[Conor Friedersdorf]
Andrew posts some reader reacts to my post on artificial wombs and abortion, which he generously linked yesterday. Thought-provoking stuff.
Copyright © 2009 by The Atlantic Monthly Group. All rights reserved.
Copyright © 2009 by The Atlantic Monthly Group. All rights reserved.
This is thought provoking for someone who doesn't understand science and can't form coherence opinions. Like I mentioned in the comments of your last post on this topic, the limit for live births has been stuck at 24 weeks for the past 2 decades. This is mostly because fetuses that don't have lungs that can breathe air always die. The issue isn't an artifical womb, it's an artificial placenta. Is it possible to artificially oxygenate a fetus through an umbilical cord? This is highly doubtful.
If it was then, why not go back to 8 cell blastocysts and turn every embryo in every invivo fertilization lab into a child? Why stop with ending abortions? Why even stop there? One sperm and one egg are all that's need to generate a child in an artificial womb, then we should start calling the monthly loss of eggs by women murder.
Sure I'm being ridiculous, but no more ridiculous as people who say artifical wombs will end the abortion debate or that an 8 cell embryo is morally equivalent to a living and breathing child.
"Sure I'm being ridiculous, but no more ridiculous as people who say artifical wombs will end the abortion debate or that an 8 cell embryo is morally equivalent to a living and breathing child."
Or that a 9 month gestated fetus isn't morally equivalent to a living and breathing child. Craziness exists at both extremes of the abortion debate. The only reason the the middle hasn't been able to sideline both of the ridiculous extremes is becuase the middle was cut out of the process by the Supreme Court.
And artificial womb for the first trimester isn't likely any time in the immediate future. One for the late 2nd term however wouldn't be shocking. And that would be plenty to change the debate.
Most of the objections Andrew's readers make fail to explicitly identify the alternative. Explicitly adding their implicit "they would be better off dead" would make the arguments both more accurate and harder to defend.
Or that a 9 month gestated fetus isn't morally equivalent to a living and breathing child.
A gestated fetus is NOT morally equivalent to a living and breathing child. It is very close, but not identical for the simple reason that the fetus still affects the mother. In the rare cases where a doctor and women need to choose live delivery and the life of the mother, very few would choose the fetus. This isn't true in Catholic hospitals, which is why there's a flow of ambulances out of Catholic hospitals (even directed by Catholic doctors) when there is a serious risk the women will die. Do you know of cases where 9-month abortion was performed or a fetus was allowed to die where it wasn't a clear case of saving the life of the mother?
For the last second trimester (24 weeks), we don't need an artificial womb. Incubators already work although improvement is needed. This discussion on artificial wombs is about pushing that period earlier.
"A gestated fetus is NOT morally equivalent to a living and breathing child."
Rejoinder: Yes it is.
Rebuttle: No it isn't.
Retort: Yes it is.
etc.
These two moral opinions are unchangeable and irreconcilable, because they presume differing definitions of what constitutes a "person."
Sebastian,
Or that a 9 month gestated fetus isn't morally equivalent to a living and breathing child. Craziness exists at both extremes of the abortion debate.
Why is it "crazy" to believe that a 9-month-old fetus isn't morally equivalent to a living and breathing child? This "crazy" belief is in fact embodied in the laws and practises of most cultures (including almost all modern democratic nations), which recognize birth as a significant moral and legal threshold. Only in rare and limited cases have fetuses (even 9-month-old, fully mature fetuses) ever been viewed as equivalent to born human beings.
Tel, you can talk about irreconcilable issues, but if you poll people and say an attempt at live delivery would kill them or their spouse, how many would sacrifice their life for the life of a spouse for the hope of a live birth?
Like Mixner says, most cultures clearly weigh in on the side of the living adult and even people who disagree in theory act differently in practice. If even Catholic hospitals practiced what they preached there would be higher level of maternal mortality compared to other hospitals. The fact that it's the same means even there they quietly kill fetuses or they just send the highest risk mothers elsewhere.
One sperm and one egg are all that's need to generate a child in an artificial womb, then we should start calling the monthly loss of eggs by women murder.
Nope. Mature eggs (and sperm) each have only a half-set of DNA and always die within a very limited time window if left to their own devices, regardless of how hospitable the local climate is. When an egg is fertilized by a sperm, the two half-sets of DNA recombine to create a complete set, and the resulting cell immediately begins undergoing a self-directed and carefully controlled development process.
Whether or not someone wishes to accept this event as having moral and/or legal significance does not affect its status as being an objectively observable beginning point in the fetal development cycle.
most cultures clearly weigh in on the side of the living adult
This only provides guidance if (1) it is something unique to the abortion question and (2) the alternative is to deny access to it.
Regarding (1): no, it is not. Stated more broadly, most cultures weigh on the side of the person with the greatest chance of survival when there is a conflict of limited resources. Usually two people will never be put at a high risk of dying if one of them can more likely be saved at the expense of the other. Conjoined twins and fatal preganancy are two of the rare examples.
Regarding (2): no, again. A life-of-mother exception existed in US law well before the decision in Roe was handed down.
