A Discussion of Abortion — Part Five: When Does a Fetus Resemble a Baby?
We left off last night asking: when does a fetus begin to command moral respect, such that we should view it as something other than a mere clump of cells appended to a woman’s body?
I have repeatedly noted AMac’s comment:
Sometime in the 2 to 4 month time frame, an embryo becomes recognizable as a pre-human, sharing many of the features that a human exhibits as a born baby.
I have argued why many Americans may reasonably decide that the moment of conception is too early to treat an embryo as a full human, and why the moment of viability is too late to treat a fetus as a mere clump of cells. I think most people can understand these arguments.
But in their quest for a bright line, some may be frustrated by the lack of specificity in the “2 to 4 month time frame.” Still, a bright line is not always necessary. In his essay which inspired this series of posts, James Q. Wilson makes an excellent point:
[L]ife in general is filled with circumstances in which the alternatives are not clearly defined. I cannot define twilight, but that does not mean that I cannot tell the difference between night and day. Our inability to draw a line should no more disable us from making moral judgments about a fetus than it prevents us from making such judgments about children or adults.
Though no line can be drawn, we can identify, I think, the rough stage in embryonic development when, if we are made unmistakably aware of it, our moral sentiments begin to be most powerfully engaged. People treat as human that which appears to be human; people treat as quasi-human that which appears quasi-human. Imagine a room on the walls of which are arrayed, in chronological order, exact color photographs of the human embryo, suitably enlarged, from first fertilization, through early cell divisions and implantation, through the emergence of various human, or humanlike, features, and on to the complete fetus the day before normal delivery. There would be 266 photographs in all, one for each day of embryonic or fetal development. Suppose we then ask a variety of people, but perhaps especially women, to examine these photographs and to tell us in which one, or in which small cluster of them, they first see what appears to be “a baby.” Having examined such pictures, most people, I speculate, would select those that represent life at around 7 to 9 weeks after conception.
Wilson suggests that motion pictures would be even more enlightening.
It would also be more powerful to actually see the fetuses. We did this last year, at the Prenatal Exhibit at the Chicago Museum of Science and Industry. But failing that, looking at photographs is better than nothing.
So let’s do it. Let’s look at actual pictures of babies in different phases of fetal development. They are in the extended entry. Then answer these questions:
1) When do you think a fetus begins to resemble a baby?
2) Do you think the answer to Question #1 is morally important?
By the way, these are not the jarring pictures of aborted fetuses that activists feature on their web sites, but rather (in my opinion) beautiful pictures of fetuses in the womb in various stages of development.
Most of the photos featured below were taken by a famous photographer named Lennart Nilsson, who is world-renowned for his pictures of fetuses in the womb. I have done my best to verify that the photos correspond to the correct stage of development; in most cases I saw the same photos appearing on multiple sites, not all of which were pro-life sites.
Of course, it would be good to know something about the actual development that is going on inside the fetus, in addition to simply looking at pictures. So I have chosen to include descriptions of fetal development taken from pregnancy-info.net. Feel free to skim this information if you are short on time.
Don’t feel limited by my pictures. If you are curious, surf the Web, check out books, and think about the question yourself. It’s an important one.
The pictures are in the extended entry:
6 weeks:
By the end of the week, your baby will be between 8-11mm, crown to rump. At this stage, the brain is clearly visible, as well as the gonads which are developing into either testes or ovaries.
The digestive system continues to develop. The anus is now formed and the intestines are growing longer. Bone formation starts this week; elbow joints and toe rays will now start to be visible. Your baby’s fingers and toes are just beginning to form this week and the arms can now flex at the elbows and wrists.
In addition, more facial developments are happening, including the formation of the tip of the nose and the upper lip. Flaps of skin over the eyes have begun to shape into eyelids. As well, blood begins to flow through a rudimentary circulatory system, while the digestive tract continues to grow, especially the intestines. And if this isn’t enough for one week, spontaneous movement also begins now!
7 weeks:
Your baby is now between 0.9 to 1.2 inches (22 to 30 millimeters) and weighs around 0.14 ounces (4 grams). Your baby’s elbows should also be fully developed by now, as are the toe rays. The gonads should have completed their growth into either testes or ovaries.
The tail which was at the bottom of your baby’s spinal cord has shrunk and has almost disappeared by this week. However, your baby’s head has been growing - it’s now very large compared with the rest of the body and it curves onto the chest.
8 weeks:
Toes, ears and the upper lip are now formed and by the end of the week your baby’s vital organs will be developed and starting to work together. During the week, the external genitalia will also start to take shape.
Brain growth increases rapidly by this week - almost 250,000 new neurons are produced every minute in your baby’s brain! As external changes, such as the separation of fingers and toes and the disappearance of the tail takes place, internal developments are taking place, too. Tooth buds form inside the mouth, and if you’re having a boy, his testes will begin producing the male hormone testosterone.
9 weeks:
Your baby’s irises will start to develop this week and finger nails will appear. Your baby’s reproductive organs begin to develop rapidly this week and the external genitalia will be recognizable.
Skipping ahead to 12 weeks:
The fetus is now in the second trimester. The intestines have formed, as have the villi inside them. At 12 weeks:
Your baby is now about 12cm and is even producing urine. In fact, your baby is urinating into the amniotic fluid as well as ‘breathing’ the amniotic fluid into his lungs! This week, head hair, including eyebrows, develops. Lanugo, the fine hairs that grow over your baby’s body and protect his skin, also grows this week and will continue growing until just before delivery.
Reproductive developments also take place this week. In boys, the prostate gland develops. In girls, the ovaries descend from the abdomen into the pelvis. In addition, your baby starts to produce hormones this week because the thyroid gland has matured.
16 weeks:
In many babies, hair growth has continued, and the hair follicles have begun to produce pigment in babies destined to be brunettes. The baby has learned to make a fist and bend its arms at the elbows and wrists. Bone and marrow production has continued, as has muscle development. At 14 weeks, the baby learned to squint and frown. The sex of the baby can be determined.
Your baby will now be about 20cm in length and 7 ounces in weight. The bones are still hardening and the finger prints will begin forming shortly as the finger and toe pads are now formed. The bones of the inner ear and the nerve endings from the brain have developed enough so that your baby will hear sounds such as your heartbeat and blood moving through the umbilical cord. She may even be startled by loud noises. Your baby’s eyes are developing, too - the retinas may be able to detect the beam of a flashlight if you hold it to your uterus. Your baby is also now able to swallow and she may swallow up to a liter of amniotic fluid throughout the day.
18 weeks:
At 17 weeks, girls already have ovaries filled with primitive egg cells. “Permanent teeth buds are forming behind the already formed milk teeth buds.” Babies can suck their thumbs. And at 18 weeks:
The skin is also developing layers which include the dermis, epidermis and subcutaneous layer. Baby’s hair and nails also continue to grow this week.
And so it goes.
Wilson continues with the point discussed above:
Suppose, now, that a woman considering an abortion were brought into this room and shown these pictures. She would be told something of this sort: “You are X weeks pregnant, as near as we can tell. The embryo now looks about like this (pointing). In another week it will look like this (pointing). You should know this before you make a final decision.”
Some will complain that this exercise would put a woman under moral pressure. Yes, it would; that is exactly why I think it should be done. The problem with deciding on an abortion without a visual encounter with the–fetus (or embryo) is that one is relieved, to a degree, of any sense of the extent to which another life may be at stake.
I do not propose this exercise because I am convinced that no woman, seeing the pictures, would agree to an abortion. There are many considerations that will enter into her decision, and some will, on balance, lead her to abort. Nor do I assume that most women now make this decision lightly or unthinkingly. I propose this procedure because it is likely to induce every woman to make a fully informed moral decision.
Let me make another point. I warn you: it’s a bit of a rant — and rants aren’t conducive to civil discussion. Nevertheless:
Justice Thomas’s dissent in Stenberg v. Carhart notes that fetuses more developed than the 18-week baby pictured above are killed every year by partial birth abortion, in which the abortionist stabs the baby in the skull with a pair of scissors and sucks out its brains using a suction catheter:
There is apparently no general understanding of which women are appropriate candidates for the procedure. Respondent uses the procedure on women at 16 to 20 weeks’ gestation. 11 F. Supp. 2d, at 1105. The doctor who developed the procedure, Dr. Martin Haskell, indicated that he performed the procedure on patients 20 through 24 weeks and on certain patients 25 through 26 weeks. See H. R. 1833 Hearing 36.
We are powerless as a people to do anything about this, short of a constitutional amendment.
Look at that last picture. Try not to be blinded by ideology and just ask yourself, as a human being: are you comfortable with stabbing that creature in the head with a pair of scissors and sucking out its brains? Because we allow that every year in this country, on normal fetuses aborted by women whose reasons for doing so are usually not medical in nature.
If you can say you are comfortable with murdering that creature with a pair of scissors, you are like the libertarian who says he wouldn’t prevent a healthy woman from burning herself to death. You are allowing your ideology to blind yourself to your basic humanity.
I cannot define at which moment the state should become involved in the abortion decision, but I strongly believe that we allow abortions too late, for reasons that are too flimsy, by procedures that are too horrifying. Hearkening back to Wilson’s point, even if you might argue that twilight is inherently vague, I can tell the difference between night and day.
I’ll get off my soapbox now.
P.S. In the descriptions of fetal development, note that you have to subtract two weeks from the week of the pregnancy to correspond to the appropriate week of fetal development. This is because the pregnancy-info.net site begins the “pregnancy” two weeks before conception. So to learn what an embryo looks like in the first week, you have to look at “week 3″ of the “pregnancy.”
Please excuse me intruding but this is an interesting discussion though I have not read it all. Particularly interesting to me as I am probably an Australian conservative, but am very pro abortion on demand and I would suspect, indeed our polls tell us, that many conservative Australians are at least pro abortion without too many caveats. It seems very different in the USA. Anyhow a part of the Australian perspective.
We have just had an abortion argument here, clothed in the guise of availability of RU486. Briefly, 4 women senators from the four parties represented in our senate, put up a private members bill to take control of RU486 away from the Minister and place it with the Therapeutic Drug Association, the usual body that decides whether particular drugs will be available in Australia. The power had been given to the Minister, because the Government had needed another vote to sell our public telecommunications organisation, literally. The vote in balance was fromwhom by Australian standards was a very conservative man. It is also the case in Australia that abortion falls within the state’s power. Only one state has “legalised “ abortion, but it is a readily available medical service in all states. Hence the federal government is only able to inhibit the availability of abortion, through measures such as refusing RU486 or removing the medicare rebate. A difficult move however, for the obvious reason, abortion would then be available only to the wealthy, and as the procedure is for all forms of d&c’s doctors could probably get around it fairly easily.
