Pro-lifers have a weird way of defining humanity
There's always been something incredibly misleading about calling abortion murder. It, in principle, establishes that a fetus is the moral and legal equivalent of a human life. In turn, it begs the question: what makes a human human?
The arguments coming from the pro-life camp makes the claim that life begins at conception. That a human life has worth the moment a sperm cell wriggles its way into an egg. It's not an argument rooted at all in science, since life can take many different forms. At a cellular level, the individual sperm and egg cells are biologically alive and contain human DNA well before either of them meet.
Nonetheless, fertilization does mark the beginning of a process that, in most cases, eventually develops into a fully viable human body. So maybe the argument could be made that terminating the development of a process is roughly on par with taking the life of a person. Whether I crack a raw egg yolk into my mouth or whether I eat a French omelette, the end result is still making an egg disappear.
Still, it's odd to define humanity, and in turn human worth, as something equal to the sum of its parts. Does anyone really define themselves as the union of a sperm and egg cell, or is there more to being human?
I always found it odd how much of the argument around fetal abortion revolves around a heartbeat. It's such a romanticized organ. We're just as likely to die without a stomach or kidneys or a mouth. A heart is one organ that does one thing. It would be a pretty weird defense to say, "You can't kill it, it has a spleen".
The argument feels so reductive because there is so much more to living than just having a heartbeat. Humanity isn't really special because we have certain organs. Most animal life has essentially the same inner workings as we do, and we'll happily eat many of them.
Humans can hope and dream and create and love. We can do stuff that brings joy and happiness to ourselves and to others. If anything makes life worth living, it's what we can do with our thoughts and emotions. If anything, we're the result of our actions and observations and experiences, rather than what our physical makeup is capable of.
That's the biggest reason why I never understood the staunch defense of fetuses from those on the right. Aside from minor differences in its genetic sequence, there's nothing really special or unique about a developing embryo. Prior to the 3rd trimester, the expert consensus is largely that they are neurologically incapable of thinking or feeling anything. And if you can't think or feel anything, is there really any difference between being alive or being dead?
The strongest point that could be made in defense of abortion bans is that unborn babies are potential humans, and we owe it to each member of our species to help us reach our potential. It's an interesting argument, and I like it a lot on the surface. It's nice to think that each and every human life is filled with potential, and we can improve conditions on Earth by helping people realize their gifts.
The problem with human potential is that it's impossible to accurately diagnose. Most athletes think they have the potential to go pro, yet only a fraction of a fraction of all athletes end up playing in a professional league. Many artists think they have the potential to become rich and famous, yet the entertainment industry is dominated by essentially a select few. Every parent thinks their child has the potential to change the world, yet we're all still waiting for someone to save us. Every corpse on Mt. Everest was once a highly-motivated person.
But cynicism aside, the biggest flaw in that argument is that there are competing potentials to balance when deciding to abort or not to abort. When it comes to fetuses, the discussion revolves almost exclusive around the potential to be born or not. Their argument completely excludes the question: "What about everyone else's potential?"
In the US, more than 60% of women who get an abortion already have children. According the multiple polls, one of the most provided reasons for seeking out an abortion in the first place was that these women were concerned about the well-being of their current or future children. Another top reason is that these women expressed worry about their own educational, relationship, and financial prospects. Regardless of where one stands on the issue, the central motif seems to be largely about potential.
The difference being that pro-choice people weigh the potential of current, existing humans, where as pro-lifers are focused entirely on theoretical, future people. It's natural for these two camps to bump heads, because they both have a point in this regard. An egg is a potential omelette. If you throw that away, I won't be able to have one. But the omelette that's already been made is also a potential meal. If I let it sit out for 9 months, I'll probably die if I try to eat it. I can't imagine it tasting so good that it would even be worth it at that point.
But let's say you want to conveniently exclude things like miscarriages, maternal mortality rates, health costs and complications, and the mental, emotional, and physical toll of pregnancy. A good compromise seems to be to carry the fetus to term and then give it up for adoption.
The hidden variable here that is not emphasized nearly enough is that there are already over 400,000 kids in the US alone waiting to be adopted. They have potential too. Giving up a newborn for adoption does give that individual baby the potential to find a home and make something of their life, however it isn't much of a solution since there's already a massive surplus of others with the potential to find a home and make something of their lives too. At that point, you're just adding to the problem rather than aiming to fix it.
The truth is that the vast majority of those who get abortions are living at or below the poverty line, and there is overwhelming statistical data showing how the potential for kids born and raised in those situations is usually not so great. Along every dimension from things like mental and physical health, educational attainment, career success, delinquency, and criminal behavior, people born at the bottom of the economic ladder don't tend to get very high off the ground. Throwing more babies into these conditions by banning access to safe abortions is simply not going to help the human species.
I guess the ultimate question here is: what parts of humanity should we focus on saving? The parts that can breathe in and out, or the parts that can think and feel? The parts that pump blood, or the parts that can aspire? The parts that look like us, or the parts that can understand us?
