The "Abortion is murder" position

[JoeTheJuggler]

This is a spin-off from this thread.

I was making a point about my own attitude as a vegetarian toward killing animals for meat. I admit that I don't see it as the same as the murder of actual human beings. I made the remark that I don't believe that most of those who say "Abortion is murder" really believe that either.

From the other thread:

On the "abortion is murder" idea:

If you believed every one of the 1.37 million or so abortions in the U.S. and every one of the 42 million abortions worldwide per year is an act of murder, I would think you wouldn't be content to be a peaceful activist.

It would be far worse than the Holocaust! Wars have been fought over less than 42 million murders per year!

If you really thought these millions of abortions were the same as murder, maybe you wouldn't opt for vigilante justice, but I find it hard to believe you'd just write your Congressman or whatever it is you're currently doing about it.

Your argument from incredulity and Zookeeper Fallacy are duly noted.

You seem to be rejecting my argument (based on the behavior of most vegetarians and most pro-lifers) that they don't really see it (slaughtering animals for meat and abortion, respectively) as murder.

Does this mean you do see every abortion as equal to murder? I don't mean as something that you consider just immoral or just objectionable, but actually the same as murder? You think the mental state of a doctor in an abortion clinic and the woman undergoing the procedure are the same as that of a murderer? You think the "suffering" and loss of a first trimester fetus is equivalent (not just comparable to or potentially like) to that of an actual person?

 

[theprestige]

First, let's be clear: In the post above, I'm rejecting your argument that because I believe a certain thing, I must rationally be expected to act a certain way.

I'm rejecting your argument because it is fallacious: You claim that because you cannot conceive of someone acting differently than you yourself would act in a similar situation, acting differently must be irrational. You also claim that how you would act is the one true way to act.

The entire line of reasoning is flawed. My behavior is not wrong simply because it differs from your behavior. Nor is it wrong simply because it differs from your belief.

With that said...

Does this mean you do see every abortion as equal to murder?

Of course not. All it means is that I'm rejecting your fallacious arguments. However, if you go back to the other thread, you will see there that I said most abortions in most cases are murder. "Most" is clearly not the same as "every", so in fact this question is totally unnecessary. I understand you might have some questions about my views, but it would speed things up if you skipped straight to the ones I haven't already answered.

You think the mental state of a doctor in an abortion clinic and the woman undergoing the procedure are the same as that of a murderer?

I don't presume to think that there's One True Mental State for murder; indeed, law, custom, and common sense recognize a wide range of mental and emotional states that accompany the commission of wrongful killing--fear, anger, love, confusion, inebriation, insanity, etc.,

You think the "suffering" and loss of a first trimester fetus is equivalent (not just comparable to or potentially like) to that of an actual person?

This is what I believe, yes: That a "first trimester fetus" is in fact a human being, just like any other in the fundamental moral sense that it can be killed and that killing it can be murder.

 

[MarekM]

You think the "suffering" and loss of a first trimester fetus is equivalent (not just comparable to or potentially like) to that of an actual person?

Just curious, but are you referring to the "suffering" of the fetus/person that lost its life, or the "suffering" that the loss of life causes for surrounding family members, friends, etc.?

 

[JoeTheJuggler]

First, let's be clear: In the post above, I'm rejecting your argument that because I believe a certain thing, I must rationally be expected to act a certain way.

Fair enough. It's not a formal argument.

I think there is something to it though. How about this approach--not so much how someone who believes abortion is the equivalent of murder acts but how they feel about abortion clinic bombers. Most people who hold that position deplore and condemn such bombings right?


Also, why would people who think that abortion is murder make exceptions in cases of incest and rape?

These and other points are made on this site (about halfway down--bullet points).

