Talk amongst yourselves, we couldn’t possibly comment
One word absolutely not on the lips of political hacks, not even Tory political hacks, is… Abortion. Not this week, not any week. It’s impolite conversation inside the beltway.
But a post here last year (picked apart here) attracted over 250 comments. Just publishing the word is pure Google-juice. Everyone in the real world has an opinion, so why does nobody in political Britain want to discuss abortion in public? It can’t be that 186,274 (2001 data; pdf) annual terminations don’t warrant justification or inquiry.
My own theory on the silence is this: nobody talks in public because it’s too easy to get drawn into dark places, or to find yourself with idiotic allies. You could play the God card; but there’s no debating with faith, and polite society considers the faithful ever so slightly simple.
Religion aside, “pro-lifers” (who isn’t?) offer other weak arguments. One claims the foetus has rights because of its potential for humanity (fully realised in a way that an egg isn’t). This is nonsense: nobody has the rights of what they might become, only for what they are. Neither I, nor the inhabitants of Guatemala City, have the rights of a US citizen, though we have the potential to become one. (I suspect that some Americans making arguments based in potential wouldn’t fancy us having those rights, either. Not the Guatemalans, anyway.)
A second argument claims a right to life for the foetus as soon as it’s “viable” – able to survive outside the body. Owen replies:
Whether or not a foetus has moral worth cannot possibly depend on whether scientists have yet developed an effective artificial incubator. Whether or not a foetus is a bearer of rights does not change over time with scientific progress, nor does it vary between countries according to the state of the health care system.
Quite. It’s often a dishonest, spineless line of reasoning, rightly skewered.
But “pro-choicers” aren’t short of poor arguments themselves. One goes a bit like this: “Male control over birth rights, over women’s bodies, has been a tool of patriarchal oppression for centuries.” True, but any reasonable ethics only allows remedial action against the oppressor. Most of them are long dead, none of them are foetal – so what’s the relevance to an abortion in 2006? Even if the medicalization of terminations in America involved (male) doctors claiming power over (female) midwives, this is irrelevant. History should only carefully be a guide to justice – and only if it suggests a just remedy. Thin-end-of-the-wedge arguments are usually weak, and this is no exception.
There’s an instrumental pro-choice argument, too: “I couldn’t give the child a good life. Why bring it into the world if it will never be fulfilled?” It’s a version of the Freakonomics guide to abortion. For this to be valid, two things need to be true: that there is a shortage of couples willing to adopt newborns, and that death is preferable to a sub-optimal life. The first is demonstrably false; the second is repellent to (most of) the living, just a short hop from eugenics.
Another solution was proposed by a commenter:
…you don’t have to be an out-and-out libertarian to think that there should be some boundaries to the state, and the cervix seems like as good a start as any.
Which is fine, and perfectly consistent if you permit abortions right up to birth. This might appear a “liberal” position, but only if you assign no rights at all to a fully developed foetus, only physically distinguishable from a “baby” by its home address. This is a position most people would reject as tyrannical (which doesn’t mean it’s wrong).
So, what’s left? It’s messy. Both a foetus and the mother must have rights. The mother has the right to bodily autonomy, and the foetus, from some point in pregnancy, a right to life. If we’re going to have time restrictions on abortion, then a foetal right to life somehow trumps a woman’s right to autonomy. (But this argument has its own dark place: we’re allowing the right to use another’s organs against their will. So, could we force someone to give up a kidney against their will, if they were the only person able to help? Perhaps, if kidney donation was as safe as normal pregnancy, which it isn’t. Giving blood is, though: see this great book for more.)
The question is: when does this right to foetal life trump a human being’s right to autonomy? Not from when it can survive outside the womb (“viability”). Not surely at the point of “independence”: that would permit post-birth, involuntary euthanasia. Not either at full self-awareness; some children never get there. Perhaps when it can feel pain? When it becomes conscious? When it develops the capacity for abstract thought or experience, and therefore humanity? All these are coherent positions, intuitively ethical, based in science, subject to change as knowledge progresses, explicit in limiting female abortion rights. None seems to suggest moving the current 24-week limit very far in either direction, as far as I can tell.
The corollary to a policy of forced childbirth (for that’s what abortion time limits are) is that legal terminations should never be interrogated. If we base our laws on the undeveloped foetus lacking (before acquiring) rights, then the only medical concern is the woman’s physical and mental health. Access to early abortion should be free and easy. Pragmatism also suggests that sex education (like maths and English) should be compulsory, and contraception (through schemes like the c:card) accessible. Prevention is better than cure, sure; it’s also cheaper.
