A secular debate about abortion

[Atheist-Lite]

I am anti-abortion, but firmly pro-choice.

I would set the limit around 3 or 4 months - not because that is a viable age for the foetus but to the contrary, but still gives the woman plenty enough time to decide whether to abort or not. I would guess that would still need to have an option of late term abortions for genuine medical reasons (mother or baby), but total on demand has a cut off point of 3 or 4 months.

For woman who dither could be a problem, but I don't see why they couldn't make the decision in that timescale - even if not wanting to.

I'm in favour of mothers having the right to decide up until the child is six months old. The brain is not properly developed in the first months and in most ways it is still foetus.

[Deep Sea Isopod]

the fetus is human. When you perform an abortion you are killing a human life.
In many cases an abortion is preferable to the life the child will lead if it is birthed, whether that be because of genetic diseases, or the household it would otherwise grow up in. But it's still a human life.

So human life is more important than the life of other animals?

Or, is someone with a serious mental handicap less human than an ordinary, healthy human being because they don't have the same mental capacity?

If a human is less human because of their mental capacity, then does that make an animal more human if they have a greater mental capacity than a mentally handicapped human?

[Azathoth]

I would say in the absence of serious birth defects the cut off is when the baby is old enough to live outside of it's mother

[RandomGuyOnCouch]

I am in favor of legal abortion up until the age of seven.

All seriousness aside, though, I'm in favor of both 1) giving people a chance to correct their mistakes (getting knocked up) and 2) holding people accountable for their choices (getting knocked up). In the States, we have a nice compromise (I think) that makes abortion legal in first three months across the board (allowing a chance to correct said mistake) and illegal in the last three months across the board (holding them accountable). It's up to each individual state to legislate laws regarding the middle three months, which is fine by me because of what laws regarding the first and third trimesters already accomplish.

Regarding those three months and the question of life, I agree with the positions of many of the above posters in that, once a child is able to live relatively autonomously from its mother (life support systems and premature birth medical care being the "relatively"), it is, for all intents and purposes, a person and, thus, needs to be afforded the rights afforded to people. Until that point, it hardly differs from a tumor or cyst (comprised of human tissue, taking resources from the body, causing a large growth).

[jcmmanuel]

If we reject all religious arguments against abortion, the only criterion we are left with is the personhood or consciousness of the fetus when determining whether or not abortion is justified. Most of us would probably agree that in the first few days a fetus is so tiny and insignificant that an abortion can be justified, but what about a three-month old fetus? ... birth changes absolutely nothing in a child, it simply transports it out of the womb. If we can somehow justify an extermination of a nine-month old fetus, why does this act become a punishable murder as soon as the child is born? If we support the view that abortions can only be performed up to a certain point, doesn't this mean that due to the uniqueness of each fetus, we can never establish with any accuracy a universal moment at which a fetus becomes a child? Does it follow that the only way to prevent 'immoral' abortions is to outlaw it altogether?

I like this approach - although I cannot be sure about full intent here, it reads like a quest for accountability and that is in my opinion key to the debate. I think people may have good input from a religious point of view (obviously I think that, as a Christian) but I will be the first to admit that religion offers no guarantee for reason - neither does atheism or any mindset by the way. Reason is more than rationality and logic, it is also the ability to be reasonable, to make sense (create meaning). This is a human propensity - and humans are not just logic-emitting entities who do nothing but look at 'the data' at hand. We tend to look at the sum of all the parts and try to get a fuller picture of what it means to be human. We valuate human experience as such - not just 'proven experiment' under the conditions of the exact sciences (as if human beings would be 'exact' - sort of a bunch of chemicals, or carbon robots). So from this perspective, that's where accountability comes from: this is where we come from, where we are today. We know life has different meanings, at different levels. Most of us are past the Francis Crick-stage ("molecular revolution" in psychology and neuroscience? Most scientists don't think so anymore - and not just 'theistic' scientists).

I don't have answers to this conundrum. I know prenatal life happens in several stages. I tend to reject all speaking about human beings that tend to treat it as 'just a bunch of cells' (I think that's a point of view one may defend if his state of mind is in accordance with a belief in philosophical naturalism or physicalism) but to reject this point of view doesn't mean there's no difference between an embryo and a fetus - and other significant phases - I surely believe there is. I don't think the natural sciences are the only sciences to have a say in it - ethicists are there for a reason, they have their own domain of expertise, and so on. But the natural sciences, like all sciences, are there to offer insight in the data and the status of this data, and what possible conclusions may fit in a well-designed hypothetical assessment on the matter.

