The
Abortion Rights Dialogue:
When
Right and Truth Conflict
Oddly,
much of the strife surrounding the issue of abortion
rights has to do, not with the practice itself, but
with the verbal maneuvering surrounding it. And
of this, perhaps at least as much energy is devoted
simply to vilifying one’s opponents as to
arguing one’s own point. Can this be
attributed to the raw emotionality of the issue?
Surely some of it can; people on both sides of the
issue have become emotional, even to the point of
violence, defending what they see as their just
rights — or the rights of “the innocent
unborn.” But there are also underlying
factors, embedded in a group’s philosophy, which
suggest that emotionality is not just a spontaneous
offshoot, but an essential component of the appeal,
without which the surface argument would lose much of
its force, if not collapse altogether. That
this is so reveals a tendency in our society to adopt
opinions on important issues on the basis of how they
sound and how they make us feel, rather than with
thoughtful consideration of how well they are
constructed and substantiated. Not only do we
talk at, not to, one another, we do so without
listening, either to others or even to ourselves.
We even apply different definitions to the same
terms. And then we are surprised when true
communication does not occur.
As
an initial illustration of how communication is
subverted by manipulation, let us consider the labels
which one side chooses to identify itself and its
opposition. The term pro-life suggests a
belief that every life is precious and worth
maintaining, perhaps, at any cost. But is this
term appropriately applied? A partisan article
by Dave Andrusko proclaims, “Gov. George W. Bush
is solidly pro-life . . . .” But while his
opposition to abortion is well known, it is also no
secret that Bush is a strong proponent of capital
punishment and that he has no moral objection to war
“to protect our national interests.” And
Mr. Bush is not alone; a quick scan of conservative
ranks yields a substantial count of nominally
pro-life people, whose aversion to taking human life
under circumstances other than abortion is not as
intense as the label might suggest. This is not
to judge the rightness or wrongness of capital
punishment and war, or the morality or integrity of
those who advocate them under certain conditions, but
only to point out the imprecision of the pro-life
label. It would seem, therefore, that many who
claim to be pro-life are not truly so; they
are merely anti-abortion. Likewise,
evaluation of the term pro-abortion reveals
the absurd implication that abortion is a desirable
thing, perhaps one which all women ought to
experience. But defense of a woman’s right
to abortion does not constitute advocacy of
the practice itself as positive and ennobling.
To be accurate, then, a proponent of abortion rights
can only be said to be pro-choice; the notion
of being pro-abortion is preposterous.
Certainly
not all of the anti-abortion movement’s ideas
are so unabashedly skewed. Opponents of
abortion register a number of salient points, such as
the inherent value of human life and the virtue of
sexual abstinence, which are worthy of thoughtful
consideration and discussion. But as with other
purposefully creative figures of speech — from
“liberation army” to “people’s
democratic republic” — a propensity for
using liberally defined terms signals a warning to
most experienced observers. While any movement
might judiciously employ slanted terminology as an
easy way to garner popular support, overreliance upon
this tactic is characteristic of movements whose key
principles and objectives are based on questionable
premises and shaky reasoning, and is a tip-off that
other claims by the same source warrant skeptical
scrutiny.
Therefore,
when the question is asked, “Who is harmed by
abortion?” it behooves us to examine the
responses carefully. From one side we hear,
“No one!” And from the other,
“The baby!” Indeed? Perhaps we
should ask, then, precisely what is meant by the word
baby, for although it might seem obvious under
ordinary circumstances, the range of responses to the
preceding question indicates a considerable
difference of opinion.
“A
baby is an infant human being,” would seem an
answer acceptable to most. But even here, we
find it necessary to clarify what a human being is.
For some, the answer is simple: A human being
is any individual human, from the moment of
conception (or of quickening, viability, or birth,
depending on whose opinion is sought) until the
moment of death. Attempting to present personhood
at conception as a scientific concept, professor
of philosophy Dianne Irving asserts: “During
this process, the sperm and the oocyte cease to
exist, and a new human being is produced.”
But the basis for the idea of a human being as the
immediate product of conception is more semantic than
scientific. While Irving has the mechanics of
the process correct, her simplistic assertion, that a
unicellular zygote is a human being by sole virtue of
its genetic identity, is bound to draw fire from both
sides. Even among those who believe that a
human being exists from the instant of conception,
perhaps most would find Irving’s mechanistic
interpretation demeaning, for without the mystical
concept of soul,[1] it
essentially equates human beings with the products of
copulation of any other species.
There
are, of course, those who subscribe to a more complex
view. While they concede that a human zygote is
both human and alive, the term human being
implies to them something of greater significance
than merely one, or even one-million-and-one,
insensate cells containing human genes. To most
people, the very word being — as it is
customarily applied to deities, spirits, and humans,
but not to other living things — implies
sentience, a capacity for conscious self-awareness, a
quality which no single cell or tissue possesses.
It is this sense of being, they contend, from
which any meaningful value of human life truly
derives, and without which the personhood of a fetus
is not established in any objective sense.
Regardless
of which position one takes on the issue of
soul-versus-sentience, there appears a general
consensus that a human being is, in some vital
respect, an entity much grander than mere protoplasm
and chromosomes. As a National Bioethics
Advisory Commission article opines, “Little is
known about the correlation between genes and the
sorts of complex, behavioral characteristics that are
associated with successful and rewarding human lives;
moreover, what little is known indicates that most
such characteristics result from complicated
interactions among a number of genes and the
environment” (“Risks” 234). That
such statements appear in articles on both sides of
the issue illustrates the pervasiveness of the idea
that a human being represents something
qualitatively greater than mere chemistry and
genetics.
