If so, then you are a walking, talking refutation of the pro-lifers’ argument that the human person comes into being at the moment of conception.
A tetragametic chimera is a human (or animal for that matter) whose body is made up from two genetically distinct lines of cells derived from a total of four gametes - eggs and sperm. In other words they have developed, not from a single zygote, but from two zygotes which were conceived more or less simultaneously as non-identical twins, and then fused during pregnancy to form a single embryo.
This means that “Jane”, the tetragametic chimera in the New Scientist article - did not exist and could not have existed as a unique human person at the moment of conception. One erstwhile right-to-life fundamentalist has had the intellectual courage to think this through to its logical conclusion:
If, for example, the mother of “Jane,” referenced above, had had an abortion while nonidentical (fraternal) zygotes were in her womb, this would not have killed “Jane,” in the sense that the person “Jane” existed at that time. Instead, the abortion would have terminated two zygotes, which at the time had had the potential to become two persons. “Jane” as a person, however, never existed until the two zygotes had amalgamated to form a tetragametic chimera, which was later born as the one person “Jane.”
“Twinning” presents a similar problem for the pro-birth movement. At the time of fertilization, one zygote exists, so if it is true that a “person” exists at the “moment of conception,” abortion would “kill” only one “person,” but if the aborted zygote happened to be one that would divide later to become twin zygotes that would eventually be born as two persons, did the abortion somehow kill two “persons”? If so, what rationale is used to reach that conclusion?
Don’t about half of all human conceptions end not in a live birth - most of them without human intervention? How do pro-lifers feel about this?
Both sad and vaguely suspicious about the role of women in the whole sorry series of events.
Zoe, I don’t understand your comment - could you please clarify?
Paul - reality is much more complex than fundamentalist thinkers often posit - that’s why it’s so much fun watching them come to terms with reality.
Sophistry. A right-to-life advocate worth their salt will point out that their position is able to accept conceptions that go wrong without human intervention. Accepting for the sake of argument the position that life starts at conception, the advocate will, when queried about tetragametic chimera, will accept two lives ended without human intervention and a new single life replaced them. I don’t imagine there are many serious right-to-life advocates who claim that identical twins are a single unique life; one unique life became two.What they object to is human intervention, not “shit happens”.
A joke, Sacha, on the “every sperm is sacred” types and those whose misogny when discussing pregnancy and birth is very thinly veiled.
“…reality is much more complex than fundamentalist thinkers often posit…”
Indeed it is. But we don’t shut down our capacity for moral reasoning simply because the world is a complex or wacky place.
The scientific data on this subject is quite interesting in itself (I’d never heard of it before, but maybe it’s been common knowledge for years?), but I’m not sure it provides terribly powerful input-data for any kind of really persuasive logic-chopping vis-a-vis a working moral position. I’m not sure that an abolitionist, say, or a gay-rights activist, would change their fundamental position when confronted with a certain conflicting piece of research, no matter how sophisticated. So often, the motives in these matters come from quite other sources.
This just in from Mr. Samuel Beckett…
HAMM: What’s happening?
CLOV: Something is taking its course.
Or, “It’s all part of the process,” as Morcheeba would say. Life processes are just that — processes, part of a continuum that we really only barely understand, but still have to live in. Light is both wave and particle, they tell me, but that doesn’t shatter my entire worldview with respect to the existence of waves and particles; it just tells me we don’t know everything. Morally, in this case, the sense of “human intervention” may be the place to look, as avocadia suggests above. If you wanted to say that abortion is wrong, maybe it’s not wrong because it’s “murder.” Maybe it’s wrong because it’s “abortion.”
Moderator: just posted a fairly short remark that disappeared into the moderation filter, for reasons unknown. Just letting you know it’s there, in case at your discretion you decide to print it. Thanks!
Zoe — while doubtless you’re right, and there are enough “every sperm is sacred” types and misogynists in this realm of debate to make life unpleasant for everyone, I hope you won’t conclude that everyone on the pro-life side is quite so silly and/or hateful. Some of us just think things are constituted differently than you do, and we don’t wish unhappiness or loss of health or freedom on anyone… it’s hard to figure this thing out in a way that satisfies everyone, or even anyone. Which is part of what makes this whole area of discussion so difficult and painful and hard to resolve.
I certainly don’t think that everyone who opposes abortion is a screaming misognynist or religious nutjob, jpz.
The point is that this kind of thing shows that there is no “person� only a potential person or persons. So no, abortion isn’t murder. If pro-lifers want to argue against abortion on the grounds of “intervention� being wrong, let them go ahead and convince the general public that medical intervention per se is a terrible thing; that a potential person has rights equal to those of an actual person.
I’m with Zoe. The woman, with her uterus, her mind, her consciousness, her life-goals – this is what matters. All the rest is interesting philosophical debate, none of it the basis for good laws.