None of this is simple for politicians to discuss. Arguments have to be clear and careful. None readily tabloidize. But if party hacks are wondering about electoral disaffection, they could start by interrogating their own eagerness to abdicate. While they’re happy to confine health debates to PCTs and the small print of dentistry contracts, the politics of abortion is happening without them.
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An excellent post – you do a good job of showing what a quagmire the topic is – no wonder politicians want to avoid it at all costs.
Both extreme positions on the issue are untenable as far as I’m concerned: to suggest that a fertilized egg should be accorded the rights of a human being is just plain daft; but to distinguish a disposable “foetus” from a sacrosanct “premature baby” on the basis solely of its location strikes me as not much better.
So its all about judging shades of grey along the lines you describe: the ability to feel pain / consciousness, etc.
But I’d add one other point (to further stickify the quagmire): we live in a society which thinks nothing of slaughtering healthy, conscious(ish), pain-feeling animals by the million. So if you’ve jettisoned “potentiality” as a factor, to focus solely on conciousness and pain-feeling, then what justification remains for the huge difference in treatment accorded to a sacrosanct new-born baby versus a disposable cow?
The bottom line is that these sort of human ethical attitudes are profoundly irrational at their foundation. So when we’re forced to pick them apart by the advance of technology, the seething mass of contradictions beneath is quickly exposed. On the other hand any attempt at a clear-cut, across the board, consistent principle is bound to look (to our irrational human minds) alien and ridiculous.
“what justification remains for the huge difference in treatment accorded to a sacrosanct new-born baby versus a disposable cow?”
The former doesn’t go so well between two chunks of bread, so I’ve heard.
The thing is that it’s something of a pandora. Initiating a campaign on abortion would bring about a wave of yank culture war politics nobody really wants.
“from when it can survive outside the womb” – so, that’d be aged around three or four, then? I’d like to see a newborn manage to feed itself…
Sorry – that rather risks mindless spats when the nutters arrive. Which would be a shame, as you seem to have covered pretty much all the bases there. Good stuff.
That’s an interesting construction… By definition, most of the dangers of pregnancy are “abnormal”. You could equally well say “if pregnancy was as safe as normal pregnancy”. Or a better comparison might be “kidney donation without complications” to “normal pregnancy”, or just “kidney donation” to “pregnancy”.
I’m not convinced that kidney donation is more dangerous than pregnancy. As far as I can discover in my lunch break, kidney donation seems pretty safe. The same can’t really be said for pregnancy, once you eliminate the “normal” qualifier.
According to “Morbidity and Mortality After Living Kidney Donation, 1999–2001: Survey of United States Transplant Centers” (Arthur J. Matasa,*, Stephen T. Bartlettb, Alan B. Leichtmanc and Francis L. Delmonicod) the fatality rate for live kidney donors is 0.02%. Meanwhile, “Pregnancy-related mortality in the United States, 1987-1990″
(CJ Berg, HK Atrash, LM Koonin, and M Tucker) indicates that the maternal mortality rate is approximately 0.01%, but notes that “[m]ore than half of such deaths, however, are probably still unreported”.
So it looks to me like kidney donation and pregancy are approximately equally dangerous, from a mortality standpoint. This is, of course, to completely ignore the vast wealth of alarming and unpleasant (but non-fatal) complications pregnancy / surgery can involve.
Or course, the picture changes dramatically if you look outside the developed world, and pregnancy starts to look very dangerous indeed. Mind you, I wouldn’t fancy being an organ donor in Bogota either…
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As I argued with Owen in the post you link to, I don’t think the viability view is actually clearly wrong. The advance of technology doesn’t have to change the moral status of the fetus, it merely has to provide the opportunity to fulfill some, doubtless defeasible, duties we already had to it. Neither do I think the potentiality argument is particularly terrible. How we treat coma patients depends to some degree on whether or not they are likely to recover, which is surely also a form of a potentiality argument since it
clearly depends on properties they may have in the future.
However, the rest of what you say – particularly the stuff on the extreme difficulty of articulating bright lines – I think is very sensible. It strikes me that what needs to realised by both sides is that there are a number of perfectly sensible things to be said on both sides, and it is genuinely a difficult issue. I take it the kidney analogy is a reference to the Judith Jarvis Thompson article arguing that even if the fetus has a right to life, there’s still a right to abortion. I think that gets it about right.
This will have to be brief… mad busy…
Rob: 1. I don’t think there’s a coma analogy. We only “abort” coma patients if they are considered already dead, or effectively so. Otherwise, they are treated much like anyone unconscious after medical treatment would be – or even anyone who’s asleep, i.e. as full human beings. 2. I tend to agree with Owen on viability, but that’s a long discussion. I see your point, though. 3. The kidney analogy was a reference to the Cecile Fabre book I linked in the piece. I’m not familiar with Thompson. (I’m a hack philosopher remember, not a real one.)
