Baby Survives After Just 21 Week Gestation
From USA Today:
A premature baby that doctors say spent less
time in the womb than any other surviving infant is to be released from
a Florida hospital Tuesday.
Amillia Sonja Taylor was just 9½ inches long and
weighed less than 10 ounces when she was born Oct. 24. She was
delivered 21 weeks and six days after conception. Full-term births come
after 37 to 40 weeks. “We weren’t too optimistic,” Dr. William Smalling said Monday. “But she proved us all wrong.” Neonatologists who cared for Amillia say she is
the first baby known to survive after a gestation period of fewer than
23 weeks. A database run by the University of Iowa’s Department of
Pediatrics lists seven babies born at 23 weeks between 1994 and 2003.
Amillia has experienced respiratory problems, a
very mild brain hemorrhage and some digestive problems, but none of the
health concerns are expected to pose long-term problems, her doctors
said. “We can deal with lungs and things like that
but, of course, the brain is the most important,” Dr. Paul Fassbach
said Monday. “But her prognosis is excellent.”
UPDATE: To provide some context, back near the anniversary of Roe v. Wade, a number of liberal bloggers posted commentary questioning the widespread view — accepted even by many supporters of abortion rights — that abortion is, at a minimum, a morally problematic practice. Over at Unfogged, in the course of recounting the story of her own abortion, LizardBreath made the following claim:
Morally, I think that a ten week embryo — in fact, any fetus in at
least the first two trimesters — is not sentient and is not a person
or anything else with rights, and that ending a pregnancy does not have
moral significance with respect to the rights or interests of the fetus.
I meant to post something at the time questioning the factual claim that a fetus cannot be sentient during the second trimester. But this USA Today story goes one better, and provides evidence of viability several weeks back into the second trimester. Now, I agree with the commenter below that viability and sentience are not the same, and, as a consequence, evidence of viability in the second trimester does not refute LizardBreath’s claim about sentience. This does lead to an interesting question, though. Given the distinct possibility that some day down the road technology might make a fetus viable before it becomes sentient (depending on what you mean by sentience, this 21 week “birth” might already present such a case), what, if anything, is the significance of the concept of viability to those who emphasize sentience in their analysis of the morality of abortion?
Viability and sentience are not necessarily co-extensive. One of the reasons babies born before 27 weeks have so many difficulties is that their brains are not sufficiently “finished” to regulate their bodily functions. Their other organs, of course, are also immature, so digestion, in particular, can cause innumerable problems. Indeed, even at 40 weeks a baby’s neurological system is still developing — and babies born between 34 and 37 weeks are now being studied for developmental issues, albeit far more subtle ones. And as for the assessment that this baby should face no long-term issues, blah blah blah. I am the mother of a preterm infant. You can’t draw such happy conclusions at less than 6 months because many issues don’t even manifest themselves until children are beginning to walk, talk or go to school. These doctors are “critical care” doctors. What they mean by that is that there aren’t any issues that are life threatening, but that’s a far cry from “no issues.” This is like all those happy stories regarding multiple gestational births — for every happy outcome there are dozens of catastrophes and long-term difficulties.
Which brings us back to personhood, I guess. I have never accepted the sentience argument as being legitimate simply because it isn’t provable — but then, neither is the contrary argument. It comes down to, I think, whether you think it’s fair to “err on the side” of assuming personhood as early as possible and restricting the autonomy of women to decide this question for themselves. I have never had a problem with the concept of restricting abortion to a period of time that provides a very generous definition of viability (at which point, issues about liberty interests start to become much less compelling). But earlier restrictions proceed from a willingness to impose a moral construct of personhood that cannot be proven scientifically. And I find that problematic, to put it mildly.
I agree with Barbara, up to a point.
The sentience argument never held any sway with me not only because it’s not provable, but because it is, in my view, irrelevant when considering the morality of abortion.
A human egg fertilized with human sperm will, when left uninterrupted, produce a human person. It will not produce a non-human, but a human being every time. So what difference does it make if we are ever able to determine scientifically when a cluster of human cells becomes sentient? Is the thinking behind this argument that it might be morally better to end a pregnancy when the fetus will never know what hit it over when it might be cognizant of its own death?
The question, as far as I can tell, should be, do we want to interrupt the formation of another human being, and if so, why and when and who gets to make the decision?
That being said, Barbara’s summary of what “no issues” means is spot on, and I think there are also moral questions to be answered when it comes to analyzing the value of medical technology that can sustain life at almost any cost.
Just two additional points:
When someone says a baby was born at 21 weeks there is always a possibility that the mother’s dates were just wrong. Doctors tell pregnant women this all the time — it’s why due dates are almost always wrong, sometimes by a lot. So unless this was an IVF baby, a one-time survival like this should be taken with some amount of reservation not just that it could ever be the norm, but that it is even exactly what it is stated to be.
And as for the fusion of egg and sperm growing inexorably into finished humans: it isn’t so. First, there needs to be implantation, and even then a remarkably high percentage of zygotes don’t make it very far for many reasons most of which are not very well understood.
Barbara,
Before you even get to any of these questions, I believe you must have an answer to the following –
What makes a person a person?
Although I think stories like this one tend to factually support a prolife position, they are ultimately irrelevant.
Sean, the real question is, should my answer be relevant just for me or for everyone? I believe that “my answer” is irrelevant for other people. The Church is way bigger, older, and arguably more authoritative than I am, and to boot, it is the carrier of a tradition that imposes rules on its followers as a way of being, so I understand in theory why it thinks its answer should be imposed on the world at large, but that, to me is the real question: not what I or you think about personhood, but what we think about whether a single definition should prevail for all people so that individual autonomy, a concept that is very deeply embedded in our legal and moral tradition, can be superseded for the purpose of forcing women to give birth against their will.
Barbara,
Isn’t the truth relevant to everyone? Individual autonomy is not an answer to whether something is true or not true.
Either a living thing is a person or it is not. That is a factual issue. You or I may be wrong about what our answer is, but that doesn’t change the fact. Who cares who “imposes” a view if it is truthful.
