Life begins at conception. A human embryo or fetus is a human being at its earliest stages of development.[1] To abort it is to kill it.
Do unborn humans have rights? Do parents have a responsibility to care for them? Does the state owe them justice? In other words, are they human persons?
At the heart of the abortion issue are different ideas about the human person. The traditional understanding holds that a human person is an integrated whole of physical body, and mind, emotion and will – soul if you like. There is a body/soul qualified dualism in which his or her totality and unity as body and soul make up the person.
An alternative view is that the human person is really his or her conscious, desiring self, the ego, the ‘I’. The body is a tool or instrument of the person that can be used as a means of obtaining the ends or desires of the person. Thus the body is not a part of the personal reality of who we are, but is subpersonal or extrinsic to who we really are. There is a self/body dualism in which only the self is the person.[2]
Personal experience for most people is sufficient evidence that the body is not separate from our conscious and desiring self, the body is in fact part of the self, not a mere instrument of the self. We are body persons and not ghosts in a machine or spiritual persons that come and go in material bodies at different points in time.[3] The self’s very essence is its inseparable relationship to an organic structure – our bodies.[4]
This still leaves the fundamental issue as to whether the soul comes into being at some time after conception when the body is sufficiently formed to support consciousness or sentience (the most basic level of this being the ability to feel pain)?
As our physical nature is an inseparable and equal part of our personhood, the human person comes to be when the physical organism comes to be – at conception. To hold that personhood occurs later, when sentience occurs or beyond, is a back-door for the view that the human person is separable from its body. To separate the person from the body downgrades the body and has implications not just for abortion, but also for transgenderism (the gendered self takes precedence over the body’s biological sex), euthanasia (the suffering self takes precedence over bodily life), same-sex marriage (dispensing with the reproductive purpose of human sexuality) and prostitution and pornography (objectifying people by buying the use of their bodies). A radical subjectivism results that is against human nature.
Ultimately, science and philosophy cannot prove when personhood beings, but we know that what is at stake is so important that, from the standpoint of moral obligation and justice, the mere probability that a human person is involved would suffice to justify an absolutely clear prohibition of abortion from conception.[5]
Note on Bodily Autonomy
In relation to pro-choice arguments for abortion based on the mother’s bodily autonomy, an unborn human being is not a stranger, it is the mother’s flesh and blood, and results from a consensual act, even if the pregnancy is not planned.[6]
In the case of rape, the argument on bodily autonomy is strong because the pregnancy has resulted from a violation of the mother’s bodily autonomy. It is understandable to want to make an exception in this case, and politically it may be unavoidable, although the old adage of ‘two wrongs don’t make a right’ is an applicable principle in responding to harms done to oneself, and even more so when the second wrong is directed at an innocent third party.
Note on Political Compromise
The majority of people understandably find third trimester or late term abortions (28 to 41 weeks gestation), when an unborn human being is essentially fully formed, horrific. This is not surprising because we can clearly see that a late term abortion is in reality infanticide.[7]
Even the U.S. Supreme Court in Roe v. Wade held that the constitutional right to abortion ends once the fetus is viable outside the womb. At that time in 1973 this was between 24 and 28 weeks gestation. After viability, states could ban abortion entirely except where continuing the pregnancy would threaten the life of the mother. Since then, the earliest premature baby to survive has been 21 weeks and 5 days gestation.
We know that a viable premature baby has sentience, that it can feel pain. After all, we certainly don’t intentionally inflict pain on them. So it is at some point prior to 22 weeks that it develops sentience, probably by the early second trimester (14 to 27 weeks gestation) given the rapid development of an unborn human being.
A common method of abortion used during the second trimester is the dilation and evacuation method. By this stage the fetus is too large for the use of just a suction catheter, so surgical instruments are required to dismember the fetus in utero in order to remove it.[8] Such an act on a sentient human being is, of course, cruel and inhuman.