“Moderator: just posted a fairly short remark that disappeared into the moderation filter, for reasons unknown. Just letting you know it’s there, in case at your discretion you decide to print it. Thanks!”
I can’t find any lost comments in either moderation or spam, JPZ. Sorry. Maybe you deleted it by mistake?
ps I am not the ‘Moderator’, just trying to help.
Anna: It doesn’t disprove it at all. All it merely shows that conception is not a straight-forward process. The best it can prove is that the right-to-life movement will be able to reconcile itself to the knowledge that two people died of natural causes and through the miracle of life - I am positive they will use that phrase - were replaced by a third person.
I’m not really sure of your point, avocadia, so if I misunderstand you I apologise.
The stance taken by some pro-lifers that one is a person from the moment of conception is clearly disproved by instances like this. I’m not sure how you could argue otherwise without going into some strange new definitions of what a person is. If a person is a person from conception, then your idea that two people died then another one is created is bizarre – where did person number three come from?
But I agree with you that this shows that conception is not a straight-forward process. This is a very important point, one that many (but not all) pro-lifers seem not to understand. It’s complicated – it’s not a person with equal rights and it’s not the same as murder. So in complicated situations like this, is it better to allow people to make their own decisions, or have a third party enforcing a one-size-fits-all rule?
I think you misread their position. I believe that the right-to-life movement is capable of accepting Acts of God - for want of a better term in this case - during conception. They are capable of accepting that two zygotes can merge into one. Or from their perspective, two unique people merge into one unique person. They will call it the will of god, or some such, and point out that it is no different to when a fetus dies and is reabsorbed, which they have also shown themselves capable of accepting without a crisis of belief.
Your argument that the chimera undermines their belief assumes that they will create “strange new defintions” to justify not having to come to terms with the merging of two unique people into a third. I do not believe they will attempt to redefine, I believe they will just accept it as an act of god.
Where does person number three come from? I use “person number three” as a handy label for “the person who is a made up of elements of the two people that merged”. I’m not a biologist, so I’ve no idea if you can legitimately replace person with zygote and be left with an appropriate description of what is happening in scientific terms.
This isn’t about what the pro-life movement can “accept�, though. It’s about good arguments that convince people. Two “persons� merging into one “person� may be easily accepted by some as an “act of God�, but it doesn’t sound like the kind of argument anyone could use in public without sounding slightly loopy.
This is about being honest and clear about the real arguments against abortion. It’s about demonstrating that the argument that the embryo is a person with moral standing equal to that of its mother is one that is not supported by scientific evidence. If this about it being morally wrong to intervene in “acts of Godâ€? then that’s fine – we can then start arguing on those terms. But if that’s the case, it removes their ability to be outraged when we tell them that God has no place in public policy.
The view that a unique human person comes into being at the moment of conception is held by the articulate pro-life commenter at OnLine Opinion to whom I linked, was held by the revisionist pro-birther who I quoted and to whom I linked, is apparently held by the pro-birthers (his phrase) with whom he is in contact, and is certainly widely held by anti-abortion people and organisations, to whit:
“The Catholic Church has always condemned abortion as a grave evil… Aborted babies must have justice, too. This is because they, like older children, have souls… Since from the time of conception the child’s body is alive (as shown by the fact it is growing), the child’s body must already have its spirit.” See http://www.catholic.com/library/Abortion.asp
This view of when the human person comes into being has the merit of clarity, simplicity and precision - it pins down the beginning of the life of the human person to a moment. Those who accept this view are spared the philosophical and moral perplexity of those who do not. Unfortunately it is intellectually untenable, not only because of the implications of such phenomena as identical quintuplets and tetragametic chimerae, but because it assumes a definition of personhood which is not tenable for people who associate the concept of human personhood with the capacity for mind and consciousness, and/or are either sceptical about the existence of such things as souls or accept a position (similar to that held by many Christians for many centuries) that the “ensoulment” of the foetus is only possible at a certain stage of foetal development.
Such positions are less clear and precise than the “life-begins-at-conception” line, and no doubt cause their adherents a degree of moral angst (especially if they are a policymaker considering the abortion laws, or a person involved in a possible decision to terminate a pregnancy) but in various key respects these positions come closer to a truer framing of the debate about the ethics of abortion.
I find it intriguing, and maybe a little frightening, that some elements in the Boutique Left are unable to appreciate the moral dimensions of abortion yet at the same time they pompously declare themselves ethical vegetarians.
Steve Lomborg, The Skeptical Leftist
Pomposity being entirely unknown to Mr Munn.
Tofu for lunch today, but bloodied roast beef for dinner last night. mmm-hmm
Are you just trying to be provocative, Steve, or offensive, or can you just not read?
No more loopy than they might sound trying to explain how a single unique person becomes two unique people when the zygote splits into twins. No more callous than they might sound explaining that the death of unborn fetus through natural causes is “God’s will”.
