Jill from Feministe has tackled the gargantuan task of remaining measured and polite while arguing for freedom of choice over at Dawn Eden’s soundstage. I can’t imagine how she keeps her cool as the oh-so-enlightened wingnuttery labels her a Nazi and such; she’s got real Christian patience, that one.
Like Jill and many of our friendly scientists, I don’t believe a fetus is a human being. But for some reason, maybe you do. Jill responds to the implications for choice:
But that said, even if we could demonstrate that a fetus was the full equivalent of a human being, I would still be in favor of abortion rights, because I don’t think that any human being has the right to use another’s organs and body for its own survival without that person’s consent.
Dawn counters:
If one believes that the humanity of the unborn child does not matter because a mother is not responsible for the human life growing inside her, then no one is responsible for another in any way. Parents are not responsible for their children and children are not responsible for their elderly or disabled parents. Husbands are not responsible for their elderly or disabled wives, and vice versa. No one has any responsibility to the poor, unfortunate, or suffering.
I’m too angry at Dawn’s ignorance to respond as politely as Jill might, so I’ve asked an associate to guest-blog a response for me. Punkassfriends, please meet my pal, Bluey, the Body Rights Thingamabob:
Bluey wants to transmit a message of body rights and tolerance that the young and Dawn Eden should be able to grasp…
—————————————————————–
Bluey:
Hi kids!
Kids:
Hi Bluey!!
Bluey:
Do you know where I escaped from?
Kids:
The Land of Forced Body Mutilation!!
Bluey:
That’s right! The Land of Forced Body Mutilation, where Grumpus Tuskamorts lurk around every corner waiting to steal parts of your body, whether you like it or not. Do you kids like Grumpus Tuskamorts?
Kids:
Noooooo!!
Bluey:
That’s good! Because Grumpus Tuskamorts don’t like you, either. They just like themselves. Why, look at me! I used to have a heart this big until one took it from me so he could use it. Now I can barely love anything at all.
Kids:
Awwwww!
Bluey:
Lucky for me, I was able to get away so I could warn you kids about the dangers of other people controlling your body. Now, I want to ask you kids a question. If your brother or sister was sick and needed one of your kidneys to live, would you choose give it to him or her?
Kids:
Yes, Bluey!!
Bluey:
That’s great! You would choose to give up your kidney to help out someone you love. You kids have big hearts… hey, can I have one?
[audience giggles]
Now, instead of your brother or sister, let’s say that a man from Nicaragua is sick and wanted your kidney so he could live. Would you choose to give him your kidney?
[audience murmurs, a few children raise their hands]
It’s okay, kids, there’s no right answer. Some of you would, and some of you wouldn’t. That’s the beauty of choice! Now, let’s say that same man flew here, cloroformed you, cut out your kidney, and left you in a pool of ice with a note to call 911 without asking permission first. Would that be okay?
Kids:
Noooooo!!
Bluey:
Good! He coerced you into giving up part of your body so he could live. And even though he was going to die if he didn’t, he had no right to take your body from you against your will. Only you can choose what to do with your body, kids. It’s the one thing to which you have an inalienable right. Can you say inalienable?
Kids:
[silence]
Bluey:
….anyway, it’s all yours. If a baby or a fetus or a fireman or Saddam Hussein wanted to use your body so it could live, you have the right to say “no.” Now, does that give you a right to kill them if they don’t need to use your body to live?
Kids:
Noooooo!!
Bluey:
That’s fantastic! Now you kids understand why Dawn Eden’s “natural law argument” is a complete fallacy. There’s a big difference between killing someone and being required to give up part of your body against your will so they can live. I think you kids are ready to do battle with the evil Grumpus Tuskamorts now, don’t you?
Kids:
Yeah!!
Bluey:
Great! Let’s celebrate! Anyone got some blow?
—————————————————————–
Err, I think I’ll cut Bluey off there, but I hope he made the argument for body rights as clearly and simply as possible. Even if a fetus is somehow a human being, which it isn’t, no woman has to give up any part of her body for it against her will, the same way she shouldn’t be forced to give up or rent any part of herself to save Saddam Hussein. She can’t just up and _kill_ anyone, either, but I hope everyone can see the difference now.