I'll quote this paragraph:

A small minority of anti-abortionists take to bombing abortion clinics. Yet the majority of anti-abortionists disapprove of this and advocate a peaceful, non-violent, opposition against abortion. It is easy to see the inconsistency here. Now suppose that - through a legislative quirk- a law has been passed which calls for the execution of all people born of non-American parents (perhaps due to some arbitrary "sanctity of life bred from Americans" doctrine). The deaths resulting would be on the same scale as abortion. (There are more than a million abortions performed in the US every year.) We would consider it contingent upon ourselves to use any means necessary in order to stop this atrocity - including violent means (such as an armed struggle or a war). Arguing that abortion is murder and then arguing that it should be fought by peaceful means is akin to having a peaceful "sit-in" outside Auschwitz during World War II to "peacefully protest" the extermination of the Jews. That anti-abortionists support peaceful means to fight abortion shows that there is a subconscious understanding that there is a difference between taking the life of a fetus and murdering a person.

I think where he says that "most anti-abortionists have an instinctive understanding of the basic difference between a fetus and a person" is the point I'm after.

Does this mean you do see every abortion as equal to murder?

Of course not. All it means is that I'm rejecting your fallacious arguments. However, if you go back to the other thread, you will see there that I said most abortions in most cases are murder. "Most" is clearly not the same as "every", so in fact this question is totally unnecessary. I understand you might have some questions about my views, but it would speed things up if you skipped straight to the ones I haven't already answered.

If "abortion is murder" what distinguishes the ones that are considered "murder" from the ones that aren't?

Based on the numbers I gave earlier, how many of these each year would you consider to be "murder"? (I mean generally--like all except those of rape and incest victims? That'd leave probably some 30 million or more each year. Still a number that eclipses the Holocaust.)

You think the mental state of a doctor in an abortion clinic and the woman undergoing the procedure are the same as that of a murderer?

I don't presume to think that there's One True Mental State for murder; indeed, law, custom, and common sense recognize a wide range of mental and emotional states that accompany the commission of wrongful killing--fear, anger, love, confusion, inebriation, insanity, etc.,

For "wrongful killing" perhaps, but there are pretty strict mens rea requirements for murder in most legal systems. I think they include intention to kill and malice.

I mean, if they're using the emotionally loaded term "murder" we should stay with that standard.

You think the "suffering" and loss of a first trimester fetus is equivalent (not just comparable to or potentially like) to that of an actual person?

This is what I believe, yes: That a "first trimester fetus" is in fact a human being, just like any other in the fundamental moral sense that it can be killed and that killing it can be murder.

I'm not sure you answered the suffering question.

One approach is Alonzo Fry's "desire utilitarianism". My radical oversimplification: up to a certain point in time the fetus has no desires that can be thwarted, so it's impossible to cause it suffering. I think he goes more to the fundamental moral question you're addressing by saying that the lack of desires means a lack of value--but I encourage you to read his essay yourself (I'm not sold on his arguments, so I'm probably not doing them justice).

 

[JoeTheJuggler]

Just curious, but are you referring to the "suffering" of the fetus/person that lost its life, or the "suffering" that the loss of life causes for surrounding family members, friends, etc.?

I hadn't thought of the suffering for surrounding family members and so on. I was thinking of the suffering of the fetus itself. (See the stuff in my previous post about Fry's desire utilitarianism.)

My first response to what you raise is to wonder how big an effect that suffering has on what we consider murder in actual people. In other words, is it less of a murder to kill a homeless guy with no friends or family?

How do you calculate the suffering caused by an abortion compared to that of not having an abortion? Does the suffering of a woman's family and friends outweigh what she perceives would be her own suffering or that of a baby born to a bad situation?

 

[ImaginalDisc]

A first trimester fetus has fewer neurons than a fly. By six months, it's an entirely different story. I'd agree that a late term abortion could be viewed as the killing of a person, but if one's going to argue that aborting a microscopic blastocyst with a morning after pill is murder (which you might not be doing) then killing a fly is murder.

 

[Cavemonster]

I don't think suffering enters into it for much of the first trimester.