Nevertheless,
because all hard evidence suggests that human
sentience ultimately depends upon brain function, it
follows (from a non-mystical standpoint, at least)
that conscious awareness is not present at
conception, and does not arise until much later, when
the fetal brain and sensory apparatus are fairly well
developed. The lapse of several months between
conception and consciousness gives rise to the
disagreement about precisely when a human being comes
into being. And it is this fundamental
disagreement about the essence of a human
being — what form it takes and when it comes
into existence — which leads to earnest and
often heated differences about whether abortion is
harmful or not, whether it constitutes murder or
merely removal of unwanted tissue.
Although
facts and reason are essential in coming to terms
with the abortion issue, there is no denying that
emotion also plays a considerable role. This is
as it should be, since reproduction is perhaps the
most intensely personal aspect of being human. Yet
it is dangerous to allow emotion to nullify reason,
for those who are ruled by unquestioning emotion are
easily manipulated. As a notorious example of
such exploitation, consider Operation Rescue’s
display of photographs of aborted fetuses. Pitiable
little corpses, they are undeniably human, undeniably
infants, undeniably dead, and undeniably wrenching to
our parental instincts. However, the fetuses
pictured are also undeniably the products of near- or
full-term pregnancies. According to a fact
sheet published by the Planned Parenthood Foundation,
“Today, 88 percent of all legal abortions are
performed within the first 12 weeks of pregnancy, and
55 percent take place within the first eight weeks of
pregnancy. Only 1.5 percent occur after 20
weeks” (“Medical”). Indeed, only
a fraction of a percent of abortions today are
performed during the final trimester of pregnancy,
most undertaken to protect the mother’s life or
health. Clearly, then, the type of abortion
shown in Operation Rescue’s photos is atypical,
even quite rare.
So
what is the purpose of such deliberate distortion?
It is not difficult to figure out: An
eight-week embryo simply does not fit most
people’s mental image of “a baby.”
It is tiny — about three centimeters long; it
has a curiously shaped head, but no face, to speak
of; it has gill arches, like those of a fish; its
barely developed limbs terminate in stumps; its
vestigial tail has only recently vanished; its
rudimentary nervous system is capable only of
autonomic and reflex functions. With a form not
yet characteristically human, it is visually
indistinguishable from the embryo of most any other
mammal, or, for that matter, from that of a bird or
reptile. Though the embryo is both functionally
alive and genetically human, and though some of its
organs have begun to function, at that stage it
neither physically resembles a human infant nor
exhibits any hint of consciousness. While most
people become upset at the idea of “killing
babies,” the questionable resemblance of an
eight-week embryo to their perception of a baby
is insufficient to establish an emotional connection.
Thus it is clear that the distortion is a crucial
element of Operation Rescue’s strategy; without
it, the appeal would fail to evoke the desired
response.
Is
it possible to move beyond such obfuscation and
fanaticism, to reconcile fundamental differences?
Can we find a compromise solution that most people
can tolerate, even if they do not entirely agree with
it? For some, obviously, the answer is an
unqualified “No!” Yet although
differences in personal belief about soul and
sentience are not likely to be resolved anytime soon
(if ever), there is reason to hope that understanding
and cooperation in pursuit of common goals are
possible among people of differing beliefs. One
organization’s statement of purpose, as
expressed by Mary Jacksteit and Adrienne Kaufmann,
declares, “The Common Ground Network for Life
and Choice works to open new channels of
communication in the abortion conflict and to promote
the exploration and development of cooperative
efforts between pro-choice and pro-life supporters.
Its members share a belief that developing and
sustaining processes that allow pro-life and
pro-choice individuals to come together in a
non-adversarial manner is essential to the future
well-being of our society.” Amid the
furor, there exist pockets of civilized, meaningful
dialogue.
Fortunately,
the ill-motivated but much publicized actions of
fanatics are an aberration. The majority of
people on both sides of the abortion issue do not
base their opinions on dubious propaganda, but on
philosophical reflection or religious belief. Naturally,
these processes vary markedly from person to person,
even within a particular discipline, and often even
in the same person over a period of time. The
issue of soul-versus-sentience is one not readily
resolved to everyone’s satisfaction, given that
each person’s feelings on the matter are shaped
almost exclusively by personal belief and emotion,
and hardly (if at all) by empirical evidence. Even
among those who are opposed to abortion as a purely
discretionary procedure, there are many who concede
that it ought to be an option in cases of rape,
incest, severe and untreatable birth defect, or
danger to the mother’s life or health. Perhaps,
until we have acquired adequate evidence upon which
to base public policy, we can acknowledge that the
morality of abortion is essentially based on personal
belief and is, therefore, an issue upon which honest
people may conscientiously disagree without being
branded “murderers” or
“lunatics.” Perhaps, until the day
when scientists pinpoint the time when human
awareness emerges, we can agree to let doctors and
patients (advised, if they wish, by their chosen
counsel or clergy) make their own medical and moral
decisions, without the interference of politicians,
televangelists, and the news media. Perhaps,
even though we don’t accept each other’s
beliefs, we can learn to understand and tolerate
them, resolving to disagree peacefully and
respectfully on this issue, while cooperating on
other matters where our interests coincide.
[1]Even the
seemingly straightforward idea of soul as an
immediate result of conception is confused by the
phenomenon of identical twins. If we suppose
that a human embryo is imbued with a unique soul,
then any subsequent division of that embryo to form
identical twins must also divide the same soul
between the two new individuals. Yet while
identical twins are strikingly similar in many
respects, they are obviously not two manifestations
of the same person; they are discrete individuals.
This is illustrated in a hypothetical comparison of
artificially cloned humans to naturally generated
identical twins, in which molecular biology professor
Lee M. Silver characterizes them as
“full-fledged human beings, indistinguishable in
biological terms from all other members of the
species” (225).