Abortion and the Rights of Two-celled Things
Abortion. Wow. Its a charged topic. I love it (and think its a good topic). Anyway, there have been plenty of nice arguments recently over it involving many different angles and viewpoints.
My basic stance is as follows: At the time of fertilization and shortly afterward, when we are talking about a two or three celled thing, it is clearly not a person. It is, in fact, a couple cells that just came from people, but it is not one yet. This seems pretty clear to me, primarily because I am not willing to extend my definition of persons to include two-celled things. Beyond the two-celled point there seems to me to be a gray area as far as the line drawing is concerned. What I mean is: At birth, it is clearly a person, albeit a small and slimy one, but there is no clear and distinct point at which to draw a line before which the thing was not a person and after which (s)he was a person. Due to the fact that the mother is clearly a person, deserving of rights, and the two celled thing is not; the mother’s positive autonomy to do what she wishes with herself is clearly more appropriately upheld than the two-celled thing’s negative autonomy (freedom to not be messed with). Furthermore, the gray area and the difficulties with the line drawing extend, in my mind, the time period during the in uterus growth that this same mother’s rights first situation should persist. Because I am willing to admit that it becomes a human before it ‘enters the world’, let’s say I’m against third trimester abortion. It is a consideration between something that may be deserving of rights (fetus) and something that clearly is (mother).
The opposition not only has a problem with aborting the more then two-celled thing, they also have a problem with the abortion of the two-celled thing which, if they don’t qualify it as a person (which most appear to), is deserving of the right to life that trumps the mother’s positive autonomy to do what she wants with herself (namely choose to abort). The two-celled thing’s rights limit the mother’s positive autonomy in this way. If I was to adopt this position, I would stress that the two-celled thing has ‘future interests’, but I do not adopt this position and have heard nothing about ‘future interests’ or the like. It is a matter of it actually being a living person and of it deserving these rights, or so it has been argued. To paraphrase Rob, its obviously murder and its obviously wrong. ‘Plan B’ would obviously be opposed by everyone in this camp because it ‘murders’ a two-or-more-celled thing.
So then I started thinking of how to wiggle around a bit and attack the ‘popular position’ around here… that this two-celled thing deserves rights. So I started thinking of ways in which we waste these two celled things en masse, like the Chinese do birds, without a moral consideration at all. Then I thought of IUDs.
On top of that, the device actually stretches the uterus out a bit so that the walls aren’t wrinkly. This prevents the (autonomous) fertilized egg from lodging in the wrinkles and growing, assuming it makes it past all the other IUD horrors. It gets expelled - murdered! My God! Here’s the en masse murder that I was looking for.
So I guess that means Rob and his camp are opposed to IUDs and Plan B, when properly informed of their mechanics. The IUD must be opposed, in fact, because if they claimed the IUD was ok and sited the fact their was nothing more than passive, preemptive ‘disposal’ or whatever, then they might be susceptible to having to also say a hypothetical device that is surgically installed ahead of time that grinds the baby up into pieces right before it comes out into the world is also acceptable. For them there is no difference in ‘person hood’ or autonomy between the two-celled victim of the IUD and the baby liquefied by this hypothetical in-utero blender.
So perhaps I haven’t made an advance although I began thinking about mandated health care for expectant mothers. Let’s rehash something fundamental to the other camp first:
The opposition has a problem with the abortion of the two-celled thing which is deserving of a right to life that trumps the mother’s positive autonomy to do what she wants with herself.
So we can look at abortion as merely one example of the mother’s positive autonomy. Rob and his camp clearly feel there is a strong need for laws to enforce this limit on the mother’s autonomy. The mother though, remains free to do many other things that will kill the fetus; including but not limited to the following: alcohol abuse, malnutrition, abuse of ‘legal speed’, or any other number of harmful things, some of which can potentially arise from the financial inability to secure food or proper health care. I am just wondering where the limits of the enforcement of this little two-celled person’s rights stop? Are we talking mandated healthcare here Rob? Are we talking about funded rehab programs for all the crack mothers who will otherwise have stillborn babies or, failing that, will have retarded, braindead babies that will become wards of the state that we all pay someone $35-40 bucks an hour to care for? How much governmental intrusion into these mothers’ rights are you willing to sling for this two-celled person?
I am sincerely interested.
pparets
Rob
HG
realitybasedbob
Proof
robert108
AKAJOEL