The anti-abortion debate: When does *human* life begin?
Ok. So I've long held that many ostensibly "pro-life" activists are merely anti-abortion and not pro-life at all. Now I believe some of them are confused about when life begins. They claim it begins at conception. I think too many of them believe it begins only in adulthood. Here's why.
As you you've probably heard, South Dakota State Senator William M. (Bill) Napoli poked his stick in a hornet's nest earlier this week with an assertion that abortion would be acceptable for exceptionally virtuous victims of violent criminal sexual assault. Napoli actually described his hypothetical in lasciviously pornographic terms (if you've been conscious and anywhere near a computer lately you've probably seen it already) but what he meant was he'd make exceptions for women who would never, ever consentingly have sex.
Napoli's point is, of course, incoherent from his ostensibly moral standpoint. If, as most anti-abortionists believe, a fetus conceived by criminal assault is as much an innocent human being as one conceived in love or lust, then -- by their logic -- it's irrelevant how virtuous the victim or how egregiously violent the assault.
Instead it's obvious from Napoli's statement that only virtue is relevant.
He (too many others of his ilk) see pregnancy -- and the burden of bearing and raising the resulting child -- in terms of retribution or punishment for sex. He, and they, therefore see abortion not in terms of human life but in terms of eluding that punishment. In other words his position is coherent if he believes children are only instruments to punish women with and otherwise utterly disregards their humanity. In his construction a virtuous woman may have an abortion because she has done nothing to deserve the punishment of bearing and raising children.
In other words the debate is not at all about life to anti-abortionists like Napoli. It's about making women pay.
I think this also explains so many "pro-life" activists become actively antagonistic towards those who would help support the child once he or she is born. Support for the child relieves the burden of the mother and it's supposed to be a nine-months-plus-eighteen-year sentence, and so is the prospect of watching her child going hungry, or getting and staying sick, or failing in school is part of the package. Again, it's seeing the child not as a human life but as an instrument of punishment.
As a prudish libertine I take extreme exception to this position not (you might be surprised to hear) because I think sex is a wonderful, fulfilling, morality-neutral act that warrants no punishment at all for women or men (though I do believe that) but because I believe there's no greater sin than making a human being into an object of *any kind!* And using a child as a stick to beat her mother with for eighteen years is the worst objectification imaginable.
Anti-abortionists claim life begins the moment sperm and egg fuse but I think they really believe it begins at age 18 -- the moment the mother's sentence has been served: the moment her child finally leaves her home as an adult. As a as a citizen of this country, as a person of faith, as a father, and as a human being I can't accept that.
As a citizen of this country I can't accept it because the child becomes a fellow citizen. As a person of faith I can't accept this because I believe the child has his or her own soul and therefore must be respected as all souls should be respected and should not be reduced to the condition of an object of anyone else's pleasure or punishment. As a father I can't accept this first because when I pass away these children will share the world with my children and will either be their colleagues, or partners, or fellow-citizens or -- if not cared for -- their burden. And as a father I can't accept this because if anti-abortionists can treat other human beings as objects they might so treat my children as well should anything happen to me. And finally, as a human being, I can not bear the idea of making a child suffer simply to make a mother pay for her "indiscretions."
I feel sorry for William Napoli and men and women like him, and I feel sorry for all the children of South Dakota. It must be a bitter, bitter place to have to wait eighteen years to finally become a human life. I believe it begins at birth.
My favorite political cartoon of the abortion debate (circa Clinton-era with the 'partial birth abortion' law) is that of an obviously overtired woman with 2 small ones tugging on her skirts. There's a protester with 1 sign in front of her "Pro-life". The caption? 6 weeks. The next panel is 4 months, with a larger crowd of people, all carrying pro-life signs. Then the next panel, the woman almost disappearing from view amonth the crowd of protesters is labelled '8 months'. The final panel? 10 months, she's got a babe-in-arms, the ground is littered with signs and the woman with her kids is the only figure.
It becomes a punishment. It becomes a burden. But hey... Sex is dirty and nasty and 'bad', right? It makes me sick, Fig. **THANKYOU** for a terrific post.
[Thanks, Darkneuro. I'm actually feeling a little bad about it at the moment. Not that what I said isn't true, but that I don't think these guys are thinking it all the way through. I'm pretty sure they *don't* intend to look at children that way. I know they're just freaked out about something else. And I don't mean to imply that one side is pure virtue and the other pure inhumanity. But intention isn't as important as consequences and the consequences -- intended or not -- are at odds with something I think all sides share: nobody wants people to have unplanned, unwanted pregnancies. If we can all just step back a few paces it's clear that everybody wants the same thing and we're only arguing over the most effective way to get there. Thanks again. --fl]
personally, i believe life begins at conception...
however, i understand that not everyone believes this way...
and i stand with you...using the child, to punish the mother, is unacceptable...doing this, punishes the child too...and the child, above all others, is innocent (when it comes to this)...
excellent post...
peace...