In my opinion, whenever we are talking about human life, the way forward is to bring in as many resources as we have - it's not like studying evolution theory or DNA and all this technical stuff - we are talking about life, and life is not just biological life - if it was, we wouldn't even have to care about love, 'meaning', purpose, happiness and so on. Clearly we do. We care (more than just biologically). And mankind is not just 'me the scientist' or 'me the atheist' or 'me the theist' - mankind is the entire network of human beings. We can't just figure out what life is, on the account of other people. (That's what dictators do, but those are at odds with our human dignity, as most of us would admit).

Abortion is also a problem related to sexuality. There was a time when many of us thought it was as simple as a calculation about availability of condoms - but the expected result in the West have thwarted these ideas, and we now know why. We know, from scientific research, that sexuality is an experience exceeding just physical pleasure. The possibility of becoming pregnant plays a role in the sexual experience and is now seen as a significant element of explanation - it isn't just that people are negligent with condoms, there's more to it and these things have to be taken into account as well. Religious people have to be more aware about the real problems. Atheists on the other hand may sometimes need to understand that the 'sacredness of life' is not just religious nonsense, there's a humanistic philosophy behind that too (and in fact behind all religion). There's no shortcut to solutions here (unless you rely on binary thinking - you then get conflict-based solutions, but this method is subject to serious criticism).

Just my 2p.

[Thea]

@jcmmanuel: Nicely delineated; I am genuinely impressed. I would add that abortion is also a problem related to the context of pregnancy and child rearing, women, men, women and men, children, families, community, economics, social hierarchy, etc. (yes, each of those has a level of distinction from the others, which is why I listed them all, though this list is not all-inclusive by any means), in various cultures. The question of course must be asked, why consider abortion as a solution to begin with? What is the PROBLEM that this is a solution TO? What are the priorities and assumptions of the problem that make abortion a viable solution? I mean really: if abortion is the answer, maybe we should seek to change the circumstances leading to the question, eh? And I don't mean something simplistic like alternative means of birth control--as you already pointed out, such things often serve as imperfect stop-gap measures. I mean, what is it about the structure of human community that may need to change? What is it about where we draw the line with each other at ANY age, never mind a three day old clump of cells, that creates a path to abortion? What are the implications of this line-drawing for the future, if it continues?

What does abortion as a solution indicate about the nature of the problem it seeks to resolve?

[charlou]

@jcmmanuel: Nicely delineated; I am genuinely impressed. I would add that abortion is also a problem related to the context of pregnancy and child rearing, women, men, women and men, children, families, community, economics, social hierarchy, etc. (yes, each of those has a level of distinction from the others, which is why I listed them all, though this list is not all-inclusive by any means), in various cultures. The question of course must be asked, why consider abortion as a solution to begin with? What is the PROBLEM that this is a solution TO? What are the priorities and assumptions of the problem that make abortion a viable solution? I mean really: if abortion is the answer, maybe we should seek to change the circumstances leading to the question, eh? And I don't mean something simplistic like alternative means of birth control--as you already pointed out, such things often serve as imperfect stop-gap measures. I mean, what is it about the structure of human community that may need to change? What is it about where we draw the line with each other at ANY age, never mind a three day old clump of cells, that creates a path to abortion? What are the implications of this line-drawing for the future, if it continues?

What does abortion as a solution indicate about the nature of the problem it seeks to resolve?

People like sex and sex without effective contraception leads to conception and pregnancy. The only change to social structure that doesn't include contraception I can think of that could strive to address this fact would be to impose and enforce dictatorial edicts about sexuality and sexual behaviour. Setting aside the ethics of that, I'd like to point out that it's been tried in various ways (and still is in many places) and it doesn't work.

Abortion? I think there should be more of it. I also think that all people, both male and female, should have a range of contraceptive, STI prevention and post coital options readily available. Information? Make that freely available too.



Sex? Yes please!

[Hermit]

What does abortion as a solution indicate about the nature of the problem it seeks to resolve?