Scientific evidence has never supported the idea that life begins at conception; despite this the right-to-life movement continues to believe it.
I know that avocadia - but whether they believe it or not is irrelevant. What’s important is, is it supported by evidence?
Examples like this one help illustrate how dumb a belief it is - that the “person” they’re trying to save can at any moment become two brand new people, or that two may merge and become one. It’s a way of demonstrating that these are not claims to be taken seriously by anyone who’s actually interested in making laws that will apply to those of us in the reality-based community.
“It’s about demonstrating that the argument that the embryo is a person with moral standing equal to that of its mother is one that is not supported by scientific evidence.”
Science has something to offer the abortion debate obviously, but not a whole lot.
The question of when “human life begins” is not a scientific question.
Science can describe processes but it can’t draw arbitrary dividing lines within the processes to fit neatly with cognitive classifications or language conventions.
It’s up to each of us to say when “human life begins”. Personally I am happy to say that conception is the start of a person’s life, but I’m equally happy to support the right to abortion nonetheless.
What Anna said. People who are determined to believe something can easily invent reasons to continue believing it in the face of opposing evidence and arguments, especially through self-referential arguments invoking God (as they conceive “Him”) and miracles which are underpinned by the assumptions which produced the belief in the first place. They are less likely to be convincing to those who don’t share such assumptions. Also, see Proverbs 26:16.
Firstly wbb, I think there’s a big difference between life and personhood. I think it’s probably an accepted fact that embryos are alive – it doesn’t make them persons.
I’m not saying that the pro-life argument must be supported by science - I’m saying that it should at least not be disproved by science. The personhood claim is clearly disproved by science. Any definition of personhood that allows for two people becoming one person, or one person becoming two is not a definition that many would subscribe to.
It doesn’t prove that the pro-lifers are wrong either. It just means that they can’t rely on that particular argument if they want to be taken seriously.
Evidence? Yeah, that’s working real well, isn’t it. Nobody in the world believes that life starts at conception because of the dearth of evidence to support it. Everybody in the world believes in the theory of natural selection due to the wealth of evidence that does support it.
You’re talking about the most emotive issue in the Western world, and you believe that what the right-to-life movement believes is irrelevant. They are already pretty well loopy as is, and to accept the idea of zygotes merging isn’t going to be a baby step for them; it won’t be a step at all. The groundwork is already there, well established. Why did my fetus die? It was God’s will to take the fetus to Himself. Why did my two fetuses become one? God’s will.
Anna, a “person” is not something that can be scientifically discussed. Personhood is something we choose to assign to a human on the basis of non-scientific judgements. It’s a figure of speech only.
Picking up on wbb’s point, science can tell you whether or not on the criteria you choose to use to define personhood or define the point at which an individual’s rights should be protected, you are consistent with your views on abortion. For instance if you think everyone who is genetically human has a right to life then I’m afraid the pro-life crowd are more correct than the pro-choice crowd. If you choose to define the right to protection on the basis of some notion of ’sentience’ then studies of human neurological development can give you some cutoff point at which abortion should be immoral depending on how specific your notion of sentience is. But the criteria itself is not capable of objective derivation and in practice will change depending on community views.
There is a third path. If you choose to define the right of protection based on possession of some divinely-provided vital spark then whoever asserts most convincingly at what point the divine provides that spirit is the most correct; there’s no empirical measure for it. Deus ex machina - it’s not just for the Greek playwrights!
Maybe the divine spark is what Jason meant by ’sentience’
Wbb, what Jason said.
If personhood is being used to support arguments that influence laws then it is more than a “figure of speech�. I don’t think there are many definitions of personhood that allow for a person to become two new people, or two people to merge into one. So the pro-lifer must either convince enough people to accept his new definition of personhood, or find a new argument.
To continue on from Jason’s point – as I already said, none of this disproves the pro-life side’s views. It just disproves their “embryos are people too� line.
Avocadia – please stop putting words in my mouth. I didn’t mean that what people believe is completely irrelevant, I mean that what they believe is irrelevant to to anyone who thinks their beliefs are ridiculous and stupid. They can believe whatever they like, but if they are arguing for laws that affect my life, then they’d better come up with something better than “I believe� or “God said so�.
I agree with what wbb and Jason said. Anna has failed to define her personhood comment so I cannot really comment on it.
My earlier post was meant to be provocative. Sometimes provocation is indicated. My point is that some who adopt a pro-choice positions have arguments that are decidedly smelly. Some people do indeed stridently support abortion on demand yet at the same time express outrage at the idea of eating a clam. I’m yet to see a convincing reconciliation of these two positions.
One pro-choicer with a chillingly callous outlook is Melbourne University academic and ethicist Leslie Cannold. I recall an article of hers in The Age in which she was untroubled by an “incomplete abortion” whereby a crying “foetus” was left to slowly die in a cold metallic dish.
