Abortion is a tricky issue, and I'm not going to get into it in a lot of breadth here, but I wanted to ask a question: why is abortion of fetuses created through incest more acceptable than fetuses created by two unrelated persons? I very much understand exceptions carved out for when the mother's life is in danger; I find opposition to such abortions unconscionable. Even if the fetus is a human life, why force two to die when you could instead have only one death on your hands? Through inaction, you become twice the murderer.
Then after that, there's another tier of exceptions people cite, the "rape or incest." While I understand incest is not often consensual, I believe those cases would also fall under "rape." Rape I understand slightly less, but there is a choice argument to be made. A woman should bear less responsibility for a choice forced upon her than one she made willingly. If you think it's a human life though...let me ask you this, would killing an infant left on your doorstep be any better than killing a 2-month-old of your own genetic material?
But then there's incest, which is the subject of my question. Perhaps someone out there can explain this to me. If a child is created consensually out of incest, how can an otherwise pro-life person be OK with its destruction? How can someone who believes it to be a human life say its socially taboo origin warrants its destruction? We have more of a revulsion to the action that created it, which helps it slip by under the emotional radar, but logically, how is it any less of a human life? If you're pro-life, how is it any less a murder? The only difference I can think of is that it's much more likely to have genetic abnormalities and mental deficiencies. But if that's the difference, then how can someone think the following things: (A) A fetus is a human life, and killing it is murder (B) It is immoral to kill people with downs syndrome or other mental deficiencies and abnormalities (C) It is not immoral to kill a fetus who simply has a higher probability than normal of developing such aberrations.
The logic with rape to some extent, and to a much greater extent with incest, implies that even among many pro-life people, a fetus is given less than full-human status. It implies that it's on a gradient...more than just a part of a woman's body, but still not a full person. Maybe a 0.6, and a few circumstances regarding HOW it was created could push it down to 0.4 which rounds down? How does it work? How can someone believe with every fiber of their being that a fetus is a human life and be OK with abortion in the case of rape or incest? How is rape or incest the fetus's, how is it the BABY'S, fault?
[NOTE: I think the comments are interesting enough to warrant reading here, and please, participate if you have the urge. I'm not sure of my personal position on this issue, and I'm mainly arguing as devil's advocate (no horribly existential pun intended) both from and against the perspective of a pro-lifer to attempt to better understand a position I find contradictory.]
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17 comments:
For incest, it's because the Bible prohibits incest. Abortion would be killing a fetus that is the result of a carnal sin between both the mother and the father. Since the baby was conceived in and of sin, its status is different.
My Jewish colleague told me that in Judaism a child can have different status than a normal child if it was conceived in sin. But he also told me that Jews allow abortions only in cases of mortal danger to the mother, or in cases of significant emotional danger to the mother (as in the case of rape victims).
I hope that adds something.
-A
Is the penalty for murdering a living child created from consensual incest less than the penalty for killing a regular child? If not, then it would seem that we're still not saying a fetus is equivalent in life-value to that of a baby, since even pro-lifers don't protect it the same way.
Furthermore, I find the first argument EXTREMELY lacking. The Bible also considers premarital sex to be a carnal sin. Shall all pro-lifers suddenly exempt all fetuses conceived out of wedlock? Can we kill those fetuses, which are human lives according to them, as long as the parents aren't married?
I have to say, mr pifry, that i've never really considered the irony/logical short comings of being "ok" with abortion in the case of incest because I'm opposed to abortion across the board.
I 100% agree with your final point/question, and its the crux of the abortion argument for me. How is any of it ever the baby's fault? It's not, and it never can be. Even in the case of massive genetic flaws, it's still not the baby's fault. I've known many people with downs' syndrome, and I would hardly blame them for their condition or insist that they shouldn't be alive.
The first question poses the most difficulty for me as a rational being who also happens to be religiously and morally opposed to abortion. If I were a firefighter and I had to choose between saving two people, I would have to choose the one that I felt had a better chance of surviving. Why expend that much energy to save someone who is going to die in the ambulance anyway when you can save the person who, with your help, might be able to walk away. On the other hand, try giving that argument to a parent. Most, if not all parents, would beg the firefighter to save their child first, regardless of their own condition or the probability of their child surviving. Why would the same parent make the opposite choice in a prenatal situation? The answer to me is that the parent doesn't consider a pre-born child to be alive.
Second point, in regards to the first two comments: I don't think I've ever met someone who will openly say they are pro-life who will make the rape/incest exception. I think there are people who are opposed to abortion that might make that claim, but being opposed to abortion is not all that being "pro-life" entails.
Whether or not premarital sex is a sin is a bit fuzzy, insofar as it does happen in the Bible. The bigger issue is having a child out of wedlock.
Either way, the point of an incest abortion would be killing a baby that should by no means have been conceived in the first place -- a child of incest comes from the consensual and deliberate sin of both parents, while the child of rape comes from the sin of only one parent.
I'm not saying this logic does or should make sense, but that's religion for you. Having looked at the foster care system and what foster children sometimes go through, it's a little hard to be completely against abortion.
