You don't have to believe in God to make the argument that an embryo is a developing human being who is therefore worthy of legal protection. There are plenty of secular pro-lifers. [1]
I suppose if your definition of "plenty" is different than mine, that you could be right.
Having said that, I have a hard time taking any anti-abortion group seriously (whether religious or not) which does not actually have an official position on rape.
What possible non-religious argument could there be made to force a woman to carry to term (and care for) the child of their rapist?
First off, if a compromise can be found, that could solve the problem instantly - for example, if instead of abortion, a fetus could be removed and implanted safely in another woman, or in a laboratory, and brought to term, and there was a legal apparatus in place to ensure the child received care, that could eliminate the "killing" aspect of an abortion while preventing a woman from being forced to keep a rape-induced pregnancy to term.
That doesn't exist yet though, so, lemme try this, though I feel very dirty doing so:
If abortion is murder, then there's no legal justification in carrying it out because one is a victim of a crime, even if the abortion is a "solution" to one of the long-term effects of that crime (the rape). Just as one is not allowed to steal to replace stolen goods, one should not be allowed to "murder" an unborn child in response to a rape.
Well, you're not wrong, it's a pretty hard argument to make without bringing religion in.
If killing a person is murder, then there is no legal justification in carrying it out because one is a victim of a crime. Yet, in capital punishment cases, we go ahead and do so anyways.
There is also the religious assertion that in its present state, a zygote is a human being, yet, say, the biological matter that is removed from the body in a woman's period is not. I am not aware of an argument that does not hinge on the zygote being empowered by a magical soul.
Well, a zygote is a developing human being while a placenta is clearly not. You don't have to believe in a soul to think that all human beings -- regardless of their stage of development -- merit legal protection.
A pre-menopausal woman carries thousands of eggs. Are they all also not human beings? Does the average woman commit at least one murder a month? What about the nutrients that might be assembled into a human being?
Giving the 'undifferentiated mass of cells is clearly a human being' argument even a slight push very quickly devolves into absurdity.
They are not humans because they are not fertilized eggs. Unfertilized eggs are haploid, not diploid, meaning they are unpaired chromosomes (am ignoring X and Y). It also means they could not produce a living human... too many problems owing to the missing second chromosome in each pair. Is like having 25,000 gene deletions!
Some animals have a phenomenon called parthenogenesis which allows an unfertilized egg to develop into a living organism. This does not naturally happen in humans. (And I doubt it happens unnaturally.)
The biggest "murderer", using the definition of the religious people, is the "god" himself, as it is known that, biologically, many of the inseminated egg cells don't end up ever becoming babies, failing to attach to the uterus and getting ejected. Even many that attach don't survive long enough to develop, resulting in a natural "miscarriage" later. That's simply how the reproduction mechanisms work.
So why again should humans be punished when it happens all the time anyway "by design"?
> Well, a zygote is a developing human being while a placenta is clearly not.
In that case, pro-lifers should have no issues with a pregnant woman asking her doctor to remove her placenta - as long as they don't touch the zygote.
Religion is the only place where you'll find people arguing that a zygote is a human, so I'll say it's impossible to make the argument without religion.
Human life deserves protection. Human life starts at some point in time. Saying human life starts at birth (when the child leaves the womb), makes no sense. There is nothing unique about leaving the womb that infers humanity. There is nothing different between killing at newborn and killing a baby still in the womb who is past-due. Location doesn't infer something is a life or not.
So we need to find a better indication of when a human life begins. One could argue that if a child could live outside the womb, then it is a human life. Currently children commonly survive being born 26 weeks premature (3 months before being normally born). Again, killing a premature baby is no different than killing it in the womb. It's the same life.
Other believe that human life starts before that. Some believe that once the self-sustaining process of forming a baby starts (fertilization), then it's human life.
I'm not arguing for one or the other. However, I do understand why some people hold those beliefs.
The argument is fairly straightforward if you accept -- as pro-lifers do -- that abortion constitutes the killing of an unborn child. Parents have a prima facie duty of care towards their children by virtue of the biological connection between parent and child, and this duty of care exists regardless of the circumstances of the child's conception.
This position in no way denies that rape is gravely immoral. It simply recognizes that the child is not responsible for the crimes of his father. The injustice of rape does not justify the additional injustice of abandoning or killing one's own child.
I think most people have no difficulty accepting this argument at least with respect to born children. Nobody would argue that infanticide, for example, is an appropriate response to rape. But there's no reason why the same logic doesn't apply before birth as well.
> It simply recognizes that the child is not responsible for the crimes of his father. The injustice of rape does not justify the additional injustice of abandoning or killing one's own child.
Yet the implicit argument here is that the injustice of rape DOES justify the additional injustice of forced pregnancy upon the victim. Pregnancy involves a profound set of changes to the body, not all of them temporary. I find it incredibly unjust that people are willing to argue that the rights of a handful of cells that will eventually become a human outweigh the rights of an inarguably human woman whose body was forcibly violated, by way of causing a second, 9-months-long forced violation of her right to control her own body. A concrete reminder of the rape that she cannot ignore because it's literally inside her and growing every day. It's despicable.
