The "Abortion is murder" position

[Soapy Sam]

Without wilful intervention, a viable first-trimester human will become a viable second-trimester human being.

Well, some will and , of course, some will not. The failure rate is higher the sooner after fertilisation we pick our start point- and most eggs never get fertilised anyway. It's a hard gauntlet to run.

Assuming, of course, that human embryos are human beings. That's where the real crux of the matter is. All these shenanigans with reductio and this or that contingency are beside the point. Saying that human embryos can't be human beings because if they were it would raise all sorts of other difficult questions, or result in all sorts of other ethical dilemmas, is putting the cart before the horse. It's also a pretty heinous abdication of one's ethical responsibility. You end up in the position that you arbitrarily dehumanize human embryos because adjudicating between mothers and their children is hard.

As you say, here's the crux. While I acknowledge the soundness of your case,
we differ fundamentally at this point. I fully accept that a fertilised human ovum is exactly that- a fertile egg. This does not qualify it as "human", any more than a human cancer is "human" in anything other than location. AS my granny used to say- "You can get one of those when you can't afford a new hat."

So it all comes down to whether or not it's human. I think ulitmately it's a metaphysical question that does not lend itself to conclusive logical analysis. I also find that for me personally, considering the thing to be human from conception onward, while it does raise a number of ethical dilemmas, is morally more tenable overall than selecting any arbitrary cut-off point after conception.

It has the advantage of simplicity. So has legalising abortion at any time up till
unassisted birth- or five minutes afterwards. Or five years afterwards.
Any point on the line is arbitrary, but some seem less arbitrary than others .

And, for the third time: Law, custom, and common sense recognize many different kinds of killing, under many different kinds of circumstances, that sensibly require many different kinds of responses from us as individuals, as communities, and as a legal system.

Just so. As global population climbs, eventually later stage abortion, infanticide and legal enforcement of birth control may become acceptable.

 

[Elvis666]

Given that one agrees that killing a viable, healthy newborn is murder.

Given that one agrees that a couple deciding not to have sex and procreate is not murder.

Therefore, one's opinion has to fall somewhere between those two boundries.

(I know we can quibble about the boundries, but they can be set anywhere we agree to set them.)

 

[Yoink]

First, let's be clear: In the post above, I'm rejecting your argument that because I believe a certain thing, I must rationally be expected to act a certain way.

I'm rejecting your argument because it is fallacious: You claim that because you cannot conceive of someone acting differently than you yourself would act in a similar situation, acting differently must be irrational. You also claim that how you would act is the one true way to act.

The entire line of reasoning is flawed. My behavior is not wrong simply because it differs from your behavior. Nor is it wrong simply because it differs from your belief.

I'm enjoying watching this argument because it's not the usual "No, you're stupid" that you get on this issue. That said, I thought it might be helpful to point out that you distort the OP's position in the quotation above. That is, he's not (if I understand him correctly) arguing that "your behavior is wrong because it differs from his behavior"--he's saying that the internal inconsistency in your behavior suggests that the premises on which you are basing your (inconsistent) actions are not parallel.

Such an argument (at least as applied to human action) hardly seems to me to be a fallacy. It is, in fact, one we employ all the time to understand people's motivations. As with all arguments about human action, it does not admit of absolute proof one way or the other, but it is clearly reasonable.

I'm always struck, personally, by a different version of this same argument: that strongly pro-life people will insist that the foetus is in every way a "person"--just as much so as a baby--and yet in the event of a miscarriage (especially one early in the pregnancy) it would be considered extremely odd--unhealthy even--for the parents to arrange a large public funeral for the "remains" and to invite all their friends etc. etc. etc. No--early miscarriages are usually private griefs--rarely even discussed with people outside the circle of close friends and family, and as inappropriate occasions for the kind of searing grief we would expect in the event of a young infant's death.

These marked differences in behavior suggest to me that there are marked differences in attitudes towards the "personhood" of the "deceased" in each case. If the people screaming "murderer! murderer!" outside Planned Parenthood centers really believed that the foetus--from the moment of conception--was a "child" in the full sense of the word wouldn't they react to a miscarriage in just the same way that they'd react to, say, SIDS?