Was this “ex-post facto foetus” not a person in its own right? Has it no moral claim to life or at the very least a dignified death? Cannold doesn’t appear to think so, or if she does she didn’t think it worthy of note in that particular article.
Irrespective of the above, I am broadly in favour of a woman’s right to an abortion. Being a male I will thankfully never be faced with the dilemma of an unwanted pregnancy and as such I think it best (with some provisos) to defer to a woman’s judgement.
But let us not pretend that quirks like chimeras are of revolutionary importance in the abortion debate.
Paul Norton — I take your point, but I fail to find this sphere of discourse persuasive in general. For instance, given the speed of scientific development, I find it questionable that you choose to stop the clock on our knowledge of embryology, and call for a ruling, at a moment when the evidence conveniently favors you. The ‘evidence’ is not reality itself, just what we think we can tell about the world at any given moment. If, in two years’ time, embryological research uncovers a surprising new fundamental revision that points towards the pro-life camp, will you switch sides in favor of the new ‘evidence’ and demand the shuttering of all abortion clinics?
Science is science, not morals, or political theory. It can clear our heads of certain silly notions, but it can’t make our moral decisions for us — only help us to not make dizzyingly stupid decisions. I don’t think this particular species of debate, at this moment in time, falls quite under that header. An embryo may re-constitute itself into more than one ‘person’, or the reverse; but the process clearly points towards a human being more than it points to, say, a steam engine or a ham sandwich. This doesn’t win the day either, obviously, but hopefully it makes the whole thing a little less starkly yes or no, which I think is where we find ourselves.
If I didn’t know better I would think you are just being obtuse, but I look at the other hand and I see my two clauses are confusing if not read as, and immediately after, they are being typed. Lets try it this way.
…you believe that whether the right-to-life movement believes it [the scientific evidence] is irrelevant.
See, not putting words in your mouth.
How do you have any discussion of anything at all, ’scientific’ or otherwise, without depending on “figures of speech” or some equivalent symbolic system?
Not to speak for Paul, because he seems more than capable of speaking for himself, but I don’t think that anyone in the pro-choice camp is pinning their hopes on this piece of information. I think this is an interesting piece of evidence against one particular claim, which has little to do with a “winâ€? for either side.
For what it’s worth, my pro-choice belief would survive irrefutable proof that the embryo is a person – since I view it in terms of women not being forced to give up control of their body unwillingly for any person no matter how developed.
It’s also the case, as I’ve said a couple of times now, that this evidence is also not a huge blow to the pro-life side, and even I could write you up a pretty convincing argument in support of banning abortion even if the embryo is not a person, despite the fact that I wouldn’t agree with what I wrote.
But those that subscribe to the “embryo is a person� argument are faced with pretty clear choices: ignore science (IDers may be able to help you out with this option should you choose it); redefine personhood to remove any reference to continuity of consiousness or physical self; or move on and find another claim on which to base your position. In the interests of refuting the best possible arguments against my case, I will even provide them one to get started: abortion is wrong because it involves intentionally killing a future person.
You’ve lost me, avocadia.
I am referring to the belief of some pro-lifers that certain things are God’s will that you talked about here and here.
As someone who is (sort of) Kantian in issues of personal morality I think I would frame it as a veil of ignorance argument. If you had no way of knowing the probablity that you would be born as a fetus about to be aborted or a woman who wants to have an abortion, which regime would you prefer to be born into? I think consideration of this issue would then lead one to delve into the cost to the mother versus the cost to the fetus and this in turn would inevitably lead to an inquiry into the relative ‘consciousness’ or sentience of the fetus versus the mother. The woman would have more life plans and would be aware of the thwarting of those life plans and suffer the frustration of seeing those life plans thwarted. The fetus has some consciousness but at least up to some period of time no more than enough to perhaps feel some sudden twinge of discomfort as it is snuffed out and would not have the additional self-consciousness of thwarted life plans. On that basis, on a veil of ignorance situation I think the rational maximiser would choose a ‘pro choice regime despite not knowing the probability of their being born to be an aborted fetus or a pregnant woman.
My reply to Anna is lost in moderation. Can it be retrieved? Thanks.
I am not sure that you are at all correct. My reading of the article is that two zygotes merged at the pre-embryonic stage and then went on to form into a single embryo. You may be able to argue from that that zygotes aren’t persons but the science doesn’t negate the proposition that embryos are. It merely demonstrates that a person can be derived from two zygotes and not just one.
Done.
Does a tetragametic chimera have to say, on government forms and so on, that they are male or female?
Whatever, Steve.
If you took even 10 minutes to search this site you will see that all the pro-choicers here have very deeply considered views about abortion.
No straw pro-choicers here.
You’re right GregM - I didn’t choose my words as carefully as I should have. I was being lazy
But my point is aimed at those who claim that a person is created at conception, so it still stands.
