. In order to say personhood begins at birth, one would have to
define a person as a human organism that has been born. Advocates of the personhood
at conception standpoint argue that all possible qualifications are arbitrary
additions to what is arguably the most basic trait of a person: that it is a
human organism. This does not prove that any such qualifications are
necessarily wrong, but it is intended to shift the burden of proof onto those
who include the qualification in their definition of personhood.
There
are important points to weigh when considering this position. First, it has
been shown that 50-80% of fertilized eggs do not mature to pregnancy. Those
embryos which implant in the uterine wall earliest tend to be the most
successful, and the longer they take to attach, the less chance they have of
surviving. For those who hold that personhood begins at conception, this is a
frighteningly sad number. But are these short-lived embryos people? They are
incredibly small, not very developed, and do not resemble born people in any
way. They spawn and die within a span of one to two weeks. If it weren’t for
specific scientific study of pregnancy, we would not even know that they
existed at all. These young embryos do not share many characteristics with born
people. They do not have brain function, organs, or limbs, let alone
personality or free will. However, they are living human entities distinct from
their host, and that is not insignificant.
The
issue of twinning also is relevant when contemplating the idea of personhood at
conception. An embryo may subdivide into twinned pairs until segmentation,
which takes place 14-21 days after conception. We know that twins are different
people from one another. This presents a challenge to the idea that an embryo
is a person from the moment of conception. If we have an embryo which will
split into twins but has not yet done so, can we say that the embryo contains a
single discernable entity? Can we say that it is one person? We might suppose that the embryo could contain several
persons or potential persons. However, this would be arbitrary, non-scientific
conjecture, which is always subject to the direction of prejudice. Furthermore,
it provides no legitimate basis for secular law. Norman Ford, professor of
Theology, Law, and Philosophy at Catholic Theological College, presents a more
scientific suggestion: that one twin is the parent of the other asexually. His
explanation is that the embryo is already a person (Twin A) and undergoes
mitosis to create an identical embryo containing a new person (Twin B). While asexual
reproduction is a plausible explanation for the biology of the twinning
process, it does not self-evidentially signify that the embryo is a person in
the first place, but merely presents a scenario in which it could be.
Those
who hold that the embryo is a person from the moment of conception are uniform
in their objection to the morning-after pill. They hold that, since the embryo
is a person, it has a right to life, and using emergency contraceptives, as
they are called, to end the embryo’s development is, in fact, murder. Most
morning-after pills interfere with fertilization, possibly even after the
zygote has been produced. Others, such as Plan B, prevent the blastocyst from
implanting in the uterine wall. Since implantation occurs 7-10 days after
conception, the morning-after pill is only murder if the embryo is a person during
its first week of existence.
While
I have long believed in personhood at conception, my research on the topic has
swayed my position. Specifically, the fact that an embryo can still split into
twins as late as three weeks after conception cast serious doubts in my mind on
the possibility that the embryo is a person at any point before then. While the
idea that one twin could arise from another doesn’t strike me as obviously
wrong, I do find it unconvincing. I therefore feel that the chances that an
embryo is a person at conception are very low, and remain low until at least
the twinning process. This leads me to feel that using the morning-after pill
is not murder. I can’t say any of these things with certainty, and I will
address the significance of that uncertainty later in the essay. However, I can
say that I have significant doubts about the fetus’s personhood at these early
stages.
Neuromaturation
The
next major developmental milestone worthy of consideration is the incidence of
brain activity. This begins when the fetus acquires the brain stem, sometimes
referred to as the lower brain. Brain waves from the brain stem become
detectable six to eight weeks subsequent fertilization, a point I call Neuromaturation
Stage 1. The brain stem is a sort of “basic brain”. It controls the heart, the
central nervous system, and regulates sleep. It also is capable of sensation,
including pain, and consciousness. While these are important traits, they are
not uniquely human. All animals have this basic circuitry. A fetus at this
stage does not have higher brain function like a born human. That does not come
until Neuromaturation Stage 2 some fourteen weeks later. This is the rise of
the higher brain, more commonly called the cerebellum. With the cerebellum, the
fetus may have the ability for not only consciousness, but for self-awareness.
Our
high brain function is the main thing that differentiates our species. Humans
have the most advanced brains by a wide margin. It is often argued that this is
what gives our species unique value beyond any species in the Animal Kingdom.
Therefore, it can be reasonably argued that the possession of a higher brain is
the central human trait, and that all those who have this trait should be
treated on equal terms. This is a powerful argument for the protection of life.