That said, I do agree with you that the question of when the "foetus" becomes a "baby" is not one to which we can offer a "scientific" response. I don't know of any "pro-choice" people who think it's o.k. to abort a foetus that's a week or two away from it's due date (except where it might be necessary to save the life of the mother--although I can't think of a circumstance where C-section delivery wouldn't be the way to go). A "metaphysical" claim that the foetus is human from the moment the sperm fertilizes the egg is, as you say, unanswerable. It's also, of course, impossible to defend logically.

 

[Cavemonster]

I think its reasonable to agree the the border between murder and not murder is a fuzzy one. Just as in many situations the line between murder and self defense can become fuzzy.

What we really need to consider is WHY we find murder undesirable and ask if abortion fits those criteria. This is addressed in the thread about why homicide is wrong.

 

[Undesired Walrus]

Without wilful intervention, a dead skin cell will never become a viable human being.

Without wilful intervention, a viable first-trimester human will become a viable second-trimester human being.

In the first scenario, you're going out of your way to produce human life.

In the second scenario, you're going out of your way to terminate human life.

A 'dead' skin cell? When does a cell die exactly?

I'd like to find your definition of 'wilful intervention'. Does nature count as a 'wilful intervention'? I'm referring to miscarriage here.

At the moment of conception, an eventual baby is not a guarantee, by any stretch of the imagination. Why are you denying your skin cell a chance at life? It is a potential human being.

 

[Moochie]

How does that apply to the act of blocking a sperm at the last second from entering an egg?

Without that willful intervention, that sperm and egg would become a viable second semester human being too. By your definition, does that make that act of sperm blocking a murder?

Doesn't that speak to intentionality? Is anyone contemplating contraception or abortion thinking murder? Is there enmity involved? Does anyone murder for "the heck of it," as perhaps some killers are said to have done?

Isn't equating abortion with murder just a person's decision about the actions of another with which he or she happens to disagree, a decision informed by that person's life experience, including religious indoctrination?


M.

 

[JoeTheJuggler]

I'm enjoying watching this argument because it's not the usual "No, you're stupid" that you get on this issue.

I agree. In particular, I want to acknowledge theprestige for being a gentleman (or a lady--if that's the case!) in this conversation.

That said, I thought it might be helpful to point out that you distort the OP's position in the quotation above. That is, he's not (if I understand him correctly) arguing that "your behavior is wrong because it differs from his behavior"--he's saying that the internal inconsistency in your behavior suggests that the premises on which you are basing your (inconsistent) actions are not parallel.

Such an argument (at least as applied to human action) hardly seems to me to be a fallacy.

In all fairness, I did a terrible job the way I first stated this point. It sounded just like an argument from incredulity (I can't believe that if someone thinks abortion is murder that they wouldn't condone bombing clinics or assassinating abortionists--basically).

In my defense, when I first raised it, it was in the context of my own vegetarianism, admitting that don't think of slaughtering animals for food as the moral equivalent to murdering humans. So I was sort of trying to point out the weakness in my own position (and why I'm a "pro-choice" vegetarian who doesn't consider himself morally superior to meat eaters). Then it sort of spun off from there. . . .

 

[Pepper]

But that microscopic blastocyst will develop, over that 6 months, into that "person". A fly will always be a fly.

I've made this argument before. I hate to see arguments that it's ok if it's done before a "certain time" because it ignores the reality that, ultimately, that life will develop into a fully developed, intelligent, self-aware human being (baring obvious medical problems, etc). So saying that killing it, before it get's to that point is "ok" is rationalizing. It's nitpicking and splitting hairs. If a pregnancy is ended any time from the moment of conception onward, it's ultimately ending a human life.

I hope that one day, in the far future, we all (as a people) wake up to how wrong this practice is.

When it comes to abortion, I skip over the whole "Is it human or not?" issue. Let's say for sake of argument the fetus is human. As long as the fetus is living inside the woman's body, and off of her system, it should be her choice whether to have an abortion or not.

 

[King of the Americas]

Ideally, we'd force both side to conceed, in the abortion debate.

Clearly, a parasite (fetus) that exists ONLY as a result of a willing and able host (the mother) to provide EVERYTHING essential for life, is NOT an 'individual'.

The ONLY deciding factor in allowing the 'choice' to abort a pregnancy is 'external viability'.

Somewhere within the 5-6 month, the fetus CAN exist outside the womb, without the host's specific care and attention. Therefore, he/she THEN becomes an individual, deserving of legal protections.