-A
For the sake of argument let's stipulate that the children conceived out of wedlock in these examples are also born out of wedlock. Also assume neither parent wanted to get married before the birth, making it likewise a consensual sin on the part of both parents, as in the case of incest. It's STILL not the child's fault.
And Barkeep, as for the life-saving argument, almost every time the mother's life is in danger, the baby's life is also in danger. It's not a question of WHICH to save, but whether to save one of them or none of them. It's not like going into a burning building and choosing which to save. It's like going into a burning building and seeing a mother and baby who's trapped behind so much burning debris that trying to save him, or trying to save both of them, would surely lead to their mutual demise. In most cases, it's save the mother or save no one.
And I can even see an argument made for saving the mother when you do have a choice (one or the other), though it's much weaker than what I think would have to be the blindingly obvious choice of saving one life instead of zero lives. The mother can make another baby, who will then have a mother. (The reproductive capabilities of her generation don't take a hit, while the next generation's capabilities stay the same or increase, assuming her saved life creates at least one baby. Plus any arguments for societal benefits of babies having present and living mothers.)
A,
Let's say you are recently unemployed through no fault of your own (a layoff), have fallen on hard times and are truly struggling in every aspect of your life. You have no family to fall back on, no spouse, and no children. You fall into despair and are not quite homeless, but not a property owner. You spend nights on friend's couches and in homeless shelters and have no permanent dwelling. Should you have been killed in utero so you wouldn't have to suffer later in life?
I do not see the possibility of a future difficulty as justification for killing a baby. By supporting that logic you are saying it's better to be dead than have a hard time. Personally, I would much rather be alive and struggling than to have been killed off because someone else decided it wasn't worth the fight.
Respectfully,
Queen Frostine
Queen Frostine,
Sorry for the delay; I got stuck near Gumdrop Pass.
First of all, other than my last posted point, I have not personally advocated for aborting babies at all. Rather, I have been discussing religious takes on the matter as found in the Christian and Jewish communities.
If it is my last point you are disputing, I chose my words carefully: "Having looked at the foster care system and what foster children sometimes go through, it's a little hard to be completely against abortion." Some of those children take their own lives because they are so miserable, and it's utterly horrifying to see what some of these children have been through. I am by no means suggesting that abortion is a good thing, but I am saying that an unwanted baby can endure inhuman hells that would make you question whether or not it is better for them to be born and experience it or never be born in the first place.
That's also easier for me to say because I don't consider a fetus to be a baby until it could survive if it were born (the rule I use for this is third trimester).
-A
To the esteemed gentlemen from Philadelphia, I'd first point out that there are many pro-lifers that make exactly the same argument you do - that because a fetus is a human life, there are no situations where abortion is allowable, with the possible exception of life of the mother. This is at least a very consistent argument - if you draw a clear 100% line between life and non-life at conception, there isn't a lot of wiggle room, even for unpleasant situations like rape or incest.
I'd like to divide the incest and rape cases, since I think they deserve seperate mention.
Incest is usually listed as an exception because it is so often associated with rape and/or statutory rape. In the case where it's just incest (i.e. consenting adults), it's no different from any other situation that involves a high risk of mutations and/or disease. With genetic testing, etc., the time is coming where we'll have to address abortions motivated by a desire to avoid birth defects, etc. I tend to agree with what's been already said - a diseased life is still worth living. I would argue that abortion rights should be no different for likely-to-be-defective births than normal births (without making a judgment about where that line should be drawn).
For rape, I think the situation gets a lot more complicated. In consensual cases, an abortion is, when you get right down to it, a matter of convenience - the potential consequences of sex aren't exactly a secret. If you have sex, you implicitly accept the possibility of having a child as a result. That doesn't necessarily mean that abortions are morally unacceptable, but it is worth noting for our purposes. In the case of a rape, the situation is a little different - the choice is presumably gone.
PiFry, I like your discussion of assigning the fetus some value between one and zero. Looking at a balance test, we have the value of the fetus's life (whatever we might assign it to be) weighed against whatever factors might be motivating the mother to have the abortion. That said, I disagree with your analysis in the case of rape - rape isn't a (potential) exception because it changes the value of the baby's life in some way (i.e. from a .6 to a .4). Rather, the OTHER side of the balance changes - we would presumably weigh "hardship on the mother" factors more strongly when those hardships are inflicted on the mother against her will.
A "No abortions except in the case of rape" case could be argued like this:
1. A human life is worth 1 unit of life-ness
2. A fetus at the instant of conception has 0 units of life-ness
3. From conception forward, the fetus' life-ness increases constantly according to some function, approaching 1.
4. Because a pregnancy and the ensuing raising of child imposes a hardship on the mother, taking away part of her life, it has some non-zero value less than one (because it doesn't take away her whole life). So we assign the hardship on the mother a value of (arbitrarily) x
5. When a person chooses to have sex, they VOLUNTARILY take on the hardships of childbirth - relinquishing their claim of hardship in argument 4. The end result is a scaling factor of 0 - 0 * x = 0.