This is exactly why the argument about sentience is so dangerous. If what makes a person a person is merely some level of brain function, then why should we not terminate profoundly retarded infants after they are born or severly brain damaged stroke victims.
Science doesn’t answer the question of personhood. There are many true facts but there is no single factual “truth”. Everyone should have the opportunity to advise anyone who will listen what their view of truth is. It might or might not be relevant and if it is then they are almost certainly better of if they know it. I can think of many views I hold to be truthful that I would never think of imposing on my fellow beings.
“…but that, to me is the real question: not what I or you think about personhood, but what we think about whether a single definition should prevail for all people so that individual autonomy, a concept that is very deeply embedded in our legal and moral tradition, can be superseded for the purpose of forcing women to give birth against their will…”
This is plain nonsense. Who counts as human persons? So far as I can tell, attempts to answer that question will fall into one of two camps. The first asserts that all forms of “human” life are instrinsically human by virtue of the nature of their existence. The second asserts that not all forms of human life qualify as fully human. What counts is whether a human being possesses certain traits, capacities, or characteristics that qualify it as human; thus, there are humans which can therefore be pre- or post-human This can all be rather easily stated and understood philosophically. It is not a mysterious puzzle that defeats us rationally. I feel silly even restating it.
To respond in the manner I quoted above is to answer the question in one very definite way. It is not to leave it in abeyance. It answers the question by taking the second option, though it refuses to apply moral reason to it for even a moment.
Let me rephrase then.
When a human egg is fertilized with human sperm and proceeds uninterrupted to a normal pregnancy, the end product will be a human person and nothing else.
The purpose of abortion in humans, even in cases of abnormal pregnancy where things are not progressing well, is to interrupt and ultimately end the development and birth of a human person.
Even while recognizing that some pregnancies end in the spontaneous abortion of a malforming zygote, the cells, the DNA, the whole mass of material is decidedly human. It is not non-human. You will not find Alaskan Malamute DNA in an aborted human zygote.
Therefore, in my view, to be discussing abortion in terms of “personhood” is irrelevant. Sentient or not, the object of the discussion is still human.
Barbara,
A thing is either true or it is not. If what makes a thing true is my belief that it is true, or better stated, my preference that it be true, then there is no such thing as truth.
You and I may disagree about what is true, but that just means one of us, or both of us, is/are wrong.
I agree that science can’t answer what a person is, but I am not trying to make it do so.
Morally (and legally), what makes it wrong to kill another person is the fact, not the opinion, thay he or she is a human person. For example, if I shoot a corpse, thinking it is alive, I am guily of attempted murder, but I can’t be guilty of murder. So, as I said, the only important question is what is a person?
There are two possibilities as to a fetus – It is a person or it is not. There are three possible beliefs about a fetus – I believe it is a person, I don’t believe it is a person, or I don’t know. The only scenario in which abortion would be an objectively and subjectively moral act is when I believe a fetus is not a person, and it is, in fact, not a person. As I said – what matters is whether it is a person.
I like Donna believe the science all points to embryos and fetuses as human from the moment of conception. Since what makes a person a person is that gift of creation and special relationship it has with God – simplified a soul and/or spirit – I, for one, am not so confident in my own ability to know how God does his work to take a chance on someone else’s soul based on his biological development.
Barbara — the baby was an IVF baby, so the date of conception was known in this case with certainty.
The failure of so many fertilized eggs to implant (perhaps 50 percent or more), which Barbara alluded to earlier, as well as the large number of early miscarriages (perhaps 10 to 25 percent of all pregnancies) raises all kinds of questions in my mind if you believe that human life (and personhood, and ensoulment) starts at conception. For one thing, it means that most of the people who have ever lived . . . have never lived.
It means those of us who eat, sleep, breathe, and have beating hearts constitute a minority of humanity. It means that the majority of persons in heaven will not have known what life on earth was like. It means that the answer from the old Baltimore Catechism–”God made me to know, love, and serve Him in this world and be happy with Him forever in heaven”–can’t apply to the majority of humanity. It means that the Gospels are only for a minority. It’s like there are two very different categories of human beings and all our thinking applies only to one.
I have no problem whatsoever according “human life” status to any living cell or organism that bears human DNA. That’s a true fact. But a collation of true facts doesn’t inevitably lead to a single moral position that is really what you are talking about when you use the word “truth”: That no action can ever be taken to undermine any life that is defined as human (which isn’t even really accurate, but I won’t go there). This is a moral position, which, in the case of abortion, finds itself in opposition to another moral position: one’s right to autonomy and bodily integrity. And caught up in there is another deeply embedded moral position: that individuals determine the moral code they choose to live by.
Is the existence of God a fact? Or is it a truth? And if the latter, why shouldn’t we impose it as a condition for any manner of benefits and privileges for people living in society? Is it not fundamental enough? Please explain.
“I have no problem whatsoever according “human life” status to any living cell or organism that bears human DNA. That’s a true fact. But a collation of true facts doesn’t inevitably lead to a single moral position that is really what you are talking about when you use the word “truth”: That no action can ever be taken to undermine any life that is defined as human (which isn’t even really accurate, but I won’t go there). This is a moral position, which, in the case of abortion, finds itself in opposition to another moral position: one’s right to autonomy and bodily integrity. And caught up in there is another deeply embedded moral position: that individuals determine the moral code they choose to live by. ”
And yet, for those who make the argument in favor of abortion rights based on the personhood of the fetus, are they not trying to do the same thing? By trying to pinpoint the moment of “personhood” to establish when abortion should be allowed follows the same logic of coming up with a scientifically based rationale for a single moral position.
As you point out, it’s not that simple.
I’ve always found arguments in favor of induced abortion rather selfish — no concern for the welfare of the unborn child.
If a pro-choicer could be returned to her mother’s womb, perhaps she might say, “I support a woman’s right to choose; just don’t choose to abort me.”
As long as it’s the “other” getting aborted………….
Except for David Nickol, only the women here have talked scientifically while the males are full of hypotheticals and non-sequitors. And thanks to Barbara for some strong insights as to what problems the child might have afterwards.