The current Minister of Health had refused RU486 for any purpose. His Catholicism became quite a target but that was to a certain extent an own goal, he did put it out there, hence made it a moral issue, hence drawing attention to the fact that his position was effected by his Catholicism. We are as you would probably know a far less religious country than the US and have possibly stronger objections to religion intruding into the affairs of government or the governed..
Only 3 of the 30 female senators opposed the change, some of the most vigorous debate came from the prominent Liberal (liberal/conservative party). Even though they spoke of process they made it very clear that they recognised that their opponents were about restricting abortion availability. They were very strong on, as are many Australians, that it is a woman’s choice. And the idea that counselling period should be compulsory is not popular, the idea that the state would try and talk a woman out of abortion would generate a lot of anger. You congratulate your commenters on their civility and our debate was also very civil. The Prime Minister had made it a conscience vote for his party (as you would know party discipline is a big thing in our version of the Westminster system) and all other parties did the same. I would suggest however that the civility would have disappeared fairly fast if the anti-abortion proponents had pushed much harder. I was polled and while from the sound of this, the questions, if an American was asked they would have thought reasonable, made me very angry. And from the reports in the media so were many other women who were polled. This is not meant to be disrespectful, but it seemed like the poll, and its aims had been picked up holus bolus from the US and served out to Australians. Again with respect we are aware of the political and cultural and organisational tactics employed within the US to pull back abortion, and well, we don’t like them.
Aside from the discussions about when life begins, what it is to be human. etc., there are other aspects of this debate in Australia which may not be relevant in the US though I doubt it. That is in a global world, there are other places to go for surgery.. Some Australians are already getting surgery in India for example. India, the only legislated requirement for abortion, if I remember correctly, is that the practitioner be qualified and accredited. Financial reasons are sufficient. I think by the way that even in Iran an abortion can be obtained for financial reasons.
But close down abortion here, or make it difficult and the affluent jump a plane, which seems a likely outcome in the USA also. A grossly inequitable outcome. And I think Australians would die in a ditch before they would allow the government to stop women leaving.
I remind, the change to make abortion easier was driven by Australian female politicians, almost unanimously, and with fairly strong male politician support. And very strong public support. I guess it is that we are markedly less religions, maybe more pragmatic than Americans? Peter Singer is Australian. One of the male politicians who voted to have RU486 available did so because as a young doctor working in the UK he had been involved in very late term abortions. His objection wasn’t to late term, rather he saw RU 486 as another means of saving women from what is a ghastly happening.
Anyway, thanks interesting discussion and interesting insight into some of the differences between Australia and our great mate the USA.
I did do some philosophy at Uni and have developed arguments about the potential verus actual humanness of the embryo to baby to child. I do in fact feel quite comfortable about abortion on demand and consider that late term abortions must be available to women if that is their choice. I don’t see a baby when I see those pictures above. I see an embryo and a fetus. I am an atheist so I have no concern about souls. Oh and a mother.
Thanks for the opportunity
Comment by Ros Marsh — 2/16/2006 @ 8:04 am
Ros, Australians made the decision regarding abortion policy by using the usual processes of representative self-government — the legislature. Pro-abortion advocates in the US persuaded 5 justices on the Supreme Court to take this policy question away from elected representatives and enshrine it as a constitutional issue. I would consider Australia’s policy to be a legitimate one; the US policy on abortion is not legitimate, not because of its substance, but because it is the result of cheating (making up rules to guarantee a particular result and to leave the majority without a say in policy).
Comment by TNugent — 2/16/2006 @ 8:21 am
No, it doesn’t matter how much it “looks like us.” (That connection by resemblance has been the source of some of our greatest human atrocities down through history.) Objectively and factually, the “clump of cells” has the same DNA as the mom or engineer or Nobel Peace Prize winner or mass-murderer that the fetus will become. Because there is no clear bright line after conception, we have people willing to extend “fetushood” to a year of two after birth, as if a child is on warranty and we may send it back if we’re not completely satisfied.
If abortion is permitted for any reason other than the physical well-being of the mother, partial-birth abortion–and beyond–is inevitable. The legal implications are far-reaching, because if human dignity doesn’t extend into the womb, the “valuelessness” of the fetus will–and does–extend out of the womb.
Comment by Jan Bear — 2/16/2006 @ 8:26 am
Jan Bear, to respond, I’ll ‘cheat’ and copy part of a comment I made on Part Four to here. This is a point that I think many of us in the middle share. (’The Middle’ was described in the Part 3 post as people who generally hold that a fetus acquires progressively more right to “moral respect” in the 2-month to 9-month window.)
A philosophical position may necessarily lead to corrolaries that appear to be absurd. The advocates of such a stance should show that these corrollaries either don’t follow, or aren’t absurd. Else, those of us who are more practical than philosophical will reject the position.
The claim is that “human life begins at conception, and fertilized eggs, clumps of cells, and fetuses are identical in moral terms to infants, children, and adults.”
Corrollaries:
–An infertile woman who chooses IVF is morally indistinguishable from the murderer of a 20-year-old college student (a multiple murderer, given the number of embryos that are destroyed in vitro).
–A Tay-Sachs carrier who chooses prenatal testing and then aborts a genetically defective first-trimester fetus is the moral equivalent of the murderer of a disabled child.
To me, these fantastic conclusions suggest that the initial premise is faulty.
Comment by AMac — 2/16/2006 @ 8:47 am
One’s humanity is not in any way dependant on one’s appearance. Not for the young, not for the old, not for different races, not for men and women, and not for the disabled. The introduction of such a criterion would be extremely dangerous to all people’s civil rights.
A better question would be - when is there a significant change in the aging process that would indicate the start of a separate and distinct human life? But we all know that the obvious answer is not the one we want, so we try to make up something else. But there are consequences to any of the arbitrary criteria we may choose.
Comment by Amphipolis — 2/16/2006 @ 8:49 am
Jan Bear is sorta right.
morphology is irrelevent.
we can do abortion.
so we will do it.
the only question is will it be done legally, or illegally?
and what about bioengineering and the j-womb?
isn’t all this strum und drang about abortion about to become a footnote in history?
throw down Roe v Wade on constitutional terms and stop this silly waste of time.
abortions will still be legal in all states except for possibly utah.
or perhaps that isn’t what you want.
but states will choose if they want biotech revenue from research centers, and that will put paid to the ESCR/SNTCR controversy.
Comment by matoko_platonist_against_aristotelians — 2/16/2006 @ 8:50 am
1) When do you think a fetus begins to resemble a baby?
At 12 to 16 weeks the fetus develops the recognizable landmarks of a human (cf., say, other primate) baby. I believe (though I haven’t checked) that this correlates with the onset of higher neurological functions–which is one of the important similarities to me.
Many of us will take the photographic resemblence as a proxy for these more difficult-to-ascertain characteristics.
2) Do you think the answer to Question #1 is morally important?
Yes.
Comment by AMac — 2/16/2006 @ 8:53 am
Amphipolis,
Among Patterico’s commenters, you are one of the most literate, thoughtful, and committed proponents of “human life begins at conception.” Thus, I’d be interested in your thoughts on the two corrollaries I mentioned in comment #4, if you have the time and inclination.
Comment by AMac — 2/16/2006 @ 8:57 am
A baby does not resemble an octogenarian. A woman does not resemble a man. A person who was horribly disfigured in an accident or due to disease may not resemble - what? What would be the gold standard of humanity that we are to be compared with?
The question is completely irrelevant. Youth does not make one less human. The fetus resembles a human at a given age - the criterion is merely a function of age.
Comment by Amphipolis — 2/16/2006 @ 9:02 am
Amac, at 12 weeks the embryo is still classed as a nerula.
the neural tube is not closed.
12-16 weeks would demonstrate rudimentary neuralogical function, ie pain/stimulus response.
perhaps development of consciousness should be you r criteria.
Comment by matoko_platonist_against_aristotelians — 2/16/2006 @ 9:05 am
I too think that to attach moral standing on the basis of appearance is reprehensible.
I also think it’s had to argue that an embryo is completely “valueless”. The question is not whether a fetus should have rights, the question is how to resolve the conflict of those rights with the rights of the woman.
The rights of a one year old are simply not in conflict with the rights of it’s mother.
Comment by nittypig — 2/16/2006 @ 9:13 am
Response to AMac:
“Murder” is a legal term having to do with premeditated killing. If a killing is legal, it is not, by definition, murder. “Homicide” is the killing of a human being.
All abortion is homicide. But there may be negligent homicide, homicide in self-defense, accidental homicide. It’s up to the legislatures and the courts to assign penalties for actions deemed to be crimes. Killing in self-defense is not a crime. Running over a man in one’s car, driving safely on a dark road on a foggy night, when the dark-clad man is lying in the middle of the road on the far side of a curve, for example, would probably not be deemed a crime.
You ask about specific instances of abortion. I do think in-vitro fertilization is wrong, given the reason you offer. But I don’t hold someone responsible for murder when she is acting within the law and without understanding the moral implications of what she’s doing.
As for the parent of the Tay-Sachs sufferer, again, the killing is legal, so it’s not murder. But why kill someone for having a disease? And why, if it’s OK to kill before birth, is it not then not OK to kill the same child a year or so later — only the squeamishness of the already-born. And, as we’ve seen, that squeamishness can be overcome.
Comment by Jan Bear — 2/16/2006 @ 9:27 am
Amphipolis,
AMac was too charitable: you draw faulty analogies, refuse to defend your position when asked reasonable questions, and you don’t know what “arbitrary” means. I am, however, genuinely interested in your opinions on these issues, as I imagine most others here are, but I wish you would engage them honestly instead of just repeating moral absolutes.
First, when Patterico asks when a fetus resembles a human, it is actually a very narrow question: when does a fetus take on the significant physical (and, perhaps, preliminary mental) characteristics of a human. You then seem to be suggesting that if we classify fetuses this way for the purposes of abortion, it is the equivalent of deciding if we can kill people on the basis of any conceivable physical difference. This is patently absurd. Instead, please explain why physical development of the fetus, past conception and before birth, is not a meaningful benchmark for the purposes of abortion, not anything else. Once you have done this, perhaps an analogy can be helpful, but you are skipping this first step.
