First, thank you for posted a reasoned response.
That said, reason means discussion and debate. My fundamental reason for not wanting a law in this is just that.. there is no set, firm answer among people who are all moral, caring, etc.. not even within the Christian community. (important only because so many use Christianity as a reason to oppose legal abortion). From the outset, society has to be very limited in when it intervenes in moral choices. It doesn't matter how strongly you or I feel on the issue, if there is very strong debate, then there has to be an extremely high overriding moral concern to outweigh the right of individual judgement and choice.
Or, to be simplistic.. you need to be really, really REALLY sure you are correct if you will tell someone else what to do. That is the primary reason I bring up the definition issue, because if folks are just plain not even aware of the actual facts, the definitions, etc, then it is clear they have not fully and completely looked into the issue. Ignorance is not a good position from which to claim moral high ground. It is rather the position of fanatacism, unthinking claim to moral superiority.
That said, you, specifically, have at least been willing to accept (albiet under protest) that I am at least not lying or misstating facts.
john9blue wrote:okay, so i'm an ethics class at my university, and for the past week we've been discussing abortion and reading papers about the issue. i just finished a short critical assessment of an essay by don marquis, who basically shares my approach to the abortion issue. i figured that i might as well post it here if anyone wants to read it. feel free to ask me questions or whatever.
In his critique of abortion, Don Marquis attempts to take a non-traditional approach to the question of whether it is okay to terminate the life of an unborn fetus. Much like Thomson, he avoids entirely the debate about what constitutes a “person”, because he recognizes that both sides make unfounded moral generalizations.
see above, this is part of my point. This is a valid argument if discussing this with particular individuals, if you want to move on to other issues. However, for society, it is very fundamental. And, it has to be understood that this is not just a medical issue, it is a very basic religious issue. The plain fact is that apart from any science, when people believe life begins is a matter of faith. And.. that puts it in the realm of religious and moral freedom. That is, when you claim that you have the correct view, then you are saying your religion has precedence over others. That is something we occasionally do. (we have outlawed under age marriages, for example) However, only with very, very firm ground. The question is whether this is such a case.
Unfortunately, too many of those putting forward that it IS such a case use very biased and inaccurate data. That is not only itself immoral, but absolutely takes away from their right (in a societal sense) to dictate to other people how to behave.
Instead, he starts by identifying what it is that makes the killing of a person wrong. After discarding several theories, he arrives at the conclusion that what makes killing a person wrong is that the person who is killed is deprived of all the experiences that would constitute their future. The changing of their biological state itself is not important, but the effects of this change are important. Since human fetuses share a future like ours, full of human experiences, killing them is just as wrong as killing an infant. His argument can be summed up as follows:
Premise 1: If a being has a future like ours, then it is wrong to end its life.
Premise 2: Human fetuses have a future like ours.
Conclusion: Therefore, it is wrong to end a human fetus' life.
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Except this is fundamentally flawed for many reasons, which you don't actually address below fully.
#1 a fetus, particularly in the first trimester (which is the point I am going to debate for the moment, not to avoid the other issues, but because they are fundamentally different debates) has nowhere near the potential for even just life as a born infant. It definitely does not have the same potential for a healthy life. To the contrary, some of the best estimates, the most lenient estimates, show at best a 70% survival rate for a fetus. Most place that at more like 50%, because so very many problems just are not reported. When you add in the potential for serious problems, be it a birth defect or a maternal problem, then the numbers become much, much less. This is important also at the end of life, except there we turn it around a bit. Someone who is 90 years old plain does not have the potential for life that a 12 year old does. That difference might not be enough to justify euthanasia, but it absolutely IS enough to justify questioning what procedures are used for particular patients. Generally, more invasive procedures are NOT appropriate for a 90 year old the same as for a 12 year old. Each situation is unique, but if you have a 90 year old who is frail, etc, then suggesting chemotherapy so they can live another 5-10 years might well not be worth the pain for that person. Hospice is often a much better reccomendation. This gets complicated, because there are medical issues as well as moral ones.