It
is true that the fetus’s mental development within the womb is still surpassed
by the cleverest of animals, and this may be taken as a counterpoint. However,
young infants and even toddlers do not possess the reasoning power of the
smartest great apes, yet it is universally agreed that these humans are
entitled the protection of life. From this, one may reasonably infer that it is
not so much the level of intelligence that is the crucial factor, and
thankfully not, as an extrapolation of this argument could be used as rationale
for euthanasia.
A
key advantage of linking personhood with brain activity is the legal symmetry
it provides. It seems reasonable that the legal definition of life and the
legal definition of death should share a common set of criteria. This field of law
is still changing to reflect new scientific understanding. Until somewhat
recently, death was legally declared after cessation of the heartbeat. However,
the scientific community now recognizes brain death as the true indicator.
There are two types of brain death: death of the cerebellum, during which some
body functions may continue unaided; and death of the brain stem. Death of the
brain stem is agreed to be the only truly final marker of death, and is
simultaneous with total brain death. Total brain death is increasingly being
recognized as the point at which a person is truly, irreversibly, and legally
dead. If cessation of brain waves defines death, should inception of brain
waves define life (and personhood)? This notion seems to strengthen the viewpoint
that the legal protection of life should begin at Neuromaturation Stage 1.
However, it would be desirable to have some basis for this other than the pure
symmetry of it.
Viability
One
of the popular suggestions for the point at which personhood begins is
viability of the fetus. This is the time when the fetus could survive outside
of the womb, although it would still be dependent on medical help to survive.
The central point is that the fetus is no longer completely reliant on the
mother’s body to sustain its life. The latest time at which viability is
generally said to be reached is 28 weeks. More commonly, viability is reached
between 22-24 weeks, though it is theoretically possible that the fetus could
survive outside the womb as early as 20 weeks in exceptional circumstances.
This becomes significant when one considers that a baby outside the womb
delivered at 28 weeks is materially the same as a fetus inside the womb at 28
weeks. If the two are materially the same, can we say that one is a person
while the other is not? In order for that to be the case, personhood would have
to be tied purely either to location of the fetus or to the occurrence of birth
itself. Is it scientifically reasonable to assume that passage through the
birth canal bestows personhood?
The
idea that personhood could be dependent on the occurrence of birth or the
position of the baby relative to the uterus seems insufficient to me. The idea
that birth is some sort of magical moment that imbues a fetus with personhood is
not scientific. This seems to me more of a lazy extreme adopted out of
convenience, and has no more obvious importance than conception.
Sliding Scale
An
alternative proposition concerning the incidence of personhood is the idea that
personhood is not attained at any particular point or developmental milestone,
but that it is acquired on a sliding scale. That is, the fetus becomes
progressively more human as the pregnancy goes along. This makes some intuitive
sense. After all, a fetus towards the end of pregnancy certainly shares more
characteristics with a born human than an embryo does. One might say that it is
more self-evidently human, even if only from superficial observation.
One
of the most immediately obvious problems with this idea is a practical one: who
is judge? If there is no definite point at which the fetus can be said to
possess personhood, how can it be protected by law? If we say the fetus is not
a person until it is born, then certainly government has no role. But if we say
the fetus is a person previous to birth and has a right to its life, government
does have a role. How can government pursue the protection of life with no
established point at which personhood begins? Perhaps legislators would
designate a point, but that brings us right back to the original question:
when?
Labeling
fetuses as less than completely human or as somewhat human is also troublesome
when considering the concept of equal protection under the law. History tells
us that it can be a dangerous to label some groups as less than human. The most
obvious example is the treatment of blacks as sub-humans, a trend of both
cultural and legal attitudes which haunts the recent memory of our human
species. The institution of slavery not only legalized but promoted treating blacks
as some sort of animal which possessed human characteristics but nonetheless
was not entitled to the protection of law. This view was held by a large
majority of people, supported by prominent figures, and agreed with by
scientists. While their grave error is quite evident today, it was not so
evident to people living at that time. They were too easily persuaded by what
others around them thought. Slavery was normal and institutional to them, just
as abortion is to our society today. We are no more immune to our surroundings
today than the people of the past were to their surroundings. While science has
made great progress, and while human rights in general have trended
significantly upward as time has progressed, we must maintain a critical spirit
and never assume that we have all the answers simply because we live in what we
suppose is an enlightened age. Otherwise, we risk being unwitting participants
in a great social evil.
The
idea of a sliding scale can be taken in two ways. First, it can be taken to
mean that personhood is gradually acquired over time. Alternatively, the
sliding scale could be perceived as gradually increasing certainty (or
diminishing doubt) that the fetus is a person. A variety of facts reveal that
people in the aggregate actually think this way.
