Visibility and Viability

http://thecollegeconservative.com/2012/01/31/not-just-a-blob-of-cells/

The recent controversies involving Planned Parenthood’s funding and President Obama’s healthcare mandate involving birth control (and subsequent compromise on it) make one think of related topics such as abortion, more specifically rules such as the one in Texas, and recently in Virginia, that requires a sonogram before an abortion procedure. I’m not going to debate the lawfulness of it, since it’s hardly unreasonable or invasive to the woman getting the procedure done. Someone might compare it to looking at your cancer, though the dichotomy is somewhat crude, since cancer is necessarily damaging, while an embryo is not nearly so devastating. But the claim by many pro life/anti abortion advocates that pro choice/abortion rights supporters are dehumanizing the embryo or fetus being aborted is sorely mistaken. I am in no way denying the humanity of the entity that is aborted. I compare abortion to euthanasia in that it is done because the options are few and sometimes active death is more merciful than passive death, though in this case, miscarriage as the passive death is not the inevitability. There has to be consent of the people involved, but contrary to people’s emotionally touching, but fallacious, arguments, the fetus cannot consent and thus is irrelevant to the decision. Even partial birth abortions cannot request the consent of the fetus. If the goal of medicine is to preserve life, then abortion seems contradictory at first glance. But life’s quality is as important as life’s existence. And abortion is a way to advance this. I do not wish abortion to exist indefinitely as a primary recourse to unwanted pregnancy for a number of reasons, not all of them related to the procedure itself. If we had technology to preserve zygotes, embryos and fetuses for future mothers to be or surrogates, it would be excellent for infertile couples or those looking to adopt through surrogacy. But more important than the wasteful practice of aborting what can be children for the childless who truly want them is that pregnancies can be prevented more than people are even motivated to with birth control. The goal seems to be more in line with the Quiverfull movement popularized by the Duggard family who miscarried a child last year: that ideal being to have as many children as God deems you to have. The same could be said to be an agenda for Catholics, with their strong stance against birth control, though it is alleged by some studies that 90% or more of Catholic couples use contraception for one reason or another, if only to prevent having more children than they can fiscally support. If you are pro life to the extent of ignoring consequences of excessive children, you’re being as irresponsible as one who uses abortion as birth control. We should not seek to have children just for the sake of making ourselves feel comfortable about not having “sacrificed” a child in any sense, nor should we just sacrifice children as if they are necessarily an inconvenience in every situation. Sometimes that is what we must do, if not for our sake, but for the future child’s sake. Would any child that could understand the state of a birth defect or congenital disease want to be born that way to just die in under 5 years? Abortion is not always about convenience, but is many times about compassion.

Many abortion opponents also say that since the child is genetically unique from conception it should be protected by virtue of that, since it is a separate body. There are two things wrong with this. Firstly, the uniqueness of any human life does not mean we should force a woman to carry that life to term if she does not want to or feels she cannot provide a fulfilling life for it. There’s an argument from a libertarian perspective of the woman’s body being invaded unless she consents to the pregnancy itself. It’s one thing to consent to sex, but the pregnancy is not a guarantee. Even if it’s a natural process, we can, within reason, stop it, but if nature succeeds anyway, there is no reason for us to always submit to it. To put it bluntly, there is not right to live inside another person, for women are not understood simply as creatures able to breed and thus should not be pressured into doing it by virtue of their ability to do so. Plus, adoption, often touted as a compassionate option, is one fraught with red tape and protracted waiting periods, so the child would be in an orphanage until then. Secondly, even if a woman sees an embryo with a heartbeat of sorts, she should also be informed that it is only unique genetically. It is not even remotely independent and is in fact interconnected with the woman’s metabolism and physiology, which is what causes morning sickness and eventually saps the woman of part of her everyday intake of nutrients and even some of her calcium directly from her bones. This is something that constitutes a parasite, even if it is done with the woman’s consent in most cases, excluding rape. So let it be clear that the fetus is not independent except in the possibility of it being born, which is in the future, not the immediate moment as it gestates.

