Now that the know-nothing Neanderthal wing of American politics has achieved its unfriendly take-over of the House of Representatives, we’re all expecting assaults on many of those things worth cherishing, such as gay rights, women’s rights, universal health care, environmental sanity, separation of church and state, and—this week especially—reproductive rights. With that in mind, let’s take a look at some human embryology and the political theology of abortion.
Natura non facit saltum: “Nature does not make leaps.” This adage has been attributed—as with the invention of calculus—to both Newton and Leibnitz. Like many old saws, this one still has a few sharp teeth, some of which bite very close to home, especially when it comes to abortion (and stem cell research, too).
Yearn as we might for clear-cut, yes-no boundaries, nature only rarely obliges. There aren’t many genuine leaps or bounds in the biological world, an observation that contributed greatly to Darwin’s insight about the gradual transformation of species. Nature’s reluctance to facit saltum also offers little comfort to those opposed to abortion rights or to stem-cell studies.
Unspoken but intertwined in both these cases is the question of the human soul, which presumably pops into existence at some point in the ontogeny of every human being. But when? It is obvious for those who assume that into each life a little leap must befall—a small step for “mankind,” a big jump for the individual thereby blessed—exactly once for each of us: the instant of conception, that magical moment of “ensoulment.” By this logic, the beneficiary of such a leap is suddenly thereby rendered human; hence, much of the opposition to using human embryos in stem cell research, as well as to abortion, since even the tiniest embryo, once conceived, is “ensouled.”
There wriggles, however, a big fly in this theological, saltatory ointment: there is no moment of conception. In what follows, try to pick out precisely when a person becomes personified. A particular egg and sperm, each destined to contribute one-half the genome of a future human being, is produced via complex processes of oogenesis and spermatogenesis, respectively. (Now?) The fated sperm cell must migrate through a layer of follicle cells before reaching the egg’s extracellular matrix, known as the zona pellucida. The latter consists of three different glycoproteins, one of which acts as a sperm receptor, which binds to its complement on the sperm’s head. (Now?) This induces a vesicle at the tip of the sperm, the acrosome, to spill its contents of hydrolytic enzymes, which enable the sperm to penetrate the zona and bump up snugly against the egg’s plasma membrane. (Now?) A protein in the sperm’s membrane then binds to and fuses with the egg membrane. (Now?) This in turn triggers depolarization of the latter, which prevents other sperm from entering. (Now?) Shortly thereafter, granules in the egg’s cortex release enzymes that catalyze additional, long-lasting changes in the zona, achieving a more long-lasting block to polyspermy. (Now?) Microvilli – pseudopodlike extensions of the egg’s interior – proceed to transport the sperm into the egg. (Now?)
If you’ve been waiting all this time for the genetic fusing of sperm and egg, note that the two parental haploid nuclei do not immediately merge, at least not in mammals such as ourselves. Rather, the nuclear envelopes remain distinct, although they share the same spindle apparatus, through the “fertilized” egg’s first mitotic division. (Now?) Only at this point, with two daughter cells already in existence, do the parental chromosomes unite to form diploid nuclei. (Now?) But even here, the parental genes remain identifiable and distinct, as either paternally or maternally derived.
Paternal and maternal genes thus remain separate for at least 24 hours, and it takes an additional day or so before their combined influence directs cell function. There is, to repeat, no cymbal-crashing “moment” of fertilization. Natura non facit saltum.
Although the problem of ensoulment is especially dramatic, comparable difficulties arise if we substitute “mind” for “soul,” since the former unquestionably derives from brain activity and the brain, too, does not arrive in a sudden flash of neuronal incandescence, to be suddenly plugged in with its complex operating system ready to start humming. A two-cell zygote has no neurons, and certainly no brain. Neither does its four-cell, eight-cell, or 128-cell descendant. Somewhere along the line, however, insensibly between egg and baby, brain cells aggregate and start whispering electrochemically to each other, whereupon a mind gradually coalesces.
The moral of all this: Natural boundaries won’t ease our moral quandaries. When we most want them, they aren’t there. As the bioethicist Ronald Green has pointed out, we had better give up trying to find such boundaries, and work instead to choose those we can live with.
(A version of this piece appeared as an op-ed column in The Los Angeles Times.)
36 Responses to Ensoulment 101
pocvecem - January 25, 2011 at 2:00 am
Barash wrote (after asking “Now?” a lot):
“Paternal and maternal genes thus remain separate for at least 24 hours, and it takes an additional day or so before their combined influence directs cell function. There is, to repeat, no cymbal-crashing “moment” of fertilization. Natura non facit saltum.”
I’ll leave the theology to those who know it better and stick to the abortion issue our columnist is getting at. Unless we’re talking about the abortion pill, the moment of ensoulment or enmindment does not matter much. The important question is whether the mind or soul exists at the moment that the abortion is taking place. As Barash puts it:
“Somewhere along the line, however, insensibly between egg and baby, brain cells aggregate and start whispering electrochemically to each other, whereupon a mind gradually coalesces.”
When brain cells start whispering electrochemically to each other, I say NOW! Ban abortion after that moment and allow it beforehand.
As an aside, not all pro-lifers subscribe to the religious version of the political view. It would be nice if lefties like Barash didn’t try to paint us all with the same brush so often.
barbarapiper - January 25, 2011 at 7:01 am
@pocvecem: You might be interested in Margaret Lock’s fascinating book “Twice Dead: Organ Transplants and the Reinvention of Death”. I hope it does not over-simplify Lock’s careful and deep study to say that she traces the emergence of the idea of “brain death” in the context of the emergence of successful organ transplantation. Shifting away from, say, heart death (no cardiac function) or lung death (no respiration) to the very tricky, complicated diagnosis of brain death (no cognitive function at any level) allows physicians to harvest viable organs in an otherwise living body. And in the setting of modern technology that allows bodies to continue “living” by mechanical means, brain death – see Terry Schiavo – allows us to ‘pull the plug’ and curtail the extraordinary costs of keeping bodies alive.