When an egg is fertilized by a sperm, the two half-sets of DNA recombine to create a complete set, and the resulting cell immediately begins undergoing a self-directed and carefully controlled development process.
And it's estimated that between half and two-thirds of those fertilized eggs are spontaneously aborted, usually before the woman even knows she's pregnant. Curiously, proponents of the human-being-begins-to-exist-at-conception position seem almost entirely indifferent to this massive loss of life.
Whether or not someone wishes to accept this event as having moral and/or legal significance does not affect its status as being an objectively observable beginning point in the fetal development cycle.
The "fetal development cycle" obviously doesn't begin until a fetus is present, which isn't until several weeks into a pregnancy. Before that, there is an embryo, before that, a zygote, and before that, an egg. Fertilization is only one of many "objectively observable" events in the human reproductive process, and not the first one.
mouse,
I'm struggling to make any sense at all of your post of 7:43pm. The issue is the relative moral status of fetuses vs. born human beings. The legal and cultural values and traditions upholding the higher moral status of born human beings apply not just in situations involving competition for limited resources, but in virtually all aspects of treatment. For example, the intentional killing of a fetus has rarely been treated as even remotely as serious a wrongdoing (or crime) as the intentional killing of a born human being. The uninduced loss of a fetus (miscarriage) has rarely been considered a tragedy as serious as the death of a child. We attach little cultural or legal significance to any event held to mark the start of a fetus, but we attach huge cultural and legal significance to the event that marks the start of a born human being (birth). And so on. The idea that there is any real tradition, in any human society, of treating fetuses and born human beings as morally equivalent is simply false.
Nope. Mature eggs (and sperm) each have only a half-set of DNA and always die within a very limited time window if left to their own devices, regardless of how hospitable the local climate is.
Sorry, but you're wrong here. Sperm, eggs, and embryos can survive for years or decades when frozen (i.e. sperm and egg banks). When not frozen all will rapidly die if they are not in the testes, ovaries, or uterus. Assuming artifical wombs exist, someone could take decades old sperm and egg, merge them, put them in an artificial womb to become a child. Thus, there really isn't much difference between the life generating potential of sperm and egg and an embryo.
Yes the embryo is a distinctive point in the development cycle just like the development of heart, lungs, and the ability to breathe on ones own.
A life-of-mother exception existed in US law well before the decision in Roe was handed down
Sure, but did that mean doctors regularly sliced women open to pull out babies and let the mothers die? Can you find any evidence of doctors being prosecuted for valuing the life of a mother over baby during delivery. Please research your Roe v Wade talking points a bit more before spouting laws you don't understand.
Mixner wrote: And it's estimated that between half and two-thirds of those fertilized eggs are spontaneously aborted, usually before the woman even knows she's pregnant. Curiously, proponents of the human-being-begins-to-exist-at-conception position seem almost entirely indifferent to this massive loss of life.
Ten out of ten people die, some sooner than later. The distinction is found when someone dies from natural causes, versus when someone else slips D-Con into their corn flakes. (We mice hate that.) The usual order of culpability runs something like: no agent (i.e. nature), unknowing agent, agent of passion, premediated agent -- with the severity of the latter three governed by condemning or mitigating context such as negligence, self-defense, etc.
Sometimes, the status of the victim is also considered. Call it a hunch, but I bet you would get a lower sentence for sneaking into a hospital and raping a woman who has been ruled clinically dead (a state from which people have rarely recovered to full normalcy, sometimes after a timespan of years) and about to be removed from life support, than you would from accosting a 22yo blonde co-ed with a knife outside her dorm room. No cognitive dissonance is required to accommodate this distinction; we are well equipped to recognize that our best ability to understand that the crime is defined by the existence of a human life, while victim's state of life and ability to perceive changes the nature of the crime.
That aside, the remaining arguments over cultural traditions are flimsy because they are about cultural traditions. Some cultures have attempted to calculate a person's age from conception (traditional Chinese, IIRC). Other cultures saw nothing wrong with sacrificing virgins to Pele, or enslaving people for life because their skin was the wrong color. A basic premise of rational debate is that the rational person generally prefers objective evidence to subjective perception whenever the former is available. Regarding prenatal development (does that term work better?), conception is one of several possibilities for bringing objective evidence to bear upon a process that is severely freighted with subjective perceptions.
bsci wrote: Sperm, eggs, and embryos can survive for years or decades when frozen (i.e. sperm and egg banks)
So can lima beans. Where was that example headed? As humans, we have an extensive capability to modify the normal function of things within limits, and many systems of law have arisen for the very purpose of inscribing boundaries around some activities that fall under this umbrella. The varying forms of homicide and legal remedies thereto are probably the most obvious examples.
aMouseforallSeasons,
The burden for exceptionalism is on you, not me. I'm saying there's little difference between sperm and egg and an 8 cell embryo. You're saying sometime significant happens when that embryo is formed that makes the intentional destruction of it murder. It's not that it can live more independently and it's not that it's significantly closer to being a living breathing child. Is that that a soul is someone placed in 8 cells that didn't exist when it was just two cells?
As for your rape fantasy example, I suspect both rapes would be prosecuted to the full extent of the law although one example would also include a charge of assault with a deadly weapon.