Then there’s the claim that we reduce the embryo to a “blob of cells”. A zygote is very much technically a blob of cells going through meiosis.  And we’re all blobs of cells when you think about it, albeit on a larger scale.  The mere possibility of a life coming to being does not constitute grounds to protect it. If a parent or parents wish to carry the child to term, that is one thing, but it seems a bit manipulative, even if it is reasonable medical procedure, to show a pregnant woman a sonogram of the developing baby in some attempt to appeal to her emotions or more likely her guilt at “snuffing out a life” Viability should be considered as well. As harsh as it sounds and as I said before, sometimes hard decisions must be made and eliminating lives that are not even remotely viable is not something that is significantly lowering our birth rate. Plenty of people are personally pro life even if they are politically pro choice, so in the long run people will keep having babies even if there is a segment of the population that will consider abortion first. Moral disagreement aside, the legality of abortion stands on grounds of privacy that is not invasive to the rights of others. This sort of autonomy is not victimizing embryos or such, since they are not even remotely conscious in most abortions, done around 13 weeks or so. The comparison to euthanizing an animal is a bit crude, I’ll admit, but effective nonetheless in that the animal is less conscious than a human about its pain and the embryo or fetus even less so. Therefore the moral justification is partly based on the grounds that the entity aborted feels no significant pain unless it is sufficiently developed, which is done much more uncommonly than those where the embryo is only beginning to show human traits.

The value of life as a whole does not supersede the value of individual liberty. And while liberty cannot exist without life, the significance of autonomy is wasted on something that cannot even remotely understand its situation. A woman, however, does and should not be forced or pressured into making a choice she does not think is best for her or those connected to her, past, present or future. Bringing up practices in other countries of aborting female children or the common practice of aborting babies with Down syndrome or the like does not support claims that abortion as a whole is genocidal. Abortion is a medical procedure and while it will probably never go away entirely as fertility technology advances more and more, Planned Parenthood’s motto of making abortion safe, legal and rare is aided by birth control and as we understand abortion procedures, they are made safer as well with safer methods. No one is saying abortion should be the default, but the very existence of it as an option is not damaging to the birth rate, nor is it dehumanizing the embryo involved, since it is only barely human in the nominal sense and is certainly not a person that is deserving of protection. Birth is far more significant biologically to the child in terms of both becoming independent from the mother and beginning to develop more in the world where it interacts more directly, through sight, touch, etc. These sorts of discussions can be hard, but they are also important to understanding where our morality and politics intersect. Until next time, Namaste and aloha

Giving Thanks For Abortion

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bethany-blankley/abortion-do-as-i-say-not-as-i-do_b_1102198.html?ref=religion

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/john-backman/abortion-stalemate_b_1021839.html

This post is a bit late for the actual Thanksgiving holiday, at least the traditional day, but after Black Friday’s commercialism and shopaholic excess, I think I should talk about a topic rife with problems that are more practical in scope and less self serving in the goals it seeks to advance.  What I speak of is abortion. I’ve talked about consistency of terms and whether pro life people are actuallypro life instead of anti abortion,  amongst other varieties of this topic. Heck, my very first blog post was on the subject with Tim Tebow and his mom in a pro life/pro choice commercial that was ambivalent as to whether it actually supported choices about reproductive health or just choices towards life. Clearly the issue is important to me, and not because of the anti abortion kernel of “wisdom” that all pro choice people are already born. That goes without saying: a fetus can’t make the choice that abortion is or recognize the process for what it is in any sense until a certain point in development anyway. At most it makes very basic choices as any organic being that is conscious of its own existence will do, even if by pure instinct at first.  But I haven’t had family members or even friends that have directly had to face the issue of abortion. In the South, I’ve noticed that abortion is never seen as anything beneficial and is rarely an option at all. It’s not that we probably don’t have abortion clinics, but they’re either isolated in big cities or otherwise difficult in terms of access, though I admit I’m just speculating on a sub area of the abortion issue I’m not familiar with. I have heard enough and learned enough so far that my general position on abortion has been and always will be pro-choice, which in no way is pro-abortion, contrary to what political pundits would tell you. In the wake of a season that speaks of being thankful for people, I think we should be thankful for something that allows people to give themselves a better future for the family they are more ready for, even if not everyone does it.