Abortion was unnecessary when something like ten out of twelve babies never reached the stage where they themselves could reproduce in turn. The phenomenal turnaround is quite recent, due in the first place to sanitation in human settlements, and advances in medical knowledge and procedures in the second. The result of all these improvements is this:



You'll notice the graph ends in 2000, when global population stood at 6 billion. Ten years later we are much closer to 7 billion than 6. For how much longer, do you suppose, can we maintain this growth rate on a planet that does not grow with resources that are being depleted faster than they can be regenerated?

The problem has become the inadequacy of birth control. It's not simplistic; it's simple: We can't continue growing at this rate. We must reduce it. If you want to solve the 'problem of abortion', make contraception more efficient.

[nellikin]

Global abortion please, that is what she needs!

Being realistic, even "contraceptively enlightened, responsible" people can get pregnant despite using contraception (which I by no means failsafe). Should the affected women be forced to bear children they never wanted and tried to avoid conceiving?

[Trolldor]

@jcmmanuel: Nicely delineated; I am genuinely impressed. I would add that abortion is also a problem related to the context of pregnancy and child rearing, women, men, women and men, children, families, community, economics, social hierarchy, etc. (yes, each of those has a level of distinction from the others, which is why I listed them all, though this list is not all-inclusive by any means), in various cultures. The question of course must be asked, why consider abortion as a solution to begin with? What is the PROBLEM that this is a solution TO? What are the priorities and assumptions of the problem that make abortion a viable solution? I mean really: if abortion is the answer, maybe we should seek to change the circumstances leading to the question, eh? And I don't mean something simplistic like alternative means of birth control--as you already pointed out, such things often serve as imperfect stop-gap measures. I mean, what is it about the structure of human community that may need to change? What is it about where we draw the line with each other at ANY age, never mind a three day old clump of cells, that creates a path to abortion? What are the implications of this line-drawing for the future, if it continues?

What does abortion as a solution indicate about the nature of the problem it seeks to resolve?

Genetically inheritable diseases are a problem abortion solves. Why let a child live for four years in agony or with serious disfigurement? Or an entire life incapable of tying their shoe without aid?
At a high school I knew quite well there were two brothers. Both had the same disease, both would die. One brother was a few years older than the other. The younger brother had to watch his older brother die and know that was going to happen to him. I suppose life is so sacred that those sorts of situations are permissable?

But, barring that, there were always factors in place which severely reduced the infant population, as Seraph has pointed out with a graph and everything.

A woman could have 12 kids and none survive, and it wouldn't be called a tragedy but a fact of life. These days a woman has one miscarriage and it is called a tragedy.

[Thea]

Fabulous! So, clearly, there are a NUMBER of questions that abortion as a solution seeks to resolve. Congenital defects is one. Failure of contraceptive methods is another. I don't think anyone's mentioned it yet, but serious threat to the mother's life is yet another. Are there more? I believe abortion as a means of controlling population in the face of a dramatic drop in infant mortality was mentioned.

The first and third problems are very terrible situations. I quite honestly have no answer to either of those that satisfies my own sense of ethics, never mind anyone else's. It happens, it really sucks, and no one can make those kinds of decisions for anyone else, and too, I don't think that people who are faced with those kinds of decisions need to be crucified by fundamentalist thinking, nor upheld by extreme liberalism. There is no black and white here. And no one holds the key to the question of suffering, especially not when love must be sacrificed on its alter (how has doing that ever eliminated suffering? And for whom?). This essentially becomes an exercise in choosing between "evils"; there are no guarantees.

As for the second--what is it about an unplanned pregnancy (for instance, as a result of failed contraception) that is otherwise healthy that makes it a candidate for the abortion solution? Certainly in our current socio-economic milieu, an unplanned pregnancy can be a disaster for the woman in question, and often there are serious questions regarding the quality of life of the child should it come to term and be born. Why is that? Clearly, too, there is a terrific strain on our resources that ostensibly appears to be as a result of a population size that cannot be supported beyond a certain point, although I might mention that taking a look at the <i>distribution</i> of those resources might have some bearing on how the problem actually shapes up, and which question of course begs the other question about intrinsic human value and where it begins, never mind what it might be useful for.