What is the result of the two zygotes merging? I couldn’t figure it out from the linked article. Is it a single zygote, or something else?
If you took even 10 minutes to search this site you will see that all the pro-choicers here have very deeply considered views about abortion.
I agree, as do many other readers here - some of them being pleasantly surprised to find that’s the situation.
Yes, for many of us abortion slips easily into the modern preoccupation with the quick technological fix. It certainly doesn’t sit well with a green mindset, that natural is best and that when you stray too far from nature, you can often end up producing more problems than you solve. Here’s the classic tradeoff for the ‘it’s my body and I’ll do what I like with it’ here ladies. (Funnily enough it’s not them doing what they like with their bodies at their expense. It’s usually a trained man, on the social drip.) http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2006/03/30/1143441277236.html
Yes, for many of us abortion slips easily into the modern preoccupation with the quick technological fix.
For “of us”, read “men”.
(wyrd sisters of the LP collective: observa links to an article about a doctor jailed for revealing the gender of a (female) fetus and agreeing to abort it, in a sting operation in India where it is illegal to do ultrasound to reveal the gender of a foetus. Remainder of article notes entrenched patriarchy and woman hating in India, including the practice of dowry giving, and religious opposition to abortion of female foetuses. Best thing about the whole article is the sentence: “Like China, India has encouraged smaller families.”)
I’m not sure that you have done that. A unique being is created at conception. It has a combination of male and female DNA which, barring chimerisation, a very are event I would think, will remain constant for the rest of its existence. It may split into two, bringing into being identical twins but that gives rise to two beings unique against all others except themselves. In the event of chimerisation two unique beings merge to create a single unique being. Had they not merged they would be fraternal twins, each unique.
The question of whether that unique being or thing is a person is not a scientific question. Science merely observes and describes the process of gestation. It does not pass judgment on the process. As to whether the unique being is a person is social or moral or philosophical question.
However that is irrelevant to your position for you say:
That being the case you believe in the right for a woman to kill (or take such action to terminate a pregancy which will have as its inevitable outcome the death of the foetus) a foetus up to the moment of birth whether the foetus is a person or not. It should hardly concern you then whether the foetus was from the moment of conception through its stages of being a zygote and then an embryo a person.
However philosophically your position does raise the interesting question of why a woman should have any responsibility for a child after its birth. For example after birth the child will demand control of a woman’s body to the extent of breastfeeding. Is it not consistent that, in line with your reasoning, a woman should have the right to refuse to breastfeed even if results in the death, through starvation, of the child?
For example after birth the child will demand control of a woman’s body to the extent of breastfeeding. Is it not consistent that, in line with your reasoning, a woman should have the right to refuse to breastfeed even if results in the death, through starvation, of the child?
A newborn can’t actually make too many demands. And breastfeeding is not the only way they can be nourished, although my I believe it’s the best nourishment they can possibly have. Anna’s argument privileges an woman’s ability to determine what will happen to her body, and distinguishes the rights of living people and foetuses. Your question is a bit pointless in this context.
Is it not consistent that…a woman should have the right to refuse to breastfeed even if results in the death, through starvation, of the child?
Um Greg, what a weird question! You know why it’s weird, don’t you.
Isn’t it every woman’s fundamental right to abort the foetus of their choice Zoe? Come on girls. Man the barricades against this vile law that’s persecuting one of your good doctors for being on the side of women’s freedom here. Today’s modern techno girl of science has no moral dilemmas eh?
Cross-commented, Zoe, sorry. GregM might also note that other women than the birth mother can supply the breast, and often do; sometimes the breastmilk dries up before the baby’s ready to be weaned too.
No it is not pointless, Zoe. Anna’s position is that a woman should not be forced to give up control of her body for any person no matter how developed. She makes no distinction between a foetus and a child or indeed an adult.
As to your statement that a newborn can’t actually make too many demands, well the one demand they certainly make is to be fed and for a lot of babies in this world the only option is through breastfeeding, whether by their mother or by another woman.
Greg
Your argument is silly. It’s silly beyond belief. A woman *can* give up her baby for adoption. Nothing in the law prohibits that. So your hypothetical of a woman starving her baby to death just doesn’t arise.
If a woman were to decide to take her baby home but then starve it, her conduct would be more comparable to that of someone who takes an overdosed drug user off the street back to his apartment only to leave him there to die - if the drug addict had not been isolated the addict could have received more appropriate care. If a woman decides to take the baby home, then in doing so she has implicitly agreed to other responsibilities, unless she then wishes to divest herself of those responsibilities again, in which case the appropriate process would be again to go to an adoption agency.
In the case of abortion, the fetus is in the mother’s body and parasitic upon it, and the only way she can exercise control of her body to dislodge it if that is her wish, is to have an abortion.
Laura, is the question any more weird than the position that, on the basis of a woman’s right to control her body, she should be able to, as of right, have a foetus aborted up to the time of its expected birth? eg on the day before its expected birth?
