II. Without the right to life, all other rights
are meaningless.
III. Pro-choice people believe the fetus is not
a person.
IV. There is no clear point when the fetus becomes a person.
V. Conclusions
Abortion is wrong. This is a bold statement for a twenty-one-year-old, white male raised in a middle class home, and one that I am not at all comfortable making. It is not just that the debate over abortion is so heated, or that I fear being labeled a Bible-beating fanatic. I am uncomfortable because the issue of abortion is mired in uncertainty. We all know that child abuse and rape are wrong. Under no condition can rape be justified. This is simply a fact that we all accept. The problem of abortion, on the other hand, is not nearly as straightforward. As pointed out by Frederick Turner in Abortion Can be a Moral Sacrifice, pro-life people can be sure that late-term abortions are murder. However, the same surety is not there when they consider two-day old embryos. A similar confusion can be seen by those in the pro-choice camp (Turner, 1992). Here lies the central question: With so much uncertainty surrounding abortion, can and should it ever be legislated?
To answer this question, we must first understand the basis for both sides' positions. Misunderstandings have long been the major block to meaningful discussions. The pro-life camp's position is often thought to stem from a hidden agenda to suppress women, whereas the pro-choice position is often linked to loose morals and little emphasis on responsibility. These ideals or traits may be held by a limited number in each group, but they are not indicative of the majority. Most pro-life and pro-choice advocates sincerely believe in their convictions and have legitimate arguments to back up their beliefs. Actually, the arguments of both sides are rooted in the same key principles. The first is an understanding of the worth of the fetus, and, based upon its worth, what rights it has. The second is the application of these basic human rights.
Even though the latter point is very important, it is not the major point of disagreement between the two sides. We would all recognize, whether we are pro-life or pro-choice, that the freedom to have control over our mental and physical well-being is one of our most basic and important rights. If this was the only right to consider, then one could easily justify abortion, as Judith Jarvis Thomson does in A Defense of Abortion (1971). Thomson begins by allowing, for the sake of argument, that the fetus is a person from the moment of conception and so has the same rights as any of us. However, she holds up the right to have control over oneself as the greatest right of all. Thus, even though abortion kills an innocent person, it is not wrong. This reasoning seems flawed from the beginning because Thomson recognizes only the woman's right to control over her body, not the fetus'. However, even if we assume this to be true, her argument is still flawed. The freedom of control over one's body is important, but it is not the only right that must be weighed. More important is the right to life of the fetus, if it is a person. In denying a person his or her right to life, all other rights are rendered meaningless. For this reason, our society has deemed murder the greatest crime, to be punished with the harshest penalties. Therefore, if one right must be violated in order to preserve the other, the right to life must be protected.
Based on this, the debate over abortion hinges on the worth of the fetus. The pro-life camp places equal value on people and fetuses. Using this logic, abortion is wrong because it results in the death of an innocent person. Pro-choice people value the fetus less highly. For them, abortion is at worst comparable to killing a lower animal. Therefore, the fetus' rights do not supersede the rights of a person. This dichotomy is the basis for the disagreement between the sides.
Abortion rights advocates believe that the fetus is not a person. Some point to the physical characteristics of the developing fetus as the basis for this belief. After all, how could a minute mass of cells possibly be considered on the same level as people? This line of reasoning is clearly evident in Frank Zindler's Human Life Does Not Begin at Conception (1985). He begins by stating that the fetus is alive, just as an unfertilized egg or sperm is alive. However, very few of us would consider using spermicide as a form of murder. Zindler argues that the only relevant question is whether the fetus is a person. He continues by affirming that it is not. He describes the early fetus as more like a primitive organism than a human. It has gills as well as a two-chambered heart, much like a fish. Its brain, although present early on, is almost indistinguishable from a reptile's. Lastly, he cites that at least one-third of all conceptions end in abortion. If one believes that even the conceptus is a person, then is God to be blamed for the destruction of so many innocents?
Others within the abortion rights movement use differences in mental functioning to label the fetus as less than a person. There are several different criteria described by them to define personhood. In On the Moral and Legal Status of Abortion (1973), Mary Anne Warren points to such features as the capacity for reasoning and self-awareness as proof of personhood. She argues that the fetus does not meet these requirements. Others use the presence of brainwaves (English, 1975). In his radical essay Abortion and Infanticide (1972), Michael Tooley uses the concept-of-self as the criterion for justifying abortion and infanticide.
The above arguments of the pro-choice camp are certainly pertinent and insightful. However, to objectively critique them we first need a clearer image of the forming fetus. It begins its life as a single cell, formed from the meeting of sperm and egg. During the first week after fertilization it undergoes several divisions. At the time of implantation in the uterus, it is made up of thousands of cells. By the end of the third week the outer germ layer of the embryo begins to thicken into a primitive nervous system. These thickenings will later become its brain and spinal cord. At week four the embryo begins to take shape. It does not yet resemble a human, but it does have a distinguishable head and tail region. At six weeks the embryo is 1.5 cm long. The head is taking shape, and fingers are clearly visible on the hands. At eight weeks the developing individual is now considered a fetus. Its heart has been beating for approximately a month. At eleven weeks the fetus is much more human-like. It has arms and legs, and its face is beginning to resemble a baby's. Also, its muscles are beginning to function. Between the sixteenth and twentieth weeks the mother can feel the first kicks. Around this time the fetus can also hear sounds. At approximately twenty-four weeks the fetus becomes viable; it can survive outside of its mother's womb (Nillson, 1977).
