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? Texas Governor
George W. Bush is described as solidly
"pro-life." Yet 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. As with other
purposefully creative figures of speech (such as
"liberation army" and "people's
democratic republic"), however, 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, over reliance 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.
Emotion, as we have seen, is an inseparable part
of the issue. Unfortunately, people who are
ruled by their emotions are often easily
manipulated. As a notorious example of how
misinformation is used to exploit emotion, consider Operation
Rescue's photographs of pitiable little corpses,
often lying alongside the cruel surgical instruments
used to abort them. 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.
=SAJ=