I’m well aware of the argument and agree with its premise that abortion shouldn’t be used as a form of birth control, or any sort of procedure done merely for convenience when you are perfectly capable of taking care of a child. Admittedly abortions are probably done for that reason, though I imagine statistics aren’t going to help a lot in a situation where the practitioner doesn’t get such a straight answer from women who are feeling so much anxiety and pressure from their family, friends and society. But abortion is not something you should seek to illegalize or eliminate completely, since it has medical benefits, albeit those are more isolated to ectopic pregnancies and other situations where a woman’s life is in danger and, as heartless as it sounds, sacrifices must be made. Bringing up numbers of how many fetuses have been aborted seems to be easily countered by stats concerning birth rates in the U.S., which by a quick check are not going down excessively, but only in response to economic difficulties many people are having, postponing children until they’re slightly more stable in their finances. It’s different than it was a century ago when America felt it could throw around money and resources like candy without thoughts for the future. It’s not as if I see a significant downturn in birth rate in relation to my own general family, for instance. The number of kids range from anywhere to the minimum expected 2 kids, making an even 4, to 5 or 6 kids, making double that number for a single family from a couple. I myself would be happy with just one, but parenting is the last thing on my mind. Moves to illegalize abortion forget that it is an elective procedure and is not mandatory upon all pregnant women at all. Eliminating it completely would negate the value it possesses in situations that would still be dangerous even if we had technology that would allow for zygotes, embryos, etc to be transplanted or preserved after attachment to the uterine wall. This would reduce abortions to a very small percentage, which, from what I’ve said before, is an unofficial (or official?) position of many pro choice advocates, “Abortion should be safe, legal and rare,”

An irony people could observe with the movement of anti abortion is that it is composed in great or significant part of women who have already had abortions and either regretted it or seem to think that you should only follow their example in every other instance except abortion and not see the hypocrisy they exude in being overzealous for a cause they only fight against after the fact of seeing it as wrong. The view is that abortion is primarily a communal and emotional issue instead of a personal and rational one that it is much of the time, even if it also does have communal and emotional effects on those involved directly and indirectly. The best saying in response to these people that strive to control people’s sex lives and decisions they make with their body is “Don’t like abortion? Don’t have one,” It shouldn’t be a matter of popular opinion, it should be an informed decision without pressure from parents, partners or even medical professionals without justifiable reasons, such as economic or psychological considerations.

One of the biggest things that drive the abortion debate is the personhood vs. humanity idea that people constantly bring up. A zygote is argued to be a person because it is genetically unique. But this doesn’t hold water because it is only technically genetically human. Personhood is a bit more complicated than simply having human DNA, since that could apply to any cell. The response is that a zygote, when left alone, will develop naturally. This is based on possibility, which seems to be a big line of argument in conservative positions on these issues. Gay people will make marriage slide further into immorality, and abortion will target racial groups or particular genders as it becomes more and more acceptable. Mississippi brought up an attempted amendment to its constitution that would have made a fertilized egg a person, but it was thankfully struck down, by anti abortion and pro choice people alike no doubt. The goal of the amendment was to challenge something many find fundamentally egregious in the Roe v. Wade decision over 50 years ago: that a zygote, blastocyst or embryo (for the most part) are not considered a person and thus not protected by the 14th amendment. It was decided, from what I recall, that at the 5th month or roughly around 20-22 weeks when a fetus reaches viability, it is considered a person philosophically, medically and legally to an extent. If the state had changed the definition of person to a fertilized egg, anti abortion pundits thought they could overturn the decision through pushing a vote to repeal the decision by the people. Unfortunately, like gay marriage, some things are not solved by a democratic vote, but by a legislative decision that says certain things are included in the inalienable rights the Constitution enumerates or are of such a morally contentious nature that democratic decisions do not reflect the morality or immorality of whatever issue is voted on. An obvious historical example was slavery. It might have been voted otherwise by the American people in each state, so the government wrote a fundamental amendment to the Constitution that made slavery illegal. Personhood is not something we can all agree on and that’s fine. If you either agree to disagree or, more reasonably, remain uncertain as to exactly and precisely when a fetus becomes a person, or when an embryo becomes a person, etc, then you make the discussion that much smoother in that you aren’t touting your position as unquestionable. If we all had a reasonable discussion without bringing personal emotional experiences into it as primary evidence, then perhaps we’d be able to start talking about these philosophically complex issues in a more civil, mature and reasonable way.