6. When a woman is raped, the hardship factor remains. So during the portion of the pregnancy where f(life) is less than x, the abortion is justified by our balancing test.
I deliberately left the values above pretty vague - it's just a model for an argument that could be made.
A-
I question your use of the term "inhuman." Growing up in an orphanage or in a single parent home in a crime infested neighborhood may not seem ideal to you and me, but that doesn't make your life less valuable. People like Tolstoy, Dr. Ben Carson, John Lennon, Louis Armstrong, and Rudyard Kipling had less than ideal childhoods, while everyone knows of someone from a good, privileged middle class family ending up in the gutter or taking their own life.
Quite frankly, it is my opinion that it is impossible for anyone to say whether or not one human life (or potential life, if thats what you believe) is either more or less valuable than another. Furthermore, aren't pain and suffering a part of the so called "human condition" ? What, then, is "inhuman"?
First Tiger, I am not sure if you are including me in your collection of "gentlemen from Philadelphia" because if you are it does not apply to me twice over.
Barkeep, I can't decide whether I'm glad or disappointed that your assumptions about my comment refer to things like growing up in an orphanage or in a single parent home in a crime infested neighborhood. Either would be heaven compared to what I am talking about. I am talking about children getting beaten to a pulp on a daily basis, sexually abused in ways I don't even want to think about, tied up, never given any shred of love or human decency, etc. Animals in slaughterhouses have it better than these children, because at least many of them get fed and don't get beaten to a pulp.
That, Barkeep, is what I mean by "inhuman." Things that are beyond the pale of the "human condition." When you see those kinds of things, which are often originally a function of an unplanned pregnancy that yielded an unwanted child because the pregnancy wasn't aborted, you begin to see a place for aborting babies. Not a frequent one, not a common one, but a place for it, because some adults don't believe in treating others like human beings.
-A
A-
Here I have a new question for you. I accept that there may be those situations where any life at all is so unbearable that it is not worth living. I accept that there might be no way out, that it really is that bad. I can't imagine those situations, and for that I am grateful, but I accept that they might exist.
Now... can we at least agree that currently the abortion laws are completely unrelated to those specific situations?
Barkeep,
You might argue that abortion laws should be unrelated to those specific situations, but the problem is that when you make policy, you really do need to keep those situations in mind. Abortion might make a lot of people uncomfortable (myself included), but so do such inhuman conditions. Like it or not, such conditions are real, they do happen, and that means that outlawing abortion would lead to children living with them.
Now, for those who think that shouldn't be taken into account, I suggest that they put their efforts into fixing the foster care system and making it easier and better for unwanted babies to find good homes. God knows there are many childless parents who would love to take in a child. But, right now, that system is broken, and until it gets fixed, the laws need to consider that unaborted babies may end up in that system.
So far, I haven't said anything at all about my take on the laws. Personally, I think that US abortion laws should go one of three ways:
1) It's always legal
2) It's never legal
3) It's legal only under very explicit circumstances: a) rape, b) danger to mother, [and possibly] c) for fetuses born from illegal [by US law] unions
3c, in my way of thinking, would be the only way besides 2 to outlaw incest abortions (to address PiFry's original point).
-A
To me, The First Tiger's model makes sense. The issue with rape is the lack of consent, not the value of the human life issue, and as such, I think is extremely different from incest. To me, the "pro-life except in the case of incest" argument makes no sense, but the "pro-life except in the case of rape" is consistent. Blanket pro-life and pro-choice arguments are, of course, consistent as well.
I don't buy that incest deserves a place because it often involves rape or statutory rape. Those both qualify as "rape." Including incest WITH rape implies the deliberate inclusion of consensual incest.
I like the line of thinking on genetic defects. Though I'm not sure many are of this opinion, why is incest-inspired abortion more acceptable than mental retardation-inspired abortion? The worst case scenario in the event of incest is often the types of genetic problems that some people say are not good reasons for abortion (while at the same time those people say it's OK in the case of incest). I don't think there are many of those people, but there are surely some, and I believe their moral outrage at the original sin (so to speak) doesn't justify anything. In this paradigm of thinking, it's the age-old trap of visiting the sins of the father on the son.
The more deeply I get into this conversation, the more I wish we could just all agree the bible is, in at least a few ways, woefully out of date, and then get on with our lives.
For me this isn't about the bible being woefully out of date, which is clearly another argument all together.
The bible says to stone prostitutes and not to even touch a woman while shes on the rag, lest you be unclean and not be allowed to do just about anything, blah blah blah. I don't follow those parts of the bible (at least not on purpose). The parts of the bible that I believe aren't out of date are the ones that are applicable here: Respect for others, personal character stuff. Such as: don't kill people. The only question with abortion, when you boil it all down, is whether/when a fetus is a baby. The answer to that consummately decides the issue, unless you are ok with infanticide and other such atrocities.
Pifry, if the Bible were supposed to be updated like that, we'd have Bible v31.4.159 by now! Instead, we have Law Code v26.5.36.
-A
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