No limits?
Every morning on my way to work, I pass a streetlight with a prolife bumper-sticker stuck to its base. It says something fairly nonconfrontational, like “Choose life: your mother did!” Or “Babies are a gift, not a choice.” Plastered over it is another, duelling sticker, which I will again have to paraphrase: “What if it were your daughter? Your sister? Protect women’s right to choose.” I find this line of prochoice argumentation depressingly shallow, premised as it is on the assumption that a prolife person is obviously not concerned about the women involved (and, I guess, obviously male). Of course you wouldn’t want a woman you actually care about to have to carry an unintended pregnancy to term. If you’re prolife, it must be because you haven’t thought enough about women, and how they’re affected by the availability or absence of abortion. If you could simply imagine someone in your family pregnant, you’d see how wrong you are to want to oppress women needlessly.
I thought of this today as I read William Saletan’s take on the grisly case of the Philadelphia abortionist now accused of delivering several babies and then killing them with scissors. He is also charged with third-degree murder of one of the women he treated. (This probably goes without saying, but I’ll warn you anyway: both the news story and Saletan’s summary of its contents are deeply disturbing.) Saletan writes, “It’s a tale of gore and nihilism—and an occasion for pro-choice advocates to reflect on the limits of reproductive freedom.”
For “absolutists,” of course, any talk of restrictions is anathema. If you insist that the only issue at stake in the abortion debate is women’s autonomy, you can’t give ground to those who think something else may be at stake too. You have to resist the idea that killing a fetus in the third trimester is somehow worse than doing so in the first. Suddenly the “what if it were your daughter?” method of reasoning isn’t so helpful; you can’t go with your gut. And what happens when that third-trimester fetus is out of the womb and breathing on its own — a baby, in other words? It’s wrong to kill it then, right? But why?
Will this case promote the reflection Saletan thinks it should? Or will “absolutists” insist that Gosnell’s only crime was poor medical treatment of the women he (illegally but, per their logic, legitimately) agreed to treat well after their babies were potentially viable? If you’ve adopted the argument that women’s autonomy is the most important thing at stake, is it possible to draw a line at all?
P.S. Yes, this is a post about abortion! Comments are tentatively open, but let me say right upfront that this is not an opportunity to revisit discredited claims about Obama supporting infanticide.
Thanks for this, Mollie. I attended the conference in Princeton and learned a tremendous amount. The atmosphere was also most civil with people on both sides speaking gently and trying to listen carefully. It is amazing how much we do share in common on issues even as divisive as abortion if we only begin with a posture of respect and humility.
An article and a book review in the January 14 issue of Commonweal look behind the poster debate. The article: William Bole’s discussion of Lisa Sowle Cahill’s Middle Way. The book review: Daniel P. Sulmasy’s review of Dennis Obrien’s The Church and Abortion, A Catholic’s Dissent.
Cahill sees a dilemma for Catholic thought, a dilemma Sr. McBride resolved in a way that resulted in her excommunication, according to her bishop. O’Brien in his book offers another solution for the moral dilemma for a pregnant woman faced with tragic circumstances.
O’Brien’s views deserve more consideration than Sulmasy was willing to give them. According to Sulmasy, “the major arguments served up in The Church and Abortion for actual dissent from church teaching turn out to be either logical non sequiturs or attacks on straw-man positions. … No serious natural-law scholars, meanwhile, hold the cartoon version of natural law that O’Brien sketches, and he does not address the most scholarly natural-law treatments of the abortion question.”
“[A]bortion providers should act as technicians with a clinical skill to offer” – from Slate article quoting a pro-choicer.
Cold.
I hired professional and technical healthcare personnel, and this Phily doctor behaved in any way but a professional manner.
When I see news such as this, I sometimes ask God to give me the OK to do what I know he doesn’t want me to do.
God have mercy!!!
Is infanticide the same as abortion?
I can’t see how this horrific incident(s) can have any support.
I think the abortion debate(s) we’ve seen here will go on and on.
Bob,
I think the article implies, among many questions, this: what is the difference between infanticide and abortion? Is there a meaningful bright line?
Obviously, as we’ve seen there is a division of thought – my point – and I’m sure you see the two as almost the same if not the same.
But my other point: we’ve been down that discussion road before and we will be again.
From the Saletan piece:
“Berer takes particular offense at a moral limit suggested by pro-choice writer Frances Kissling. Kissling has proposed that “when a fetus reaches the point where it could survive outside the uterus, is healthy, and the woman is healthy, and she has had five months to make up her mind, we should say no to abortion.” Berer quotes this statement with dismay and repudiates it with a question: “Who exactly are the ‘we’ that she [Kissling] now considers herself to be part of?”"
So Kissling has been drummed out of the tribe. I find myself feeling a strange sort of … sympathy? … for her. It’s a new feeling.
Bob,
Call me optimistic, but I think an important yet unresolved issue is worth discussion–particularly when the stakes are this high.
Kathy: whatever the difference is between abortion and infanticide, it seems that, in the eyes of the absolutists that Saletan surveys, the baby’s viability isn’t the dividing line.
Mollie,
You last note “P.S. Yes, this is a post about abortion! Comments are tentatively open, but let me say right upfront that this is not an opportunity to revisit discredited claims about Obama supporting infanticide,” seems designed to squelch expression on this blog.
Why are we even discussing this on this blog? Why does the United States have some of the most liberal laws on abortion in the world? Why can’t these gruesome practices be stopped aginst our children? And who are these “absolutists?”
Answer: Sadly, the absolutists are the Democratic Party leadership (including our president), who slap down every common sense limitation of abortion (remember the partial-birth debate?). They aren’t pro-choice, they are zealously pro-abortion. And it makes me sick.
So what is the answer to the answer – action. The leaders of the Democratic party need to be called to the mat by liberal Catholics like you. We need more Bart Stupaks who are at least willing to make some type of noise on this issue. But sadly, all I get are little disclaimers on blogs telling me to keep my mouth shut about the political side of this issue.
This is my greatest stumbling block towards the Democratic Party. Every time I think about voting for them, I get a mental picture of what a late term abortion must be like. How can someone in good conscience support a party that actively advocates that type of carnage (even if you agree with them on gun control and health care?)
If every Catholic said they would take one election off from voting for the Democrats, we could have this problem solved in a week. But continuing to discuss this topic without taking them Democrats to task will never solve anything.
What happened here was ILLEGAL–on a number of fronts. The law’s there. So why wasn’t the law enforced? And why isn’t the PA DPH director being fired? Killing a live born baby is homicide; not post-birth abortion. The law’s on the books–why wasn’t it enforced? For anyone who wants to read about this general topic about the law, homicide, and late-term abortions, see Paul Ramsey’s discussion of the Edelin case in Ethics at the Edges of Life (if it’s still in print).
“If every Catholic said they would take one election off from voting for the Democrats, we could have this problem solved in a week. But continuing to discuss this topic without taking the Democrats to task will never solve anything.”
When I see someone say this I have to ask then why didn’t the Republicans solve this problem when they controlled the House, the Senate, and the Presidency? This is why the GOP also lacks credibility on this issue. It is also why it looks like some abortion opponents are more interested in how people are working against abortion (i.e. by demanding that they become Republicans) than by whether they are.
Cathy: I have similar questions. I’m just now digging into the grand jury document (linked from the NYT’s story), hoping to learn a little more — but I’m not sure how far I’ll be able to get. This is so hard to read about.
UPDATE: OK, here’s a relevant passage, from pp. 8-9 of the grand jury document:
It goes on to describe other failures, including the Dept. of State and the Dept. of Public Health not following up on complaints. Their conclusion:
Disgusting story, and its roots run even deeper than the people accused of murder. According to reports, everyone and their grandmother knew what this “doctor” was doing, yet for years (and years), the State of Pennsylvania turned a blind eye, and did not shut the place down, nor even do routine inspections. This was under both a (pro-choice) Republican administration and an, of course, pro-choice Democratic administration. Whatever one’s stance on abortion, I think we’d all agree this needs to followed wherever it leads, leaving no stone unturned, so other operations like this one are shut down immediately. Beyond that, there are the larger philosophical and moral dilemmas this case raises, as Mollie points out.
I fear many may want to sweep it all under the rug, but I find it encouraging that at least 2 people from the left have raised these questions and presented these challenges to fellow travelers. A lefty is going to listen to concerns from another lefty before he’s going to listen to a right-wing nut. Good luck, we’ll be rooting for you.
PS The use of the word “clinic” to describe this place only adds to the revulsion.
I’ll guarantee that if a campaign is raised to increase regulatory oversight of abortion clinics, NARAL and the other pro-abortion absolutists will be fighting it tooth and nail with scaremongering rhetoric, and hiding behind Roe v Wade again.
Since we have been authorized to discuss abortion in this post, I hope all can agree that the House bill pending to formally and definitively declare there shall be no federal funding for abortion is a Good Thing. Those who claim ObamaCare does not provide federal funding for abortion should have no problem with a simple restatement of that “fact” in legal terms by Congress. Right?
While I support tightening the restrictions on late-term abortions, it doesn’t seem to me that this case makes the argument for it. As Cathy Kaveny points out, this doctor was breaking the law. He’s accused of murder. I got slapped on the wrist by Rick Garnett over at MOJ for making the case that it would probably be many of the same (politically conservative) people who would find it reasonable to use this incident for anti-abortion purposes who found it unreasonable to use the shootings in Tucson to argue for stricter control of guns.
