01.20.06
I've already made clear that I put no stock in the notions of "right" or "wrong" because those words refer to ideas invented by humans; obviously, then, I would never contend that even murder is "wrong." I would, on the otherhand, argue that murder has been ruled illegal -- in most reasonable circumstances, anyway -- because we, as a society, have decided that we don't people murder each other on a regular basis. Evidently, only the government is allowed to murder people, or authorize their murders, on a regular basis.
So when I ran across a set of articles by the Raving Atheist concerning his stance against abortion, I assumed that I would end up disagreeing with him outright based solely on the fact that without a universal standard of "right" or "wrong," abortion simply can't be labeled "wrong." Of course, as usually happens when I stumble into the thorny bramble of a controversial issue, it wasn't that simple.
I used to plead nolo contendere on the abortion issue, claiming that my opinion on the matter was irrelevant since I never stood the chance of getting pregnant, and thus would never face the practical choice of whether or not to have an abortion. I still maintain that stance to the degree that I admit my opinions to be purely theoretical, but I've since taken a firmer stance on the issue on the grounds that I'm against husbands beating their wives even though I will never stand the chance of being beaten by my husband (mostly because I'm heterosexual and my wife is a pacifist).
So when I encountered tRA's lucid explanation of his atheistic anti-abortion stance -- and no, that's not an oxymoron -- I was once more forced to consider the logical validity of my own opinion. TRA makes a compelling case for the argument that "life begins at conception," but in practicality, the claim proves untenable insofar as our age is calculated from the date of birth, not conception.
If life were based on conception, then humans would legally be about nine months old on the day they were born. Yet even religious anti-abortionists -- who believe the superstition that humans are endowed with immortal souls by a god at the moment of conception -- don't measure the human lifespan in that way; because the nine months of incubation are not recognized by the state or religion as being part of a human lifespan, we cannot claim that "life begins at conception."
I would not, however, try to argue that life starts at birth either. After the eighth week of incubation, the human embryo develops into a fetus, at which point it exhibits distinctly human characteristics in both form and function. In the weeks before birth, the human fetus has a heartbeat and brain activity; biologically, then, it is clear that the practical beginning of what we consider to be markedly human "life" falls somewhere between conception and birth.
To make my own determination as to when life begins, then, I work backward from the moment at which most people agree that life ends. On a biological level, death occurs when the heart stops beating and the neurological activity of the brain ceases. If we take those two indicators as the end of life, then we can use them in reverse to determine the beginning of life. I propose, then, that life begins with the first heartbeat or first signs of brain activity.
After all, a flashlight is not a flashlight without a battery; it may look like a flashlight, and contain all the parts of a flashlight, but it cannot perform the function of a flashlight without a power source. Similarly, a clump of cells may look like a human being, and contain all the parts of a human being, but it cannot perform the function of a human being without a power source -- in this case, a beating heart and active brain.
If we allow that life begins with the heartbeat or brain activity, then abortion becomes a moot issue; killing a fetus that is legally alive becomes simply murder, and is thus illegal. Not because it is abortion, but because it is murder. In that context, abortion would refer to the process of removing the still-unformed embryo before the heart begins beating or the brain begins exhibiting signs of activity, at which point it is not yet alive.
All of that being said, there is no excuse for a woman to be pregnant in 2005 if she does not want to be. Planned Parenthood centers administ the morning-after pill within the first 120 hours of possible conception; the pill prevents fertilization from occuring in the first place, meaning that it is not an easy form of early abortion. PP runs a pregnancy test before administering the pill; only if the test comes back negative will the pill be given, meaning that conception has not yet occurred. Even a rape victim can get the morning-after pill anonymously, meaning that unwanted pregnancies are entirely avoidable in the first place.
Some argue that the morning-after pill creates a situation in which there are no consequences for having unprotected sex. I have yet to understand why that is a problem; why should a pleasure action performed between two -- or three, or four -- consenting adults be subject to a negative repercussion?* And why should that negative repercussion be another human being, who will inevitably also be negatively affected, and thus punished in turn for something in which it was not even involved?
Proposing that the morning-after pill be withheld is tantamount to suggesting that children are punishment for unprotected sex. If that is the case, then the punishment is far in excess of the crime; it is preposterous to suggest that a momentary lapse in judgment should be punished with 18 years of emotional and financial strain. It is also inhumane to propose that a woman who is not ready to raise a child should be forced to against her will because of that momentarily lapse in judgment; and it is unthinkable to place the burden of being a punishment on a child, if only because of the psyhological trauma such a burden would unnecessarily cause to the child.
* -- Yes, I maintain the same philosophy concerning drugs.
Back