The relevance for your comment about brain function in a fetus should be obvious. Fetal brain activity becomes, not so much an arbitrary point of the emergence of “life” as the corollary of a notion of “death” that was intended to facilitate organ transplants.
wbgleason - January 25, 2011 at 8:21 am
Unfortunately it is going to be getting ugly again in Minnesota over abortion. The GOP has taken over both houses of the legislature and is using the wedge issue of abortion as a stalling tactic to try to cloud the budget problem we face… That’s my perspective.
Ensoulment or the moment of life is, operationally, pretty much a pointless argument.
Roe v. Wade is extremely unlikely to be reversed, as a practical matter. That’s the hard, cruel, reality of the matter. And it certainly appears to me – from every poll I can remember seeing – that the majority of Americans feel this way.
Bill Gleason
I will also note that if effective contraceptive methods were generally available, there should be little need for abortion. It is a fact that many of those who claim to be “pro-life” are the same people who push “just say no.” I could go on, but this is obviously a very slippery slope.
trendisnotdestiny - January 25, 2011 at 9:06 am
David,
This is one of the best integrations of technical, persuasive and intellectual thought that I have read here.
pocvecem - January 25, 2011 at 3:01 pm
@ Barbara
You make a very interesting point, but I think a distinction is in order. While the end of life has been defined in various ways over the years, with various reasons being attached to that definition, you seem to be drawing at least one incorrect conclusion from that. The possibilities are:
1- You believe that the evolution of viewpoints discredits the possibility of knowing the accurate fact.
2- You believe that I chose that point in Barash’s chronology based on the moment of brain death. Or, you believe that the existence of a similar concept at the end of life automatically makes something similar at the fetal stage of life a “corollary” concept.
With number one, we may have to agree to disagree unless we want a huge debate on the implications of social constructionism. So let’s go to number two. If we use Barash’s set of premises, we are looking for nature to make a jump and for the creation of a mind; the point I named fits both criteria. We can also go beyond Barash and talk about what brain cells can do that would be relevant to a discussion of abortion. Feeling pain and being at least marginally conscious of one’s surroundings would place high on that list. I don’t know when either of those two develop, but it’s not unreasonable to guess that the pain one (because it seems simpler) would start relatively close to the time when brain cells start communicating with each other.
Of course, discussion of the fetus’ nervous system creates additional problems for abortion advocates. Abortion is commonly justified on the basis that the fetus is part of the woman’s body; the circulatory and digestive systems are connected. But if we allow for the fact that the fetus has independent nervous system function, to include consciousness and pain the mother can’t feel, it becomes much more difficult to sustain the idea that the fetus is “part of the woman’s body.” Is there a notion of personhood out there (other than the one that was devised to facilitate abortion) that focuses on the circulatory and digestive systems?
@ Bill:
I’m not entirely sure it won’t be reversed. While some sitting justices may be inclined towards stare decisis on the matter, all it would really take is a couple of Republican presidents with Senate majorities and the willingness to impose a litmus test on Supreme Court nominees. That’s not a wildly unlikely scenario. The other thing to remember (that the majority of Americans don’t know) is that the reversal of Roe v. Wade would not make abortion illegal. It would return the issue to the states, meaning that many pro-choicers would still have access to abortion.
ledzep - January 25, 2011 at 4:16 pm
Yes, Bill Gleason, polls do break against repealing Roe, but people also have no idea what Roe actually established, and compromise positions that command more public support would be ruled out of line by Roe (+ Doe v. Bolton).
Well, now that we have problematized the “moment of conception,” let’s go on to problematize the “moment of birth,” shall we? I eagerly await the equally informative post from Prof. Barash on feet-first delivery and cranial evacuation, complete with snappy lines from Leibniz. Yes, pro-lifers make arguments based on the notion of a moment of conception, but it’s at the other end of gestation that arbitrary boundaries imposed on a continuous process define the difference between helping a woman make a choice and doing time for murder. Somehow I’m not holding my breath that such a post is forthcoming.
livefreeordie2 - January 25, 2011 at 4:31 pm
Pocvecem – You are correct, of course, that reversing Roe v. Wade would only make abortion illegal in those states where such a law is still on the books (unenforced) or where such a law is passed immediately after the decision. But I’m not sure that the legal system will be the final arbiter.
Abortion is such a difficult issue. Clearly, after not too terribly many weeks, it is at least a form of infanticide. Unlike the “lump of protoplasm,” as a fetus was described in years past, we can see in ultrasound pictures at 10 weeks that it is a human child. I think that the more we learn about life in the womb, the less inclined we will be as a society to sanction abortion. Life of the mother (and I mean life, not health or happiness), incest, or rape will always seem to me to be valid reasons for abortion, but I see no others. It probably won’t happen in my lifetime, but I think eventually human culture will evolve to the point where it is seen as something horrible and it will come to an end.
That said, I think it’s likely that a much higher percentage of abortions are performed on liberals as opposed to conservatives. . . I suppose it would’nt be civil to stop them.
goxewu - January 25, 2011 at 4:37 pm
If abortion is murder, are miscarriages liable to prosecutions negligent homicide, involuntary manslaughter, etc.? Will the prison system ready for all the new female convicts, or will laws against abortion have the same slap-on-the-wrist penalties as does prostitution and engender the same diminished respect for the law? Will the social service budgets that so many pro-lifers want to cut (the overlap between pro-lifers and political conservatism is great) withstand the strain of all those new unwanted and substantially neglected kids? If life begins at conception, can we have the dependent tax deduction from that date and not the date of birth? Why, among the pro-lifers, are there no funerals for fetuses? Obits?
And while more readily available contraception won’t radically reduce the rate of abortion that much (contraception is readily available, and it hasn’t–but putting contraceptive availability back to pre- Griswold v. Connecticut levels would sure as hell radically increase it), it is a bit of an unpleasant irony that one of the main opponents of abortion, the Catholic Church, is also an opponent of artificial means of contraception. That’s helpful.
pocvecem - January 25, 2011 at 6:08 pm
@ goxewu:
answers, one by one:
Miscarriages are not liable because miscarriages are often not caused by negligence or a person’s actions, whether with the intent to end a pregnancy or not. Sometimes, they just happen for unknown reasons.
