Datasets:
DebateLabKIT
/
deepa2-corpus

Dataset card Data Studio Files
xet
 Community
text
stringlengths
0
1.71k
we do not hold that total dependence on another person means
that that person may decide whether one lives or dies. A newborn
baby is totally dependent on its mother, if it happens to
140
Taking Life: The Embryo and the Fetus
be born in an isolated area in which there is no other lactating
woman, nor the means for bottle feeding. An elderly woman
may be totally dependent on her son looking after her, and a
hiker who breaks her leg five days' walk from the nearest road
may die if her companion does not bring help. We do not think
that in these situations the mother may take the life ~fher baby,
the son of his aged mother, or the hiker of her injured companion.
So it is not plausible to suggest that the dependence of
the nonviable fetus on its mother gives her the right to kill it;
and if dependence does not justify making viability the dividing
line, it is hard to see what does.
Quickening
If neither birth nor viability marks a morally significant distinction,
there is less still to be said for a third candidate,
quickening. Quickening is the time when the mother first feels
the fetus move, and in traditional Catholic theology, this was
thought to be the moment at which the fetus gained its soul.
If we accepted that view, we might think quickening important,
since the soul is, on the Christian view, what marks
humans off from animals. But the idea that the soul enters
the fetus at quickening is an outmoded piece of superstition,
discarded now even by Catholic theologians. Putting aside
these religious doctrines makes quickening insignificant. It is
no more than the time when the fetus is first felt to move of
its own accord; the fetus is alive before this moment, and
ultrasound studies have shown that fetuses do in fact start
moving as early as six weeks after fertilization, long before
they can be felt to move. In any case, the capacity for physical
motion - or the lack of it - has nothing to do with the
seriousness of one's claim for continued life. We do not see
the lack of such a capacity as negating the claims of paralysed
people to go on living.
141
Practical Ethics
Consciousness
Movement might be thought to be indirectly of moral significance,
in so far as it is an indication of some form of awareness
- and as we have already seen, consciousness, and the capaCity
to feel pleasure or pain, are of real moral significance. Despite
this, neither side in the abortion debate has made much mention
of the development of consciousness in the fetus. Those
opposed to abortion may show films about the 'silent scream'
of the fetus when aborted, but the intention behind such films
is merely to stir the emotions of the uncommitted. Opponents
of abortion really want to uphold the right to life of the human
being from conception, irrespective of whether it is conscious
or not. For those in favour of abortion, to appeal to the absence
of a capacity for consciousness has seemed a risky strategy.
On the basis of the studies showing that movement takes place
as early as six weeks after fertilization, coupled with other
studies that have found some brain activity as early as the
seventh week, it has been suggested that the fetus could be
capable of feeling pain at this early stage of pregnancy. That
possibility has made liberals very wary of appealing to the
onset of consciousness as a point at which the fetus has a
right to life. We shall return to the issue of consciousness in
the fetus later in this chapter, because it is relevant to the
issue of embryo and fetal experimentation. We will also then
consider an earlier marker that could be relevant to embryo
experimentation, but not to the abortion debate. As far as
abortion is concerned, the discussion up to now has shown
that the liberal search for a morally crucial dividing line between
the newborn baby and the fetus has failed to yield any
event or stage of development that can bear the weight of
separating those with a right to life from those who lack such,
a right, in a way that clearly shows fetuses to be in the latter
category at the stage of development when most abortions
take place. The conservative is on solid ground in insisting
142
Taking Life: The Embryo and the Fetus
that the development from the embryo to the infant is a gradual
process.
SOME LIBERAL ARGUMENTS
Some liberals do not challenge the conservative claim that the
fetus is an innocent human being, but argue that abortion is
nonetheless permissible. I shall consider three arguments for
this view.
The Consequences of Restrictive Laws
The first argument is that laws prohibiting abortion do not stop
abortions, but merely drive them underground. Women who
want to have abortions are often desperate. They will go to
backyard abortionists or try folk remedies. Abortion performed
by a qualified medical practitioner is as safe as any medical
operation, but attempts to procure abortions by unqualified people
often result in serious medical complications and sometimes
death. Thus the effect of prohibiting abortion is not so much to
reduce the number of abortions performed as to increase the
difficulties and dangers for women with unwanted pregnancies.
This argument has been influential in gaining support for
more liberal abortion laws. It was accepted by the Canadian
Royal Commission on the Status of Women, which concluded
that: 'A law that has more bad effects than good ones is a bad
law ... As long as it exists in its present form thousands of
women will break it.'
The main point to note about this argument is that it is an