Dunc: the figures you cite indicate that kidney donation is twice as deadly as pregnancy, not approximately equivalent. Actually, the figures I have access to (can’t find them right now) claim 1 in 1000 (0.1%) transplant mortality – ten times as dangerous. I think you’d also have to factor out pregnancies that are known from the outset to be potentially life-threatening. I see abortion in such cases as uncontroversial. Some, however, still go ahead, obviously, making the figures look worse, hence my use of “normal pregnancy”.
Larry: fair point. I think animals do have rights. I’d differentiate a foetus by its ability for abstract thought, and perhaps other components wrapped up in the term humanity. But it’s grey, yes.
Alex/N.S: two points. 1. you’re making the assumption that because mainstream parties aren’t discussing abortion, the politics isn’t happening. I don’t accept that. This, cited in the piece, is just one example. 2. you seem also to be suggesting there’s some sort of “national truce”, a tacit agreement to keep quiet on all sides. I don’t think that’s reality. If the crazies really wanted a fight, they’d pick one. It’s only because right now they feel they can’t win that all looks quiet.
I don’t think the point about the coma analogy is that we should treat fetuses as normal full-blown adults, except asleep, as, roughly I think, we treat coma patients. The point is that we provide coma patients with particular kinds of care not because of properties they have, but because of properties they might later have. I suppose to focus the example more carefully, it would be helpful to try and find an example of some sort where someone lacks some of the elements of consciousness and so on that we typically regard as forming the basis of a typical adult human’s moral status, yet could acquire those features with time and certain sacrifices by others. Presumably someone who was brain-damaged in specific ways that, not being a neuro-surgeon or -scientist, I’m not aware of, would fit the bill. That looks like being similar to the case of a fetus to me, but I’m guessing that in most cases we’d think that we probably ought to make some sacrifices of some sort to assist that person in acquiring (again) their full moral status, which then leaves the question of how that’s different from a fetus (there might be something to be said about the ‘again’ there, but that also creates problems, precisely it also involves appeal to properties which do not exist in the present).
The Judith Jarvis Thompson thing has a number of interesting thought experiments, the most well-known of which involves waking up one morning to find yourself providing life-support to a normal human adult, and being told that you have to do this for the next nine months. Its point is that, given that we accept that there are certain situations in which you are allowed to violate someone’s right to life – self-defence most obviously – it isn’t decisive that the fetus possesses a right to life, even if that right to life is that of a typical adult human being.
The Fabre book is supposed to be really interesting, though.
“I’d differentiate a foetus by its ability for abstract thought, and perhaps other components wrapped up in the term humanity.”
Can foetuses or babies think abstractly?
Are you taking it as axiomatic that “humanity” is reason not to kill something? I think one basically has to, but I would rather not pretend this is in any way rational.
Sorry, can’t tell what the ‘this’ is to which you allude in ‘This, cited in the piece, is just one example’, ‘cos the link’s broken. If it’s the post last year , then I don’t quite see what it proves; at least half the comments, as far as I can see, are an extended argument between the author and two or three other people. It may be more that half — I started at the end of the comments and started scrolling up, but got bored half way through.
I’m not suggesting there’s a ‘national truce’ between the parties that prevents it being discussed. What I’d argue is that the parties don’t take up the issue because there’s no particular appetite among British voters, unlike American ones, for an argument about the issue.
Doubtless if, as you put it, the crazies thought they could win a fight, they’d try to pick one, but I don’t quite see under what circumstances that would be likely to happen since the vast majority of people don’t seem to want to change the status quo on abortion particularly, whatever their views on the matter. What’s likely to happen to change that?
Bugger, sorry: it was this.
The point is that we provide coma patients with particular kinds of care not because of properties they have, but because of properties they might later have.
That’s the bit I don’t agree with, Rob. IMO we treat them as human beings, assuming that’s what they are until it’s proven that they are brain-dead.
Can foetuses or babies think abstractly?
Well, that depends on what we mean by abstract thought, I guess. I reckon, like you say, we have to start by assuming something, not deriving the lot from thin air (or “first principles”).
there’s no particular appetite among British voters
And that I can’t accept. Everyone you meet has an opinion on abortion. Surely having politicians speak more about stuff that normal people speak about is desirable. Not that I think abortion ought to be pushing schoolsnhospitals off the front page, just that what we have right now seems to me more akin to a conspiracy of silence.
