#719 Musings Beyond the Bunker (Wednesday August 2)
Good morning,
Trump’s been indicted yet again. More on that in coming days but I want to get my thoughts together. In the meantime…
After having published two weeks ago the thoughtful opinions of a friend who is very definitely pro-life, there was considerable response from those with a pro-choice point of view. Most of it centered around the balance of a fetus versus a mother’s life, whether a zygote in a petri dish can in any sense be considered “human” or that “a life” does not necessarily translate into “a human life.” Here are a few of them:
PRO-LIFE SHOULDN’T END WITH PREVENTING ABORTION
Ira Waldman maintains that being pro-life means supporting unwanted children: “Ask [your friend who opposes abortion] about the other side of the “moral” question – the complete refusal of most pro-life supporters to support the life of an infant in any way following birth, at which time it is ‘your’ problem.”
RICH GUESS, MD—A PHYSICIAN’S VIEW
“I am a retired ER physician. In my 35 full time years of work, I took care of hundreds of pregnant patients. I am pro choice, but like many feel an unease about some aspects of abortion.
When a woman miscarries at, say, 7-8 weeks, the POCs (products of conception) are essentially blood clots to the human eye. It takes a pathologist, generally, to sort it out. However, when a pregnancy is at 16-17 weeks (second trimester) and a miscarriage occurs, the products are much different. It really appears as a very small baby. Emotionally, for all concerned, it’s quite different. We very rarely saw a late (22 week, etc.) second trimester miscarriage.
Miscarriage is common, up to 30% of all pregnancies. Often there are genetic abnormalities incompatible with life. Patients, I believe, took some solace in that. I would often explain that to them, and after the explanations and tears, we could have a smile together when I recommended practice, practice, practice.
Many in the ER have experience with patients who have been pregnant 7-8 times, and had therapeutic abortions for all of them. This does not represent unavailability of contraception, but rather laziness and bad judgment. It’s part of the price we pay for unrestricted abortion, a tough one, but probably necessary.
For a long time the feminists and the left (I would consider myself center left, I think like most of your thoughtful columns) made unrestricted abortion at any stage of pregnancy a litmus test. I believe that’s wrong, and I also think that it led to, at least in part, the wave of pro life opinions and rulings. Be careful what you ask for.”
ADAM TORSON—LOGICAL FALLACIES
“Some responses to your friend's arguments:
1. Nobody contests that zygotes are at least potential humans, but that's like saying an egg is a chicken. The "fire in an IVF lab" hypothetical demonstrates that there is an intuitive moral difference between a potential human and a living human. When exactly a fetus is considered a life is subject to the paradox of the pile, but it doesn't follow that a single grain of sand is a pile.
2. I'm not sure that "the fundamental purpose of any society is to perpetuate itself into the future," and the acknowledgement that there are ethical constraints on this pursuit already demonstrates that there are other legitimate social purposes. I think it's plausible that society should try to protect and enhance the wellbeing of its future members, but I doubt it's ethical for society to try to maximize the number of future members. A particularly good objection to this formulation is called The Repugnant Conclusion, first articulated by philosopher Derek Parfit.
3. Because your friend's argument doesn't articulate a theory of the good, it's hard to say that it is free of religious premises. For example, he argues that the harm of taking a human life outweighs the harm inflicted on living persons by an unwanted pregnancy. Without deeper articulation, this is question begging. Why is taking a life automatically worse than inflicting suffering on many other people? …We seem to intuitively believe that sometimes we can take a human life to prevent 'mere' suffering, e.g., in cases of self-defense or during a war, or when we build a highway, knowing that people are going to die in car accidents. Making the protection of human life an absolute side-constraint requires some justification, and religion is the most plausible candidate. I don't really deny that it's possible to articulate a non-religious objection to abortion, just that he hasn't done so merely by avoiding overtly religious discourse. Most secular theories of the good appeal to ideas like reason, autonomy, or conscious experiences like happiness and suffering, but if he did appeal to these things then he would have to grapple with the fact that zygotes probably aren't identical to already born humans in these qualities.
4. Also, his argument doesn't think structurally. Obviously, there are cases where abortions prevent infant and maternal mortality, so there is a direct life-for-life tradeoff there. Additionally, the suffering imposed as a result of unwanted pregnancy (the physical danger of pregnancy, poverty, education loss, etc.) to the mothers, other members of the family, and society at large, could be expressed in terms of life expectancy or life-years lost. Would it be morally okay to kill someone two years early to save the life of a fetus? If so, in what sense is not killing a living thing an absolute side-constraint? This is the problem with absolute side-constraints as a moral theory - usually those side-constraints conflict with one another.
5. I think his characterization of depression is pretty objectionable. Bad feelings that may simply be derived from inconvenience? Trivializing the potential harms inflicted by an unwanted pregnancy in favor of an abstract philosophical commitment is one of the core objections to religious moral reasoning in the first place. You value life so much that you're going to make a ten-year-old rape victim carry a pregnancy to term? That doesn't seem life-affirming in any authentic sense to me. Even if he has successfully sidestepped overtly religious discourse, he hasn't really escaped the problematic reasoning characteristic of it.”
Have a great day,
Glenn