“Reduction to a singleton”
Yesterday’s New York Times Magazine had as its cover story an article about the ethics of a woman’s choosing to abort one of the twins she is carrying. The procedure is called “reduction to a singleton,” and, we are told, “is usually performed around Week 12 of a pregnancy [and] involves a fatal injection of potassium chloride into the fetal chest. The dead fetus shrivels over time and remains in the womb until delivery.” As for choosing which child to eliminate,
…if both appear healthy (which is typical with twins), doctors aim for whichever one is easier to reach. If both are equally accessible, the decision of who lives and who dies is random. To the relief of patients, it’s the doctor who chooses — with one exception. If the fetuses are different sexes, some doctors ask the parents which one they want to keep.”
One woman cited chose to keep the girl because she already had a boy.
One doctor, who changed his mind on the ethics of the procedure, spoke of a “juncture in the cultural evolution of human understanding of twins.” “Ethics,” he said, “evolve with technology.” Another doctor had this:
“In a society where women can terminate a single pregnancy for any reason — financial, social, emotional — if we have a way to reduce a twin pregnancy with very little risk, isn’t it legitimate to offer that service to women with twins who want to reduce to a singleton?”
One woman offered this in explanation:
“Things would have been different if we were 15 years younger or if we hadn’t had children already or if we were more financially secure,” she said later. “If I had conceived these twins naturally, I wouldn’t have reduced this pregnancy, because you feel like if there’s a natural order, then you don’t want to disturb it. But we created this child in such an artificial manner — in a test tube, choosing an egg donor, having the embryo placed in me — and somehow, making a decision about how many to carry seemed to be just another choice. The pregnancy was all so consumerish to begin with, and this became yet another thing we could control.”
Many doctors who perform the procedure in other cases draw the line at eliminating one of the twins. All but one of the women who had the procedure done insisted on anonymity.
Amazing how some people think using euphemisms change the character of a moral situation. When Sohie has to close between her two children to save the life of one of them, the Nazis are said to be “murderering” the second one. If a doctor at Mt. Sainai choses one child of another woman over a second child, he is said to be “reducing to a singleton”.
It’s difficult to get beyond the initial horror of the procedure, and the horror of the thought processes that leads to the decision.
I thought a “singleton” was an unpaired sock kicking around in the sock drawer or the laundry basket. An apt if unintended metaphor for how human life is viewed in this article.
The ethical questions being considered – is it okay to reduce the number of babies if it is quads or quints vs. triplets or twins – are clearly out of bounds for consideration. And yet they’re being considered. Horrifying. Stomach-churning.
Mary, Queen of Heaven, pray for us.
“Amazing how some people think using euphemisms change the character of a moral situation. ”
Yes. Do any of these intelligent and educated people read “1984″?
“The pregnancy was all so consumerish to begin with, and this became yet another thing we could control.” There you have it! The supermarket of reproduction…
In today’s world, if technology can, it will.
Softening words to cover evils are not infrequent either.
I fear trying tp legislate against this horror will be fobbed off as anti-scientific by fundamentalists.
So it strikes me that more than ever the Pro-Life movement, which seemed to be making some headway in convincing by non-coercion to be better at both message and messenger.
I’m sure this will get lost in all the “ain’t it awful” posts this thread will garner (and rightly so).
But I was struck by the word “control.”
I hear a lot said about how we live in a society with a “disposable” mentality, one where Church teaching is at odds with secular attitudes. And that’s probably all true.
But I think we mostly live in a world in which we are obsessed with “control.”
People seek assisted suicide b/c they fear “losing control.” They take drugs to prevent “losing control,” either mentally or physically. They forego medical treatment so their budgets or credit cards don’t “get out of control.” They give their kids drugs so they can be more easily “controlled.” The worst thing you can say about someone now is that they are “controlling,” meaning they are taking your control away. Or that they’re “out of control,” and generally making a big, unanticipated mess for someone else.
ISTM that whatever gives people more control over their lives is often hailed as a general good, or at least a “valid choice.”
I think if the Church really wants to understand why people will kill a fetus in a way they wouldn’t think of euthanizing their pet, it may want to try to understand why people are so unequipped to handle the stuff that’s “out of control” in their lives.
And I suspect the answer is more complex than that “we spoiled the Baby Boomers.”
As I was reading the article, it struck me that if the twins were identical, that when looking at the child spared, the woman would be all her life looking also at the child she eliminated.
My initial reaction was revulsion, so far from my own sense of values was the world apparently inhabited by people who consider doing this. I know that feeling is not all there is to ethics and morality, but I also think that they do play an important role in existential orientations. Bernard Lonergan drew upon Dietrich von Hildebrand when he wrote this of moral feelings as intentional responses: “Such feeling gives intentional consciousness its mass, momentum, drive, power. Without these feelings our knowing and deciding would be paper thin. Because of our feelings, our desires and our fears, our hope or despair, our joys and sorrows, our enthusiasm and indignation, our esteem and contempt, our trust and distrust, our love and hatred, our tenderness and wrath, our admiration, veneration, reverence, our dread, horror, terror, we are oriented massively and dynamically in a world mediated by meaning (Method, 30-31).
How does one persuade another person to feel revulsion? I am reminded of Newman’s comment: “first shoot around corners and you may not despair of converting by a syllogism.”
As to disturbing as the quoted portions of the article are, the comments of Dr. Mark Evans, apparently one of the leading medical practiitioners of reductions, are downright chilling. When he first began performing reductions back in the 80′s, he refused on ethical grounds to perform reductions to a singleton, stating that he and his colleagues not become “technicians to our pateints’ desires.” In 2004, however, he changed his position on reductions of twins, “announcing in major obstetrics journal that he now endorsed twin reductions.” According to Dr. Evans, “[e]thics evolve with technology.” A heavy dose of situation ethics in that statement, IMO.
There’s so much in the article that bothers me, but another lowlight that jumped out is the demand by a woman for reduction to a singleton with the threat that she would abort both fetuses if the reduction were not done. Though opposed to reductions of twins, the doctor, a “reduction pioneer,” capitulated and performed the reduction because a fetus that would have otherwise been aborted would be saved. I’m at a loss for words.
I often find myself at odds with “pro-lifers” (a term which, for me, describes a much smaller group of people than those opposed to abortion), but I can’t really find anything defensible about “reducing” twins to a singleton. Part of that may have to do with the fact that my younger brother and sister are twins, and also a very well-liked co-worker (now on maternity leave) was pregnant with twins, and the whole office was thrilled.
I have a disagreement on Mirror of Justice with someone who turned out to be a doctor over whether a “reduction” was an abortion. Clearly it is the moral equivalent of abortion, but most definitions of abortion are specific about the expulsion of the fetus, and it doesn’t fit that description. Someone noted that North Dakota has clarified its laws to classify a “reduction” as an abortion. That makes perfect sense to me, since I do think it is the equivalent of abortion, but without clarification, I think calling it abortion is debatable.
It really is a rather horrifying article, and particularly the incident where the woman pregnant with twins tells the doctor that if he won’t “reduce” the pregnancy, she will simply have an abortion and kill them both.
Fr. Komonchak – Lonergan’s quote addresses those situation in which emotion and moral reason are aligned, but what if they are opposed? I suspect that many people who may intellectually oppose the concept of abortion, considered as an abstract proposition, find that the emotional reality of a pregnant daughter or girlfriend or wife (or self) overwhelms whatever reasonable qualms they might feel. I suppose that, if abortion weren’t thought to be the compassionate (emotional) thing to do, it wouldn’t be so popular.
And yet the selectivity of the emotional response as described in the article – I am being compassionate to the mom, and to the surviving twin, by *slaughtering* the other twin – is bizarre. It’s inexplicable.