[My issue with the life-begins-at-conception idea is that fewer than one in ten "conceptuses" successfully implant in the mother's uterus. (Ultra-sophisticated antibody-based tests suggest that with unprotected sex every single egg gets fertilized -- every single month -- but in any given month there's only a 10% chance of pregnancy!) Research suggests that genetic "defect" responsible for cystic fibrosis is a beneficial adaptation because, if you've only got one copy of the gene, it improves the odds of implantation. If this is true, and both the pregnancy testing and mutation for CF are two avenues suggesting it's true, then "life begins at conception" also means that miscarriage and failure to implant are (and always have been) by far, far, far the leading cause of death in humans and thus -- in our local construction -- in humans. The implications for people of faith is also dire -- if humans recieve their soul at the moment of conception then 90-95% of all souls have no hope for redemption (and the old Catholic sphere of "Limbo" is full to overflowing!) Finally, if this is true, and if "life begins at conception" then where the fucking hell were all the ostensibly pro-life people (not you, Monkey) when my partner miscarried our first *wanted* pregnancy? --fl]
My father and I go 'round about this every six months or so. He has his beliefs, I have mine, and we haul them out and whack each other over the head with them, without every really making a dent in each other. Except one day, I said that men have much more reproductive freedom than women do. He took exception to this. He said, "I don't have more reproductive freedom than a woman; if I want to have a baby, I need a woman to do it."
To which I replied, "Yes, but if you don't want to have one, no one can make you."
Today he told me he refused to sign a petition making the rounds in Michigan in support of a constitutional amendment that would declare that life begins at conception. I'm so proud of him!
[Good for you, Hannah! You made your point! Thank you. --fl]
Well written, Fig.
-LD
[Thanks, LD. --fl]
When will we (Americans? humans?) stop romanticizing the fetus. Just because we know more and can do more, does it mean we should? Meaning, just because we can see the fetus on an ultrasound doesn't mean everyone falls in love with those cells. I did, but I was married, happy, warm, educated, and well fed. Just because we can keep a 20-week fetus alive doesn't mean we should. I wait in horror for the day that pro-lifers mourn every woman's period just because it didn't become a baby. The bottom line is it's MY (HER) body. I treat it with respect. Hey Gov, you do likewise. And no one gets to decide until they've walked a mile. Wonder what that gov would do if it were his daughter pregnant, raped, starving, desperate, alone. Then we'll talk.
As always, love you FL. Love your rants.
[As I mentioned a little earlier I'm actually a little disappointed that I keep ranting. I really *really* want to be able to reach out to people on both sides of the issue to shift the focus to pregancy *prevention* since, no matter how we look at it, even the most hazardous contraceptive is less risky than the least hazardous termination. I've felt strongly about the issue since *before* Roe came down but, also as I said earlier, my intentions aren't as important as my consequences. That said, yeah, one of problems with reaching people on the anti-abortion side is that so many, many of them have this stereotypical view of who gets abortions and who doesn't. It's a big enough gap that too many of them see their daughters as sensible exceptions of the "well, of course she's not a poor, colored welfare queen and she's just about to go into college so..." sort. Which is a milder version of Senator Napoli's virtuous-rape-victim exception. I deeply believe in people's rights to their moral value systems (who am I to judge?) but I become, well, unjustifiably angry when they don't apply their morals consistently. "Except for me" is always a moral offense and I get, well, offended. Finally, I actually look forward to the day they start mourning the period of every woman who has unprotected sex -- the fact that every single time there's an unimplanted fertile egg in there is the best possible argument for safe, reliable, widely-available and affordable contraception. Thanks, Red. --fl]
Hy there, I am late to the party, but I think I still must join in here. From a legal point of view, the questions to be asked are not only when does human life begin, but rather whether the right to life of an unborn child is an absolute one. Even, if you argue that human life begins with conception - as do conservative, religious anti-abortionists - one still has to deal with the fact that the right to life though one of the first and most fundamental human rights is not an absolute right (hence in certain situations we are able to execute people!)