And no one has a scintilla of an explanation as to what happens to those miscarried “persons” who are routinely thrown into the garbage by bishop sponsored hospitals.
Secondly, the women have kept their cool while the males have gotten a little “hysterical”, as it were.
But this always was a patriarchal issue, anyway.
Women are mushrooming as theologians. Our only hope in in their leadership on this issue.
Bill,
I hardly think anyone has become hysterical.
Although,I think scientific evidence tends to show the humanity of preborn infants.
Science can’t answer this question.
Also, why do you insist on couching this debate in a men vs. women struggle. Every poll I have seen indicates at best that men and women’s opinions on the subject are pretty much the same – except when you poll women who have had children, who are far more likely to oppose abortion than men. The population group that favors abortion on demand in the highest numbers – young men – big surprise there.
Barbara,
I’m sorry, but this kind of moral relativist argument refutes itself. If there are no absolute moral principles, why should I give a darn about your autonomy? That’s simply your assertion of a value I ought to respect. Why am I not free to reject it and substitute my own?
As a moral absolutist – that is someone who accepts that there are certain objective moral principles or truths – I can weigh and rationally discuss these competing values. A moral relativist can’t. If “individuals determine the moral code they choose to live by,” then I can chose to live by a code that rejects claims to bodily integrity and autonomy. By simply asserting your right to autonomy you are imposing a moral absolute which you say doesn’t exist.
In regards to the right to bodily integrity – why does an unborn infant lack that same right if it is a human person?
Not to drag this conversation into the realm of science fiction, but NPR reported not long ago on a Texas adoption agency which plans to develop embryos with donated eggs and sperm purchased online (yes, it’s possible) and put them up for adoption.
As I listened to the report, I wondered what if technology made it possible for women to donate aready-conceived but unwanted embryos instead of aborting them.
Would this be a better choice than abortion?
Would it be good to have a law that required all women to terminate pregnancies this way?
Would such a choice be in keeping with Catholic teaching?
Would it strengthen our respect for human life or push us further down the road to seeing human life as a “commodity” (which is how the yet-to-be-developed embryos at a Texas agency are characterized)?
Would the number of donated embryos exceed the demand? And what would happen to those not “adopted”?
Would it be moral to keep them in some cryogenic limbo until they were unviable?
Would an unviable embryo be the same as a dead embryo?
Could an unviable or a dead embryo be donated for scientific purposes?
Seems like reproductive technology is headed in this direction.
Jean,
What troubles me about this technology – and I think you are correct to see this as a real possibility – is that it creates a false moral choice.
Is it better than abortion? At the risk of offending Bill with another hypothetical – Suppose there is a population of people that is routinely killed because they are inconvenient to deal with (not so hypothetical I guess), is it “better” to sell them to work in salt mines as slaves? Do you see my point. In weighing options, it seems a better choice, but it assumes that one has a right to do the evil thing in the first place. This is why, I think, pro-life people would be loathe to engage in the conversation.
“…Would this be a better choice than abortion? Would it be good to have a law that required all women to terminate pregnancies this way?”
This has already been taken up as a philosophical/constitutional question. We can phrase it this way, pace Lawrence Tribe. Is the right to abortion the right to be free of a pregnancy or the right to a dead baby? Tribe argues that it is a right to a dead baby.
Prediction: the coming of artificial wombs will turn the abortion debate upside down.
Some of these comments are absolutely astounding.
1. Whether or not a particular individual organism is human is a relatively easy scientific question. Check the DNA. If it’s human, it’s human.
2. Whether or not a particular human is a *person* is a strictly legal matter. Example: a corporation is a legal person. Listen up: THERE IS NO SCIENCE INVOLVED!!! This is purely a subjective judgment of the lawmaker.
3. Whether you should say that certain humans are not *persons* for the sake of the law is both a moral and a pragmatic matter. If you believe in universal human rights, this is an easy one. If you believe that humans ONLY have the rights given to it by the state, it’s also easy. This wishy-washy maybe they should be given “special consideration” nonsense is simply ignorant – how special is the consideration given if it allows you to kill the organism you’re concerned about?
What about functionalism, or rather that we should be given rights based on what things we can DO rather than what we ARE? This leads to an ubermensch mentality – I don’t think it’s wise to go down that road.
I’ll agree with the poster above – philosophically this is easy. Either there is such a thing as ontology or there is not. If there is not, then I can honestly say you don’t know your rear end from a hole in the ground.
No one would dispute that a human embryo is “human” (in the same sense that a human heart is human), but it is begging the question to say an embryo is “a human” (i.e. a human being). That’s the point at issue.
I think almost everybody would agree that all human beings are persons. (If the concept of personhood were strictly a legal one, then the doctrine of the Trinity would depend on your local laws.) The question is whether, when a human egg and sperm unite, the results is immediately a human being or person. If my memory serves me correctly, I was taught that intellect and will were the two hallmarks of a person. In what sense can a fertilized egg or an embryo of a few cells be said to have intellect and will?
I wonder about the philosophical and practical ramifications of considering human life (the life of a human being) to begin at conception. I remember my mother told me that she once thought she might have had a very early miscarriage. She called the parish priest to find out what she should do with what might have been a very small embryo, and he told her to flush it down the toilet. (This was probably sometime in the 1950s.) If personhood is considered to begin at conception, should he have recommended baptism and burial in the family plot? As I mentioned above, an enormous number of fertilized eggs never implant, and a large number of pregnancies last only a few days. What of all these “persons”? An article in the National Catholic Reporter says, “To further complicate things, approximately 50 percent of fertilized eggs abort spontaneously and never become children. Were these spontaneously aborted eggs microscopic persons? If so, should we then conclude that women who experience late menstrual periods ought to baptize what could be an embryo in its earliest stages?”
If embryos should have the same rights as children who have been born, should the law be used to regulate the smoking, drinking, and drug habits of pregnant women? Could doctors report pregnant women who don’t take care of their health properly as child abusers?
Sean, in the scenario I pointed out, I think it would be immoral to raise up unwanted embryos to serve as slave labor. I don’t see that as an immediate possibility.