I said, in my response to him:
There are, by the way, laws in states (I know Illinois is one, since I have spent a lot of time arguing about Obama and his role in the Illinois legislature) that require late-term abortions to be done in such a way as to give the unborn child the maximum chance of survival, and they also require a second doctor to be present to save the aborted baby should it be born alive. This has been found constitutional by the US Supreme Court. I can only imagine that this limits the number of late-term abortions in states that have such laws.
I’ll guarantee that if a campaign is raised to increase regulatory oversight of abortion clinics, NARAL and the other pro-abortion absolutists will be fighting it tooth and nail with scaremongering rhetoric, and hiding behind Roe v Wade again.
P Flanagan,
Those who oppose abortion frequently claim “abortion mills” all over the country violate the law, are dirty, etc., etc., etc. And yet statistically, abortions have a very low mortality rate. I think if legal abortion really were a serious threat to women’s health, feminist organizations would be doing something about it. NARAL knows that anti-abortion activists aren’t simply trying to make abortions safer when they try to clamp restrictions on abortion clinics. They want to do anything they can to shut them down.
“abortions have a very low mortality rate”
Classic.
Abortion on demand is and will remain the law in this country until and unless some brave politician gathers some other like-minded politicians and proposes an Amendment to the Constitution, not only making abortion illegal and contrary to the good of the populace, but making Capital Punishment illegal as well. If we, as Catholics, believe in the sanctity of human life ‘from conception to natural death’, then the two issues are the same.
Unfortunately, though there may indeed be legislators who abhor abortion, they abhor unemployment even more .
Anyone who proposed such a Constitutional Amendment would not have another term in office.
And that, dear friends, is the reality that we face here in America.
Despite the cranky noises of the Religious Right in politics, no one has the gumption to grab the issue by the horns and make any actual or substantive change.
Yet, the religious right keeps electing their own, frequently using such tired catchphrases as ‘family values’. Yet, politicians themselves of both Red and Blue colors have not exactly been paragons of virtue.
While it is easy to castigate the left-leaning Democratic Party, the right-leaning Republican Party have consistently failed at what was, at least during their campaigns, a central issue.
Will anyone in the legislature every have the courage of their convictions to actually bring about an end to Abortion?
David: Yes, the relationship is tangential, but I think Saletan’s take is a valid one. It’s not so much that this case should be expected to turn prochoice people prolife; it’s that this case brings up the issue of late-term abortions and the reasons we have laws that restrict them. Not all people who identify as prochoice object to those limits. But some do. And, as the grand jury concluded (noted above), the “no restrictions ever for any reason” mindset/political pressure was a factor in allowing this particular criminal to mistreat so many women for so long.
For what it’s worth, my own view is that abortions are always wrong; there is no way to determine the precise moment when a fetus becomes a “human”; and that even if we could determine the precise moment that a fetus becomes “human” and also even if the Catholic Church did not exist abortions would still be wrong.
But having said this, since in these debates we generally end up talking about politics and scoring points, over they years I have developed a point system that I have found to be very helpful.
(Please note that since all point systems are essentially arbitrary, the important thing is actually the spread between the points.)
Raise your daughter’s child instead of her getting an abortion 1,200 points
Adopt a stranger’s child instead of the stranger getting an abortion 1,500 points
Do what you need to do to raise your own child rather than abort (woman) 800 points
Do what you need to do to raise your own child rather than abort (man) 500 points
Volunteer at a crisis pregnancy center 75 points
Donate regularly to a crisis pregnancy center 20 points
Donate once or twice a year to the pregnancy center collection at church 7 points
Argue about the need to make abortion illegal by voting for ________ 1/1000 point
I know this list is not inclusive.
But it is very scientific.
Mark Proska,
Do you actually have a point to make, or some facts to present?
Matt Bowman wrote the following in a message to me today on MOJ: “It illustrates that when abortion was legalized it was not taken out of the back alley; the back alley abortionists simply moved their signs to the front door.” I understand the moral objection to abortion, but to imply that what happened in Philadelphia is indicative of abortion providers in the United States, or to claim abortion is unsafe (for the mother, of course) is simply not true.
It is important — at least I think so — to make the case you have, based on your convictions, not to make a different case because you think it might be more persuasive. Example: If you are opposed to condoms on moral grounds, don’t try to make the case that they are so porous they don’t block the AIDS virus, or they “don’t work.”
to imply that what happened in Philadelphia is indicative of abortion providers in the United States, or to claim abortion is unsafe (for the mother, of course) is simply not true
At their very best, safest, and most professional, abortion providers in the United States have slaughtered 50 million innocent human lives.
What this guy did is VERY indicative of abortion providers everywhere. It is implicit in the very act of abortion.
Cathleen and David point out that what this man did was illegal. I wonder, though, would we be as repulsed if he did what other abortionists do and that is kill the fetus within the womb and swiftly throw the carcass out so that there is no evidence? Who cares if what he did is against the law? The point is that every agency that should have cared did NOT because all this guy was “helping” women by aborting their unwanted pregnancies. You should hear some of the stories my girlfriends have told me about their abortions. Nothing was illegal there but the overall “tone” was pretty bad. What else do we expect from people whose livelihood is to kill children? Really?
I will note that abortion is, at its core, violence against women and violence against children. I wish we would be more shocked more often.
The horrible infanticides present in this case are important to discuss and focus us on the complex theoretical issue that Peter Singer and others raise about the relationship between abortion and infanticide.
However, as others on this thread have pointed out, this is (for now) a cut and dry legal issue. Hopefully it won’t distract us from the legal question of second trimester abortions. We have a growing number of public and important pro-choice people (like Saletan in the article Mollie cites) who are willing to revisit the issue, and I think this is a genuine area for common ground. Especially when folks are also willing to see the health exception read much more narrowly:
http://www.hnn.us/articles/125080.html
David: Please don’t bring disputes with Matt Bowman over here.
It’s hard to look past the killing of babies born alive, but having read through the grand jury’s (very long) statement, there are lots of other horrible things that this doctor and his staff stand accused of — gross medical malpractice and endangerment of women’s lives at every step along the way. And all of that was illegal too. So it’s true that you can’t simply say “This is what abortion is like,” when Gosnell’s violation of ordinary procedures (however awful they may be) is the reason he’s been charged. Abortion is always awful, yes, but: not all abortionists leave their unlicensed, 15-year-old receptionist alone to administer unsafe doses of expired drugs to women to sedate them and induce labor. And so on. In fact, you could (and some probably have and will) make the opposite argument, that this illustrates what happens when you have restrictions on late-term abortions. I don’t think either “lesson” is accurate. As the grand jury pointed out, this happened chiefly because nobody enforced any of the myriad laws Gosnell and his staff were breaking.
Mollie’s right. Everything that happened at the clinic seems to have been in violation of some law or another. It was a house of horrors on every level. Now what’s going on rhetorically in the abortion discussion is one of three moves, depending upon where the speaker stands on a whole host of issues pertaining to abortion and law.
1. Part for whole (pro-life)–This case reveals what is true about abortion in general, esp. late term abortion. We should ban all late term abortion, and from there all abortion.
2. Part for whole (pro-choice). This case reveals that it is futile to try to stop desperate women from abortion (or infanticide; see Kant). We should legalize all forms of abortion, regulating it so that it is at least safe for the mother.
3. Abusus non tollit usum– This case proves nothing about any kind of abortion–it simply proves we should enforce the law.
I am increasingly wondering whether these extreme cases really help moral reflection, or just put everyone’s shields up. We could run parallel arguments about the shooting of the abortion doctor case, the Arizona case, and pretty much every splashy case on every issue.
I have to admit I’m not really sure what this thread is about, but the title “No limits?” strikes me as somewhat deceptive.
Abortions ARE limited in 38 states, which indicates that most Americans support or are willing to live with some restrictions on abortion. Moreover, what Gosnell did WAS illegal, as Cathleen pointed out. Any absolutist prochoicers who rush to his defense can only hurt their own cause.
We can argue that abortions are not limited ENOUGH, and we should.
But, the Church’s absolutist teaching against abortion, in my view, hurts the prolife cause.
Teaching that the fetus cannot be directly aborted, even before it has developed any capacity to feel pain or sensation, thereby consigning both mother and fetus to certain death strikes me as rather bloodlessly cruel logic, especially when an indirect removal of the fetus is sanctioned, apparently at any point. (See John Tuohey’s legalistic and not-very-convincing attempt to get around this absolute in the latest issue of C’weal.)
Just a side note, but I am both fascinated and repelled by unagidon’s “score card.”
I suppose I understand that it’s a call to action rather than blabbering about abortion, but here’s where it falls down:
In “real world” terms, I scored pretty high given that I brought an unexpected, high-risk pregnancy to term and that I support pregnancy centers occasionally. (Plus all that arguing with my doctrinaire prochoice mother for 1/1000th of a point adds up!)
In hypothetical terms, however, I would hold morally neutral anybody involved in cases such as the one Tuohey discusses if it were up to me to make a decision. I expect that view pretty much wipes out my points. Certainly the Church’s teaching on “life” (which demands the death of two rather than one in some cases) is one of the things that keeps me away from the table and likely outside the realm of salvation in the eyes of many here.