Now, the question of the right to life of an unborn child is not dealt with in an final way on the international level. But there is an ongoing discussion about the conflict of rights which has to be seen in every case of an unwanted pregnancy. Women are accorded with several rights in many legal instruments such as the CCPR and above all the CEDAW (Convention for the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination against Women). There goes that women do have a human right to a) life b) mental and physical health c) privacy. So in debating a possible right to life of the unborn, these rights accorded to all women have to be taken into account, hence given this conflict of rights, the right to life of the unborn child can not be absolute. The Supreme Court of the United States did see the situation in the very same light in the 70s when abortion was widely allowed. It is interesting to see that some 15 years after this major decision crime rates started to decrease, which many people refer to the fact that social and financial disadvantaged people had less (unwanted) kids.
To sum up the issue: I am deeply concerned by the fact that human rights are infringed, instead of being strengthened in and by the US, not only on this issue, but unfortunately in many others as well.
Sista.S. - Excuse my poor command of the english language, this is not my first language....I do my best.
[Hi Sista.S. I agree that the fundamental problem is the decision of who has what rights when, with a large group of people on one side saying the parents (especially the traditionally subordinate mother) has no standing and another large group saying she has exclusive standing. This is further complicated by questions (dating back to ancient times) about the point at which pregnancy involves only two individuals (the mother and father) and when it involves three -- with some people saying it's the moment that sperm and egg fuse and others saying it's the moment of birth. Further complicating the matter are two roughly intertwined traditions that hold that a) women in general and single women in particular aren't supposed to have sex and b) that women are subordinate to both men and children and thus are expendable. For the record I happen to be sympathetic towards the people who struggle with the moral question of when life begins but I have no tolerance for those who would dictate a solution based on their traditional assumptions about the value of women or that posterity, the next generation, the future of humanity is "just what little tramps deserve for fucking around." Thus my growing interest in preventing unplanned, unwanted pregnancy and avoiding all the philosophizing in the first place. Thanks for visiting. --fl]
Hello!!
Isn't an egg "alive"?
Isn't sperm "alive"?
The argument that "life begins at conception" is ludicrous. Think about it!
I want to know who the hell came up with that statement and why do so many reasonably intelligent people believe it ESPECIALLY if you believe in the "life has no beginning and no end" theory!
Pro-Lifers stop trying to insult my intelligence start thinking about Pro-Quality of Life for a change.
Keep your beliefs OFF my body and out of my bedroom.
Sorry, I get incoherent when I get fired up.
[Yup, the abandonment of posterity beyond the moment of birth is pretty destructive and I agree that the question of exactly what individual life is and when it begins is (and has been since well before the Common Era) very difficult to pin down. The question of how to avoid unplanned, unwanted pregnancies, however, is very straightforward and I really want to shift attention to that. *That* said, I agree that it's your body and therefore your inalienable right to determine what you do with it. Thanks, Madame. --fl]
sometimes i wonder--where is all this misogyny coming from? how can these legislators hate women so much? is it a matter of neverending rejection by women?
thid law is so mean spirited. the way this guy made it sound, only pious women can be raped, and even that is very rare--because after all, only real women hate sex, right? i wonder--is the only way he can respect his own wife is if she hates sex with him? that's a sick way to conduct a marriage.
[Since at least as many women feel the same way I hesitate to call the anti-abortion impulse misogyny. I think the main motivation comes from the perfectly reasonable desire to protect small children, which is fine in itself but at *some* point they start saying "and the mother doesn't count because she lost her innocence by having sex whereas the child, having *not* had sex, is innocent." Part B simply doesn't follow from Part A and that's a problem. Nevertheless, I agree that Sen. Napoli's gruesomely purient scenario suggests he *is* misogynistic. Thanks, Laura. --fl]
Well put, Figleaf. Clearly the issue is women's sexual freedom and not one of conception. If abortion were truly the sole issue, anti-abortion activists would do what it took to ensure there would be no need for abortion--they'd support effective methods to prevent unwanted pregnancies. But instead, the majority are also ferverently against the distribution of any method of birth control--PARTICULARLY the types of birth control designed for women's use (for instance, pharmacists of "conscience" who now can "opt out" of providing women with their legal prescriptions for the birth control pill). It seems to me that this is clear evidence that women's sexuality is what they really want to outlaw.
[Yes, a particular slice of the anti-abortion crowd is also anti-contraception and anti-sex, but as I said in my follow-up post, they're in a distinct minority. As long as they can keep the focus on *abortion* they can attract a lot of people who are ambivalent or opposed to abortion, but those people peel away quickly when it comes to banning birth control too. Focusing on *prevention* gives the ambivalent folks something agreeably positive to get behind, especially since *very* few of them want to risk pregnancy every single time they have sex with their partners. I hope that makes sense, Syl. Thanks. --fl]