If abortion is ever legally declared to be murder, it would, by definition, be considered a much more heinous crime than prostitution and would not receive the “slap-on-the-wrist” punishments you project.
You assume that no one would want the kids and that they would inevitably end up being neglected. I think we’ve already discussed how there is insufficient evidence to support that conclusion. And why does it have to be the government that would have to spend to take care of the children? Why not private organizations funded by donors? Those exist too.
Your tax question is kind of funny since “the overlap between pro-lifers and political conservatism is great.” If abortion were to be declared illegal, you might start seeing people arguing for that kind of tax break for neonatal care. As you know, conservatives usually have no problem with tax breaks.
I have seen a funeral for a fetus. But remember, funerals and obits cost money. You also forget that funerals and obits primarily exist to serve the psychological needs of friends and family. Since the parents have never met their child except through an ultrasound, they probably don’t need the same kind of emotional support others do.
And again, we have a leftist attempting to use religious pro-life as the poster child when faced with non-theological arguments. Whether the Catholic Church supports or opposes a given stance has no bearing on the biological arguments being made here.
And let’s be honest: if we could prove to you that the biological evidence supports abortion being declared murder, would you really care about the social service budgets or would you be more concerned about the lives being lost? I really hope your priorities aren’t that backwards.
pocvecem - January 25, 2011 at 6:12 pm
correction:
prenatal, not neonatal
barbarapiper - January 25, 2011 at 7:22 pm
@pocvecem
Your first response to me “1- You believe that the evolution of viewpoints discredits the possibility of knowing the accurate fact.” is unintelligible. First, I don’t believe anything, or at least I haven’t expressed any belief. I recommended a book, a fascinating book, one that may have some relevance, unexpectedly, for considerations of when life begins as much as it tackles changes in the medical issue of when life ends. Second, I’m not sure what “the accurate fact” means. I think that Lock’s point in her book is that definitions of medical death are not simple and clear. The corollary might be equally valid: definitions of medical life are not simple and clear either. I don’t know. I expressed no opinion or belief about this. I look for connections. If you don’t, fine.
Your second point again refers to my beliefs. I have none. I am utterly without belief. None were expressed in my post. If you don’t like of recommendation of Lock’s book, don’t bother to read it. It makes no difference to me.
goxewu - January 25, 2011 at 7:54 pm
Answers to answers, one by one:
* And “sometimes” accidental deaths happen for reasons of negligence, without the perps intending to cause them. Point is, when the death looks a little suspicious in that direction, there’s often a police investigation. If abortion were prosecuted as murder, we’d have to investigate a whole lot of miscarriages as possible negligent homicide and involuntary manslaughter.
* “Heinous” or not, having an illegal abortion would still be a rather common crime–multiple the numbers of murders now considered murders in the United States–and the legal system probably wouldn’t be able to prosecute all those “murderers” effectively. The prison system wouldn’t be able to accommodate all those convicted. There’d be a lot of plea-bargaining and sentences reduced to slaps on the wrist (probation, fines) simply for practical reasons. Cases that did go to trial would almost totally occupy the public defenders’ offices, and they’d be up against many juries loathe to convict, let alone throw severe sentences at, women who’ve had abortions.
* Outlawing abortion is intended to reduce the number of abortions, which would increase the number of births. Private organizations who currently take care of unwanted, neglected and abused children aren’t nearly up to the task, though not for lack of trying. With abortion outlawed, there’d be that many more of those children, and the gap between need and resources would be that much greater.
* Conservatives have no problem with certain kinds of tax breaks. Generally, they do have problems with tax breaks for poor people who have kids they really can’t afford, i.e. welfare in the form of aid to dependent children. (A dollar not collected in tax is the same as a dollar spent.) Of course, many women who give birth to children that they (and the fathers) don’t want will be so poor that a “tax break” won’t do them any good. They’ll be told, in effect, to raise those kids with no public help.
* If a fetus that the parents has only met through ultrasound is the equivalent in moral terms of being a murder victim of a postnatal infant, then the need for a funeral, mourning, obit notice, etc., ought to be the same.
* The Catholic Church has long made itself the anti-abortion poster child, not to mention one of the driving forces (politically, financially) behind the movement to overturn Roe v. Wade. So it’s perfectly fair to point out the Church’s cruelty in inveighing against artificial birth control, which does prevent a large number of pregnancies that end in abortion. It’s sort of like being against fatal car crashes and also being against installing brakes on cars.
* The “biological evidence” concerning abortion being murder is really philosophical/religious opinion as to when a human fetus becomes a “person” capable of being murdered. I understand that there are those who would put that point at conception itself, or at some point in the first or second trimester of pregnancy. I don’t, and currently, the law doesn’t, either. I also understand that there are difficult cases late in pregnancy that need to be judged, case by case, after thorough examination of the particulars, and that I’m not qualified to do that. So, in the meantime, yes, I am concerned about the social service budgets to the extent my comment implies.
I could flip the question and say to pocvecem that if “we” could prove to him that to him abortion is not murder, would he still persist in wanting by the power of the law to force women who are pregnant and do not want to give birth to do so. He’d probably say, “Well, you CAN’T prove that.” I say the same to him about my postion, except a tad more provisionally because I don’t have a religious belief propelling my position.
falzf - January 25, 2011 at 8:20 pm
Thank you, David, for a very intelligent post. I am old enough to remember the days when women sought out abortions on dirty kitchen tables in places like Paterson, NJ. People who say “A woman with an unwanted pregnancy can put the baby up for adoption” live in a fool’s paradise. Real people, living in the real world, know that banning abortions will lead us to a return to dangerous kitchen table abortions.