Jean, the post is about the Saletan piece at Slate, and that’s what the title refers to. As he notes, there are prochoice activists who think there should be no limits on “a woman’s right to choose” abortion — none. Their argument is that any limit is unreasonable, and they want to read out of the movement anyone willing to compromise. I don’t think he’s suggesting that they, or anyone, would rush to the defense of Gosnell; he’s critizicing their unwillingness to grant that people may have reasons other than disrespect for women’s autonomy for objecting to third-trimester abortions.
Cathy, I fear you may be right. This case may be too expansively awful to lead to any fruitful reflection beyond “the laws we have should be enforced.” (At least in this case, unlike the AZ shooting, there are already laws that could have prevented this from going on.) It’s possible the details of what happened to the babies could trigger some uneasy consciences on the subject of abortion, but there’s just so much to abhor here; a stolidly prochoice person could find plenty to be outraged by.
Mollie, my bad for not doing the homework assignment. I don’t get into snits if my comments are deleted as irrelevant or don’t follow the ground rules. Feel free.
I like unagidon’s point system: I get 1500 points!
“And yet statistically, abortions have a very low mortality rate.”
What has been going on rhetorically in the abortion debate which is reflected in the statement above, is that there are those who claim that a Child in their Mother’s Womb is not alive (to be) and is not human because they have not yet been born, thus they claim the Child is not a Human Being and abortions do not increase the mortality rate, there are those who recognize that a Child in their Mother’s Womb is alive but claim that because the Child is not viable they are not fully human and their Life is not as valuable even though we all know that they will still not be viable after they leave their Mother’s Womb, and thus they believe abortions do not increase the mortality rate, and there are those who believe that because the Child in their Mother’s Womb is a Human Being, every abortion increases the mortality rate.
“Abortions ARE limited in 38 states, which indicates that most Americans support or are willing to live with some restrictions on abortion.”
Aren’t those limits within the basic trimester framework imposed by the Roe decision? (I’m not an expert on this stuff, so I’m asking).
How tight could those restrictions be without becoming unconstitutional? E.g., could a state pass a law banning abortion after the first month of pregnancy?
Stuart, if you adopted a stranger’s child, saving that child from an abortion, then you’re my hero.
But claiming ‘the law must be enforced’ (at least with regard to third and second trimester abortion) invokes precisely the issue Saletan raises. He and other pro-choicers have been raked over the coals by some other pro-choicers for suggesting that there be such laws. They claim that he doesn’t trust women enough…that he opens the door to other regulations…etc.
Well, the mother had already decided against abortion at the time, but the father had demanded that she get an abortion.
“Aren’t those limits within the basic trimester framework imposed by the Roe decision? (I’m not an expert on this stuff, so I’m asking). How tight could those restrictions be without becoming unconstitutional? E.g., could a state pass a law banning abortion after the first month of pregnancy?”
Jim, here’s what I was looking at yesterday when this topic came up and before I started shooting off my mouth here.
http://www.guttmacher.org/statecenter/spibs/spib_OAL.pdf
It’s my impression that the tighter the restrictions, the less likely the laws are to pass muster in the U.S. Supreme Court. It also seems that “fetal viability” is a somewhat murky area since many factors besides gestational age affect “viability.” There also seems to be some test of “meaningful life” that is considered as a part of “viability,” but I leave it to the lawyers to provide you with good definitions of that.
Charlie, THERE ARE such laws. Roe permits such laws. It’s the status quo. Saying we need to enforce the laws we’ve got is important–for one thing, if we don’t, it erodes their legitimacy. We can take care of this case by enforcing the laws we have–nothing more, nothing less.
The question is where do we go from here. Is this case caused by the fact that we have late term abortions (pro-life view) or that we regulate abortion at all (extreme pro-choice view).
The problem is==different people look at the case and draw different lessons from it. Just like Arizona. Or the shooting of abortion doctors. Pundits can find any lesson they want in this case–one can also say that the controversy over abortion itself created the problem–making regulators reluctant to do their jobs!
“Well, the mother had already decided against abortion at the time, but the father had demanded that she get an abortion.”
This is where unagidon’s score card falls apart. Most women know that if they give birth to a healthy infant, there are MORE than enough adoptive parents waiting for that child. Adopting a healthy infant probably does not mean you’ve “saved” it from abortion, as good and noble as adoptive parents are.
Speaking of late-term abortionists…come join me at the rally in Germantown, MD (tomorrow at 7PM). Leroy Carhart has moved to Maryland (from Nebraska) and set up shop here in the DC area. Let your peaceful Christian voice be heard.
He’s black, and I assure you there was no one else even remotely willing to adopt him.
Cathy, Saletan’s point (and I take Mollie’s point in creating this thread) is that there is an internal debate within the pro-choice community about whether such laws should exist and/or whether they should be enacted in states which don’t have them. I take another point to be that this case might/should get those who believe that the only values in play are ‘autonomy’ and ‘trusting women and doctors’ to reconsider their positions.
What has been going on rhetorically in the abortion debate which is reflected in the statement above . . .
No, Nancy, this is not the case. Everyone knows that the mortality rate for abortion refers to the death of the mother, not the death of the unborn child. Everyone also knows that pro-lifers (or at least Catholic pro-lifers) consider the unborn child to be a person, and hence they object to abortion on the grounds that a person is being killed. What I am objecting to is people who have moral objections to abortion trying to make a case against abortion on other grounds. For example, you will find many pro-life sites that claim abortion increases the risk of breast cancer. The major cancer organizations, such as the National Cancer Institute, deny this is true.
My point is, if you are pro-life, make an honest case against abortion. Don’t claim it is unsafe when it isn’t. Don’t say it causes breast cancer when it doesn’t. Pro-lifers only damage their own credibility when they make arguments against abortion that aren’t true.
David, you are mistaken, the mortality rate is the measure of the number of deaths due to a specific cause, in this case, as a result of an abortion.
All adoptive parents are on the side of the angels, includng the many white parents I know with black or mixed race adoptive children.
However, I doubt that most who adopt have directly “saved” a baby from abortion (i.e., pleaded with the mother not to adopt, promised a home for the baby no matter what, and ensured that the mother was kept safe and healthy). If you were among those who did, you’ll doubtless have your reward in heaven and my accolades here.
Sorry, pleaded with the mother not to ABORT.
Nancy,
If you want to be taken seriously, you can’t make up your own definitions. The mortality rate for abortion is calculated based on the number of pregnant women who die as the result of having an abortion. Infant mortality is calculated based on the number of infants who die after a live birth. Aborted infants who are not alive after they are out of the mother’s body do not count in either measure.
Jean, I couldn’t agree more! Stuart, thanks for adopting.
Yes, Charlie. But health and safety regs and criminal statutes on homicide are on the books everywhere.
My more fundamental problem is that this type of case isn’t the vehicle to get the discussion Saletan wants going.
The problem is that the absolutists are right.
How do you answer the question posed in the article -
“Is there anything qualitatively different about a fetus at, say, 28 weeks that gives it a morally different status to a fetus at 18 weeks or even eight weeks?”
Let’s forget about the law for a moment. What this man did was functionally no different from what Dr Tiller, and others beside, do thousands of times a year. They sever spinal cords, scramble brain tissue, snip off limbs. They just do it in the birth canal. Legal, OK, but what possible moral distinction is there?
David N takes Nancy to task on definitions, but definition are human constructs. What a thing actually is cannot be determined simply by what we define it to be. Yes, using AMA definitions of mortality, abortion is safe as houses. You just don’t count the unborn as a death. But as Catholics, that’s the moral issue, and you can’t define your way out of it. Masters define the humanity out of slaves, fascists define the humanity out of Jews, Princeton professors define the humanity out of mentally disabled children. It doesn’t make it right or true.
I think if you want to be taken seriously you shouldn’t just accept other’s definitions because they happen to have made them.
And if you want data on abortion health risks, it would be helpful if most states actually required the data to be collected. But unfortunately, abortion clinics receive less oversight and inspection than hair salons and dog kennels in most places due to the diligence and political influence of NARAL, NOW et al.
“My point is, if you are pro-life, make an honest case against abortion.”
Honest, meaning ethical I presume. A good point. As in opposition to capital punishment, it is not really “honest” in that sense to make a case against capital punishment on grounds that an innocent person might be executed, because the ethical argument is that no one – innocent or guilty – should be executed.
Put another way, if we argue against abortion on the grounds that it causes cancer, then we are implicitly accepting that if some innovation arose to assure no cancer threat, our opposition to abortion would cease. That is certainly not true.
Sean – bravo
P Flanagan,
Exactly.
Priests for Life say, “American will not reject abortion until America sees abortion,” and they provide graphic pictures. But that’s surgical (suction) abortion. If a woman takes Mifeprex orally to cause an abortion, there is nothing to see. Does that mean that only surgical abortions are objectionable?
Cathy, as I said in my very first comment, the issue that Saletan raises is a broader one and is about those who question the concept of limits on abortion at all.
This case, it seems to me, is a good one to use in questioning those (a strong and vocal group within the pro-choice community) with point of view. And it is precisely because they could not simply agree that ‘the law should be enforced’ in this case…in fact, their view that these kinds of late term abortions should be nothing other than a private decision between a woman and her doctor would lead to the opposite conclusion. And this is Saletan’s point.
That meaningful laws against third and second trimester abortion should be seriously enforced, and enacted in places where they do not exist, is an important area of common ground between pro-lifers and many pro-choicers. And this case seems to show the importance of forming a coalition to make it happen.