Second, try answering some of the questions thoughtfully, such as those presented by AMac, instead of dodging with moral absolutes and faulty analogies.
Third, viability is not an arbitrary point in the abortion debate: it is not picked at random, it is the point where, to many people, the fetus most resembles a human being, and for reasons explained by others (including myself), its life interest outweighs the mother’s autonomy. Just because you disagree doesn’t mean the point is random. Nor does the fact that the line is hard to find mean it is arbitrary: uncertain does not mean random. Again, I would appreciate you thoughtfully engaging in a debate as to why this is not a good line to draw, but since there are very good reasons why this line is not the same as saying we can kill 30 year olds, simply asserting moral absolutes will not cut it.
Thank you.
Comment by Matto Ichiban — 2/16/2006 @ 9:35 am
“Homicide is the killing of a human being.”
That isn’t how Websters defines it.
“Homicide: The killing of one person by another”
Comment by nittypig — 2/16/2006 @ 9:36 am
AMac:
You are too charitable – but thank you. This has been a very thought provoking discussion. Matto – I’ll try to get to you this afternoon (EST).
These are moral questions. Morality requires that we sacrifice in order to do what’s deemed right - protect the weak and helpless, defend the rights of the inconvenient. It is based on (among other things) the principle that all men are created equal. Therefore, a person’s life is not deemed worthless because they are inconvenient, or because they are a stranger, or because they are young, or because they are different from us. Morality that compromises these principles to make particular situations more convenient is worthless. All of our rights depend on our society accepting this. And we only know our worth when we are tested. So:
–An infertile woman who chooses IVF is morally indistinguishable from the murderer of a 20-year-old college student (a multiple murderer, given the number of embryos that are destroyed in vitro).
Of course - except I may give her the benefit of the doubt that she has believed the lie that those babies are not distinct human lives, and so she did not deliberately murder them. But what she did is as wrong as mass murder. The youth, size, and unfamiliarity of the victims is irrelevant. Some couples choose to risk spending more and only create one at a time instead of creating many in case the first fails. For others there is the inevitable culling of those that implanted but can’t be carried to term without risking the others. Allowing this situation in my opinion is reprehensible. Consider adoption, and ask lots of questions!
–A Tay-Sachs carrier who chooses prenatal testing and then aborts a genetically defective first-trimester fetus is the moral equivalent of the murderer of a disabled child.
I know parents who gave birth to severely damaged children in order to hold them and love them every moment of their little lives. We as a society have traditionally cared for the sick and dying, we have not exterminated them. My reasoning is the same as above.
Many false tests lead to abortions of healthy children. Our oldest was thought to have a genetic deformity, and they suggested abortion before they even knew for sure. She is now learning to drive. And that was a genetic blood test, not the notoriously inaccurate AFP test.
All of this requires moral leadership, which is in very short supply.
Comment by Amphipolis — 2/16/2006 @ 9:47 am
These examples are the exception. There are over a million abortions a year in this nation, most of which are early and due to lifestyle issues. Keep that in mind.
Comment by Amphipolis — 2/16/2006 @ 9:49 am
Frankly, all of this abortion debate is an exercise in futility with concepts such as bright lines, viability, moral imperatives and belief systems. This is more suited for a intelligent design/evolution debate. Which brings me to the elephant in the room. The first step out of box should be to look to the science of the issue. There isn’t a biologist or medical doctor that would say that life doesn’t begin at conception. And that, in the case of humans, it is a human life. The next step is for society to determine what value it puts on that life, if any, before it is born.
Interestingly, currently our society puts more value on the life of an unborn eagle than it does an unborn human.
Comment by Ron Olliff — 2/16/2006 @ 10:11 am
“1) When do you think a fetus begins to resemble a baby?”
When the pregnancy test came up positive.
“2) Do you think the answer to Question #1 is morally important?”
Absolutely.
I know my answer looks very tongue in cheek, but as someone who has been pregnant (3 times!) I can tell you that the clump of cells was a baby to me from the moment I discovered I was pregnant. Looking at the pictures, I would say at least 6 weeks. And, seriously, as soon as any definable features are noticable, I would call it a baby.
“I don’t see a baby when I see those pictures above. I see an embryo and a fetus.”
That’s not what most parents think of the ultrasounds. I find this a very sad statement. And I’m not sure I’d be proud of being the home of Peter Singer.
Comment by sharon — 2/16/2006 @ 10:19 am
Question #1 When do you think a fetus begins to resemble a baby?
Subjective question. I know in past posts we discussed that ‘resemblence’ need not apply to “appearance”. So aren’t we sliding into the viability issue again? At least in a reverse manner? And if we are going to discuss ‘viability’ then shouldn’t we seek to be objective in that search?
AMAC seems to live at the top of the bell curve. A lot of discussions have spoken of Neurological development, EEG’s and the like. So does ‘resemblence’ mean have neurological functions of a full-term baby?
My answer: Presence of Brain Wave activity
Question #2 Do you think the answer to Question #1 is morally important?
Seems to be more of a litmus test of where the answerer stands on abortion. To the Pro-life the answer is No, it doesn’t matter, because you shouldn’t abort a child/fetus/embryo/zygote ever.
To the On demand Pro-choice people, the answer is No because a woman can do with her womb as she pleases. The only people, I’m guessing here, that would answer yes, are those that see the abortion issue as shades of gray, those that believe in a sliding scale of moral respect, human rights and criminality.
My answer: Yes
Comment by paul — 2/16/2006 @ 10:25 am
There are some good comments in Part 4 - I encourage those who are interested to read them. I need to get some work done now.
Comment by Amphipolis — 2/16/2006 @ 10:28 am
Our distinguished host wrote, concerning partial birth abortion:
No, actually. If an unborn child is declared to be a legal person (something the courts did concerning corporations, and something the legislature should be able to accomplish without a constitutional amendment being necessary), the debate would be over; the unborn child would be entitled to the legal protection of the laws, and could not be deprived of his life absent due process.
Comment by Dana — 2/16/2006 @ 10:57 am
1) When do you think a fetus begins to resemble a baby?
Physically, by outward appearance, I see the resemblance at 6 weeks (since you don’t have any pictures prior to that).
As Ron Olliff pointed out…sort of…an egg doesn’t resemble an eagle, but it has more protection than an unborn human.
2) Do you think the answer to Question #1 is morally important?
No. A human life is a human life, at any stage of development. Take away the support systems required at any of those stages (breathable air, food, water for us born humans, oxygen and nutrition provided by the mother for unborn babies), and the human being will die.
Viability is a random line. The life starts at conception. Its progression through the stages of development, and the requirements to continue progressing, changes as the life grows and changes.
Comment by Kheldar — 2/16/2006 @ 11:17 am
[...] When Does a Fetus Resemble a Baby?: [...]
Pingback by Minor thoughts » A Discussion of Abortion — Part Five: When Does a Fetus Resemble a Baby? — 2/16/2006 @ 11:29 am
feh.
FIVE parts of this idiocy?
Your definition of a human being should be functional, not morphological.
Comment by matoko_platonist_against_aristotelians — 2/16/2006 @ 11:32 am
how about, when the neocortex and the hippocampus have developed as functioning regions of the brain?
Comment by matoko_platonist_against_aristotelians — 2/16/2006 @ 11:34 am
I was a teenager in the 1960’s and I was strongly pro-choice for 25 years. Now, after having had children - including a profoundly disabled child - I am pro-life. It’s not an emotional decision for me, it’s a logical decision. There is no magic time when that clump of cells changes into a person if not at conception. It doesn’t matter what the child looks like at 2, 7, 18 or 25 weeks. If we go by appearance, my 13-year-old disabled child would not be considered human by some people.
From an intellectual standpoint, what kind of a hypocrite would I be to cherish my own children while at the same time agreeing that other children (or fetuses, for those of the pro-choice persuasion) aren’t even people and thus can be discarded whenever the mother decides? It may be legal but it’s not logical to proclaim a specific point after conception as the magic moment that a fetus becomes a person.
Comment by DRJ — 2/16/2006 @ 11:36 am
Why is it that people’s sense of when the fetus is a baby is determined primarily by visuals? Outward appearance is not necessarily the most important ingredient in a moral judgment - at least, I don’t think it should be.
Comment by Stuart — 2/16/2006 @ 11:44 am
Jan Bear (#12):
My use of the word “murder” in the corrollaries in Comment #4 has, I now see, gotten in the way of a clear-cut response. Of course, if an act is legal, it isn’t illegal. But it’s the moral implications that are relevant to this discussion.
Here, then, is the sense that I was trying to convey in #4, concerning people’s conscious, informed decisions to undertake IVF, or genetic testing followed by therapeutic abortion.
(Paraphrasing): Maliciously and deliberately intending to commit a homicidal act at some time before it is actually committed. Malice is shown when the killer behaves with reckless disregard of the safety of others, so as to betray his or her depraved heart.
I’d be interested in any human-life-begins-at-conception (”LB@C”) adherent’s further thoughts as to how we should view people who knowingly choose IVF, test for Tay-Sachs, or engage in other activities that are likely or certain to lead to the killing of a zygote or embryo. Are they the moral equivalents of the murderer of a teenager?
Comment by AMac — 2/16/2006 @ 11:50 am
Amphipolis (#15):
You’ve answered the questions I posed in comment #4 plainly and clearly. Thanks.
From my middle-of-the-road perspective, this highlights the risks in cooperating with the LB@C movement in working for “decently restrictive” abortion regulations. The state (or nation) could end up with laws that have profound and cruel impacts on many families, based on absolutist views that are held by well under 16% of Americans.
Comment by AMac — 2/16/2006 @ 11:51 am
Of course embryos and resulting fetuses are human beings. We wouldn’t be having these arguments if it weren’t so. The argument is about values and morality. If not, why not show the mother considering an abortion exactly what is done to the child? Doctors describe surgical procedures to their patients before performing them, so why not abortions? You know why. It’s because it isn’t just a clump of cells, etc. or a kidney or a tooth being extracted.
Back when Roe vs. Wade came into being, out of wedlock babies were considered an embarassment or worse. Now, this stigma is much less strong as movie stars and entertainers do this commonly. I don’t believe that the original reasons for legalizing abortions bear as much weight as they did in those dark old days. It just gets harder and harder to justify morally.
