A Dialogue About Abortion: Part IV

(This is a dialogue between myself and a long-time poster regarding abortion. Read Part I here, Part II and Part III)

From: NewsCat
To: Jim in Cleveland
Sent: Friday, October 26, 10:32 AM

So is the dynamic between us about abortion always going to be me saying "think of the women!" and you responding "think of the children!" How do we get past that then? I keep asking "what are we before we are born?" It is a religious question. I know evangelicals who, as a matter of proselytizing say things like "Well why not convert just in case (we're right)." I feel like you make the same argument in a sense. Don't allow abortions just in case....but just in case what? What happens to them if they are aborted? They don't become people but what do they become? They become nothing. But what were they before? You say they can't object (which is a reason not to abort) but even adults can't remember what life was like in the womb. Most of us can't remember anything before our second birthdays. We seem to develop consciousness slowly. Many things are alive and can react to stimulus but aren't conscious.

If you feel that someone is a "person" mere moments after conception or three months into a pregnancy or not until viability, then that seems like ultimately it always comes down to where to YOU believe life begins. I know were you, Jim in Cleveland, thinks, but why should I, Rachel, have to follow your *beliefs* about it? Why can't I follow my own and go to hell or heaven or nothingness based on the moral choices I make. Why can't I decide where life begins if I'm the one who's pregnant and not you? At least up until the point of birth or at minimum, when the fetus I'm carrying can survive outside my womb? When it can exist separate from me?

From: Jim in Cleveland
To: NewsCat
Sent: Friday, October 26, 4:36 PM

I do not think it is fully a religious question, but a moral one, to be sure. I believe adultery is wrong, but I do not propose that we make it illegal. I think you would agree that a Christian view of God would not approve of stealing--yet it is not purely a religious issue to make it illegal.

You point out that we, as humans, do not remember our pre-natal life. Fine. So it is okay to end the life PRIOR to that point in which memory begins? In other words, if the life can be taken at a certain point in the womb, why not up to two years after? Further, if I am stuck taking care of my elderly granny, and she is starting to forget what she had for breakfast, why would it be wrong to free up myself for school or a better financial picture by dropping some strychnine into her oatmeal? She won't know the difference, and I will not have to continue my unfair burden of having to care for her. Freedom of choice.

As for the relativist argument that what we individually believe is what makes something right or wrong: Let me borrow from pro-life philosopher Peter Kreeft.

Let us say you are driving a car on a dark rainy night and see a coat lying in the street. The coat is bunched up to the point it looks like a person is under there. Does it matter if the person believes or does not believe it is a person? If the driver is sure there is a person under there (maybe seeing an arm), and runs over the coat, it is murder, plain and simple. In terms of abortion, this is rare. Society tells us (incorrectly, I would argue) that we don't know if it is or isn't a person.

But doesn't the driver have a responsibility to avoid the coat? Does it matter if he believes there is or isn't a person under there? If the driver thinks there is no person under the coat, but still drives over it, and there was a person, then that is manslaughter.

Does it matter to the person under the coat whether the driver believed he was there or not, if in fact he was there?

I would say the only way you can say the driver runs over that coat, and is innocent, is if he KNOWS there is no person under that coat. You may argue you know that a zygote is not a person, that at some arbitrary point -- perhaps the magical end to the first trimester, perhaps viability outside the womb, perhaps birth, perhaps even independence after birth--it becomes a person, the way you and I are persons, the way Granny who can't remember her own name is a person. But I have never heard a persuasive pro-abortion position that defines when that arbitrary point is. I have never heard the NARAL side prove there is no person under the coat.

From:NewsCat
To: Jim in Cleveland
Sent: Friday, October 26, 5:36 PM

Well I think I've been telling you that I think that point where someone becomes a person is viability. When you can exist as a separate entity from your mother. If you are asking me for a bright line, between fetus and personhood, that's where I would put it. But I don't think it's immoral to have an abortion any more than I think all adultery is immoral. It may be a crappy thing to cheat on someone but is it immoral? I wouldn't go as far as to call it immoral. (So do you also believe all sex outside of wedlock is immoral? Then the issue is we define morals entirely differently).

One thing I can never understand is the argument that "abortion cheapens life?" Cheapens more than it is currently is held? How does a woman making an individual decision to have an abortion cheapen life for everyone else in the world? In fact doesn't the decision not to bring in unwanted children actually improve the state of the world?

The world cheapens human life and frankly I feel like conservatives cheapen human life. Every day people die in Iraq. Every day the federal government deports poor people. Every day there are American policies written so the rich get richer and less poor children get health insurance. I feel like we've clashed on things like immigration and maybe issues like social policies like welfare. (And if I'm wrong I apologize). But if you can't treat adult poor Mexican immigrants like human beings why should we treat American fetuses?


From: Jim in Cleveland
To: NewsCat
Sent: Wednesday, October 31, 9:06 AM

As Keanu Reeves might argue: Whoa! You sure opened several cans of worms there. I deduce from your latest missive that abortion is right because one, adultery is morally right, and two, because conservatives oppose expanding the S-CHIP.

First, I must point out that I never used the term "cheapens life," the straw man you attempt to knock down by citing what you deem to be evil conservative viewpoints. I think you are trying to change the subject a little when you cite immigration, health insurance, and Iraq. A neat trick, to be sure, but not one I am going to fall for. We can go toe to toe on those topics some other time. Suffice it to say that I think arguments can be made to support conservative views on those topics that affirm life.

But to address your concerns: Is abortion immoral?

Morality is absolute. You and I can disagree on what that absolute is, but because you are a woman and I am a man doesn't make something more right or wrong. Racial slurs are wrong uttered by a white man or a black woman. There is or is not a God. It doesn't matter if you are an evangelical Christian or an atheist -- the fact is the fact.

Second, where is the line between personhood and tissue? You say, "When you can exist as a separate entity from your mother." First, that would preclude late-term abortions, or you would at least have to concede that late-term abortions are of persons, not just tissue. But beyond that, I am not certain of the reasoning. Certainly science has made a baby viable without the womb much earlier than 10, 20, 100 years ago. As science progresses, there will come a day when, by your definition, all abortions will be of persons, not tissue.

But why that arbitrary bright line? Is a baby able to live without care? Of course not--a parent who ignores her baby's basic needs would be charged with murder. Doesn't a zygote contain all the necessary DNA of a human being? I would submit that your bright line is a very fuzzy one.