Anti abortion, so called pro life advocates, should be thankful (emphasis intended) that people make the choice to not have an abortion instead of pressuring others to choose life and condemn those who make a less popular choice for a better future life. If you think you can provide for your family with a limited budget and are willing to put children in a situation they did not ask for where they are given a lower quality of life instead of sacrificed for a better future life of siblings, so be it. I’m not going to advocate forcing people to have abortions, and that’s where I think I have a moral high ground of sorts. I am not doing anything more than advising people about their possible options and not saying that they should do it because I say so, but because my argument is sensible. If they disagree, it’s out of my hands for the most part, unless there is some explicit relation to myself. And that’s why I’m thankful for abortion, since it is a choice people can make, but also a choice people can decide to not make and bring life into the world. Regardless, life goes on and I’m thankful especially for that. Until next time, Namaste and aloha.

Being Pro "Life" or "Anti" Abortion

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/28/opinion/28kristof.html?em

While I consider myself a general moderate on issues of abortion and valuing a combination of liberty and affirmation of life, it can be frustrating to hear the same people who complain about how "abortion is murder" or how homosexual activity is "destroying the family values" or some such drivel will also support war in any form or force people to go through grueling anguish and suffering to bring children into the world that will not survive beyond their 5th year or more. It's that combination of willful hypocrisy and self imposed compartmentalization that makes me think it's just a matter of clever labels that avoid implied positions like "anti abortion" or "anti GLBT". Instead they call themselves "pro life" and "pro family" to avoid the fact that there is little connection of pro life to valuing the death penalty or waging war in lieu of nonviolent means; and similarly that being pro family does not involve denying gay couples the right to adopt children and give them a family they'd otherwise be without because of the red tape and waiting lists that come with adoption agencies simply because they are two men or two women.

With pro life, it seems like it should be affirming life as a valuable thing in and of itself. Not just in the context of a potential life or the preservation of it to the detriment of other lives interconnected with it (maternal death due to poor medical care for instance or the demonization of abortion only pushing women to get back alley procedures that only cause them more suffering than necessary). Pro life should reasonably say that even a murderer should be given life in prison to ruminate on their crimes and misdeeds instead of saying that we can take their life in our hands and use it in whatever way we see fit to fulfill a twisted sense of justice. And instead of trying to force abstinence only education on children, perhaps it would be best to approach sex as a natural process that leads to life, but also teach teens responsibility for such an act that carries that value. Pro life in short, has to be expanded beyond what is a thinly veiled hatred of abortion that spreads misinformation or general bigotry towards a procedure that while objectionable in some theological manner, does not automatically become the ethical equivalent of me pulling a gun on a stranger and repeatedly shooting them. Especially considering the so called "child" is commonly a child only in the eyes of parents who love it, not every woman who happens to be pregnant and in many cases scared beyond imagination.

And with pro family, there is a parallel need for expansion of the position beyond saying that gays and lesbians cannot adopt because two men or two women can't bring up a child with distinct gender roles and also a clarification that sex is only part of a meaningful relationship of people who love each other. It could stand to expand the idea of family to transgendered individuals as well, though one might have you believe they're confused or trying to play God with their biology. Not to mention the idea that any family that isn’t a male and a female seems doomed to failure in the eyes of this position. Not even a single parent is as esteemed as two people who only feel obligated to stay together because of divorce being anathema to them or a so called duty to society that overrides keeping their children happy and well cared for. But as long as people insist on keeping ideas of life or family within narrow and purposely ignorant constraints that keep out minorities of one stripe or another, the real essence of their message is mangled beyond recognition. Not unlike tearing me apart and saying that I'm only a valuable person because of the part of my brain allowing me to think critically on topics such as this. But I kind of need my hands and arms and torso and eyes to sit at this laptop and put this together, don't I?