Comment by Florence Schmieg — 2/16/2006 @ 12:13 pm
Dana, do you think it would be a good thing if a court were to declare that a fetus is a person for purposes of the due process and equal protection clauses of the 14th amendment? If you don’t mind, please consider the likely reactions, impact on our culture (political and otherwise), and other aspects of whether such a thing would be “good.”
Comment by TNugent — 2/16/2006 @ 12:35 pm
Not by way of deep study, review of the latest abortion statistic I can find show that the largest segment of the population that use abortion are those young women whose mental maturity had not caught up with their physical maturity (
Comment by paul — 2/16/2006 @ 1:04 pm
Matto:
please explain why physical development of the fetus, past conception and before birth, is not a meaningful benchmark for the purposes of abortion, not anything else.
A person has many physical attributes. Some are not developed until adulthood, some degenerate in old age (I now wear bifocals). This is part of being human. We age. Which attributes would you focus on? It’s arbitrary. Why one (brain function) and not another (breathing) ? It’s not that it isn’t a meaningful benchmark, like the first step or the first word, it’s that it is arbitrarily chosen to meet a preconceived schedule of convenience. A fetus resembles a baby more and more as it ages, at what point does it resemble a baby enough for it to be a considered a person? This is an arbitrary and subjective measure. The answer will be - when it is most convenient to do so.
Compare the before and after (this can be done with any criterion):
Resembles a baby a bit less … resembles a baby a bit more
vs
One sperm and one egg … one separate and unique human being
More later, I hope
Comment by Amphipolis — 2/16/2006 @ 1:36 pm
AMac, #28
Since you ask for clarification:
In the immortal words of Horton, “A person’s a person, no matter how small.” If you ask about the act of killing an embryo, except to preserve the physical well-being of the mother, I will say, yes, it’s wrong.
If you ask me to address the motives of some hypothetical person who engages in the act, I’m just not going to go there. There’s not enough space in the universe to specify what’s really going on with any one person — the fetus, the mother, the father, the doctor, the receptionist, the legislator, the voter . . . . — to make some blanket statement about it.
Comment by Jan Bear — 2/16/2006 @ 2:06 pm
The pictures here are pretty good.
http://www.angelfire.com/nm/MorganWilliam/grow.html
Comment by Andrew — 2/16/2006 @ 2:19 pm
Jan Bear (#34):
Thanks for the response to the question I posed in comment #4. It emphasizes the wide range of opinions held by reasonable people on this matter.
If there are other LBAC’ers who would be inclined to offer an opinion on the morality of IVF and Tay-Sachs testing: I’m interested in your reasoning and conclusions.
Comment by AMac — 2/16/2006 @ 2:25 pm
Amph,
Fair enough. I take it you see marking the “human” line at anything other than conception to be a pretext for making a decision based on convenience, utility, or something else, and not upon actual moral determinations about personhood. As your main argument, you point out that conception is unique in this moral issue because it involves the first existence of humanity that cannot be analogized to other stages of development/life, whereas other benchmarks use attributes that may or may not exist at other stages in human development/life. Absent, but I think safe to assume, is the worry of a slippery slope leading to moral attrocities based on the same reasoning as abortion.
Once again, you imply that viability proponents are pulling that line out of thin air, but this is not the case. The criteria defining personhood are not arbitrary: certain things separate humans from other animals, as shown by our feeling that we should punish a deliberate killing of a human as murder but not the killing of a cow. BOCTAOE. Higher brain activity is a good benchmark. We don’t protect unborn children because we dig their DNA, but because it may become a thinking human being, and we can empathize with it. I don’t feel the same way about the 1 week old fetus as I do about the 18 week old one because it shares fewer of these human qualities. Only because I know it may become a human being one day do I accord it any moral respect, not because of its DNA.
This is not arbitrary reasoning just because it is abstract.
Analogies to later stages of life are of limited help. First, even if we choose brain activity as one criteria for abortion, and we find killing adults who lack this brain activity moral wrong, this is not inconsistent. There are plenty of other reasons why we would not end an adult’s (or child’s, or infant’s) life: emotional attachment, possibility of recovery, difficulty in determining intent, and probably other reasons. A fetus does not share these qualities: it could not have any intent because it has never thought, emotional attachment is less (your mileage may vary), it has not developed any state to recover to. This is not arbitrary. It is not a pretext. It is morality, and it is fuzzy.
Comment by Matto Ichiban — 2/16/2006 @ 3:01 pm
If I understand him correctly, James Q. Wilson is saying that there is a point where a fetus is so undeveloped as to be an inapt subject of respect as a human being; a point where it is has matured to the point that its physical appearance compels us to recognize its inherent dignity as a person; and a “twilight” transitional period in-between. I think this is problematic in at least two ways. First, it assumes that there are actually two states of fetal development that are “as different as night and day”. However, it is hardly helpful to appeal to this analogy when speaking of fetal development, unless we are first willing to grant the very point that is at issue: that there is a genuine metaphysical distinction that can be made between a very early stage embryo and a later stage fetus. That is, to put it mildly, begging the question.
The second problem with Wilson’s analogy is his claim that the appropriate basis for drawing a meaningful moral distinction between early and late stage fetal life is the degree of engagement of our common moral sentiments (when we look at pictures or movies of the embryo or fetus). This assumes that our visceral reactions, or (as I think is more accurate) our socially-conditioned sensibilities, have a direct and inerrant connection to fundamental moral truth. Is this really a sound approach? A century or two ago, it would not have been difficult to find experts like Wilson who would have helpfully explained to us that there are dark-colored men and light colored-men, and a twilight area in-between, but everyone knows a slave when they see one. And this would have been, in fact, a generally honest account of the moral sentiments of the day. It did not, however, prove to be a satisfactory resolution of the matter.
Ultimately, if we want to justify abortion at even the earliest stage, we have to embrace one of two propositions. Either we say that a woman has the private right to kill an innocent human being in her womb, or we say that the thing that we are killing is not really a human being. Each of these in turn imposes an obligation to draw a morally-justifiable distinction. We have a strict rule against killing innocent human beings, even human beings who lack the capacity to walk, to talk, to care for themselves, or to meaningfully interact with others in any routinely human way; what principles of justice do we draw upon to confer the right to kill them under these circumstances? Alternatively, we have an organism that has an individual and immutable genetic identity that is undeniably human; on what principles of logic or science do we classify it as something else?
From the pro-life point of view, these fundamental premises have great importance. The intentional killing of an innocent human being is the gravest offense man can commit. Civilized society does not tolerate it in any other context, and in fact we reserve our harshest criminal sanctions for homicide. The justifications put forth in support of abortion rights – personal autonomy, risks to life or health, economic hardship, or even rape and incest – would not even be satisfactory to significantly mitigate the intentional killing of an innocent human being outside of the womb, much less excuse it altogether. How then can we accept the proposition that abortion (at any stage) is not only a “right” but is beyond the bounds of legitimate political regulation? Similarly, we are mindful of the sad history of mankind, and how we have been able to convince ourselves against all evidence that certain human beings can be classified as something less than human, to be enslaved or killed as it suits our purpose. Why do we presume that we are somehow immune to the same sort of self-interested moral blindness that has plagued mankind from the beginning of time? The only safe course is to insist upon the intrinsic dignity of all human life.
Comment by Jim B — 2/16/2006 @ 4:10 pm
…we have an organism that has an individual and immutable genetic identity that is undeniably human; on what principles of logic or science do we classify it as something else?
Jim B, that is actually a fallacy of equivocation if you accept the idea that there is any difference between human material and a human being in the full sense of the term human being. A fertilized egg is of course “undeniably human,” but is it a human being? There is a big difference there. An acorn isn’t the same thing as an oak tree, but that doesn’t mean that we must classify an acorn as belonging to some other species other than an oak tree.
Comment by Psyberian — 2/16/2006 @ 6:02 pm
The fetus begins to resemble a baby at (12-2) 10 weeks. I believe that this is morally relevant even if it isn’t the most definitive moral consideration. The fetus starts resembling a human more and more since it is developing a brain and other organs which are more like us.
I’m with you on the partial-birth-abortion issue Patterico. That’s one hideous abortion.
Comment by Psyberian — 2/16/2006 @ 6:11 pm
Matto:
So, you have said that viability could be defined -
From part 2 post 33:
1. When a fetus could survive on its own outside
2. When a fetus could survive on its own outside with limited aid
3. At the earliest point when medical science could conceivably allow a fetus to survive
4. Could be approximated with a date
5. When there are life functions associated with being human
6. With the ability to suffer as a thinking person is able to suffer
From post 13:
7. At the point where the fetus most resembles a human being (to many people)
From post 37:
8. Higher brain activity
As you can see, there is a wide variety here although several are closely related. I would venture to guess that there are as many definitions of viability as there are posters on this blog, maybe more. What is arbitrary is the value assigned to various human attributes. Shall we value brain activity, or independence? With outside aid, or without? Does it really matter? We could just pick a date, so many months from the last menstruation according to the mother, and let the calendar decide based on some loose medical or mental justification. Thus we would determine who lives and who dies.
Nor does the fact that the line is hard to find mean it is arbitrary: uncertain does not mean random.
Good point. But there is a perfectly good and rational line – conception. That’s when a separate and unique life begins. Why don’t we just use that?
As for applying one criteria to the unborn and another to born - there are far more similarities than differences. Your criteria would apply to a newborn, and maybe to others to various degrees. I see no reason why not, it has happened. We are determining what constitutes human life here. Or perhaps we should add to the list of viabilities emotional attachment, intent, and health?
Comment by Amphipolis — 2/16/2006 @ 7:13 pm
Psyberian said @ comment 39:
Help me out here, Psyberian. What do you mean by “human material” and how is human material different from a human being? Is this your way of saying that a fetus isn’t a human being until it looks like a person and, until then, it’s merely human material?
People have surgery every day in which human material is excised - legs amputated, diseased organs removed, etc. It sounds to me like you are equating clumps of cells with fetuses until some magic moment when it becomes a human being. I understand the reasoning - in fact, it’s the whole point of this post - but your argument is circular unless you can logically explain why an early-term fetus is no different than a clump of cells.
