"It's my life. Don't you understand, IT'S MY LIFE!"
--Andy Dufresne (The Shawshank Redemption)
Part 1
Death penalty. I used to be a hardcore death row guy. Capital punishment for capital crimes. The argument often offered against the death penalty is that a conviction is never certain. There is a chance, however slight, that an innocent person could be put to death.
True, but the primary issue to me is that execution is a lethal form of aggression. Lethal force applied in self-defense can be justified, but capital punishment is offensive rather than defensive force. Only God has authority to render a death sentence.
Abortion. Growing up, I embraced the Catholic position on abortion. A fetus is a person whose life cannot be arbitrarily taken. I still generally agree with this position.
Moreover, my journey over the past 10 years has informed me that, constitutionally, a baby in the womb has the right to equal protection under the law.
But pregnancy is not a risk-free endeavor for the mother. And in extreme cases such as rape or when an unforeseeable complication threatens the life for the mother, the woman has the right to choose whether to assume the risks of pregnancy or to abort.
One person cannot be forced to take risk for the benefit of another.
This principle, btw, applies to cases beyond abortion as well.
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14 comments:
Constitutional rights should derive from Natural rights
1. Mother hires hit man to kill child
2. Mother hires abortionist to kill unborn child
In both cases, mother is employing agent to use deadly force upon another. Natural rights give person a claim to their own personhood.
In extreme case
1. Gunman confronts mother w/decision that she may spare her own or her child's life, but not both
2. Doctor confronts mother w/decision that she may spare her own or her unwanted unborn child's life, but not both
In both extreme cases, the mother is deciding the ultimate outcome. Natural rights should give the child a claim to his/her personhood.
If the mother chooses to save herself, the child and unborn child are being forced to take risk for the mom's life.
Agree w base case, and B1 and B2 are analogous. But in extreme case, 1 and 2 are not analogous. In E1 force is basis for modified 'Sophie's choice' and desired decision is for both to live. In E2, force is not basis for decision and desired decision may not be for both to live.
Mother retains primary decision rights in E2 because she takes on pregnancy either against her will (force occured in prev period) or without knowledge of low odds/high risk situation that only reveals itself later. If a law requires mother to continue w pregnancy that mother did not previously agree to, then this IS gun-to-head force. In the case of rape-induced pregnancy, forcing the mother thru term essentially gives license to govt sactioned birthing programs (which occured in 1930s Germany).
Stated differently, mother has right to start a pregnancy. If pregnancy is started against her will or without knowledge of unreasonable risk, then she has the right to terminate that pregnancy.
Child or child's rep cannot hold gun to mother's head and say "It shouldn't have happened, but now that I'm in the womb, you're in it for the duration."
Regardless, you have to accept the idea that personhood is bestowed upon conception rather than at any other point in time, like live birth. The Catholic Church has not always taught that life begins at conception. So natural law arguments only become relevant once your faith leads you to the decision of when personhood begins. Since the State can't sponsor one religious belief over another, the government has no business legislating this.
I will say that I agree on the death penalty. It's not our call. What I'll never understand is how a person can be pro death penalty and call him/herself pro life based on the idea that all life is "sacred."
Mother aborts baby's life on condition of protecting her personhood from unwanted force. The innocent baby is dealt the losing hand.
Luckily, we do not need to judge as God will be the final arbiter.
Many people equally cannot understand how some can be against the death penalty while being pro-abortion…
The State does have business here. A ‘faith’ (whether religious or secular) cannot declare when life begins (why not 10 yrs after birth?) or when it must end (why not at 60?) and expect the State to stay away. In a free society, the State’s proper role is to protect individual life, liberty, and property equally under the law.
This is also why the State must construe personhood to begin at conception. If it did not do so, then the State would not be protecting life across the spectrum of possibilities about when life begins. The State must be conservative and recognize human life at its earliest possible instant. If the State does not do so, then it is not providing equal protection under the law regardless of religious belief.
Natural law is not married to a particular religion. All people are endowed with the same inalienable rights, and the State’s proper role is help all individuals protect their rights against aggression—even if that aggression comes from a ‘faith.’
Matt,
It's silly to say that the state could say life begins at 10 rather than 9 or 8. There are indisputable facts that show a person is indeed a person when s/he is living outside the womb. If you want the government to bestow personhood at conception, then you are the one giving the government that power.
I'm reading a book right now about a woman who found out when her baby was 9 months old that he had Tay Sachs, a 100% fatal disease. She had no idea she carried the gene and, in fact, had the prenatal tests that showed the baby didn't have it. Her baby died before he turned 3, as all babies with Tay Sachs do. Turns out there were astronomical odds that this could have happened. A baby with TS develops normally until 6 months, then goes backwards, eventually being blind and unable to move. The author has said that while she can't imagine her life without him, had she known this would happened, she would not have brought him into this world. How do you stand on that?
What about a drug addict who doesn't realize she's pregnant and doesn't want to bring a drug addicted baby into the world?
Life is lived in the gray areas, and every pregnancy is a joyous and welcomed occasion, until it isn't.
Please don't tell me about adoption, there are so many kids who age out of the foster care system without ever have found a permanent home.
This line:
This is also why the State must construe personhood to begin at conception. If it did not do so, then the State would not be protecting life across the spectrum of possibilities about when life begins. The State must be conservative and recognize human life at its earliest possible instant. If the State does not do so, then it is not providing equal protection under the law regardless of religious belief.