Physical suffering: We can easily say that the fetus could be numbed past it, even if that is not the actual procedure, if this is truly the stumbling block, it could easily be added.

Emotional Suffering: Since newborn babies have no sense of themselves as separate from other things in the world, and fetuses are remarkably less developed, I don't see that happening.

Heck, adult humans can be killed without suffering. Suffering isn't a useful way to look at why we don't like murder.

 

[JoeTheJuggler]

Another inconsistency in the "abortion is murder" position that I've sort of been skating right over: most people who hold that position aren't in favor of criminalizing it for the woman who gets an abortion, just for the abortionist.

Question: "When abortion becomes illegal again, are we going to start throwing all the women who have abortions into jail?"
Answer: No. The people who should go to jail in that case are the abortionists.

<snip>
The pro-life movement is not out to punish women. Our goal, instead, is to stop child-killing. What would throwing women in jail do to accomplish that goal? Their children have already died, yet the abortionist goes on killing hundreds and thousands of others. It makes far more sense to put the abortionist in jail, so that he or she can no longer kill children.

Reference.

If it were an act of murder, her requesting it, maybe even paying for it, and certainly allowing it would be criminal. Why would this behavior NOT be considered criminal?

Surely the woman who is not jailed is also free to commit her "crime" again.

Again, I think it points to some recognition that even those strongly opposed to abortion don't really consider it to be equivalent to murder.

 

[JoeTheJuggler]

Heck, adult humans can be killed without suffering. Suffering isn't a useful way to look at why we don't like murder.

True, but I'm pretty sure criminal codes consider the amount of suffering to be exacerbating in judging the murder. But you're right, it doesn't go to what theprestige called the fundamental moral question.

 

[Amazer]

Another inconsistency in the "abortion is murder" position that I've sort of been skating right over: most people who hold that position aren't in favor of criminalizing it for the woman who gets an abortion, just for the abortionist.


If it were an act of murder, her requesting it, maybe even paying for it, and certainly allowing it would be criminal. Why would this behavior NOT be considered criminal?

Surely the woman who is not jailed is also free to commit her "crime" again.

Again, I think it points to some recognition that even those strongly opposed to abortion don't really consider it to be equivalent to murder.

The reason they only want to punish the person performing the abortion has nothing to do with their recognition that abortion is not equivalent to murder. It has everything to do with the fact that they recognize that if they are going to be successfull in getting abortion to be made illegal; punishing women who undergo an abortion is going to be counter-productive.

 

[Whiplash]

A first trimester fetus has fewer neurons than a fly. By six months, it's an entirely different story. I'd agree that a late term abortion could be viewed as the killing of a person, but if one's going to argue that aborting a microscopic blastocyst with a morning after pill is murder (which you might not be doing) then killing a fly is murder.

But that microscopic blastocyst will develop, over that 6 months, into that "person". A fly will always be a fly.

I've made this argument before. I hate to see arguments that it's ok if it's done before a "certain time" because it ignores the reality that, ultimately, that life will develop into a fully developed, intelligent, self-aware human being (baring obvious medical problems, etc). So saying that killing it, before it get's to that point is "ok" is rationalizing. It's nitpicking and splitting hairs. If a pregnancy is ended any time from the moment of conception onward, it's ultimately ending a human life.

I hope that one day, in the far future, we all (as a people) wake up to how wrong this practice is.

 

[Cavemonster]

It won't develop into that person if it is aborted.
So personhood for that fly-like fetus is simple a possibility, not an inevitability.

If a sperm is blocked and destroyed JUST before it enters the egg, it has an almost identical possibility of becoming a human. Is that murder as well?

 

[ImaginalDisc]

But that microscopic blastocyst will develop, over that 6 months, into that "person". A fly will always be a fly.

I've made this argument before. I hate to see arguments that it's ok if it's done before a "certain time" because it ignores the reality that, ultimately, that life will develop into a fully developed, intelligent, self-aware human being (baring obvious medical problems, etc). So saying that killing it, before it get's to that point is "ok" is rationalizing. It's nitpicking and splitting hairs. If a pregnancy is ended any time from the moment of conception onward, it's ultimately ending a human life.

