Kenneth W Daniels
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Is abortion wrong? (Part 2)

2/13/2012

 
In Part 1 of my blog post entitled, “Is abortion wrong?”, I reviewed some reasons I opposed abortion when I was a believer and concluded that all but one of them were weak. Let me summarize the strongest argument that contributed to my pro-life stance:

1) It is wrong to kill an innocent human being (I include “innocent” here to sidestep the questions of capital punishment for criminals and the killing of enemy combatants in warfare.)
2) Unborn babies are innocent.
3) Unborn babies are human beings (i.e., there is no important difference between a baby one minute before it leaves the womb and the same baby one minute after it leaves the womb).
4) Therefore, it is wrong to kill an unborn baby (or, in other terms, abort a fetus).

During the process of my deconversion, I never really gave the issue of abortion a thought; it wasn’t something that related to the truth or falsehood of religion, which for me was the central question at hand. But once I had come to the conclusion that my former faith was without warrant, I began to think about the implications of having abandoned the dictates of the Bible and Christian tradition. I had to think through the three premises above leading to the conclusion that it’s wrong to abort a fetus. I instinctively wanted abortion to be wrong; it’s a conviction I had held all my life. But as a secular humanist, could I justify my desire for it to be wrong and to outlaw it in civil society?

The bottom line is: can the three premises above be grounded in a secular perspective? I don’t know of anyone who would maintain that unborn babies are guilty enough to deserve death for crimes they’ve committed, so premise #2 is safe. That leaves premises #1 and #3, which I’ll treat together since they hang on the definition of human being.

I’m a computer science engineer by training. One of my favorite classes in college was digital electronics. Maybe that’s because I like the concept of binary logic: everything is either on (“1”) or off (“0”). It’s much less messy than analog logic, where values can fall into an unlimited number of gradations. I suspect it’s our affinity for binary logic, for everything to be black or white, 1 or 0, that makes personhood and abortion such thorny issues. If we can point to a moment (usually the moment of conception), a discreet point in time marking the transition from non-person or non-human to person, then there’s no sliding scale, no shades of grey that make it tricky to determine when or whether it is or is not appropriate to end a life. As Dr. Suess would say, “A person’s a person (1, not 0), no matter how small.”

Though a microscopic fertilized egg at the moment of conception has a full complement of human DNA, it bears no resemblance to an adult or even to a newborn baby--not in its form, in its ability to think, in its ability to feel pain. There is no brain, no blood, no heart, no limbs, no head, nothing but a little microscopic blob. If we were not committed to the convenience of binary on/off, 1/0, black/white logic, we could readily acknowledge that this is a very different entity from a newborn baby, or even a twenty-five week old fetus, which by that time has taken on the form of a human and which can feel pain. We would realize that being human doesn’t lend itself to a convenient definition, that there are only degrees between a non-person and a person. If someone were to show me a fertilized egg under a microscope and tell me, “That’s a person,” my response would be, “Are you kidding me?”, and I would tend to think they were driven more by their ideology than by any concern to align their beliefs with reality. Now if they were to show me a twenty-eight week old fetus with a head, arms, and legs that can feel pain, and if they told me that was a person, I wouldn’t be nearly so skeptical. True, a fetus at that stage likely lacks many of the traits we associate with personhood, chief among them self-awareness (which begin in children at around 14-18 months; see page 725 of this link), but at least such a fetus bears a much greater resemblance to a prototypical human than does a microscopic egg. The point is that personhood, whether we like it or not, is more analog than digital, more a point along a sliding scale than an on/off, true/false, black/white proposition.

The problem is that, once we adopt a sliding scale definition of personhood, then the definition of person is only in the eye of the beholder, and each beholder could come to a different conclusion. But then even in raising this problem, we’ve slipped back into binary thinking. What if, instead of wringing our hands over what separates a person from a non-person, we were to admit degrees of personhood? I can acknowledge that a fertilized egg has elements of personhood while also maintaining that it’s not a person. And an embryo at two weeks exhibits a few more elements of personhood while still not being a full person. For that matter, a newborn baby, even though much more like a person than an embroyo, is not a prototypical person and lacks many of the congnitive abilities of an adult chimpanzee, including self-awareness, the ability to consider the future, and verbal communication. It’s not comfortable for us to think of personhood in terms of a sliding scale, but it seems a martian observer would have no problem studying us and coming to see us in this light.