If the argument is, as Anna would have it, to be centred exclusively on the right of a woman to control her body why does it not extend to her right to express, or not to express milk as she sees fit? Are her breasts not part of her body over which she should have the exclusive right of control? Why should we distinguish them from her uterus?
If you consider that the question is weird then consider whether the premise upon which it is based, which is not my premise, is weird.
Jason, I haven’t made an argument. I have posed a question. My purpose in doing so is to explore the limits of the argument based on the premise of a woman’s right to control her body.
The option you have set out of adoption is, of course, available but it’s just an option. It does not address the question of what limits there might be on the right of a woman to control her body.
“For what it’s worth, my pro-choice belief would survive irrefutable proof that the embryo is a person …”
I’m with GregM on his reply to this one. Personhood is a social construct, a mater of ethics and philosophy rather than some type of objective fact. Hence it is nonsensical to talk about “irrefutable” proof of personhood.
“I view it in terms of women not being forced to give up control of their body unwillingly for any person no matter how developed.”
I also have the same problems GregM has with this. In my view no-one has rights without concommitant responsibilities.
A man who gets a woman pregnant has a responsibility to contribute to the welfare of the child once it is born, even if that is no more than a financial contribution to the child’s upkeep if the man separates from the woman.
Likewise, a woman who gets pregnant of her own volition cannot simply wash her hands of the consequences of that action. For example, if she intends having the child and wilfully engages in activities she knows will harm the foetus, such as using crystal meth, I would argue her behaviour is grossly immoral and indeed criminal.
Different people use the term “person� differently. However, it would be eccentric and unhelpful to apply the term to a being that could not have any interest in ongoing life. Let’s call an entity that could have any interest in ongoing life a “minimal person� to allow for other definitions of “person� which might necessarily entail a substantial interest in ongoing life.
For death itself to harm the fetus, the fetus must, at least, be a minimal person. However, before the fetus has ever acquired consciousness it cannot be a minimal person. Therefore, prior to the fetus attaining consciousness, a popular objection to abortion (i.e. that it harms the fetus and kills a person) fails.
To be a minimal person, what happens to you in the future must be psychologically linked with what is happening to you now or what has happened to you in the past. You must have had a thought or desire relating to the future or, if your life continues, be able to remember something that happened to you earlier. But such psychological links over time are impossible for beings that have never been conscious.
A fundamental reason it is (almost certainly) in your interests to wake up tomorrow is because you have had thoughts and desires relating to the future and/or will remember aspects of your past life after waking up. This psychological continuity over time is essential to personhood. If “your� future mental experiences could bear no relation to any mental experiences you’d had in the past, or are having now, “you� wouldn’t be a person. And that’s the status of pre-sentient fetuses.
The only plausible basis for opposing pre-fetal-consciousness abortions is to adopt a philosophy like total utilitarianism which says we should do what can be expected to maximize global wellbeing or happiness. On this theory, abortion is a morally negative act when a new child would probably increase the amount of wellbeing in the world. But how do we know when a new child would likely increase, rather than decrease, aggregate wellbeing after allowing for such things as the feelings of the pregnant woman, her partner, the possible child and any couples looking to adopt; costs to taxpayers; the adverse effects of possible global overpopulation on crowding, conflict, the environment, and so on?
Total utilitarianism also implies that abstaining from unwanted procreative sex may sometimes be wrong. Abortion and abstinence become parallel acts.
The law allows people to do many things which almost certainly don’t maximize wellbeing, such as buying factory-farmed meat and spending money on luxuries rather than relieving poverty. So even if we embrace total utilitarianism we should change many other laws before considering restrictions on abortion. And then we’d need empirical evidence suggesting that abortions reduce total wellbeing before curtailing pregnant women’s legal access to abortion.
It depends on what the author meant by “conception”. Conception isn’t always defined as beginning and ending with fertilization (although it most often is).
See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fertilisation under the sub-heading ‘Human fertilization’.
Buying factory farmed meat maximizes human well-being. Because it reduces the price of meat more people can afford to eat it. It also means that developing countries such as Thailand can develop massive chicken farming industries, with their product exported to Europe thus ptoviding employment and alleviating poverty among Thai people. Opposing the factory farming of meat is to inflict poverty on vulnerable people.
Spending money on luxuries maximizes well-being both for the person who buys the luxuries and for the people who produce them. In doing so it alleviates poverty for if people did not buy luxuries those who produce them would be without a market and thrown into destitution. Consider silk, widely produced in East and Southeast Asia, and generally regarded as a luxury product. A very large number of families in Asian villages rely upon the sale of the silkworm cocoons they produce as a source of income to keep them out of poverty.