I hope that one day, in the far future, we all (as a people) wake up to how wrong this practice is.

You are aware that a large proportion of blastocysts die spontaneously, or are passed out through menstruation? Why is a morning after pill murder but a period not?

 

[Whiplash]

I'm not saying it's murder, just that it's morally wrong. And I reject your saying if it get's aborted it's not going to develop any further. I think you are completely missing my point, and in the process, helping to make it. That's rationalizing. If there was no abortion, it would eventually (baring medical problems) end up a fully developed human being. There is no getting around that.

I said ending it from any moment after conception is wrong. If the egg is never fertalized, then of course it's a different story. But once the process is started, the end result is a living, breathing, self-aware and intelligent human being. Calling it other things "along the way" is nitpicking, splitting hairs, and rationalizing it down to the lowest level, in order to minimize the "wrong" that is being done.

You are aware that a large proportion of blastocysts die spontaneously, or are passed out through menstruation? Why is a morning after pill murder but a period not?

I did specifically state "baring obvious medical problems" but maybe that wasn't clear enough. Yes, I am aware that they can die spontaneously, or be passed via menstration. My point is, that under normal circumstances, if a woman becomes pregnant, 9 months later you are going to end up with a fully developed human life. Under most normal circumstances. If something happens naturally to end it, that's a tragedy, but not a moral issue. If someone actively seeks to end that development at any point along the process, I believe they have commited a wrong, morally.

But I don't believe in changing laws (it would be a nightmare). I only seek to convince people that it's wrong in their hearts, and hope that one day we simply don't have abortions because people don't want to have them. Not by force.

 

[sthomson]

I'm not saying it's murder, just that it's morally wrong.

Can you explain, without resorting to religious arguments about the soul, why it is morally wrong, without resorting to calling it "murder" either? In my mind, we have two possibilities.

1) An embryo is a person, and has the same rights as a fully-developed person, and therefore abortion is murder, and women who abort are murderers (and pregnant women who fly on airplanes or work in construction or eat sushi are child endangerers), or

2) An embryo is not a person, and does not have the same rights as a fully-developed person.

Anyway, all this splitting hairs about "Oh, a human will develop eventually" is pointless, once we recognize the fact that embryos aren't incubated in a mechanical womb - they are incubated inside the body of another

living, breathing, self-aware and intelligent human being

and that an embryo's rights, whatever they are, will necessarily end when another human being is involved. Bodily freaking autonomy.

I only seek to convince people that it's wrong in their hearts, and hope that one day we simply don't have abortions because people don't want to have them. Not by force.

Heh, I think donating to Planned Parenthood will do more in that vein than trying to convince me that I don't have the right to control what organisms I host in my body.

 

[ImaginalDisc]

\

I did specifically state "baring obvious medical problems" but maybe that wasn't clear enough. Yes, I am aware that they can die spontaneously, or be passed via menstration. My point is, that under normal circumstances, if a woman becomes pregnant, 9 months later you are going to end up with a fully developed human life. Under most normal circumstances. If something happens naturally to end it, that's a tragedy, but not a moral issue. If someone actively seeks to end that development at any point along the process, I believe they have commited a wrong, morally.

Spontaneous abortion through menstruation of an unimplanted embryo, or an embryo in the earliest stages is not a medical problem. It's a simple fact of life that a significant proportion of embryos simply do not make it through their first trimester at all. Otherwise, every well timed sexual intercourse would result in pregnancy and that simply is not the case. Is menstruation murder?