David N takes Nancy to task on definitions, but definition are human constructs.
Sean,
The problem with Nancy’s definition is that it is pointless in this discussion. Pro-lifers attempt to dissuade women from having abortions by telling them that abortions are unsafe for them, not for their unborn babies. My point about the mortality rate from abortion is that it is low, demonstrating that abortion is safe for pregnant women. Women going into the typical abortion clinic are not walking into Dr. Gosnell’s Chamber of Horrors. Yes, unborn babies are killed in any abortion clinic. However, that is not the point pro-lifers are trying to make by holding up Gosnell as somehow indicative of all abortionists.
From the pro-life standpoint, it is of course a legitimate argument to try to convince women that by having abortions they are killing a human person. However, it would be ludicrous to try to get the definition of the mortality rate for abortion to include the life of the unborn child. Assuming all unborn babies die in abortions, and a small number of women die also, the mortality rate would be slightly over 100%.
Charlie– Saletan raises those issues with the case. I don’t think the case has to raise those issues. That’s his mistake.
You say the case can be used to question the radical pro-choice movement. But as I said before, the radical pro-choice movement can also use the case to support its position. They can say, for example, the regs weren’t enforced because abortion is such a hot potato issue, and blame the pro-lifers, ETC.
Theoretically, this hard case can split into three responses, which I think was entirely predictable. IF you think all abortion is morally permissible, then saying that it should be legal third trimester with only health and safety regs is equally plausible. “If Women could get late-term abortions when they wanted them, butchers like this wouldn’t exist.” It’s an extension of the coat-hanger argument.
We see in it what we saw before. And that will be how the discussion will play out–just like AZ did.
“Priests for Life say, “American will not reject abortion until America sees abortion,” and they provide graphic pictures. But that’s surgical (suction) abortion. If a woman takes Mifeprex orally to cause an abortion, there is nothing to see. Does that mean that only surgical abortions are objectionable?”
The graphic display is not to inform the truth of surgical abortion per se, but to inform the truth of abortion, period. It’s not to point out that abortion produces grisly corpses, but to prove that those grisly corpses are human beings. Seeing tiny little fingers and legs in the bloody mess post-abortion says a lot more than just “yuck”. So, I think the graphic image approach is not limited in its application by non-surgical abortion.
Could this matter eventually make it to the US Supreme Court and, if so, what might the possible grounds be?
It’s not to point out that abortion produces grisly corpses, but to prove that those grisly corpses are human beings.
P Flanagan,
But pictures don’t prove that aborted embryo or fetuses are human beings. The argument that there is no human person in the first trimester is not based on how the fetus or embryo looks. I find such pictures disturbing to look at, the argument that personhood begins at conception is a philosophical or religious one, not a matter of what something looks like. And if you go by looks, then embryonic stem-cell research must be okay, because at the stage when stem cells are extracted from an embryo, it looks nothing at all like a human being.
Interestingly, the point of the absolutists that Saletan is writing about is identical (except in one key respect) to the the pro-life (or at least the Catholic pro-life) position. That is, there is no moral difference between a very early abortion and a very late one. In fact, the Catholic pro-life position is identical (except in one key respect) to Peter Singer’s position. That is, there is no moral difference between an abortion and the killing of a very young (post-born) baby.
I fail to see why pro-lifers don’t see Saletan as undermining their position, since he is arguing that early abortions are acceptable but late ones are not.
David: Who says prolifers don’t object to Saletan’s position? He’s written about their absolutist elements too. He thinks it’s foolish for either side to refuse any possible compromise, or even discussion, with the other out of commitment to ideological purity.
David,
The point about definitions was not just about Nancy’s point, but everything you are saying.
You say that pictures don’t prove an embryo is a human being. You are absolutely right they don’t. What “proves” you are a human being? (Frankly, I think the term person makes more sense, because embryos and fetuses are obviously human beings – i.e. beings that are human.)
Is it just that enough people agree you are? That you are defined as such? That you believe that you are? That the law says you are?
Flanagan’s point is not that any particular thing “proves” a fetus is a person. What he is saying is that, as with all things, information can lead to a fuller understanding of the truth of a thing. You don’t “need” pictures to understand the moral implications of abortion any more than you “need” pictures of people being abused in Darfur, or pictures of the killing fields of Cambodia to know they are horrible things. But the pictures give a greater understanding of the truth of the thing.
You ask –
I fail to see why pro-lifers don’t see Saletan as undermining their position, since he is arguing that early abortions are acceptable but late ones are not.
I fail to see your point absolutely.
As I said above. the problem he has is that the pro-abortion absolutists are right about this issue. Abortion must either be a rightful exercise of personal autonomy for a woman absolutely, or it must be absolutely wrong. The only way you can make the moral distinction between the 18 week fetus and the 28 week fetus and the 38 week fetus is by ascribing personhood to a set of biological or functional characteristics. This is inherently arbitrary.
This is what makes the Church’s position anything but identical to Singer’s. It rejects the idea that you can – in fact, that it is a horrible abuse of our faculties to try – to make this distinction.
“Assuming all unborn babies die in abortion, and a small number of women die also, the mortality rate would be slightly over 100%.”
David, I am mistaken that every abortion increases the mortality rate since we know that there are unborn babies that survive an abortion. The measure of the number of deaths due to a specific cause can never be over 100 %, for a person has only one Life and thus only one Death. Those who are alive while residing in their Mother’s Womb and die as a result of an abortion, increase the mortality rate due to abortion.
The company in Italy that makes the drug for use in death penalty cases has refused to stop making if it is used to put people to death. So the US has a problem. Can we learn from secular Italy and the rest of Europe?
As I wrote somewhere else. Maybe we have too many fanatical religious people in the US. Europe has gone secularist but apparently more humane. Augustine, Athanasius and Co are alive and well in the US where people scream for blood rather than mercy. Those new Christians of the fourth century started killing Christians for the first time and have never stopped. The Beatitudes are considered not workable while the death penalty, right to life and opposition to Same Sex marriages define the Christian in the US. Miserere nobis!!
Her is the url
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5jODoH_1TkFIsm6wVvPgW2LzxOEzQ?docId=bf71735e757d4ba5a0412f3ceb38a81c
“But the pictures give a greater understanding of the truth of the thing.”
Well put. I wonder if the nearly universal revulsion to the Holocaust would be at the same “never again!” pitch if there had never been any photographs of the starving skeleton survivors and the mounds of corpses? Without them, six million would be just a statistic, no more compelling than the larger number deliberately starved by Stalin in the Ukraine.
And today, without photographs of aborted fetuses, the average American doesn’t even think about the number one million, as in abortions in this nation, per year.
Back to Mollie’s questions:
“Will this case promote the reflection Saletan thinks it should? Or will ‘absolutists’ insist that Gosnell’s only crime was poor medical treatment of the women he (illegally but, per their logic, legitimately) agreed to treat well after their babies were potentially viable?”
It seems to have promoted reflection, but the reflection it has promoted among the pro-choicers in my sphere is that Gosnell is what you get when you make abortion illegal. Pennsylvania law prohibits late abortions, women sought them out, and resorted to Gosnell to provide them. They completely beg the question Saletan and other here have raised about the issue of fetal age and viability. In their view, women who want abortions at any time will be able to get them; why should they have to risk their lives to do so?
“If you’ve adopted the argument that women’s autonomy is the most important thing at stake, is it possible to draw a line at all?”
While some of the absolutist pro-choicers Saletan quotes would clearly say no, others don’t see this as an “autonomy” question but as a health and safety question. This analogy was used: Having a late term abortion might be stupid or wrong. So is getting a tattoo. But people will get them, so why not reduce the spread of death and disease by regulating the clinics that provide them?
Comparing a fetus to a tattoo is, of course, abhorrent. But there ya go, just reporting what the folks I know are saying.
The point about definitions was not just about Nancy’s point, but everything you are saying.
Sean,
Remember that I am not the one who is trying to change the definition of the word person, you and Nancy are. We are discussing the law here, and an unborn infant has never been recognized as a person under the law. (And please, no quotes from the Declaration of Independence.)
Now, if you want to change the legal definition of a person, you have to make an argument. If you are saying there is no way to define a person, how are you going to make an argument that an unborn baby is a person? How are you going to make an argument that a chimpanzee is not a person? Willingly suspending disbelief, were ET, Klattu, Mork, Data, The Doctor, Mr. Spock, and HAL persons? (Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, maybe.)
This is all futile, of course, because there are any number of ways to define person, and those who are pro-abortion aren’t going to accept a definition that includes a first-trimester fetus, and those who are anti-abortion (in the Catholic manner) are not going to accept a definition that excludes any fetus, embryo, or fertilized egg.
There is a tone to these discussions that makes it sound like people who do not commit to the absolute pro-life position are barbaric and secretly know in their hearts that they approve of murder. In actuality, nobody really knows the answers to most of these questions. We all have our religious, philosophical, and legal beliefs. I am not, by the way, saying that any person’s beliefs are just as valid as any other person’s. But I am saying that while many pro-lifers have a deep religious faith or philosophical belief that a human person is present from the moment of conception, that doesn’t mean they are right and that they are better persons than those who disagree with them. The feeling of certitude when a person is wrong is exactly the same as the feeling of certitude when a person is right.