For me, being a human is about more than being a body. Our capabilities for reason, compassion, creativity, and love make us far more valuable than our capability to have arms or eyes or vital organs. Forcing women to compromise the former in order to produce the latter feels like our priorities are all wrong. It's like pro-lifers are just boiling humanity down to biological functions. It's weird
The arguments coming from the pro-life camp makes the claim that life begins at conception. That a human life has worth the moment a sperm cell wriggles its way into an egg. It's not an argument rooted at all in science, since life can take many different forms. At a cellular level, the individual sperm and egg cells are biologically alive and contain human DNA well before either of them meet.
Nonetheless, fertilization does mark the beginning of a process that, in most cases, eventually develops into a fully viable human body. So maybe the argument could be made that terminating the development of a process is roughly on par with taking the life of a person. Whether I crack a raw egg yolk into my mouth or whether I eat a French omelette, the end result is still making an egg disappear.
Still, it's odd to define humanity, and in turn human worth, as something equal to the sum of its parts. Does anyone really define themselves as the union of a sperm and egg cell, or is there more to being human?
I always found it odd how much of the argument around fetal abortion revolves around a heartbeat. It's such a romanticized organ. We're just as likely to die without a stomach or kidneys or a mouth. A heart is one organ that does one thing. It would be a pretty weird defense to say, "You can't kill it, it has a spleen".
The argument feels so reductive because there is so much more to living than just having a heartbeat. Humanity isn't really special because we have certain organs. Most animal life has essentially the same inner workings as we do, and we'll happily eat many of them.
Humans can hope and dream and create and love. We can do stuff that brings joy and happiness to ourselves and to others. If anything makes life worth living, it's what we can do with our thoughts and emotions. If anything, we're the result of our actions and observations and experiences, rather than what our physical makeup is capable of.
That's the biggest reason why I never understood the staunch defense of fetuses from those on the right. Aside from minor differences in its genetic sequence, there's nothing really special or unique about a developing embryo. Prior to the 3rd trimester, the expert consensus is largely that they are neurologically incapable of thinking or feeling anything. And if you can't think or feel anything, is there really any difference between being alive or being dead?
The strongest point that could be made in defense of abortion bans is that unborn babies are potential humans, and we owe it to each member of our species to help us reach our potential. It's an interesting argument, and I like it a lot on the surface. It's nice to think that each and every human life is filled with potential, and we can improve conditions on Earth by helping people realize their gifts.
The problem with human potential is that it's impossible to accurately diagnose. Most athletes think they have the potential to go pro, yet only a fraction of a fraction of all athletes end up playing in a professional league. Many artists think they have the potential to become rich and famous, yet the entertainment industry is dominated by essentially a select few. Every parent thinks their child has the potential to change the world, yet we're all still waiting for someone to save us. Every corpse on Mt. Everest was once a highly-motivated person.
But cynicism aside, the biggest flaw in that argument is that there are competing potentials to balance when deciding to abort or not to abort. When it comes to fetuses, the discussion revolves almost exclusive around the potential to be born or not. Their argument completely excludes the question: "What about everyone else's potential?"
In the US, more than 60% of women who get an abortion already have children. According the multiple polls, one of the most provided reasons for seeking out an abortion in the first place was that these women were concerned about the well-being of their current or future children. Another top reason is that these women expressed worry about their own educational, relationship, and financial prospects. Regardless of where one stands on the issue, the central motif seems to be largely about potential.
The difference being that pro-choice people weigh the potential of current, existing humans, where as pro-lifers are focused entirely on theoretical, future people. It's natural for these two camps to bump heads, because they both have a point in this regard. An egg is a potential omelette. If you throw that away, I won't be able to have one. But the omelette that's already been made is also a potential meal. If I let it sit out for 9 months, I'll probably die if I try to eat it. I can't imagine it tasting so good that it would even be worth it at that point.
But let's say you want to conveniently exclude things like miscarriages, maternal mortality rates, health costs and complications, and the mental, emotional, and physical toll of pregnancy. A good compromise seems to be to carry the fetus to term and then give it up for adoption.
The hidden variable here that is not emphasized nearly enough is that there are already over 400,000 kids in the US alone waiting to be adopted. They have potential too. Giving up a newborn for adoption does give that individual baby the potential to find a home and make something of their life, however it isn't much of a solution since there's already a massive surplus of others with the potential to find a home and make something of their lives too. At that point, you're just adding to the problem rather than aiming to fix it.
The truth is that the vast majority of those who get abortions are living at or below the poverty line, and there is overwhelming statistical data showing how the potential for kids born and raised in those situations is usually not so great. Along every dimension from things like mental and physical health, educational attainment, career success, delinquency, and criminal behavior, people born at the bottom of the economic ladder don't tend to get very high off the ground. Throwing more babies into these conditions by banning access to safe abortions is simply not going to help the human species.
I guess the ultimate question here is: what parts of humanity should we focus on saving? The parts that can breathe in and out, or the parts that can think and feel? The parts that pump blood, or the parts that can aspire? The parts that look like us, or the parts that can understand us?
For me, being a human is about more than being a body. Our capabilities for reason, compassion, creativity, and love make us far more valuable than our capability to have arms or eyes or vital organs. Forcing women to compromise the former in order to produce the latter feels like our priorities are all wrong. It's like pro-lifers are just boiling humanity down to biological functions. It's weird
31-35, M
