Commenter Frank makes a point I have made before but he makes it so much more eloquently than I ever did (and I have been told by more than one person that I have a way with words) that I think it bears repeating.
The topic is abortion.
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Neil: The problem is that we have removed both societal and legal protection from a class of person, by claiming that they lack humanity by reason of incapacity.
You are clever with your argument, but it is nothing more than Terri Schiavo redux. Does a brain dead accident victim kept alive on a ventilator lack humanity? Your argument would have society intervene in a decision which must be made by those held legally responsible for the individual – usually their spouse, parent, sibling, or offspring. In the case of aborting a fetus, you would have society intervene to protect a dependent, non-viable entity that you define as human. The switch in definitions you make doesn’t hide what you are about. By your definition out of womb test tube “pregnancy” doesn’t lack humanity. We are talking here about early stage abortion, not late term murder. Your argument would remove the decision from the person directly, physically responsible, which is the mother.
By your argument, women do not own their own bodies. So should women be forced to have babies if society demands it? Maybe we can round up unwilling women and put them in incubation clinics by force, and like Hitler, specify which race should breed them.
Your argument makes a fetus human by denying human status to women.
Comments
30 responses to “Are Women Human?”
When is a fetus ever not human? Calling a human being a “non-viable entity” doesn’t change the fact that you are discussing a fellow human. Taking away a child’s life is still murder.
The anti-abortion movement wants to save all life. The idea of preferential treatment based on certain genetic characteristics is a feature of eugenicists. The Nazis were quick to kill off “undesirables,” much as abortion is now used to weed out the inconveniently-timed and/or -handicapped child.
I believe that Neil and most people who are against abortion have good
intentions. The spectacle of millions of abortions performed out of convenience because of careless or absent birth control is enough to get anyone upset. It is dehumanizing. It cheapens life. It would be far better to bear a healthy child who can be adopted by a childless couple. But the decision is not ours to make. Society has no right to judge such a personal often heart wrenching choice. This is one instance where the left has advanced individual freedom.
(And thanks for the compliment, M.Simon.)
S.R.L. – A fetus is not a child. It can become a child. At 6 months it most probably is a child. A 3 month developing fetus is less capable of independent life than was Terri Schiavo. If you believe that God put a soul into it at conception, prove it. Otherwise your belief is just that, a belief, an assertion without proof. By your logic a hen egg is a baby chick. Or do you know what logic is? For a start, try Aristotle’s law of identity. A is A. It is a contradiction to say that an egg is a baby chick. A human fetus at 3 months is not a child, nor is it a duck.
The anti-abortion movement wants to save all life.
You should form an alliance with PETA.
Frank, a fetus is a human being. Trying to limit the definition of what you believe a human being is doesn’t take away the fact that the fetus is human. Prove to me a fetus isn’t human.
I don’t have to prove the soul’s existence to know that the child is alive. Does abortion end a human life or not?
And if the capability for “independent life” is your yardstick for when it’s okay to murder a child or not, why not kill a child no longer wanted when they’re a year old?
Excuse me for leaving out the word “human” in the sentence about which you made a separate comment. Sorry that you think your logic is perfect, but I don’t agree with you. Insults aren’t effective in getting me to change my perspective. As I don’t see animal and human life as being equal, I don’t worry about the classification of hen’s eggs. So, PETA and I wouldn’t make a good match.
Frank, since you use the term “anti-abortion” you do exclude anyone who is not attempting to limit ALL abortions. There are however many who call themselves “pro-life” who have no problem with the “morning after” pill or early abortion.
Like the Westboro Baptist Church protesters, the anti-abortion core is quite vocal, visible and in your face. Fred Phelps’ followers cannot be said to be representative of all Baptists and the hardcore abortion protesters do not define all who claim the pro-life position.
I haven’t seen any real consensus among abortion-limit proponents on just where to draw the line, but 12 to 24 weeks covers the majority of them and at least some are willing to listen (if you will also.) Third trimester abortions are almost completely over their line, as is the following position (which I will not accuse you of holding) that they will all fight fiercely.
After-birth abortion: why should the baby live?
“The newborn and the fetus are morally equivalent.” First published on line 02/23/2012
The moral status of an infant is equivalent to that of a fetus in the sense that both lack those properties that justify the attribution of a right to life to an individual.
Both a fetus and a newborn certainly are human beings and potential persons, but neither is a ‘person’ in the sense of ‘subject of a moral right to life’. We take ‘person’ to mean an individual who is capable of attributing to her own existence some (at least) basic value such that being deprived of this existence represents a loss to her. This means that many non-human animals and mentally retarded human individuals are persons, but that all the individuals who are not in the condition of attributing any value to their own existence are not persons. Merely being human is not in itself a reason for ascribing someone a right to life.