Hi, Jean, very good reflection on “control” – the kind of thing I’m apt to plagiarize some day for a homily :-).
I don’t think we get anywhere by declaring that the desire for twin reduction is “inexplicable”. I mean to find an explanation but I don’t mean to justify.
Why does anyone think that X number of children is too many? I suspect that the development of the nuclear family and its isolation has something to do with it. Many of us have been conditioned to live in this arrangement and would find adjusting to some other organizing principle difficult. Nevertheless, we ought to ask, is this the best arrangement? My feeling is that the one-house-per-nuclear family setup is anti-social and more taxing of human resources (i.e. time and money) than some other arrangement. It’s more profitable for those selling consumer goods but it might not be the most humane. Even a well-paid white collar worker doesn’t feel the freedom to have twins. It makes me wonder whether we’re mistaken when we associate freedom with pure individualism. We might have to become more social in order to become more free.
I think there’s plenty of revulsion in this article, but it’s revulsion about the wrong stuff. Mothers are revulsed by the idea of having too many kids. Or having the wrong number of boys or girls. Or having them at the wrong age.
Lord knows I’m the poster child for why having children over age 40 is a bad idea. A worse idea is deciding that they should be sacrificed b/c the mother is tired,.often depressed, and doesn’t know anything about children.
Most reductions (after fertility/in vitro implantation) would not be necessary if couples were not trying so desperately to control (there’s that word again) their own reproductive systems.
It seems to me that when the pregnancy is problem one and both might die that the issue is exactly the same as when both mother and child would die without an abortion of the child: is it ever lawful to kill one person to save two.
However, most of the cases in the article do not involve that issue.
About feelings: yes, they play a part in moral decisions, but how much of a part *should* they play? And what kind of part should they play? I think that that is a hugely complex issue, involving different sorts of feelings that one might have, what the various feelings are directed to (one’s own good or someone else’s?) and whether or not one is responsible for the
feelings in the first place.
It’s worth pointing out that the “lowlight” pointed out by William Collier (1:48 p.m.) has an even more interesting sequel:
“As word spread, a stream of patients called Wapner’s office, scheduling reductions to a singleton. A few months later, after the last patient of the day left, the sonographer who had worked with Wapner for nearly 20 years stopped at his office. She told me what happened next, on condition of anonymity because she doesn’t want her relatives to know everything her work entails: ‘I told him I just wasn’t comfortable doing a termination of a healthy baby for social reasons, and that if we were going to do a lot of these elective reductions, I thought he should bring in someone else who was more comfortable. From the beginning, I had wrestled with the whole idea of doing reductions, because I was raised in the church. And after a lot of soul searching, I had decided there were truly good medical reasons to reducing higher-order multiples to twins. But I had a hard time reconciling doing reductions two to one. So I said to Dr. Wapner, “Is this really the business we want to be in?” ‘
Wapner immediately called a meeting with his staff. Every one of them — the sonographer, the genetic counselors, the schedulers — supported abortion rights, but all confessed their growing unease with reductions to a singleton. ‘There’s no medical justification in a normal twin pregnancy to reduce to one,’ Wapner said. ‘So we decided to allocate our resources to those who would get the most benefit. We were in the business to improve pregnancy outcomes, and those reductions didn’t fit the criteria.’ He hasn’t done an elective two-to-one reduction since. ”
This story, and the existence of the article itself, suggest that both patients and medical staff in these situations remain intensely morally engaged, and thus reachable. I admit I don’t care for the utilitarian language the doctor uses to explain the final decision, but you KNOW that sonographer didn’t speak up because she was concerned about “resource allocation”. She spoke up because her conscience was telling her to, and that was brave.
I’m revolted by all those nouns. Twenty-three in a row! Kind of like an uncontrolled stutter.
Ann (8/15 3:05 pm):
Feelings and reasoned thought are all mixed up together, Ann. Always.
Kate–
“She spoke up because her conscience was telling her to, and that was brave.”
Perhaps, but it appears the sonographer also participated in myriad abortions for perhaps 20 years, may have continued to assist Dr. Wapner with reductions after the meeting occurred (the article is unclear whether the sonographer stayed on), was apparently in agreement with the allocation of “resources to those who would get the most benefit” (meaning women with 3, 4, etc. embryos/fetuses seeking reductions), and “[f]rom the beginning” (again, perhaps 20 years), had “wrestled with the whole idea of doing reductions because I was raised in the church.” So even if her conscience told her to speak up about reductions involving twins, what exactly might her conscience have said about all the other loss of innocent life the sonographer was a party to? Perhaps the truly moral thing to have said is that IVF introduction of multiple embryos is wrong in the first instance and that all reductions are therefore also wrong.
David S. –
Of course, feelings and thoughts are all mixed up But that is no reason to simply go with the flow and not to distinguish their values and when necessary to try to put some order in them if conscience calls for it. Going with the flow is a good way to turn yourself into a zombie.
I wonder what is the effect of having an article like this out there. My sense is that can act as cold bath, perhaps shocking people to what is happening out there. But I am likely projecting my own feelings. Perhaps for some it would provide a kind of license.
Thanks, David Smith, for trivializing the question.
Ok, so why the anonymity?
David G.–
I had the same thought, i.e., that articles like this, and books like Mara Hvistendahl’s “Unnatural Selection” (on sex selective abortions and the skewing of male/female ratios in countries like China, for example) may make increasing numbers of people uneasy and therefore more open to a hearts-and-minds argument about abortion and reproductive technologies. Of course, as you said, such articles and books might give some people a sense that anything goes when it comes to manipulation of human life.
David (5:47 pm):
Zero. Most of the people who read that publication won’t do any more than tsk-tsk a bit, and maybe remember to ask their OBGYNs whether they might have any objections should the situation arise. If the doctors do, it would probably be time to look for other, more modern-minded doctors.
As Bob said (12:37 pm):
As someone else said – one of the doctors quoted, I think – morality in the modern world follows technology. Success sanctifies anything. It amounts to situational morality.
Perhaps related:
Sex-selection abortion more common among wealthy in India
August 15, 2011
http://www.catholicculture.org/news/headlines/index.cfm?storyid=11392
In India’s struggle to combat sex-selection abortion—a practice that has resulted in a severely skewed ratio of male to female births—a new fact has emerged: the practice of aborting female babies is more widespread in wealthy urban communities than among the rural poor.
Are the wealthy (or whatever they would be considered here) more prone to consumer approaches to children and “protecting” their lifestyles?
“Are wealthy…more prone to consumer approaches…”
Too many variables to determine this I think. I remember reading evidence that attempts to link the number of abortions with the economy…something like the number of abortions went down under Clinton (booming economy) as compared with Bush 1.
I think a similar question, however: Does the relative ability to pay for the consumer approaches equate to more consumer approaches being used? If the wealthy can afford it, and the not so wealthy can get taxpayers to pay for it, and the middle of the roaders can get their fellow medical insurance policy rate payers to pay for it…will the consumer approaches be more frequently used?!?!? As pehaps an example, according to the flip-flop on the link below, some Presidents have been inclined to think it makes a difference – at least in theory (or perhaps just politics?)
http://articles.cnn.com/2009-01-23/politics/obama.abortion_1_abortion-counseling-family-planning-family-planning?_s=PM:POLITICS
Revolting.
On the point of feelings in morality, there is a role for revulsion in ethical and moral reflection. But it is possible for the heart to get hardened and it is usually hardened through cool, cold, rational thinking. On this particular point, namely “reduction to a singleton” and the style of argumentation that supports it, I am thinking of Arendt’s reflection on the Nazi and the banality of evil.