It reminds me of that quote that I'll probably butcher here -- a state that has the power to give you what you want has the power to take it away.
And one other thing -- no one is "pro abortion." People don't want the state to take a woman's right to reproductive freedom away. I have a hard time understanding how you can reconcile your ideas about freedom with this idea that the state can force a woman into motherhood.
In essence, you choose to elevate the status of bunch of cells that eventually might become a person at the expense of a girl or woman who is undeniably alive.
I also argue that people who are anti choice are absolutely not "pro life." They are pro zygote. Pro embryo. Pro fetus. Not pro life.
Simply put, I believe a woman should be trusted with a decision about whether to terminate her pregnancy. If we can't trust a woman to make her own decision about that, why on earth would we trust a woman to raise a child?
It's quite easy to be pro choice and anti death penalty if you don't accept the premise that life begins at conception.
I wonder, too, where you stand on In Vitro Fertilization. Are those 5 cells in a petri dish people with rights too?
Don, that's fine if you want to believe that God is the final arbiter. But there are people who worship a god that doesn't condemn people who choose abortions, and there are people who don't believe in God at all. I say that it's the ultimate act of force to impose your view of morality on others.
By the way, I understand that this is a very emotionally charged issue. Minds are rarely changed by discussions like these. I just wanted to present an alternate point of view. Personally, I prefer we focus on areas of agreement.
You misconstrued my argument. My observation was that any faith based group, whether grounded in traditional religion or more secular beliefs, can arbitrarily proclaim when life begins. Some might say life begins at, say, 6 months pregnancy; other might say that the dependency of a child out of the womb is little changed from a child in the womb, such that real personhood does not begin until X yrs old.
You seem to believe that life does not begin until the child comes out of the womb. But this is yet another arbitrary proclamation that is undeniably contestable.
Government’s role is to help individuals protect their lives against aggression moved by those with such arbitrary beliefs. To fully do so, govt must take the stance that life begins at conception because that appears to be the earliest reasonable point of life across the spectrum of arbitrary possibilities.
The several exceptional cases that you propose bring the discussion back to the original post. It is now clear to me that there are exceptions where the mother has the right to abort. These exceptions involve cases where the mother was forced into pregnancy, or when a very large risk that could not be foreseen at the outset of pregnancy arises during the term. In such cases, the woman cannot be forced to continue with pregnancy, even for the sake of another individual.
But if it's the government's role to protect the individual against aggression, why isn't it the government's role to protect a woman who seeks an abortion against the aggression of those who wish to stop her?
To me, the arbitrary designation comes in when you decide life begins at conception. I didn't say that I believe life begins at birth. It's ridiculous to say, though, that a person believing life begins at birth could pave the way for saying life begins when a person turns 10. There are scientific measures for determining when a person is alive vs when s/he is dead. Breathing, for example. Many pregnancies are lost before the second trimester. We don't treat those as "deaths," but as lost pregnancies.
If conception is picked as the arbitrary point, why not something else - like the plan to have a baby, or the decision to try to get pregnant. To me, that's about as reasonable of an argument as saying that a government could say that life begins at age 10.
Here's what I see to be a more realistic slippery slope. A woman is prosecuted for being "unhealthy" in her pregnancy. Already women are arrested for having babies born addicted to crack.
Where can would-be fathers be held to the same standard as pregnant women? All of this points to an idea that the product of a woman's uterus is more important than her own sovereignty.
And I'm wondering about how far you will take your extreme exception argument. If a woman is taking birth control and falls into the method's failure rate (.3% for the pill, for example), is that adequate reason? How about the morning after pill? That is taken in case there has been an accidental conception that would prevent implantation.
Again, to me, this is an issue that hinges on a woman's right to control her own body.
In the case of abortion, the mother is acting with lethal aggression on the child. Govt is not engaging in aggression if it intervenes to protect the child. It is using defensive rather than offensive force.
Child planning et al is not a reasonable proclamation of when life begins because reasoned definitions of human life involve existence and growth via human metabolic processes—processes that commence w conception, not before.
I agree with your concerns about being liable for ‘unhealthy’ behavior during pregnancy. Similar concerns exist after childbirth, where there is potential for the State to intervene on parental behavior that some special interest group does not agree with. This is indeed a slippery slope that we’re already sliding down.
Men are held to the same standard as women during pregnancy if the man applies offensive force against the child while the woman is pregnant. He is just as liable for aggression against the child as a woman would be.
If human life indeed begins at conception, then a woman is carrying another person in her body at that point. That person is not the woman’s property nor part of the woman’s sovereign being. Under the auspices of natural law, the person inside the woman is sovereign and possesses inalienable rights. If the mother, or anyone else, acts aggressively against this person, then the person has the right to self-defense.
Pregnancy while taking contraceptives is not valid cause for abortion. There is risk of pregnancy while taking contraceptives and the woman assumes that risk while on the pill. The risks discussed in the original post are unforeseen ones that, once apparent, are life-threatening.
Really enjoy the discussion on a topic that is complex as life itself and makes financial decisions a breeze.
Statement about God may have been misinterpreted as these posts are often snippits of thought, lacking in depth.
My God is one of love, kindness, forgiveness and redemption, not one of condemnation. In my utopian world, everything would be voluntary as free will was endowed to us. Personally do not prefer abortion vs other options and am glad I don't have to judge actions of others..
Learned of a situation where a young nun was raped and after much stressful deliberation, decided to raise the child. Took courage, strength and faith, and for her was a triumph of love over death.
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