Studying the development of the fetus brings to light a severe flaw in pro-choice philosophy. They assume that a line can be drawn at a specific which clearly distinguishes between person and non-person. To be able to draw such a line is a very difficult task, maybe even impossible. True, we do draw such boundaries in our society already. The age at which a teenager can get a driver's license is sixteen, and the legal drinking age is twenty-one. In the latter case, it seems foolish to think that someone a week from their twenty-first birthday is not yet mature enough to drink, but in seven days will be. We know this is nonsensical, but we realize that such boundaries, though somewhat arbitrary, benefit more than harm society. After all, very little damage results from delaying someone's right to consume alcohol by a week or two. On the other hand, five-year-olds getting drunk would be very harmful.
However, we cannot just draw an arbitrary line to delineate when a fetus becomes a person. There must be a clear point at which we can say for sure that personhood has been reached. The fetus, an hour before such a point, is not a person. An hour later, it has gained some characteristic essential for personhood. The boundary between the two must not be vague. If a mistake was made here, we would not just be delaying a person's right to drive a car, we would be taking away his or her right to life. In this case, even a slight mistake causes much greater harm than good.
Pro-choice people draw such a boundary at one of two times: viability or birth. I agree with the former in that I believe it is right to recognize the fetus as a person when it is able to live outside its mother's womb. However, the time of viability depends very heavily on the medical technology that is available at the present time. Because of the advances in medicine that have been made in this century, the age of viability has been greatly reduced. Using viability as the criterion would mean that a thirty-week-old fetus in 1850 would not be a person, but the same fetus today would be. How advanced our society is should have no bearing on when an individual becomes a person.
Drawing the line at the time of birth is even more ludicrous. Such a concept has no basis in science or logic. It is mere romanticism to believe we are suddenly endowed with personhood when we emerge from the womb into the light. At this point, usually nine months after fertilization, the fetus has been viable for three months. If a woman six months pregnant was to go into labor and have a baby, we would all agree that it would be wrong to kill the newborn. The baby is a person, even if it is only twenty-four weeks old (from the time of fertilization). At the same time, how could we say that an eight-month-old baby still in the womb is not a person, only because it has not yet traversed the birth canal? It is more developed and more human-like than the prematurely born baby. Just because it has not entered the "real" world does not mean it is not a person.
I believe that we will never know the point at which a non-person, the fetus, becomes a person. Fetal development is not marked by critical event after critical event. It is very smooth and uniform. No observable, defining event in the life of the fetus can be seen in order to differentiate between person and non-person. Even if such a moment could be determined, not all fetuses develop at the same pace, so no specific time could be set. Personally, I do not believe that the mass of cells which make up the conceptus is a person, or has the value of a person. I do believe that at the time of viability it is a person. The point is, I believe, I do not know. I recognize my ignorance.
I also recognize that with the issue of abortion, acting out of ignorance is unacceptable. Errors will be made, errors which could end the life of a person. If we err on the side of the fetus, and outlaw abortions, we take away a woman's right to control her body. This is very serious. However, if we err on the side of the mother, we violate the fetus' right to life, a right of absolute importance. We cannot take away the right to life in order to preserve a lesser right. At this point, some may argue that the availability of legal abortions does preserve the right to life by saving women who would have died in "back alley" abortions. However, if abortion is murder then this argument has no merit. Legalizing abortion for this reason would mean forsaking the life of the victim for that of the criminal. Surely, this makes no sense.
However, there are instances when both the mother and fetus could be seen as victims. Specifically, these include 1. pregnancy arising from rape or 2. if the life of the mother is seriously endangered by continuing the pregnancy. Rape is certainly an egregious crime and is both emotionally and physically trying on the woman. It is not hard to understand how carrying the fetus produced from this crime could be extremely challenging, even damaging. However, does being a victim of rape, and the pain that goes along with it, give a woman the right to take the life of the fetus? If the right to life truly is the most important right, and I have argued that it is, then no, she does not have this right. The same acid-test can be applied to the second situation, in which the mother's life is seriously threatened if she does not abort. In this case, both the woman's and fetus' right to life are threatened. As a society, I do not believe that we can judge which life is more valuable. Therefore, the decision must be left to the two potential victims, mother and child. Ultimately, the choice is ultimately in the hands of the woman, since only she is adequately able to make this decision.
The distinction between person and non-person, which is at the heart of the abortion debate, is ambiguous at best. In trying to create such a distinction, we are sure to make mistakes. If we must err, it must be on the side of the fetus. Drawing an arbitrary line may preserve the right of women to control their bodies, but it will inevitably violate the right to life of many unborn people. Therefore, abortion must be outlawed, except when the life of the mother is in danger. The right to life needs to be protected.
English, J. (1975). Abortion and the concept of a person. In R.M. Baird & S.E. Rosenbaum (Eds.), The ethics of abortion: pro-life vs. pro-choice (pp. 83-92). New York: Prometheus Books.
Nillson, L. (1977). A child is born. New York: Delacorte Press/Seymour Lawrence.
Thomson, J.J. (1971). A defense of abortion. In R.M. Baird & S.E. Rosenbaum (Eds.), The ethics of abortion: pro-life vs. pro-choice (pp. 29-44). New York: Prometheus Books.
Tooley, M. (1972). Abortion and infanticide. In R.M. Baird & S.E. Rosenbaum (Eds.), The ethics of abortion: pro-life vs. pro-choice (pp. 45-59). New York: Prometheus Books.
Turner, F. (1992). Abortion can be a moral sacrifice. In L. Bruno (Ed.),
The abortion
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Warren, M.A. (1973). On the moral and legal status of abortion. In R.M. Baird & S.E. Rosenbaum (Eds.), The ethics of abortion: pro-life vs. pro-choice (pp. 75- 82). New York: Prometheus Books.
Zindler, F.R. (1985). Human life does not begin at conception. In C.P. Cozic (Ed.), Abortion: opposing viewpoints (pp. 17-22). San Diego: Greenhaven Press, Inc.