On time limits for abortion

I believe that all human beings are people; perhaps it is not necessary to be a functioning human animal to be a person (perhaps there are angels and aliens that are people), but it is certainly in my view sufficient.  Because of this, I do not believe that we need to have any abortion laws.  Standard murder and other homicide laws are quite sufficient - they indicate to us when it is and is not acceptable to kill people.  Sometimes it is legally acceptable (e.g. as in the case of Jodie and Mary, in which it was acceptable to kill Mary so that Jodie might live).  At other times we recognize that functioning life has ended, as when we switch off the life-support machine of someone brain-dead.  Such principles would tell us that some abortions should be legal (e.g. those involving the termination of a pregnancy involving a foetus without a brain, or a foetus that significantly threatened the life of the mother), and others not.

This evening, MPs will debate a cut in the time-limit for abortion from 24 to 20 weeks.  I have never thought the viability argument in the least bit convincing as a matter of principle.  Every creature has an environment for which it is well-suited and others for which it is less suited.  If I took you and put you at the bottom of the Pacific ocean, or buried you under soil, or put you in a volcanic steam vent you would not live for long.  The fact that you are "unviable" outside the environment for which your body is designed is no reason at all to doubt that you are currently alive.

Nonetheless, viability appears to be the current legal basis for determining when abortions are permitted.  The only way I have thought of to defend this position intellectually is along the following lines: Society regards almost all abortions as wrong, but concedes reluctantly that as long as the infant involved is totally dependent on the mother then if she really insists on no longer granting it support there is only so much practically we could do to stop her from withdrawing that support.  But as soon as there is even the possibility in principle that the infant could live without her then it's ours!  We shall treat it legally as a person, and insist that she grant it sanctuary from that point on.

I don't dispute that that argument is a bit weak, but it's the best I can come up with for defending the status quo.  Its logic, of course, is that one day abortion will be outlawed.  For as time progresses technology will allow us to sustain foetuses earlier and earlier and eventually we will be able to grow them in artificial wombs from the outset.  The logic of the viability argument is that abortion permission is an unfortunate passing phase in the history of humanity.

(A quick aside on two other pro-abortion views.  A better case for abortion is that very rarely made, but which I have heard argued very occasionally by the more strong-minded.  This argument is that of course a foetus is a living human being, but that abortion, like execution or killing in war, is an exception to the general principle of the sanctity of life.  This argument sits in a very ancient human tradition, according to which parents have particular rights over the lives of their children.  Through much of human history infanticide has been quite common, whether informally or through children sacrifice, and infanticide remains common in India today.  The belief that parents have rights over the lives of their children is by no means stupid, in my view.  But it is not a belief that I - or many other people - share.

The one other pro-abortion view is the view that it is not enough, to be a person, to be a human animal.  This is a view common amongst the informally religious, believers in semi-attached souls.  It is also a view taken by people for whom intellect is very much of the essence of personhood.  I have argued at length against such views before.)

Returning to viability, there is a rather odd argument offered by some commentators, that it is somehow dishonest for people like myself to argue about whether 20-23 week old foetuses are viable.  But if I were to discuss that (which I have only ever very rarely done) then I would not be doing anything dishonest.  I would merely be searching out the limits of my opponent's case.  If my opponent says that the reason he favours permitting abortion up to 24 weeks is that foetuses are not viable before 24 weeks, then surely I am entitled to press him on whether it is really true that foetuses are not viable before 24 weeks!  If, in fact, they are viable from 20 weeks, then by the logic of his own position he should favour a 20 week limit.  If I can show that foetuses of 20-23 weeks are viable, but he persists in favouring a 24 week limit, I am surely entitled to ask him to offer me a different defence of the 24 week limit!

Now it seems pretty clear that some foetuses of 20-23 weeks are viable, even when they are born early.  Of course, when a foetus is born early then there is presumably often something wrong either with the foetus or the mother or the placenta.  So survival rates amongst babies actually born between 20 and 23 weeks are presumably much lower than the survival rates would be of healthy baby/mother/placenta combinations that end in abortions if instead the baby were delivered.  But let's put that aside.  Dizzy suggests an argument along the lines of it being better to force ten babies that would not have survived at 23 weeks to term than to abort one baby at 23 weeks when it would have been viable.  That seems like quite a good argument to me.

