I have concluded that abortion is wrong, but my reasons are not based on religion. Don’t get me wrong. Unlike the specious Bill Maher, I am not anti-religion. However, “the Bible says so” is not an acceptable basis from which to argue a point. While I am religious, my conclusions about abortion are based on humanistic and (yes) secular considerations.
First off, life begins at conception. Once the egg is fertilized, a chain of events is unleashed that, outside of malformation, medical problems, homicide or accidental death, invariably result in a fully formed adult human.
From conception through their mid-teens, human beings are in a constant state of physical development, gaining physiological capabilities and self-sufficiency. Not being fully physically developed is not an acceptable rationale for discounting one’s humanity. Does a pre-pubescent inability to reproduce make a child any less human? Does a baby’s inability to walk or speak make her any less human? Does not having teeth make an infant any less human? Does an infant’s inability to feed or defend himself make him any less human? Does having a soft skull make an infant any less human?
Of course, it does not.
By that rationale, not breathing air but getting nutrients from an umbilical cord does not make a baby any less human. Not having fully formed eyes does not make her any less human. Not having a fully developed brain does not make him any less human. Thus, development at any stage, including nascent development, does not make a person less human.
Human beings are physically dependent on their parents (especially, and increasingly so in modern times, their mothers) for nutrition and protection to varying degrees from conception through their mid-teens. A ten-year old depends on her parents for protection (no one is inclined to go to extremes to protect a child as is that child’s biological parents) and the means to acquire food. A five year old depends on his parents for protection and nutrition (lacking the means and knowledge to acquire proper food, both today and in prehistoric times). A six month old is dependent on her parents for protection and nutrition (mother’s milk or formula). In the same way, a person in utero is dependent on her mother for nutrition and protection from conception to birth.
It is intellectually inconsistent that society charges parents with the responsibility of providing nutrition and protection to their post-utero children but not in utero.
Many people mistakenly think that a child in the beginning is not human but a mere glob of cells. Let us look at in utero child development.
In a previous blog, I wrote about how genetic testing of fertilized eggs is now used to pick traits in children such as eye color, skin pigmentation, hair color, sex and more. If those traits are already determined in a fertilized egg, it is difficult to argue that the egg, zygote, fetus, or whatever one wants to call it, is non-human. While not yet manifested at this age, the child’s traits, including eye color, hair color, sex and even (to a large extent) personality are set. He or she is more than mere nondescript cells.
For some reason, pregnancy is officially calculated as starting on the first day of the woman’s last period, though conception generally takes place two weeks after that. Thus, most discussions of child development are misleading, since people are left with the impression that the child is two weeks older then he or she really is. In reality, the child initially develops and manifests widely known human characteristics much more quickly than people are led to believe. Therefore, I am going to describe child development in terms of “weeks after conception” instead of the common (and in my opinion, misleading) “gestational weeks.”
The first week begins with conception, and the child instantly starts to grow new cells as she travels down the fallopian tubes and lands in the lining of the uterus.
In the second week after conception, the child continues to grow new cells that divide into different groups, laying the initial groundwork for different areas of the body.
In the third week after conception, the child’s heart, spine and brain begin to form, though he is only 1/25 of an inch long. (This is about the time generally when a woman is missing her period and suspecting an unplanned pregnancy.)
In the fourth week after conception, while she is not more than of an inch long, the child’s heart starts to beat, pushing her own blood around her own circulatory system.
In the fifth week after conception, the mouth and digestive system are beginning to develop. Arms, legs and hands are starting to form. The baby is roughly 1/8 of an inch long.
In the sixth week after conception, the baby is about 1/3 inch long, and the eyes and nostrils are developing. Fingers, toes, and genitalia are beginning to develop. (Roughly, 62% of abortions are performed by this time (8 weeks gestation)).[1]
In the seventh week after conception, fingers and toes are taking shape, and the baby is at least ½ inch long.
In the eighth week after conception, the internal organs (including testes or ovaries) are all formed and the baby is about 1 inch long.
In the ninth week after conception, the baby is 2 inches long, and his skeleton is developing.