But if personhood is a sliding scale, at what point along the scale does it become wrong to abort a proto-human? What if a father wants to kill his newborn baby or his two-year-old toddler out of convenience, arguing that these young ones have not reached the status of full personhood? The fear is that the sliding scale will become a slippery slope, and before you know it, we’ll have lost all reverence for the sanctity of human life and we as a society begin killing anyone with disabilities, with cognitive impairments, with limited prospects for a full and prosperous life, etc. For me the “slippery slope” argument is one of the strongest theoretical arguments against abortion from a secular perspective. I recall back in the 1980s during my high school and college years hearing Dr. Francis Schaeffer lament that European nations like the Netherlands were beginning to legalize euthanasia, and that before long this would lead them down the slippery slope of doctors killing their patients without the consent of the patients. The ensuing lack of reference for the sanctity of human life would lead to escalating rates of murder, infanticide, and all manner of violence and social decay. Yet several decades have passed since that time, and the rates of violence have only declined, and there is no mass abuse of euthanasia or infanticide or any such thing. So even if the “slippery slope” can be seen as a strong theoretical argument against abortion, in practice it has shown itself to have little to no merit.

It’s not just pro-choice advocates that subscribe to the sliding scale view of personhood. In practice, pro-life advocates do too. How do I know this? It’s estimated that more than two-thirds of all fertilized eggs fail to come to term; in other words, they’re spontaneously aborted, usually unbeknownst to the mother. So if these eggs are fully human, then fully two-thirds of all humans perish in a dark, pre-natal holocaust. Spontaneous abortion It is by far the single leading cause of human death, eclipsing heart disease, cancer, accidents, warfare, homicide, human-induced abortion, and suicide--indeed, all forms of post-natal death combined. Where are the concerned pro-lifers soliciting funds for research to put to rest this horrendous scourge, this mother of all killers? If they really subscribed to on/off, black/white personhood, would they not display more compassion and more activism for the billions of victims of spontaneous abortion? As far as I can recall, I have not heard a single pro-life advocate express the slightest concern over this tragedy. I can only conclude that they couldn’t care less. Why couldn’t they care less? Either they’re unaware of this holocaust or they don’t really believe in the personhood of fertilized eggs, or a combination of the two. Surely there are some who know about it and fail to sound the alarm. In any case, I really don’t think they believe in the equality of all human life, or they would put their money where their mouth is.

So am I an eager pro-abortion advocate? Far from it! I regret any unnecessary loss of life. I lament the loss of some kinds of life than others; it’s only natural for us feel more acutely the death of family and friends closest to us than that of unknown individuals halfway around the world, the death of those in their prime more than that of the elderly, the accidental death of a teenager more than the early miscarriage of a baby, the death of a beloved pet dog more than the death of a fertilized human egg, the death of a mother cat than that of one of its many kittens, the death of a kitten than that of a butterfly, or the death of a butterfly than that of a dandelion.

From a naturalistic perspective, we live in an interconnected web of life, all with varying degrees of closeness to us and to our interests and affections, with varying degrees of sentience and intelligence and capacity for feeling pleasure and pain. Though we instinctively place our own species in a category of its own--qualitatively different from all other forms of life--the gulf is not as wide as many, particularly those in conservative religious traditions, often imagine. It’s common to hear a complaint, “Those liberals care more about beached whales than unborn human babies!” But is it really that difficult to understand why a secular humanist like me would be more concerned about the slow, painful, dehydration of an adult whale--a whale that’s part of a social network, perhaps the mother of a calf or two, the matriarch of a pod, an animal that has all the same nerve endings and capacity for pain that we have--than the harvesting of an unconscious, unfeeling human embryo to be used for medical research with the goal of developing a cure for diseases that have plagued us for as long as we can remember?