In biology there has been the discovery of the limbic brain which is responsible for our feelings of trust and actually plays a profound role in human behaviour. But the limbic region does not capacity for language. It is like the deepest, inchoate aspect of our consciousness. Language gives voice to this sense,
I remember the post a few months back around reason as a weapon than path to truth. Well reason can also reflect a moral sense which resides in the limbic part of the brain.
Personally, I think it is the limbic part, beyond language that grace operates on. But to access it we have to pass through and beyond reason. That is why I am a fan of the apophatic mystics even though we hear little about them.
David S.
“Feelings and reasoned thought are all mixed up together…always.”
I think that’s what makes all those nouns you objected to such a potential source of illumination…they manage to point us in the direction of stark contrasts our personal mixtures might use conscientiously to sort through for ourselves!
One of the things the article really doesn’t talk about is how common this procedure is. It says only that “as word spread, a stream of patients called Wapner’s office, scheduling reductions to a singleton.”
I don’t know what a “stream” is. Clearly enough to make Dr. Wapner’s staff uneasy. Eventually. I’m assuming the “stream” wasn’t getting smaller given that the staff agreed they needed to discuss it.
On a whole other tangent, I think it’s interesting that the interviews included no fathers. As you fellas are harrumphing over your revulsion and mulling over Lonergan and the apophatic mystics, you might ask yourselves where the men are in this article. Are there no fathers willing to step up to the plate and try to talk up ways the couple could make it work? Are there no men willing to say, “I don’t want to have fertility treaments or in vitro fertilization if it means we’ll have to kill some of the babies.”
Whole lot easier to look for financial and economic or social reasons people do these things than to wonder where in hell the men are when this stuff happens.
“On the point of feelings in morality, there is a role for revulsion in ethical and moral reflection. But it is possible for the heart to get hardened and it is usually hardened through cool, cold, rational thinking.”
George D, –
If this is so, then whey are all so manya academics bleeding-heart liberals? I say rationality leads to empathy, if we will but use it.
Oops — sorry for the typos. Should be:
then why are so many acaemics bleeding-heart liberals?
Tobias (9:21 pm), thanks for that Reagan-Clinton-Bush-Obama reminder. Is it the wealthy who lead cultural change or the “educated” class? I think of that particular political seesaw as being more educated class on one side vs. working class on the other than money vs. less money. Perhaps the more “enlightened” one is, the more one’s inclined to grab the brass ring of revolutionary changes – whatever they are, whether they track traditional morality (the green movement, say) or moral veering (laboratory babies). The issue may be less different moralities than fixed morality vs. amorality – traditional fixed morality being seen as impeding progress toward a healthier – and, thus, happier – future.
Wasn’t there an almost identical article about selective reduction in the Times about 10 years ago? If memory serves, it also described an upper middle class white couple (the Times’ readers) who didn’t want to have to move out of the city for Staten Island. The husband described his discomfort with the details of the procedure. If anyone has a Times subscription(I don’t), I’m sure you can search the archives.
Jean (9:56):
Oh boy, this leads to the Times and like-minded media. Culture slant. “Our bodies”. The reporter and editor’s ignoring men doesn’t mean they weren’t there, but it makes them invisible.
Jean, your earlier thoughts on the control issue (12:46 pm) are worth further discussion. I’d not thought of these issues in that particular light. The word “choice” means individual control. And the entire universe of politics is about control – but about forcing others to yield to our control, rather than about individual control. Bait and switch? Revolutions – political, economic, cultural, or technological – depend for success on large numbers of people moving in the same direction. Politics seems a good tool to ensure that.
Ann (10:01 pm):
I’m inclined to think that hearts that harden were likely predisposed to harden. Logic and reason merely furnish the rationalization.
Sometimes is more out of a sense of noblesse oblige than it is a genuine solidarity with the poor.
Afterall, why are so many ivy league schools all over the Western world populated by upper middle class and children of influential people.
Are they inherently more intelligent ? Or is there systemic perpetuation within academia, which is embodied both formally and informally through various policies and practices that perpetuate the structural and class inequality that exists in society.
The kind of critical thinking and rationality that academia supports is rarely turned on itself.
I once heard Joe Biden who was influential on selecting supreme court judges say that he would literally have a dog catcher on the bench than someone who spent years in academia. His point was that real life experience can bear down importantly on interpretation of the law and interestingly apparently there is no criteria that says a supreme court justice must also have served as judge. It has been convention but not a criteria (apparently).
Yet, in spite of that liberal sounding rhetoric, it was never translated ever into any kind of practice.
PS
There was some discussion of Chesterton a while back. I always liked this nugget of his (apropos for this discussion):
The madman is not the man who has lost his reason. He is the man who has lost everything except his reason.
“then why are so many acaemics bleeding-heart liberals?”
But on this issue at least, the bleeding-heart liberals’ compassion is curiously blinkered, and in fact it is their intellectuals who have constructed these justifying legal and ethical theories, such as the theory expounded in this article that reducing the siblings from five to four is somehow morally different from reducing them from two to one.
You have all dodged my question. IF reason does in fact leads to hardened hearts, as George D. claimed, why are there so many academic bleeding hearts? (It was Reason’s reputation that my question was concerned with, not Liberalism’s (whatever that might be).
Ann (8/16 1:22 am):
I missed your original question. Here it is (8/15 10:01 pm):
I have a couple of problems with all that. First, academics aren’t “bleeding heart” liberals at all, in the sense of crying uncontrollably over the fate of the poor poor. Academics simply want to remake society (they’ve read a lot of books; then know how) to eliminate its imperfections, two of which are the rich (represented by the hated Philistines who control their boards of trustees) and the poor (whose illiteracy and innumeracy pollute their classrooms).
Second, why in heaven’s name should rationality lead to empathy? That makes no sense to me. Rationality leads nowhere except where the unconscious mind wants it to lead. Rationality will lead anywhere it’s told to go.
Shaw: ¨Would you sleep with me for a million pounds?
Socialite: Oh, yes, Mr Shaw.
Shaw: Would you sleep with me for two pounds?
Socialite: What do you think I am?
Shaw: That has already been established. Now we are merely haggling over the price.
If abortion is allowed in any circumstance for whatever reason, selective abortion of one fetus is also allowed. In fact aborting one twin instead of two is the lesser evil. So I do not understand why there is such a special horror about this.
Supposing a poor woman found herself pregnant with quintuplets. In that case we would be drawn to view the selective abortion from a positive angle.
I think the article is interesting (and useful) in that it exposes the boundaries that many would prefer not be crossed, and in doing so makes us reflect on easy assumptions we may have made about where the acceptable boundaries are and why they are where they are.
“Oh boy, this leads to the Times and like-minded media. Culture slant. ‘Our bodies.’ The reporter and editor’s ignoring men doesn’t mean they weren’t there, but it makes them invisible.”
You’re ducking the issue, dude, by blaming the reporter. Yah, sure, she could have left men out because she thinks they’re just drones, boo hoo, the marginalization of men.
But I know an awful lot of men who are VERY happy to abrogate their responsibilities by saying, “This is YOUR decision, honey. I’m just going to watch golf and take a nap on the couch while you work this out.”
OK, I exaggerate (slightly).
But it would be interesting for the Church to study the real dynamics of Catholic marriage. ISTM from having coffee with “the girls” that most husbands look at NFP as a great big pain in the neck, and they are happy to have their wives snipped or go on the Pill. It’s a win-win for them. They get sex whenever they want and they do not risk going to hell if artificial contraception turns out to be the mortal sin it’s represented to be.
If I were of a vindictive nature, I could imagine a very interesting place in hell for these hubbies.
But, seeing as how I’m all about Christian charity, I just imagine St. Martha smacking them with a wet dish towel upside the head as they enter the Pearly Gates.