Everyone but those pesky Grumpus Tuskamorts, anyway.
Bluey! My Hero!
Thank you much for giving a blue and smiling face to one of my fav. ways of talking about the most fundamental and vital necessity of bodily autonomy!
And yeah, anger, nah, *FURY* is a perfectly justified response to anyone making such demands of us.
Coming at that autonomy from a slightly different angle, but something I’ve considered mutually reinforcing to what you have here are a few ideas I scrawled out in my own fit of fury some months back, enjoy at your leisure-
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2005/6/13/82551/6958
punkass marc: thanks for the follow-up answer (took me awhile to get back here) and the other comments also helpful for future debates on this topic. Give Bluey a hug for me!
I’ve really been enjoying reading these comments, as they have been mostly careful and civil. I appreciate Paul W.’s consideration of the opposition angle; it’s usually hard for folks to get their head around what their opponent is saying.
All I will say here comes from my own experience: I’ve been pregnant twice, once unwillingly (it seemed certain to destroy our future, including the baby’s) and once quite happily. I don’t have the words to describe the enormity of the gulf between the two. It’s like the difference between finding out you have a possibly terminal disease vs. finding out you still have a future, and a promising one.
But I do have a question. One argument I’ve heard is that “even if the fetus would otherwise have full rights, the woman has the PRIOR claim on her body, so tough noogies to the fetus.” I haven’t seen that articulated here though, and was wondering what y’all thought of that.
Marc,
I find it unfortunate that you don’t accept the scientific fact that a fetus is a human being.
If the human fetus isn’t a human being, then what species is it? Or do you deny that the human fetus is an organism?
Do you have any evidence from science to back up your view that a fetus is not a human being even though human embryology has clearly shown that the fetus is a human being?
If the fetus isn’t a human being then when does the fetus become a human being? At birth? If so, how does a nine-inch journey change a non-human being into a human being? Is there some magical hormone that is released at birth which makes the fetus into one of our species?
Were you ever a fetus?
Sigh. Not a fact. Read the link to Pharyngula, which is run by a fine biologist.
Of course, why would you read his blog when you didnt even read this post? This entire argument is predicated on defending choice even if the fetus is a human. Please re-read Bluey’s arguments, Jivin J.
Hey Thundercloud,
Apologies for the delay in response; been bouncing a lot of stuff with Paul, occasionally letting too much frustration through (I am named “punkass marc” for a reason and it wasn’t necessarily my idea).
This is a great point. I think that if there were a rights conflict over the mother’s body between her and the fetus, this seems a very reasonable claim. It extends to Bluey’s analogies, too — you can’t have my kidney because, well, it was mine first.
Over in the bodily autonomy thread I do my best to show that there isn’t a rights conflict here, but if somehow one could be proven — like, say if someone takes Paul’s wacky utero-dwarves case seriously — this would be a very legit defense.
Great addition to the discussion!
Nowhere in the link does PZ claim that fetuses are human beings. Nowhere. Nor does he provide very much support for his views. Plus, even if he did say fetuses aren’t human beings – linking to one pro-choice blogger who is a biologist doesn’t really provide facts. I actually read PZ fairly regularly and have posted blog posts on some of his more ridiculous posts like his strawman Emergency contraception post and some of the ridiculously silly comments he left at RA’s blog.
Bluey’s “arguments” are fairly weak in my opinion and are based on the idea that giving a kidney to stranger is equivalent to a woman carry for her unborn child. It also seems to assume that abortion isn’t killing the unborn.
You didn’t answer any of my questions. Why not? Is it because you really haven’t examined the question of when a human being comes into existence?
Here are a few quotes from embryology textbooks that should hopefully help you a little more in your search for biological facts.
