Abortion: What is the Right Choice?

[KathleenElsie]

I agree that abortion is undesirable. I do not agree that personhood happens at conception.

Please remember that we do not live in a Christian country. This is a country that separates Church and State. Abortion and personhood is a matter for an non-religious court system.

I think the best way to reduce the number of abortions are through social remedies. Decent health care, including birth control education, child care, financial support for children and their parents, especially for single parents, and sex education (although it’s not very effective) for all Americans are all tools I would vote for. Reducing poverty is another important measure. But I imagine that any Catholic is completely behind that anyway.

As an atheist how would you define the status of an un-born human being?

 

[Ridgerunner]

The law should never have gotten itself entangled in this. Under the law, a “person” has rights. But a “person” is not, under all circumstances, a human person. A corporation is a “person” in many senses under the law, having all the same rights as a human “person” has.

When it comes to human “persons”, the law readily allows that a person born naturally is a human “person” in every sense. American law has, by and large until Roe, regarded a human being a “person” from conception to natural death. In its eagerness to allow abortion on demand, the Supreme Court in Roe went into mental contortions without ever really saying when, on the continuum between conception and natural birth, a human being is a legal “person”. The Court admitted that it didn’t know. And because it didn’t know, its rationale went, it wouldn’t protect an unborn child in any meaningful way. We now have an absolute confusion in which abortion can be legal right up until birth. But, as in the Carhart case, if the baby’s body is outside the mother, then it can be prohibited by statute, though not as a consequence of a natural or inherent right. Also, since states are allowed to allow doctors to neglect a child born alive through artificial (abortive) means so that the child dies, that is permissible. However, it is not permissible to allow a child born alive through natural means to die through neglect. But then, if a child is delivered prematurely through, say, a caesarian, they cannot neglect it to its death. Further, states are allowed to declare a fetal death through outside hostile action (say, as a result of an assault on or murder of the mother) a murder of the child that, in other contexts, is not a “person” and cannot be murdered.

So, putting all of it together, (and there are other inconsistent rules) it’s a matter of the mother’s intent as to whether an unborn (or even born alive if the original intent was abortion) child is a “person” under the law, and thus entitled to protection.

So, the Supreme Court, in effect, said “we defer to the mother the decision to confer “personhood” on an unborn child, because we don’t know how to do it ourselves”. Never was there a more craven declaration.

And, of course, “personhood” is deemed to end when a doctor has a particular interpretation of brain waves. Thus, the Terri Schiavo result. So, then, personhood ends when someone other than the law decides it should, and it begins the same way. Other decisions in favor or against “personhood” can reasonably be expected, and can be expected as deferrals to someone else.

The law, of course, could have defined it as the commencement of conception to natural termination of life. Why do that? Just for the sake of simplicity? I think it runs deeper than that. Societies should not formulate their collective mores based on what the law says is legal or not. But they often do. A substantial segment of this society has “learned” that what could be regarded as a “human person” may be regarded otherwise, depending on the decision of someone or other; the mother, a doctor, a probate court. There are so many shifts and changes and inconsistencies in all of it that reverence for human life as such is just lost, and it all becomes relative, based on the supposedly pragmatic judgment of someone or other.

Any human society can design its laws in whatever way it wants. Even the supposedly sacrosanct U.S. Constitution can be changed, either directly or by court interpretation that is left to stand. It seems to me that once absolutes that make sense, even if they are not necessarily scientific in every way, give way, the society is left adrift in a moral sense.

Whether the Founders were Deists or not (and some probably were, while others certainly were not) they still had notions of morality behind what they did. Even Deists have morality. In setting what they thought were absolutes, they openly declared that they were morally based. They, at least, did not think that the law could or should be utterly divorced from morality. If we do not agree with that concept, we do not agree with them. Nor do we agree with the immutability of any law governing conduct.

 

[SFTor]

As an atheist how would you define the status of an un-born human being?

Kathleen, you’re asking more than I can answer.

If if were to put in practical terms, I would probably imagine medical professionals stipulating some stage of development where they would feel comfortable saying that the fetus still was not developed enough to be sentient, and then give it another safety margin. Abortions after that developmental stage was reached would have to be administered for strong reasons, such as rape or incest (in cases where hardship for instance had allowed the pregnancy to progress), or imminent danger to the mother.

