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May 29, 2005 I'm pro-abortion. I'm sure someone reading this must be thinking, “time to get a rope!” I think I can make a rather good case for this, and it's not nearly so extreme as it sounds – read on. First, the political side of the abortion debate bothers me. Choice allows anyone to come to their own decision (as another writer here recently pointed out), using whatever morality or religion or philosophy seems relevant. The same side which often complains about Liberal activism, seems a bit too pro-active in this debate for my taste. There are some good arguments for choice from religious traditions (at least at conception time) – it's not nearly so clear as some Christian fundamentalists suggest. There are also some compelling women's rights arguments – her right to her own body, and so forth. But I won't really get into those excellent pro-choice arguments here. I mainly focus on the very early fetus in this piece, largely because this widens the debate to the stem cell issue. The arguments used against stem cell research are the same as those against abortion, and both depend on “life at conception”. The womb is the factory and the DNA are the instructions. Sex is the delivery method (usually). The factory is rigged to take the instructions from an egg, merge with a sperm, and produce a human. Sexual reproduction has clear advantages over asexual reproduction – namely, it allows for more variety and therefore accelerates evolution – but it's not the only way. The sperm and egg, all on their own, contain a complete blueprint for life – we just lack the right factory. Human cloning (right, wrong or otherwise) is basically here now. It's well within reason to imagine a machine that could take just an egg, or just a sperm and produce a human that could be implanted into a woman, or, eventually, into an artificial womb. Sick, you say? Maybe, but that's not the point. Clones would be individual humans in their own right, and represent life without conception. Yet, the prevailing argument is that “life begins at conception”, but, where is the evidence? The “evidence” relies on knowing the mind of God; it assumes that at that moment in the process, God sends down a soul from heaven. When would he send a soul if we placed an egg cell into the clone-o-matic – there is no “conception” there? My view of abortion is consistent with current and future developments - the life at conception view is not, and I won't go into whether or not the notion of a soul should factor into public policy at all in a secular nation, that's a different article. Once we strip out the notion that we can know when the soul comes into play, we see that the argument falls apart. The early fetus is alive, of course, but so is the egg and the sperm, and for that matter, blood cells. With the clone-o-matic, bleeding would literally be the killing of millions of potential lives. I heard someone once say that, “God has a name for each aborted fetus”. For those who believe that God knows everything, this must be correct. But then God also knows the names of the natural abortions – according to the March of Dimes, something like 60% of all abortions are natural, and unknown to the mother. Why aren't these 'potential lives'? We could, in theory, try to save them given the technology – we could insert something into the body, perhaps, that would signal a pregnancy-alert long before the woman is usually aware; we could then ensure that it survives. If we are to believe that a fertilized egg has the same rights as a baby or an adult human, it would seem that we must try to save these billions of dying children. One might argue that it's God's will for these children to die “naturally”. Assuming we wanted to allow religious arguments into secular policy, we must then ask, “If God can plan for a life to end naturally, why not via abortion – doesn't God work also through Man?” We might then also reconsider if keeping someone alive via feeding tube or heart/lung machine is “God's will” or not. There is no consistency here, folks. Surely if an ER can restart someone's heart and bring them back from the brink, then we must also try to save the overwhelming majority of humanity that dies in natural abortions! This is death on the grandest of scales, and indeed, heaven must be full of the nameless, faceless, naturally aborted, souls of children! This isn't as loony as it sounds - it's using the Right's own arguments and applying it consistently. Given a touch of logic, the “life at conception” argument doesn't amount to anything. It's inconsistent with biology and assumes detailed understanding of God's will. A much more sane and consistent place to draw the line (as we must) would be when those human structures in the brain develop – those uniquely human, those that allow us to think abstractly. If anything in biology represents the soul, surely it's the human-part of our animal brain. Perception of pain and reality depend on our brains, not on little hands or little beating hearts. I often hear the nutty argument that if we allow “arbitrary” killing of the fetus, what's to stop us from killing adult humans? Wow, that's the most slippery slope yet! That one makes me tilt my head sideways like our neighbor's dog and drool. There is nothing arbitrary – we know when those structures which allow pain develop, and we know when those structures which allow human-like thought, come along – if we want to be cautious, we can draw the line in and around these periods, but that line is nowhere near the fertilized egg stage... Slippery slope also works the other way – if a fertilized egg has full human rights, then so does not only a blood cell, but a stack of computer-printouts with human DNA codes printed on them. Assuming that stack was the only