“Zygote. This cell, formed by the union of an ovum and a sperm (Gr. zygtos, yoked together), represents the beginning of a human being.” Moore, Keith L. and Persaud, T.V.N. Before We Are Born: Essentials of Embryology and Birth Defects. 4th edition. Philadelphia: W.B. Saunders Company, 1993, p. 1
“The development of a human being begins with fertilization, a process by which two highly specialized cells, the spermatozoon from the male and the oocyte from the female, unite to give rise to a new organism, the zygote.” Langman, Jan. Medical Embryology. 3rd edition. Baltimore: Williams and Wilkins, 1975, p. 3
“Embryo: An organism in the earliest stage of development; in a man, from the time of conception to the end of the second month in the uterus.” Dox, Ida G. et al. The Harper Collins Illustrated Medical Dictionary. New York: Harper Perennial, 1993, p. 146.
“Although human life is a continuous process, fertilization is a critical landmark because, under ordinary circumstances, a new, genetically distinct human organism is thereby formed” O’Rahilly, Ronan and Müller, Fabiola. Human Embryology and Teratology, 2nd edition. New York: Wiley-Liss, 1996, pp. 8, 29
Jivin,
Because I don’t care if it is a human or not. Even if it is a human, the mother has more basic rights. This is all outlined here and especially here. Sorry you are caught up arguing someone else’s point, but whether or not the fetus is a human, I have argued that the woman’s bodily autonomy is the most fundamental right. Please read through this stuff before trolling.
Jivin J.:
Define “human being” please.
Those are some interesting quotes, but rather meaningless as to why an embryo is a human being, thus my request. What traits and properties are necessary for something to possess in order to qualify for being labeled a human being? Likewise what traits and properties would disqualify something? I would ask this of you, because you claim it is a “scientific fact that a fetus is a human being”, indicating that you would have a very good idea of what is or is not a human being and why you think a fetus is such.
D, I’d rather not discuss that here — that would be major thread drift. Bluey is trying to help people see that even if a fetus is a human, the woman has the fundamental right to bodily autonomy and that trumps all else. Let’s not feed the Grumpus Tuskamorts on their points irrelevant to this particular post.
Marc,
So then you don’t want to defend your incorrect assertion that fetuses aren’t human beings? Or your incorrect assertion in the comments that PZ’s post somehow defended this assertion? You made an assertion and now you don’t want to defend it. OK. That’s fine.
But if you don’t care if the fetus is human being or not then you shouldn’t be making assertion about the subject which you can’t defend.
If you want to discuss bodily autonomy – I’m wondering what you think about this hypothetical – a lifeguard is closing up the pool, he thinks everyone has left for the day, he has punched out and is about to leave work until he sees the body of a young girl struggling to stay afloat in the deep end of the pool. Should his rights to bodily autonomy override his responsibility as a human being to save the child? What if the child is the lifeguard’s child?
You see there are a number of problems with Bluey’s arguments. One of the major ones is that it proves too much. It proves that nobody has any responsibility towards anyone else. If I don’t want to use my body to save the drowning child, then oh well. If Jane decides she’s sick of caring for her children then she can decide not to feed them and let them starve.
Pff. You only read it that way because you are anti-choice and refuse to consider a rights framework where that isn’t true. If you came at it with a more open mind, I think you’d troll –err, read — it differently.
Hah! This from someone calling it a person.
Unlike you, I only stick to the points that matter to my argument. You wingers think that once you call the zygote a person, the discussion is over. Bluey is here to smack that down with a vengeance, to show you that even if you think it is a person you can’t take away a woman’s choice — and that has to scare you.
Despite his charming smile.
Marc,
Any thoughts on my hypothetical?
How am I “anti-choice?” I’m all in favor of women and men making a number of choices as long those choices don’t intentionally take the lives of other human beings. You can’t wipe away the problems with your argument by calling me “anti-choice.”
Calling me a troll won’t help your arguments either. Doesn’t trolling usually require being mean-spirited or name calling or talking off topic? Have I done those things? Or is it just trolling to disagree with the blogger?
When did I call the fetus a “person?” I can’t see where I made such a claim in the comments above. I intentionally try to stay away from claims of personhood because I see personhood claims as strategies which attempt to allow some human beings to discriminate against other human beings based on arbitrary criteria.