Co authored by Alberto Giubilini and Dr Francesca Minerva, CAPPE, University of Melbourne, Melbourne, VIC 3010,
Australia;
http://jme.bmj.com/content/early/2012/03/01/medethics-2011-100411.full
Read it all. Comes pretty close to saying, that babies and morons don’t really ‘reason’ like real people, so it is morally fine to kill them.
A fertilized chicken egg is a chicken egg right up until it hatches, but it always contains a chicken at some stage of development. The terms Individual or Person (as in the article) can work fairly well for purposes of debate.
Oops, it is still a chicken egg after the hatching. Just a broken empty one.
The obvious compromise position – a fetus becomes as human as his/her other when she becomes viable outside the womb (about 6 months). At that point it receives the same protection under the law as any other human.
People who are on the fence with abortion like me could agree to that. And it would eliminate the disgusting butchery of late term abortions – like the mass murderer on trial in Philly.
The commenter performs the classic pro-abortion segue. A few rhetorical flourishes about the in-womb human organism then an immediate shift to “women’s right to choose.” This is done because no one has come up with set of criteria that sets the fetus apart from other people – infants, elderly, severely ill, etc. For instance, the phrase “non-viable organism” would justify closing most ICU’s. They are filled with “non-viable” organisms. You can not say “They will get better.” The fetus will too, i.e. be borne. Other attempts involve circular arguments which just pronounce that certain characteristic define “human” or “protected” and those characteristics work out to be equivalent to “not born yet.”
Both a fetus and a newborn certainly are human beings and potential persons, but neither is a ‘person’ in the sense of ‘subject of a moral right to life’.
What utter claptrap. A 3 month fetus is not a “human being” but rather a potential “human being” or child. A newborn child is most definitely a person. What the Australians are proposing is euthanasia without consent, that is, murder.
…hardcore abortion protesters do not define all who claim the pro-life position.
Maybe not. But the mainstream pro-life movement is itself pretty extreme. This includes conservatives like Rush Limbaugh and libertarian/conservatives like Rand Paul. It appears that almost all pro-life advocates are embracing Paul’s Life At Conception Act.
http://classicalvalues.com/2013/03/life-at-conception-act/
Bram, I mostly agree with you. Even late term abortions that are performed claiming the life of the mother is in jeopardy are many times suspect. But that doesn’t mean there aren’t cases where a woman can die giving birth to a still-born. My sister-in-law almost died with her first born at a time when abortions were illegal.
…ICU’s. They are filled with “non-viable” organisms.
No. This is a straw argument. They are filled with people. You are again claiming that a fetus is a person.
I can’t argue with such illogic, and won’t try.
Actually, I am not claiming that the fetus is a person or not. I am pointing out that your criteria for claiming that a fetus is not can be applied equally to people on ventilators, etc. So far your argument that a fetus, and only a fetus, is not a person is of the “because I say so” level.
To throw a few more rocks into the pond. The Terri Schiavo issue is a red herring in an abortion discussion. The issue in her case was: In the absence of a living will, who gets to determine whether or not extraordinary measures should be continued or ceased. If she has the right to accept or reject medical care, then those closest to her would be the ones most likely to know her wishes. Using her case as a springboard to discuss human or no, maybe interesting but is essentially irrelevant.
A conundrum for the theologically inclined was proposed years ago by a Catholic philosophy professor I knew. According to classic theology, what makes humans different in kind from animals is the presence of a soul. So, take the case of a fetus that will divide into identical twins – eventually. Three options – 1)there are two souls in one organism until the split 2)God goes “oops” when the split occurs and squirts another soul in or 3)the soul and thus true human status occurs sometime after the possibility of such a split.
By your argument, women do not own their own bodies.
Incorrect.
In the classic thought experiment, my right to swing my arms ends at your nose. Does this mean I don’t own my fist, unless I first claim that your nose lacks humanity?
There are obvious exceptions to the nose/fist rule, such as self defense and accident. Why not make those arguments, instead of making the claim that the nose had no right to exist in the first place?
Leon, nice rock throwing. Oddly, the Christian belief that the human body is simply an earthen vessel for the soul has served some as an argument FOR early abortion. A clay vessel has to be shaped, formed, and prepared before it can hold anything. The non-implantation of many if not most fertilized eggs, identical twins, and chimeras make the belief that a fertilized egg has soul at conception a difficult proposition to defend. The Secular version of the argument replaces “soul” with “brain function”.
