Philosophy

Abortion Supporters Believe In Magic

Stream: Abortion Supporters Believe In Magic

Ireland has a Minister for Children named Katherine Zappone. Zappone supports abortion. She was asked about the “inherent contradiction” between her support and her position as Minister for Children at a recent public forum

She responded, “I believe that the fetus holds the potential for human life that develops over time. And I think my views in relation to abortion and the legislation are consistent with that view.”

If the fetus is only a blob of tissues that “holds the potential for human life”, then it must be that at some point in time the blob is transformed from a blob into a human being.

The only way this can happen is by magic.

Nothing Up Nature’s Sleeves

It has to be magic because there is no biological mechanism that operates as a switch that turns a lump of non-human flesh into a human being. Replacing the switch must be something magical.

To escape this conclusion some say the lump is partly human and gradually accretes humanness to itself until, one day, it has accumulated enough humanness to be called human. Let’s see why this requires magic, too.

Some say the fetus has accumulated enough humanness that it becomes human upon birth. If so, it must be that the magical contact with air imbues humanity into the blob. One brief moment before it was a blob. A quick puff of air and—hey, presto!—an inanimate mass of tissue becomes a tax deduction.

Viability is in the Eye of the Beholder

Others say the fetus has reached human-being level when it is “viable”; which is to say, when it can live outside the womb.

A century and more ago, with rare exceptions due to Cesarean births which occurred about the same time as a normal term birth, no fetus was viable before normal birth. The technology to preserve the fetus, whatever the fetus was, was not yet invented.

It is now the case that the fetus taken from pregnant women can survive outside the womb at very early ages given the aid of certain medical devices and drugs. The age this occurs grows earlier and earlier with each advancement in medical technology. It is not even science fiction to suggest that this age will progress to the point of conception.

Indeed, some fetuses are first created outside the womb in test tubes, and only later implanted. (We can here ignore the ethics of this.) It is reasonable to suppose that methods will eventually be invented to allow the fetus to grow entirely outside the womb.

Nonviable Arguments

It is thus clear viability cannot be what determines humanness. Why? Because viability []

If your mother didn’t abort you, click here to read the rest.

Update Presented without comment (except for the comment implied by saying “presented without comment”) more on Zappone.

Categories: Philosophy

6 replies »

  1. I’m not sure if “viability” is much of an argument basis for abortion, but it does raise some interesting debate. Here’s the basic presented:

    “So, clearly, viability cannot be what determines humanness. Why? Because viability depends on the skill of the surgeon. A baby removed from the womb prematurely in the United States because of its advanced science will be called a baby. But one removed in some poor place that lacks advanced technology must not be called a baby, but a lump of non-human flesh, because it’s not viable.”

    The premature birth in primitive conditions yields an incomplete human with zero chance of survival — a corpse-in-work, in a sense. So, some view, why not kill it earlier as death is inevitable, and, this might even be more humane as it deprives the doomed of avoidable pain & suffering prior to death.

    What about aborting an undeveloped fetus earlier than the body will abort it (assume we know with 100 percent certainty the fetus is defective and the body will self-abort it…such does happen). Is killing that doomed fetus early immoral?

    Those kinds of parsing will generally yield different views, ‘absolutists’ will say abortion is always wrong, period; others will see some room for accomodation within very narrow limits.

    Consider an analogy that biologists generally consider as very reasonable: If an undeveloped property has the building materials for a house, and someone destroys the building materials, the owner is not entitled to financial compensation based on the value of the future house. Biologically, an undeveloped fetus is like those building materials, potential for something, but at the moment something else.

    Again, those with a strict view will say a self-aborted fetus (miscarriage; or if early enough the body is observed to simply reabsorb the tissues and is a form of false pregnancy) is “now in heaven” … but what does that mean? The fetus might not have had a heartbeat, much less even the most rudimentary consciousness (owing to the absence of anything qualifying as a brain with the neural networks associated with though). Does such a soul in heaven have full consciousness & intellectual capacity, or, is that just a blob of some sort? And if the fetus is claimed to have a full intellect (a complete soul), then why is that so clearly suppressed for the years of post-birth development (…and…suppressed in a manner directly correlated with the progress, or lack thereof, of brain development, which in humans proceeds mostly thru puberty, but is now observed well into the early 20’s …and…is malleable as neuroplasticity studies have found?).

    Others quote some interesting passages from the Bible:

    Genesis: Adam was not human until God breathed life into him.

    Job 33: “The spirit of God has made me, and the breath of the Almighty gives me life.”

    Exodus 21:22: If a man causes a miscarriage, he is fined; if the woman dies, he’s put to death. Under old Arabic values if the fetus was a male it might be more valuable than the mother, but is clearly treated as less.

    Doesn’t that indicate the divinely inspired OT is telling us that a fetus is not human until it takes its first breath?

    Science & medicine have revealed that perhaps as much as one-third of pregnancies self-abort early in the first trimester, with most being reabsorbed (a type of false pregnancies or so-called “missed miscarriages” and also the “vanishing twin”, e.g., see http://wombtwin-us.blogspot.com/2011/10/about-twin-absorption.html) or going unnoticed in the menstrual cycle, often with the woman being unaware she was ever pregnant, but proven via MRI, etc., as is the loss of the fetus also proven.

    Some put the estimate of births at one in eight individuals are in fact the surviving twin. One-third, or three percent, or whatever — why is God, who apparently controls nature, causing so many “abortions”? (some hidden human sacrifice still practiced, perhaps?)

    What else we’ve learned from medicine: Some people are chimeras, the product of two fetus’s that merged into one well after conception; one indicator is people with different colored eyes (though that might have other causes, depending on the person: https://dnatesting.com/dna-and-heterochromia-two-different-colored-eyes/).

