It would be a safe claim to say that there are many people who believe that it would be immoral to perform an abortion, yet at the same time there should be no laws preventing an individual from getting one because people have an inherent right to their body and the government cannot tell any individual how they should use it or what they should do with it. In general I hold the belief that the government as it is formed in the United States holds no authority to prohibit any person from doing what they will with their own body so long as they bring no injury or harm to any other in the process. If we were to apply the same logic which is applied in the previous claim to any other vice or action which people perform upon their bodies then it must be said that people who think it is immoral to ingest cocaine, heroin, or any other drug should also believe that it should not be illegal to do so based upon the claim that they have the rights to their own bodies and nobody can tell them not to do these things. Government however does provide legislation about these drugs based on the rationalization that an individual under the effects of these substances will potentially cause harm to others. This may seem to justify the government in making drugs illegal but because it is only a potentiality that a person may become a danger to others it does not make it necessity to outlaw them. A person under the influence of alcohol, or even adrenaline and testosterone, may become a threat to others around them and alcohol is not only legal, but prevalent and it would be absurd to even attempt to outlaw someone from activating their adrenal glands.
Abortion is a special case when dealing with what an individual may do with their body because it not only involves the life and body of the woman, but also the life and body of the fetus. Abortion presents a direct and intentional injury to the life of the fetus. The fetus is a separate living being within the woman and must be treated as such because whether the fetus were in that womans uterus or another it would still be a fetus and a living being. All of the necessary components for life are present (feeding, moving, respiration, excretion, growth (obviously), sensitivity, and reproduction). These factors of life may not resemble anything of what a human might do outside the womb, but upon fertilization all of these things are present in one way or another and therefore the fetus is a living thing. If we admit that a parasite or a virus were a living thing then so too must we admit that the single cell which results from fertilization is a living thing.
The thing which is the result of the fertilization of a human egg with a human sperm cannot be anything other than a human. This seems to go without saying, atleast I would hope so. Human beings and nothing else can be the result of a cell with 23 chromosomes fertilizing another cell with 23 matching chromosomes with the resultant cell being the zygote, which is composed of 44 autosomes and 2 sex chromosomes (if it forms normally without mutation, I am not a geneticist so I cannot claim to know about any abnormalities which could occur). So thereby upon fertilization not only is that cell living but also it is a human cell. I do not know to what human this would belong to other than that of itself because it's DNA is different from that of both the parent strands of DNA. Therefore it must be assumed that not only is this a human cell, which is alive, it is also a separate being from the woman. As a separate human being it must be treated as such and because it is immoral for one person to unjustifiably kill another human being it would be immoral to kill this human being as well even though it is not fully developed. After all, it is also true that a 5 year old child is not fully developed so why do we say that a human cell which is not fully developed is any less? I'm not saying that the quote from Monty Python is true, no not "every sperm is sacred" because a sperm is not a human life. It is a building block for human life, but so is the protein that is found in a McDonald's french fry.
Abortion in extenuating circumstances such as rape, incest(which is rape), and danger to the mother are problematic. A woman who is raped and as a result becomes pregnant should by no means be forced to raise the child, but at the same time should she also be allowed to kill the life inside her. And how would that child feel if they ever found out they were the progeny of a rapist? In the case where the birth of the child is a threat to the mother, who's life then is the one that should take precedence? If we allow abortion then the woman has the choice to try and save herself at the cost of the fetus' life, but without abortion she must leave it up to chance. There have been many advances in medicine which provide steps to be taken such as inducing premature birth. Currently Preeclampsia is the leading cause of maternal death and there is no cure for it, however as provided in the link below there have been great strides in finding the cause and a potential cure. These questions are difficult to be sure but that's why there's so much debate about them.
I believe this is a good starting point for discussion. I haven't specifically stated what I believe the legislation should be on the issue of abortion, whether it be no abortions for anyone or abortion for some under specific circumstances, but that's because I'm not even sure myself. Hopefully we can get closer to that decision with this discussion. As a male, I do not feel like I can adequately address this topic, so please, feel free to put forth opinions or thoughts.
http://www.emc.maricopa.edu/faculty/farabee/biobk/BioBookhumgen.html
http://www.saburchill.com/chapters/chap0001.html
http://focus.hms.harvard.edu/2003/March21_2003/maternal_medicine.html
3 comments:
I'm not going to write much at the moment, as I tend to monopolize conversations, but I do have a few important questions:
1) What is a human/human-being/person?
2) You make the claim that "all of the necessary components for life are present (feeding, moving, respiration, excretion, growth (obviously), sensitivity, and reproduction). These factors of life may not resemble anything of what a human might do outside the womb, but upon fertilization all of these things are present in one way or another and therefore the fetus is a living thing."
