"Child Falling Asleep" by Robert Schumann
Performed by Remi
Abortion
This page was last modified on Thursday, 03-Apr-2008 13:10:16 EDT
Debate with others on the Abortion Message Board here.
In a letter I received before composing this position statement, abortion was described as "the idea and practice of ending the life processes of the unborn, for the sake of convenience". The author of this letter was in favor of laws against abortion. What strange words to use for such an unpleasant and undesirable last resort! Someone might have "the idea and practice" of bowling on Thursday nights, but having an abortion is no casual matter. There may be people who have such a casual attitude about it, but I have never known such a person. And the suggestion that the choice is made "for the sake of convenience" does not describe what pregnant women actually do, in my experience, when they decide to get an abortion. We can all agree that women who can't support children or who have any one of a long list of compelling reasons that having children would be a bad idea should not conceive. The problem is what to do after they have, unfortunately, conceived. The letter went on to say that "condoning" abortion displays arrogance. Arrogance is a bad thing, of course. What arrogance to impose a law which presumes to know in every case the proper course of action and to impose it on everyone! I don't believe that there is anyone who "condones" abortion or who advocates it. Quoting again from the letter: "The exercise of free will must be accompanied by the full acceptance and understanding of the responsibilities for the effects which result." I certainly agree. Responsibility is, of course, a good thing. But the decision to bring a severely retarded or handicapped child into the world results in extremely heavy penalties to be paid by parents, relatives, and the community. This is not responsible decision making! The decision to have fifteen children in India where there are already far too many starving children in the streets indeed threatens our very civilization! True responsibility must have a much firmer grasp on the realities threatening civilization than is exemplified by making a law which confronts a complex moral question with a simplistic legal measure which we know in advance will not produce the desired effects anyway.
The Truth Tree's goal as stated on the home page is to facilitate "the unfolding of the great experiment of life, wherever it may be found." Unlike any other life form on our planet we have the ability to take responsibility for the realization of this goal. We have the intelligence to learn and understand the necessary conditions for happy fulfillment of all the living things on this planet. But, unfortunately, we humans also have a tendency to think superstitiously and to espouse false religious and ideological assumptions. The question of whether abortion should be a legal option and if so under what conditions goes to the very heart of our stewardship of the planet.
There can be no doubt that unless we change some of our behavior our Space Ship Earth, as Carl Sagan was fond of calling it, will become a much less hospitable place for us and the other life forms who live here. There is much talk of the ozone layer, CO2 in the air, global warming, de-forestation, over-fishing, poor soil conservation practices, and many other problems which need to be coped with. But the one underlying problem which it seems people are less inclined to admit is overpopulation. Every environmental problem has overpopulation at its heart. This glaringly obvious fact is eloquently presented by Kirk Heriot in his book, Who We Are.
There are currently two political factions which call themselves "Pro-life" and "Pro-choice." These names are unfortunate and misleading. Their opposites reveal their flaws. Who would be "Pro- death?" And if choice means freedom, who would be "Pro-slavery?" The important values seem not to be mentioned. We should not be "Pro-suffering." And yet if all pregnancies are brought to term much avoidable suffering will certainly occur. And how about "Pro-stultification?" This is what will be brought about if young women lose their right to choose their full potential. Let's agree that we are all "Pro-joy" and "Pro-fulfillment." Then we can get down to the business of actually realizing these goals.
It is The Truth Tree's position that there should be no laws prohibiting abortions performed by qualified medical practitioners. The decision whether to abort an embryo or a fetus should be made by the pregnant woman in consultation with a physician. Others may also be brought into the decision making process (with the pregnant woman's permission) such as the woman's parents, if the pregnant woman is very young, or the male responsible for the pregnancy, or other "important others" in the woman's life. A law passed by an overwhelmingly male legislative body which sentences all pregnant women to carrying an embryo to full term is simply unconscionable.
Concepts of "morality" are often central to arguments about abortion. The position taken by some is that the pregnant woman shouldn't have gotten pregnant in the first place and that she must now take responsibility for her ill-advised sexual activities. What if a young woman goes out on the ice (perhaps against advice) and the ice breaks and she is helplessly swimming about in the freezing water? Should we rescue her? Perhaps we should shout out to her, "You should have known better than to go out on the ice. You should have taken the advice of your parents. Now you must accept the consequences of your actions." It is all very well to say "should" and "should not" but in the real world people don't always do what they "should" or refrain from doing what they "should not" do. When they inevitably make mistakes, what course of action is best? Clearly the course of action which helps the most people to have the most joy and fulfillment in their lives. I am aware that some have maintained that the idea of "the best for the most" is unattainable. But in making moral decisions it is unavoidably the responsibility of the decision maker to consider and weigh the overall benefit or the overall cost of a decision. This requires a case by case assessment. The suggestion that an across-the-board law will lead to morally correct decisions is just not supportable.