If you're going to take the untenable position that an embryo is a person because it can potentially be a person, then that leads to such idiocy as saying that oral sex is murder because "normally" sperm is deposited vaginally. If you're going to reject ordinary and common reasons for an embryo not to develop, why stop with what happens inside the uterus? Your definition of "normal" bears no resemblance to what is observed. You seem to suffer from the misapprehension that vaginal sex = babies every time under "normal" circumstances. This isn't true for most animals and especially not for humans. We have a very poor fecundity rate compared even to most other mammals. There's an old veterinarian's joke about a vet who is handed a slide of human sperm instead of a bull's sperm and remarks, "Put the poor bastard out of his misery."

The simple fact of the matter is that babies require so much time and energy on the part of the parents that natural selection has made us have an astoundingly low birth rate. Even the most fecund woman is a slacker compared to a rabbit. Birth control is in our genes, as the hard won compromise between large brains and long development. You're going to have to accept that embryos often fail to reach the stage of a fetus under normal circumstances.

Your preoccupation with what can potentially be a human is deeply troubling. I produce hundreds of millions of sperm a day, each of which can potentially fertilize an egg under "normal" circumstances, if we take your idea that "normal" development equals a baby. Is wearing a condom murder, then? Is turning down the creepy girl who lives across the hall from me murder? Is monogamy murder? Is anal sex? Is homosexuality? All these people in all these circumstances have the potential to creates babies, but they're not being "normal." What possible justification do you have to condemn me for pointing out that a blastocysts has fewer neurons than a fly, and isn't a person, while you focus on conception as the point when a person exists? If you're going to reject neurological sophistication as a basis for defining a person, and you're instead focusing on "potential" why do you stop with conception?

Why aren't wasted gametes dead people to you? I'm defining a person as a being capable of self-awareness and the awareness of others. How are you defining it? My definition includes all humans with a functioning brain, and possibly aliens and apes, and dolphins, and crows and excludes a human embryo, a tapeworm, and a fly. Your definition includes what?

 

[King of the Americas]

I always say this phrase, whenever I take part in an Abortion Debate:

"The Pro-life stance when taken to its utter conclusion, gives rapists the legal authority to force any woman they choose to carry and have their child. Pro-life equals Pro-rapist."

 

[MarekM]

Can you explain, without resorting to religious arguments about the soul, why it is morally wrong, without resorting to calling it "murder" either?

Murder generally means the unlawful killing of another human being. Abortion can be seen as morally wrong without calling it murder for the simple fact that abortions, in many cases, are legal. One could also make the argument that abortion alone is morally equivalent to murder, but a certain right of the mother to decide how her body is used justifies her decision to have an abortion.

 

[MarekM]

<snip>

Is there some point where you draw the line that distinguishes between acceptable abortions and morally unacceptable abortions? If so, why do you make that distinction?

 

[theprestige]

snip

snip

These are both straw men. I'm not here to defend other people's positions on abortion, second-hand. If you have questions for them about what they believe, take it up with them directly, not with me.

A first trimester fetus has fewer neurons than a fly. By six months, it's an entirely different story. I'd agree that a late term abortion could be viewed as the killing of a person, but if one's going to argue that aborting a microscopic blastocyst with a morning after pill is murder (which you might not be doing) then killing a fly is murder.

Are you seriously arguing that what makes something human is the number of neurons it has?

The reason they only want to punish the person performing the abortion has nothing to do with their recognition that abortion is not equivalent to murder. It has everything to do with the fact that they recognize that if they are going to be successfull in getting abortion to be made illegal; punishing women who undergo an abortion is going to be counter-productive.

That's an interesting theory. As a social and legal issue, and fully considering the difficulties many prospective mothers face, I think there's probably a lot to be said for adopting a strategy that seeks to win dissenters over rather than demonizing and punishing them.

And like I said before, we recognize a variety of circumstances in which killing takes place; with a variety of individual, social, and legal responses that are appropriate to different circumstances. We already dont' treat all killers equally.

You are aware that a large proportion of blastocysts die spontaneously, or are passed out through menstruation? Why is a morning after pill murder but a period not?

Why is hanging yourself suicide, but dying of old age not?