The fact is that at least one in five women in America has had an abortion at some time during her life. So whatever people are saying in front of others, there’s a fair amount of lying going on. Moreover, all this emphasis on conception is a relatively recent obsession on the part of the Roman Catholic Church and other pro-life groups. It has no basis either in Western philosophic or religious tradition–Aristotle and Aquinas (the pagan and the Christian) both stressed quickening, not conception, as the beginning of human life. Many medieval church records contain shockingly long lists of infants who died from “rollovers”–a cause of death where the mother “accidentally” killed the baby during the night by rolling over on it while sleeping. The Church simply looked the other way.
Pro-lifers have decided they know best about all the important philosophical questions–souls, the meaning of conception, the meaning of human life, and all the rest, are rigorously defined for them. They think in terms of black and white and they will never budge.
Even the deepest sorrows in connection with abortion don’t move them. Several years ago, my friend and her husband aborted their fetus–in the 7th month. They’d been eagerly awaiting the birth of their first baby, yet they decided to abort it. Now why would that be? Because they found out that the fetus had no brain. It was doomed to die within the first week of birth. My friend and her husband went to Dr. George Tiller’s clinic in Kansas–the only clinic in the United States willing to perform late term abortions. Dr. Tiller’s deep compassion in the face of their tragedy helped this grief-stricken couple survive one of the most horrific moments of their life. Dr. Tiller subsequently was murdered by a pro-life fanatic. His family then closed the clinic.
Pro-lifers are oblivious to the difference between righteousness and sanctimoniousness.
Laurie Fendrich
pocvecem - January 26, 2011 at 3:24 am
@ goxewu (one by one again, by paragraph)
I fail to see the problem here.
If abortion is defined as murder, there would likely be plea bargains, but murderers don’t currently receive sentences as light as a fine or probation.
Your third point has one slight problem. The argument sounds like “if they can’t live well, then don’t let them live.” (This is not the same issue as the child with no brain that Laurie Fendrich mentioned.)
Bearing in mind that tax breaks to people below people at a certain income level.
This is a reasonably legitimate point, but it has no influence on the question of abortion. It has more to do with how much our culture values life.
Just because the Catholic Church likes to present itself as a poster child does not mean that they can stand in for the rest of us. But I do agree with you that their opposition to birth control is a problem.
I would argue that it is not inherently a religious issue (although some people treat it that way) and it’s a little more problematic as a philosophical issue. Ironically, I think that view puts me much closer to David Barash.
And I would not say that you can’t prove that. Biologists make new discoveries all the time and one or the other might provide evidence to prove your point. Right now, I see no compelling evidence that shows the fetus to be part of the mother and so I cannot support the practice of abortion.
@ falzf (Laurie Fendrich):
I agree with you that David Barash gave us a well thought out post, especially because it inspired such strong substantive debate. Therefore, it is truly sad that you seem unable to recognize intellectual discourse and instead resort to name calling. The offending lines are:
“Pro-lifers have decided they know best about all the important philosophical questions–souls, the meaning of conception, the meaning of human life, and all the rest, are rigorously defined for them. They think in terms of black and white and they will never budge.”
“Pro-lifers are oblivious to the difference between righteousness and sanctimoniousness.”
Maybe if we had more people like David Barash and fewer who, like you, resort to stereotyping and name calling, we might be able to sustain intelligent debate. Posts like yours get in the way of finding real solutions. Until you arrived, this thread was populated by people motivated by nothing more than a sense of compassion, regardless of the side of the issue they’re on. I see nothing in the pro-lifers here that resembles the accusations you’re hurling (and I see nothing among the pro-choicers that indicates anything but a sense of compassion.) So please, if you can’t say anything nice (or something mean with a bunch of evidence to back it up), don’t say anything at all.
pocvecem - January 26, 2011 at 3:39 am
I wrote:
“Bearing in mind that tax breaks to people below people at a certain income level.”
I have no idea where I was going with that. I think I meant to come back to it, but the idea couldn’t have been very strong if I can’t remember it. Please just consider it a placeholder for one of goxewu’s paragraphs.
goxewu - January 26, 2011 at 7:47 am
As tempting (and deserved) as it would be to say that “I fail to see the problem here” more or less sums up pocvecem, I’ll respond in particular:
* If abortion were declared to be murder, the amount of law enforcement resources that would required to investigate thousands (perhaps tens of thousands) of suspicious miscarriages and prosecute many of them as either negligent homicide or involuntary manslaughter, would indeed be a problem.
* Quantity does affect quantity. Fifty years ago, sentences of ten or fifteen years for possession of a joint were common. Marijuana use became (and was revealed to already be) so prevalent that sentences for personal possession of pot were greatly reduced, both by changes in the law and by the severity of sentences judges and juries were willing to hand out. The prison system, and the society as a whole, couldn’t sustain every apprehended joint smoker doing a dime in the slammer. The same thing will happen to the sentences for illegal abortions.
* a) I’m not requiring abortions; b) I am simply describing what in all likelihood (likely to the point of certainty) will happen. pocvecem offers nothing at all in the way of evidence or reasoning to say that it won’t.
* Figuring this fragment is part of pocvecem’s “I fail to see,” I’ll let it slide.
* How much “our culture values life” is one of those sounds-nice / means-little bromides pro-lifers so often use. It’s their kumbaya. The remark about that, for politically conservative pro-lifers, life begins at conception and ends at birth, has all too much truth to it.
* The non-Catholic pro-life contingent’s problem with the Catholic Church is, well, its problem with the Catholic Church. You guys work out the birth control thing and get back to us.
* No comment, save to say I’m sure Prof. Barash is probably fascinated.
* “Right now, I see no compelling evidence that shows the fetus to be part of the mother.” All I can say is, “Interesting.”
marktropolis - January 26, 2011 at 11:42 am
While I like Barash’s post, I think one of things that gets missed in this discussion is the fact that the right (as in those that support outlawing abortion) doesn’t really want to consider the scientific aspects of this, and further since they’re position is based on a narrow reading of scripture, any attempt to discuss the issue along from a broader, philosophical (even teleological?) perspective goes no where – since they are clinging to such a narrow reading of scripture.