    So, if we accept the postulate that a human is a human from the moment of conception, with its unique independent soul … what do we make of human chimeras who are the result of two independent fetus’s/two independent souls into a single human organism?

    Here’s a story of a father who learned his wife had a child by his brother — whom he had absorbed while still in the womb? Perhaps the soul of that absorbed twin is alive and well inside the living man? Or, maybe, that souls can be similarly absorbed into a larger soul??? (see http://www.medicaldaily.com/human-chimera-paternity-test-reveals-child-fathered-long-lost-vanished-twin-absorbed-359050)

    That brings us to a concept reminiscent of the movie series, Highlander, starring Christopher Lambert & Sean Connery….

    When life seems so clear, “black & white” and “either or” with no middle ground, philosophising is pretty easy … but reality is far more complicated and has a way undermining postulates and the beliefs that go with them. Science has that disruptive effect…and for that comes under attack…

  2. Hey Ken-

    What about a house completely built (except for some rooms being still unpainted, say) BUT the certificate of Occupancy hasn’t been issued yet???? Does the true value reflect only the materials (and not the assembly)?

  3. Ken,
    The point made about miscarriages is simply wrong because the foetus is shed from the body by natural and or pathological processes. There is not an agent involved in that case. Similarly natural disease and death is not murder if death results. This seems a very simple point to me. The word termination is used in the UK. Not that the actual effect is any different what it is called. If action is taken by someone to end the forming baby then natural life is prevented.

    As to reabsorption. The term is simply inaccurate since the lining of the uterus is shed anyway. There is still a shedding of the lining of the uterus. When this does not occur normally then procedures are carried out to prevent complications from residual tissue.

    Where the cell walls start and finish and which part of which protein is still self contained is not relevant except that if the embryo was formed it was once a potential fully formed human. In my view it was fully formed in it’s particulars given it’s age. Just as the elderly gentleman is fully formed given his age. His state of degeneration is considered “normal for age.” His life is no less valuable because his bones creak or don’t line up.

    There are unusual cases of abnormal false foetuses which are not just non viable they are not really complete human except the tissue is human. They have hair and malformed eyes and so on but are little more than a mole or a tumour and they are named as such. Very rare and not relevant in considering babies in utero.

    John,
    There is a point of law, in America and here in the UK which states that a property that is incomplete is simply judged on work completed and services rendered. Contracts to build even itemised do not give the complainant right to withhold payment for services rendered.

    A commissioner of a build does not have a right to withhold payment or benefit in the property because the toilet roll holders weren’t fitted yet in their nine bedroom house with swimming pool and knobs. Although people will try anything in court.

  4. Having since actually read the article, here are a few more points.
    If the embryo is human tissue it is a human being because by definition an embryo is a prenatal unit.
    If the embryo is allowed to develop it will most of the time form a normal fetes which is the term for a baby in utero.
    Most foetuses then make full term or viable age with or without assistance.
    Which leaves some that do not reach viable age given current medical technology.
    If they do not reach viable age they have either already died due to separation from the mother or are helped not to reach viable age. i.e. they are killed. They do not just die, they are killed.

    Whether at the earlier, cellular, embryonic stage or later the prenatal unit of life which is human was killed in that case. Killing innocent life is immoral.

    There is no mystery and no confusion except in the sentiments of people.

  5. When stating that they do not just die, I refer to the euphemistic way that some view the process of termination. Of course embryos and foetuses die of natural causes in the same way as eventually most of us do. ‘Nobody gets out alive. ‘
    Sadly, some are killed when nature is not allowed to take it’s course and That is the immoral part.

  6. why not kill it earlier as death is inevitable

    Death is inevitable for everyone. Does this legitimate murder of anyone? Jews? The homeless? The crippled and lame?

    Is killing that doomed fetus early immoral?

    It certainly is remunerative. That may be the true motive of its advocates. Such a presumptively doomed individual will be handled naturally. Why intervene with artificial means?

    Consider an analogy that biologists generally consider as very reasonable

    What makes biologists any more expert on housing and law than they are on philosophy and ethics? Wasn’t eugenics enough for them?

    Biologically, an undeveloped fetus is like those building materials, potential for something

    No, it is more like the foundation and frame. A human body is not assembled from disparate and independent parts. Rather, it grows as a whole unit.

    the absence of anything qualifying as a brain with the neural networks associated with though[t]

    This, of course, begs the question and also confuses “associated with” with “caused by.”

    if the fetus is claimed to have a full intellect (a complete soul), then why is that so clearly suppressed for the years of post-birth development

    Perhaps for the same reason that it doesn’t immediately walk or do mathematics. Of course, in the block universe, the fetal stage is simply one temporal part of the complete 4-dimensional being. There is no more reason for the fetus to have a “full intellect” than for the big left toe to have one. (I.e., for one spatial part of the 4-dimensional being.)

    why is God, who apparently controls nature, causing so many “abortions”?

    You believe in miracles — that God directly intervenes in nature? Surely it is more reasonable to suppose that natural bodies act directly upon one another, under a God who is the author of natures. Besides, miscarriages are not abortions, unless you believe nature has intention.

    what do we make of human chimeras who are the result of two independent fetus’s/two independent souls into a single human organism?

    That they are generally rare. Clearly one twin dies and the other survives. Which, may never be knowable.

    When life seems so clear, “black & white” and “either or” with no middle ground, philosophising is pretty easy … but reality is far more complicated

    Actually, it is the philosophers who deal with these complexities. The medievals were infamous for making innumerable distinctions and divisions into cases. Idealogues like to simplify things; perhaps by equating miscarriages with abortions. Or by supposing that everything is material: the brain does all the thinking; evolution by natural selection accounts for everything; etc.

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