Trolling is intentionally taking us off-point, Jivin. See all my other comments to you above as to why I won’t indulge you.
[...] Of course, maybe Dawn considers me a friend after I introduced her to Bluey. I don’t believe in God, so, heck, maybe she’s even talking about me. If so, I would like to politely offer the following response to my buddy. [...]
So what do all of you highly intelligent individuals have to say about women who use abortion as a form of birth control?
Just curious. My personal feelings are that abortion should not be an option in most case but there are cases where I can see that it is needed. So I am not anti nor am I pro. I do believe in personal responsibility.
So how about it? A woman gets knocked up and decides to get an abortion. She does this repeatedly. What are your feelings on this? Would you hang out with her and call her a friend?
Is there any court in the land that would force a drunk driver to sacrifice part of his liver to save Craig, in his example? No. Because we don’t live in a totaletarian state. Yet. Craig can sue the drunk driver for damages, but he can’t sue him for a part of his body, and the judge can’t strap him down and cut him open. The fact that some people seem to think this is perfectly reasoanble is frightening. It’s a horrible situation for Craig, but yes even criminals have the right to personal autonomy and bodily integrity. Hey, there are a lot of decent sick people in America would could be helped by harvesting the organs of murders and criminals, but again, we’re not China.
Being conscripted to donate a pint of blood would NOT kill me, or prevent me from voting, or making a living, or marrying, etc. Pregnancy probably wouldn’t, either. (Especially if we allow abortion in cases where it likely would.)
Yeah, neither would being raped. If the right to bodily integrity is NOT the most basic human right, then is rape okay? Why not? Let’s say we can find a way to rape someone really gently, and obviously psychological harm doesn’t count, then it’s fine then, right? How about medical experiments? Experimenting on human bodies could find a cure for cancer! Why this ban? Being conscripted to donate a few months out of your life to be a guinea pig won’t kill you, so no worries there. There will no doubt be very good reasons for allowing rape (we’re at war and our soldiers need a release) and medical experimentation (obvious) so there’s no reason to worry about basically delivering our personal autonomy into the arms of the state, Congress will always have our best interests at heart. We can trust them, and our silly rights are just affectations anyway. Whatever we’ll be forced to do, and they’ll have the power to coerce us into just about anything, no prob. Once you open up this Pandora’s Box, it will be pushed and pushed and pushed to the limit.
Some of you guys are also confusing “personal autonomy” with “bodily integrity.” Of course your right to personal autonomy isn’t absolute. You can be forced to do or not do various things at various times. You DON’T have the right to do whatever you want, whenever you want, especially when your actions impinge on the rights of others. But you DO have the right to bodily integrity, which basically means that you have the right to not have your body interfered with against your will. The State can’t interfere in your medical decisions or force you to do things that would endanger your health or threaten your life.
Marc,
What a terrific, terrific post. It totally summarizes the key point – that regardless whether you believe a fetus is human or not, a woman has the ultimate choice as to how her body is used. Does Bluey do speaking engagements?
Voodoo – to address your question – I have no problem with a woman who has multiple abortions. It’s none of my business. How she manages her sexual/reproductive life doesn’t concern me. On the flipside, I have no problem with a woman who has multiple children either, and I don’t think the government should be legislating this either way (that is, forced births OR forced abortions). Either one is a gross violation of human rights.
I think the important point is this. Whether abortion is legal or not, women will still keep getting them. Only they’ll be way more likely to die from unsafe unhygienic conditions. If you are ‘pro-life’ and pro ALL life, not just ‘foetus’ life, then you should care about the thousands more women who would die trying to get abortions if it was made completely illegal. If you don’t care about them (i.e. they deserve it etc) you have a fundamental lack of empathy for other ‘grown’ human beings and choices we all have to make and that stance says more about the ‘anti-woman’ viewpoint of the anti-choice movement than I ever could.