What this means is that until this occurs, the fetus is merely an extension of the host's body, and thusly she may do with it what she wishes.

Now, here is the concession for both sides:

The pro-choice side must conceed that 'late-term' abortions, or the point when the fetus reaches external viability, that BOTH individuals are deserving of protection. What a woman does to her body in the 6-9 month(s), she also does to that baby. A woman who takes drugs, while pregnant and in her 6-9 month(s), can and SHOULD be brought up on charges for child abuse or battery.

While the pro-life side must admit that until the point of external viability, that fetus is NOT an individual, and thus NOT deserving of legal protection of any kind.

Now all that said, 'science' gets to decide, when an abortion becomes murder, period.

The point of external viability will change, as we become more technologically capable.

To me, the debate is or rather should be about when someone becomes an 'individual'.

---

We do NOT give 10 year olds driver's licenses. You can't vote until you are 18, and you can't drink until you are 21

All of these examples point to the fact that you are given more 'rights & abilities' as you become more capable (through age). The older you get, the more legal authority you posses. It makes sense then to suggest, that at some point in your early development, that you posses NO rights...

That's my two cents, anyway.

 

[Santa666]

Ideally, we'd force both side to conceed, in the abortion debate.

Clearly, a parasite (fetus) that exists ONLY as a result of a willing and able host (the mother) to provide EVERYTHING essential for life, is NOT an 'individual'.

The ONLY deciding factor in allowing the 'choice' to abort a pregnancy is 'external viability'.

Somewhere within the 5-6 month, the fetus CAN exist outside the womb, without the host's specific care and attention. Therefore, he/she THEN becomes an individual, deserving of legal protections.

What this means is that until this occurs, the fetus is merely an extension of the host's body, and thusly she may do with it what she wishes.

Now, here is the concession for both sides:

The pro-choice side must conceed that 'late-term' abortions, or the point when the fetus reaches external viability, that BOTH individuals are deserving of protection. What a woman does to her body in the 6-9 month(s), she also does to that baby. A woman who takes drugs, while pregnant and in her 6-9 month(s), can and SHOULD be brought up on charges for child abuse or battery.

While the pro-life side must admit that until the point of external viability, that fetus is NOT an individual, and thus NOT deserving of legal protection of any kind.

Now all that said, 'science' gets to decide, when an abortion becomes murder, period.

The point of external viability will change, as we become more technologically capable.

To me, the debate is or rather should be about when someone becomes an 'individual'.

---

We do NOT give 10 year olds driver's licenses. You can't vote until you are 18, and you can't drink until you are 21

All of these examples point to the fact that you are given more 'rights & abilities' as you become more capable (through age). The older you get, the more legal authority you posses. It makes sense then to suggest, that at some point in your early development, that you posses NO rights...

That's my two cents, anyway.

Unfortunately, "external viability" is just as slippery an eel as most other hypotheses are in this matter. It has been said before that sometimes arbitrary lines must be drawn simply to be able to establish a rule or law in the first place (i.e. age of consent, drinking age, voting...), however, this particular line dictates whether you are ending a human life or ending the existence of "human life-to-be". With such a line, it seems prudent to be certain we are correct one way or the other.

Back to the slippery eel of "external viability". As technological advances grow, so also grows the borders medical science. 100 years ago, a baby born 3 months early was likely doomed. Today, a 3 month premature baby stands a likely chance of survival. Does that mean a fetus in the womb at six months 100 years ago was not a human life, but one today is? Based upon the theory of "external viability", a fetus at 3 months would certainly not be a human life, does that change in the future if medical technology can help it survive beyond the womb?

Personally, I have waffled with my opinion of abortion. I have difficulty with stating an entity is not a human life one day then suddenly, within seconds, it is. I truly do not believe the issue of abortion is one of woman's rights. The real issue is whether an unborn child deserves the same protection of life we all get from the moment it is conceived. If everyone truly believed and science could show that a fetus is a human life and abortion is murder, this type of discussion would cease.

My two cents,

Santa

 

[Lithrael]

Heh.. yeah, once we have the technology to zap any fetus out of its mother and into an incubator bubble where it can continue to gestate, if we also decide that this must be every unwanted fetus's fate (rather than death), we are gonna have some fun figuring out wtf to do with them all. And also some way more transparent arguments over mothers' versus fathers' rights and responsibilities.