Perhaps
the best indicator that the population thinks this way is that most abortions
occur early in the pregnancy process. According to a 2010 study by the
Guttmacher Institute, a spin-off of Planned Parenthood, 88.8% of abortions
occur within the first twelve weeks of pregnancy, and significantly less than
5% are performed past the point of viability.
Even Roe v. Wade more or less
functions on the concept of a sliding scale. During debate over the decision,
the Supreme Court was conscious of what it described as two competing
interests, those being the protection the fetus, which they referred to as the
“potentiality of human life”, and of not interfering with the woman’s ability
to choose whether or not to abort the pregnancy, as the maintenance of
pregnancy was construed as a privacy issue protected by the 14th
Amendment to the Constitution. In the Court’s view, the state’s interest in
protecting life increased throughout the pregnancy, and could eventually
outweigh the state’s prerogative for the protection of the mother’s privacy.
Within the framework of this essay’s prior discussion, the Court’s reasoning
essentially said that the Harm Principle comes into play at some point during
the pregnancy. Justice Thurgood Marshall argued that this critical point was
reached at the time of viability, while Justice Harry Blackburn wrote in his
majority opinion that “any… selected point, such as quickening or
viability, is equally arbitrary.” This assertion well summarizes the inherent
difficulty of applying the rigidity of law to a phenomenon with so much
uncertainty and variability.
Uncertainty
And what of that uncertainty? While
many people have their minds firmly decided on where they think personhood
begins, there is great division in our society. One could say that the position
of all people taken as a whole is one of uncertainty. Studying the topic has
only increased my uncertainty. All the propositions I have just discussed for
when personhood may begin have some compelling points to them, as well as
compelling counterpoints. And there’s still that pesky issue of personhood,
namely, what on earth is it? Uncertainty is a condition that seems impossible
to completely remove from the question of abortion. Therefore, we must address
it. How should uncertainty influence our decisions and our policy?
Logically speaking, there is a
limited number of possible ways we can respond to uncertainty. One way is to
reject it and say that there is no uncertainty. However, my guess would be that
anyone who reaches that conclusion has not researched the topic in any balanced
way. There are three other responses that I think are more likely. We could
respond to uncertainty by saying we should err on the side of allowing
abortions at later points in the pregnancy, that we should err on the side of
allowing fewer abortions and earlier in the pregnancy, or that we should not
consider uncertainty a factor and simply rely on our best understanding of
science. To put the question simply, imagine a timeline of pregnancy with a big
red line drawn across it at some point that delineates the point at which the
government asserts protection over the fetus’s right to life. The question of
uncertainty asks which way that line should be pushed.
Let us consider why uncertainty
might guide us to allow abortions later on in pregnancy. It could be argued
that the fetus’s personhood and related right to life are uncertain while the
mother’s right to her own body is certain, and that a certain right trumps an
uncertain right. Statistics does tell us to weight factors that we are certain
about more highly. However, it seems to me that what this argument, practically
speaking, eliminates the weight of the factor of personhood entirely. Such
thinking essentially says if there is uncertainty about personhood, then
personhood is irrelevant. I think this is a dangerous position because it lends
itself to abuse by people wishing to assert their biases.
On the other hand, why might one
respond to uncertainty by shifting that big red line to the left, back towards
conception? This would likely follow from considering the sheer weight of the
possibility of personhood. If the fetus might be a person and you terminate the
pregnancy, you may have just killed a human being. Consider an analogy: a man
is standing outside the door of a room. The room is pitch black, and he can’t
see anything inside. If the man fires a gun into the room and kills someone,
isn’t he responsible? If there is a nonzero chance that abortion is killing and
we knowingly accept that chance, how can we have nonzero responsibility?
Advocates of this perspective point out that, if the fetus is a person, this
act is essentially manslaughter. Consider also that it doesn’t matter what the
doctor or mother involved think or believe for this to be true. Even if both
the doctor and the mother are 100% convinced that it is not a person, if the
abortion is performed and the fetus is a person, that person is just as dead.
There is, I think, an inherent
problem in discussing uncertainty, because people often respond to it by simply
asserting their biases. For instance, let’s consider the discussion above on
how abortion is argued to be morally equivalent to manslaughter. One critic of
this position is David Boonin, author of the book A Defense of Abortion. Boonin says that arguments against abortion
on the basis of uncertainty are insufficient. He posits that uncertainty may
arise from simply being unwilling to be persuaded. If a compelling, persuasive
argument exists asserting that abortion is completely fine, and yet some people
find the argument unpersuasive, their lack of persuasion and resulting
uncertainty is not enough to reject the argument. Now, let’s consider where
Boonin’s reasoning leaves us. At its most basic, salient point, Boonin’s logic
says that uncertainty alone is not enough to reject an argument. If this is
true, it is true of both sides. This
is why I say that any discussion of uncertainty tends to be a Trojan horse
under which people smuggle their biases. The argument typically follows this
form: “Things are uncertain; therefore, we should default to my point of view.”