Relieving poverty in the way it has been practised over the last sixty years by Westerners in Third World countries is a social evil which creates dependency, inhibits economic growth and skill formation, misallocates resources, encourages corruption, entrenches corrupt elites and creates a class of sanctimonious Western do-gooders who enrich themselves at the expense of the poor. The last thing that it can be described as doing is maximizing human wellbeing.
You’ll have to do a lot better than with those red herrings in establishing a basis for arguing about what our laws on abortion should be.
“Buying factory farmed meat maximizes human well-being.� Really? How about the evidence linking vegetarianism to better health in affluent countries. Health is a major determinant of human wellbeing. Joan Sabaté has observed that vegetarians in First World countries enjoy “remarkably good health�, exemplified by increased longevity and low rates of obesity, coronary diseases and many cancers (American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, supplement to volume 78, 2003).
Confining animals is not the way to get them to produce the most healthy meat, even assuming meat should be consumed. Factory-farmed meat is often more expensive than comparable plant food. Grains are cheap. It is very wasteful to feed them to animals with a view to producing meat rather than consuming them directly. Meat production is also more demanding on the environment. More people can be sustained on a vegetarian diet than on a diet featuring factory-farmed meat.
Of course the issue under total utilitarianism is not maximum human (only) wellbeing. The interests of non-human animals must also be considered on equal terms and when you allow for all the suffering in factory-farms, and the wild and free-range animals or humans that could live on the land now used for factory farming, and the far more humane ways of producing food (including meat), it is almost certain that mass factory-farming is seriously at odds with total utilitarianism.
Everyone has to eat so there is no obvious reason to assume employment will fall if people eat different things. Supporting mass factory-farming of meat is to support inflicting needless suffering on hundreds of billions of vulnerable animals every year.
Again, GregM conveniently and immorally limits the frame of reference by only declaring that luxuries maximize wellbeing for the consumers and producers of luxuries. Never mind all the other people whose income won’t allow them to purchase such luxuries and who could be helped by redistribution from the comparatively wealthy. Never mind about the workers who would produce for those who would have more purchasing power if redistribution occurred.
The fact that an additional dollar normally does more to enhance the wellbeing of a poorer person than a richer person is ignored.
The World Bank website has evidence suggesting that aid has achieved a lot. Tim Colebatch, economics editor at The Age, has made the same point. See also “The End of Poverty� by Jeffrey Sachs and “Global Crises, Global Solutions� by Bjorn Lomborg.
In The Canberra Times of 29/3/06, Simon Feeny (Research Fellow in the School of Economics, Finance and Marketing at RMIT) wrote: “There is now an extensive body of international research which has examined the impact of foreign aid. The consensus of this research is that foreign aid works. That is, foreign aid is effective at spurring economic growth and therefore poverty reduction in recipient countries.�
The fact that some aid has been wasted or counter-productive in the past is no argument against effective aid. Also, we can subsidize less skilled and humanitarian immigration rather than/as well as providing aid, make sacrifices (if sacrifices are involved) via reducing trade barriers, reduce greenhouse emissions which may harm poorer countries and redistribute within nations as well as between them.
The world is far from optimal in terms of wellbeing maximization in some obvious respects. And, assuming total utilitarianism is the correct ethical theory, we should focus on those areas where the deviation from total utilitarianism is most clear. And no-one has even established that restrictive abortion laws would increase rather than reduce total wellbeing.
An interesting discussion on abortion and the concept of personhood has been derailed by a nutty economic rationalist argument on the hard right and an equally nutty tofu-lover’s argument on the soft left.
What a pity. Peanuts.
Why on earth should we make that assumption?
Sascha -last time I heard the stats - approx 80% of fertilized eggs during a normal cycle did not implant and were thus lost during normal monthly menstruation. That’s why most doctors recommend trying for at least 6 months before seeking help. In any one cycle, for a healthy fertile woman your chances of falling pregnant are 1 in 5.
GregM, have you ever seen one of the numerous Renaissance paintings of Cimon and Pero? There is a good one by Rubens in the Met in NYC. I nearly fell over when I first saw it.
In the legend the paintings illustrate, Cimon is a Roman locked in jail and not allowed any food. The jailers’ intention is to starve him to death. His adult daughter Pero visits him in jail and keeps him alive by feeding him her own breastmilk. The paintings are usually called ‘Roman Charity’ or some such.
A selection of links for your edification:
http://www.topofart.com/artists/Peter_Paul_Rubens/art_reproduction/3085/Cimon_and_Pero.php
http://www.getty.edu/art/gettyguide/artObjectDetails?artobj=135448
http://rubens.anu.edu.au/htdocs/surveys/prints/0017/1717.JPG
http://conradgraeber.com/Inventory/Beham.htm
I don’t have any particular point to make with these pictures. Just wanted to share.
Thanks for the pictures Laura.