“ISTM from having coffee with “the girls” that most husbands look at NFP as a great big pain in the neck, and they are happy to have their wives snipped or go on the Pill. It’s a win-win for them. They get sex whenever they want and they do not risk going to hell if artificial contraception turns out to be the mortal sin it’s represented to be.”
As much as (speaking as a man and a husband) I wish this weren’t a great point – it is.
(Btw, that napping-on-the-couch-while-the-golf-tournament-is-on-TV crack hits *way* too close to home.)
I think it is possible, if someone regards an unborn child as something of high value but less than a full-fledged human person, to treat abortion as very serious, but not to consider it murder. I don’t think this is an unreasonable position, and it seems to me it is the Jewish position. As I have said countless times before, I don’t think Jews have less reverence for human life than.
What is disturbing about the “reduction” of twins to a singleton (or any “reduction”) is that, in the cases we are discussing here, multiple lives were created and some are being destroyed. Life is being “wasted.” Interestingly, Northern European countries regulated IVF and permit only one embryo to be transferred per attempt. There are no multiple pregnancies created through IVF, so reductions are not an issue. Why the pro-life movement appears to be utterly uninterested in the regulation of IVF in the United States is somewhat of a mystery to me.
Fr. O Leary says: “If abortion is allowed in any circumstance for whatever reason, selective abortion of one fetus is also allowed.” I don’t think it is the case in the United States that most people, even many ardently pro-choice people, think that abortion is allowed in any circumstance for whatever reason. Many countries, and I believe one state in the US, have laws against abortion for sex-selection. It’s difficult to imagine how such laws could be enforced in the United States, but nevertheless I do think most Americans, even those who are pro-choice, would oppose abortion for sex selection.
It is not that simple. This goes back to the point about reason. I would suspect that even those disposed towards a pro-choice position would have moral problems with this.
The problem is how do you rationally and reasonably draw the line.
It can’t be. From a purely rational perspective you are correct. But the emotive side of the brain screams “this just does not feel right”. We have to listen to that instinct.
I don’t mean to suggest that reason leads to hardened hearts but the justification for inhuman acts is usually done with cold, clear logic and rationality.
Jim P., per my count I’ve now given you at least two homily ideas (“why are we obsessed with control?” and “men, step up!”).
I know you’ll wish to reciprocate, so I will be sending you freshmen themes in a box to be graded ASAP. I will provide rubric and red pens. You will need several.
OK, sorry for the interruption on this serious matter.
I think David Gibson’s take here is most sensible, viz. that the article can stimulate reaction against this awful procedure.
Sure if technology can, it will, David S., but that doesn’t mean we need to accept whatever process and not try to influence the entire community.
Beside the burdens on mothers/families as an explanation/not justification, I also think the problem of the science/religion divide in the general society conditions how people look at technology advances.
(I want to add hear that I think labels about “bleeding heart liberals” as most lables don’t advance things much.)
Rational persuasion can go so far, but the messenger must be credible as well, even about such horrors.
“Second, why in heaven’s name should rationality lead to empathy? That makes no sense to me. Rationality leads nowhere except where the unconscious mind wants it to lead. Rationality will lead anywhere it’s told to go.”
David S. –
You seem to miss what rationality. (By ‘rational” here I mean having respect for the principle of non-contradiction and for logic). That principle ensures that you can NEVER have anything both ways, as both so and not-so. It prevents us from fooling ourselves mightily. Most especialy, it gives us a powerful tool of self-criticism. This is not enjoyable, but it is certainly useful for both ourselves and others. Logic insures more surely than sunrise that from true premises we can’t possibly reach the false conclusions that fallacious “reasoning” presents us. What a pity schools don’t seem to teach this anymore.
The reason that reason leads to empathy is that the principle of non-contradiction doesn’t allow one to fool oneself. For instance, it doesn’t allow us to identify self-interested feelings with real reasons, and so when we are presented with a suffering creature we don’t allow ourself to go into denial and shut down our natural feelings of empathy. In the war of self-interest v. empathy, reason holds our attention fast to the fact that fellow creatures are suffering and need aid.
Of course, there is such a thing as fallacious reasoning (which is not real reasoning at all), and this allows us, when we indulge in it, to make excuses for ourselves and allows us to avoid the sufferings of others.
Yes, this is reason in the service of feeling, and a good thing it is.
“regards an unborn child as something of high value but less than a full-fledged human person”
This is a very confusing (and troubling) moral position. What is a “full-fledged” human being as opposed to one with only “high value”? How do we make that determination – physical features, scientific usefulness?
Jeff Landry –
You’re asking the big question (“what is a person?”) that most people don’t want to face. There are many reasons for avoiding it. The answer is dependent on biologyl, psychologyl and philosophy, and the issues are those disciplines are difficult ones. In the philosophical area, most people are not trained even to ask relevant questions.
Unfortunately, some people seem to avoid the big question because they are afraid of the answer: that at least rather early on during a pregnancy there is what is commonly called a “baby”, a human baby, and to kill what they usually call a “fetus” is to kills a baby.
One need only look at the uses of language in describing the biological processes of “reduction” to see that people are avoiding the moral issues. They talk about “fetuses”, not “possible babies”, and “reduction to singletons” instead of “killing all but one child”. There have to be reasons for such squeamishness. People don’t find it necessary talk about drowning kittens like that.
Jeff Landry,
Here is one view:
Other arguments are so well known I need not go into them, but basically many would argue that a fertilized egg or an early embry does not fit the description of a person because its ability to think, feel, make rational or moral choices, and so on, if it exists at all, exists as potential, and, as the saying goes, “An acorn is not an oak tree.”
“regards an unborn child as something of high value but less than a full-fledged human person”
You know, there’s always a lot of talk about how sonograms help women come to terms with the fact that the fetus is alive, and I think that’s a fine thing.
OTOH, we learn (and see) in biology classes that human fetuses develop and resemble different animals at different phases in their development–tadpoles, chicks, other mammals, etc.
Certainly I think this is part of the reason people feel more “comfortable” with destroying fetuses that look like baby chicks than those that look like actual babies. Perhaps we value the fetus to the same extent that it rises up the chain to look more like a mammal, and, finally a human.
I’m really too stupid to join in Ann’s discussion about logic and rationale. But I think sometimes our feelings lead us to conclusions that logic won’t bear out. I miscarried several times. Everyone told me how lucky I was that it happened early and that was nature’s way blah blah. I knew that, physically, they looked like little lima beans, and I felt very stupid for crying all the time. For me, they are and always will be my Anna Edith and Francesca Claire. The Church gives me a place to honor them.
Unfortunately, some people seem to avoid the big question because they are afraid of the answer . . .
Ann,
I think people on both sides of the debate could make this assertion about those they disagree with. To take one example, some prominent “pro-life” politicians (and I think a not insignificant number of people who identify as pro-life) favor embryonic stem-cell research. Or they may not oppose the creation of multiple embryos, most of which will be destroyed, for IVF. There is the old hypothetical dilemma of the burning fertility clinic, where you can save a nurse crying out for help, or you can save a canister of a hundred frozen embryos. Doe you save one person (the nurse) or a hundred people? So it is not only those who are pro-choice who can be challenged on what they really believe is a person.
Of course, there is a tendency to choose your side of the abortion debate first, and then adopt a definition of person that works best for your own arguments, so arguments based on the definition of person rarely get anywhere.
David N. ==
I mostly agree. I myself think that in the very early stages of a pregnancy an embryo is not a person, a baby. But the pro-life Catholics rarely if ever seem to take the arguments for this position seriously, even though the metaphysics is straight out of the classic natural law philosophies of the Church. *Why* the Vatican itself ignores these arguments is beyond me. It has been particularly weak, I think, in offering any persuasive arguments for its own position. But the current Vatican isn’t known for its great philosophical chops, even though JP II was a philosophy teacher.