I see it more likely that those “unadopted” embryos would remain a moral problem, and probably subject to destruction.
But what if an agency brought each embryo to term and adopted it into a loving home? Would that be evil?
I don’t know.
What troubles me more than the technology–which could clearly be used to save the lives of babies born prematurely–is the notion that an embryo, in the case of the Texas agency I mentioned, is considered a “commodity” that is “owned” by the adoption agency.
And, presumeably, a later-stage fetus that could be “donated” to an artificial womb would also be a commodity until … when?
What also troubles me is that where adoption finds homes for children that have been or will be born in the usual way, the Texas agency has taken a step further toward the “commodification” of children by making them to order. These are children who would not have been conceived had there not been a demand for them.
Way back at the beginning of this thread, Donna asked this question:
“The question, as far as I can tell, should be, do we want to interrupt the formation of another human being, and if so, why and when and who gets to make the decision?”
Isn’t the formation process itself, the “ontology” mentioned by another poster, the crux of the issue? Shouldn’t the embryo have the inherent right to be allowed to develop uninterrupted into the unique individual its DNA and ensoulment will bring about?
Sometimes formation goes wrong biologically, for a myriad of reasons that are unintended, and a pregnancy may end naturally. That is an extremely sad event, but the moral point to be made is that the termination was unintended. The same goes for fertilized eggs that fail to implant because of an unintended biological problem. (The moral result would be different IMO if implantation did not occur because the mother took a “morning after” pill.)
When does sentience occur? Ensoulment? Darned if I or anyone else on Earth knows for sure. Even if sentience could be pinpointed to the exact day in the gestational period, would that marker apply to all embryos given that DNA programming is highly individualistic?
So if it is virtually impossible to determine exactly when each and every embryo becomes “a person” worthy of legal protection, who among us has the moral authority to decide if and when a pregnancy can be terminated? Wouldn’t any bright-line drawing be arbitrary in one way or another, and wouldn’t such line drawing put us as a society on a very slippery slope?
Actually, we are on that slippery slope now, and the gradient is getting steeper and steeper. Embryonic stem cell research…in vitro culling of embryos that don’t meet some subjective criteria (e.g., blue eyes, gender, etc.)…in vivo culling of embryos and fetuses for the same reasons. Designer children are already a reality, and the cloning of a human being will definitely happen in our lifetimes. Won’t such eugenics be the moral nadir for us as a society? Life itself will be manipulable, fungible, and, to a great degree, a commercial commodity. Huxley’s godless Brave New World will be upon us.
We should get our clue from the fact that we spend much much more time discussing abortion than we do do violence…and there is atrocious violence going on all over the world. First to millions of children and then to others.
One of the greatest dangers is nuclear proliferation. Yet when nuclear proliferation is talked about the bishops, as opposed to abortion, say there is room for discussion, we are proposing, look at this, look at that. Meanwhile millions are in danger.
As Christine Gudorf points out. “Women with the medical option of abortion seem, in the bishop’s eyes, to be a greater danger to life than men armed with tanks, missiles, and bombs.”
In terms of the scientific advances we can look forward to (or dread, as the case may be), possibly one of them will be some simple, inexpensive, nonburdensome, foolproof method of assuring pregnancy occurs only when it is wanted. I vaguely remember reading a science fiction novel in which women ovulated consciously and by choice, only when they wanted to. (This was by mind over matter, not by using drugs.) I was just reading on the web somewhere that it was illicit for Catholic women to use breastfeeding as a fertility-contol method if they did so with “contraceptive intent,” so I would not venture a guess what the Church would make of willed ovulation.
Would it be incorrect to say that the “pro-choice” folks are more dedicated to preventing unwanted pregnancies than the “pro-life” folks? I know that Planned Parenthood offers both abortions and contraception. The National Right to Life Committe doesn’t have a position on contraception. One would think that preventing unwanted pregnancies is something the two sides could wholeheartedly agree on, but it doesn’t seem to me to be the case.
One more idea about what the future holds: When human cloning is perfected, and I assume it will be, then every human cell is a potential new life. I wonder if that will change how some people perceive a fertilized egg or early embryo.
Jean,
I did not mean that children so born would be slaves. My point in the analogy is that it creates a false moral choice. Both things are wrong. One results in death, so that appears to be the less moral choice, but you only get to the choice if you accept that either or both choices are legitimate. They are not.
Factually there is not evidence that “pro-choice” groups dedicated to promoting contraception have had any success in reducing pregnancies. Does anyone ever wonder why it is that as contraception became more and more available, convenient, and inexpensive, out of wedlock births skyrocketed? Imagine how many more without abortion on demand.
We need to start treating the abortion problem and the unwanted pregnancy problem as moral and spiritual problems, and not simply medical ones.
Bill,
Abortion is awfully violent to the tens of millions of tiny souls who have suffered it.
Hello All,
I realize I am entering this conversation late but as a philosophy professor who teaches courses addressing issues related to abortion regularly I thought I might add some additions I hope will prove helpful.
Just so we are clear I am about to summarize two positions I reject utterly. Philosophers who maintain that abortion is morally acceptable tend to adopt one of the following argument strategies: (1) A developing human fetus, while undeniably a living member of the human race, is not a person. (The “mistake” opponents of abortion make is to conflate the concepts “human being” and “person”.) (2) Whether a developing human fetus is a person or not, a fetus has no right to use anyone’s body for life support, including her/his mother’s body. (The “mistake” opponents of abortion make is to assume that having a right to continued life implies that one has the right to use another’s body for a time without permission.)