This is not very reflected on my part, but it may give you a general indication of how I could see abortion be managed to give at least partial satisfaction to both sides of the debate.

It’s a very difficult question. As an atheist I will not deny that there comes a point in a pregnancy where it becomes highly questionable, and people who are not under some kind of hardship would need to live with their inaction.

 

[SFTor]

The law should never have gotten itself entangled in this. Under the law, a “person” has rights. But a “person” is not, under all circumstances, a human person. A corporation is a “person” in many senses under the law, having all the same rights as a human “person” has.

When it comes to human “persons”, the law readily allows that a person born naturally is a human “person” in every sense. American law has, by and large until Roe, regarded a human being a “person” from conception to natural death. In its eagerness to allow abortion on demand, the Supreme Court in Roe went into mental contortions without ever really saying when, on the continuum between conception and natural birth, a human being is a legal “person”. The Court admitted that it didn’t know. And because it didn’t know, its rationale went, it wouldn’t protect an unborn child in any meaningful way. We now have an absolute confusion in which abortion can be legal right up until birth. But, as in the Carhart case, if the baby’s body is outside the mother, then it can be prohibited by statute, though not as a consequence of a natural or inherent right. Also, since states are allowed to allow doctors to neglect a child born alive through artificial (abortive) means so that the child dies, that is permissible. However, it is not permissible to allow a child born alive through natural means to die through neglect. But then, if a child is delivered prematurely through, say, a caesarian, they cannot neglect it to its death. Further, states are allowed to declare a fetal death through outside hostile action (say, as a result of an assault on or murder of the mother) a murder of the child that, in other contexts, is not a “person” and cannot be murdered.

So, putting all of it together, (and there are other inconsistent rules) it’s a matter of the mother’s intent as to whether an unborn (or even born alive if the original intent was abortion) child is a “person” under the law, and thus entitled to protection.

So, the Supreme Court, in effect, said “we defer to the mother the decision to confer “personhood” on an unborn child, because we don’t know how to do it ourselves”. Never was there a more craven declaration.

And, of course, “personhood” is deemed to end when a doctor has a particular interpretation of brain waves. Thus, the Terri Schiavo result. So, then, personhood ends when someone other than the law decides it should, and it begins the same way. Other decisions in favor or against “personhood” can reasonably be expected, and can be expected as deferrals to someone else.

The law, of course, could have defined it as the commencement of conception to natural termination of life. Why do that? Just for the sake of simplicity? I think it runs deeper than that. Societies should not formulate their collective mores based on what the law says is legal or not. But they often do. A substantial segment of this society has “learned” that what could be regarded as a “human person” may be regarded otherwise, depending on the decision of someone or other; the mother, a doctor, a probate court. There are so many shifts and changes and inconsistencies in all of it that reverence for human life as such is just lost, and it all becomes relative, based on the supposedly pragmatic judgment of someone or other.

Any human society can design its laws in whatever way it wants. Even the supposedly sacrosanct U.S. Constitution can be changed, either directly or by court interpretation that is left to stand. It seems to me that once absolutes that make sense, even if they are not necessarily scientific in every way, give way, the society is left adrift in a moral sense.

Whether the Founders were Deists or not (and some probably were, while others certainly were not) they still had notions of morality behind what they did. Even Deists have morality. In setting what they thought were absolutes, they openly declared that they were morally based. They, at least, did not think that the law could or should be utterly divorced from morality. If we do not agree with that concept, we do not agree with them. Nor do we agree with the immutability of any law governing conduct.

I think we also need to take into account that there was a tradition that is common to a large number of societies that personhood was conferred on a child some time after birth. This probably was a result of a high incidence of neonatal mortality.

As far as the Law “should never have gotten itself entangled in this,” I’m afraid it has no choice. There is no other institution to do the job, in fact it is the right institution.

I think you do a good job of outlining the confusion that surrounds the matter. There’s a lot of well-meaning, highly moral people in the U.S. legal system and elsewhere who have struggled with the question, and the result reflects how otherwise intelligent people come to different conclusions.