Comment by DRJ — 2/16/2006 @ 7:53 pm
DRJ, my use of the phrase “human material” was only used to differentiate between a potential human and a human. I think that it is obvious that even a fertilized egg is not merely a “clump of cells” since it is, at the very least, a potential human being. My main point is that if you take this issue out of context and talk about acorns and oak trees, it becomes more obvious that they are different. If you destroy the acorn, have you really killed an oak tree?
By the way all of us think that there “some magic moment” or span of time when a human begins existence. To me, it seems more magical to think of that occurrence as happening in an instant as an event rather than a process.
Comment by Psyberian — 2/16/2006 @ 8:25 pm
Excuse my English lately.
Comment by Psyberian — 2/16/2006 @ 8:29 pm
Presbyrian:
Your acorn/oak tree analogy is inapt. An acorn is an acorn, not a tree, and it is only a potential tree if it is planted and begins to take root. There is no doubt that a fertilized and implanted egg, in utero, will be born unless something “uproots” it - e.g., by abortion, disease, or some other misfortune.
If you want to compare an oak sapling with a fetus, then I can see the analogy. And my answer is: Yes, you would be killing an oak tree if you kill the sapling.
Comment by DRJ — 2/16/2006 @ 8:49 pm
Patterico:
I have argued why many Americans may reasonably decide that the moment of conception is too early to treat an embryo as a full human…
I must have missed something. Where can I find the reasons that state why conception is necessarily too early?
Comment by Amphipolis — 2/16/2006 @ 9:11 pm
I have quoted AMac at length on this — see for example his conundrums earlier up the thread.
I thought you had a decent response as well. None of this is easy . . .
Comment by Patterico — 2/16/2006 @ 9:21 pm
Jim B (#38) presents some good arguments in favor of “life begins at conception” (LBAC). But they aren’t the only good arguments being made here.
Every living person acquired his or her genetic identity at the point of fertilization. To LBAC, this means that society must therefore recognize every fertilized egg as a human life. More than that, as an individual with all the rights of a human being. But this does not necessarily follow.
“Life,” “human life,” “potential human life,” “possible potential human life,” and “life exhibiting the qualities that we hope to nurture in our children” are not synonymous concepts. We should not conflate them in this discussion. Let me address the first four, and then return to speak carefully about the last.
First, many fertilized eggs are incapable of developing into an infant; many more lack the potential to become a physiologically normal infant. One estimate is that 30% to 40% of the eggs of women at fertility clinics are genetically abnormal; another is that over a quarter of pregnancies spontaneously miscarry (references on PubMed). All oak trees were acorns; not all acorns can become oaks.
More pointedly, most of us in ‘the middle’ do not see the distinguishing qualities of humanity in a fertilized egg or in an early embryo. Given nine months of the right circumstances, for a majority of eggs, they may develop. For a sizeable plurality, they cannot. But in any case, such qualities are not manifest at the time of fertilization, or at the time, say, of an early abortion. The LBAC view, as eloquently and forcefully expressed in this thread, is that the existence of the potential is sufficient grounds to declare zygotes to be the moral equivalent of fully-developed humans. But this is not akin to the conclusion of a geometric proof, where demonstration of A and B must logically force acceptance of conclusion C. It is closer to a statement of faith.
One person’s belief that life begins at conception does not invalidate another’s different perspective. That otherwise reasonable people hold such a wide range of views is an important clue that a wide range of reasonable views on the matter are likely to exist.
I’ll try and speak with care about “life exhibiting the qualities that we hope to nurture in our children.” Many here have faced the choice of whether to allow the use of the tools of medicine and science to predict if the embryo or fetus they’ve helped to create suffers from a catastrophic defect. Most who haven’t faced this choice will know family or friends who have. For the purposes of this discussion, the action being considered in the event of a positive test is an early therapeutic abortion.
This causes anger, or anguish, for some disabled people, and for some parents of disabled children. (The availability of cochlear implants is offensive to some congenitally deaf people.) The following statements are uncomfortably close to one another:
1. In being willing to abort a fetus with a demonstrated severe defect, I am demonstrating that I don’t fully value the humanity of children and adults with this infirmity.
2. In wanting the best for the child that I hope to have, I am willing to abort this fetus, with its severely circumscribed prospects.
Are these assertions identical? They are not, unless, perhaps, you presuppose that LBAC. Is the slippery slope a concern? Yes, as has been alluded to multiple times in this discussion. But I would contest the assertion that prenatal testing is a cause of any of society’s current woes. Is the testing of eggs and fetuses “Playing God”? Again, yes: yes in the sense that most medical progress of the last 150 years has disrupted the natural order, and offered people the prospect of choices that, in the past, were the province of God, or nature, alone.
Every person reading this blog has benefitted from these sorts of medical advances.
If I entered this discussion believing that life begins at conception–that is, that the essence of human-ness is acquired at the moment of fertilization–I would find these considerations unpersuasive. And the same for arguments advanced by Paul, James B. Shearer, TNugent, Psyberian, Matto Ichiban, Psyberian, and others. We try and discuss with care, yet we are talking across a chasm. I appreciate that there are thoughtful voices on the other side, and hope for the same consideration in return.
To move on to a point raised earlier by TNugent: any procedure for determining abortion policy that takes the wishes of the American people into account will not deliver an outcome that addresses the central concerns of those who believe that LBAC, as these positions have been represented here.
Is that an acceptable outcome? Or is a more-restrictive set of policies simply a way-station for, say, forcing a judicial determination that zygotes and embryos are persons covered by the 14th Amendment?
Comment by AMac — 2/16/2006 @ 10:19 pm
OK. I fail to see the absurdity of his cases. They seem reasonable to me, albeit extraordinarily difficult.
But leaving conception behind leaves certain conundrums as well. How can one be partially human? Sounds like being a little pregnant. Is an infant partially human? An adolescent - 99% ?
Or, if a fetus at conception is not human at all and becomes human (no partial credit), that would necessitate a rather firm line. How then does it become human, what precisely determines when this occurs (and WHY), and what was it before?
Comment by Amphipolis — 2/16/2006 @ 10:22 pm
While I sympathize with those who insist that we must draw the line at conception (that is, protect from the basic fertilized egg stage just as any older stage) because there is no other “bright line” in development, that insistence, extended logically would lead us into a reducto ad absurdum.
No society has ever really treated early embryos like infants or older, and no society ever really could. In one of these threads, someone brought up the example of IVF and the almost sure destruction of some fertilized eggs, asking if those involved should be treated like heinous murderers. I don’t think that’s the half of it.
Even those of us who have conceived (or even tried) in the “natural” way, have probably participated in great carnage by the standards of the conception absolutists. My wife and I lost as many as we bore, and that’s only the ones we know about. Ah, you say, but those losses weren’t intentional. But if we lost half or more of our born children due to accidents, we’d be getting some very serious visits from child protective services, with our ability to keep our remaining children seriously in doubt.
The simple fact is that anyone trying to reproduce has a very great likelihood of causing the death of one or more of what the conception absolutists consider a full human being. We would all shudder at conduct that put post-birth humans at this sort of risk. Yet I don’t see any advocacy by these folks of an end to human reproduction. But, as I see it, following their views to their logical ends would lead to the extinction of the human species.
Comment by ShadesOfGray — 2/16/2006 @ 11:33 pm
AMac @ comment 48:
My I suggest that these comparisons are slightly off. Rather than analyzing abortion by comparing a newly fertilized egg with 15-week-old fetus, I think we should compare the humanity of a fertilized egg with a tumor or some other self-contained clump of human cells. Both are alive, but only one is capable of independent human life. The fact that circumstances like disease or genetic abnormalities may prematurely terminate the life does not change the fact that it is capable of independent human life in a way that the tumor will never be.
If “it” doesn’t seem like a person it’s easier to abort, but if a fertilized egg is not life while a 32-week fully viable fetus is, at what point does it become a human life? That issue seems to be the point of this post, but the only way to justify a change in its human status is “it feels-looks-acts like a baby now”. This is a subjective test and, by that standard, it’s a baby whenever you want it to be. Recall Sharon’s comment @ #18 - it was a baby to her the minute she found out she was pregnant. I suspect that women who choose partial birth abortion don’t view a 32-week fetus as a baby. In my view, the subjective approach doesn’t work apart from it’s moral or legal status.
And for all the lawyers out there, if a fertilized egg isn’t a human life may I suggest we revisit the Rule Against Perpetuities and the concept of lives-in-being.
Comment by DRJ — 2/16/2006 @ 11:38 pm
DRJ (#51):
> I think we should compare the humanity of a fertilized egg with… some other self-contained clump of human cells. Both are alive, but only one is capable of independent human life.
It’s now clear that the nuclei of ‘regular’ cells have the potential to direct embryogenesis, under the right conditions. There are at present only trivial technical obstacles to cloning humans, as was done in the 1990s with Dolly the sheep. Does this invalidate LBAC, from the point of view of its adherents? Of course not, but it does remind the rest of us of the limits of the quest for simple, ya-got-it-or-ya-don’t determinants of what human-ness is, and when an entity has it. Look at the clear-cut cases in the right light, and they aren’t so unambiguous, either.
> if a fertilized egg is not life while a 32-week fully viable fetus is, at what point does it become a human life? That issue seems to be the point of this post…
Well, no. As has been expressed in different ways by a number of commenters, only the LBAC adherents insist that human-ness is binary, switching from not-human to human at some discrete point (i.e. conception). The rest of us have opined that it is acquired gradually.
> This is a subjective test and, by that standard, it’s a baby whenever you want it to be.
Straw man. We haven’t discussed tests. By definition, those of us who believe in shades of grey acknowledge that meaningful tests will have considerable ambiguity. That doesn’t mean that they are wholly subjective. Recall the photos and developmental descriptions in the extended post, above: they aren’t arbitrary.
Comment by AMac — 2/17/2006 @ 12:16 am
Shades:
In past centures, before the expectation of low infant mortality rates, all parents dealt with your dilemma. They were not considered murderers. That was part of life, part of the risk of marriage. Procreation is deadly serious business. And, depending on where you peg your bright line, the dilemma stays with you (unless you believe in sub-humans).
Murder has to be deliberate. You are the one bringing up absurd propositions.
But how would you answer my questions?
Comment by Amphipolis — 2/17/2006 @ 5:41 am
AMac:
The rest of us have opined that it is acquired gradually
If so, what is viability? At one point a person is considered not human. At another he is human enough to have his life protected (I suppose?) That is not a bright line?
