South Dakota's House has taken the next step towards banning abortion and the bill will now go to the state Senate.
Supporters are pushing the measure in hopes of drawing a legal challenge that will cause the US Supreme Court to reverse its 1973 decision legalizing abortion.The bill banning all abortions in South Dakota was passed 47-to-22 in the House.
Amendments aimed at carving out exemptions for rape, incest and the health of women were rejected.
The bill does contain a loophole that allows abortions if women are in danger of dying. Doctors who do those abortions could not be prosecuted.
A self-defense exception is a no-brainer, but I'm also sympathetic to people who want exceptions for rape and incest. My feeling on those two points isn't very strong, and I suspect that very few abortions are performed for those reasons.
I'm not sure where I stand on abortion, but the following blog post...
http://rondam.blogspot.com/2006/01/if-fetus-is-person.html
... asks some good questions:
"If a fetus is a person, why do we wait until someone is born before we count them in the census or allow people to claim them as dependents on their tax returns?
"Why do we measure their age from their birthday instead of their conception day?
"Why do we not issue a death certificate or hold a funeral after a miscarriage?
"Would it be OK for an art museum to charge a pregnant woman for two tickets?
"Why do we generally wait until after someone is born to give them a name?
"Should we start to make heroic efforts to save babies born with anencephaly? And if your answer is yes, should we dispense with the concept of "brain death" in adult humans?
"Why is so much time and effort being spent trying to save unwanted fetuses, when thousands of fully fledged human children die every day from a lack of clean drinking water and basic medical care?
"Why does there seem to be almost universal consensus that abortion ought to be legal to preserve the health of the mother, and in cases of rape or incest? After all, if a fetus really is a person whose moral standing is no different than a fully fledged baby, then abortion is murder then there is no moral difference between performing an abortion and committing infanticide. Surely infanticide should not be legal under any circumstances?
"Why did it take the Catholic church almost 1800 years before it decided that a fetus was a person?
"The answer to all these appearent dilemmas is so crystal clear it just makes me want to tear my hair out. What makes somone a person is not a full complement of human DNA, but a functioning brain. It is not always easy to draw the line of where brain function begins and ends, but that has never stopped us from doing do in many, many circumstances, without the moral histrionics associated with abortion."
Here's some more good reading, picking up where the above leaves off (brain development): "Abortion: Is it Possible to be Both 'Pro-life' and 'Pro Choice'? The Search for Answers" by Carl Sagan and Ann Druyan:
http://www.giamilinovich.com/sagans_abortion_essay.html
Again, I'm still trying to figure out what I believe when it comes to abortion, but it really seems to me that "killing" a fetus at a very early stage of development is not the same thing as killing a person...
(I expect this post will be followed by an avalanche of pro-life arguments, or links to them. I promise to read them and think about them with an open mind. Unless they are based on supernatural beliefs which can't be proven - in that case, I will find them impossible to swallow).
Bernardo, the answers to these questions are so obvious and banal that they hardly seem worth answering. What you've really got here is the abortion version of the Chewbacca Defense.
Bernardo: One of the best explanations I've read about how to determine when life begins is in this article: "Life: Defining the Beginning from the End"
Bernardo, the museum ticket example is dumb, as most babes-in-arms (or even children up to age 6) aren't charged for tickets at museums. I think even Disney waits til the kids are 2 before charging.
Oh, and why it might take a long time for the Catholic Church to figure out when life begins? Some of this stuff is based on scientific knowledge, which takes time to establish. Embryology was extremely crude for quite some time - I remember reading some rather amusing medieval "scientific" treatises on how pregnancy develops for a history of science class. Kind of difficult to fault the Church for not knowing what's going on when they've never claimed that scientific knowledge comes from direct revelation.
The Catholic Church is slow in anything it does. And just because it didnt release dogma, doesnt mean that it didnt already believe & teach it.
Those questions are akin to questions like "If a 12 year old child has to pay for adult tickets at a movie theatre, why cant he/she see adult movies?" But.. of course when you're anti-life the truth isnt on your side and you're going to have a tough time coming up with anything reasonable.
As for rape/incest:
If abortion in the case of rape or incest should be condoned, then I see no basis of outlawing any abortion whatsoever... Either abortion is murder or it isn't. Period. If it is murder when the mother is simply an irresponsible prostitute, then it's murder if an innocent woman is raped.
Of course not every murder is evil in God's sight as we see many examples of condoned murder in the Old Testament. But the OT Law does speak on the subject of rape and it certainly doesnt imply that the woman then has the right to murder the child that came about because of the rape.