In other words, any discussion about the “moment of conception” and/or “birth” is pretty pointless. Since they will willingly change their own definitions to suit their religious/political aims.
pocvecem – regarding your critique of falzf, if it’s true, it’s not name-calling.
A couple of questions (to no one in particular, but things that I have a hard time getting my head wrapped around):
How can you be pro-life and support the death penalty?
How many so-called pro-lifers also support efforts to pass concealed carry laws?
Can you be pro-life and pro-choice? That’s more rhetorical, since that’s where I sit, but because of the false-dichotomy of yes/no in the discussion, we can’t really get anywhere. If you’re pro-choice, that doesn’t mean you’re pro-abortion.
pocvecem - January 26, 2011 at 2:25 pm
@ marktropolis
You said that if it’s true, it’s not name calling.
It may be true of SOME people, but not all. This discussion should be proof enough of that. The same goes for the “narrow reading of scripture” business (who was discussing scripture here?) and the not wanting to consider the scientific aspects of this.
I’ll also take a shot at your questions because they are illuminating:
1- People who are pro-life and support the death penalty (I oppose the DP, by the way) would make the distinction that the criminal is guilty of something while the fetus did nothing wrong. That’s not to defend the pro-DP people but to explain their mindset.
2- On concealed carry laws, this is seen as a way of preventing crime; in theory, a criminal is less likely to attack someone if s/he can reasonably expect armed resistance. I don’t know how much water this holds, but if someone intends to commit a murder (Tuscon), a concealed carry law isn’t going to prevent them from carrying that weapon concealed on the way to the scene. Spontaneous shootings are another matter entirely.
3- It depends on how you define “pro-life.” If pro-life means not wanting to see abortions happen, then a false dichotomy exists. (I would wonder how someone could believe murders are taking place but believe that people should have the right to choose to commit those murders.) If “pro-life” means that the loss of life is something that should be actively prevented, it’s harder to see the two views being compatible. I started this discussion with a statement on where “personhood” might be said to start and left open the idea of keeping abortion legal before that point. So that’s another way to bridge the gap.
@ goxewu
you wrote:
“a) I’m not requiring abortions; b) I am simply describing what in all likelihood (likely to the point of certainty) will happen. pocvecem offers nothing at all in the way of evidence or reasoning to say that it won’t.”
I was not claiming “it won’t happen.” I said “it might not,” as in “there is uncertainty on the matter.” The burden of proof falls on the person making definitive claims. That line represents a pattern I see in your responses.
Also, on the “culture of life” thing: it was not intended that way. Many on the Left might say the same thing about the death penalty, war, etc. It’s a concern that spans all political orientations, even if the concern is inspired by different issues and events.
ledzep - January 27, 2011 at 7:43 pm
falzf said: “Moreover, all this emphasis on conception is a relatively recent obsession on the part of the Roman Catholic Church and other pro-life groups. It has no basis either in Western philosophic or religious tradition–Aristotle and Aquinas (the pagan and the Christian) both stressed quickening, not conception, as the beginning of human life.”
I just love how this argument coexists in happy and blissfully ignorant contradiction with this other one: the pro-life position is based on Scripture, so the science is just a red herring for them anyway.
Um, other than looking it up in Nancy Pelosi’s interview transcripts, has falzf thought about why Aquinas thought ensoulment happened later than conception? Or what he and Aristotle even meant by soul? They thought the early embryo didn’t have human soul because it wasn’t human – they thought it was some more primitive kind of organism, which, when it reached a certain level of organization, changed into a different kind of organism. You see, they were wrong because their science was wrong. And now that we know that the early embryo is human, and has a distinctively human structure (i.e., it’s not a worm, etc.), we think otherwise. Same moral principle, difference in application because of change in the science. ‘Killing innocent human life is always wrong’ is the principle. ‘The early embryo in human reproduction is a human organism’ is what they didn’t know back then – now we do. So the claim that this has “no basis in the philosophical tradition” is absolutely wrong.
As to the other point, if Roe is so necessary to prevent kitchen table abortions, how do most nations in Western Europe get by with more restrictions on abortion than we do? Are you really open to a legislative compromise that would better calibrate the availability of abortion to the need to prevent kitchen table abortions? I’m waiting eagerly for that day, but it doesn’t look like it’s coming from your side of the aisle anytime soon.
barbarapiper - January 28, 2011 at 6:50 am
ledzep writes:
“As to the other point, if Roe is so necessary to prevent kitchen table abortions, how do most nations in Western Europe get by with more restrictions on abortion than we do? Are you really open to a legislative compromise that would better calibrate the availability of abortion to the need to prevent kitchen table abortions? I’m waiting eagerly for that day, but it doesn’t look like it’s coming from your side of the aisle anytime soon.”
As I look at the data on Western Europe (e.g. this 2007article the BBC:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/6235557.stm)
I’m struck by the complexities. If I can generalize, it would be to say that, with the exception of a few small countries (Malta and the Vatican, for example), abortion is available on demand for a variety of reasons up to the 12th week of pregnancy. That may seem more restrictive than the U.S., but that’s not really the point.
You may be interested in the anthropological study Birth in Four Cultures, originally written by Brigitte Jordan and later up-dated by Robbie Davis-Floyd. Jordan looked carefully at Sweden and Holland, which offered some interesting contrasts.
One of the points that Jordan made, which appears to be relevant today, is that Western European counties offer family planning more cheaply and extensively than does the U.S. When countries encourage early sex education, offer contraceptive services, easy and inexpensive pre-natal care, etc, (many of the things that the anti-abortion crowd in the U.S. opposes) there turn out to be few unwanted pregnancies, and the few there are get diagnosed early. In the U.S., where a significantly larger poor population has terrible access to medical care, pregnancy can go undiagnosed longer, and pre-natal care for poor people is pretty much a joke.