Why would we not consider others partially human? What’s so special about the en utero state that would make one sub human, whereas an adult who has fewer human attributes would not be? And what protection would be given to sub humans, and why?
Comment by Amphipolis — 2/17/2006 @ 5:59 am
Those may not be cases of homicide, but they certainly could be cases of negligence. Did the mother behave in ways that may have led to the failure of the zygote to implant? As we learn more about what affects the probability of implantation wouldn’t we be obligated to more closely limit women’s behavior?
Comment by nittypig — 2/17/2006 @ 6:21 am
What’s interesting here is the assumption that the embryo/early fetus doesn’t look “human.” But the reality is that they do look human because that’s what they are. Just because we’re less familiar with how a human organism looks at the embryonic stage of development than we are with how a human looks at the newborn, toddler, adolescent, adult stages of development we somehow think (based on are unfamiliarity) that the human embryo doesn’t look human. Of course, it looks human because that’s what humans at that stage of development look like.
Comment by Jivin J — 2/17/2006 @ 6:42 am
The alternative is that a fetus is sub human, or sub alive - neither alive nor dead, in some spooky in between state. Much like a guy I knew in college.
That could be very useful. If someone’s life is inconvenient, just declare them sub human. After all, we can always find some way they are different.
Comment by Amphipolis — 2/17/2006 @ 6:55 am
Amphipolis:
It seems that comment #57 is a claim that your position is reasoned from first principals, but that others have arrived at their beliefs in order to minimize inconvenience. Else, why the repeated talk of “just declare them sub human”?
Am I reading you correctly? If I’m not, kindly clarify.
If I am, do you offer similar explanations for others’ divergences from your views on all matters of moral gravity, or just this one?
Comment by AMac — 2/17/2006 @ 7:33 am
Have you ever heard of the Unborn Victims of Violence Act? This is no absurdity, this is the law.
Comment by Amphipolis — 2/17/2006 @ 7:37 am
AMac:
I have offered no first principles but reason itself. There has been no compelling reason given why life does not begin at conception. There has been no other threshold offered that makes more sense, and the logical problems I mentioned in post 49 are still on the table.
All I offer is reason, but convenience trumps reason every time. Hey, I wish I could make 2 + 2 = 5 sometimes too.
Comment by Amphipolis — 2/17/2006 @ 7:43 am
Amphipolis:
Your comment #49 is an assertion that a firm line must exist, before which an entity is not human, and after which, it is fully human. You believe conception is that divider. You posit semantic (not logical) problems for alternative ideas.
All who have read this far have been exposed to diverse views on this point.
convenience trumps reason every time
I take this to be an allusion to your stance that others arrive at their beliefs in order to minimize inconvenience (see #57 & #58, above).
Do you offer this explanation for others’ divergences from your views on all matters of consequence, or just abortion? Or am I missing what you’re trying to say?
Comment by AMac — 2/17/2006 @ 8:17 am
The problem with the idea that the life of a human organism begins at some time other than conception isn’t semantic, it’s scientific. I can’t understand how people think that two human beings mate, create some entity which is growing, directing its own development, etc. and yet that entity becomes a human being sometime later than when he/she was first formed.
For decades, embryology has told us when the life of a human organism begins and that is conception.
Some examples:
“Although human life is a continuous process, fertilization is a critical landmark because, under ordinary circumstances, a new, genetically distinct human organism is thereby formed. … The combination of 23 chromosomes present in each pronucleus results in 46 chromosomes in the zygote. Thus the diploid number is restored and the embryonic genome is formed. The embryo now exists as a genetic unity.” (O’Rahilly, Ronan and Müller, Fabiola. Human Embryology and Teratology, 2nd edition. New York: Wiley-Liss, 1996, pp. 8, 29).
-”Fertilization is a sequence of events that begins with the contact of a sperm (spermatozoon) with a secondary oocyte (ovum) and ends with the fusion of their pronuclei (the haploid nuclei of the sperm and ovum) and the mingling of their chromosomes to form a new cell. This fertilized ovum, known as a zygote, is a large diploid cell that is the beginning, or primordium, of a human being.”
[Moore, Keith L. Essentials of Human Embryology. Toronto: B.C. Decker Inc, 1988, p.2]
-”The development of a human being begins with fertilization, a process by which two highly specialized cells, the spermatozoon from the male and the oocyte from the female, unite to give rise to a new organism, the zygote.”
[Langman, Jan. Medical Embryology. 3rd edition. Baltimore: Williams and Wilkins, 1975, p. 3]
Comment by Jivin J — 2/17/2006 @ 9:05 am
AMac:
I understand that you believe the transition from non-human life to life is a continuum, much as James Wilson describes the path from night to day. From a scientific standpoint, you may be correct that it isn’t as important to identify the moment when human life begins as it is to understand the process. But from a legal standpoint, it is crucial to identify that moment.
For instance, we must know when life begins in order to decide when to protect the fetus in utero. If a fetus is a person at 5 weeks gestation, intentionally punching a pregnant woman in the stomach hard enough to cause her to abort (or to otherwise damage the fetus) could be a criminal act against both the mother and the fetus. If a 5-week-old fetus is not a person, this punch would only be a crime against the mother.
Similarly, several commenters have suggested the possibility that government will legislate women’s behavior during early pregnancy if we recognize a developing fetus as a person. Of course, that is already happening and I think it will continue - not just for pregnant women but for everyone (think smoking, McDonalds, etc.), subject only to the limits we as a society place on the government’s right to legislate our behavior.
One of the problems of Roe v Wade was that it attempted to impose a conclusive scientific answer to a legal issue. I’ve read that Justice Blackmun consulted extensively with the physicians of his former client, the Mayo Clinic, to understand pregnancy and to pinpoint the viability of the developing fetus. It is tempting to merge science and law into the perfect answer, but I’m not sure they can be synthesized on topics such as this. We can throw up our hands, bemoaning that science (or law) doesn’t work that way so we must accept it’s a difficult question and move on. Or we could realize that, like it or not, we must identify a time when life begins for the purposes of the law if not for science.
So we have that bright line in Roe, but the “problem” is that wonderful science has given us viable fetuses at younger and younger ages. Do we move that bright line back each year as science marches on? Will it be like the census, and every ten years we re-evaluate when life begins? If/when we get to the point where babies are grown from conception in laboratories - like hot-house plants - would that mean life begins at conception or will it still be a continuum for you? Because if so, what would prevent someone from growing fetuses for their organs and to make sure to harvest them prior to 12 weeks, 16 weeks, or whenever science accepts that life begins?
I don’t mean to sensationalize this discussion with discussions of organ harvesting, nor do I want to trivialize it by my following comments. But your continuum theory reminds me of speed limits. There are many reasons why people should be able to go any speed they want - driving conditions vary with the weather, time of day, traffic, etc. An arbitrary speed limit doesn’t fit every driver’s needs - what if they are driving to the hospital with an ill child? Many places in Europe don’t have speed limits and do fine. You get the point. But in general I think we are all better off with a posted speed limit that attempts to bring order to the chaos driving might become without such directions.
Abortion needs directions, too, or we risk ending up with a culture that de-values the lives of the unborn as well as the elderly, the infirm, and the disabled. Not to mention the dangers of a declining birth rate. All the technology and ingenuity in the world won’t sustain America if we don’t have people, and Europe is a good example of what happens if you rely on other nations to populate your country.
Comment by DRJ — 2/17/2006 @ 9:45 am
If there is such a thing as life, and if we did not exist from eternity past, then there must be a line before which we existed and after which we did not. Unless you posit sub humans, but even for them there would presumably be a line of legal protection. How is this semantics? Please explain.
All who have read this far have been exposed to diverse views on this point.
Many diverse views, none of which can be shown more relevant than others or superior to conception. And they leave us with sub humans or some phantom undefined line that is not able to be argued away. I can’t read minds, but I do suspect that convenience weighs heavily on reason in this discussion.
I suppose that I did bring forth the value of life as a first principle. I thought that was given in this context, but now I’ll make it explicit.
Comment by Amphipolis — 2/17/2006 @ 9:53 am
before which we existed and after which we did not
Uh, I think that’s backwards. Sounds nice though. I’ll chalk it up to semantics.
Comment by Amphipolis — 2/17/2006 @ 10:08 am
Amphipolis:
“That could be very useful. If someone’s life is inconvenient, just declare them sub human. After all, we can always find some way they are different. ”
Isn’t that exactly what we do to cows and chickens?
“There has been no compelling reason given why life does not begin at conception. There has been no other threshold offered that makes more sense…”
I have agreed earlier that conception is the change where you have the most significant change in life. The reasonm I agree with this is that genetics are an abivious property of any licing cell, and these change when the ovum is fertilized. But there are plenty of non-genetic changes that are pretty significant also. I’m not sure I’ve understood exactly why you believe conception to be the best place to draw a line.
Is it:
1) Genetics: Human identity and the rights that we grant all humans are profoundly associated with genetic identity. The only time in human development that there is a change in genetic identity is at conception
I suggest this because of this exchange:
“Actually life does not begin at conception, the egg and sperm are alive.”
“Yes, but they are not a separate and distinct human life. ”
The sperm certainly and egg perhaps are physically distinct from the father and mother by the time conception can occur. In what way are they not seperate and distinct? The only way I can see is genetically. If this is the reason I can understand your point of view, once I accept that rights depend on genetic identity the only possible conclusion is that abortion is homicide.
2) Life expectancy:
I suuggest this from your comment that: “There is a significant difference between a sperm, with a life expectancy of a few days, and a fertilized egg, with a life expectancy of 80 years.”
Later on you seemed to say that life expectancy is not a good basis on which to accord rights, but I’m a litle unclear on how that statement was consistent with this earlier statement.
As I’ve said before I don’t see that the life expectancy of a fertilized egg is necessarily any better than that of an unfertilized egg. If the zygote fails to emplant it will be dead in a few days either way. If I accept that rights derive from life expectancy I could just as well choose implantation as the bright line where rights accrue.
3) It is the easiest transition to define:
I suggest this from you comment that conception is a “perfectly good and rational line” comment, from descriptions like ‘arbitrary and subjective measure’, and “Viability is not a reliable measure”
This is an eminently practical reason, but I can’t understand why a moral question should be resolved by a question of “measurability”. Besides, implantation is also very easily defined and is neither arbitrary nor subjective, so even if I accept the argument that we should use the best defined transition as the point at which a human has rights, I could easily come to a different conclusion that you do.