Which side has the most adherents blinded by group bias? That is a much tougher question.
So far your argument that a fetus, and only a fetus, is not a person is of the “because I say so” level.
Did anyone of you study basic logic, or take a class like Introduction to Philosophy, or Straight & Crooked Thinking?
I never said “only a fetus is not a person – because I say so.” It is a demonstrable, scientific fact that a human embryo in the early stages of development is not that which it may become, a child. A is not B. The two by definition are not the same.
Ah yes, the classic thought experiment routine. The Jesuits like playing with your mind.
@ neil – that’s basically an invalid argument. If someone is attaching themselves to me, without my permission, I have a right to self-defense.
No matter WHERE their nose is.
That argument could, I suppose, be used – for or against – the morality of abortion. But I’d prefer NOT to use it, because it would tend to favor those who are for abortion until the baby can walk. So, please stop.
Leon C., the Terri Schiavo case may have been argued on the grounds you state. I don’t remember. But I do most emphatically remember the pro-life crowd coming to the defense of the parents on the grounds that pulling the plug or feeding tube, would amount to murder. They knew, and you very well know that was the issue. I’ll be polite and say you are being disingenuous. Toying with the issue is more like it.
Some people can only do binary thinking. But real human thinking is closer to fuzzy logic. A neural network does not “think” like a binary computer.
The universe is unknowable. From the perspective of measurement if nothing else. Accuracy of sufficient degree is unobtainable.
Now we can do logic to a limited degree. But logic is good for maybe 10% of living. And I say that as someone who makes his living with logic. Artists may spend less time with it. But not zero. Tools need to be studied.
So we elevate logic beyond its station.
There are some questions that are beyond logic and go to the real of feeling. Which is based on the potentials of the neural network. Which can be induced by experience or training. It is why we train war fighters; we don’t program them.
So how do I look at the question? I try to look at what kind of government it will produce. What will people do in response? What will government do in response?
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So what seems to be the problem? We have a group dealing in moral absolutes – externalities and who pays for them be damned.
1. Status of women
2. Economic costs
3. What kind of government will it produce?
4. What kind of society.
5. How will technology be applied by government?
6. What is the effect on the child to be raised unwanted or worse abandoned.
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A is A type logic is not suitable to such questions.
How do you decide when an acorn becomes a tree? There is a period of time when the status is; not acorn and not tree. But that does not mean there are no acorns and no trees.
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Politics: women tend to be on the left. Men on the right. Women are 51% of the population. Men 49%.
How do you think this issue will move the polity? And if it moves the polity in a direction where you can’t get what you want by politics maybe it might just be better to start without politics to begin with.
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These questions were a lot easier when women were property. Any kind of government intervention in the question must move women back towards the status of property.
I don’t think they will stand for it.
Simon, I agree that logical arguments are not sufficient. But it is frustrating when people seek to win debate by twisting the meaning of words, throwing in straw arguments, failing to see the logical fallacies within a simple sentence, appealing to emotion, etc.
My own bias stems from early, brief pre-med training. Try to take an anatomy or physiology course without distancing yourself from the cadaver. You are looking at and cutting apart a human being. The person could be you. You’ve already cut up a formaldehyde soaked cat used as a mammalian template. There are differences, like the three part human deltoid muscle vs. the single cat version. But the similarities are so striking that 12 years of parochial school lies about evolution are exposed. Humans are evolved animals, creationism be damned. So what else is a lie? The nuns and brothers taught that life begins at conception. Birth control of any kind other than abstinence (they called it the rhythm method) is a sin. Aborting a fetus is murder.
Either you sabotage science with religious dogma, or you divide your mind by compartmentalizing trying to keep both, or you accept science and reason. I chose reason, even if I’m not always very good at applying it.
That’s my bias. If you are going to take away a woman’s right to ownership of her body, you better back it up with a good scientific reason and spotless logic. An appeal to religion doesn’t cut it.
I’m surprised you didn’t bring it up. The right has the same opinion about both sexes in regard to drug use. No one owns their own body in that case.
Yes. Self ownership seems to be a very difficult concept for them.
1. We are owned by God
2. We are owned by THEIR God.
3. Their God’s rules and their understanding of it conforms to the reality of human nature in a very rapidly evolving environment.
4. Because not everyone follows the rules laws must be made.
5. They will say up front that the laws can’t work well. But laws give them comfort. And the opportunity to make an occasional example of some lower class unfortunate.