Quite a theme for the Romans. As I’m sure you know their founding myth was of Romulus and Remus being suckled by a she-wolf
http://concise.britannica.com/ebc/art-13863
Steve, it is April Fools Day. I took Brent’s comments in that spirit (for how could one do otherwise?) and responded with a bit of light-hearted joshing. Brent continues the joke with an amusing piece suggesting that we all become vegetarians and accord equal rights to chooks. There are apparently hundreds of billions of them!
You’ve just got to laugh at the man’s wicked sense of humour.
Steve Munn offers name-calling rather than argument. Technical arguments for total utilitarianism are available in “Weighing Lives� by John Broome. A simple, non-technical argument might run: Wellbeing is good, the more there is of what is good the better place the world is, and morality involves doing what can be expected to make the world the best place it can be. Utilitarianism implies equal consideration for the comparable interests of non-human animals, not equal “rights�. It entails avoiding inherent discrimination on the basis of species membership in a similar way that “anti-racism� involves avoiding inherent discrimination on the basis of “race� (another factor over which the being has no control).
Also, alternatives to total utilitarianism often have implications that are difficult to accept. Some alternatives violate the principle of transitivity which says that if outcome A is better than outcome B, and outcome B is better than outcome C, then outcome A is better than outcome C. And, as far as I can see, any general theory which considers properties other than wellbeing (except to break ties) has the implication that the world can be a better place when one being has less wellbeing while no other being has more wellbeing. It is doubtful that the correct ethical theory would have this “anti-humanitarian� implication.
I mentioned total utilitarianism (a) because it is a serious ethical theory and viable alternatives are harder to come up with than most people imagine, and (b) because total utilitarianism, or a similar wellbeing-based theory which also allows you to consider the possible future wellbeing of possible beings and actual beings that have not yet attained sentience, is, I think, by far the best hope of coming up with a theory that might, in some circumstances, imply that some earlier-term abortions (perhaps along with some failures to engage in reproductive sex) are morally wrong. I’m being generous to opponents of abortion by mentioning a serious theory rather than, say, the mere assertion that it is inherently very wrong to deliberately kill a human being – a claim which is refuted by Michael Tooley in “Abortion and Infanticide�
Before anyone can credibly oppose abortion they need to say what broader ethical theory lies behind their opposition and explain why that theory is credible.
Implicitly there’s a utilitarian foundation in my own approach (see previous comment) which requires the costs and inconveniences to lives to be weighed up. I think chickens and other birds fall below any relevant thresholds of comparison, Brent - not sure why you’d need to take them into account in making a case for abortion.
Thanks Jason. Chickens and other birds are capable of experiencing happiness and suffering so they count in total utilitarian calculus. This has been acknowledged since Bentham at least.
I think a chicken can experience x units of suffering (or happiness) in the same way a human can experience x units of suffering (or happiness). Humans may be able to experience higher highs and lower lows but that doesn’t mean that whatever level of suffering and happiness non-human animals can experience doesn’t count.
The issue is not that you logically need to take non-human animals into account to make a case for abortion (you don’t) but, rather, that there is no morally legitimate basis for excluding, or discounting, non-human animal interests. You can’t - conveniently if you are “pro-choice� - accept total utilitarianism on the grounds that it (arguably) allows abortion while ignoring the implications of total utilitarianism for the treatment of non-human animals. I don’t see how total utilitarianism only for humans (or for humans plus some other “higher� animals) can be justified.
Perhaps you are thinking in terms of utilitarianism which only applies to pre-existing beings, rather than possible beings as well, and is more a preference-based utilitarianism than a hedonic form. It’s easier to justify abortion with such a form of utilitarianism but total hedonic utilitarianism may be the correct theory. And even if many “lower� animals have only a weak preference for ongoing life this doesn’t mean they don’t have a preference not to be tightly confined in cages, etc. So factory farming, trips to abattoirs, etc. are still serious issues under preference utilitarianism even on the questionable assumption that painless killing itself is justifiable to satisfy human desires for meat.
Brent
As you acknowledge it yourself,a more all-encompassing utilitarian approach could actually possibly slightly weaken the case for abortion rights or at least set a tighter limit for when abortion should be available - a fetus of x weeks old would arguably be as sentient or more sentient than many of the non-human animals you wish to include in your calculus.
On battery hens, etc I agree. I’m not a vegetarian. I like my meat but I believe in minimising unnecessary suffering where possible and only buy free range eggs for instance. But as long as there isn’t a wider societal agreement on this, the best approach is to let consumers engage in effective ‘boycotts’ of particular products as I am doing and for people like you to serve as ‘ethical certifiers’ just as there are private certification mechanisms for quality. This is perfectly consistent with market capitalism - if you induce a sufficient change in consumer buying habits then markets will price in ethical considerations and eventually switch production techniques.
Brent, how many suffering earthworms is equivalent to one human tragedy in your “utilitaruian calculus”?
If you don’t understand what Brent is talking about, Steve, it might be better not to comment and show yourself up.