I have often thought that his weakness in understanding the challenges of current philosophy might have been due to his having been cut off in Poland from the rest of the European philosophical culture of his day. As I understand it, participation in European conferences and written controversy in journals in other countries was not permitted by the Communists. They were just totally closed-minded. So his lack of understanding of the challenges to his positions is perhaps understandable. But that hasn’t been good for the Church.
The “acorn is not an oak” argument is a totally primitive statement of the classic medieval one that concludees that the early creature is not a person. But the argument still presents some very serious problems. As I understand Peter Singer, for instance, he also argues the not-an-oak argument. In this he’s very like the scholastics.
But unlike the scholastics he carries the argument even further. He says that little creatures are known to be persons only when they show by their mental actions that they perform specifically human actions, including some high level rational thinking. As I understand him, he claims that because children don’t start to *reason* (go from premises conclusions) until they are several years old, it is sometimes morally acceptable to kill them if, for instance, they are mentally thoroughly defective, because they are not really persons.
This is perhaps his most controversial position. But it is not an illogical one. The issue then becomes: are all his premises true?
I think that bioethicist Gilbert Meilaender has the concept of personhood exactly right: “To be a person is not to have something but to be someone.” In his book “Neither Beast Nor God,” he makes a compelling case, IMO, about the need for us to think in terms of both human dignity and personal dignity. The former relates to what each of us has, not always in equal measures, in relation to the traits or capacities of the human race as a whole (the “have something” part of his formulation of personhood), while personal dignity belongs to each human life, regardless of his or her capabilities and limitiations in comparison to other human lives, simply by virtue of being human. According to Meilaender, “[n]othing 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.” And it is personal dignity for Meilaender that is fundamental and that is the “cantus firmus that underl[es] and sustain[s]” human dignity. I find Meilaender’s formulation of personhood much more compelling than that of someone such as Peter Singer, who ascribes personhood on the basis of biological markers such as evidence of brain waves, etc. For Meilaender, it is the simple fact of being human that compels recognition of the dignity of a human life and all of the respect that therefore must be shown that singular life.
william collier,
In the movie, how did we know ET was a person? How do we know whether or not dolphins are persons? As I mention frequently, 60% to 80% of the time when conception takes place, the early embryo does not implant in the uterus and dies within a few days. It is presumed that in many of those cases, there were genetic defects. It seems to me that in those cases, not even a potential person existed. You really can’t know that a fertilized human egg is even a potential person until it develops to the point where you know it will have all the capacities of a person.
If we should discover new life forms, how will we determine whether or not they are persons? It seems to me that trying to define personhood as you do, there is no way to determine if any non-human being is a persons. I personally think it is quite possible for machine intelligence to develop some day to the point where more advance versions of computers will be capable of being persons. We certainly will not be able to recognize them by their DNA or even by their “species,” since each may be one of a kind.
Before you can define person, it seems to me you need to know what the entity can do, and only after you know that can you try to justify projecting that concept of what the thing is back onto all members of that group.
ET and dolphins don’t have human DNA, David. In fact, ET doesn’t have any DNA, though I get your point about extraterrestrial life forms. Perhaps we can deal with “some day” life and artificial-life forms when and if the occasions arise. For the present, we seem to have our hands full with extending personal and human dignity to those of all of the menbers of our own species. The beauty of Meilaender’s formulation of personhood is that it recognizes the intrinsic value of all members of the human species without regard to inexact and necessarily subjective assessments about gradations in capabilities. So I would disagree that we need to know anything about what the entity “can do”. Meilaender’s point, which I find convincing, is that personal and human dignity must be extended simply because each human life “is.” There is thus no need to talk about the very inexact and slippery “potential person,” IMO. And, yes, unimplanted embryos (which includes those created for IVF) would (and should) be persons according to Meilaender’s formulation. While the issue of significant failure-to-implant in utero is a medical issue deserving closer scrutiny, when such embryos fail to implant it is not because of an intentional act that violated the personhood of each embryo. The strength of Meilaender’s formulation is that it provides a bright line test. And shouldn’t there be a bright line test when we are discoursing about, and deciding the fate of, what bioethicist Paul Ramsey called our “fellow fetuses”?
“So I would disagree that we need to know anything about what the entity “can do”. Meilaender’s point, which I find convincing, is that personal and human dignity must be extended simply because each human life “is.” ”
William C. –
True. But this still doesn’t tell us how we can tell a person when we find one. You can say let’s talk about the aliens when they get here — but what about the zygotes that are already here? How do YOU know whether they’re persons or not? How do you pick them out from other forms of life?
You can say, “Respect them simply because they’re persons”, and nobody here will disagree, I venture to say. But how do you tell a person when you find one? Oh, it’s easy with grown-up people. But how about the little organisms that have the same DNA? Is having the same DNA enought to make one a person? If so, why do you say so?
I find the comments about aliens and other such things to be obfuscation. Simply because we can’t tell what some-way-out-not-yet-existent-that-we-know-of X is doesn’t mean we cannot determine what the very-here-and-now Y is. Moreover, instead of focusing solely on Jewish or other thought, if we’re going to call ourselves Catholic Christians, why can’t we look to divine revelation as an integral part of our analysis? I find this wholly absent from these “ruminations.” Certainly one thing we can now from the person of Jesus is that he did not determine the dignity of a person by first asking “what the entity can do.”
. . . . if we’re going to call ourselves Catholic Christians, why can’t we look to divine revelation as an integral part of our analysis?
Jeff Landry,
It seems to me that for faithful Catholics dealing only with other faithful Catholics, the question is settled. One must assume personhood from the moment of conception. But not everybody is Catholic, and not every Catholic is a faithful Catholic. And the pro-life movement isn’t going to settle the abortion question in a pluralistic society, with secular laws, by appealing to divine revelation.
Also, it seems to me that the question of what a person is should be answerable without recourse to divine revelation.
Finally, Jews I am sure believe their understanding comes from God, too. So appealing to divine revelation requires one to pick whose version of divine revelation one believes in.
“But not everybody is Catholic, and not every Catholic is a faithful Catholic.”
- Wow, this is news to me, but I was, of course, referring to the ad intra conversation here, i.e. among Catholics (whether “faithful” or not is beyond my paygrade).
“And the pro-life movement isn’t going to settle the abortion question in a pluralistic society, with secular laws, by appealing to divine revelation”
- I would submit they’re doing a pretty good job of it, with polling increasingly showing more people calling themselves pro-life. They’re being helped, of course, by neonatal science. That’s a lot better than arguing about whether or not we can tell if an alien is human.
“Also, it seems to me that the question of what a person is should be answerable without recourse to divine revelation. ”
- Not for a Christian (or a Jew or Muslim for that matter).
“Finally, Jews I am sure believe their understanding comes from God, too. So appealing to divine revelation requires one to pick whose version of divine revelation one believes in.”
- Again, my comments were intended for an ad intra conversation among Catholics; simply because a Jew believes otherwise doesn’t mean a Catholic cannot accept Catholic teaching.
Ann–
A zygote conceived as the result of coitus between a human male and a human female can’t be anything but human. I’m not trying to be facetious, but what else could such a biological offspring be? A zygote conceived as the result of the mixing of human sperm and a human ovum in a petri dish also can’t be anything but human. If it is something other than human, then why would any woman consent to the introduction of such a zygote into her uterus in the hope that she will give birth to a human baby? Under Meilaender’s formulation of personhood, which I agree with, each of those zygotes, and eventual embryos and fetuses, is a person simply because it is. If by “same DNA” you mean twinning, then I don’t have a problem, biologically or metaphysically, with a single zygote separting into two (or more) persons. In any event, twins occur with a frequency of about 1 in 200 births, so in a biological sense we are dealing with something of an outlier occurrence. What about the other 199 instances when the DNA is unique? As for distinguishing human DNA from the DNA of other organisms, there are multiple biological tests that can do that with essentially 100% accuracy.