A number of posts in this discussion have presented ideas similar to strategy (1), but I think only Mark Johnson’s post touches upon one important distinction. The philosophers who deploy (1) begin by asking “What, if anything, about humans renders them persons, who have a right a right to life?” Getting the answer to this question right clearly bears upon many issues, including abortion and the moral permissibility of killing and consuming nonhuman animals. The usual response is “We don’t know the answer in full, but we can identify some necessary conditions of personhood (and a being that doesn’t satisfy these conditions by definition can’t be a person).” The next step will be familiar to the discussants here: Philosophers will provide some conditions such as having a sense of self, or having plans for one’s life. This idea actually has a long history, though not directly connected with abortion. Aristotle, for one, claims that what makes humans special is their having a sense of justice. Hobbes claims that only humans are intellectually curious. Now it’s supposed to follow at once that the unborn cannot be persons, because a fetus cannot satisfy even one of these conditions. A fetus cannot have a sense of self, or have plans for one’s life, or have a sense of justice, or …
Fans in my profession of (1) frankly admit that on their view, infants, PVS patients and some severely disabled humans are not persons and have no right to life. On their view, if I kill a baby I do the baby no injustice, but I might do the baby’s parents an injustice if they didn’t want their child dead. (To some of you who have read this far, no, I am not making any of this up.)
Now for the hopefully useful part: Those who (like me) reject (1) think that the mistake is to confuse characteristic expressions of personhood with being a person. We agree that only persons have a sense of self, have life plans, have a sense of justice. . . But these are ways in which we humans express our personhood, and we don’t lose our personhood during the times we cannot express our personhood. Symmetrically, opponents of (1) maintain that we don’t gain our personhood when we start expressing it. On our view, one does not stop being a person under general anesthesia, or when one is in a coma, and one does not start being a person when as a child one has her first plan. (A similar argument applies to criteria such as consciousness or ability to feel pain, which are not uniquely human and are also intermittent.) So lack of sense of self, lack of consciousness, etc. is not per se good grounds for denying that a developing fetus is a person.
Thanks for your patience and best wishes to all.
Peter V,
The fact is that neither the supporter or opponents of abortion know when a zygote with human characteristics becomes a person or a full human being. Certainly the notion of personhood is not all that clear either. There is no science supporting either.
How we treat others is based on religous beliefs. The clear preference of Jesus Christ, as far as we are concerned, for the downtrodden eliminates any notion of destroying disabled or handicapped people.
In the last few years we have had a branch of the Catholic church enthusiastically support the Iraqi war while at the same time abhoring abortion as the crime of the ages. As a result they demonized people who believe that there are times when abortion might be the right thing to do. The message is that killing unmistakable human beings is okay, in war, while it is not okay to terminate those in the zygote or embronic stage.
Everyone knows that terminating a born human being is murder but we do not know that terminating an unborn person is murder. Yet we easily do the former while condemning the latter. Scripture is abundant with praising the peacemaker and silent on abortion.
This discussion is not complete without two other points. The first is that on the issue of torture the Right to Life Catholic contingent was virtually silent. The Evangelical Protestants, on the other hand, loudly and clearly condemned the president for his use of torture, to their credit.
Finally, on a sin of abusing children, about which Jesus said it is better for a person to have a millstone tied around his neck and thrown into the sea than face the judgment, those who made abortion the number one issue, were not just silent but are still covering it up. And right to lifers play it down.
The solution may be in contraception and facing the fact that contraception is morally right. From there we can manage population and prevent abortions. The results that are in show that population control does reduce abortions.
At the same time equal passion has to be given for world peace, preventing more powerful nations from going to war just because they are the strongest. Christianity has still not turned this around and shamefully, many in the right to life area, W Bush and his clergy cohorts, even in this present war advocated invading and occupying Iraq.
No philosophical theory ever came near the wondrous love of the Good Samaritan and the Mother/Father of theProdigal Son.
Hello Bill (and all),
How nice that you are already referring to me as “Peter V.”, which is what all my friends and students call me.
I disagree outright with only one of your claims in your last post, but nothing you said undermines what I claimed, which is only that none of the expressionist- or performance-based theories of personhood proposed by some professional philosophers really give good grounds for denying that any living human is a person.
“Everyone knows that terminating a born human being is murder but we do not know that terminating an unborn person is murder.”
Well, almost everyone. (This is my only outright disagreement with your last post.) The proponents of performance theories deny that killing infants, PVS patients and some severely disabled humans is murder because they deny that these humans are people. I don’t think there are many who maintain these views outside of university philosophy departments. And I hope I made it clear that not all philosophers accept this — I for one don’t.
“Yet we easily do the former while condemning the latter. Scripture is abundant with praising the peacemaker and silent on abortion.”
I agree on both points. Some of us are inconsistent. It’s a common failing.
“In the last few years we have had a branch of the Catholic church enthusiastically support the Iraqi war while at the same time abhoring abortion as the crime of the ages.”
Again, I agree. In fact, I may be as upset with some of these people as you seem to be. Some of the same people you refer to are pundits who also encouraged their readers not to take what the late Cardinal Bernardin referred to as a consistent ethic of life too seriously, on the grounds that doing so might make people think that combating abortion is not more important than combating other forms of violence and neglect that costs human lives. I have no patience with this kind of reasoning, and I suspect you don’t, either.
“No philosophical theory ever came near the wondrous love of the Good Samaritan and the Mother/Father of theProdigal Son.”
Once more, I agree wholeheartedly. In fact, this wondrous love is what first attracted me to Christianity. Some of my colleagues and some of my students are surprised when they meet a Christian philosopher in a secular university. I find the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth on the value of the human person, no matter how vulnerable, far more satisfying than any of the philosophical theories proposed to ground our rights and obligations that I study and teach. But philosophy at times helps us clear things up, which is why I am still at it.
Bill,
If one doesn’t know whether what one is destroying is a human person isn’t the proper choice to preserve what is at a minimum a potential person if not a person.
The universal condemnation by early Christians of abortion as the wrongful destruction of human life was one of the things that distinguished them from the pagans. This condemnation remained a universal Christian value until the 20th century.
Pro-lifers are not a caricature that you have drawn. What evidence do you have that pro-lifers “play down” child abuse? That’s nonsense. What evidence do you have that pro-lifers support torture? Just because people don’t agree with you on the war doesn’t mean they support torture.
I’d get out your Bible and do a little more studying. If you decide to play the numbers game, Christ spoke a lot more about bringing strife, conflict, and oh yes battles and war, than he did about peacemaking. What did the owner do when the ungrateful tenant’s killed his son? As a matter of fact, scripture is silent about the sinfulness of torture – I guess that must be OK too. I’m not saying scripture supports this war or any war, but it isn’t a cookbook for your political outlook either.