I don't have any trouble saying that one day this thing is too far from being human to count, and the next day too near to being human not to count. In both cases the thing is still far from human, which is a good place to put the deadline IMO. It's arbitrary but it errs on the side of caution which is perfectly fine with me.

 

[phantomb]

Heh.. yeah, once we have the technology to zap any fetus out of its mother and into an incubator bubble where it can continue to gestate, if we also decide that this must be every unwanted fetus's fate (rather than death), we are gonna have some fun figuring out wtf to do with them all.

How about the logical next step for such a technology: forcefully collecting all the unused sperm and eggs from everyone, all the time, and artificially fertilizing and growing them. At that point I guess it would be the guy in the lab who is a murderer because he chooses which sperm and egg is paired up, killing the fully developed person who would have resulted from any other choice each time he does, obviously.

 

[JoeTheJuggler]

I don't think external viability is the proper test. I think it's much more about what I mentioned earlier in the thread--when the brain is sufficiently developed for the fetus/baby to have desires (that according to Alonzo Fry's desire utilitarianism--but if not "desires" then some other standard like "consciousness" or maybe even "quickening"). We draw an arbitrary legal line where we think we can safely say that has not yet happened (the first trimester). At some point after that line, the brain develops enough to say that there is a human that can be murdered.

I think non-viability would enter into specific situations--like when the fetus is not viable (regardless of its gestational age) and not to abort would threaten the health or life of the mother. Then it's more like a matter of triage. You save the one that can be saved.

 

[ImaginalDisc]

I don't think external viability is the proper test. I think it's much more about what I mentioned earlier in the thread--when the brain is sufficiently developed for the fetus/baby to have desires (that according to Alonzo Fry's desire utilitarianism--but if not "desires" then some other standard like "consciousness" or maybe even "quickening").

The Kurgen is a baby-killer.

 

[Princess]

But that microscopic blastocyst will develop, over that 6 months, into that "person". A fly will always be a fly.

I've made this argument before. I hate to see arguments that it's ok if it's done before a "certain time" because it ignores the reality that, ultimately, that life will develop into a fully developed, intelligent, self-aware human being (baring obvious medical problems, etc). So saying that killing it, before it get's to that point is "ok" is rationalizing. It's nitpicking and splitting hairs. If a pregnancy is ended any time from the moment of conception onward, it's ultimately ending a human life.

I hope that one day, in the far future, we all (as a people) wake up to how wrong this practice is.

So our argument here is "X is a potential Y, therefore X has all the same rights as Y". Let's take that principle to its logical ends:
- If I'm a potential senior citizen, do I have the same rights as a senior citizen?
- If you're a potential corpse, is it ok for me to bury you?
- If infants are potential moral agents, should they be treated like moral agents?

No on all counts. Although a lot of people like to throw potential person arguments in the fray, they're just bad philosophy. Potential people have potential rights. If infants are valuable, its because of some characteristics they have right now, such as their capacity to feel pain, pleasure, satisfaction suffering, etc.

Now, of course, this doesn't deny that fetus is a human, it just denies that being a member of our species has any intrinsic value. Species membership is irrelevant, and the fact that something is a human communicates nothing to make a moral decision by.

I have difficulty with stating an entity is not a human life one day then suddenly, within seconds, it is. I truly do not believe the issue of abortion is one of woman's rights. The real issue is whether an unborn child deserves the same protection of life we all get from the moment it is conceived. If everyone truly believed and science could show that a fetus is a human life and abortion is murder, this type of discussion would cease.

No it wouldn't. I, for example, will argue forcefully that human life has zero intrinsic value. It only has conditional value. Abortion has NOTHING to do with whether the fetus is a human or not, only whether it has some morally relevant characteristics. To make sense of the abortion debate, we only need to state what morally relevant characteristics make people valuable in general, and then determine whether a fetus has those characteristics.

One person pointed out desire utilitarianism, which more or less insists that a being who has no desires will not be harmed by any concievable action (namely, because having desires is a prerequisite to being harmed at all), so they don't exist in the moral community. Human beings have an interest in their continued existence, and the satisfaction of their desires depends necessarily on their continued existence; fetuses, on the other hand, have no mental life, and therefore no desires to speak of, so they are not members of the moral community. We have a very basic, yet sound basis for making moral distinctions between adult and embryo life.