This is not to mention the lesser injustice of failing to provide her with any assistance during the pregnancy--she will need to consume more calories, will eventually find it difficult or impossible to perform her work duties until the child is born, etc. Where is that assistance provided for in all this legislation?
And for that matter, where are the appeals to the duty of caring for one's children when an adult with young kids is carted off to prison? Clearly there are circumstances in which that duty is superceded by some set of societal concerns. Why is conception by rape not one of them while some crime committed by a parent is?
A typical answer to this is to develop notions of a "moral community" and individuals that belong to it[1]. Those within the moral community can make certain basic claims, thus rights, on others within it such as a right to life. Depending on how you define membership within the moral community, you can make an argument that (early stage) abortion is permissible but infanticide is not.
I rarely bring up nazis but this sounds like something that could have been fetched straight out of nazi Germany:
they had a number of programs for getting rid of unwanted individuals and actually not only forced people but also did public (IIRC) outreach to sell the idea to doctors and parents of severly disabled or otherwise unwanted kids.
(Long time since last I read about this but I think "aktion t4" and "Tiergartenstraße" is the thing to search for if anyone is interested.)
I don't think anyone disagrees with that. The question is at which point the embryo becomes enough of a human where its needs outweigh the needs of the parents.
That's really not relevant, it can be stipulated that life begins at conception and it simply doesn't matter, no persons right to life trumps another persons right to bodily autonomy. It's not murder to let someone die if you're the only bone marrow donor that could save their life and you refuse to donate and it's not murder to get an abortion; not all killing is murder, nor is all killing wrong. As long as the baby requires use of the mothers body to survive, it's right to life is secondary to her consent to carry it and that's true even if you give a fetus the full rights any other grown person would have. No grown person could demand their right to life is more important than your consent to your control your own body, even if your refusal kills them.
It's not murder to let someone die if you're the only bone marrow donor that could save their life and you refuse to donate and it's not murder to get an abortion
"One of those things is not like the other, one of those things..."
Not donating bone marrow requires doing nothing. Having an abortion require an active procedure.
> Not donating bone marrow requires doing nothing. Having an abortion require an active procedure.
True, but simply not relevant to any point I made. No metaphor is perfect, but the point here is that your control over your own body trumps another right to life. You wouldn't allow the government to forcibly take your bone marrow to save a life, and that's no different than being forced to carry a pregnancy to term against your will in regards to the point of bodily autonomy. Another persons right to life ends when it depends on someone else's body to live. The other person has a right to not consent to use their body against their will.
but the point here is that your control over your own body trumps another right to life
I think you need to refine that stance.
As a parent, I certainly don't have control over my own body. If I fail to provide the necessities of life for my child, I will go to jail and my kid will be taken from me. The gov't can (and will) force me to do certain things with my body.
Child neglect has nothing to do with your body. You are free to give up your child for adoption if you don't want to take care of them. Abusing a child and being punished for it isn't remotely similar to anything being discussed here. You're yet again deflecting from the point and attempting to setup a strawman.
The question is whether it ever does, and since (US, at least) domestic policy is to cut the social safety net and say "you're on your own" after a child is born, I'll take the "never" position. THat is, [US] government policy is that its needs outweigh the parents' only during gestation.
We have the technology to freeze viable embryos, right? If it's a question of balancing human lives, you could just freeze the removed embryos until a suitable parent or technology came along.
You can unsubscribe from both life/choice "camps" and realize the Supreme Court rationale that inadvertently created those reactionary groups simply doesn't fit our standards of judicial review any longer.
The whole case is on shaky legal ground without you having to take a stance on it!
Well considering how long the precedent has been in place and how it has been kept in place over multiple different courts, it seems to hold the status of "good law" no matter your opinion on the legal arguments themselves.
The real issue is that Congress has not wanted to try to push this issue no matter which side has control because it is so divisive. Since the harms to the women from leaving a patchwork system of laws in place are real, that just leaves the courts to fill in the vacuum as far as setting a national policy goes.
The Supreme Court makes rulings that are easy to comply with. Their job is to interpret things based on the constitution, in practice they weigh society's ability to stomach their rulings as well.
This is primarily the reason it hasn't been overruled, and its been close in times past! The "precedent" hasn't been in place that long as far as case law goes.
Well, technically, our constitution only gives legal protection to those who are Citizens of the United States of America (or Citizens of some other country I guess). However, one must be born for them to be considered a citizen of the United States. Since an embryo is by definition unborn, the argument could be made that they are not worthy of legal protection.
And religious people have argued that ensoulment did not occur until after recognizable human fetal development. And, by the way, female ensoulment occurred significantly later than male ensoulment.
"Life begins at conception" is primarily a political construct.