The hypocrisy sword is double edged. If a pro-lifer is a hypocrite for opposing abortion but not opposing war, why can’t the pro-lifer say the same thing about you. After all, there were more abortions worldwide in the last twenty-five years (about twice as many) as there were deaths from all the wars of the 20th century.
Did Bill say he was for abortion and against the war? If he did, that would be hypocritical.
But as I read Bill on this and other topics, he is not pushing a pro-choice position, only the extent to which abortion has become some sort of super-sin, obscuring our sensitivity to other evils.
In posing my artificial womb question, the person who made the most sense to me, as a Catholic, was the person on this thread who pointed out that once begun, we don’t have the right to end life or decide when to interrupt the process of life.
In my view, this gets at the heart of the way Catholics view life.
Hello All,
I am quite new to this kind of web communication (Well, I am a philosopher and we folk tend to be slow at adopting modern technology!) but I’m fascinated by the way these discussions evolve.
I agree with Jean. I did not take Bill to be defending a pro-abortion rights position. (As I make clear to my students, so far as I am able I avoid using the terms “pro-life” and “pro-choice” because I think they are misleading.) Bill, of course, may want to speak for himself on this.
I have a question. Sean rightly notes that the early Christians universally condemned abortion. They also condemned infanticide, and it is my understanding that part of what distinguished early Christians in the Roman Empire from other imperial subjects was their refusal to expose an “undesirable” infant knowing she would die unless a passerby took pity on her and brought her home (typically to serve as a slave). However, it’s also the case that some church fathers of previous centuries, while always condemning abortion, did not believe that early abortions were homicides. Aquinas, for example, accepted Aristotle’s groundless claim that a male human fetus received his soul at 40 days gestation and a female fetus received her soul at 80 days gestation. So for him, all abortions are wrong but very early abortions are not homicides. (Amazingly, one of my colleagues, the holder of a named chair, simply appeals to the authority of Aquinas to justify first trimester abortions.) I agree with Aquinas commentators who argue that, knowing contemporary biology, Aquinas today would adopt the view that a human is ensouled, and consequently a person, at conception. But what I would like to know is: When (and how) did the Roman Catholic church officially adopt its current position, which is that all living humans are persons, from conception to death? (I’m not trying to suggest, as do some of my colleagues, that the Catholic church ever approved of some abortions. I only want to know some history I have not been able to learn on my own, and that I think all participants here would be interested in knowing.)
Thanks all and Happy Weekend.
Sean,
Jesus spoke of the conflict one will have by supporting the downtrodden, women and children. In no way did he approve of war.
That famous text where he appears to support war has been clearly misunderstood or better, not rightly taught. Why would he be crucified if that were the case. And he was crucified because he helped the lowly of this world and criticized the ‘church’ officials who sought the highest places.
The Right to Life movement was virtually silent on the torture issues in Iraq by American forces. And loud on you know what.
Jean,
You are right, Bill did not explicitly state his position on abortion. I suppose I read too much into the statement that “we do not know that terminating an unborn person is murder.” Although that doesn’t necessarily promote a pro-abortion position, it is certainly contrary to a pro-life one, and absolutely contrary to the teaching of the Catholic Church. Bill can clear up his position if he wants to, but this and some other statements led me to my conclusion.
Bill,
Christ is first and foremost about redemption and love. In my opinion, many of those who are, for lack of an easy shorthand, P&J Catholics, are just as materialistic as any big oil executive. Yes, Christ preached to the downtrodden because they would listen, because they were “poor in spirit.” They knew there was something more, wanted it, and knew they wouldn’t find it here. He did not distinguish among people because of wealth but because of faith. Some of the poorest people I know have the most, but I have also met some very wealthy and very holy people. Christ brought strife because of his message, not because of his support of the downtrodden. He dined with Lazarus and Joseph or Arimethia too, and loved them, and they were not poor. Remember Wednesday’s Gospel – “When you give alms, do not blow a trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets to win the praise of others.” Helping the downtrodden in and of itself is not the core of Christ’s Gospel. We must help the poor out of Christian Love or it means nothing.
Again with the hypocrisy thing. OK, Priests for Life haven’t put out a statement on the war – but not a one of Call to Action’s current programs addresses abortion or euthanasia. Are they hypocrites too? Who has the greater responsibility? In the words of a world renown Catholic theologian and former Prefect of the CDF, “There may be a legitimate diversity of opinion even among Catholics about waging war and applying the death penalty, but not however with regard to abortion and euthanasia.” Maybe pro-lifer’s are missing a cuff or two of the seamless garment, but their opponents are missing both sleeves.
Catholics beating one another up on life-and-death issues is one of the most destructive things I see in the Church.
At the risk of sounding like Little Mary Sunshine–which i ain’t by a longshot–could we say that all of us try to support life in the way that touches closest to us?
Until my husband and I experienced the heartbreak of miscarriage and the joy of finally having a child, I was pretty ambivalent about abortion. And if making laws to punish women and/or doctors who perform them is required by my faith, well, I’m still not there yet.
Having lived through Vietnam and the incredible waste of human life in that conflict, I have always been more stridently opposed to our government’s wasting money and lives in my name, with my money, where I think the cause does not meet moral criteria.
Can’t we equally honor the right-to-life groups who are trying to help women with difficult pregnancies, the anti-death-penalty advocates who hold prayer vigils, the war protesters, the people who run food pantries and soup kitchens alike?
Aren’t they all trying to support life in a Catholic way?
Sean,
In point of fact, Bill has expressed his opinion on abortion very clearly. On Amy Welborn’s site he very cleary indicated his full agreement with Daniel Maquire’s position–ie, the unlimited abortion license, including partial-birth. Lest there be any confusion, he has stated this position more than once.
Jean,
I’m sorry, I can’t treat all these groups the same, and neither does the Church, and frankly neither do sensible people in any other context.