 

[SFTor]

As an atheist how would you define the status of an un-born human being?

Kathleen Elsie, let me ask you a question:

Let’s say we change the law. Personhood is now conferred at conception.

A pregnant woman goes skiing, and takes a hard fall. She has a miscarriage hours afterwards. Is she guilty of reckless endangerment, or even involuntary manslaughter, and must be tried, convicted, and punished?

A pregnant woman has a miscarriage. The police finds a pill jar of Queen Anne’s lace, an herb known to be used for abortions, in her cupboard. It does however have many other uses. Will the police have to investigate it as a potentially wrongful death, and potentially prosecute?

A woman is seen drinking and smoking. A neighbor believes she is pregnant due to an overheard conversation. Does the police need to be called in case the woman is exposing her baby to reckless endangerment?

If she is, and refuses to stop, does the State then need to put her under confinement to protect the rights of the child?

A man takes a pregnant woman on a motorcycle ride. They drive over a particularly bad piece of road that causes several severe jolts to the woman’s uterus, and she has a miscarriage. Is he guilty of reckless endangerment or involuntary manslaughter?

Take a look, let me know how you feel about all or some of them.

 

[Oscarthecat]

Kathleen, you’re asking more than I can answer.

If if were to put in practical terms, I would probably imagine medical professionals stipulating some stage of development where they would feel comfortable saying that the fetus still was not developed enough to be sentient, and then give it another safety margin. Abortions after that developmental stage was reached would have to be administered for strong reasons, such as rape or incest (in cases where hardship for instance had allowed the pregnancy to progress), or imminent danger to the mother.

This is not very reflected on my part, but it may give you a general indication of how I could see abortion be managed to give at least partial satisfaction to both sides of the debate.

It’s a very difficult question. As an atheist I will not deny that there comes a point in a pregnancy where it becomes highly questionable, and people who are not under some kind of hardship would need to live with their inaction.

You keep going back to an assessment of whether the individual is “sentient” as a standard measure of personhood-
if someone’s personhood depends on their sentience, then can their personhood be lost? and then regained? If I’m in a coma, do I stop being a person because it isn’t apparant that I’m sentient at that point in time?

Also, how can someone else purport to determine whether I am sentient? After all, there is nothing that compels me to have to recognize that anyone but me is sentient-that is, “I think therefore I am” doesn’t translate to “I think you think, therefore you are.”

The real problem with your argument, as I see it, is that you keep wanting to narrow the definition of what it means to be a human person-

 

[Ridgerunner]

I think we also need to take into account that there was a tradition that is common to a large number of societies that personhood was conferred on a child some time after birth. This probably was a result of a high incidence of neonatal mortality.

As far as the Law “should never have gotten itself entangled in this,” I’m afraid it has no choice. There is no other institution to do the job, in fact it is the right institution.

I think you do a good job of outlining the confusion that surrounds the matter. There’s a lot of well-meaning, highly moral people in the U.S. legal system and elsewhere who have struggled with the question, and the result reflects how otherwise intelligent people come to different conclusions.

Obviously I did not express myself well in the first sentence. The law should not have gotten itself involved in defining something it could not define. The confusion may be due to the differeing conclusions of otherwise intelligent people, but it seems more likely to me that it’s inherent to a process in which it is attempted to define “human personhood” from a pragmatic standpoint, and particularly when the law itself defers to the subjective determinations of others. Thus we have the situation in which a baby is murdered or not murdered because the mother, in effect, says it is murdered or not murdered, and for no other reason. We have the situation in which a doctor determines whether an adult is murdered or not murdered, based on his subjective idea of what a “human person” is. There is no standard.

I realize many scoff at the idea that such circumstances lead to a legal “slippery slope”, the depth of which we cannot foresee. Perhaps more important in my opinion, though, is the encouragement of the idea that when it comes to human personhood, subjectivity of individuals is a valid yardstick. When the Court in Roe wrestled with itself, sort of thought human life required protection at a late point in gestation because it was unsure of itself about it, but then totally deferred the determination to the mother despite its thought that the “maybe, sort of” human life in late gestation warranted protection, it betrayed not only the dignity of human life, but also the very idea of law which, of its nature, should not be left to subjective judgment.