"The Catholic Church opposes all forms of abortion procedures whose direct purpose is to destroy an embryo, blastocyst, zygote or fetus, since it holds that "human life must be respected and protected absolutely from the moment of conception". From the first moment of his existence, a human being must be recognized as having the rights of a person – among which is the inviolable right of every innocent being to life.""
Well, you are correct for the modern church, but there is a history. The term quickening (sometimes animation) had various meanings from both secular (search for "plead the belly") and religious. Interpretations of Exodus also sometimes strayed into fetus having the features of a baby.
"Athenagoras emphasizes that Christians consider as murderers those women who take medicines to procure an abortion" [(c. 133 – c. 190 AD) he was a Father of the Church, another author quoted is Tertullian c. 155 – c. 240 AD, moreover, Synod of Elvira, the fourth century, and on and on through the centuries...]
"In the course of history, the Fathers of the Church, her Pastors and her Doctors have taught the same doctrine - the various opinions on the infusion of the spiritual soul did not introduce any doubt about the illicitness of abortion. It is true that in the Middle Ages, when the opinion was generally held that the spiritual soul was not present until after the first few weeks, a distinction was made in the evaluation of the sin and the gravity of penal sanctions. Excellent authors allowed for this first period more lenient case solutions which they rejected for following periods. But it was never denied at that time that procured abortion, even during the first days, was objectively grave fault."
To repeat: "the various opinions on the infusion of the spiritual soul did not introduce any doubt about the illicitness of abortion."
> the Church disproves you, quoting older texts, even from the second century of the Church:
Only if you really didn't read what I typed. There is a history and there were different opinions in the church. Read the history of the Middle Ages and quickening.
"The Venerable Bede" "c. 725, upheld the 40-day distinction, prescribing a one-year penance for abortion before the 40th day" "After 40 days the penance was 71/2 years, the same as for homicide."
"English common law: Starting with Leges Henrici Primi, around 1115, abortion was treated as a misdemeanour prior to 'quickening', accruing a penalty of 3 years' penance, or as a 'quasi homicide' after quickening."
"Pope Gregory XIV," [1591] "pronounced that abortion before 'hominization' should not be subject to ecclesiastical penalties that were any stricter than civil penalties"
Etc. It supports again the Vatican's text which I've cited: "the various opinions on the infusion of the spiritual soul did not introduce any doubt about the illicitness of abortion."
If I've missed something and you have a counterexample I'd like to see it. Thanks.
The Church opposes abortion using the same language and reasoning as they were using in opposition to birth control.
In addition, the Catholic Church has been very clear that this opposition does NOT rely on whether a fetus qualifies as life, human or ensouled and so sidesteps that whole issue.
So, we are back to "life begins at conception" being a political slogan, not a religious one.
See my other post here from almost an hour ago with the quotes spanning from the second century AD, ending with the "Declaration on procured abortion, 18 November 1974,"
> In relation to elective abortion, Pope John Paul II wrote about ensoulment in his 1995 encyclical letter Evangelium Vitae that:
> Throughout Christianity's two thousand year history, this same doctrine of condemning all direct abortions has been constantly taught by the Fathers of the Church and by her Pastors and Doctors. Even scientific and philosophical discussions about the precise moment of the infusion of the spiritual soul have never given rise to any hesitation about the moral condemnation of abortion.[17]
> While the Church has always condemned abortion, changing beliefs about the moment the embryo gains a human soul have led their stated reasons for such condemnation, and the classification in canon law of the sin of abortion, to change over time.[18][19]
Please note that Pope John Paul II is very clear that the two issues are separate.
I don't understand, your citation again supports my claim, not yours, and they are also consistent with my citations?
"Throughout Christianity's two thousand year history, this same doctrine of condemning all direct abortions has been constantly taught by the Fathers of the Church and by her Pastors and Doctors."
Your claim it's a "political concept" so how is a consistent condemnation by the Church during its whole existence of 2000 years a "political concept"? I understood your claim like it was something invented for the last few election cycles, and made because of the contemporary politics. And it's the opposite, it's the Church doctrine that through the 2000 years condemned abortion, in spite of the lives of the mothers involved.
To be just "a political concept" it would have to be a period where the Church did the opposite, which it never did?
Moreover, how is supporting the doctrine on the Father of the Church from the second century, as in my quotation, "political"?
Is for you then the doctrine of Christ being both human and divine, which was established later than in the second century, also political? The trinity, established in the fourth century, political? The selection of which books are part of the Bible, political?
If the Church selected what is a part of the Bible and what is not, and it did, you can't even claim "it's political because it isn't in the Bible" since it's the Church which decided what the Bible is going to be, so your approach would make the Bible just "a political concept" too. Finally, the Church itself (any Church) is "a political concept." The faith, too.
I, not being a believer, confirm that they are all human inventions. But all that is what is traditionally called, understood and lived as "religion" not "politics."
Having said that, I have a hard time taking any anti-abortion group seriously (whether religious or not) which does not actually have an official position on rape.
What possible non-religious argument could there be made to force a woman to carry to term (and care for) the child of their rapist?