I thank Sam and Holly for their thoughtful responses to my first post on this topic. I too am only reluctantly pro-choice, as Sam so adeptly put it. I wish we lived in world where all the answers were easy, where death was not a reality, where we never had to make trade-offs between life and liberty, where populations of all species (including humans) could grow geometrically over thousands or millions or billions of years with no ill effects on the sustainability or quality of life on our planet. But we don’t live in such a world, and sometimes hard choices have to be made.

It’s interesting that both Sam and Holly raised the question of what we eat, because I’m a vegan wannabe myself. I deplore the inhumane treatment of animals so prevalent in the poultry, dairy, cattle, and fish farms that feed our society’s insatiable appetite for meat and dairy products. In the past couple of years I’ve significantly increased my consumption of beans and lentils, but I have not gone fully vegan as it wouldn’t be practical at this point in my family and social environment. I tell myself that by eating less meat, I’m doing my small part to reduce animal suffering just a little bit. The thing is, as a believer, I had no such concern for the welfare of these sentient beings; they were made for our benefit, and there was such a quantum dividing line between humans and animals that the welfare of animals, while not to be disregarded entirely, paled in significance to our responsibility to our own kind, even if packaged as an unfeeling microscopic cell. I’d like to think my perspective has become more reasonable, even if still not fully consistent. I would still not hesitate to shoot a starving wolf threatening a newborn human infant. I suppose we’ll never be able to shed what humanist ethicist Peter Singer calls specieism (as an analog to racism). For the record, as a human I do not advocate treating humans and animals equally in every context when the interests of both come into conflict, but we can certainly afford to give greater attention to their capacity for pain and the role we can play in minimizing it (or at least in not increasing it), just as we can recognize a common interest in reducing the number of abortions, particularly those after the 25th week of pregnancy when the fetus begins to feel pain.

It was surprising for me to learn recently that the rates of abortion (expressed as a ratio of abortions per 1000 women of childbearing age) has been on the decline around the world in the past several decades. The rate of decline has slowed since 2003, coinciding with a slowdown in the rate of birth control distribution. If our concern is to reduce the number of abortions, the most effective way to do so is to make contraception more widely available.

I’ll leave you with one other interesting morsel: abortion has effectively taken the place of infanticide, which was widespread in all cultures before the modern era (again, read Steven Pinker’s book The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined). The rates of abortion are essentially no higher than the rates of infanticide in previous generations, and abortion itself, along with violence of all kinds, is on the decline, as I’ve discussed in a couple of other recent blog posts. Those of us who are reluctant pro-choicers, along with pro-lifers, can look forward to the day when abortion becomes becomes rare.

Well, I could go on and on, but these are my thoughts as they currently stand, and I look forward to more good feedback from readers.
James Hutton
2/15/2012 04:51:41 am

It's interesting to talk about these issues as disembodied "issues" and discuss the relative pros and cons and whatnot, yet its another thing entirely to meet an actual person who has been through it. I wonder how many pro-lifers have never actually talked to a woman who has had a abortion.

I was a christian, and of course a strong pro-lifer, (because you had to be), when I first talked to someone who had an abortion, and it changed the whole issue for me. Hearing her side of the story, I realized that its not a simple issue, it's complex and there are many different facets to it. It's not something we can make a blanket statement on and leave it at that.

So on this issue, and others like it, I'm not pro-life or pro-choice, I'm pro-person, and whatever will help them the most.