The Court could have, instead, upheld the dignity of humanity by allowing its protection from natural start to natural finish, modifying only how the law should deal with violations of that protection. It must be remembered that the Court in Roe disallowed the people, through their legislatures, from establishing meaningful standards that might possibly contravene the subjective judgment of the mother. Yet, when it comes to third parties, it purports to allow objective standards.

To me, the worst thing about Roe and its progeny is the encouragement it provides to the populace to think of humanity as validly determined subjectively, and not by the law itself.

Recent Court decisions increasingly enshrine subjective judgments about activity, and change laws because of them, despite human understandings and natural instincts to the contrary. I believe a good deal of mischief will yet be seen because of this tendency. The more courts indulge in it, the more they encourage people in the idea that objective standards may be changed to subjective standards.

 

[SFTor]

You keep going back to an assessment of whether the individual is “sentient” as a standard measure of personhood-
if someone’s personhood depends on their sentience, then can their personhood be lost? and then regained? If I’m in a coma, do I stop being a person because it isn’t apparant that I’m sentient at that point in time?

Also, how can someone else purport to determine whether I am sentient? After all, there is nothing that compels me to have to recognize that anyone but me is sentient-that is, “I think therefore I am” doesn’t translate to “I think you think, therefore you are.”

The real problem with your argument, as I see it, is that you keep wanting to narrow the definition of what it means to be a human person-

I think in the case of a fetus developing from a zygote to a baby, the progressive development may make something along the lines of what I’ve sketched out workable. That way you can maintain a limited right to terminate a pregnancy, which I think is reasonable. At the same time we limit access to protect the fetus at a time when it is becoming more fully developed.

This is not a principled stand, I know that. It is an attempt to suggest something that I think might be workable. Call it an analog solution for an analog situation.

Well I have to disagree that I am trying to narrow the “definition of what it means to be a human person.” It is rather you who want to expand it beyond its current one. I understand that you are speaking from a point of religious ethics, so we end up speaking past each other. But the legal definition is de facto the valid definition.

 

[SFTor]

please also take a look at my post #45, one page back.

What is your assessment of these situations?

How do you resolve the conflict?

Can we infer that the Court in Roe v. Wade found it best to leave the fetus and its future in the care of the mother, perhaps based on a realization that this was in the end the best candidate, and perhaps from a realization that this is a legal quagmire on either side of the demarcation line?

 

[SFTor]

I’m still hunting for answers on this one. I invite anyone to comment:

Let’s say we change the law. Personhood is now conferred at conception. A fertilized egg that has successfully adhered to the uterine wall is now a person.

A pregnant woman goes skiing, and takes a hard fall. She has a miscarriage hours afterwards. Is she guilty of reckless endangerment, or even involuntary manslaughter, and must be tried, convicted, and punished?

A pregnant woman has a miscarriage. The police finds a pill jar of Queen Anne’s lace, an herb known to be used for abortions, in her cupboard. It does however have many other uses. Will the police have to investigate it as a potentially wrongful death, and potentially prosecute?

A woman is seen drinking and smoking. A neighbor believes she is pregnant due to a conversation he overheard. Does the police need to be called in case the woman is exposing her baby to reckless endangerment?

If she is, and refuses to stop, does the State then need to put her under confinement to protect the rights of the child?

A man takes a pregnant woman on a motorcycle ride. They drive over a particularly bad piece of road that causes several severe jolts to the woman’s uterus, and she has a miscarriage. Is he guilty of reckless endangerment or involuntary manslaughter?

Take a look, let me know how you feel about all or some of them.