No, really, folks. What is it about our lives not only as individuals, but as members of a community--what is it about our relationships to each other--that makes abortion reasonable? Are dictatorial "big brother" type solutions the only alternative? We've all heard the expression "it takes a village to raise a child." How might this idea shed some light on what's actually going on here? What's a "village?"

[charlou]

This essentially becomes an exercise in choosing between "evils"; there are no guarantees.

I disagree that abortion is evil ... or even "evil".

[Thea]

This essentially becomes an exercise in choosing between "evils"; there are no guarantees.

I disagree that abortion is evil ... or even "evil".

Since I didn't claim that abortion is evil, I'd have to ask to whom you're speaking. I will say (again) that no matter which way you slice it, being faced with a decision to have an abortion or not is serious business, and there is unmistakably a degree of suffering that will be involved regardless.

[nellikin]

Which is why in the end it is up for the woman - and man if still involved - to decide what is right for her.

[hadespussercats]

If we reject all religious arguments against abortion, the only criterion we are left with is the personhood or consciousness of the fetus when determining whether or not abortion is justified. Most of us would probably agree that in the first few days a fetus is so tiny and insignificant that an abortion can be justified, but what about a three-month old fetus? Or a six-month old? How can we draw a universal line between personhood and non-personhood? It is practically unfeasible to make these decisions on a case-by-case basis, so a universal principle must apply.

Pro-choice campaigners generally support seeing birth as the boundary past which extermination is morally undesirable, but birth changes absolutely nothing in a child, it simply transports it out of the womb. If we can somehow justify an extermination of a nine-month old fetus, why does this act become a punishable murder as soon as the child is born?

If we support the view that abortions can only be performed up to a certain point, doesn't this mean that due to the uniqueness of each fetus, we can never establish with any accuracy a universal moment at which a fetus becomes a child? Does it follow that the only way to prevent 'immoral' abortions is to outlaw it altogether?

I disagree that in the absence of religious arguments, all we are left with is the personhood or consciousness of the fetus in question when determining whether or not abortion is justified. There is a firmly established personhood/consciousness intimately involved in the question-- the woman carrying the fetus. The fetus, whether it is regarded as a person or not, has an overwhelming influence over the physical and psychological health of the woman, as well as her financial and social well-being. In a society of free individuals, does one person have the right to dominate another so completely, without her consent?

This is a borrowed argument, but one I find convincing, to illustrate my point: picture waking one morning, to find that during the night, while you slept, your circulatory system was connected to that of an ailing concert violinist. You are told that the violinist will die if the two of you are detached. Are you then responsible to bear the burden of that violinist for an unspecified length of time-- possibly the whole of the rest of the violinist's life-- regardless of concerns about your own health ( don't forget-- your circulatory system might not be able to handle the demands of keeping two people alive-- you could die if the intervention continues), your ability to work and support yourself, and your relationships with your family, friends, etc.?

Now you could argue that a woman agreeing to have sex (or not) is the same as a woman consenting to give birth. I don't agree with that view, particularly in an era where contraception exists, but sometimes fails. And certainly in a society that wishes to encourage equality between the sexes, this view can't prevail-- few, if any men, in consenting to have sex, also consent to give birth-- or, on a less absurdist note, tacitly agree to risk their health and financial well-being, or to take on the duties and responsibilities of competent fatherhood.

You could also argue that in this time of scientific and medical advancement, the gestation time required before a fetus is considered viable is diminishing, and if an unborn child could live without his mother, doesn't that emphasize the rights of the unborn child as a separate person? In theory, you could perform a caeserian, and keep the child alive on life support, until such a time as the child no longer needs medical intervention. But who is responsible for the child in this scenario? Who pays the child's hospital bills (or the mother's, for that matter)? Who educates and raises him? In the United States, under current law, the child's parents would be responsible-- and in the absence of a father, the mother would be responsible alone. What if she can't be? What if she simply does not want the job? Who's going to take care of the child? The government? To what end, when many governments can't provide for the people that already exist under its jurisdiction? Are women to be required to bear children for the State? And so forth...

These are thorny questions, but they are not religious ones-- they exist in the space between where one individual's rights leave off, and those of another begin. This is not to say that the line is easier to draw, but the drawing of that line certainly encompasses more than the personhood of the fetus or religious notions of the sanctity of motherhood, the proper role of women, or what is considered murder, and not self-defense.