Jeff–
I can only speak for myself, but the reason I haven’t a religious perspective on the issue is not because I don’t agree with your comments, but because a secular argument about human and personal dignity is needed in the public square if we are to convince non-Christians that personhood begins at the formation of the zygote.
Sorry, Jeff, should be “haven’t mentioned a religious perspective on the issue.”
“I can only speak for myself, but the reason I haven’t a religious perspective on the issue is not because I don’t agree with your comments, but because a secular argument about human and personal dignity is needed in the public square if we are to convince non-Christians that personhood begins at the formation of the zygote.”
I don’t disagree, and I am not meaning to suggest that Christians shouldn’t make secular arguments in favor of their positions in the public square (but neither am I willing to accept that Christians should NOT make explicitly Christian arguments in the public square – aren’t the Catholic bishops doing this when they argue for social justice programs many progressive laud?). My concern is that I see in some of the comments AMONG Catholics alone the notion that if the “secular” view doesn’t hold water, then we as Catholics shouldn’t hold the view. I’m troubled by the implicit assumption that because X doesn’t believe something, then Catholics should not believe it either (either as a matter of faith or reason).
As a cradle catholic turned atheist, I doubt you are going to convince atheists at least, that a zygote is the same as a human being. With the other non christians, you are probably on safe ground already with at least the majority.
I would also point out, that in America catholic women have abortions at the same rate as everyone else, or at a slightly higher rate, and that in catholic Brazil, according to the WHO, women have an average of two abortions in their lifetime, which is a whole lot more than the rate of abortion in the US. The difference of course is that in America, 98% of Catholic women use birth control, the same as all other women.
As for the morality of this, it is no worse than abortion.
Women will deal with their fertility in the way they think fit, regardless of the law. In those countries where abortion is legal, then the death rate from botched abortions is almost non existent, whereas in places like Brazil it is high.
Circumstances control abortion, not dogma. Here in Chatham-Kent, Canada, we have a famous case of a catholic priest who arranged an illegal abortion for the 16 year old he had been raping regularly since she was 12.
Jeff Landry,
I doubt that you would consider me a Catholic, and I don’t even know whether I would claim to be. I was raised Catholic and have not converted to another denomination. I believe there are others here who either have converted to another denomination or were never Catholic to begin with. I am perfectly willing to consider the question of personhood and abortion settled for Catholics, and I wouldn’t really want to talk Catholics out of believing what the Church teaches about abortion. (And besides, it seems to me if one accepts as true the presence of an immortal soul from the moment of conception, the Catholic teaching is pretty much undeniable.) Nevertheless, for reasons I have given and William and Ann give, there are many reasons to discuss the question without appealing to divine revelation. One of the most prominent Catholic pro-lifers, Robert George, purports to settle the question in his his book Embryo, and also purports to settle the question of same-sex marriage in his essay What Is Marriage, in both cases without appealing to divine revelation. If the abortion question really can’t be settled without divine revelation, then it is purely a religious belief, and there is no way to convince people who don’t believe in your version of divine revelation to accept it. It seems to me that the believe that a human person exists from the moment of conception is a religious belief, and if there are no other reasons to prohibit abortion than the religious belief that personhood begins at conception, then a ban on abortion doesn’t belong in American law.
Michael C.–
I know of at least one prominent atheist (he self-describes as a “Jewish atheist”), and there are undoubtedly more I am unaware of, who has written and spoken eloquently in opposition to abortion and embryonic stem cell research: Nat Hentoff.
There is always an exception to every rule
“It seems to me that the believe that a human person exists from the moment of conception is a religious belief, and if there are no other reasons to prohibit abortion than the religious belief that personhood begins at conception, then a ban on abortion doesn’t belong in American law.”
Now we’ve arrived at the nub of your argument, which I figured you were cloaking behind all of this talk about aliens and what not. The nub of your argument is actually a nothingness: you don’t believe it is possible to determine what a “person” is (well at least apart from their functions). I don’t accept that, and I don’t accept your argument NOT because of my faith, but because I do, for purely “secular” reasons, believe it IS possible to determine when personhood begins. In fact, I think neo-natal science is doing a pretty good job of it (aliens notwithstanding).
“A zygote conceived as the result of coitus between a human male and a human female can’t be anything but human. I’m not trying to be facetious, but what else could such a biological offspring be?”
William C. –
The classic Christian answer was that the zygote, etc, though quite similar in some ways were *less than human* realities, that they were first vegetative, then animal, then human realities, with the higher kind of being incorporating the lower as the development proceeded,
You also say: “Under Meilaender’s formulation of personhood, which I agree with, each of those zygotes, and eventual embryos and fetuses, is a person simply because it is.”
But that’s like saying “Hydrochloric acid is hydrochloric acid simply because it is”. The question is: HOW do you KNOW what it is? How can you tell it from something other liquids? And in the case of people, how can you tell a chimp from a person? Don’t tell me that you can look and see. If you look at a zygote it looks even *less* like a person than a chimp, yet you claim you know that the zygote is a person. So what tells you that a zygote or an embryo or a fetus is a child?
As to twinning and DNA and personhood, you are willing to avoid the problems they present because they are rare? That’s like saying that because patricide is rare we don’t have to consider whether or not it’s a terrible sin.
One further question: if the presence o a particular kind of DNA in a cell is what makes it to be a human person, how come every individual cell with DNA in it isn’t a person? Why aren’t you a colony?
MElaender’s answers are much, much too simple. Like it or not, the issue is a complex and difficult one.
Here’s my question: it seems as if many people find this more morally problematic than a woman in similar circumstances who aborted a singleton. (after all, this is the story in the magazine- not an story of a married woman who had a regular abortion for similar reasons.)
If so -why?
Paul Ramsey did not value bright lines over careful examinations of questions. He took very seriously the position that Meilaender rejects about twinning.
Cathy’s question is along the lines of the challenge posed by the physician quoted in my original posting: “In a society where women can terminate a single pregnancy for any reason — financial, social, emotional — if we have a way to reduce a twin pregnancy with very little risk, isn’t it legitimate to offer that service to women with twins who want to reduce to a singleton?”
That is, why should the “reduction to a singleton” strike so many of us so strongly? Is it that it poses the challenge of unlimited access to the elimination of the unborn more starkly than the general question? Or have we become so used to that general situation that we forget its own horrors? Is it the de-personalized language: “reduction,” “singleton” ?
Good questions, from Kaveny and Komonchak: A part of the answer, I think is that this story magnifies the ethical issues that are always extistent, magnifying them so we can’t miss them…the article is talking about, in the main, older well-to-do couples who are spending lots of money and time and energy to conceive, but then don’t necessarily want to conceive THAT much. Bleg. Also, the sense of entitlement of it, as much as the pure moral problems involved, may tickle our populist resentments. Just a thought.
I’ve known women who have had abortions as a result of some pretty horrible circumstances, and I truly am not going to condemn or second-guess what they ought to have done. But the people in this article weren’t rape victims, weren’t frightened women carrying babies with severe birth defects, didn’t have pre-eclampsia, and weren’t single mothers with two other kids and no health care insurance wondering where their next nickel will come from.
The women in this article are merely grousing about the fact that they deal with “very demanding toddlers” and can’t imagine that multiplied by two or three. Yeesh! Is there any other kind of toddler than a demanding one?
My first reaction to reading Cathleen’s question was “Sophie’s choice.” But, where Sophie was tortured by her choice, the mothers here seem to feel they’ve made a responsible and justifiable choice.