This post is a case in point. The story about this infant clearly focuses us on abortion. Pro-life positions are not challenged on their merits, but because the proponents don’t have the “right” position on other issues. What Iraq or George Bush had to do with the story of this infant, I don’t know but there you have it. For all its theological depth, that is why so many pro-life Catholics groan when they hear the words “seamless garment.” It is never used as it was stated by Cardinal Bernadin, but rather in one of two ways – as I think we see in this discussion. Either 1) I may support abortion, or at least ignore any obligation to oppose it, since it is only a small part of the garment or 2) I can ignore proponents of traditional life positions because they are hypocrites who don’t appreciate the whole garment.
What is fascinating is that it never works the other way around. Many of the opponents of the death penalty (including prominent Catholics) support abortion on demand. Is this license for me to ignore the Church’s position on capital punishment? Shouldn’t I address their position on its own merits?
Finally, as to positions on the war being “life” issues. I am very careful about that. You mention Vietnam. What is our responsibility for the hundreds of thousands of southeast asians who were slaughtered by the communists in the wake of our departure?
I did not support our intervention in this war, but not for religious or moral reasons, but political ones. At this point, that is irrelevant. What matters is what will happen next. Unlike those who immediately identify withdrawl from the war as the more “Catholic” position, I can’t. I work with two officers who worked in Iraq to help establish their court system. What struck home with me was when they showed me pictures of some of their Iraqi counterparts – judges, lawyers, and clerks – and said their great fear is that we will not finish what we started. Not just because of their hopes for the future of their country, but because it may mean they and their families will be killed or, if they are lucky, exiled. There are tens of thousands of such people, as well as tens of thousand more who could just get caught in the crossfire. Am I somehow not true-blue “pro-life” because I care about their lives too?
Sean,
I am sure that I have some non-sequitors also but you are killing me with yours. The question in Iraq is not what we have to finish but what we started. Heads will roll, are rolling whether we remain or leave.
MlJ, you don’t have to go to Wellborn’s blog to know that I view the abortion condundrum as a fraud. I have said that here many times. I am not aware but if I did say it somewhere, I do not support partial birth aortion. My reference to McGuire is that he has more courage than most in engaging the issue.
Sean, I am willing to work with the seamless garment approach. But that first means that we stop back alley procedures so that only the rich have recourse to the best medical treatment. We have to address the contraceptive issue. Not once did you acknowledge that as a problem.
How you divorce your non-support for the war from moral or religious reasons raises enormous questions. You might explain.
What I would like from you Sean is to be struck by the five million children who do not make it to the age of five every year lacking just ordinary food and medicine. “What struck home with me was when they showed me pictures of some of their Iraqi counterparts – judges, lawyers, and clerks -”
Iraq and George Bush are very relevant to this infant. W rants about abortion but has no qualms in causing death to thousands and injuries to hundreds of thousands.
And you say not on religious or moral grounds.
My last word, Sean is I do give you credit. I can see that you are truly conflicted, or at least you are searching for answers. This contrasts sharply with Mark L Johnson who uses worn out phrases and relates to no one.
Bill,
I’m sorry, but I must conclude that some of this rhetoric is imply to avoid the real question. What is your view on abortion? How exactly is the “conundrum” a “fraud”?
Whether procured in a back alley or on the sly by a wealthy family, an abortion is an abortion. As for the contraception issue, I did address it above.
As to starving and needy children – again, must we solve that problem as a prerequsite to having even an opinion on the sinfulness of abortion? Is it your position that aborted children are better off dead than as additions to the surplus population? I am struck by their plight, and I try to do something about it in my small way, but what does that have to do with the issue at hand.
Again, I ask you, why isn’t your postion just a “fraudulent” as a pro-lifer? You “rant” about the war dead while millions of tiny human beings are slaughtered in the world every year and say nothing about that.
Sean,
I don’t believe that abortion is murder. As far as I am concerned that is preposterous. I know it does not prove my point but this great Right to Life issue has been brought to us by bishops who did not and do not care about sending out known pedophiles to abuse children again.
The argument that psychologist advised bishops that pedophilia is curable is bogus. Would we send our children near such people?
But war and children are indisputably real people. There is no conjecture involved. Pure reality. And we are doing a bad job. No matter how you slice it there are tons more right to life meetings than there are meetings to help poor children without medical help or bombed by an unconscionable war.
http://select.nytimes.com/2007/02/25/opinion/25rich.html?th&emc=th
http://select.nytimes.com:80/2007/02/25/opinion/25kristof.html?th&emc=th
Sean wrote: I’m sorry, I can’t treat all these groups the same, and neither does the Church, and frankly neither do sensible people in any other context.
Jean replies: If I am being completely un-sensible by proposing that there are various ways in which to support the Church’s teaching about life, then I certainly am not smart enough to take in the remainder of your arguments.
The “seamless garment” analogy was not in my mind when I responded to you.
It was just my way, inadequate as it turns out, to see if there was any place where we might agree. Apparently not.
Given that I am unable to find common ground with you and, presumeably, orthodox Catholics, what would you advise me to to?
Where should those of us not sensible enough grasp the nuances of the faith go?
One of the many personal failings I am struggling with this Lent.
Bill, from what you’ve written, your logic seems to run this way:
Bishops sinned by allowing pedophiles to molest children. Ergo, they do not care about children. Ergo, they are wrong in assuming fetuses are children. Ergo abortion is not murdering children in the same way that war manifestly murders living, born children.
That doesn’t make sense to me. If there’s something missing in my parsing of your logic, please clarify.
That doesn’t really make senses, does it?
I became very busy and couldn’t answer Sean’s questions [and I'm still too busy but didn't want to cut and run], but after reading through the rest of the comments, I think william collier has most cogently stated the issue:
“So if it is virtually impossible to determine exactly when each and every embryo becomes “a person” worthy of legal protection, who among us has the moral authority to decide if and when a pregnancy can be terminated? Wouldn’t any bright-line drawing be arbitrary in one way or another, and wouldn’t such line drawing put us as a society on a very slippery slope?”
Except that I would have added at the end of your first sentence, the two words: “or not.” The Church’s position, it seems to me, can be stated simply as, “abortion should be illegal because the answer to [william's] question might be ‘yes’ at any point along the continuum of development we refer to as pregnancy.”