So Frank, you failed to answer my thought experiment. You too, Simon. I must assume that is because you cannot.
You are also putting words in my mouth. I never claimed that a fetus is the same as a child. I claimed they are both human, which is indisputably true. Same DNA, different level of development. I don’t care when you think a body gets a soul, or if anyone has a soul at all.
But what we have now is a government that says abortion is not murder because a human embryo is not human. We have an abortion industry and its political advocates that make that same claim in their defense and base the definition of “not human” on the capabilities of the human in question. We also have respected members of academe working to expand the definition of “not human”, based on a person’s capabilities. I do not like the direction this is taking.
It’s one thing to argue in favor of abortion out of pragmatism. It’s another thing entirely to gift-wrap the philosophical tools of mass murder and hand them to government.
Neil,
OK. You claimed human status for the fetus. Fine. I can work with that.
Does this human own the body of female in question? Can it make demands on how she disposes of her available resources? Demands actionable in a court of law.
In a conflict of rights between the two parties which party’s rights are superior?
In Catholic hospitals the rights of the developing child are superior:
http://classicalvalues.com/2013/03/catholic-hospital-fetuses-are-not-people/
It’s another thing entirely to gift-wrap the philosophical tools of mass murder and hand them to government.
But that is exactly what you propose doing. Handing female reproductive organs over to government.
I fall more into the “Congress shall make no law” category. Off limits.
I prefer education to coercion.
Does this human own the body of female in question? Can it make demands on how she disposes of her available resources? Demands actionable in a court of law.
Well now, that’s a different question entirely. I would think probably not, up to the point of viability, because the conflict of rights is unresolvable except by impairing one or the other and must be resolved in the direction of less intrusion. Once it’s technologically feasible to deliver a child, I would think that the mother has at least the moral responsibility to do so. I’m still thinking about whether that moral responsibility should rise to the level of homicide.
Another thought experiment–if it were possible to remove an embryo and deliver a healthy child from an artificial womb, would the mother have a legal responsibility to to do so rather than kill the embryo?
Handing female reproductive organs over to government.
You keep making the anti-abortion argument that if an embryo is human, then the mother must be prevented by law from harming it. Why?
Currently I seem to have two choices: An all-encompassing nanny state that both controls my access to health care and claims the power to define some humans as “not human” and therefore outlaw, based on their inability to live unsupported. Or an equally nanny-ish society that says all humans are human, and worthy of the law’s protection.
I have been arguing for something different, but you can see why I think the latter is the less dangerous of the two.
I should also say that I would equally fear a perfectly libertarian society that says an embryo is completely without the protection of law because it is not human. I’m pretty sure that such a society would end up killing me while I’m incapacitated to harvest my organs.
Neil, a final word. Your intentions are good. It is an abomination that millions of abortions have been performed in this country. It also makes perfect sense to claim that a 3 month old fetus is human when you are trying to stop the carnage. Of course it is human, as was my grandmother when the IV keeping her alive was disconnected. But an early term fetus is still not a child able to survive outside the womb, as my brain dead from a stroke grandmother was unable to survive without a glucose drip.
Then the question becomes who has the right to decide when and if it is appropriate to end life. We may want life to go on in both cases. The difference with a fetus is what you believe to be an unnecessary ending of life because it is not naturally predestined. You would have society intervene and stop the woman who is the creator and nurturer from ending midstream the development inside her. In each case the state would take control and make the determination. Once that happens you have given up personal choice. As a country with a religiously derived moral code, that would be the end of abortion, for now.
How long do you think that would last given declining church attendance, immigration from Asia and the Mid-East, and growing atheism? You know what goes on in China and India now. Letting the state determine this by removing the rights of women will have long term consequences, and beyond the abortion issue. Muslims will love it since sharia already makes women chattel.
You alluded to a practical argument for keeping abortion, and there are those. How many crack babies can the state support? How many botched illegal abortions will end in the death of both the mother and fetus? How many women and girls will be jailed for it? Who will care for the Trisomy 18 and Down’s Syndrome children born to the poor? Not everyone is a millionaire like Rick Santorum or Sarah Palin you know. And there are much worse abnormalities and deformities which are now aborted. A Life At Conception Act will make these poor creatures come into existence no matter what the parents want.
The best solution for ending abortion is education and persuasion and helping women who are unable to care for a child
they don’t want find suitable adoptive parents. Please don’t give the state any more power over our lives. They have way too much already.
Note I said “human” not human being, person, baby, or child. A fetus has human attributes, DNA, but it is still not a person. It cannot have the legal protection of a person without removing the same from the mother.