“Likewise, if a fetus is a person with full rights, including bodily rights, the mother’s bodily rights can’t simply trump the fetus’s bodily rights, if she created the conflict situation. Taking a risk with somebody else’s rights is always “entering into a contract.” It is not the fetus’s fault that its rights conflict with the mother’s; it is at least partly the mother’s. (In the usual case of voluntary sex.)”
The problem with this line of reasoning, I think, is that coitus happened before that “somebody else” even existed. She couldn’t possibly be entering into a contract with someone who will not exist for several days after the supposed contract-making. If choosing to have sex can obligate you to support “people” that might exist at some point in the future, would voluntary sex one month negate a woman’s right to abort should she become pregnant from rape the next month? What about the next day, with the added complication that it would not be entirely clear who was the genetic progenitor of the embryo? Does a woman have to be completely chaste to be able to enjoy the rape exception?
Floyd~
I can see your point. I think you make a great comparison. I guess I have a problem with people doing both aborting and having more children than they can care for. I see so many people in society that are just brainless trash reproducing thinking only of themselves. As harsh as this sounds I really wish there was some way that we could take these idiots and sterilize them.
I look at the choices my siblings have made and seriously believe that the family tree should have been trimmed. When I hear about my nephews getting into trouble with the law (Robbery, Drugs, Alcohol, Domestic Violence) Things would have been better if my sisters wouldn’t have reproduced. I know, I am heartless.
It’s a shame that irresponsible people can reproduce at a high rate. It is even more of a shame that they are in control of the future of young souls.
I still feel that abortion shouldn’t be treated as if a woman was getting a haircut. I would be fit to be tied if my wife decided to have our child aborted. But the sad fact is that a daddy has no rights
[...] Dawn hated herself so much the thought of life without marriage [i.e. life left to her own devices] would be bad enough to kill herself. That’s downright scary, and if I had known Dawn at that time, I would’ve tried to get her to seek help. Instead of learning to love herself, though, she invented fake external JesusLove to fill her heart-hole. [I think Bluey might have a thing or two to say about heart-holes, don’t you?] [...]
Voodoo,
You’ve got some good points there. Yes, there are some people out there who are bringing kids into the world that they can’t handle, can’t raise properly, abuse and mistreat – and in my mind, that’s the greater crime (child abuse, that is).
And then there’s that sticking point – what about the fathers? I guess my own view is that , in a situation where you’ve got a 1-1 tie about what to do regarding an unplanned pregnancy, you’ve got to give the tie-breaking vote to the person who’s actually going to be pregnant. But that doesn’t mean men don’t have a say – just not the final say. How he reacts to the news (“I’m excited, I’m ready to raise this child” vs. “Fuck that, it’s probably not even mine, you ho”) will no doubt have some influence. But it is, ultimately, only a woman who is capable of bringing a pregnancy to term, and therefore, it is only a woman who can have the last word.
And that’s fine that you don’t want abortion treated lightly – don’t treat it lightly. But if a woman does treat it lightly, what should be done about it? Should she be punished? If she’s treating it like getting a haircut, then she’d probably be a terrible mother anyway and is really doing the world a favour.
Good post floyd. I beleive you and I agree. =-)
Serge,
As a physician, it is considered unethical for me to give a pregnant woman anesthetic medication that could harm her fetus even though she may request it. There are either two options: either this ethical principle is wrong and it is actually unethical for me to deny a pregnant woman a benzodiazepine, or the right of bodily autonomy is not inalienable.
Umm, incorrect. If the benefits of administering anesthetic to the pregnant woman outweigh the risks, it’s the standard of care. Pregnant patients can, and do, undergo appendectomies, cholecystectomies, etc. One thing that’s unethical is administering a known teratogen when you have alternatives. Which brings us to:
What about a mother who wishes to have a child but does not wish to be nauseous? She wishes to take thalidomide.
If a patient wishes to take thalidomide it has nothing to do with the right of bodily autonomy. All it means is that you haven’t done your job of discussing vitamin B6, Diclectin, Phenergan, Dramamine, Reglan, Tigan, Zofran, and Medrol with her.
Jivin J,
When engaged in a search for biological facts, it’s not enough to pull some quotes from embryo books. You need to actually be familiar with, you know, the facts.