Perhaps we should all read the same good books pro and con on abortion — say David Boonin’s and Christopher Kaczor’s, and disallow any messages here that make points already made in one of the two books. Then we would not be going over the same ground again and again and again.
“But the pictures give a greater understanding of the truth of the thing.”
Then all you meat-eaters need to see pictures of how animals are raised and slaughtered. How many here have ever visited a slaughterhouse or seen films or pictures of animals being killed? We need to see some authentic battlefield photos of limbs blown off, brains oozing out of skulls, and entrails spilling all over the ground. And we need to see lots of pictures of the living conditions of poor people in the United States, especially when social programs are being voted against by Republicans.
“In their view, women who want abortions at any time will be able to get them; why should they have to risk their lives to do so?”
And is that not the same argument for passing out clean needles to drug addicts, or condoms to horny teenagers? They are going to do ____ anyway, let’s at least make it safer for them?
“Then all you meat-eaters need to see pictures of how animals are raised and slaughtered. How many here have ever visited a slaughterhouse or seen films or pictures of animals being killed? We need to see some authentic battlefield photos of limbs blown off, brains oozing out of skulls, and entrails spilling all over the ground.”
In fact, the current aversion to even the historically negligible casualties in Iraq and Afghanistan (I’m not discounting the sacrifice of those individuals who HAVE given the last full measure, just stating a historical fact regarding war casualties) is precisely because of today’s public awareness of the blood and gore involved. The Vietnam War was certainly lost (for better or worse) by the nightly depiction of wounded and killed American soldiers. During WWII no photos of dead GIs were allowed to be published. If they had, would the American public have maintained their support to the extent of the sacrifices that were made on the home front, or would they have wavered as did the Vietnam generation?
In short, yes, depiction of the horrors of war HAS made war less acceptable in our society. The case for war had to be made even after 9/11 because of this mindset (and that was a good thing, that a case was expected to be made). It is inconceivable that FDR would have had to justify fighting back after the attack on Pearl Harbor.
So, I think you undermine your own argument by opposing graphic images of the bitter fruits of abortion. Graphical images in your own examples have proved to be effective in effecting social change…for the better.
During WWII no photos of dead GIs were allowed to be published.
P Flanagan,
I watch the news regularly, and I can recall seeing an image of a dead American soldier in Iraq and Afghanistan only once, and it was pixellated. We see only the most sanitized depictions of war. I have seen film footage of soldiers that have been shot being taken care of by medics or evacuated, but I have not seen any who just had an arm or a leg blown off, or a serious head injury.
As one who believes WWII was indeed necessary, I would have strongly objected if isolationists had used graphic battlefield images to try to turn Americans against the war.
Graphic images are seldom if ever helpful in making a reasoned decision. Things that are very ugly may be necessary. Things that look very appealing may have terrible consequences. I once worked on an anatomy and physiology book (I work in the publishing industry) that had a cross section of a human head in it. (To make matters worse, the book designer sent it out to have a photocopy made of it, and the vendor made an error and sent back a poster-sized version!) It creeps me out just to think of it. But this was a major book used by thousands of nursing students. It was a very good thing.
If I decide to become a vegetarian, or oppose a war, it won’t be because of pictures.
pictures…
Rather than graphic images of aborted fetuses, I’d prefer that people view and seriously consider fetal development pictures like those at this website:
http://www.webmd.com/baby/slideshow-fetal-development
As far as “person” is concerned, it’s a status marker for who is entitled to legal protection and who isn’t. “Person” isn’t fixed in the cosmos as some unalterable principle of nature. It’s arbitrary in that it can change as the attitudes, perceptions, and consciousness of society change. Legal tags change or are refined all the time–trying pinning down “proximate cause,” for example.
A human being should be afforded legal protection–no matter what its stage of biological development–simply because it is human and therefore entitled to recognition of its intrinsic and inherent personal dignity. As more and more people come to acknowledge this immutable quality that each human possesses (and I think the numbers are growing), the legal appellation “person” will attach.
Would those who are dead set against abortion in any and all cases maintain that position if it was possible to determine the sexual orientation while still in utero of the (fetus)(baby) will be lesbian, gay or bisexual? If it was going to be one of their children? Grandchildren? How about situations where the birthed individual turns out to need to become transgender?
Just asking.
“Graphic images are seldom if ever helpful in making a reasoned decision.”
I’m not convinced that’s true. When Matthew Brady and other early photographers took photographs of dead Union and Confederate soldiers on battlefields, the published photos dramatically altered the public’s misperception that the Civil War was a gallant endeavor with little blood being spilled. The horror of war certainly became a large part of the public consciousness.
Jean
These abortions are not “outlawed” in PA. PA like most states, prohibits abortions at “viability.” Who gets to judge if the fetus is “viable”? The one performing the abortion. In fact, the method of abortion that this guy uses – commonly called partial birth abortion -is technically illegal, but alas, Plannned Parenthood et al. have been successful at preventing enforcement through court action. Just as they have fought any kind of regulation and vigorous inspection of abortion facilities.
This guy was no back alley abortionist. Everyone knew he provided late-term abortions. So if people are saying this proves what happens if you outlaw abortion on demand – that’s simply not possible.
David,
If you are saying I would change the legal definition of a person to include the unborn – at least for puposes of having a right to life – you are right. What I am saying to you is that definitions like this are mutable and arbitrary. They are not what we should base our moral position on.
I guess what I am saying is that you are claiming a moral position based on a human definition, and I am saying we should base our human definition on the proper moral position. You wouldn’t defend slavery because it was legal would you?
I didn’t say you couldn’t define or describe personhood at all, but that you couldn’t define personhood by reference to functions or physical circumstances or time – which is the only way you can make the distinction between what this guy did and what other do every day. What moral difference is there between severing a spinal chord in the birth canal and doing it 5 minutes later 5 inches away? I understand there is a legal difference, but the moral basis for the distinction is ridiculous.
Finally, you say – There is a tone to these discussions that makes it sound like people who do not commit to the absolute pro-life position are barbaric and secretly know in their hearts that they approve of murder.
I ask why you think this? Believe me, I live in Massachusetts, most of the people I know do not agree with me, and I don’t think they “secretly know” anything like this in their hearts. They are good people, most of them, but they are wrong. What am I supposed to do, lie to preserve their feelings? I don’t go around preaching on this issue, but if it is discussed I say what I believe. Why is this a threat?
Jimmy Mac,
Yes
Jimmy Mac–
Yes to all of your questions. Inherent personal dignity has nothing to do with sexual orientation, gender, race, disability, mental capacity, etc.
I’ll turn your question around using your same premise that sexual orientation can be screened in utero: Would those who are pro-choice use sexual orientation as the basis for aborting a human being who is lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender? I cringe mightily to say it, but I bet that there would be instances where abortions would happen with such circumstances.
“We see only the most sanitized depictions of war.”
You’re right, David, it is probably more accurate to say that current coverage of Iraq/Afghanistan focuses on prosthetic devices and flag-draped caskets without blood in sight. But isn’t the point the same: photographic depictions that emotionally involve the viewer to move against the action depicted?
BTW, I maintain that photographic depictions on the nightly news definitely influenced public opposition to the Vietnam War. Not just American soldiers, either, but the Pulitzer winning photo of the little girl running naked from the napalm strike, and the summary execution of the Viet Cong leader by pistol. Sanitized?
“If I decide to become a vegetarian, or oppose a war, it won’t be because of pictures.”
But do you acknowledge that some other people might be moved, sooner or later, toward realization of the sanctity of human life through graphical abortion photographs? And for others who would be repulsed, for whom the depiction would supposedly backfire… were they ever going to be open to a more reasonable argument against abortion anyway?
Do you think Martin Luther King and the other civil rights workers should have restrained themselves to only calmly reasoned arguments instead of diner sit downs? Do you think the depictions of Bull Connor and his dogs and water hoses had no influence on the nation finally comprehending the evil of segregation? For that matter, we could consider “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” as a “visual” depiction of slavery prior to mass-market photography and that book was essential in raising the consciousness of the Northern people to the evil of slavery.
“I’d prefer that people view and seriously consider fetal development pictures”
William is absolutely right. And this would, I am sure, be more productive overall to the prolife cause than graphical images of aborted fetuses. But have you noticed the pro-abortionist desperate fight against requiring ultrasound images to be viewed by a woman considering an abortion? “Informed choice” indeed. Thankfully, it looks like my home nation (secession pending ;-) will finally be able to pass a bill for ultrasound, now that the Democrats have been voted out of even filibuster power.
“Would those who are pro-choice use sexual orientation as the basis for aborting a human being who is lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender?”
Or possibly more precise: Would those who are pro-choice SUPPORT THE CHOICE OF OTHERS TO use sexual orientation as the basis for aborting a human being who is lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender?
Inherent personal dignity has nothing to do with sexual orientation, gender, race, disability, mental capacity, etc.
William Collier,
Would that everyone who claims to be “pro-life” (and, of course, everyone else, too) actually behaved as if that were true. Those who are gay — I think I can make this generalization without fear of being wrong — quite rightly expect to have their personal dignity respected more by those who are politically liberal (and tend to be pro-choice) than those who are politically conservative (and tend to be “pro-life”).
I agree with Jean Raber’s judgment that “the Church’s absolutist teaching against abortion … hurts the prolife cause.” I agree for all the reasons offered by Dan O’Brien in The Church and Abortion: A Catholic Dissent, reviewed critically in the January 14th issue of Commonweal.