At the end of the day I think the real question for the viability-argument advocate is "What do you mean by viability?"  If he means the possibility, in principle, that the baby could survive without the mother given today's technology, then we can provide a pretty straightforward upper limit.  The most premature baby to survive on record was Amillia Taylor, who was born after less than 22 weeks in gestation.  So babies of less than 22 weeks can survive.  Perhaps a baby of a healthy baby/mother/placenta combination could survive even slightly earlier.  So if that is what you mean by viability, then you should support a reduction in the limit to at least 21 weeks.  And if that's not what you mean by viability, then what is?

Comments

[Sean Fear]

There is also the eugenic argument for abortion, that you'll often hear people make round the dinner table, but which only those you describe as the "strong-minded" would dare to make in print.

Namely, that rates of abortion tend to be highest among those sections of the population that we would least like to see reproducing themselves.

[Steevo]

"Society regards almost all abortions as wrong, but concedes reluctantly that as long as the infant involved is totally dependent on the mother then if she really insists on no longer granting it support there is only so much practically we could do to stop her from withdrawing that support."

Well its all heavy speculation. Other than scientific evidence life's DNA code begins at conception, what authority is legitimate to say we have intrinsic value deserved of rights? Toss away religious presumption, the human "animal" does not have any more than the dog. So, this discussion is reduced the practicalities of survival.

[Graeme Archer]

Apologies, slightly O/T. Andrew wrote, beautifully,

perhaps there are angels and aliens that are people

which reminded me of this, which coincidentally I read on the bus last night:

'Our problem now, the problem of our age, our interregnum, our interim, our time of the angels - '

'Why angels?'

'Spirit without God'

'So you expect a new revelation?'

'No, just to hang on.'

'Until?'

'Until religion can change itself into something we can believe in.'

From The Philosopher's Pupil, Iris Murdoch. There's something in that passage which does speak to Andrew's point.

[Paul Courchane]

"Toss away religious presumption, the human "animal" does not have any more than the dog. So, this discussion is reduced the practicalities of survival."

"Crime and Punishment" by Fyodor Dostoevsky. Read it. Love it.

[Matthew Dear]

I am so desparately disappointed.

It riles me that people frame this debate with statistics. There are very "few" abortions-on-demand after 20 weeks, we say. But we are asserting that babies aborted after 20 weeks suffer considerable pain in the process. We've missed an opportunity to spare some babies pain and suffering - the minimising of which is surely an obligation of governments?

Very "few" babies survive at 20 weeks, we say. But how often, in other spheres do we hear the refrain that "if we can save just one life, it will have been worth it"?

I'm mindful of the diversity of views on this issue - but I am eager to vocalise my digust at the use of figures and statistics, which have no place in ethics whatsoever. We're not talking about the balance of trade, we're talking about the sanctity/potentiality* of life.

(*Delete as appropriate according to your view.)

[Man in a Shed]

It would be interesting to see some analysis of the supporters of abortion as a group of people. There are clearly clumps in the media and political classes - many of whom may have had abortions themselves for convenience reasons and wish to avoid any potential feelings of guilt.

[Maggie Johnston]

Excellent point, Man in a Shed.

From the protests outside Parliament last Tuesday, the overwhelming majority of these groups were from the far left: Socialist Worker, Socialist Alliance, Left List etc.

While pro-choice groups are quick to point out any hint of religiousity amongst pro-life campaigners in claiming some kind of bias, the hard-left prejudices of these individuals need to be exposed also to reveal the non-thinking lemmings they so often show themselves to be.

[Citizen Grim]

Just a few weeks back, when my wife was 10 weeks pregnant, we got to see our first ultrasound. The legs, still barely developed at that point, were already kicking. The tiny heart was already beating (fast!). The brain was no doubt already cataloging the scope of its experience thus far.

You realize the undeniable truth that this is not just a lump of tissue. Nor is it merely an extension of my wife's body. Although it relies on her for its very survival, it has been genetically different from her from the beginning. This is a person.

"By profession I am a soldier and take pride in that fact. But I am prouder - infinitely prouder - to be a father... The one has the potentiality of death; the other embodies creation and life. And while the hordes of death are mighty, the battalions of life are mightier still."
- Gen. Douglas MacArthur