Holly
2/16/2012 05:22:56 am

Hi Ken!
good conclusion to this. I never had thought about how pro-lifers also must place value on life at various degrees of development otherwise, knowing that spontaneous abortions are the leading cause of death, there would certainly be a movement to do more research and find a cure for this killer. But I hear nothing about that. I wonder what their response to that would be. Interesting.
Also, where did you find the information that fetuses begin to feel pain at 25 weeks, but is not self-aware (do you know when that happens? I'm pretty sure not in the womb)?
I also empathize with what Mike Hoffman was saying on your other post about his objections with abortion. It frustrates me as well, that in today's day of surplus contraception, that unplanned pregnancies keep occuring and the choice of abortion needs to be considered. As a high school teacher, I can tell you that the girls who are walking around pregnant are for the most part the most irresponsible girls. Their irresponsibility is likely to continue as parents...giving rise to more of the same. So I guess forcing these irresponsible girls to have their babies and "deal with" their actions doesn't seem good either, because I think babies should be born to parent(s) who want them and who are able to nurture and provide for them. It almost seems more "humane" to abort the fetus at an early stage of pregnancy than for that baby to grow up unwanted and in not the best of circumstances; and for the mother to also have the chance to grow up and make something of herself before becoming a mom. I'm quite sure there are many people who were born into these circumstances and are grateful for life anyway, and even gone on to accomplish great things. I'm just thinking in general. I see a lot of miserable, uncared for human beings out there.
What a hard topic! I think I'm with you Ken; the best idea would be to work together to reduce the need for abortions. Education is key, I believe.

Ken Daniels
2/17/2012 04:02:58 am

Holly,

Thanks again for all your feedback. The end of my lunchbreak is drawing near, but I just wanted to provide the sources you requested. When I wrote the blog post, I was going off of my memory from things I had read earlier, not taking the time to look them up (since it was late in the evening and I wanted to finish the post!). Regarding when a fetus starts to feel pain, there has been some debate, but it appears the best answer is at around 28 weeks; see http://discovermagazine.com/2005/dec/fetus-feel-pain. As for when a child becomes self-aware, it apparently happens between the 14th and 18th month of life outside the womb; see page 725 of this document: http://www.psychology.emory.edu/cognition/rochat/lab/5%20levels%20of%20self-awareness.pdf. The same tests used to ascertain self-awareness in human children have also been used to establish self-awareness in a few other species, including chimpanzees, dolphins, and elephants. So an adult chimpanzee is more self-aware than a one-year-old human child. There's certainly no evidence of self-awareness or the ability to experience pain in a human embryo.

I'll try to incorporate these sources in the original post when I get a chance, but I just wanted to get this out there for now for the sake of those were wondering.

Christopher Thomas
2/17/2012 03:08:51 am

I too am reluctantly pro-choice. Which is why I am baffled that so many opponents of contraception also oppose condoms (especially religious catholics). It's absurd. Many of these opponents of contraception also balk at sexual education in the classroom.

Joe
2/17/2012 10:01:39 am

whether it be Christianity or Hinduism or Jainism or Islam or any other religion-all religions relate with the spirit-its the spiritual aspect of a human being...here the book is about a person who was a christian in other words a spiritual person...and when I read this article on abortion..there is no mention of the spirit of the human being..there is just this discussion about scales when a foetus becomes human or not or whatever...there is no discussion on the spirit of the person..Sorry I am not getting the connect between being a or was a christian and this chapter on abortion as there is no thing about the spirit in this..there is the talk about animals and cruelty...there is a saying you can beat me up, you can kill my body but you cant kill my spirit..as far as I know the basic difference between animals and human beings is that we have spirits in us and they dont....I think personally that if you write a book based on your spirituality then you must bring in the element of your spirit into the text and not colour the argument by going the easiest way of talking about the physical body which is here today and gone tomorrow like a blade of grass....just because you dont hear leaves screaming out in pain when you bite through them does it mean that you are not hurting that form of life...so I personally feel that you need to stick to the spirit...and your discussions should be based from the spirit...

Ken Daniels
2/18/2012 07:24:26 am

Joe,

You're right that I didn't bring the the spiritual dimension into my discussion on whether abortion is wrong. This is because, as Sam pointed out, I'm no longer religious, and I do not believe in souls or spirits as I did when I was a Christian. I raised this topic in the context of this "Deconversion Desert" blog because it's a question that those of us who were once pro-life Christians find ourselves wrestling with after our departure from the faith. I'm interested in knowing whether there's a valid secular basis for opposition to abortion, and that is what this discussion is about. If I were to introduce ideas like "spirit" or "soul" into the discussion, it would not be consistent with my nonreligious perspective.