I agree also that it makes no moral sense that a pregnant mother must die because a fetus 11 weeks old fetus cannot be aborted to save her life. I agree because it is the women’s right to determine for herself the rightness of aborting a fetus that has no chance of living if she herself should die.
My reaons for agreeing on this latter point is this: It has long has been the Catholic position that, “if medical treatment or surgical operation, necessary to save a mother’s life, is applied to her organism (though the child’s death would, or at least might, follow as a regretted but unavoidable consequence), it should not be maintained that the fetal life is thereby directly attacked. Moralists agree that we are not always prohibited from doing what is lawful in itself, though evil consequences may follow which we do not desire. The good effects of our acts are then directly intended, and the regretted evil consequences are reluctantly permitted to follow because we cannot avoid them. The evil thus permitted is said to be indirectly intended.” Coppens, Charles. “Abortion.” The Catholic Encyclopedia. Vol. 1. New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1907. 21 Jan. 2011 http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/01046b.htm
Harold,
The medical treatment or surgical operation was not applied to the mother’s organism. It was applied to the child.
“There is a tone to these discussions that makes it sound like people who do not commit to the absolute pro-life position are barbaric and secretly know in their hearts that they approve of murder.”
Yeah, that’s so, but there are enough other people making sense, so I suppose that’s why I get on here and try to continue to wrestle with this issue. Sometimes I’m tempted to suggest that pro-choice absolutists be required, as a kind of reverse “informed consent” exercise, to look at pictures of women in the last stages of death by pulmonary hypertension in the embryonic stages of pregnancy. But I suspect, like the absolutist pro-choicers, the absolutist pro-lifers would say that the sad pictures are beside the real point.
Meantime, I trust that Jesus Christ on his cross hangs with those women who die from problem pregnancies, and he will deal with those who performed abortions and those who let them die as he will.
“These abortions are not ‘outlawed’ in PA. PA like most states, prohibits abortions at ‘viability.’ Who gets to judge if the fetus is ‘viable’? The one performing the abortion.”
Sean, I see your distinction; but as I understand it, the reason they’re going after this guy (aside from the filthy conditions of his clinic) is that he was aborting babies clearly after they were “viable.” So he was breaking the law, no? Yes, I also understand that “viability” is a very slip-slidey concept in the law; it involves more factors than fetal age. I believe that in some states two doctors are required to agree on viability so as to take the profit motive out of the abortion.
“A human being should be afforded legal protection–no matter what its stage of biological development–simply because it is human and therefore entitled to recognition of its intrinsic and inherent personal dignity. As more and more people come to acknowledge this immutable quality that each human possesses (and I think the numbers are growing), the legal appellation “person” will attach.”
Bill C. –
Just what is this “immutable quality”. How do you test it when you think you’ve found it?
David, the definition of person is a Human Individual, a.k.a. Human Being.
Ann–
If it’s o.k. with you, I’ll draw on one philosopher, bioethicist Gilbert Meilaender, to answer the question of another philosopher, you. :)
In his book “Neither Beast Nor God: The Dignity of the Human Person,” Meilaender emphasizes Kierkegaard’s concept of the individual as comprising both “the one and only” and “every man.” Meilaender uses these distinctions to support his argument that humans have both “human dignity” and “personal dignity.” He equates “the one and only” with “human dignity” and “every man” with personal dignity.”
Meilaender expounds on these terms at some length, but, in short, he sees human dignity as a comparative concept:
“Because our life is marked by characteristic powers and capacities, we are naturally inclined to think in terms of comparative degrees of human distinction or dignity–and of some as more dignified than others. Just as some of us flourish, displaying humanity at its fullest and best, others of us have, at most, a kind of basic humanity that falls far short of the full development of human possibilities–’an anthropological minor league.’…If dignity is a comparative concept , grounded in certain capacities, which may or may not be present, some human beings will have greater dignity than others, some will conduct themselves in a more dignified manner than others, and some may have lives utterly devoid of human dignity. That is how we think of an individual as ‘the one and only’–as distinguished by certain characteristics (or, of course, in a negative mode, by the lack of those characteristics).”
According to Meilaender, thinking only in terms of human dignity may lead “naturally to the quantitative language of ‘value’ and the conclusion that the lives of some people are ‘worth’ less than the lives of others.”
Meilaender continues with a discussion of “personal dignity,” which he describes as “the equal dignity or worth of the individual person”:
“If …we think first in terms of personal dignity, we are likely to emphasize individual equality, affirming–or insisting–that every person, simply by virtue of his or her humanity, is one whose dignity calls for our respect. Nothing we can do or suffer can deprive us of the dignity that belongs to each person. We may offend against that dignity or fail to recognize it, but we cannot destroy it or blot it out. To think this way is to honor and uphold not simply a true humanism, but also a true personalism.”
He states further:
“Personal dignity … has to do not with species-specific powers and limits but with the individual person, whose dignity calls for our respect whatever his powers and limits may be. It is closely tied to our affirmation of human equality. Each concept is needed and merits our attention, but it is personal dignity that provides a cantus firmus underlying and sustaining the whole.”
When I used the term “immutable quality,” I was thinking about Meilaender’s statement “that every person, simply by virtue of his or her humanity, is one whose dignity calls for our respect. Nothing we can do or suffer can deprive us of the dignity that belongs to each person. We may offend against that dignity or fail to recognize it, but we cannot destroy it or blot it out.” If this is true, then there is nothing to search for or to test when we encounter another human being.
“Now, if you want to change the legal definition of a person, you have to make an argument. If you are saying there is no way to define a person, how are you going to make an argument that an unborn baby is a person? How are you going to make an argument that a chimpanzee is not a person? Willingly suspending disbelief, were ET, Klattu, Mork, Data, The Doctor, Mr. Spock, and HAL persons? (Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, maybe.)”
David N. –
You seem to be the only one here willing to face the ultimate legal and moral questions:: what is a person? and how do you tell one when you find one?
Without answers to these two questions, these arguments will never end because consideration of the real issues has never really begun:
Bill C, -
Meilaender’s position is admirable. But it doesn’t answer just exactly what those identifying properties of a person are, nor why they are relevant.
One of the undiscussed issues in this case is the matter of humaneness. The abortionist’s behavior is decried as particularly awful because of the manner in which he killed the babies.
But why is it hideously inhuman to kill as he did and not hideously inhumane to kill the organisms in the womb the ways most abortionists do? (Isn’t that Saletan’s big question?)
There has been a certain brutalization of human sensibility in this country since Roe. Pro-abortion people who wouldn’t dream of allowing a kitten to be torn apart as a manner of euthanizing it nevertheless approve or at least accept such a method of killing a human organism in the womb. Why aren’t they lobbying for laws to treat the “non-person” more humanely?
There is a certain irrationality in all of this. Be kind to kittens, but not your own flesh and blood.
Jean,
I admit that instances where the life of a mother is in danger are the hard case morally, but reliance on them as a principal basis for abortion on demand.
For the short time that the state of Kansas collected data on late-term abortions (all of which were done at the Tiller clinic) of the over 2000 abortions performed, not one involved a threat to the life of the mother. In the UK, for 2008, over 98% of abortions were performed for social reasons, while only .002% involved a risk of maternal mortality.
Jimmy Mac’s attempt at a provocative question demonstrates another, more significant, moral dimension of abortion. More than one in one hundred abortions is perfomed due to some “defect” in the unborn child. The most common being down’s syndrome, cleft palates, and club feet. Things like sex and race don’t even get counted. Do we really want a genetic test for sexual orientation?
And for all those who care so much about women’s “choice” there is growing evidence that a significant number of abortions – some studies indicate more than 1/3 – are the direct result of pressure brought on the pregnant woman by a man. Typically a boyfriend, husband, or father.
Finally, this abortionist was arrested because he killed a woman. Without that, he would have continued practicing. The law didn’t stop him before that and it wouldn’t have.
David,
You say -
“Those who are gay — I think I can make this generalization without fear of being wrong — quite rightly expect to have their personal dignity respected more by those who are politically liberal (and tend to be pro-choice) than those who are politically conservative (and tend to be “pro-life”).”
Again a question of definitions. I accept the respect the personal dignity of gay people, I do not accept the morality of homosexual behavior. These are different things. No one should make the claim that respect for my dignity as a person requires you to accept my behavior.
In short, you are saying to accept other’s human dignity I must surrender a bit of my own.
Finally, this abortionist was arrested because he killed a woman. Without that, he would have continued practicing. The law didn’t stop him before that and it wouldn’t have.
That’s not right. He was ultimately arrested for and charged with a number of crimes, including the death of that woman and the murder of multiple babies (the ones they could document). But it wasn’t the woman’s death that finally drew the police’s attention. The grand jury document says so explicitly: It was a raid on Gosnell’s clinic to investigate his illegal prescription-drug-selling business that forced them to take note of all the other very illegal things he’d been doing there.
I don’t think this is an appropriate occasion to debate which political persuasion is more compassionate to gay people.
If what Mollie says is accurate, and when is it ever not, then the murder of these human beings would have gone undetected if not for the fortuitous investigation into the illegal prescription drug selling. That the State agencies in charge of licensing this “clinic” were so grossly negligent, and that the motivation for ignoring the crimes was the politics of abortion, is unconscionable. I’m a little bit disappointed that I’ve not seen, from certain quarters in here, calls for an immediate and nation-wide investigation into what goes on at these “clinics.” Seems like there’s no hesitation for call for investigations of, say, the Church hierarchy when nothing even approaching murder was suspected.