Evidence is only as good as perception.
This leads us to the final response
to uncertainty, which is to do nothing about it. The science of pregnancy is
the best evidence we have and also the least disputable. If we take our
scientific knowledge as a baseline and admit to ourselves that uncertainty
leaves the door open for bias, then we might well be tempted to ignore
uncertainty altogether. Stick to the facts, as they say. While this has its
merits, it is troubling to think about the importance of the issues we ignore
if we subscribe to this view. As I pointed out before, ignoring the question of
personhood doesn’t make a fetus any less dead if it, in fact, turns out to be a
person. I would argue that ignoring this question demonstrates a basic lack of
caring about the protection of a person’s right to life.
Ignoring
the question altogether is tacit forfeiture of responsibility. This reaction is
dangerous, and, to understand why, let’s consider the Milgram Experiment. In
this famous experiment, researchers brought in volunteers (whom I will call
“questioners”) to sit at a control table and ask questions to unseen volunteers
in another room (whom I will call “answerers”). The researchers directed each
questioner to press a button sending an electric shock to the answerer every
time the answerer failed to respond to a question correctly. The questioner
heard the answerer screaming in pain through a radio which they used to
communicate. The power of the electric shock increased with each wrong answer,
and the answerer (who was an actor and was not actually being hurt) would
eventually bang on the wall between their two rooms and scream for the
questioner to stop. However, the researchers urged the questioners to continue
and assured them that they were not responsible for anything that happened to
the answerer. The experiment has been repeated many times, and results show
that, more than 60% of the time, questioners continued to shock the answerers
until the researcher stopped the experiment, even when it was strongly implied
that their actions put the answerers in mortal danger. The grim lesson of the
Milgram Experiment is that people are far too often willing to harm others so
long as they are not personally responsible. Now, in the Milgram Experiment, a
crucial component was the authority conveyed by the researchers. The
questioners were following instructions. But is this authority any different
from the sanction of government?
Ultimately, it is my personal
feeling that uncertainty can’t be ignored. Uncertainty alone can neither
approve nor forbid any practice, but it can guide us as to which way we should
push that big red line. Ask yourself: which mistake has the greatest potential
consequences? I myself think that the potential that abortion could be killing
majorly moves that line to the left. The mother’s right to her body is
important, but is the potential of transgressing that right as destructive as
is the potential of allowing someone to be killed? I don’t think so. Now, I am
subject to this same problem I have warned about; I am aware that uncertainty
allows my biases room to breathe, and they are undoubtedly involved in my
assessment. This is simply the way to consider uncertainty that seems best to
me.
The Woman’s Body
The mother’s right to her own body
is usually pitted against the right of the fetus to its own life. Together with
the question of personhood, this competition of rights is probably the central
struggle in today’s debate.
What do people mean when they talk
about a woman’s right to her own body? The phrase is an application of the
legal and philosophical concept of self-ownership. It is the same right that
all people have to their own bodies, including fetuses, if they are persons. An
excellent summation of self-ownership is provided by political philosopher G.A.
Cohen who explains that “each person enjoys, over himself and his powers, full
and exclusive rights of control and use, and therefore owes no service or
product to anyone else that he has not contracted to supply.” This definition
is especially helpful when discussing the mother’s right to her own body.
Whose Body?
Relying on the principle of
non-contradiction, we know that the fetus cannot be both its own person and
part of his mother’s body at the same time. If it is a person, then the fetus’s
body belongs to it. If the fetus is not a person, it is either part of the
mother’s body or it is a non-person entity residing in the mother’s body. In
either case, the mother has full right to do with it whatever she wants.
Designating
the fetus as a non-person that is nonetheless separate from the mother’s body
would put it roughly in the same group as non-human residents of our digestive
systems like gut flora. Gut flora are microorganisms that live in our
intestines. They maintain a symbiotic relationship with us by eating and
expelling some of the food that comes through our intestinal tracts, and, in so
doing, help us digest our food. Gut flora are impossible to fully remove from
the body, and doing so would be harmful. Parasitic worms, however, are
different. If a person has a parasitic worm living in him, he has every right
to have the worm removed. There seems to be little room for debate about
whether a non-person fetus would have any rights, certainly none that could
challenge the mother’s right to her own body. This question, however, is only
relevant before personhood begins. If personhood is said to begin at
conception, then this question has no relevance whatsoever.