In the tenth week after conception, the genitalia are identifiable and sex is distinguishable.
In the eleventh week after conception, the baby is 3 inches long and has fingernails and toenails. (Roughly, 88% of abortions are performed by this time (13 weeks gestation)).[1]
There are many social and economic reasons why women feel compelled to abort their children. However, whatever motive one has for aborting a child, one cannot claim that abortion does not kill a human being. It does. An aborted baby is more than a discarded glob of random, unorganized cells. "It" is a dead human being.
References
[1] Abortion Surveillance — United States, 2005. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. November 28, 2008 / Vol. 57 / No. SS-13. http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/ss5713a1.htm Accessed 4/24/09
Fetal development: What happens during the first trimester? Mayo Clinic. http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/prenatal-care/PR00112/METHOD=print Accessed 4/24/09
Pregnancy calendar. Nemours. http://www.nemours.org/e-service/kidshealth.html?p4if_ps=102 Accessed 4/24/09
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5 comments:
It certainly is a complicated issue, Bill -- I actually don't know anyone who is actually 'for abortion' and, as I'm sure you've learned in the course, the devil is in the details. Did I ever send you all a copy of my ppt on the changing legal status of viability? If not, you may be interested in downloading at http://www.slideshare.net/lglenn3000/vexation-of-viability-uhsa.
And keep your eyes open for an upcoming law review article on this!
A couple of questions/thought experiments for you to ponder, so as to illustrate the complexity of this issue:
Is Heaven Populated Chiefly by the Souls of Embryos?: http://www.reason.com/news/show/34948.html
And if embryos are the moral/legal equivalent of full grown persons, should fertility clinics be made illegal?
I am going to check out your PowerPoint. The question involving fertility clinics is one I have pondered. It may be one of those situations of intellectual and moral consistency "with a twist." Fertilizing multiple eggs (and thus discarding some) in an attempt to create life where life otherwise would not have existed (as would be the case with a couple that is unable to conceive naturally) is morally and intellectually defensible. Still, this procedure should be attempted with the fewest number of eggs required for success, and fertilizing multiple eggs to facilitate trait selection is just wrong.
I saw your PowerPoint presentation. You made some good points. It is true that technology will force us in the future to ask new moral questions regarding reproduction. What if someday we have the scientific ability to remove the baby with placenta from the uterus and place her in an incubator, allowing the father to keep the baby or allowing both parents to walk away? If that becomes technologically possible, then other questions present themselves, such as do the parents have the right to insist that the baby be killed anyway? (I would say no, but doubtless, others would say yes.) What happens to all of these children? Do they then become wards of the state? If the child is never adopted, then what happens? Who is the legal guardian?
Still, I feel comfortable that I logically, and without religion, made a convincing argument that fertilization immediately results in a human being. It is an underdeveloped and dependent human being, but a human being nonetheless. I believe that I provided a valid if not reasonable refutation of Judith Jarvis' contention that a mother can morally "unhook" from her child at any time for any reason.
The abortion issue is complicated, and any serious discussion of "abortion rights" needs to address the many social, economic, and political factors that compel a woman to end that human life inside her. However, I think it is more than reasonable to conclude (without religion and with logic and science) that it is a human life.
With regard to the piece about all of the embryos walking around in heaven, I found the authors were straining to make their point. In the context that (as they admitted) half of the flushed embryos are malformed and that the embryos are flushed in a natural process (which may involve other, unknown reasons why the embryo did not "stick"), the following statement seemed a little silly:
"If the embryo loss that accompanies natural procreation were the moral equivalent of infant death, then pregnancy would have to be regarded as a public health crisis of epidemic proportions: Alleviating natural embryo loss would be a more urgent moral cause than abortion, in vitro fertilization, and stem-cell research combined," declared Michael Sandel, a Harvard University government professor, also a member of the President's Council on Bioethics.Oh, and by the way, I am Catholic, but I do not think that heaven, the afterlife, or the next dimension (or whatever one wants to call it) is as portrayed in cartoons. Odds are that it would be something beyond our comprehension. Thus, the question about all the embryo souls walking around does not resonate with me.
:)
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