4) Something else that I have missed. Obviously if one believes that humans are imparted with souls at the moment of conception one must conclude that abortion should be banned.
What I’d like to hear from you is the premises you hold that, were I to accept them, would lead me to conclude that conception is the moment in the process from ovulation to birth at which a human should be treated as a person.
As a folow up, you said:
“As for applying one criteria to the unborn and another to born - there are far more similarities than differences.”
Do you then believe that there are more differences (or I suppose more IMPORTANT differences) between an unfertilized egg and a fertilized egg than there are between a newborn and a fertilized egg? Or indeed an adult and a fertilzied egg?
Comment by nittypig — 2/17/2006 @ 11:06 am
nittypig:
Isn’t that exactly what we do to cows and chickens?
Yeah - I value human life, animal life is tasty. But, seriously, animals are valuable, but not when compared to humans. At least in my opinion. I don’t mind discriminating against chickens, I do against other humans.
I have agreed earlier that conception is the change where you have the most significant change in life… I’m not sure I’ve understood exactly why you believe conception to be the best place to draw a line.
It seems to me that your earlier statement is reason enough. I’m not saying that conception is the only change, just that it makes the most sense as the start of life. Genetics is one significant measurable part of a fertilized egg being a separate organism. But if you put the chromosomes on a slide, they would not be alive. A cell is alive, and is a unique, separate creature.
Regarding life expectancy, it is not guaranteed, as you point out. But it is reasonable to expect a fertilized egg to live for eighty years. It is unreasonable to expect a sperm or an egg to. it is a separate human life, they are just human sex cells. I go through a few billion a week
As far as the earliest transition, it is certainly that. But the question remains - what do you have before and after? Before conception you have sex cells, after you have a unique human entity. Before implantation you have a human entity that needs nourishment, after you have a human entity that depends on its mother. I think one can determine which is the greater difference.
As far as the human soul, that’s another issue which I don’t think is necessary for this discussion. I have confined my analysis to life, which most people acknowledge exists.
Regarding my far more similarities than differences comment, I left that a bit too vague. All I mean is that there are many cases that would apply to fetuses and to adults. Others have mentioned brain function, that is a good example of what I mean. I think that just about any criteria set up to determine what is human would reasonably apply across the board.
I’m just trying to work this out like anyone else. Please don’t be put off by my language, I really am trying to think through what you and others are saying.
Comment by Amphipolis — 2/17/2006 @ 11:59 am
I understand that you apply different moral criteria to chickens and humans, I do to. My question is, what is your philosophical reason for doing to. I’ve said earlier that mine is more or less utilitarian.
And I would really like to understand your premises. In other words, what basis are you working from that leads to the conclusion that a fertilized egg deserves full legal protection. The three choices I listed above are really very seperate premises. Which one is it? Or is it another. You seem to be putting a lot of emphasis on the “unique human identity” of the zygote, and this would lead me to believe that your premise is genetic - any cell with a seperate genetic identity is worthy of legal protection. And once I accept that premise I have to conclude that abortion should be legal.
Comment by nittypig — 2/17/2006 @ 12:30 pm
It’s interesting to think about the Animal Rights position as it applies to this debate. It’s not a philosophy I subscribe to, but I’ll try and state it fairly:
We call all members of our species “humans” and accord them protections and rights. This is true even for individuals who are profoundly retarded, autistic, brain damaged, or are suffering from Alzheimers.
Clearly, there are individuals of many other species who exhibit more “human” traits than do some homo sapiens: traits such as sociability, intelligence, symbolic reasoning, experiencing pain and fear, empathy, use of tools, use of language, ability to communicate, self-awareness, humor, and ability to plan.
Such traits have been expressed to high degrees by, variously, chimpanzees, dolphins, elephants, octopi, wolves, squid, gorillas, whales, orangutans, hyenas, dogs, and other domesticated animals.
If we treat severely disabled homo sapiens as “human,” we are logically obligated to abandon speciesism, and accord at least this much respect to our fellow animals. Intentionally killing animals is as immoral as intentionally killing people. No utilitarian argument (food, shoe leather, medical research) can be strong enough to overcome this moral imperative.
This strikes me as similar to the argument being made here by those who believe that the essence of humanity is bestowed in its entirety onto an individual at the moment that it obtains its diploid genetic identity.
Each argument starts and ends with an absolute belief.
(Fertilized egg the moral equivalent of a human / animal the moral equivalent of a human).
Each rejects the notion that the world is complex, that day and night are separated by an indeterminate shades-of-gray twilight period.
(May fetuses, or animals, be accorded different degrees of moral respect, depending on the particulars of the circumstances?)
Each rejects the idea that factors other than the object of special concern can be important in determining conduct.
I don’t imagine that many LBAC adherents will suddenly become vegans as a result of being exposed to Peter Singer’s ideology. I suspect some will have to parse their rebuttals of his position quite carefully, in order to avoid suggesting approaches that are similar to those used by those of us “in the middle” in the discussion that is taking place here.
Comment by AMac — 2/17/2006 @ 1:35 pm
If you take the approach that genetic identity bestows rights the LBAC approach has no problems whatsoever with animal “rights”.
Comment by nittypig — 2/17/2006 @ 1:41 pm
AMac @ comment 69:
I want to make sure I understand what you are saying in your comment.
Are you equating the belief that human life begins at conception with the animal rights’ and other beliefs espoused by Princeton’s Professor Peter Singer? If so, is that because you view these beliefs as intellectual equivalents, as similar examples of extreme thought, or is there some other basis for your statement?
Comment by DRJ — 2/17/2006 @ 1:47 pm
Putting them as intellectual equivalents would perhaps be a _little_ provocative. I believe he’s asking a simple question - what line of reasoning allows you to reject the animals ‘rights’ discourse while maintaining LBAC. I (sort of) brought up this point, and my intention was simply to point out that animals have many characteristics in common with adult humans, while a single cell fertilized egg only displays a few.
Fundamentally the question is the same - what entitles any living entity to the rights that we accord one another (in an American context these might be life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness) and denies them to another living entity. I don’t believe that anyone wants to recognize the rights of an unfertilized egg, so we are all denying rights to a living, human entity.
Comment by nittypig — 2/17/2006 @ 2:14 pm
Thanks for your response, Nittypig.
Religion is one basis to discriminate in favor of humans and against animals. There are other philosophical reasons, but religion works for me.
Comment by DRJ — 2/17/2006 @ 2:21 pm
I suppose I would agree with all the reasons you state - they all point to conception. Personally, sitting here now I would probably put more emphasis on #3, except expand it from the easiest transition to define to the time the growth and development (the ageing process) of a human starts. It seems to me that that is the most reasonable time to consider life beginning. Go earlier and there is no separate human life to consider, go later and you are already into the human growth and development process.
I don’t think genetics is enough. Genetics does not make one alive. However, the genetics of conception is arguably the most significant event in life. The combining of the two cells into one cell, which is most clearly seen in the genetic transformation, seems to me the obvious start of human life.
I think humans are so superior to animals that the most drastically disabled or injured human life is worth more than theirs. I would certainly value a fetus more than theirs. It is human, they are not. My reasons have more to do with general observations of the human race compared to animal life than utilitarianism, I think. Being an American carries certain privileges, being human does too. You can add to this religious reasons.
I hope these half-baked rationales answer your questions. I don’t pretend to have all the answers.
Comment by Amphipolis — 2/17/2006 @ 2:28 pm
I hadn’t read any posts since 68. I just can’t keep up right now - I’ll try to check in later.
Comment by Amphipolis — 2/17/2006 @ 2:32 pm
DRJ:
Yes, nittypig (#72) has the sense of why I posted about ‘animal rights’ in comment #69.
In the abortion debate, one extreme can offer a feminist analysis and claim that the only real issues concern the rights of the pregnant woman. I’ll call this the ‘left;’ they are unfortunately underrepresented in this thread.
The other, ‘right’ extreme can declare that a fertilized egg is morally identical to any other human being, and thus the only real issue is the homicide of pre-born people.
In the middle, I, along with E.O. Wilson and about two-thirds of Americans, try to reconcile these and other considerations–knowing that no happy compromise is possible. Much less a consensus public policy.
The animal rights movement takes the absolutist arguments of the ‘right’ side of the abortion debate and says, “I’ll raise you one!” Mostly, they are applying the same reasoning to a different claim, the moral equivalence of humans and animals.
LBAC’ers may find themselves making the sorts of of statements about ‘animal rights’ that they have rejected in the context of ‘fertilized human egg rights.’
I think each claim has a certain, limited merit.
Comment by AMac — 2/17/2006 @ 3:30 pm
Amac brings up a good point. Why haven’t we discussed the ramifications to the mother?
If we mandate live births what is the result? Do we really want to condemn a child to neglect, resentment and possibly abuse? As an adopted child myself I am well aware of other options. By I am also well aware of the realities of adoption. I was a healthy, white, baby boy. If we mandate births then we are going to have mandate perinatal care.
Statistic show that a majority of first time abortions are performed on the youngest women/girls. (
Comment by paul — 2/17/2006 @ 4:32 pm
AMac:
I think your response to my earlier question is: The similarity between those who believe human life begins at conception and Peter Singer’s view on animal rights is that both are extreme viewpoints, although Professor Singer’s views may be a little more extreme. Did I get that right?
However, I’m still not clear exactly what your position on abortion is, other than it’s very murky and gray. If, as you say, we can’t reach a consensus on this issue, then that leaves things at the status quo - abortion on demand until viability.
I find it interesting that you state 2/3rds of Americans agree with your position. Most Americans are pro-choice. I guess that means you believe pro-choice - with some limits - is the moderate view while pro-life beliefs are extreme. Did I get that right, too?
Comment by DRJ — 2/17/2006 @ 4:52 pm
DRJ:
Well, yes, I do find “human life begins at conception, and a fertilized egg is the same as a postnatal human in all ways that matter, morally” to be all the way to one side of the spectrum of reasonable views. How could one get further to the ‘right’–by claiming that unfertilized eggs are like persons, perhaps?
I’ve tried to listen carefully to the arguments presented; being all the way to one side is hardly the same as being ‘wrong,’ is it. I don’t find them persuasive, but I now understand better why others do.