Tim, I mostly agree. Yes, the Catholic Church is slow. And yes, if abortion is murder, then it should never be ok. (That's a big "if", though). But I don't think that a child paying the adult ticket price implies the child is an adult... it just says that the ticket price for the child's age range is the same as the adult price. Pro-life folks argue that a fetus IS a person. So the movie ticket analogy is a false one.
Ben and meep, while I agree that some of the questions are pretty stupid, some of them make good points. To me, the "hardest" ones are; "If a fetus is a person, why do we wait until someone is born before we count them in the census or allow people to claim them as dependents on their tax returns?" and "Why do we not issue a death certificate or hold a funeral after a miscarriage?". One answer is "Because our society does not recognise a fetus to be a person". So, if you think abortion is murder, then should an unborn child be counted in the census and in tax returns, and should a miscarriage be seen as the same as a child's/adult's death? If not, why not?
I'm going to go read Michael's linked-to page now.
No the analogy is not false. Roughly the same answer applies to both. We dont count a fetus in the census because it doesnt consume any measurable resources from society. (Not to mention the increased difficulty of the logistics since the woman is only aware of her pregnancy for 8 1/2 months. Furthermore it would be completely legitimate to count them as long as we did it across the board & estimated past census data so we were comparing apples to apples) But that is a completely different argument from whether its a person or not... and lets face it.. Its not a kangaroo.
We dont allow 12 year olds to see adult movies because the content is too mature for them. The reason kids get discounts to various things however is completely different. It has nothing to do with whether they're mature enough to see a particular movie (just like whether a person is counted in a census or not has nothing to do with whether they're a real person or not). It has to do mainly with marketing to families (You'd see a decline in matinee showings if a 6 month old cost the same as an adult) etc...
Besides all of that , all of these questions have one very dumb underlying principle. That is "We do things this way in some circumstances, if we decided not to do it in another circumstance that means that the two subject matters are completely different" Lets look at some other laws to combat this silly liberal idea that "its my body I can do what I want"
If murdering a fetus is ok since its your body, can you kill yourself? We all know thats illegal (at least in most states as far as I know maybe everywhere)
Can you determine your own level of risk? Can you self prescribe medication? Can you decide whether or not to wear a seatbelt? Can you use drugs such as cocaine etc? The primary reason for all of these laws it that we have decided that in many cases you cannot decide your own level of risk.
Its not your body to do with as you please..
In fact, in our current judicial system its only your body if its literally another human being living inside of you.
So the first poster has listed some examples of inconsistencies with how we treat a fetus and how we treat an adult. Those questions seem like good arguments to someone who hasnt really thought them out. But I've clearly shown other examples where we make one thing illegal (attempting to kill yourself) but make it legal to kill your child as long as it hasnt come out of the womb yet (because its "your body").
Just in case you still dont get the idea of the analogy.. Let me point out something else.
What do you think would happen if you destroyed a bald eagle's egg ? I heard at one time the fine was upwards of 25k. Maybe its more now I dont know. At any rate, why would we make such a law? We want to protect the endagered species. Well if a fetus isnt a human, then certainly an egg isnt an eagle. On what grounds could someone possibly prohibit the destruction of an egg since we dont really care about the egg but the eagle? Well the answer is obvious but let me explain it for the anti-lifers out there... THE EGG HAS INTRINSIC VALUE AND IF LEFT ALONE WILL BECOME AN ADULT EAGLE. Again, whats in the egg? Its not a kangaroo. What's in the womb? its not a manatee.
OK, Bernardo, I'll play.
We don't count fetuses in the census or on tax returns because:
1) there was (and to some extent still is) a significant risk of miscarriage, especially in the early months,
2) women often don't know that they're pregnant, or aren't sure, or hide their pregnancies for various reasons,
3) the fetus often doesn't have a name yet, because the parents don't yet know its sex, and
4) since the mother can legally kill the baby, it would make for some awkwardness.
On miscarriages, some women DO hold funeral or memorial services for their lost babies, especially when there are infertility problems or the mother is too old to safely try again.
On names, many women name their babies as soon as they know the sex, and start using the name well before birth. Others choose not to know the sex, and so can't pick a name in advance.
With a theater, they can charge whatever they like. But a pregnant woman only needs one seat, and isn't a bother to other patrons. So it doesn't make sense to charge her more, while it might make sense to charge more for a very fat person who would need two seats, or to prohibit babies who might cry.