I am still thinking about one of the mothers in the article who said she planned to tell her daughter about the “reduction” so that her daughter would know she had reproductive “choices.” I think that bothers me more than anything else I read in there. I can’t really fathom how that conversation would go in a way that wouldn’t horrify the child–or require the mother to pull some taffy with the truth.
I know I shouldn’t get on here and talk so much, but, pace David Smith who believes these articles do zero good, the discussions about abortion on here have made a difference in how I look at these issues, and where the discussions don’t veer into higher theological and philosophical territory, I do learn from them.
So, offa here now.
Perhaps it cuts to close to the bone for the pro-choice crowd? It is easy to be pro anything without seeing the unintended or extreme consequences of that stance.
This is simply the natural escalation of the personal choice mantra, it is a slippery slope: if you can abort legally for any reason then there is nothing to stop someone from “reducing” based on gender or flipping a coin.
The truth of the matter is that a terribly high percentage of abortions are elective — hopefully this will get some of the pro-choice catholics and others to reconsider their stance and moral view – especially with the lives at stake.
ISTM that it’s the choosing to let one live that forces us to see the death of the other one in such a stark contrast that it’s all but impossible to view the killing as anything other than what it is: horrible. Seeing white next to black makes the black look even blacker than usual.
It is also strange that many complained that these IVF women were being irresponsible by undergoing the procedure with complete knowledge that it could lead to twins and then still “reducing” an life in the end.
What about the women who decides to have sex with full knowledge that it could lead to pregnancy, and then aborts the life created.
Responsibility should go across the board here – if you condemn one, you must logically do the same for the other.
One of the useful things about dogma is that it cuts through all the “reasonable” and “logical” chatter and gives you simple rules to follow. One of the curses of Eden, I think, is that it condemned us to never-ending uncertainty. Babel. We’ve made that into a virtue: freedom of thought and scientific inquiry. But it’s still a curse.
“If abortion is allowed in any circumstance for whatever reason, selective abortion of one fetus is also allowed.”
Sorry, that was ambiguous; I meant that any justification of abortion also justifies the selective abortion, or at least fails to block it for any reason of principle.
Note that abortion is always regrettable but not always productive of moral unease — in the case of ectopic pregnancies abortions are justified by double effect, yet no one is in the least fazed by that. The distributions of emotive force have less to do with the actual degree of evil effects than with the delicacy of our own consciences. Placed in certain pressing circumstances that delicacy might lead to a recognition of stern necessity.
Now we’ve arrived at the nub of your argument, which I figured you were cloaking behind all of this talk about aliens and what not.
Jeff Landry,
Am I misreading you, or is your tone accusatory? I have no hidden strategy, and you haven’t detected some kind of secret plot.
The nub of your argument is actually a nothingness: you don’t believe it is possible to determine what a “person” is (well at least apart from their functions).
I am also homeless (except for the apartment I have been living in since 1972) and penniless (if you don’t count my possessions, my paychecks, my savings, and the cash in my wallet).
. . . . I do, for purely “secular” reasons, believe it IS possible to determine when personhood begins. In fact, I think neo-natal science is doing a pretty good job of it (aliens notwithstanding).
. . . . I do, for purely “secular” reasons, believe it IS possible to determine when personhood begins. In fact, I think neo-natal science is doing a pretty good job of it (aliens notwithstanding).
[I pressed a wrong key.]
It seems to me science can’t answer questions about personhood, since they are philosophical in nature. Science can only provide information to help make the philosophical determination. Also, since neonatology deals only with newborn infants, I don’t see how it could be of help in this kind of discussion.
I think sophie’s choice is relevant. No Nazi was saying ” pick one or I will kill both.” But there is something here about the relation of the siblings – one lived at the expense of the other. If a 45 year said, “I am done- I cannot do this again,” I don’t think we’d Feel the same way ( I am talking feeling, not fully formed moral judgments.) I think what this case actually raises is the sense that mothers ought to love their children equally- and our sense of deep disorder if they don’t.
I thin, incidentally, many of the same feelings come in when parents conceive a child to donate blood or marrow to an older child.
I am a man, but I think that none of you, even the ladies, think like the average woman.
http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2011/09/girl-power/gorney-text?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%253A+ng%252FNGM%252FNGM_Magazine+%2528National+Geographic+Magazine%2529
“The truth of the matter is that a terribly high percentage of abortions are elective.”
ALL abortions are elective. It’s just that, in the case of severe pre-eclampsia or a tubal pregnancy, you elect to have them so you don’t die.
“What about the women who decides to have sex with full knowledge that it could lead to pregnancy, and then aborts the life created.”
And what about the man who impregnates this woman and skips along on his merry way?
I’m sorry to keep jumping back in here, but until I see any evidence (outside of my friend Jim P.) that any man on here waxing indignant about how awful women can be without bothering to acknowledge it that there is male culpability in EVERY SINGLE abortion, I guess I’ll have to keep blabbering.
You don’t want women to make these choices? Start raising up men who will help them.
I think what makes these cases disturbing and morally troubling even to those who are not wholeheartedly opposed to abortion is that the twins are conceived through IVF, so the women involved want to get pregnant. They have put significant effort and money into conceiving, but then they turn around and reject one of two babies. For a great many women, abortion is not merely a matter of an unwanted child, but an unwanted pregnancy. In the case of a woman who has conceived twins through IVF, she has sought the pregnancy, she just doesn’t want the baby. Why not carry both to term and give one up for adoption? The doctors seem to object because in cases of triplets, quadruplets, and so on, there are real medical reasons for reduction involving the health of the mother and the chances of survival of the babies. But in the case of a “reduction” from twins to a singleton, there are not (in the doctors’ opinions) sufficient medical reasons for the reduction. The reason is that the woman wants the baby killed.
David, I think that is a really god point. Also why abortion for down’s syndrome is troubling.
You don’t want women to make these choices? Start raising up men who will help them.
Jean,
Generally speaking, I won’t dispute this, but in pregnancy “reductions,” the women deliberately choose pregnancy, sometimes without a man even being materially involved. (Think of Octomom.) So in reductions, there is no issue of a man getting a woman pregnant, shirking his responsibility, and leaving a woman to make a difficult choice on her own. That, I think, is what makes these cases so disturbing. I am sure women undergoing IVF are fully informed that if more than one embryo is transferred, there may be more than one baby.
1) Agree, Jean. I’ve never heard of a home for unwed fathers. Nor does the Church excommunicate deadbeat dads. Nor do those who preach sermons about women who have abortions ever demand that unwed fathers pay child support through college for the children they refuse to raise.
2) Twins. We have a deeply embedded interest in twins, going back to gatherer/hunter days when our foremothers who bore twins had to leave one behind to die. Lots of mythology about twins, etc.
3) Survivors. I’ve always noticed that when a twin dies, it’s harder on the survivor than the death of another sibling. See, e.g., Elvis Presley.
4) Those priests who rail about how bad it is to kill an unborn twin should perhaps explain why the Church permitted the separation of twins by Catholic adoption agencies. Why did Catholic Charities separate twins, giving them to two families, instead of keeping them together and giving them to one family? Was it to gain power over two families rather than just one? The agencies concealed from adopted children and their adopting families the fact that there was a twin. They also concealed the names the children were given in the sacrament of baptism. Have these hideous practices been changed? What priests pushed for the changes in policy?
“Generally speaking, I won’t dispute this, but in pregnancy ‘reductions,’ the women deliberately choose pregnancy, sometimes without a man even being materially involved. (Think of Octomom.) ”
If a woman gets pregnant, there’s a man involved. He may only have made his deposit for money at a sperm bank. But he was involved.
No, I’m not letting you guys off the hook.
I, too, wondered why the NYT article didn’t quote any of the fathers of the twins being considered for “reduction.”