My question is such: How are, of these seven latter stated properties, besides "growth," present upon fertilization? You seem to be implying that because the DNA can, and presumably will, encode for the development of these properties, we should then accord it the "rights" of a being already endowed with those properties, yes?
3) There seems to be a high regard for life in this essay, and if I didn't know any better I would presume it to be verbatim from the "sanctity of life" doctrine. So my question is this: Is this a Jainist regard for life in general, or merely a strict reverence for the life of the species to which you were born a member? And if so, is this arbitrary distinction between species what justifies you to "preach" the good word of fetal life during the day, yet dine on the flesh of more sentient, pain-feeling beings at night -presuming you are carnivorous, of course?
4) Would you agree with this?
A) It is wrong to kill an innocent human being.
B) A human fetus is an innocent human being.
Therefore C), it is wrong to kill a human fetus.
Thanks Alex.
1)I answered this in the post, anything that is created from a human gamete cannot be anything other than human. Unless you are asking this because you want to know what makes us as homosapians different from any other animal with a "right" to life and such, that's a whole other issue
2)if you agree that a single celled organism has the property of life then so also does a developing human embryo. In exactly the same way that an amoeba has life so too does the zygote. the fact that it's dna is different from the mother's and the father's makes it a separate human life.
3) I'm not familiar with what a Jainist regard to life entails, but this argument as it is could be used for any other animal if you were so inclined. If we were to replace "human" with "x" it would still hold so long as it is proven that it is immoral to kill a member of "x" which admittedly was not sufficiently proven for humans in my post.
4)yes.
1) Lucky for us I'm not going to bring in the baggage of my other arguments to this one anymore than what is strictly necessary. With that said, I would question what supposed “right” to life a Homo sapiens or any other animal might have or claim to have. How is it that ‘we’ have a “right” to something that we biologically possess? I don’t go around claiming I have a “right” to my blue eyes any more than I’m sure you don’t go around claiming that you have a “right” to your brown hair, right? (Hint: I’m playing with a distinction of “rights” which I don’t think to be without difference)
Moving on, defining “human being” as we have, you seem to be saying that what makes one, and especially in this case a fetus, a human being is possessing at least 99.9% DNA compatibility with other Homo sapiens, i.e. gamete to gamete. It follows that we could change the argument in 4 to this:
A) It is wrong to kill an innocent being with 99.9% DNA compatibility with the species Homo sapiens (i.e. a "human being)."
B) A being with 99.9% DNA compatibility with the species Homo sapiens is a being with 99.9% DNA compatibility to the species Homo sapiens.
Therefore C) it is wrong to kill an innocent being with 99.9% DNA compatibility with the species Homo sapiens.
Aside from my concern with the word “innocent,” you have essentially told me nothing besides asserting that a fetus, as you/we have defined it, is a member of the species Homo sapiens and that it is wrong to kill it. I, as you would probably imagine, do not find this single sentence assertion to be a substantial reason, let alone the fact that it's not even a reason, for not taking the life of a fetus, i.e. a being with 99.9% DNA compatibility with the species Homo sapiens. In effect, you have rendered some moral judgment upon the world and provided (absolutely, perhaps?) no justification for why we should take this conclusion seriously. It seems to be no different than I saying “it is wrong to eat non-human animals” without providing any reasons for why indeed it is.
Apart from semantics and possible question begging (see pg. 151 in your logic book), your argument thus far has relied solely on establishing the already indisputable fact that from fertilization to adulthood there is life; yet you have not addressed the fundamental question of why something living is assumed to be better than something nonliving. Let's back up, and bear with me if you will in my understanding of your argument; it seems that once you reestablished the fact that from the fertilized egg onward there is "life," in however the most generic of senses, you then felt argument 4 was prima facie valid; that because a zygote-blastocyst-embryo-fetus is indeed a living "human being," in and only in the sense that we have defined it, its life deserves the consideration that we extend to other "human beings," those being infants, children, and adults. My question is such: what makes a life deserving of consideration in the first place, that is, what is this “right” we keep hearing of and discussing? For instance, presumably you wash your hands each day. Are you not committing genocide against “life” daily?
2) In the sense that we have defined "human being," I agree completely.
3) You make the point that this argument (in 3) could be used for any other X "...so long as it is proven that it is immoral to kill a member of "x." My question is this: assuming you believe it to be immoral to kill a human being (perhaps not in all regards, but that's irrelevant), especially a fetus, then what kind of moral reasoning do we need to establish this proof? Here's what I'm leaning towards: Obviously some forms of life are negligible to you, for how else would you have survived thus far, so I would like to know what 'moral reasoning' you provide in substantiation for the claim that the killing of a human being or fetus is immoral.
4) This “4” is unrelated to our previous exchange. We can almost sum up my entire comment by asking this one question: What’s wrong with killing?
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