And on a larger scale, the conclusion you're reaching for is kinda silly: "Everyone knows" that a fetus isn't a person, so the law should reflect that. But if everyone just kinda knew that a fetus wasn't a person, then we wouldn't have a raging national debate on abortion, would we?
BTW, I've finally started a blog of my own here. It's still a little rough around the edges, but it's a start.
All right, that essay was very interesting. If I understand it correctly, it says:
- The property that leaves the body at death (and which thus defines human life) is the organ's ability to work with each other. This property is present in embryos, in people in persistant vegetative states, but not in brain-dead people (which is why brain-dead people are "dead", while embryos and people in persistant vegetative states are "alive").
- Whether or not something is human ought not be measured by 1) appearance (ball of cells, embryo that looks like a tadpole, etc), 2) ability (reasoning, language, vision) or 3) how much others want it to be alive, i.e. how much other people THINK it is human.
Those are good points. However, the body's ability to have the organs fulfill mutually-dependent, coordinated tasks, defines LIFE, which I still think is different from HUMAN life. Dogs, toads, and jellyfish also have this ability, but they do not have human life.
The article says that something with a human genome that is "alive" (under the above definition) has "human life". I'm not sure it's that simple. A person who is in a persistent vegetative state can hardly be said to have human life. The individual you knew is GONE, once his brain no longer allows for thinking. All you have is a body that can run its own organs, not a brain with memories, personality, or awareness of individuality. I really don't think that that's human.
This, I know, is the argument from ability, which the essay mentions. I think it is safe to say that, if a "person" has no higher-brain functions, and reacts to his environment with less awareness than a fish, then I'm sorry, but that level of ability is low enough for me to safely say that he is not human.
The essay says that the argument from ability says that maybe a child is 20% human, and a myopic adult is 95% human. That is not what I am saying. What I am saying is, if a person's brain is at such a low level of functioning than no awareness of the person's environment is shown, and that there is no learning and no thinking and no emotions,then this person is not a human being. That person LOOKS like a human being, and looks to be an individual you may have known, but that individual is gone. So in a vegetative state, you have an organism with a human genome, and that looks like a human, and has a human's organs working together, but it is not human. It is alive in the way that coral and jellyfish are alive, but it is not even alive in the way that a healthy fish is alive, much less in the way a person is alive.
I guess I just find the argument from ability very compelling.
However, I also find that, when it comes to organisms with a human genome but which I don't consider to have "human life", the argument from preference leads me to believe that killing them would be wrong. In other words, if a person is in a persistent vegetative state, I do not think that this person has "human life" - the personality, awareness, memories, and emotions are gone. However, if the family thinks that this "living body" ought to be kept alive, if the family thinks that this person is not really gone and will only be gone once it is "killed", then I think this is a compelling reason to keep it alive.
The essay says the argument from preference goes "If it is human but no one wants it alive, then it is not human". I disagree, since I use it the other way: "If it is not human but some people want it alive and think it is human, then maybe it's human". This is what keeps me sitting on the fence, rather than being solidly pro-choice. I don't think a fetus is human. But if you guys think it is human, think it has human life, and think ending that life would be murder, then even though I do not feel this way, I am hesitant to say it's death would NOT be murder. In other words, just as I don't think "killing" a person in a vegetative state would be murder, that person't family might be devastated if that person is "killed", and this devastating effect is one of the primary reason why murder is wrong. So even if I don't think it's murder, it might be murder if someone else thinks it's murder. I'll even say it's definitely murder if someone in the family thinks it's murder. I'm just not sure if it's murder when only people outside the family (pro-life people) think it's murder.
(This, of course, only apply to "people" with no emotions, no personality, no awareness of their environment, and no memories - embryos and "human vegetables". Otherwise it's murder, period. So I guess it's a mix between the argument from ability and a reversed argument from preference.)
Your first impulse might be to say "You are too much of a relativist. Killing something either is murder or it is not, independent of what other people think". No, that is not exactly true. One of the worst things about death - the basic reason why death sucks - is that a lot of people feel very sad and mad over the death. So if the "killing" of an embryo makes a lot of people feel sad, or mad, "because a human being has been killed", then effectively, a human being has been killed, kinda.
However, this only goes so far. A child may be devastated when a fish dies. A child may even anthropomorphise his toys to an extent he is devastated when a toy is physically broken. However, the child needs to be taught that the fish and the toys are not conscious, emotional beings, so it is silly to be sad over their deaths.