Sean, apparently, I have given the impression that I am using rare (and what I view as morally ambiguous cases, such as the woman in the first trimester with pulmonary hypertension) to defend abortion on demand.
Let me clarify that that is not my position at all, and, appearances to the contrary, I try to be obedient to Church teaching. But it doesn’t always make sense to me, and I see far more gray areas than you do.
I merely believe, from comments made by doctrinaire pro-choice factions of my family, that Gossell’s case is being used to defend abortion on demand (through logic I find as faulty as you do).
I know you find my comments here and on just about every other thread ill-informed, annoying, and stupid. Let me offer a blanket apology for having been, being, and likely to be on future posts, quite tiresome.
Ann–
I think that “simply by virtue of his or her humanity” in Meilaender’s discussion is having the DNA complement that identifies a living thing as homo sapiens. If a living thing has that molecular profile, it’s human and entitled to have its personal dignity recognized and respected.
Let me ask you this, and I’m not being flippant: When did you become human? When do any of us become human if not at conception? If conception is not the point of entry into the human race, then what is the point of entry, and is it the same for all? If there is no definite moment, and we all become human at various times in our life cycles, then why wouldn’t we choose conception as the default mode so that we ensure that no one’s personal dignity is ever violated? We’re here at this moment in time looking back at stages in in utero development that each and every one of us went through, and we’re making life-and-death decisions about others who can’t join in our conversation and express their opinions about whether they acquiesce to be intentionally destroyed. At a minimum, I find the one-sided conversation very unsettling.
Mark, I think more inspections of clinics is a great idea. In Michigan, both RTL and Planned Parenthood have called for tougher controls in the wake of the closure of two clinics a couple of years ago for violations.
I wouldn’t rush to imply that NOT thinking of that is some sort of litmus test of whether “certain quarters” truly care for the unborn.
I do find it distasteful that you would use the outrages at Gossell’s clinic as some sort of defense of Church hierarchs who turned a blind eye or actively covered up sexual abuse. Sorta like saying, well, at least Jared Loughner isn’t as bad as Hitler because he didn’t kill so many people.
To look at this a different way:
What if the common ground we all could take from this case is that our society needs to help both poor women and the unborn. This doctor killed them both. Pro choicers sometimes want to help poor women at the expense of their unborn children and pro lifers sometimes want to ignore the women to save the babies. But, really disregard for the poor and the unborn are part and parcel of the same thing, and they go together, so we must oppose both together.
Bill C –
The big problem with making DNA that which identifies a person as a person is that every cell in a human body has a full complement of the DNA sequence except sperm and eggs. So if DNA is the marker, then, as Carl Sagan noted years ago, every human cell is a human person. If you cut your finger and suck the blood away, you’re a murderer. I don’t think anybody holds that. (And there are some other problems with DNA, for instance, the problem of twining, and the fact that some cells twin and the revert back to being the first cell. Obviously, identity cannot be said to be established until there is more than one cell. But, yes, there is still much to learn.)
When did I become human? First I have to say what I mean by “a human person”. I mean a rational animal. A rational one is one that performs rational activities, including making generalizations, judging, and reasoning.
HOw do I know an organism is a specifically rational one? That is, how do I know what it is? The same way I know what *any other* sort of thing is — I KNOW WHAT A THING IS BY WHAT IT DOES. This old principle of Aristotelian science is still one of the fundamental principles of contemporary sciences, from biology all the way down to chemistry to physics. To abandon this principle is to abandon science,
So how do I know if an organism is a rational one? Obviously not directly, not even with born people. With born people the sign of rationality is found in the expression of rational thoughts by means of language. But blastocytes and fetuses can’t talk, so how can we possibly tell if they are *rational* animals?
Enter neurobiology. The nerobiologist tell us that certain parts of the brain are where rational thinking takes place. (Most of those scientists actually *identify* brain activity == the chemical activity – with thinking, but we won’t argue that here.) Anyway, it is clear that without the proper body there cannot be a human person, and specifically without a brain with the proper parts there cannot be specifically rational activitiy. Now it gets interesting: the neurobiologists tell us that “the higher kinds of thinking” are done by the prefrontal cortex, a part of the brain.
So if there is going to be rational thinking there must be that sort of brain cell already developed. Those cells are a condition of rationality, and we have no reason to think that there can be one without the other (rationality without brains). So once the cells necessary for rational thinking are present *and active* this is an indication that there is rationality being exercised (just as when talking is a sign of a born human person). . That is, with the activity of the prefrontal cortex we have evidence of the presence of a rational reality. Without such evidence, well, there simply isn’t evidence that the organism can think rationally, so there is no evidence that it is a person yet.
Err, maybe — It might be that prefrontal cells are not *enough* for rational thinking. There might be other parts of the brain involved in rational thinking. But it seems to me that theoretically it is possible, even likely, that the brain scientists will eventually tell us which parts of the brain are necessary for there to be evidence of a rational sort of activity. When we knowthat we will have the strongest evidence so far of when the blastocyte/fetus is a whole human person.
There are scholastic arguments that the organism isn’t a person until many weeks after conception. With more biological knowledge they might prove eventually to be sound. But as of now, I’m not yet convinced.
See these two fine articles showing the relevance of the Aristotelian principles to the current debate. No, not the Aristotelian biology == the Aristotelian metaphysics. It’s still the best going, I think. Neither appeals to theology, only philosophy.
Thomas A. Shannon and Allan B. Wolter. “Reflections on the Moral Status of the Pre-Embryo”. Theological Studies. Sept. 1990.
Joseph Donceel. “Immediate Animation and Delayed Hominization.” Theological Studies. Mar. 1970.
Both are purely philosophical consideration. Wolter was one of the great medieval scholars of the 20th century who also knew a great deal of science. Donceel was also a respected scholar who knew a lot of the science of his day. Both are easy to understand.
You won’t find many references to these articles in the usual considerations of the morality of abortion, either pro- or con-. But they’re the best things I’ve seen. They get down to the basics: what is a person and how we tell one when we find one. A lot more biology has been discovered since they were written, but I think their basic principles still mainly hold, and, in fact, the new biology is quite consistent with the old principles.
I do hope that all of those “yeses” in answer to my question(s) above are the answer that would be given in chill of the dark night when forced to come to grips with that situations in point.
I state this because I know of many, many gays and lesbians who have been totally abandoned by their families once the truth became known. Luckily neither I nor my partner have suffered this tragedy. Au contraire.
This was particulalry true during the advent and height of the HIV/AIDS epidemic in the 1980s. The horror stories that I heard and experienced give me pause to question whether one can trust the “yes” in all cases. Parents who are so devastated when they learn of their child’s sexual orientation (NOT preference!) might behave quite differently than “yes” if they could “prevent this disaster” before birth.
But, I’m just speculating —–
Again a question of definitions. I accept the respect the personal dignity of gay people, I do not accept the morality of homosexual behavior. These are different things. No one should make the claim that respect for my dignity as a person requires you to accept my behavior.
Sean,
I wasn’t discussing you, personally. I was making a broad generalization. One can respect the personal dignity of people whose behavior one does not approve of. (Evangelium Vitae: Not even a murderer loses his personal dignity, and God himself pledges to guarantee this.) I stand by my statement.
Conservatives are perfectly happy to make (negative) generalizations about liberals, but they resist the idea that one can make generalizations about conservatives. I am not sure how helpful it is to make these kinds of broad generalizations, but generalizations about conservatives are just as valid as generalizations about liberals. A devout, religiously conservative Catholic who is nevertheless politically liberal Democrat might say, “The thing I am least happy about among liberal Democrats is the widespread acceptance of abortion.” Are you claiming that a devout, religiously conservative Catholic who is a politically conservative Republican cannot fill in the blank and say, “The thing I am least happy about among conservative Republicans is __________”?
If so, then I guess conservative Republicanism is in perfect harmony with Catholicism.
If it is true Carl Sagan noted years ago, that if DNA is the marker for a Human Person, then every human cell was a Human Person, he was not only being intellectually lazy, he was being irrational. Which just goes to show you, not every Human Being is rational.
I do hope that all of those “yeses” in answer to my question(s) above are the answer that would be given in chill of the dark night when forced to come to grips with that situations in point.
Jimmy,
If suddenly it became the case those who were pro-choice were the only ones to obtain abortions, I bet the abortion rate would drop noticeably, and perhaps sharply.
“So if DNA is the marker, then, as Carl Sagan noted years ago, every human cell is a human person.”
Regardless of smart the person is who makes this argument, the argument itself is shockingly dumb. DNA “proves” that the cell is human. What “proves” that the thing in question is a being is that it is an organism that contains everthing it needs to direct its own growth (there are more precise ways to say this) and, if nothing gets in the way, grows into those things we call human babies, infants, toddlers, etc. A human embryo ALWAYS grows this way, and human finger nail NEVER does. How much more different can 2 things be than always and never? Yet, smart people still seem to get tripped up over this one.
Let me ask you this, and I’m not being flippant: When did you become human?
William,
Say a fertility clinic burns to the ground, and a staff of three die in the fire. Say also that there were 150 frozen embryos who perished. How would you regard a headline saying, “153 Die in Clinic Fire”?
