[Vision2020] Response to Abortion Post

[Ted Moffett]

Nick et. al.

I think the abortion debate, like many complex ethical issues, is not easily
solved, and an honest analysis of the issues is rather disquieting...I don't
think we can construct a perfect logical factual legal solution that is not
open to serious objections, including objections to the position I express
below.

I read your abortion article, and it is imposing in all the historical data
and differing theoretical constructs presented.  I probably missed or
misunderstood the point you made that answers the points I make below, but I
did not discover with my little pea brain (I've read John C. Lilly and
indeed wonder what is the mental life of Dolphin's with those larger than
human brains?! Sophisticated astonishingly precise sonar object
location sound "pictures," at least, this seems likely.) any argument
presented that answers the exact position I take below.

My primary point in the abortion rights debate was not to decide and define
"personhood," as to when personhood exactly first appears in human
development, or at what stage of human development personhood reaches
various stages of the development of personhood, based on whatever schematic
of personhood development, with parallels to biological development, or
spiritual development, anyone happens to construct.

My primary point is that it is the individual right of a women who is a
conscious reasoning human to control her own biology and destiny that is the
only sound legal source of the right to an abortion.  Even if a convincing
argument can be constructed that legal rights based on some concept of
potential or actual "personhood" should be extended to the developing human
organism in the womb all the way back to conception, the women's rights as
an existing separate human being, a separate human individual with
recognized legal rights, would trump fetal rights, with qualifications, of
course.  My primary qualification was that if the fetus can survive on its
own apart from the women's body, then it may deserve rights of protection
that could be used to force a women to carry the fetus till birth.  But I
did not insist on this point in all cases.  Of course if we extend full
legal rights to a fetus from conception, rights equal to a women as a
separate reasoning individual, a different conclusion would result, a rather
extreme position, it seems.

But females and males, till long after they are capable of engaging in
reproduction, are not recognized by law as having full legal rights of adult
citizens...Is a 14 year old female a full "person" according to law?  In
some respects, no.  She is not free to decide who to have sex with, for
example, in some cases, if her parents wish to push charges of sex with a
minor against whoever she had sex with, even if both in the sex act insist
it was totally consensual and loving.  Her partner can end up in jail.

Anyway, my point above is that in the law what defines "personhood" is
a very complex and varied set of laws.  Adults can have their rights as
"persons" taken away by the state, for example, for committing crimes.

A law degree might be more useful in this debate than a philosophy degree.

I don't think the abortion debate allows a clear morally clean solution.
And with all the disagreement on the nature of being human, from numerous
spiritual, legal and bio-metaphysical ideologies, and even from hard
biological science, with more discoveries on the way as to how far DNA
mandates identity, "personhood" is a concept in progress.

But I do think if "personhood" of the fetus is focused on as the primary
"rights" issue in deciding when or if to allow legal abortion, this
principle might be extended to inject doubt in protecting those with very
limited mental capacities from "termination," and a good case can be made
for infanticide, with good arguments presented that new borns and adults
with limited mental capacity really only have potential or possible forms of
personhood, or no personhood at all, and are thus not deserving of legal
protections in all cases, despite the clever somewhat arbitrary schemes
constructed to avoid this conclusion.

We do not think it acceptable to terminate new borns, or adults, with
conditions that almost certainly will prevent development of what most would
consider "personhood," if there is any remote chance of improvement, and
even when there isn't, though this is probably often based on sympathy and
identification with a physical form that appears human (the Terri Schiavo
case, for an adult example) but lacks the biological capabilities to really
be "human."  How long was Schiavo kept alive with how much money spent,
while children with full potential for a good life in the USA suffer
developmental harm from malnutrition and neglect?  Another issue...

But what "personhood" exactly is, when trying to form a firm basis in law
for this concept, is obviously open to tremendous debate, for both spiritual
(soul infused at birth) and biological (DNA fixed at early stages of fetal
development) reasons, though in the extreme cases (a 18 week fetus is not a
functioning "actual person," nor is a fully brain dead adult) the open ended
nature of this debate is less "open" from a hard biological perspective.

I would not dismiss the arguments presented at the Socinian site so quickly!

http://www.socinian.org/abortion.html

Another liberal position is argued by Mary Ann Warren, who arrives at her
conclusions by analysis of the concept of personhood. She claims, for the
sake of argument, that if the fetus is a person, then indeed there is a wide
range of cases in which abortion is not permitted. But all depends on what a
person is. So she wants to build a consensus by proposing a set of criteria
for being a person with full moral status that she thinks both
pro-abortionists and anti-abortionists could accept:

*1) consciousness of objects and events external and internal to the being,
and in particular the capacity to feel pain;*

*2) reasoning -- the capacity to solve new and relatively complex problems;*

*3) self-motivated activity;*

*4) a capacity to communicate;*

*5) the presence of self-concept and self-awareness.*

Using these criteria Warren now contends that fetuses, even with their
potentiality to become a person, do not sufficiently resemble a person to
have a right to life. Thus she holds that, at least until birth, the fetus
has no moral status and lacks a serious right to life. But she herself
realizes that her argument, if logically followed, would justify
infanticide. Although, according to her criteria the newborn infant would
not have a significant right to life, she would not permit infanticide so
long as, according to her, there are people who are willing to care and
provide for the child's well being. But then why permit abortion if there
are people who want to adopt and take care of the new born?

Though we may agree with her criteria of personhood, this personhood is a
very special case of how the law treats personhood. The concept of
personhood is derived from the Roman law and obviously the definition is
modeled on the examples of adult individuals in a social context. Such a
definition may have legal value in a societal setting as it is applied to
fully grown and functional members of society. Even, according to Warren
herself, the argument from personhood would lead to infanticide as morally
acceptable practice. Thus the argument using the "personhood," unless one
believes in some supernatural "rational substance," is totally irrelevant
with respect to children or to human developmental forms. It does not
recognize the potentiality and special unique qualitative status of the
embryo.





On 1/26/06, nickgier at adelphia.net <nickgier at adelphia.net> wrote:
>
> Dear Melynda and Ted,
>
> If you want to continue this discussion I suggest that you read my full
> article at http://users.adelphia.net/~nickgier/abortion.htm.  The
> distinction between beginning and actual persons should take care of most of
> the concerns about eugenics.  Melynda, you will have to admit that most of
> the mentally disabled (is this PC?), while having a serious moral right to
> life, do not have the duties and responsibilities as actual, adult
> persons.  Even though it is awkward (and perhaps too cute), "beginning
> person" is a better term that calling this people "children."  My point
> about those with Down Syndrome is that many of them are adults with both
> rights and duties.
>
> Ted, the link that you sent us is just a summary not by a professional
> philosopher but by a "professional" humanist.  The "liblerals" the author
> refers to  fail because they do not make the obvious distinction between
> children with rights but not duties and adults that have both.  By the way,
> reviving the personhood argument is conservative not liberal, at least in
> the sense that it is the traditional view.
>
> But Ted's point about second trimester fetuses that survive before
> explosive brain development is the best objection to my argument that I'v
> had in the 25 years I've worked on this.  Ted, you really should do that
> Ph.D.!  It will take me some time to work up a response.
>
> By the way, Ted tangentially appeals to the "potentiality principle" in
> his thorough comments.  I've responded to this argument at the end of my
> article.
>
> Thanks for the dialogue.  This is only way that humans will ever
> approximate the truth.
>
> Nick Gier
>
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