From: nyeda@cnsvax.uwec.edu (David Nye)
Newsgroups: talk.philosophy.misc
Subject: Re: Abortion (was Vegetarianism)
Date: 24 Jan 93 14:05:27 -0600
Organization: University of Wisconsin Eau Claire

[reply to hippee@oread.cc.ukans.edu,]
 
>We don't understand what actually confers life (in the sense that you
>mean it).  We do understand that some individuals possess a quality
>called life (i.e.  those who are born).  We are unsure if this quality
>is pre-labor.
 
I have avoided getting into abortion debates on the net before because
they always seemed more emotional than logical.  Hoping that things may
be different here (and encouraged by what I have seen so far):
 
Life has a well-defined biological meaning meaning maintainence of
homeostasis in an organism capable of reproduction.  It implies that
sperm and ova are alive, as is the fertilized egg and the organism that
develops from it, at all stages.  The objection against abortion can't
be simply because live human cells are being killed, or the same
objection could be met each time contraception is used, or indeed each
time a woman menstruates.  It can't be because one is preventing or
destroying a potential human for the same reasons -- the IUD prevents
the fertilized ovum from implanting and therefore must have caused far
more potential humans not to have developed than abortion.  I can't see
that there is a great deal of difference between preventing a fertilized
ovum from implanting, as opposed to removing it immediately after
implantation or preventing the union of a sperm and ovum in the first
place.
 
Any logical objection to abortion must therefore, it seems to me, be
based on qualities which the fetus holds or develops after conception.
I see two candidates:  a soul and sentience.  Taking the latter first,
killing a baby at 38 weeks gestation in the womb seems little different
than killing one at birth, because both are sentient humans.  Assuming
that the latter is wrong (as is generally held in our society, but not
all societies), then at least late abortions would seem wrong as well.
The question then is when sentience develops.  It cannot be any earlier
than "quickening", when the nervous system first shows signs of
function, at 18 to 20 weeks.  It is likely that the fetus has no
self-awareness until much later, possibly until some time after birth.
 
The bigger problem for the sentience argument is the one that started
this thread: if it is the possession of sentience by the victim that
makes killing murder, killing a fetus is not as bad as killing an adult
animal.  In fact, at an early enough point in fetal development, it is
no worse than pulling a carrot.
 
Now for the argument concerning the soul:  if one believes that a soul
enters the body at some time, thereby making the body a person, then the
argument could be made that it is wrong to deprive a soul of its body,
and that abortion is therefore murder from the time of entry of the
soul.  Unfortunately, since the soul is a supernatural concept, there is
nothing which natural science can tell us about it, much less prove its
existence.  If you believe in the existence of a soul (I don't), then
you will have to rely on religious dogma to tell you when it enters the
body and thus at what point abortion becomes immoral, or rather, taboo.

David Nye
nyeda@cnsvax.uwec.edu
Newsgroups: talk.philosophy.misc