–Fertilization is not a momentary event (it takes ~2 days).
–Once fertilization is completed, the new genotype (egg 23 sperm23= new genotype, zygote 46, or diploid) isn’t yet capable of expression (no transcription of the new genotype; its growth and development is regulated by info from the egg).
–The developing preembryo only acquires individuation (the potential to become a human person) ~14 days after fertilization.
Not to mention that the zygote divides =>blastomers. Blastomers are totipotent cells–each one retains the capacity to develop into a normal preembryo. Meaning, 1-4 days after fertilization “there is as yet no designation of an individual cell to become a specific entity or a particular part of an entity.”
Last, but not least, an abortion does NOT kill a fetus/baby/unborn/whatever; it terminates a pregnancy. Big, huge, difference. You can have a pregnancy/abortion without a fetus, but not without a placenta/uterus (or, to be more precise, any number of maternal organs).
[...] I can barely stand to accept that there are people this unable to see the forest for the trees. I asked Bluey the Body Rights Thingamabob to come teach the wingnuts what’s important in simple terms they could understand, but this isn’t really his area of expertise. Instead, he sent his best friend to talk some sense into the world. [...]
If the human fetus isn’t a human being, then what species is it? Or do you deny that the human fetus is an organism?
A fetus is a human organism, a scientific statement. It is not a human being, which implies an existential status.
Consider one of your sperm cells. What species is it? Does that make it a human being?
Nice thread necromancy!
BTW: bring back Bluey!
I came to this thread a year late, from Pharyngula, but I am intrigued that this is the only long discussion on abortion that I have ever read that maintained itself on a high level. No name calling. No You’re an idiot and I’m leaving. Just discussion. I didn’t think it was possible.
[...] Punkass Marc at Punkass Blog (hoping for a reappearance of Bluey) [...]
I was struck by a speeding truck and sustained liver damage. It’s conceivable that at some point the condition of my liver will have degraded to the point where I need a transplant. If that were to happen, could the driver who hit me be forced to donate part of his liver since he contributed to the condition of my damaged liver?
I took this as a rhetorical question — the point being that bodily autonomy says that the state can’t force the driver to give up part of his liver, and that contributing to the condition doesn’t trump that. Bizarrely and disturbingly, Paul W. took it to undermine the claim of bodily autonomy. But in fact the state does not force that sort of restitution, and Paul W. seems to be in denial. Also, he and others confuse moral judgments with legal coercion. People can view the driver as wrong and acting immorally to not make the donation while at the same time recognizing that it would be wrong to force the driver to make the donation. And the failure to consider this distinction is seen in the false dichotomy between “pro-choice” and “anti-abortion” or “pro-life”. People who are pro-choice are not pro-abortion or anti-life; they are only anti- state coercion. It’s quite possible for people on both sides to abhor abortions and desire all pregnancies to go to term, but those are personal preferences, not legal enforcement.
Dawn appeared to have said:
“If one believes that the humanity of the unborn child does not matter because a mother is not responsible for the human life growing inside her, then no one is responsible for another in any way. Parents are not responsible for their children and children are not responsible for their elderly or disabled parents. Husbands are not responsible for their elderly or disabled wives, and vice versa. No one has any responsibility to the poor, unfortunate, or suffering.”
Her if/then logic statements do not follow. Her reasoning has no connection; it fails. The terms “mother” and “human life growing insider her” may have a relationship (in this case, one is not responsible for the other). But the terms “no one” and “another” are not related in the same way. First, “no one” is a negative of a term, “someone.” If you use a negative term in a logical statement, you must also make sure to use the positive. Here, Dawn does not do so. Additionally, the term “anyone” is far too vague. Her logic does not follow here. Simply because a mother is not responsible for the human life growing inside her (“at all times,” by the way, something Dawn failed to add to her statement, making it further vague and unsupportable) has no bearing or connection to the following statement she made. She gives us, then, two unconnected statements, with no support or backup. Surely, in her attempts to convince women to go through the massive efforts and investments of pregnancy and delivery, she can come up with better support than this.