FWIW, I strongly suspect I’d find Singer’s view to be both extreme and wrong, if I took the time to learn more about animal lib.
My views on abortion aren’t particularly murky, except inasmuch as anybody who accepts that there are tradeoffs to be made between competing priorities has a murky view. Life is often like that. Yes, I’m unenthusiastically ‘pro-choice,’ in the context of this LBAC discussion, though I’d be damned as an anti-choice restrictionist by the real pro-choicers. And yes, the CNN poll I linked to earlier suggests that most Americans take positions that are more like mine than like yours, or NARAL’s.
As far as the public policy implications, I couldn’t put it better than TNugent did in two insightful comments (#30, #37) on Patterico’s post #3 in this series.
Comment by AMac — 2/17/2006 @ 5:23 pm
AMac:
I’ve tried to listen carefully to the arguments presented
I complied with your request in post 8. Do you care to reciprocate and respond to my question in post 64, which originated from post 49?
Comment by Amphipolis — 2/17/2006 @ 5:50 pm
AMac:
Throughout this discussion, I have read your posts carefully as well as the posts to which you made reference. Permit me to make the following final comments:
1. I still don’t know where you stand on abortion except that you are some version of pro-choice, and you apparently would make abortion decisions on a case-by-case basis or you want to maintain the status quo. I still maintain that your philosophy on abortion is murky and, in fact, I have come to the conclusion that you believe everyone ought to be overwhelmed by the gray, murkiness of abortion.
2. It appeared to me that you framed the debate as a philosophical discussion, but now you suggest abortion is a political reality that pro-life advocates should accept. Nevertheless, you failed to respond to my posts when I addressed the political and legal aspects of abortion.
3. At this point, I find your position on pro-life “extremists” almost humorous. We live in a country where abortion has been available, almost upon demand, for 30 years. We are not even close to changing that given today’s political realities. As you yourself noted, most Americans are pro-choice. And while my philosophy is pro-life, I sadly admit that I don’t lose sleep over this issue even though I think it’s a mistake. So it’s surprising that you think pro-life advocates are extremists. For every pro-life believer out there, there are dozens who fight relentlessly to maintain a Supreme Court dedicated to protecting Roe v Wade.
I think you have fallen into the trap of believing that people who won’t compromise must be extremists. Consider for a moment that a reluctance by pro-choice or pro-life believers to philosophically compromise, negotiate, or arbitrate this issue might be for a reason other than extremism. And if you still think that I’m an extremist, then frankly so are you because you are just as unwilling to compromise.
4. One of your points concerned how to reach consensus on abortion. You seem like a reasonable person. How exactly do you expect to reach a consensus by labeling the people with whom you disagree as extremists?
At this point, I yield to your debate with Amphipolis. Best wishes.
Comment by DRJ — 2/17/2006 @ 7:48 pm
Amphipolis:
I’ll try and respond. You believe that there must be a line before which we did not exist and after which we did. There are many examples of such binary conditions in everyday life. The light is off, or it’s on. We make the flight, or we miss it. A woman is pregnant, or not.
There are also many cases where the yes/no model is a poor fit to reality. E.O. Wilson discussed the concept of twilight in his essay. When is the water too hot? Are my jokes funny enough?
The limitations of on/off logic doesn’t mean that twilight, bathwater, or humor are not real, or cannot be meaningfully discussed.
I stated early on that the formation of an individual’s diploid genome at the time of fertilization is a discrete event. It does not follow that this must be the moment at which a life assumes whatever-it-is that makes a person a person. And that, therefore, conception is the occasion at which a living cell of no special note (the haploid egg) becomes a living cell (the diploid fertilized egg) that deserves the full panoply of moral regard and legal protection that we extend to those we consider to be human beings.
It would help the LBAC case if you would describe the nature of the human essence we’re discussing, and explain under what circumstances it attaches to diploid genomes, and how we could go about measuring it. Do fibroblastic cells have it? How about defective fertilized eggs that are incapable of progressing past the blastula stage? If an unethical scientist was to clone a skin cell’s diploid nucleus, at what point would it acquire this essence? On being introduced to the oocyte’s cytoplasm? Never?
My own stab at an answer: I’d look instead at the development of higher brain function in the developing fetus. More than most anything else, thinking is the physiological process that distinguishes humans from other creatures. A threshold of electrical activity in the brain (or a proxy for this, or a similar trait) will necessarily have some degree of arbitrariness. But that is because it is a measure of a trait that is slowly and gradually acquired. It is not capricious. 10 weeks plus-or-minus one week (say) is not synonymous with “anything goes.”
In comment #64, you mention “sub-humans,” which I take to mean people who are very deficient in brain function, yet are still accorded the moral and legal status of human beings. My opinion is that it’s not possible to construct a non-arbitrary code that contains a meaningful definition of human-ness, and includes these individuals. But that’s okay. As a society and as individuals, we see the value of including such people within our circle. And many of us have strong emotional ties to severely retarded relatives, or to elderly family members in the grip of advanced Alzheimers’ disease.
It does not necessarily follow that citizenship rights must be extended to cells that might, or might not, be capable of someday developing into a human.
Comment by AMac — 2/17/2006 @ 9:01 pm
DRJ:
If I had a blog, I’d want you as a regular commenter. Patterico is lucky.
To your points in comment #81:
1. Where I stand on abortion: Seems to me we’ve mostly been discussing the issues underlying the stances. As it’s turned out, the conversation has mainly been between human-life-begins-at-conception and the-fetus-gradually-acquires-moral-standing. It’s been a useful discussion.
Since you ask: if you elect me Emporer, I will follow TNugent’s advice and reverse Roe v. Wade, returning the matter to the legistlatures. I’d recommend they charge a panel of embryologists and neurologists with determining (a) at what week do most fetuses show clear early evidence of higher brain function, and (b) what is a readily-measured proxy (fetal length estimate via sonography?). Once that week arrives, the fetus has some standing: an abortion would require demonstration of some set of circumstances before some institutional panel. Time passes, circumstances tighten, with the procedure being essentially impossible once the fetus has a full nervous system. I would also I follow Wilson’s suggestion that people view photos that show what is to be destroyed. And so on.
2. Philosophical discussion: I agree with many of the points you made in comment #63, and had raised some of them earlier on. On the “political reality that pro-life advocates should accept”: Should accept? I don’t know. Many people in the ‘teens were appalled by public drunkenness and saloon brawls, and the Temperance movement got its amendment. Didn’t work out the way they hoped. If I could make abortion very rare and late-term abortion nonexistent, I would. But I’m not sure such restrictions would have the effects I’d want them to.
3. Extremism: I wrote in comment #79 that the view that “the fertilized egg is the same as a postnatal human in all ways that matter, morally” strikes me as being all the way to one side of the spectrum of reasonable views. I don’t know what a more stringent view would be.
I admit to being shocked at reading that families choosing IVF or genetic testing would be viewed as the moral equivalent of murderers. While a logical consequence of LBAC, that did, and does, dismay me.
As to extremism on the pro-choice side: well, yeah. While most Americans are pro-choice, it’s a reluctant stance that has little in common, I think, with the aggressive views expressed by Kate Michaelman.
4. “Consider for a moment that a reluctance by pro-choice or pro-life believers to philosophically compromise, negotiate, or arbitrate this issue might be for a reason other than extremism.” / “How exactly do you expect to reach a consensus by labeling the people with whom you disagree as extremists?”
Good points. I’ll try and avoid using such labels.
Thanks for writing.
Comment by AMac — 2/17/2006 @ 10:14 pm
It does not follow that this must be the moment at which a life assumes whatever-it-is that makes a person a person.
No, but there are no other times that would make more sense. There is no other time in human development that would better qualify. All other times are based on an arbitrarily chosen measure. This time is based on the start of a separate and unique life form.
And that, therefore, conception is the occasion at which a living cell of no special note (the haploid egg) becomes a living cell (the diploid fertilized egg) that deserves the full panoply of moral regard and legal protection that we extend to those we consider to be human beings.
So there is a line - AMac’s black and white line between a life with no special note and a life that deserves the full panoply of moral regard and legal protection. We don’t have to elaborate on the nature of the human essence we’re discussing, what you stated is enough. Either a life deserves the full panoply of moral regard and legal protection, or it does not. No shades of gray. Practically speaking, any ambiguity with the time of conception pales in comparison with any other measure, such as brain function.
Would an 8 week old fetus be sub human? Are there other sub humans with low brain function? Why electrical brain function, and not memory, or reasoning ability, or self-awareness? Is it good that it develops gradually - or convenient?
Comment by Amphipolis — 2/18/2006 @ 6:58 am
I admit to being shocked at reading that families choosing IVF or genetic testing would be viewed as the moral equivalent of murderers.
By genetic testing you mean aborting a fetus on the sole basis that it is apparently disabled in some way. I presume you mean that a fetus that passed the test should not be aborted. This is no different from a mercy killing of an adult, the rationale does not require the child to be en utero. It is another discussion altogether, although certainly related. Paul in post 77 would allow mercy killing based purely on speculation of future child abuse. That did, and does, dismay me.
The only other case that you have said would force you to see gray is IVF, more on that later (I hope).
Comment by Amphipolis — 2/18/2006 @ 7:05 am
Another thing -
10 weeks plus-or-minus one week (say) is not synonymous with “anything goes.”
I doubt that is old enough for a reliable genetic test. Are you willing to abort many healthy children, or should we just say life begins later?
Comment by Amphipolis — 2/18/2006 @ 7:25 am
People who believe that LB@C are not necessarily against all forms of IVF. Deliberately putting multiple fetuses at mortal risk in order to save money and make the process more convenient would be considered wrong. However, if each individual fetus is given the best possible chance - this may be acceptable.
We all know that the value of a poll depends on the value of the question asked and the level of public understanding of the subject. Most people are not aware that IVF creates multiple fertilized eggs, and most people are not aware of the problem of frozen embryos. If we were to ask the question - should frozen embryos be destroyed or saved for couples to adopt - I think I know how it would come out. What about - should mothers be put in a situation, due to IVF, where they have to decide via ultrasound which baby in their womb should live and which should die - how do you think the public would respond?
Here is an interesting recent article in one of the more thoughtful social conservative rags that deals with IVF. The same publication published interviews with Peter Singer here and here.
Comment by Amphipolis — 2/18/2006 @ 9:34 am