I suppose then the thing to say is, why don’t we find out exactly what properties they have right now, since presumably the costs of keeping a coma patient alive are rather high? Why do we presume that they ought to be treated as a normal adult human being, when we might just be able to switch them off and save resources which could surely be put to better uses, including, presumably, giving better care to coma patients who have a better chance opf recovery?
I think that while many people do have strong opinions on abortion, what we have at the moment is a consensus that most people can cope with.
If there is a case for lowering the time limit, then there’s equally a case for making abortion on demand easier in the first stages of pregnancy.
I have a question for any lawyers reading; how old does the foetus have to be for someone to be culpable of homicide if they attack the mother but kill the foetus?
And on the question of gender rights; if a woman can abort a foetus against the father’s will shouldn’t a father be able to repudiate any responsibility for the potential child in the same time period? Women can rectify their one-night stand mistakes but some men will have to pay for theirs for eighteen years. That seems somewhat unfair.
On the whole, I’m actually grateful it’s not on the radar of the politicians; think what fucked-up schemes we might have to endure if they turned their attention to it.
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I posted about my experience of very early teenage abortion on my blog a few months ago. One commenter was very pro-life and particularly difficult for me to handle. But I don’t believe in moderating comments. I use my real name because I wanted to help women who had similar experiences to mine (years of child abuse, gone of rails, abortion, etc) and to help them find a voice.
It might be useful to some to read what it really is like to undergo such an experience.
what happened and why I don’t regret it
my views on viability
Something for Pro-choicers and Pro-lifers to concider…..
World estimations of the number of terminations carried out each year is somewhere between 20 and 88 million.
3,500 per day / 1.3 million per year in America alone.
50% of that 1.3 million claimed failed birth control was to blame.
A further 48% had failed to use any birth control at all.
And 2% had medical reasons.
That means a stagering 98% may have been avoided had an effective birth control been used.
I am a 98% pro-lifer, 2% Pro-choicer, who has no religious convictions at all . I didn’t need the fear of god or anything else to come to my decision, just a good sense of what is right and wrong.
You see we were all once a fetus. Is it beyond the realm of possibilities that when your mother first learned she was carrying you, she may have considered her options? What if she had decided to terminate? Would that have been OK?
You would not exist, if you have children they would not exist, and your (husband or wife) would be married to someone else. You would have been deprived of all your experiences and memories. In this day and age with terminations being so readily available and so many being carried out, if you make it to full term
you can consider yourself lucky. Lucky you had a mother that made the choice of life for you. Don’t you think they all deserve the same basic human right, LIFE?
I’m all for contraception, prevention is certainly better than termination.
Did you know you can get an implant that is safe, 99.9% effective, and lasts for three years? Just think girls not even a show for three years, wouldn’t that be great? I think too many people rely too heavily on the last option (abortion), I think if abortions weren’t so readily available people would manage their reproductive system far better resulting in a fraction of the number of unwanted pregnancies.
World wide there are over 50 MILLION aborted pregnancies each year. In America 3,500 terminations carried out every day, that’s over 1.3 million every year, 50% of all cases claimed that birth control had been used, 48% admitted they took no precaution, and 2% had a medical reason. That’s a staggering 98% that may have been prevented had an effective birth control been used. Don’t get me wrong, I suspect the percentages in Australia would be much the same.
Just a lot of unnecessary killing.
At the point of conception is when life began for you. This was the start of your existence. Your own personal big bang. Three weeks after conception heart started to beat. First brain waves recorded at six weeks after conception. Seen sucking thumb at seven weeks after conception.
I am convinced that in the not too distant future, people will look back at many of the practices of today with disbelief and horror.
Want to know how to find humanity-?
True humanity can only be achieved, by concidering others/ caring about others, as much as, if not more than yourself.
Until we do we are no more than an uncivilisation, with all the uncivilised things that we do…
When talking about worldwide statistics, factor in there men who refuse to wear a condom, countries where contraception is not available freely, countries where emergency contraception is not available freely or hard to access out of hours for those without transport or £24 to pay for it over the counter (inc UK and US), those who are unable about to use contraception for cultural or religious reasons, rape and the effects of dealing with systematic sexual abuse.
It is not as simple as having knowledge about birth control, it’s far more complicated than that.
As for looking back with disbelief and horror about abortion… that will not be the viewpoint of many of those women who wanted one.
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Bill Clinton once said that abortions should be available , safe and RARE. He is a very wise man.
I’d like to see an ultrasound in every clinnic to provide a more informed choice, before going through with something they may regret.
I’d also like to see effective birth control made available to all who can’t afford it.
Have you seen ( HOT OFF THE SHOW! Throw-away babies )
a blog by Sharon Hughes?