It seems to me one problem with using DNA to determine if an organism is a “human person” or not is that no two people have the same DNA. Also, what belongs to one species as opposed to another species is not a matter of “fact.” It is true that homo sapiens has no close enough relatives that there are doubts where to draw the species barriers, but on the other hand chimpanzees and homo sapiens are about 97% the same. The possibility of a human-chimp hybrid has not absolutely been ruled out in nature, and almost certainly be produced by (very unethical) scientists. If a “humanzee” or “chuman” is born, how will it be known whether or not it must be treated as a person? If an alien life form visits earth, how will we know if the aliens are persons? Clark Kent/Superman had no human DNA. Was he not a person? What if a sophisticated computer becomes self-aware. How will we know if it is a person? Certainly not by its DNA. These are reasons why I reject the “human DNA makes you a person” argument.
God is a person (three actually), and angels are persons. How do we know? Not by their DNA.
Mark P. ==
You haven’t read the argment properly. Sagan said IF DNA is the marker of personhood . . . That’s a hypothetical, and on the assumption that it is (as many other people, e.g., Nancy, hold) then it would follow that every cell is a human person.
Nobody is denying that DNA is “human” in an adjectival sense. Yours is a straw man argument.
Further, given the necessity for human mothers in establishing the fetus in the womb and the nourishment needed to develop in certain ways, it is blatantly false to say that “it is an organism that contains everything it needs to direct its own grown”.
Some embryos do not always end up “a human being”. Some end up monsters. Some end up Siamese twins with one body shared by two heads.
The biological issues are not nearly so simple as you make them out to be.
Some end up monsters? Siamese twins are not human beings? Now I’m really confused.
What “proves” that the thing in question is a being is that it is an organism that contains everthing it needs to direct its own growth (there are more precise ways to say this) and, if nothing gets in the way, grows into those things we call human babies, infants, toddlers, etc
Mark,
Except it would appear from Catholic teaching that (here it comes) the majority of fertilized eggs do not contain everything they need to direct their own growth into human babies. Are the infants who are genetically so anomalous that they cannot survive an otherwise normal pregnancy not human persons? Also, what about anencephalic babies, born with only a partial brain or no brain at all, and destined to die within a few days. Are they similar enough to “real” humans to be considered persons? Or are they so different they fall into another category.
Here is the problem I see with your comments. You say that a fertilized egg or an early embryo is a human person because — if nothing interferes — it has everything it needs to grown into a person like us. But the severely disabled (e.g., bodies without brains) are not like us in a very profound way. Also — and here it comes — you say that if something has everything it needs to become like us if nothing interferes, it is a human person like we are human persons. But this is true of acorns and oak trees, and chickens and eggs. Having everything required to develop into a human person is not the mark of a human person. It is the mark of a potential person.
Are there really souls in purgatory? If so, do they have DNA? If not, then does that mean they are not human persons?
David N. ==
The medievals argued about this and never really made up their collective mind. As I remember Thomas said that after death we are “incomplete substances” until the Resurrection, but this a contradiction in terms, as I see it. Another problem with the Aristotelian notion of substance. But unlike some of the Platonists Thomas wasn’t willing to turn us into angels even temporarily.
David, every Human cell is not a Human Being because every Human cell is not a husband or wife, father or mother, son or daughter, brother or sister…
“I think more inspections of clinics is a great idea. In Michigan, both RTL and Planned Parenthood have called for tougher controls in the wake of the closure of two clinics a couple of years ago for violations.”
Not sure about Michigan, but the Pennsylvania case was a politically tinged, overtly pro-abortion decision to stop inspecting abortion clinics:
From the grand jury report: “The Pennsylvania Department of Health abruptly decided, for political reasons, to stop inspecting abortion clinics at all. The politics in question were not anti-abortion, but pro. With the change of administration from Governor Casey to Governor Ridge, officials concluded that inspections would be “putting a barrier up to women” seeking abortions.“
“We are discussing the law here, and an unborn infant has never been recognized as a person under the law.”
David: what about laws under which the death of a pregnant woman AND her fetus are prosecuted as two separate killings? Is that not recognition of the person-hood of an unborn child? If not, how can they prosecute someone for killing something that is not a person?
See, eg
http://www.ncsl.org/default.aspx?tabid=14386
“Fetal Homicide State Laws”
P Flanagan,
I hope you do not take the findings of the grand jury to mean that those who are pro-choice are not concerned about the safety of abortion clinics.
P. Flanagan: You don’t need to link elsewhere for that quote from the grand jury report; I cited it above. But unfortunately, even before Ridge took office — when Gosnell was already in business, and inspections were being carried out — the inspectors weren’t following through on the violations they noted. What was needed then to stop this was not a new sweep of inspections or firmer regulations, but follow-through on the regulations already in place. And the grand jury cited several factors aside from the political nature of abortion that seemed to prevent that from happening. It’s a black eye for multiple state departments in Pennsylvania.
David: it seems to me it’s a cautionary tale to prochoicers who resist inspections as just another infringement on women’s rights. The inspections could have protected these women from exploitation. (But, again, they weren’t really doing that even pre-Ridge, which everyone should be able to agree is a shame.)
P.S. While we’re looking at the grand jury document — I know I’m late getting to this, but for the record. Sean Hannaway wrote above, These abortions are not “outlawed” in PA. PA like most states, prohibits abortions at “viability.” Who gets to judge if the fetus is “viable”? The one performing the abortion. But here’s what the grand jury report says (p. 3):
I’m going to assume they have the law correct.
“I hope you do not take the findings of the grand jury to mean that those who are pro-choice are not concerned about the safety of abortion clinics.”
Of course they are concerned, they certainly don’t want to discourage abortion by having unsafe clinics. The point, as Mollie says, is that the climate of abortion led to a situation where inspections were not done for fear of “inhibiting a woman’s choice”.
John 3:20 “For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come toward the light, so that his works might not be exposed.”
David, would be interested to hear your response to the Fetal Homicide State Laws in regard to “personhood” of the fetus.
Even Shakespeare gave us comic relief when such as Lady Macbeth got too overwhelming. Who will relieve of us the verbiage of abortion. Oh I forgot. It is the number one issue of our times. Tell us like it is Bishop Tobin et alii.
David–
I’m surprised, you usually read my comments more carefully. I specifically did NOT say “grow into a person like us” or “become like us” or “develop into a human person.” That would be a category error. An infant has the potential to become a toddler, but they are each human beings. A baby has the potential to develop into an infant, but they are each human beings. A fetus has the potential to become a baby, but they are each human beings. An embryo has the potential to develop into a fetus, but they are each human beings.
David, would be interested to hear your response to the Fetal Homicide State Laws in regard to “personhood” of the fetus.
P Flanagan,
Such laws are quite recent and have been passed largely with the efforts of pro-lifers. To try to use them in a debate about abortion to establish the personhood of the fetus would be odd, since they all explicitly exempt abortion. As I said to Sean, it is not the pro-choice side that is trying to change the (legal) definition of a person. It is the pro-life side. They have partially succeeded with fetal homicide laws and things like the Born Alive Infant Protection Act, and they may succeed eventually in overturning Roe v Wade. But this goes against hundreds of years of American and English legal tradition.
I’m surprised, you usually read my comments more carefully.
Mark,
Apologies. I answered a familiar argument, but you were apparently not making it. Upon rereading your comment, you seem to be arguing the difference between the alleged personhood of a human cell and a human being (all the way back to a fertilized egg). I would agree that there is a difference in kind between, say, a single skin (or muscle, or liver, or brain) cell and a fertilized egg, even though they all contain the genetic code of a unique human being (assuming there are no mutations that have garbled the genetic code). My point still stands that an extremely large number of fertilized eggs do not actually have the correct code to develop, even under ideal conditions, into something that will live 9 months in the womb and develop a heart, lungs, a brain, and so on.
“My point still stands that an extremely large number of fertilized eggs do not actually have the correct code to develop, even under ideal conditions, into something that will live 9 months in the womb and develop a heart, lungs, a brain, and so on.”
And, sadly, a number of newborns do not have what it takes to develop into toddlers. They are no less human for that.
And, sadly, a number of newborns do not have what it takes to develop into toddlers. They are no less human for that.
Mark,
It seems to me that if you claim that anything that results from the combination of a sperm and an egg is a human person, you come close to the proposition attributed to Carl Sagan that if something (like a skin cell) has a full complement of human DNA, it is a person. If a sperm and egg unit with mutated genes that can’t possibly become anything resembling a human being, and you call that a person, then you are saying that pretty much anything is a person. Take the hydratidiform mole. A sperm and an egg unite, something goes drastically wrong, and there may or may not even be an embryo as a result — just a mass. And you would call that a person?
I am guessing you are trying to get out of drawing a line at which the profoundly disabled are not considered persons, and it is a tough question. But to say that every fertilized egg is a person, even if it only produces a placenta, seems very extreme to me. It’s kind of like saying a cocktail glass with an olive in it is a martini, it’s just missing gin and vermouth. There has to be a point where you draw the line and say the absence of certain essentials is significant.
If anyone makes it down this far: William Saletan has written a follow-up column on the Gosnell case and prochoice responses. Worth reading, I think. UPDATE: I wrote a new post about it.
I’m going to close comments here now that everyone has pretty much moved on.