Might
the fetus be a part of the mother’s body? This would mean the fetus is not a
person, and it would put it in a category closest to tumors. As with the
non-person resident scenario just discussed, it seems clear that the woman has
the right to deal with the fetus however she thinks best. What is unclear is
whether this view has any substance. Pastor and logician Douglas Wilson, who is
capable of being extreme at times and incisive at other times, points out that
would-be mothers do not treat fetuses the same way as the rest of their body.
When asked at a speaking engagement if a woman has a right to her own body,
Wilson responded “If she decides that she wants to chop off [her] finger, I
don’t think there ought to be a law against it. If she wants to chop off all
her fingers, I don’t think there should be a law against it. But why do we not
have to make a law against it? The reason that’s not a pressing social issue is
precisely because her fingers are her body. She takes care of that which is her
body.” This response does not provide any proof that the fetus is separate from
the mother’s body. What it does do is point out that we treat fetuses
completely differently than we do all other parts of the body. We care for our
bodies because they are ours, and maintaining their health benefits us. There
are parts of our bodies which we sometimes remove, like tumors, because they
may harm us. We may also remove tonsils, which, unlike tumors, perform a useful
function. When we remove them, however, it is because that function can be
accomplished by other parts of our bodies. None of this is true of fetuses.
They do not harm us, and they don’t provide a function that is redundant with
our body’s other systems. Wilson’s statement suggests that the way we treat our
bodies is different from the way we treat fetuses because the fetus and body
are actually separate. While it might not be self-evident that the two are
separate based on this reasoning, our behavior does evince that, even if the
fetus is part of the woman’s body, it is fundamentally different from any other
part of her body. If we treat the fetus in ways we would never treat other
parts of our bodies, what basis do we have for grouping the two together?
Remember, as we discussed when analyzing the claim that personhood beings at
conception, that the embryo has DNA that is distinct from its host. This fact
is strong evidence that the embryo is not
the mother’s body, and I feel it is strong enough evidence to shift the burden
of proof.
Does the mother have the right to abort even if the
fetus is a person?
This
essay assumes that the right to life is universal to all human beings. Personhood
and right to life are the same thing. This is the kind of inalienable right
that the Declaration of Independence speaks so eloquently about. But some have
argued that, even if the fetus is a person, the mother still has the right to
abort.
To
understand this view, let’s look at Cohen’s definition of self-ownership again.
Note that he says each person has “full and exclusive rights of control and use
[of his body], and therefore owes no service or product to anyone else”. The
exclusive right of use means that each person owns his body like a piece of
property, and he has the right to exclude people from using his body. So, for
instance, if your friend is an amateur boxer and wants to use your body as a
punching bag, you have the right to exclude him from that use. Those who argue
that the mother still has the right to abort say that the mother owes no
service to the fetus. The mother has a right to the use of her body, and the
fetus has a right to its own life. Is this the unstoppable force meeting the
immovable object? Perhaps not. Advocates of this position point out that the
fetus has a right to life, but not a right to be kept alive. The difference may sound subtle, but it’s important. To
understand why, we need to discuss the difference between a negative right and
a positive right.
A
negative right is passive; it is a right of inaction. Natural rights are all negative
rights. The right to life means that no one can take your life from you. It
means you can’t be killed. A positive right, on the other hand, is active. It’s
an obligation. For instance, when you are hired to a job and you sign a
contract, your employer is saying that you have a positive right to his money
when you work for him. If you have both agreed to terms and you fulfill your
end of the bargain, the employer has an obligation to pay you; you have a
positive right to his money. If he doesn’t pay you, a court can make him pay
you. It’s yours. The difference between negative and positive rights is
paramount to understanding the argument that women have the right to abort even
if the fetus is a person. Those who say this are positing that the fetus has no
legitimate claim to the use of the mother’s body to keep it alive.
This
viewpoint is the subject of one of the best-known essays on abortion ever
written, “A Defense of Abortion” by Judith Jarvis Thompson. In the essay, she
constructs this argument by analogy, in which she invites the reader to imagine
that a man wakes up to find that he has been strapped to a famous violinist
with a kidney infection. The violinist’s blood is being channeled through the
man’s body so the man’s healthy kidneys can clean the violinist’s blood for
him. In nine months, the infection will be gone, and the man can go free.