You want fewer abortions in the U.S.? Work to reverse our huge income disparities, and bring income distribution to European ratios; make family planning/contraceptive services easily available for sexually active people, including teens; introduce real sex education early; shake off the Victorian attitudes toward sexuality.
wbgleason - January 28, 2011 at 8:08 am
Very good answer, Barbara.
I laughed at the phrase “legislative compromise.” Here in Minnesota the so-called pro-lifers are open to no such compromises. When one maintains that ensoulment (for lack of a better term) occurs at the moment of conception, then obviously all abortion is murder.
I don’t buy this.
falzf - January 28, 2011 at 12:46 pm
Re Ledzep’s remarks directed at me:
1. I have never visited Nancy Pelosi’s web site. Nor do I know anything in particular about her arguments about abortion–other than that in embracing the pro-choice political stance, she is a good Democrat and a good feminist.
2. Ledzep’s insult to the contrary, I had an excellent education at excellent institutions, and I studied Aristotle and Aquinas rather extensively under the guidance of superb scholars and teachers. I also spent many years in rigorous, extra-curricular reading groups conducted by well-known scholars. I continue to read Classical philosophy to this day.
3. Ledzep deliberately ignores my point–which had nothing to do with arguing whether Aristotle and Aquinas were right about what constituted an embryo or a fetus, and everything to do with the fact that for most of the past 1500 years, the attitude in the West, both in pagan thought and in the Catholic Church, was marked by fairly widespread tolerance of abortion.
4.To imply that the Catholic Church abandoned its tolerance regarding abortion, and embraced an all-out ban on it (and contraception as well) because it was paying close attention to science is preposterous. The Church’s stance toward modern natural science has always been, and continues to be, either suspicious or downright hostile.
4. Since Aquinas’ teachings are on the table, no one should ignore his warning on the problem of enacting civil laws that are impossible for the “multitude of imperfect people” to live by. Aquinas recognized that unenforceable laws would end up being ignored, and that disobedience of the law would lead inexorably to a disregard for the law in general. Hence my comment–which I stand by–that banning abortion would lead only to a return of kitchen table abortions.
5. I recounted the painful personal story about a friend’s late abortion to remind people that there’s a reason to maintain the right to a late-term abortion. It is a deep insult to the intelligence, integrity and morality of women to presume they choose late abortions for facile reasons, and to ignore the real-world tragic circumstances that surround such abortions.
Laurie Fendrich
pocvecem - January 28, 2011 at 2:45 pm
Barbara wrote:
“When countries encourage early sex education, offer contraceptive services, easy and inexpensive pre-natal care, etc, (many of the things that the anti-abortion crowd in the U.S. opposes) there turn out to be few unwanted pregnancies, and the few there are get diagnosed early. In the U.S., where a significantly larger poor population has terrible access to medical care, pregnancy can go undiagnosed longer, and pre-natal care for poor people is pretty much a joke.”
I would love to see a prominent senator from either party try to propose a legislative compromise, not because I think it would pass (unfortunately, it would probably be DOA) but because it might generate an interesting public debate. Tie together an abortion ban after a scientifically defensible date (brain function, perhaps?), easy and inexpensive prenatal care, expanded sex-ed, contraceptive services, and affordable day care. This whole debate seems to boil down to two groups pointing to two different tragedies; any legislation that could address both would be a welcome change.
barbarapiper - January 28, 2011 at 4:45 pm
Laurie wrote:
“4.To imply that the Catholic Church abandoned its tolerance regarding abortion, and embraced an all-out ban on it (and contraception as well) because it was paying close attention to science is preposterous. The Church’s stance toward modern natural science has always been, and continues to be, either suspicious or downright hostile.”
When Djerassi, Pincus and Rock began trials of oral birth control pills (“The Pill”) in the 1950s, the Vatican was asked for official sanction of the new oral contraceptive. After all, the scientists reasoned, preventing conception by suppressing ovulation meant that there was no ‘killing’ of an embryo, no obvious reason why it would be objectionable to the Catholic Church. As John Rock wrote, The Pill simply extended the ‘safe’ period of sex that couples sought with the rhythm method. By 1968, when the Vatican came out in opposition to The Pill, Rock was stunned – he had even published a book directed at the Church, arguing for the acceptance of oral contraception, written as a good Catholic physician. The Vatican response seemed bizarre even to Catholics – birth control was ok, but only using the rhythm method. The Pill was a sin.
I’m not sure anyone has really explained this strange outcome very effectively, except to note that large families are a good part of any religion’s survival strategy, and Faye Ginsburg’s point (in Contested Lives) that women could only achieve social and economic parity with men when they could control their own fertility – her research found that much of the opposition to birth control as well as to abortion was, at root, a more fundamental opposition to emerging women’s rights in the 1960s and 70s.
In this sense, the Catholic Church’s position is not even theological, but political, and science rarely does well in the face of political opposition. The theology is an after-the-fact rationale.
ledzep - January 28, 2011 at 4:54 pm
“The Church’s stance toward modern natural science has always been, and continues to be, either suspicious or downright hostile.”
I’m not an apologist for the Church’s track record with respect to science, on the whole. But this is an oversimplification, and any good historian of science will tell you so. See Stephen Shapin’s work if you don’t believe me. I’m not saying the Church is properly attuned to scientific development in every way – I’m saying that in many cases the application of a long-held moral principle is guided by what is taken to be generally established knowledge at the time.
The “tolerance of abortion” you attribute to the earlier Church is a fiction, at least in any sense relevant for this debate. I shouldn’t have implied that you yourself hadn’t read any philosophy, but this is the standard cherry-picked example, invoked by Nancy Pelosi among many other surprise devotees of medieval embryology: “Well, even Aquinas didn’t think human life began at conception!” I am not saying that the Catholic Church was so hawk-eyed on being scientifically up-to-date – all that’s implied is that at some point it got past the ‘sequence of souls’ idea. That’s not controversial! More importantly, I am saying that the same moral principle animated Aquinas’ position and the current Catholic position. Nothing you said amounts to an answer to that. As early as the Didache you can already see that the question of when the embryo or fetus becomes a human being is clearly on the table, and its relevance is recognized for determining the moral status of abortion. Even Catholics for a Free Choice, when they tell the story of the Church’s teaching on the matter, have to acknowledge the consistency of the teaching that once the conceptus/embryo/fetus became human, killing it was homicide.