copy, shredding that paper would be, literally, terminating a potential human life. Those instructions are all that's needed to make a human being, given the right type of factory. What about potential? A thought experiment which helps me to understand this bit is to plot on a time line the events leading up to a child. On the right we have the birth, on the left we have a date – dinner and a movie maybe. Each and every tick on this chart is instrumental; interfere with any one, and the baby is “lost”. What if I don't go on the date? A potential baby is lost. What if I don't have sex? The baby is lost. What if I use protection? The baby is lost. In this process, what is special about delivering the instructions to the factory? If the instructions don't make it, or if we stop production soon after we start, the baby is just as lost as any other reason on the time-line. So, why would I be pro-abortion? Since I don't believe that a fetus has any more rights than a blood cell, I don't consider that a shocking statement. At that level, a billion abortions wouldn't phase me. Now, zooming up the level of society, it bothers me that abortion can be a messy, costly process and a poor excuse for birth control. I would much rather advocate good, comprehensive, European-style sex education and contraception. In other words, prevent the potential life earlier on the time-line – not for the sake of the fetus, but for the sake of the mother and society. Abortion is an invasive medical procedure with risks. I think that unwanted children is a much bigger evil. We are full to the brim with kids that need to be adopted. If parents are not able to raise their child properly, abortion should not be considered the last resort or the most immoral choice. Yes, the couple should have been responsible, yes abortion is a poor method of birth control, but we can't work backwards and punish an unfit couple by forcing them to have a child. Even if we think that sexual-irresponsibility is wrong, I strongly disagree with forcing responsibility on those who have just demonstrated irresponsible behavior! If the couple chooses to raise the child and become responsible, I'm all for that! But abortion shouldn't be shunned as an option; in many cases, it should be the preferred choice. This, in essence, is what I mean when I say that I am pro-abortion. I think that giving the child up for adoption is the worst possible choice. With loony courts that side with the biological mother at all costs, returning children that have already formed bonds with foster parents, along with wacky social workers that want to keep adoption just within the same race, along with the stress on the mother who wonders what her child is doing in the world, and the stress of the child that always wonders where his/her real parents are, it's a messy, ugly, option. Adoption reform might make this a more attractive option. How can I rectify my view with all of those children that have been given up for adoption and are happy as can be, in loving foster homes? What do I say to a living, breathing, human that might have been aborted? To them I say that the future is unknowable. The last time I turned down sex, I may have potentially ended the life of a child which might also be happy with foster parents now. The same can be said for the last time I scratched myself and bled. We can't start from happy people and work backwards and ask what-if questions, because at the time in question, we didn't know the future. If we give potential the same weight as reality, on the other hand, then we should all jump on the first member of the other gender that we see and fornicate, thus producing the maximum number of “lives”. You just passed a woman on the street! You fool! Why didn't you procreate with her! You may just have killed the next Einstein. At 6, that potential kid might have been playing Tee-ball. You prevented this! In Jr. High, that potential child might have had his first kiss. How could you have prevented this and live with yourself?! The anti-abortion crowd loves to show us gory images of aborted fetuses, or emotional imagery of ghost-like children that never were. The last time I urinated at the mall, I stood facing such an image [ya gotta love advertisers!], while at the same time, casting millions of potential children into the City's waste water treatment system. It's easy to be led by our heart strings, but by arming ourselves with the facts, we can know when we are being fooled. Several churches near me, in a coordinated effort, dedicate a bit of lawn space to little crosses dressed in baby clothes, with anti-abortion messages on their sign-boards. My first thought is that they don't have nearly the lawn space required to accurately represent the “lost potential children”. My second thought is that those clothes should be donated to orphanages instead of getting sun-bleached and rain-rot. I've come to realize that the anti-abortion movement's primary goal these days is political – who would vote for a party that endorses the 'killing of children', after all? Their focus on the fetus, a departure from most religious traditions, adds to my suspicions. Let reason and rational thought be your guide, folks. Folks can believe whatever they want, but opposing stem cell research as a direct result of the silly notion of 'life at conception' crosses the line – real lives are now at stake ;) ------------ About the author Frederick Smith: I enjoy writing about the positive virtues of humanism - humanists are the good guys. Email: dahlek65@yahoo.com Tell a friend about this site! ------------ All articles are EXCLUSIVE to Useless-Knowledge.com. Please link to this article rather than copying and pasting it onto your site (which would be unauthorized and illegal). |
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