However, I'm glad you raised this point as a believer, because it gives me an opportunity to ask you some questions about your position: Do you believe a human egg is infused with a soul or a spirit at the moment of conception? If so, and if more then 2/3 of all fertilized eggs (zygotes) are spontaneously aborted (miscarried), do you believe that the afterlife or spirit world is populated with these spirits--far more than the spirits of those who died outside the womb? Are you as concerned with the death of these zygotes as with the death of adult humans? Are their spirits equal? Why or why not? Is God as concerned with these spirits as he is with those of adults? If so, then what is his purpose in bringing them into a momentary fleshly existence, only to depart to the afterlife or to the world of spirits? Is he able to prevent their death, and if so, why does he not intervene to save them in the majority of cases? Also, we know that if the human brain is damaged in certain parts, it can drastically change our personality. The classic case is that of Phineas Gage (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phineas_Gage), who, before a railroad spike was driven through his head, was a well-respected and likable member of society, but after the accident, he became ill-tempered, fitful, profane, and unreliable. In your view, was his spirit affected by the railroad spike? After his death, did his spirit take on the likeness of his pre-accident personality or his post-accident personality? Does a spirit bear any relation to its corresponding mind while in the body? If the two hemispheres are severed and one hemisphere believes in God while the other does not (see http://www.cerebrovascularinfo.com/2011/12/split-brain-with-one-half-atheist-and-one-half-theist.html), which hemisphere represents the true spirit of the person, the used as the basis for God's judgment of him? If a personality can be changed for better or for worse through damage to certain parts of the brain or through medications, and if everything we know about consciousness indicates it's dependent on our physical brain, then why do we need to maintain the concepts of "spirit" and "soul" to account for consciousness or anything else we experience that's seated in the physical brain?

Finally, I'm guessing there's some confusion as to what this site is about. "The Deconversion Desert" is a blog I maintain and is different from my book, "Why I Believed: Reflections of a Former Missionary", which is available at tinyurl.com/kbelieved or (for free) at tinyurl.com/gbelieved. It's true I wasn't a Catholic as you appear to be, and the Eucharist did not mean to me the same as it means to you (I subscribed to the symbolic nature of communion, not to transubstantiation), but it was still very meaningful to partake and to remember and reflect on Jesus' death, thanking him for his sacrifice for me. I was a very spiritual person, but I no longer believe in spirits, souls, ghosts, or the afterlife. We can debate the existence of spirits if you'd like, but I trust you can understand why I don't bring these concepts into a discussion on the secular basis for opposition to or acceptance of abortion (or any other topic).

Sam
2/18/2012 12:02:31 am

Joe, I think it's obvious from your response that you didn't read Ken's book. He left spirituality in favor of fact-based science. Therefor we aren't interested in the "soul" of the fetus, because none of us HAVE souls, we are all like "blades of grass."

Andrew
2/18/2012 03:02:42 pm

One of your best posts yet! Really appreciate all the time you put into this and the unique perspective from which you write.

Respectful Atheist link
2/25/2012 06:23:19 am

Abortion is without question the issue that I have struggled with most, since losing my faith (which is mostly why I have yet to write about it on my own blog). These two posts have been very helpful, as I continue to sort through my own feelings on this issue. So thank you for that!

Rob link
3/6/2012 11:34:36 pm

Ken, I'm echoing a lot of the other comments here. I really appreciate these two posts on abortion. You've helped me solidify my own muddy, convoluted thoughts on the issue.

Thanks a bunch! Great, great writing.


Comments are closed.

    Author

    Kenneth W. Daniels (1968-), son of evangelical missionaries, is the author of Why I Believed: Reflections of a Former Missionary. He grew up in Africa and returned as an adult to serve with Wycliffe Bible Translators in Niger on the edge of the Sahara Desert. While studying the Bible on the mission field, he came to doubt the message he had traveled across the world to bring to a nomadic camel-herding ethnic group. Though he lost his faith and as a result left Africa in 2000, he remains part of a conservative Christian family. He currently resides with his wife and three children in suburban Dallas, TX, where he works as a software developer.

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