It’s not surprising that the Church’s position on abortion should become more conspicuous with the advent of the medical competence to make reliable abortion available. It’s also not surprising that an organization that has always thought that abortion after “hominization” is homicide should have recognized, at some point, that science had disposed of the idea that the early embryo is anything other than a human being. That’s not to solve all the difficult questions about the inadequacy of a “moment” of conception, to be sure. But to read that history as a change in position on the central moral question is unjustified.
Philosophically, the primary (not the only) defense of abortion today is based on personhood – someone like Michael Tooley or Peter Singer or Mary Anne Warren articulates some criteria for personhood, notes that the embryo/fetus doesn’t meet them, and concludes that they don’t have a serious right to life. On this position, being a human being is neither necessary nor sufficient for being treated as a person. The Church has never agreed with that – in the various positions taken on abortion, “hominization” has been taken to be the line past which killing is homicide. (That’s almost a truism, etymologically – but as the Tooley-Singer-Warren position shows, its not a truism in the current debate.) Being a human organism is sufficient to make one’s killing a homicide – that’s the position that hasn’t changed.
The reason I asked whether you’d thought about what Aristotle meant by “soul” was that for him, a soul isn’t some spooky ghost in the machine, whose arrival in the body could only depend on some arbitrary spiritual action from above. The soul for Aristotle is the primary actuality of an organized body – the form of an organized body. If a body lives and is organized in a distinctively human way, then it is clear that it has a human soul.
Finally, and to Barbara and wbgleason as well: Certainly there are complexities, and the medical system plays a huge role. Notice, however, that when the Democratic party faced the derailing of health care reform due to a few pro-life Democrats, what the result was. Rather than make any concessions whatever, they preferred to play chicken with Bart Stupak. As a tactical matter they won, but it’s just convenient blindness to think that the extremism on the legal status of abortion is all on one side. When the president campaigns (symbolically, to be sure) on prioritizing the Freedom of Choice Act, which would make abortion on demand an entitlement right at any moment of pregnancy, Western European restrictions on abortions post-12 weeks seem very, very far away. Roe is a shibboleth on both sides – if you’re not committed to defending it whole-heartedly, then as a Democrat you can’t seek national office because you are abdicating women’s rights to the theocrats.
It’s really easy to pin the impossibility of legislative compromise on the crazy right-wingers – it fits so conveniently with your other views about them. But the fact that the issue is still so politically toxic so long after Roe shows how damaging it was to have the legal regime set by Supreme Court fiat. The resurgence of religious right-wing politics comes after Roe v. Wade, not before. That’s not an accident.
ledzep - January 28, 2011 at 5:18 pm
To put the point more clearly, perhaps: The story of U.S. political polarization around abortion is not just the story of the rise of angry reactionaries on the religious right. It is also the story of the establishment of an orthodoxy in the Democratic party concerning women’s rights. Since 1992, when Bob Casey’s attempts were shot down, there’s been no allowance of a minority plank on abortion in the party. There’s an obvious constituency out there for economically (somewhat) liberal and socially conservative politicians – poll data backs that up. And there are a Democrats who fit that description, but they can never run for national office – the Supreme Court’s composition can never be entrusted to them until they genuflect at the altar of Roe. (Al Gore, before coming onto the national scene, used to be against federal funding of abortion – gee, I wonder why that changed.)
This politicization largely manifests itself in the way the Supreme Court plays such an outsized role, and this polarizes politics in general, since it drives presidential politics via the judicial nomination connection. The dysfunction of judicial confirmations with respect to abortion views goes back to Ted Kennedy with Robert Bork.
wbgleason - January 28, 2011 at 6:57 pm
Barbara nails it both on the John Rock business and earlier on the Aquinas business. She has obviously thought quite a bit about these matters and knows them well.
John Rock died a broken man after the Vatican pulled the rug out from under him. The rhythm method was OK, but we couldn’t actually make it really safe, we had to play roulette. Couldn’t actually have people having sex without at least the possibility of someone getting pregnant…
Laurie also makes a point about Aquinas that is worth emphasizing.
===
no one should ignore his warning on the problem of enacting civil laws that are impossible for the “multitude of imperfect people” to live by. Aquinas recognized that unenforceable laws would end up being ignored, and that disobedience of the law would lead inexorably to a disregard for the law in general.
===
How many Catholics practice according to the Churches teaching with respect to birth control? A generous figure would be 15% So what would Aquinas say about this? As far as I can determine the thinking of Catholics with respect to abortion seems to approximate that of most other mainline religions.
I don’t have a whole lot of sympathy for theological/philosophical hair-splitting in this matter. For practical purposes, Roe v. Wade means that the decision about abortion is a matter for a woman and her doctor to decide. Most Americans believe this and I don’t think it is going to change.
Bill Gleason
ledzep - January 28, 2011 at 9:14 pm
“I don’t have a whole lot of sympathy for theological/philosophical hair-splitting in this matter.”
The theological-historical point was brought up by Prof. Fendrich – having an argument as to the historical plausibility of that point is not “hair-splitting.” Moreover, the underlying principle is not just of historical or theological interest – it is worth noticing that the typical pro-choice position denies that being a human being is sufficient for having a serious right to life. It’s a moral principle with great plausibility in general, and it’s incumbent on your side to admit that you deny it – the charge of hair-splitting is nothing but a dodge.