It is an absolute weighting of the fetal potential against the maternal actual based on the Church’s traditional understanding of any number of concepts and doctrines, as well as its cultural origins and preferences. That not everyone views those concepts and doctrines in the same way, or interprets them to the same end, and that no everyone shares the Church’s cultural inclinations — for instance, its overwhelming and even all consuming preference for an authoritarian solution to the issue — is what animates those who call themselves pro-choice.
As to the slippery slope and designer children — all pretty much irrelevant to the debate over abortion in my humble opinion. All slopes are slippery but all level lines are arbitrary, and I honestly don’t want to live in a society that is so afraid of slopes and outlier cases (like 21 week old fetuses that survive birth) that it lives by drawing the most extreme lines. It’s like outlawing free speech in order that no one ever publishes anything that could remotely be considered pornographic or seditious.
Hello Barbara,
Thank you for your post. Could you correct me if I am wrong? I thought that current Church teaching maintains that a human is a person from conception onwards. That is, I thought the Church currently teaches that there is no doubt about it (even though of course many people do doubt it).
I’ve seen it phrased in different ways, maybe someone here can post to the actual statement from an official document (the catechism?). I don’t have time to look it up. Even if it is as you say it is, what the Church is doing is asking for its religious doctrine to become the basis of civil and criminal law that would govern the lives of people who don’t accept Church teaching and never even implicitly pledged obedience to its doctrines (that’s what I mean by the authoritarian solution to the issue). The fact is, an overwhelming majority of people don’t accept the Catholic formulation — which is to say, the whole notion of “exceptions” to abortion for rape or incest or whatever other reason, in my view, definitively show that people do not accept the status of a fetus as deserving of full legal protection. I only say that because many people state the Church doctrine as if it were so obvious and self-evident that no one could disagree absent bad faith, even when they also talk about “exceptions” that more or less undercut the logical coherence of their entire position.
Jean,
I apologize if my tone was harsh. My point was simply that some of these things are not the same, either in terms of Catholic doctrine or our obligation as Catholics.
Church teaching on abortion is clear, and as the Holy Father has said, there is no such thing as legitimate diversity of opinion within the Church on the matter of abortion.
On the other hand, the Catholic college student war protester and the young Catholic soldier patrolling Bagdhad, are on equal footing as far as the Church is concerned. Both of their behavior can be informed by their Faith and each may act according to his conscience and be in full communion with each other and the Church.
Bill,
Jean hit the nail on the head – nonsensical.
If you believe a human being is more than the sum total of its functions and cognition – that is that it has a soul – at exactly what point is it murder to end a human life? At birth, and hour after? What about those peiple – there are a few every year – who survive the abortion procedure. May we terminate them?
This is truly my last post because I am deluged at work: Church doctrine on the real presence is also clear but it isn’t seeking to enforce adherence via civil and criminal law. That’s my objection to the Church’s role in abortion politics, nothing more and nothing less. (Well, I don’t like misinformation on contraception either, but that’s not really a doctrinal issue.)
First of all, I am not Catholic, so I have no attachments to “the church” except for my own faith in Jesus Christ and his teachings. I wasn’t planning on adding anything to this but I couldn’t let this one thing go by without comment.
Peter V. wrote “(The “mistake” opponents of abortion make is to assume that having a right to continued life implies that one has the right to use another’s body for a time without permission.)
The problem I have is the “without permission”. If I know that having sex (allowing an egg to meet with a sperm in my body) has the possibility of making me pregnant, shouldn’t it be implied that I’m giving this life/person/fetus permission to use my body until it is finished with it? Whether that be biologically spontaneous abortion or birth?
I know that it is completely irrational and impossible at this point, because we, as a society are very selfish, but it really would solve all the problems if we used sex for what it was intended…procreation and a way to express our love and intimacy with our mate….only in a perfect world, I guess.
Hello Lynn (and all),
“The problem I have is the “without permission”. If I know that having sex (allowing an egg to meet with a sperm in my body) has the possibility of making me pregnant, shouldn’t it be implied that I’m giving this life/person/fetus permission to use my body until it is finished with it? Whether that be biologically spontaneous abortion or birth?”
Many indeed reject the claim that in most cases the developing fetus is where s/he is without permission on precisely the grounds you give. The philosophers who press the now famous (in professional philosophy) no-duty-to-sustain argument are aware of your very important observation, but in the end they reject it. Judith Thomson, who proposed the first version of this argument in a landmark 1971 essay, tried to meet your concern by arguing that having unprotected sex is analogous to leaving your home with the windows unlocked. If you do leave your home with your windows unlocked, argues Professor Thomson, then you do so knowing that an intruder might enter your home while you are gone. But this, she argues, does not imply that you have given anyone permission to enter and live in your home for a time. (I hope you are aware I am not claiming to agree with Professor Thomson’s claim that the analogy is a good one. I am only trying to report Thomson’s views accurately.)
This thread has started to get awfully long but in case Lynn and others are still interested in what philosophers contribute to the abortion debate I recommend taking a look at “A Defense of Abortion”, recently published by Professor David Boonin of the University of Colorado. While I disagree with Professor Boonin’s main argument and conclusion, he has stated the philosophical case for the claim that abortion is morally acceptable with great clarity and precision, and he is also very respectful of the arguments presented by those, like myself, who oppose abortion. My colleague Professor Chris Kaczor of Loyola Marymount University has an equally fine book under review that presents the best philosophical arguments I have seen defending the claim that abortion is not morally acceptable. Unfortunately I do not know when Chris’ book will be published – the academic publishing world is maddeningly slow.
Lynn, your question merely begs another question: what is the intended purpose of sexual relations? Not everyone accepts that the “intent” of something is equal to its natural byproduct. Not everyone accepts “intent” at all when it comes to the fact of biological processes — the fact that human reproduction is efficient or promotes survival of the species (duh!) does not necessarily equate to “these organs or these acts are intended for reproduction.” They are certainly necessary for reproduction. But that’s not the same thing as saying that’s what they are intended for. Intent is a judgment not a biological fact.