 

[Princess]

Ideally, we'd force both side to conceed, in the abortion debate.

Clearly, a parasite (fetus) that exists ONLY as a result of a willing and able host (the mother) to provide EVERYTHING essential for life, is NOT an 'individual'.

A tick attached to your leg is an individual animal, not part of your body. If you take the parasite rhetoric seriously, then you should automatically conclude that a fetus is an individual, separate from a mother.

Somewhere within the 5-6 month, the fetus CAN exist outside the womb, without the host's specific care and attention. Therefore, he/she THEN becomes an individual, deserving of legal protections.

Children under 5 years cannot exist for very long without their parents specific care and attention, therefore they are not individuals with legal protections. My mother cannot survive without an oxygen pump, therefore she's not externally viable and has no legal protections. Lets not go down that road.

In any case, I see no reason at all to choose viability over all the other alternatives, like birth or conception, to draw the line of legal protection, except of course because it retrofits nicely into the status quo.

All of these examples point to the fact that you are given more 'rights & abilities' as you become more capable (through age). The older you get, the more legal authority you posses. It makes sense then to suggest, that at some point in your early development, that you posses NO rights...

A pro-lifer would reply that being have NO rights before they're concieved (how does a non-existent person have rights at all?), and that governments oblige people to act paternalistically toward people who can't take care of themselves.

 

[Cainkane1]

While I support the position that abortion should be legal I personally abhor abortion. There are other ways to handle an unwanted pregnancy including giving an unwanted infant up for adoption. In situations where the sex was consentual and a pregnancy results then i can't understand why the woman can't take responsibility for her actions and just have the baby. In cases of rape I can understand but not in situations where the baby is the result of recreational sex.

 

[JoeTheJuggler]

Unfortunately, "external viability" is just as slippery an eel as most other hypotheses are in this matter. It has been said before that sometimes arbitrary lines must be drawn simply to be able to establish a rule or law in the first place (i.e. age of consent, drinking age, voting...), however, this particular line dictates whether you are ending a human life or ending the existence of "human life-to-be". With such a line, it seems prudent to be certain we are correct one way or the other.

I agree.

That's why external viability isn't the line we draw legally. The line we draw is the first trimester. It seems a safe line to draw in that before that point we're confident that the fetus isn't yet human.

It's really not about what might or might not happen in the future. The issue is whether or not the thing we're killing is human (and, therefore, whether abortion is indeed murder).

 

[JoeTheJuggler]

While I support the position that abortion should be legal I personally abhor abortion. There are other ways to handle an unwanted pregnancy including giving an unwanted infant up for adoption. In situations where the sex was consentual and a pregnancy results then i can't understand why the woman can't take responsibility for her actions and just have the baby. In cases of rape I can understand but not in situations where the baby is the result of recreational sex.

I applaud that you are still pro-choice (on the legal question).

However, to the issue of whether or not abortion is murder, do you see that your position is inconsistent with that claim?

If it's murder to abort a fetus (because the fetus is human), then the question of whether the pregnancy was the result of consensual sex or not is irrelevant. It would still be a person, and you can't justify murdering one person based on the crimes of another (the rapist/father).

ETA: In other words, is the fetus only a human if the sex was consensual? (Of course not!)

The fact that people can hold the position you do, I think, shows that they don't really believe abortion is murder.

As I said before, reasonable minds can disagree on the morality of abortion, and I didn't really want to get into that debate. . . .

However, your argument that the woman should be required to "take responsibility for her actions" isn't a very strong one. Why do you think her having an abortion is not taking responsibility? (By the way, do you let the father out of his responsibility for the same actions?)

If someone led a sedentary life, overate and got morbidly obese, would you say that gastric bypass surgery or liposuction were somehow irresponsible choices?

 

[JoeTheJuggler]

When it comes to abortion, I skip over the whole "Is it human or not?" issue. Let's say for sake of argument the fetus is human. As long as the fetus is living inside the woman's body, and off of her system, it should be her choice whether to have an abortion or not.

I don't think you'll find too many people supporting your position. It's certainly contrary to the law of the land nowadays.

I think the question of when it becomes human is the right question. I'm pretty sure all cultures/legal systems today agree that that point happens in utero.