It’s bizarre that you conflate the roles of theology and philosophy on the matter. Like it or not, there is a philosophical issue here, and like it or not, our current legal regime on abortion did not come about through the legislative process – it came about in large part as the result of some thoroughly shoddy philosophizing in Roe v. Wade. As for practical purposes, Roe might very hold up indefinitely, but that’s far from certain.
goxewu - January 28, 2011 at 9:48 pm
“…our current legal regime on abortion did not come about through the legislative process”
Neither did our current legal regime on school desegregation.
wbgleason - January 29, 2011 at 8:16 am
Zep-
I did not “conflate” philosphical and theological arguments. I dismissed them both as irrelevant to the abortion discussion in the US.
If you want to have a high school debate, fine. But as a practical matter that even you seem to concede, Roe v. Wade is established. Let me repeat for one final time. The practical effect of Roe v. Wade is that abortion is a private matter for a woman and her doctor to decide. Amen.
Hairsplitting is a dodge? Let’s see – ensoulment occurs exactly when? Is it at the moment of conception? If so, is all abortion murder? Now let me find my hairsplitter.
I rest my case.
Bill
willismg - January 29, 2011 at 9:56 am
Please forgive me. If, as one commenter stated, abortion rights boil down to the fetus being merely an extension of the mother’s circulatory and digestive systems, etc. then what should the situation be for similarly entwined conjoined twins? If one has all the mechanical equipment to survive alone, and the other doesn’t, does that make it acceptable for the first to decide what to do with his/her own body regarding the life of the second, subordinate, twin? That is, can the “survivable” twin decide to cut loose his less independent twin?
I know this sounds extreme, but I’m really wondering if there is a difference.
ledzep - January 29, 2011 at 1:22 pm
Gleason – So your position is, “Roe v. Wade exists, we won, so deal with it!” That’s not a case, but you can go ahead and rest it. It remains true that on an issue of continuing deep disagreement, polarization, and political consequence, the legal regime is based on (bad) philosophy. So forgive me if I take your complacency about the philosophical issue to be born more of ideological convenience than virtuous pragmatism.
gowexu – Yes, so what follows? On some issues it is appropriate for the court to make a ruling with social consequences? Granted. It is not always appropriate, however. Moreover, it doesn’t change the fact that the court, in deciding Roe v. Wade, seriously underestimated the toxic consequences for our politics. On school desegregation the ruling assisted and was assisted by a general transformation of social attitudes – on abortion, nothing could be farther from the case.
wbgleason - January 29, 2011 at 2:20 pm
Not quite zep.
Please stop trying to put words in my mouth and misattribute my motives.
“We won, so deal with it.” Nobody has won, but in an imperfect world, and polarized opinion, this is about as good as we can do. I think the Roe v. Wade choice solution is the best one for us. You may disagree, but please don’t try to claim some kind of fake moral high ground and accuse me of complacency.
Motives are a little hard to discern via the ether. At least for me.
Toxic consequences for our politics? The blame for this can be shared. And if not for Roe v. Wade the consequences would have been even more toxic.
Bill Gleason
goxewu - January 30, 2011 at 9:16 am
ledzep is being–quelle surprise–disingenuous.
He obviously made the point, “our current legal regime on abortion did not come about through the legislative process,” in order to discount its legitimacy, i.e., the people or their representatives didn’t vote it into being from the ground up, but rather it was imposed by the Surpreme Court, from the top down.
Given the Constitution, Marshal vs. Madison, and a couple of centuries of precedent, Supreme Court decisions are as democratic and politically and socially legitimate as Congressional and State legislation. (I will refrain from instructing ledzep as to the likely consequences of there being no court review and possible striking down of Congressional, State and local legislation.) Yes, some Supreme Court decisions are overturned by subsequent decisions, but Congressional and State legislation is often overturned by subsequent legislation.
The Supreme Court decision disallowing segregation of the public schools was cited to counter ledzep’s implication that only legislation is democratic and fair and that higher court decisions are by their nature unfair and oppressive. And he did imply that; otherwise ledzep would not have mentioned that “our current legal regime on abortion did not come about through the legislative process.”
Whether or not it is “appropriate” for the Supreme Court to rule on an issue (more accurately, a specific case involving an issue) is for the Supreme Court to decide. Otherwise, we’d have to have a de facto Even Higher Court of Appropriatness whose duty and power it would be to decide whether a case was “appropriate” to be taken up by the Supreme Court. And this Even Higher Court would have a huge power over disputed legislation: If it thought a law was fine as is, it could 100 percent negate the possibility of the Supreme Court overturning it by ruling that the case was not “appropriate” for the Supreme Court’s deliberation and decision; if it thought a law should be changed, it could rule that it was “appropriate” for the Supreme Court to take it up, and there’d be a 50/50 chance of it being overturned. I wouldn’t want that Even Higher Court to exist, and I certainly wouldn’t want it to exist in the form of ledzep and his theo-ideological confreres.
“Toxic social consequences” is probably ledzep’s term for the continuation of legal abortion itself. Some of us don’t consider the existence of legal abortion to be “toxic.” If, on the off-chance that for ledzep “toxic social consequences” means the continuing intense disagreement over legal abortion, he should realize that the rightness of a Supreme Court decision shouldn’t be measured by whether or not people have stopped arguing about the issue upon which the court has decided.
Finally, Prof. Gleason and I don’t happen to think that every woman who gets pregnant should be compelled by the State to give birth. Which is, on the ground in the real world, ledzep’s position.
CCAC - February 25, 2011 at 12:53 pm
Good things for teaching videos in the classroom and online. We are here to add that CCAC has just begun a Captioning Advocacy Project that readers of the Chronicle can help us with hopefully –
inclusion of CART (real time captioning) for all school graduation ceremonies. With the size of those audiences, there are going to be many – we mean one in ten at the least – who cannot hear clearly and deserve equal communication access via professional captioning on the day.
To whom can we distribute a new CCAC flyer about this need? What other organizations can you suggest for us?
Thanks and read all about our volunteer organization: http://www.ccacaptioning.org; join us.
3Play Media - February 8, 2012 at 7:04 pm
You can add closed captions and subtitles to Vimeo using the 3Play Media captions plugin: http://www.3playmedia.com/interactive/captions-plugin/