Now, if a large fraction of a country's population felt that killing a fish is equivalent to killing a human being, then in that society, killing a fish would cause so much grief that it WOULD be just about equivalent to killing a human being. I am in a position where I wish those people would see that killing a fish is NOT the same as killing a human being, but I cannot ignore the amount of grief and emotion invested into this, and this grief and emotion can make "murder" apply to things other than "to kill a human being"... But, in that case, it is "murder" only because people THINK it is, not for any real reason.
But, most fundamentally, and in response to the article, I reject the premise that something with a human genome, and where the organs work together, necessarily has human life. I reject it for people in vegetative states, and I reject it for embryos. I think human life requires emotions, learning, and interacting with other humans. You can have human form and be alive but not have human life.
Bernardo: One of the biggest problems with the argument from ability is that, e.g., people in PVS have a 50%+ chance of eventually awakening from it. So, when is it ok to pull the plug? As soon as they enter PVS?
What about newborn infants? They don't have many human abilities. Etc.
Yes, I recognise that it gets very difficult to "draw the line" using the argument from ability. The essay makes that point well. You can get into all kinds of slippery slopes. However, I don't think that means that this argument ought to be discarded.
Newborn infants learn, interact with other humans, can be excited or relaxed or scared... Most importantly, they have brains more advanced than any animal, which is the point Carl Sagan makes. A first-timester embryo does not.
And the essay you pointed me to made persistent vegatative states sound... persistent. I don't claim to know anything about them other than what one occasionally sees on TV. But that essay seemed to say that, even if a person is almost certain to not emerge from it, even if the brain seems to be beyond hope except for the lower functions that keep the organs running, that this person is still alive and still a human. This is easier to argue if there is such a non-negligible chance of recovery (as you say there is, and I believe you), but then the parallel between pulling the plug on a vegetative state and aborting a fetus is not as strong then.
The point of the essay you linked to is: A fetus is a living human being because an almost-dead person, in a vegetative state he will probably never recover from, is a living human being, because all it takes is organs that run themselves, not a person's functioning brain. Well, I do think it takes a brain. (And a person in a PVS who is likely to recover DOES have a functioning brain, which is where the parallel breaks down). I mean, really, just organs that work together, in a human body? Is that really enough to make a "human"?
"One of the biggest problems with the argument from ability is that, e.g., people in PVS have a 50%+ chance of eventually awakening from it. So, when is it ok to pull the plug? As soon as they enter PVS?"
Wow...out of context that is one powerful stat. Too bad it is false. If you have to batently lie then maybe you should rethink you position. Next time don't include the link and you might fool everyone.
mg: Well, it's true according to Wikipedia, the link I included, which says:
Michael: Well, what you posted was not true. You claimed that "people in PVS have a 50%+ chance of eventually awakening from it." When compared to the Wikipedia entry anyone can see that you were trying to be misleading. You cut out the part you liked and ignored the rest. You cut it off in midsentence no less.
The statement "people in PVS have a 50%+ chance of eventually awakening from it." is untrue according to your own source. After reading your bio. I find it hard to believe that it was an honest mistake.
Oh well, I'm not here to argue about abortion or nitpick your posts. I stumbled upon this while looking for something else. Nice looking site and good luck in St. Louis it's a nice city.
mg: The exact quote from the source is "Generally adults have a 50 percent chance and children a 60 percent chance of recovering consciousness from a PVS within the first 6 months." This suggests that at least some people will recover at some point beyond the first 6 months, or a total of 50%+ chance of eventually recovering. Can you explain exactly how MW's statement was untrue or misleading?
Adam: My problem is not with the source provided it is that Michael did not include the entire sentence. Here is what I am referring to:
"One of the biggest problems with the argument from ability is that, e.g., people in PVS have a 50%+ chance of eventually awakening from it. So, when is it ok to pull the plug? As soon as they enter PVS?"
He does not include the "6 months" part. It would lead one to believe that someone in a PVS would have the same chances (50-60 percent depending on age) to recover on day one as they would ten years later. That is simply not true.
Adam: Just to clarify the 50% chances of recovery are for the first 6 months only. As the source states:
"Generally adults have a 50 percent chance and children a 60 percent chance of recovering consciousness from a PVS within the first 6 months."
The word "within" being the key to understanding. It goes on to say:
"After a year, the chances that a PVS patient will regain consciousness are very low and most patients who do recover consciousness experience significant disability. The longer a patient is in a PVS, the more severe the resulting disabilities will be."
So in general the chances people in a PVS will recover drops with time. It is not a constant 50% chance until they die of natural causes or someone "pulls the plug"
mg: Sorry, I figured that was obvious. 99% of people recover from headaches also... within the first 24 hours! I mean, whatever, you're nitpicking when my point is very obvious.