However, that is ALSO the case in abortion. One thing the anti abortionists often pretend is not important, for example is the potential for future children. Very often, the decision to have an abortion is rested in the knowledge that this child might very well inhibit the chance for future children. But, that is not just a medical decision. That is also a moral one. When someone says "I am in school, I just don't have the ability to raise a child now..", they are effectively saying that if I devote my energy to this child, now, then I won't be in the good position to have the children I dream of having later. I won't have the education, the income or perhaps even the stable relationship which will ensure that child has the best life possible. Now, please note, I have said, do believe that the answer in the above is to not have sex until you ARE ready to have a child. However, that is not the world in which we live. As a minimum, I think anyone having an abortion when they did not use birth control really ought to be against the law (aside from rape,e tc) , but it would be an impossible standard to enforce. Laws are not about what you or I consider moral, they are about what will function in a society with very diverse values.
john9blue wrote: This is fairly similar to the approach that I take to the abortion debate. I find it a good approach because it is highly consequentialist. Just as consequentialists look to the effects of an action to determine its morality, Marquis looks at the effects of ending the life of a human fetus to determine whether it is okay to do so. In this way, he avoids the messy debate over what constitutes a “person”, because that debate simply assumes that killing a person is wrong.
Except all but the most fundamental of Christians tends to find circumstances when killing is OK.. maybe war, maybe defense, etc... So, again, this is not really a firm rule and, again, pretending it is a firm rule is slanting this in a particular direction.
john9blue wrote:Instead, he looks deeper into the reasons why killing a person is wrong, and applies that argument to the question of abortion.
I have created three objections to Marquis' argument that are worth discussing. The first objection refutes Premise 1: if it is okay to end the life of an old bedridden person who is in great pain (euthanasia), but it is not okay to end the life of a healthy child, then some futures like ours must be more valuable than others. The pro-life advocate now has to determine exactly which futures are wrong to kill. This objection may be relevant in questionable cases of euthanasia, but not in the abortion debate. The future of a human fetus is, by definition, greater than the future of a born human, because a fetus has not begun to live and has far more possible successes and experiences that they can achieve. So, if it is wrong to kill a human with a future less valuable than the future of a fetus, then it is wrong to kill a fetus as well.
The point that is correct is that bit about potential. However, you do have to take into account the true potential if you will bring in this argument. While I wish an early pregnancy were gauranteed, the truth is simply other. This argument, then, really does not come into play until the fetus has passed the point of viability.
However, you also have to understand even what "viable" means in this context. A child that can only survive by being hooked up to multiple machines and being attended 24/7 by trained personnel is "viable". Yet.. that is not the picture people have when they talk about this issue.
Again, part of my argument is that when you cannot truly bear to face the consequences, the full consequencs, when you want to make everything an "exception" (as jay, for example, has), then you lose the moral high ground.
Also, though no one likes to think of finances, the plain fact is that this involves the ability to survive and triage. When you say "this child has a right to live".. but then turn around and say "but demanding everyone pay for healthcare is wrong", then it becomes a morally inconsistant position. The plain fact is that spending millions on one child is not necessarily even morally OK, never mind morally imperative, not when it means other childred die or go malnurished. And make no mistake, those are exactly the choices our congress is making right now. (or, particularly that super committee is making) AND, you have to recognize that setting this divide between adults and children, which we absolutely do (my kids get medical care, I do not.. and may never be covered if the insurance companies are not forced to allow pre-existing conditions or if I fail to be among the fortunate few who are allowed into the "Fair care" plan put out by the state, and which does not even offer really full coverage). Jay asked me if I knew. Well, I can cite the words of a young man, about to turn 18 and facing being moved from full care, to which he was entitled as a child, to care in a rest home, where he would not get the 24/7 care that was the only reason he was still alive and functioning. AND.. note that when I bring this up, I am mostly talking about those who cannot speak, who will never communicate in any fashion, etc.
So, yes, the answers are not always in favor of "always life".
Finally, religiously/morally, many, even within Christianity, see a responsibility in raising a child. Thrusting a child onto society to "raise" or thrusting a poorly raised child onto society is, per their view, more harmful than ending that child's life. Not saying I necessarily agree, but well, our prisons are full of examples of why that might well be true.
john9blue wrote: The second objection refutes Premise 2: a human fetus is not guaranteed to produce a human life. Indeed, it is often the case that a natural miscarriage occurs without any desire for an abortion. In his essay, Marquis states that the possibility of a human life occurring, with an ovum and millions of sperm, is not worth saving, and therefore contraception is morally permissible. But a fetus is still the possibility of a life, so why is it not permissible to eliminate that possibility as well? An answer to this objection could rely on the fact that a fetus has unique human DNA, and since one of the major purposes of living is to propagate one's genes, taking away the possibility of propagating the fetus' genes is immoral. A sperm and ovum, on the other hand, do not have unique human DNA, and therefore do not fall under this objection..