Thompson says that the man has no obligation to this violinist. The violinist
does not have a positive right to the use of the man’s body. Therefore, the man
has every right to unhook himself from the violinist. The violinist will die,
but he will die from the kidney infection, not from anything the man has done to him.
Of
course, this argument only applies to certain methods of abortion, namely,
those methods which do not directly harm the fetus. It provides no protection
for the act of inserting sharp implements into the uterus to puncture and
dismember the fetus. Within the framework of argument put forth by Thompson,
the fetus is a person, and doing
direct physical damage to the fetus to kill it is unambiguously murder, just as
it would be murder for the man in her analogy to stab the violinist to death.
When
pondering the situation, one might wonder: what is the practical difference? If
the fetus is a person and it dies as a result of actions taken by the mother,
does it truly matter who has what rights? Does it really matter if the fetus is
dismembered or simply removed from the uterus and allowed to die due to its
unpreparedness for the outside world? The fetus is dead either way. Let’s
consider an example. An elderly dementia patient is being cared for by a single
caretaker. The patient is totally reliant on the caretaker to be clothed,
bathed, fed, and in all other ways maintained. Suppose the caretaker decides
that he shall quit caring for the dementia patient. He has not decided to do
any direct harm to the patient. He has simply decided to quit providing the aid
which he voluntarily and graciously gave. Within a few short days, the patient
dies alone. Is the caretaker a murderer? Now, what if the caretaker was bound
by more than his own free will? What if he pledged to the dementia patient (or
the patient’s family) to take care of the patient? This is a different scenario
entirely, and it brings us to the next point.
The Natural Consequence of Voluntary Action
In
discussing the apparent conflict between a mother’s right to her own body and
the fetus’s right to life, we have not addressed a crucial component of
self-ownership, one which Cohen so thoughtfully included in his definition.
Cohen says that “each person…owes no service or product to anyone else that he
has not contracted to supply.” No one is entitled to the use of your body unless you allow him to use it. Remember
the example I gave for a positive right. If your employer agrees to a contract
wherein he is obliged to pay you, you have a right to his money. Objectors to
Thompson’s argument claim that the mother has granted the fetus a positive
right to the use of her body by having sex.
The
argument goes that pregnancy is a natural and predictable consequence of having
sex. If a woman willfully has sex, she knows that pregnancy might follow. She
is knowingly taking that risk. If pregnancy follows, she is responsible for it.
She created the fetus by an act of her own free, conscious choice. When we make
choices, we are obligated to accept the responsibility for those choices. The
choice and the consequences are inseparable.
Now,
obviously, women are not trying to become pregnant every time they have
sex. More often, they are purposefully trying to prevent pregnancy. However,
advocates of this argument point out that intent is irrelevant, because there
is no complete guarantee that sex will not result in pregnancy, even if the
woman is using birth control. Therefore, even if the woman does not intend for
pregnancy to follow, she is still accepting the risk. When using birth control,
the risk is low, but the consequence of pregnancy is still undeniably possible.
To reject this is to be actively blind. The woman may say she does not agree to
get pregnant, that such an eventuality is not part of her choice, or that it is
unfair that pregnancy is a potential consequence of her actions. None of these
protests exterminates responsibility for her actions. Engaging in intercourse
is acceptance of the risk, and, once the risk has materialized, the associated
responsibility for that risk is unavoidable. If she invites the risk, she invites
the pregnancy. She, by willful action, invites the fetus into her body for its
use.
This
is no different, the advocates would argue, than entering into a contract with
a contingency to which the signer agrees but which the signer considers a
remote possibility. Take, for example, an insurance company selling life
insurance to a healthy woman in her early twenties. The risk of the woman suddenly
dying is exceedingly low. In fact, according to data taken from the Social
Security Administration, women age 20-25 have just under 0.05% chance of death,
a remarkably small chance. Even though the chances of death are low, if the
woman dies, the insurance company is obligated to pay her death benefit. They
accepted the risk of another person having a positive right to their resources.
This is the same as when a woman accepts the risk of a fetus having a positive
right to the use of her body. And, for what it’s worth, the chances of an
unplanned pregnancy, even when using birth control, are much the higher than the
risk accepted by an insurance company when they contract with a young person.
According to contracept.org, a website dedicated to contraception and safe sex,
the only methods of birth control with less than 1% chance of failure are
permanent measures like IUDs, hormonal implants, and sterilization. All other
methods have at least a 3% chance of failure. This includes such common methods
as condoms and diaphragms. Oral contraceptives, the most popular form, have a
failure rate of 6-8%, according to the National Abortion Federation. With each
use of birth control, the birth control is given another chance to fail, so
that the risk compounds on itself each time intercourse occurs. According to an
article in the New York Times, the 10-year birth control failure rate for a
couple relying on male condoms with perfect usage is 18%, and the rate for
typical usage is 86%. This is no small risk we’re talking about. According to
the Guttmacher Institute, 51% of women getting abortions reported using birth
control during the month in which they became pregnant. Ignorance of this risk
is negligent and irresponsible. Failing to plan for such a risk is unrealistic.
