The Dreaded Abortion Thread

So Allah did an abortion thread.  God help us all.

The abortion debate is tough, because it's not really about abortion; it's about the definition of "life," the definition of "human," and who and what deserves protection under the law.

The following is a comment from pro-choice poster "Nonfactor."

When is something alive? To answer that question you first need to look at examples outside of humankind (to clarify when I say alive I mean a member of the species seeing as how even the smallest cells are alive). Is a seed a tree? When does a seed become a tree? Is an egg a chicken? When does it become a chicken? To answer all of these questions you have to define what a tree is or what a chicken is or what a human is. So before I tell you when human life occurs I’ll define what a human is.

Websters dictionary defines “human” as “of, relating to, or characteristic of humans.” We can agree a fetus has certain characteristics of humans, but so do dolls. If we created a robot with blood pumping through it’s body via a mechanical heart, and grafted muscle and skin tissue onto it’s skeleton, and made it aware of pain, and programed it to feel emotions, would it be a human? According to Websters it would. But practically I don’t think any other human would say “Yes, that’s a human being;” why not? What is it missing that we don’t have? What is it missing that a baby doesn’t have (or, for sake of argument, a fetus)? What is life? It isn’t an abstract question, it’s been going on ever sine the first computers beat people in chess. Religious people will tell you it’s the “soul,” but even they can’t quantify it, and it boils down to another incoherent answer aimed at easily answering a hard question (note: an easy way for religious people to get out of answering the question of “Why?” is to simply give two responses: 1) Because God did it (why?) 2) Because he has a plan that we can’t know about).

But this still hasn’t answered the question. What is a human life? A human life is a species, a very complex organism, that is self-sustaining in Earth’s environment [emphasis mine - J] (I mention Earth’s environment because if there were beings in outer space that looked exactly like us but breathed CO2 and exhaled O they wouldn’t be quantified as a human being). A robot isn’t a species, it’s complex, but not an organism (although the one we’ve created is made up of many complex organisms), and we could, however, create it to be self-sustaining, but due to the mere fact that it isn’t a species determines that it isn’t a “human life” (the debate about whether it is alive is something else entirely). A fetus (or blastyocyst, or sperm cell, or egg) is definitely not a species; it has the possibility to become a species (in this case the human species), but in it’s form it isn’t. A fetus (or sperm etc.) is very a very complex organism, but that’s only one of the three prerequisites. The fetus is also not self-sustaining (although this is the most arguable point–when I say self-sustaining I don’t mean that they can get food for themselves etc. I mean that the organisms can remain alive without the help of a machine), but due to the fact that it misses out on one of the requirements it isn’t a human.

Now when does that fetus become a human? We know fetus’ become self-sustaining inside at sometime in the third trimester. Joseph So when does a fetus become a homo-sapien? It seems like the only acceptable answer is when all their human traits have shown (not developed, but simply shown themselves). So to answer your question (finally, I didn’t think I’d be typing this much) a fetus becomes a human being at sometime in the third trimester, [and again] the exact date I couldn’t give you, but the moment the fetus is self-sustaining and the human features have shown it is a human life.

If you have traits of a human you think I’ve left out or you think I’ve added that aren’t true I’d be happy to hear them and your explanation as to why they constitute forming a “human life.” --Nonfactor

His definition is flawed. 

1. Babies cannot sustain themselves.  Hell, some teenagers can't sustain themselves.  Elderly people can't sustain themselves often enough. We do not question their humanity.  If, by self-sustaining, he means the ability to survive in an environment, assuming adequate care, then perhaps.  But he doesn't - he claims that living off of a machine doesn't count.  Apparently he means only human assistance?  Why does being able to survive with only human assistance act as a distinguishing factor? 

2. If a doctor can't provide us with an exact moment for attaining humanity for each and every child, then every abortion risks killing a full-blown human being.  That is an unacceptable risk.

What we need is something rational and measurable.  For that, I propose the beginning of sentience - brain activity.  The minute brain activity is detected, a fetus should be called a child and given every possible protection under the law.  Why?  Because it is the unique state of self-aware consciousness that distinguishes human beings from animals.  Since we're not exactly sure where this begins, we cannot risk killing people.

Yet I would go farther.  The pro-life crowd (myself included) should stop the semantic debate over what is and what is not a human being.  We should instead campaign for "fetus rights."  We are free to believe as we wish, but through such a campaign we might be able to tangibly decrease the number of abortions (or at least cruel abortion procedures).  That's a worthwhile goal.

From a secular, legal perspective we could say that a fetus is not a human being as dictated by court precedent.  Very well.  Then why does it follow that a fetus should not be protected at all?  Certainly we're not willing to claim that a fetus shouldn't be afforded the same protections as, say, an animal?  You cannot claim that it is a part of a woman's body.  It is connected via tissue, but its DNA is distinct.

Therefore, a fetus should be entitled to certain legal protections - not the least of which is the preservation of its life and its opportunity to enter into the human race (from a legal perspective).

Posted by: Joseph at 03:16 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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