 

[Believe_85]

I’m still hunting for answers on this one. I invite anyone to comment:

Let’s say we change the law. Personhood is now conferred at conception. A fertilized egg that has successfully adhered to the uterine wall is now a person.
***I don’t like the word person, because from what I’ve seen in my studies in Philosophy, there are a dozen different ways to define person, and what one must possess to be a person, potentially possess in the future…blah, blah, blah. It doesn’t work for the abortion argument because it isn’t cut and dry. I like to use the word “human”. ***
A pregnant woman goes skiing, and takes a hard fall. She has a miscarriage hours afterwards. Is she guilty of reckless endangerment, or even involuntary manslaughter, and must be tried, convicted, and punished?
***Usually, a doctor will advise pregnant women what kinds of activities should be avoided as the pregnancy progresses. If it truly was an accident and/or she was ignorant of the physical consquences of falling, or she didn’t know she was pregnant, then I don’t think most people would find her at fault. Now if a woman is farther along, I think the woman and the people who took her skiing should probably feel guilty about stressing the mother’s body and leading her to miscarry…but should it be legally prosecuted…I think it depends on intent and knowledge the woman had. Hard to say on what the punishment should be. Perhaps the trauma of losing her baby would be enough. /***I]
A pregnant woman has a miscarriage. The police finds a pill jar of Queen Anne’s lace, an herb known to be used for abortions, in her cupboard. It does however have many other uses. Will the police have to investigate it as a potentially wrongful death, and potentially prosecute?
Yes
A woman is seen drinking and smoking. A neighbor believes she is pregnant due to a conversation he overheard. Does the police need to be called in case the woman is exposing her baby to reckless endangerment?
Call the police over gossip? Probably not. But I would not put my own discomfort over confronting her.
If she is, and refuses to stop, does the State then need to put her under confinement to protect the rights of the child?
***Well, if all other attempts were made to educate and empower her to stop and she wouldn’t, then yes, probably. Just like if a mom were shooting heroine, the baby needs to be protected./***I]
A man takes a pregnant woman on a motorcycle ride. They drive over a particularly bad piece of road that causes several severe jolts to the woman’s uterus, and she has a miscarriage. Is he guilty of reckless endangerment or involuntary manslaughter?
***I’d go with the same answer to the first scenario./***I]
Take a look, let me know how you feel about all or some of them.

 

[Mary_Gail_36]

A pregnant woman has a miscarriage. The police finds a pill jar of Queen Anne’s lace, an herb known to be used for abortions, in her cupboard. It does however have many other uses. Will the police have to investigate it as a potentially wrongful death, and potentially prosecute

?

Sorry, I don’t understand one thing, why would the police be looking through a woman’s cupboard if she had a miscarriage? Do you honestly think the pro-life advocates are into investigating the causes of every miscarriage…through police investigation?

To answer the topic question…the right choice when faced with an unexpected pregnancy is to choose life.

 

[elts1956]

Well, the fetus is not a person. Personhood begins at birth, demonstrably.

If you believe in the Sanctity of human life, then you will be anti-abortion. If you do not, you will accept abortion and be a willing part of the “death” mentality talked against so strongly by the late Pope John Paul II.

 

[elts1956]

Well, the fetus is not a person. Personhood begins at birth, demonstrably.

?

Sorry, I don’t understand one thing, why would the police be looking through a woman’s cupboard if she had a miscarriage? Do you honestly think the pro-life advocates are into investigating the causes of every miscarriage…through police investigation?

To answer the topic question…the right choice when faced with an unexpected pregnancy is to choose life.

Don’t be silly. The police, at this point, unfortunately, must follow the law and would be unable to prosecute.

 

[elts1956]

whether or not they claim the choice is morally correct is irrelevant to them, they believe morality is relative, they do not acknowledge an absolute morality. If you try to convince a pro-abort with this mentality that abortion is inherently objectively immmoral based on your argument you will fail because the do not acknowledge your premise.

This is true. I have basically stopped arguing the point from the premise that unborn children are persons. I have begun talking about the Sanctity of all human life. I don’t know that this will make much of a difference to the relativists, but I don’t think equal personhood of the unborn will ever be accepted by them.

 

[elts1956]

whether or not they claim the choice is morally correct is irrelevant to them, they believe morality is relative, they do not acknowledge an absolute morality. If you try to convince a pro-abort with this mentality that abortion is inherently objectively immmoral based on your argument you will fail because the do not acknowledge your premise.

Well, the fetus is not a person. Personhood begins at birth, demonstrably.

Please demonstrate this to me. A baby is worthless: cannot earn money, take care of itself, vote, defend itself…all it can do is wet it’s diapers, cry when it’s hungry and just generally upset the household and any personal plans the parent may have for the future. So prove to me how this born child is in any way more of a person than an unborn one. Only because you see it and can hold it?? Again, prove it.