Saying that a pregnancy is unplanned is not an excuse.
Rape
But
what if the mother does not agree? This is one of the ugliest topics we as a
society are forced to deal with: rape. If a woman is raped and she becomes
pregnant as a result, does she owe that fetus anything? Even if it’s a person,
she has obviously not offered the use of her body to it. In effect, the use of
her body is being offered to the fetus by the rapist. He has stolen her body to
use for himself and to expose to a potential pregnancy without the mother’s
consent. From a rights perspective, this is the clearest distillation of the
conflict. The mother’s right to her body is not forfeited by any potential
offering on her part. She is innocent and non-agreeing, and so is the fetus.
With no complications other than the question of personhood, it is the mother’s
right to her own body against the fetus’s right to its own life.
As
discussed earlier, the rights do not meet head-on, as the fetus’s right to life
does not necessarily equal a right to be kept alive, and, therefore, its right
to life does not automatically grant it use of the mother’s body. This means
that, assuming she has not given up her right of exclusion, it is within the
mother’s rights to uncouple the fetus from herself, denying it the sustenance it
needs. From a purely rights-based perspective, a raped woman who becomes
pregnant owes no obligation to the fetus and is free to end the pregnancy in a
non-violent way. But it seems imprudent to reduce the entire issue of pregnancy
in cases of rape to this one question. Doing so ignores the consequences of the
decision.
Let’s
consider the costs and benefits associated with the mother’s choice. If the
mother chooses to abort, the fetus will lose its life. For the fetus, it is a
grave injustice. The fetus is not responsible for the situation it is in. It
certainly has done nothing to deserve to be abandoned to die. It seems that
this is the type of injustice that we, as a society, should be willing to pay a
high price to prevent. The cost to the mother is the use of her body. Some
pro-life advocates have been careless with their word choices when discussing
the costs to a mother of carrying a fetus. Describing the pregnancy as simply
“inconvenient” is insufficient, especially if the mother was raped. If she was
raped, the pregnancy is a representation of the rape she carries with her
continuously, a constant reminder of the pain. Pregnancy itself puts a massive
amount of strain on the body and may increase medical risks to the mother.
Also, being pregnant may make it more difficult for a woman to keep or get a
job. The costs associated with pregnancy should not be discounted. Considering
these costs and the fact that a raped woman does not consent to giving the
fetus the use of her body, one can understand why many consider it a major
injustice to the woman if she is forced to carry the baby.
With
these costs and benefits clear, we have the information necessary to approach
this issue from a utilitarian perspective. A utilitarian would ask: which
alternative does the most good? Or which would do the least amount of
injustice? And, if the greater good can be accomplished by violating one
party’s rights, is the net amount of good accomplished worth the incursion
against that party’s rights?
Of
all the questions associated with abortion, I think the rape issue is the most
difficult. There is no alternative that does not involve accepting some measure
of injustice. However, in my research and thinking on the topic, I did encounter
a few compromises which I think have some value in reducing the injustice and
potential harm involved.
Ron
Paul, the well-known libertarian Republican who ran for President in 2008 and
2012, had an interesting response to the question of abortion in the case of
rape. Paul has always described himself as completely pro-life, believing in
personhood at conception. An obstetrician by trade, Paul has a thorough
knowledge of pregnancy and medicine. When asked what he would do if a woman
came to him saying she had just been raped, Paul said he would give her a shot
of estrogen. The effect of this would be to prevent any potential zygote from
implanting in the uterine wall. On the surface, this answer doesn’t seem to
make a lot of sense if Paul believes, as he says, that personhood begins at
conception. With this answer, he is making a compromise. To understand why this
compromise might be reasonable, let’s consider the many compounding factors
which may reduce the chance that this action is harmful. First and most
obviously, most instances of intercourse do not result in conception. Second,
there is a significant lag between the occurrence of intercourse and
fertilization. Thirdly, even if fertilization occurs (which would most likely
happen after the point at which a
shot would be administered, depending on how long it took for the rape victim
to get to a doctor), there are significant doubts that a fertilized egg is
actually a person, as we saw in the discussion on personhood. In essence, Paul
is saying that the chance his estrogen shot results in the death of a person is
so incredibly small that ensuring the woman’s right to her own body is more
important.