On the chance that you consider me among the railing priests, Gerolyn, let me simply say that I have no idea why “the Church” permitted the separation of twins by Catholic adoption agencies, nor why Catholic Charities did this, nor what priests pushed for changes in the policy. I would observe, however, that where this happened, neither twin was eliminated, so I don’t really see any proportion between the topic of this thread and the matter you raise.
If a woman gets pregnant, there’s a man involved. He may only have made his deposit for money at a sperm bank. But he was involved.
Jean,
Maybe remotely involved, but in no way responsible. I believe I am extremely sympathetic to women in most situations, but a woman who chooses pregnancy by artificial insemination from an anonymous sperm donor and is unhappy that she is carrying twins instead of a “singleton” has no beef against the anonymous donor whatsoever. I suppose the Catholic Church might have a number of negative things to say about a sperm donor, but I can’t imagine the Church would hold an anonymous donor responsible for a child conceived with his sperm but without his knowledge by a woman who gave informed consent for the procedure. (It’s an interesting question, though.)
Joseph, The only priest I know of who has spoken out about the Church’s practice of separating twins is Fr. Thomas Brosnan.
Here he’s quoted in a 1994 NCR article by Patricia Lefevre: http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1141/is_n8_v31/ai_16025843/
More about the brave priest concerned with the born, as opposed to the unborn, may be found at Google.
Gerolyn, why must concern with the born be “opposed” to concern for the unborn?
I suppose the answer to your initial questions might be sought from the agencies that separated twins after birth. Have you asked them? That’s probably a surer source than railing priests.
Jean: I wonder if one reason why men, or more precisely the putative fathers of the twins under threat, are not quoted is that the advanced thinking about abortion represented by the article gives them scant say in such matters. Aren’t spousal notification bills regularly opposed by women’s groups? So why should their views be sought about reductions to a singleton?
“ALL abortions are elective. It’s just that, in the case of severe pre-eclampsia or a tubal pregnancy, you elect to have them so you don’t die.”
This is perhaps 2% of all abortions – the rest are due to decision to abort based on non-life threatening circumstances.
As for men, I completely agree – they should be held responsible through the law and are to some degree through courts and child-support…if the child lives to be supported.
This is not the ear of cavemen, though. With the exception of criminal acts, consent by the women is the necessary requirement for sexual relations in modern America.
Yet, there is an exceptional focus on “rights” these days – rights that really undermine the ethic of personal responsibility and morality. I have a “right” to sex and unhinged moral actions (for self-esteem reasons usually) and a “right” to contraception and a “right” to abortion if that fails.
What about self respect and regulation and limits on behavior. What about a child’s right to live? This critique goes for both men and women, btw.
Good piece up on Slate.com about the issue.
http://www.slate.com/id/2301322/
David N (8/17 10:08 am):
Because it’s her property. She paid for it. Why should she have to pay again just to give it away, with all the expensive legal possibilities that might entail down the road. Much simpler – for everyone – to just discard it.
Gerolyn, why must concern with the born be “opposed” to concern for the unborn?
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What is the proportion of adoption sermons to abortion sermons?
I don’t know. Do you? But I suspect that there are enough people concerned about both the unborn and the born to call into question putting the two concerns into opposition. To do so leads exactly nowhere.
Because it’s her property. She paid for it. Why should she have to pay again just to give it away, with all the expensive legal possibilities that might entail down the road. Much simpler – for everyone – to just discard it.
David Smith,
You make a very powerful case, but I think many here would still disagree with you.
Thank you, everyone, for these thought-provoking comments. It has caused me to reflect on the ideal of Christian marriage. In a Christian marriage:
* The husband and wife are open to creating new life, and generous in having children
* They feel this way, understanding full well that it will mean sacrifice. Having more children means that expenses will go up; that the mom’s life will be unbelievably disrupted by pregnancy (I was speaking with my wife recently about her “lost decade”); that her health will be at risk; that at least one spouse (still almost always the mom, but I’ve observed in my own circle of friends and acquaintances an increasing number of stay-at-home dads) will need to compromise or set aside any career aspirations of the sake of the children and family
* The sacrifices are borne by both spouses. Obviously, the dad can’t carry the pregnancy or give birth, but he can do plenty of things before, during and afterward to sustain the family and make his wife’s life bearable, or even better than bearable
* They view this family-making – the conception and bearing and rearing of children, and all of the sacrifice it entails – as a sacred vocation
* They experience love and fulfillment that more than makes up for the hardships, pain and sacrifices
There are many, many couples who have really lived this way – whose lives bear Christian witness. Not everyone is able to fulfill this ideal, but a lot of us are.
I just think that, if the church could find a way to articulate this view of marriage, rather than allowing the wider world to define it as a form of intolerance (the church opposes homosexual marriage, divorce and remarriage, IVF, birth control, even sperm donation), it would be a very positive thing for the church and for the society in which we live.
Jim–
Since we often don’t see things quite the same (you’re way too patient, balanced and compassionate for my taste), I must say I agree wholeheartedly with you on this one!
Ann– (re: your post on 8/16 at 12:49 pm)
The thread has moved beyond the issues you and I were discussing, so I won’t renew them, but I’m happy to continue offline if you’d like. I’ll say only for now that you should read Meilaender’s book. He’s of course fair game for challenge, but I don’t think his “answers are much, much too simple,” and I didn’t intend to address the breadth of the arguments he makes in the book.
Brett– (re: your post on 8/17 at 12:49 pm)
Excellent points IMO.
“Maybe [sperm donors are] remotely involved, but in no way responsible.”
“As for men, I completely agree – they should be held responsible through the law and are to some degree through courts and child-support … if the child lives to be supported.”
O, Lord, where do I even start the rant on these comments?
Let’s be clear: A man is responsible for where he deposits his sperm. If he deposits it for fun or profit in a sperm bank where his reproductive material will eventually form a son or daughter that will be “reduced” at the mother’s convenience, he allowed that situation to arise, and is, in my book, as morally culpable for failing to protect the lives of his children as surely as the lout who runs out on his family.
Dilemma: should a woman abort or give up her newly-born child to adoption by (gasp!) a same-sex couple? Let’s complicate it by having the preborn child determined to be severely physically damange? How about fetal alcohol syndrome?
O woe is the doctrinnaire orthodox Catholic!
Jimmy–
My understanding of Catholic doctrine is that this is a no-brainer.
Jimmy (8/17 9:15 pm):
Gasping aside, that is an interesting question. Hopefully, there won’t be a great many Catholic unwed mothers to worry about it.
A twin pregnancy carries significantly enhanced risks — mostly for the babies themselves, although sometimes for the mother. You don’t have to look far to see that one member of a twin couple is more likely to have developmental delays or even more serious issues. Human anatomy really doesn’t accommodate twins all that well — Nearly all multiple pregnancies including twin pregnancies end at an earlier gestational point than singletons, which itself introduces risks of developmental issues and even death.
The view on the “acceptability” of the risk varies a lot depending on whether you ask the doctor who shepherds the pregnancy (e.g., Dr. Wapner) or the doctor who shepherds the outcome (neonatologists).
I realize that it is easy to throw darts at people who defend choices on the basis of lifestyle and such, and my guess is that most would make a reasonably decent go at being the parents of twins, but I agree with Joseph on the moral issues, and I agree with Jean on the issues of control: the perception of control is a very powerful force in the human psyche — it’s why people choose to take a greater risk simply because they perceive they have more control over the risk — e.g., driving rather than flying to a destination. It’s not “rational” but choosing one’s course rather than being directed to it makes the risk and the outcome more acceptable. This is a difficult dilemma for moral inquiry, and it seems not to be on the table at all wrt Church discussion, which I think was Jean’s point.