Ninety percent of abortions occur during the first trimester (1 to 13 weeks gestation). Therefore, a pragmatic approach to accommodating the irreconcilable differences between the pro-choice and pro-life sides of the abortion debate, would be to permit abortions only during the first trimester and ban them after this point. Importantly, where the mother’s life or physical health is in danger, the law would permit the removal of the fetus to treat the mother but not with the intent of aborting the fetus but with the intent of attempting to save its life outside the womb if it is viable or to die peacefully if it is not viable.
A political compromise such as this would recognize the practical difficulty of preventing early abortions but save sentient/viable unborn human beings from abortion.[9]
Note on Informed Consent to the Medical Risks
There is debate in the medical community about whether induced abortion increases the risk of breast cancer, subsequent premature birth and mental health problems. (Note in relation to terminology: the word ‘abortion’ by itself in this policy statement is a reference to what in medical literature is called ‘induced abortion’, which is used to distinguish it from miscarriages which are referred to as ‘spontaneous’ abortions.)
There are many studies with different methodologies for and against the medical risks arising from induced abortion and much of the debate is about methodological flaws in the studies. See the link in the sources below to the Breast Cancer Prevention Institute for information supporting the case that induced abortion is indeed a risk factor.[10]
Note on Penalties
One issue that abortion, prostitution, suicide/euthanasia and drug use have in common is what penalty to apply if they are illegal. The Nordic model for prostitution works by penalizing the customers of prostitutes, not the prostitute.[11] This is similar to suicide/euthanasia where penalties do not apply to those who attempt to take their own life, but to those who assist in the suicide/euthanasia. These are good models because doing harm to one’s own body does not necessitate a punishment approach by society.
Drug use is similar, fines and rehabilitation for possession and use are sufficient, while strong penalties apply to the distribution network. Although abortion is different because there are two bodies involved, the inherent involvement of the mother’s body in the pregnancy does not necessitate a punishment approach by society. Instead, penalties should target those who carry out abortions or facilitate it.
Further, abortion prevention programs, with information about the physical and mental health risks to the mother, along with counseling and other support systems to fully inform a woman of her options and provide her with the means to not lose control of her life by going through with an unplanned pregnancy, are a prerequisite for deterring abortion.[12]
Sources
[1] Abort73.com, “Prenatal Development”, Loxafamosity Ministries, 9 October 2015, https://abort73.com/abortion/prenatal_development/
[2],[3] “The next generation of advocacy, leadership in the pro-life cause” by Patrick Langrell, Catholic Weekly, 17 May 2009
[4] A New History of Western Philosophy Volume 1: Ancient Philosophy by Anthony Kenny, Oxford University Press, New York, 2004, p.242
[5] Evangelium Vitae (“The Gospel of Life”) by Pope John Paul II, 25 March 1995, paras 19, 23 & 60, http://w2.vatican.va/content/john-paul-ii/en/encyclicals/documents/hf_jp-ii_enc_25031995_evangelium-vitae.html
[6] The Matt Fradd Show, Ep. 9 “Stephanie Gray”, 19 Jun 2019, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JQKZsfy_YdM
[7] The Michael Knowles Show, Ep. 290 “Fourth Trimester Abortion”, 31 January 2019, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I9_RXNdJUPs
[8] Dr Anthony Levatino’s expert testimony at a U.S. House Judiciary Committee hearing about Planned Parenthood’s medical procedures, 2015, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OZXQBhTszpU
[9],[12] “A world of competing sorrows: Ireland’s abortion referendum” by Margaret Somerville, News Weekly, 14 July 2018, http://www.newsweekly.com.au/article.php?id=58163
[10] Breast Cancer Prevention Institute, https://www.bcpinstitute.org/
[11] “The Nordic Model: proven to curtail sex trafficking” by Jacqueline Gwynne, News Weekly, 19 May 2018, www.newsweekly.com.au/article.php?id=58083
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Policy Statement – Abortion is provided under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) license.