Another
possible compromise is to violate the woman’s right to her body and force her
to carry the fetus. This is what those who are absolutely pro-life in all cases
call for. If the mother chooses to not accept responsibility for the fetus,
then it is, in effect, an orphan. There is room to argue that it is a ward of
the state. This falls in line with the reasoning of Roe v. Wade, in which the
majority opinion recognized that the government acquires a stake in protecting
the fetus’s life at some point during pregnancy. In the scenario we are
currently analyzing, we are assuming the fetus to be a person. Therefore, this
stake the court described would be in effect. If the fetus is a ward of the
state, there may be legal justification for the government forcing the mother
to carry the fetus, which, upon birth, would be treated just like any other
orphan. The net effect is to save one human life at the cost of transgressing
another person’s right to her own body for a limited amount of time. It’s not a
perfect outcome by any means, but pregnancy that results from rape is a
situation in which there are no perfect outcomes. The damage cannot be undone,
but it can be mitigated, and, toward that end, this proposition provides an
effective compromise.
Conclusion
There is a compelling case for
personhood at conception, but I feel that it ultimately does not contain enough
positive proof to be, on its own, convincing, especially because twinning can
still occur as long as two weeks after the fact. I feel uncomfortable putting a
number on how sure I am that the embryo is a person at this point. However, I
do not think it is right to abort at this stage, and I would urge everyone
considering abortion at this stage not to go through with it. The chance that
it is a person, even if somewhat low, is still sufficiently high in my mind to
be dangerous. It is not sufficiently high, though, to legally restrict
abortions, in my opinion. The point at which I feel abortion should be
absolutely illegal is at six weeks, when Neuromaturation Stage 1 begins. Worthy
arguments can be made for why other points may be preferable, and I think they
all have some merit. What makes the six weeks threshold so appealing to me is
the legal symmetry it provides, since brain death is unambiguously the end of
personhood. I also feel that it is extremely difficult to prove that the fetus
is not a person at this stage. In
order to feel comfortable going forward with an abortion, there must be a great
deal of assurance that no harm is being done, and I don’t see how a
satisfactory level of assurance can be reached once the fetus has brain waves,
self-motivated movement, and maybe even the capacity for pain. Placing the line
at six weeks is a helpful compromise in that it provides enough time for the
mother to decide what the fetus’s fate will be. To be clear, I would prefer to
have the point of illegality be earlier. I just don’t think the evidence and
arguments for doing so are solid enough to be a basis for law. I also want to
reinforce that the freedom to abort should never be taken lightly. This is a
decision every stakeholder should strive to avoid having to make with every
effort that can be reasonably expected, and those who expose themselves to the
risk of pregnancy should have a plan in place for what they intend to do if
they become pregnant. I don’t like putting my policy prescription at six weeks,
but it’s what I have to do. There is still a strong potential that abortions
performed before six weeks are harmful, that those embryos are people who are
dying, and all of us need to take that very seriously.
As for the woman’s body, I have a
newfound respect for the arguments put forth by the pro-choice side, although I
cannot identify with those people who act as if pregnancy is something that
magically happens occasionally to unfortunate, innocent people who hold no
responsibility for its occurrence. If a woman has sex, there is a real chance
she will get pregnant. There is no question about it. Even with the most
rigorous use of birth control, the chance cannot be reduced to the point where
it extinguishes responsibility. So, although I find the arguments about the
woman’s right to her body well-reasoned and, at least by their construction,
valid, I also find them entirely irrelevant except in the case of rape. If a
woman is raped, I think the administration of an estrogen shot or emergency
contraceptives should help immensely in reducing the number of pregnancies that
actually result. If a raped woman becomes pregnant, there is no doubt in my
mind that she owes nothing to that fetus. However, if she allows the pregnancy
to continue past that six week threshold, it seems to me it is best in the
aggregate to force her to carry the baby, whether she claims it or gives it up
for adoption. There is still injustice associated with this, but, as I said in
the rape section, there will be no perfect solution. The wrong can’t be undone.
Between Roe v. Wade in 1973 and
2014, there were 53 million abortions performed in the United States. That is
the population of England. If all those fetuses had made it into the world and
were their own country, that country would rank 25th globally in
population. In fact, almost one in a hundred people in the world would be from
that country. Extrapolating from U.S. GDP per capita numbers, this country
would be the 6th-largest economy on earth. If fetuses are people, we
have erased that country from existence. If you say you care about humanity,
you must have an opinion on abortion. And whatever that opinion is, you must
have a good reason for it.