 

[elts1956]

Personhood is a legal construct. Remember that a corporation is a person too.

I am sure you are right about the fetus being able to experience the things you mention at some point in its development. That’s why I’m no fan of abortion, although I am willing to accept it early in the pregnancy. At that point we are not talking about a sentient being. I think late-term abortions should only be performed if the mother’s life hangs in the balance. It’s heartbreaking choice to have to make even then, but I don’t see how we can choose otherwise.

Most doctors claim there is almost a nil chance a choice would have to be made between the life of the mother and child. I believe if a mother had to make a choice between the life of her unborn child and her own, she would give her own life, otherwise, if she has a conscience, she wouldn’t be able to live with herself.

 

[elts1956]

I’m afraid you can’t make any points about the sentient nature of the early stages of fetal development either. It seems more reasonable to assume that a ball of 128 or 256 undifferentiated cells, for instance, is not sentient.

I still don’t understand where the Biblical basis for the protection of unborn children can be found. The Bible has little to say about it. In some cases it seems to prescribe abortion (Numbers 5), in others it seems to ascribe non-personhood on the fetus (Exodus 21). In a large number of other verses it shows no regard for life at all, as long as it concerns the mothers and children—born and unborn—of Israel’s enemies.

It would seem that Science, ie. Physics, Biological development cannot account for Sentience according to the following info. I found on this website:

xoomer.alice.it/fedeescienza/mindandbrain.html
Center of Scientific Divulgation about Consciousness

At this point we must consider the question: where does our psyche come from? The phenomenon of consciousness proves that, at a certain time, our psyche certainly begins to exist in us. The laws of physics prove that the psyche cannot be the product of physical, chemical or biological processes. Therefore, the origin of our psyche is transcendent to the physical reality. We can then identify with God the necessary Cause of the existence of the psyche, being such Cause transcendent. This represents a scientific confirmation of the christian doctrine according to which each man has a soul, created directly by God. I think that it is correct to say that today the existence of the soul and the existence of a transcendent God are scientifically proved.

Given this, do you know with an absolute certainty when a human is given a soul, or psyche? Do you know with an absolute certainty where the soul resides? Since it is not known with absolute certainty the answer to either of these questions and since science cannot prove it, I think I would rather err on the side of life rather than the side of expedeincy, or fear, or life plans, or any other absolute reason of aborting a child.

 

[elts1956]

I’m afraid you can’t make any points about the sentient nature of the early stages of fetal development either. It seems more reasonable to assume that a ball of 128 or 256 undifferentiated cells, for instance, is not sentient.

I still don’t understand where the Biblical basis for the protection of unborn children can be found. The Bible has little to say about it. In some cases it seems to prescribe abortion (Numbers 5), in others it seems to ascribe non-personhood on the fetus (Exodus 21). In a large number of other verses it shows no regard for life at all, as long as it concerns the mothers and children—born and unborn—of Israel’s enemies.

When it comes to abortion and the courts, the legal definition is what counts. I have no doubt that a Christian person sees it differently than the courts, differently than Moslems, differently than Hindus, and differently than Buddhists, and last but not least see it differently than atheists.

That is the entire point. The U.S. government is not allowed to espouse religious views. That’s made abundantly clear in the Constitution. It may be very risky to start limiting personhood for various people. But in the case of a fetus the law is clear: personhood begins at birth, for everybody.

We could of course argue that homosexuals are not given full personhood, as they are not allowed to marry. Well, now they are, in California, and in Massachussetts as well, no?

Which is the higher law? Man made law, or the law of God? And what does personhood have to do with marriage? So you accept “everything” secular law allows?

 

[vern_humphrey]

Since you quoted me, I’m assuming this is directed toward my comments. It looks like we’re in agreement, but your tone didn’t reflect that. I’m not denying that unborn children are human-I’m pointing out that no one can prove that they are NOT human. Just like it would be wrong to fire a shotgun into a dark room based on someone’s opinion that it is “more reasonable” to believe it is empty, you shouldn’t kill an unborn baby that some people believe it is “more reasonable” to believe it isn’t human.

We are in agreement.