And you leap from logic to pure moral opinion.
To begin, its factually wrong. A sperm, an egg do have unique DNA. It is only part of the adult DNA and often not exactly the same even then, as half the adult DNA (various types of mutations, recessivity, etc.). Among other issues, the expression of that DNA will result in something potentially quite different from the adult. In this, even small variance is important.
Even if it were, why is this group of cell more important than the skin cells we shed? They, too have unique DNA, unique from any other human. However, they are not currently viable. Except.. there you get the problem. That mass of cells we call a zygote is really just potential, again. It is not truly an independent human being, it is a potential. And, at this very early stage, the rate of failure is quite possibly in the realm of over 70%, not just the 30-50% for the first trimester. (The difference is because most of these failure happen prior to anyone even knowing there was a pregnancy or prior to anything officially called apregnancy by any but some churches ).
Again, this presumes a high success rate. Else, things are absolutely not equal.
john9blue wrote: The third objection refers to Thomson's objection to the common definition of a “right to life”. Thomson says that, since murder can be justified in some cases (e.g. in self-defense), a “right to life” means that it is impermissible to kill unjustly. But, if you kill a person in self-defense, you are still depriving them of a future like ours, so one would have to say that it is impermissible if they accepted Premise 1. This objection can be addressed using the same consequentialist approach that brought about Marquis' argument in the first place. The consequence of killing a murderer is that they die and you survive. The consequence of not defending yourself from an attacker is that you die, others will probably die as well (since a person capable of murder is more dangerous to the lives of others than a person defending themselves from a murderer), and the murderer will possibly die as well, or live the rest of his life in prison (although this itself does not make it permissible to kill someone). Therefore, killing in self-defense may be a person's best option given the consequences of each option, but killing a fetus rarely has the best consequences given all the potential options. The only exception to this is when the mother's life is at stake if the abortion is not carried out; abortions in the case of rape are still impermissible.
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And here, sorry, but you really show a complete misunderstanding and ignorance of the true risks involved with childbirth.
Even in the US, the death rate is 16.7 per 100,000 births. That sounds low, except consider if that were any other condition.. it would be considered a quite serious disease, worthy of attention to correct. European countries and Canada mostly fall under 10%, (but they all have universal health coverage.)
BUT, contrast that with some places in Africa which see 1 maternal death per 100 births. Also, I believe those are just direct deaths, so, for example, if a women has a fistula and dies of infection or is "simply" excluded from her family, never able to have further children, that does not count as mortality, even though her genetic ability to reproduce is cut off just as surely as if she were to have died (important for the argument above -- of course I consider the survival of the woman important in and of itself!).
I bring this up for 2 reasons. First, as I noted, if this were a pathogen, that death rate would be considered a serious problem. However, here is the other point. The reason that birth has become relatively "safe" is medical science. It is medicine, not God directly that has advanced us to the point where so many infants who would have otherwise died now live. Do I want to reverse that? Of course not!
BUT, there is a moral ambiguity here. To say that you have the moral right and obligation to simply promote life, without question, is a very tenuous position at best. In a sense, its sort of the opposite of the old "kill them all and let God sort them out". Except, in this is it really God that is doing the "sorting?". When you realize how unequal our treatments, availability of services, etc are.. that presumption truly comes into question.
Now, I will say this. I do not think we are at a point where we can morally and openly discuss euthanasia. The whole concept is fraught with nightmare scenarios. And yet... and yet... by putting forward all of these medical advances, promoting all this technology, we are, in fact moving ourselves to a place where we will have no choice if we are to continue not just as a society, but even as a species.
The truth is that many fundamentalists avoid this either by simply denying it is a real question that exists (jay, again, I am afraid) or by setting their sights on some future eventuality. Essentially "wishing for the end times". I argue that is as wrong as the old idea that we don't need to worry about or care about the environment becuase we humans are inherently give domination over Earth.
Anyway, again, my ultimate feeling on this is just that there are too many questions for society to make any firm rule. Lacking that, it becomes an individual debate and discussion. The legal choice is to allow people that right to think and decide based on their individual values.