The previous paragraph was criticized in an e-mail I received. The author of the e-mail complained that the example of the young woman who fell through the ice was "ridiculous". Specifically, the complaint was that, "One is a life that, uninterrupted, will continue. The other is a life that, due to the inaction of another, will end. That's a pretty big difference." The example was not meant to refer to the life of the embryo. It was intended to call attention to the problem of what should be done when an unintended pregnancy occurs. Falling through the ice doesn't always lead to death. Carrying pregnancies to full term sometimes does lead to death. What is at issue here is what should we do when someone makes a mistake? Should we make a law that forces people to suffer the consequences of that mistake regardless of any other considerations? Or should we wisely allow access to known methods of safely ameliorating those consequences? As a general thing, I think we ordinarily choose the latter alternative.
Responsibility is a very important virtue for all of us to cultivate. We are quite rightly concerned with the problem of influencing young people to be more responsible. Let us imagine that we are being consulted by a teenage girl and boy who are trying to decide whether having sex would be responsible or not. Let us imagine (and this will require some imagination!) that they have come to us, their elders, for advice. What would we say to them? Let us assume that they have no birth control but are in the throes of intense passion. What would we say to them about the responsibilities involved in the decision they are about to make? Would we remind them that they are very young? That they have no means of supporting a child? That they aren't emotionally ready for parenthood? That their plans for college may be jeopardized? That if they can't go to college they might not be able to support a child in the manner that they would like to? That if they abandon the child someone else will have to shoulder the responsibility of raising him or her? That it would be unfair to their parents or grandparents to add such a burden to them? That it would be unfair to their community to burden social agencies with the expensive job of finding a place for the child? Now, let's suppose that they go ahead and have sex anyway and the girl gets pregnant. Would any of those arguments against having sex have changed their force? Well, then, don't those arguments support the proposition that it would be the more responsible decision to abort?
Another argument says, "How many of us wouldn't be here if abortions had been legal back
in the early days?" Another form is, "Just think of all the geniuses and world leaders who will never be born if we permit
abortion." A persuasive TV commercial against abortion shows an exquisitely lovable little boy tasting rain with his tongue.
Somehow, if you are opposed to legal abortion, all prevented births would have resulted in beautiful, happy, talented, intelligent, loving,
lovable, and benevolent children. To be fair you should also think of all the mentally retarded children and children with incurable
developmental disorders and children with criminal personalities who will never be born if abortion is permitted. And what about the
night you were going to have sex but instead you turned over and went to sleep? How do you know you wouldn't have brought a world
leader into the world?
Just a coincidence?
Inspection of the graph above shows that from 1983 to 1991 crime of all sorts was on the increase. Starting in 1991, however, crime rates declined. Now look at the graph for number of abortions performed. Starting in 1973, the year of the Roe vs.Wade decision, abortions rose (as would be expected) but levelled off in 1980. This levelling off is encouraging and argues against the proposition that abortion rates would increase indefinitely. Bill Clinton's suggestion that abortions should be "legal, safe, and rare" seems attainable. At least there does appear to be some natural limit on the annual number of abortions performed after the decision. But the most interesting aspect of these graphs is that it was approximately eighteen years after Roe vs.Wade that crime rates started down. This is the year when the fruits of unwanted pregnancies might have been expected to give us a large number of eighteen-year-olds. Eighteen happens to be the age at which young males are most likely to engage in criminal behaviors. A viable explanation of this apparently coincidental time relationship is that young females often find irresponsible young men to be exciting, dashing, and perhaps sexually attractive. (There's a song titled, "If You Want It To Be Good, Girl, Get a Bad Boy", written by Robert Lange and performed by The Back Street Boys.) And such irresponsible young men are likely to have criminality in their own personalities and in that of their progenitors. How many young women who have been made pregnant by these unusually attractive and daring young men have second thoughts about actually bearing their children? I suspect quite a large number. The decision of the court may have made a very positive contribution by bringing crime rates down.
Recently a friend has suggested to me another positive result of permitting abortions. Usually the emphasis is placed on the children parents would not have as a result of abortion. But there are children that those same parents will have that they would not have had if they hadn't had the abortion. Those children, born later when the parents are in a more stable relationship and when their financial and social positions are more secure, will have, on average, a considerable advantage over the children who would have been born earlier. And this shows that permitting abortion has a double advantage over outlawing it in that not only does abortion reduce the number of children who will grow up to be problems for society but that it increases the number of children who will be born to make positive contributions!
The Truth Tree takes the position that we should not only allow abortions under medical supervision but that we should make every effort to develop the technology necessary to select zygotes (fertilized ova) so that every couple can have the best children their genes can provide. The only time we presently do this is in cases of in vitro fertilization. Perhaps the day will come when most pregnancies will start with the implantation of a zygote (or a germinal stage embryo) fertilized in vitro with defective genes screened out and particularly advantageous gene combinations selected.
This position statement may seem heartless and even cruel to some people. I can imagine that some people will be actually offended at the inclusion of Robert Schumann's Child Falling Asleep. I understand these emotional reactions, and I believe that people have every right to their feelings. What I am asking is that people examine the philosophy behind these feelings. Robert Schumann's little piece is, I think, a small masterpiece. Especially the way it ends on the sub-dominant. It contains the ambivalence that every child feels when falling asleep in the occasional major and minor sevenths which introduce a dissonance perhaps representing the child's wanting to stay awake. The sub-dominant ending implies a temporary suspension and holds out the promise of a future full of adventure and fulfillment. And that is why I have included this music on this page. What I want to see is children who can fall asleep with confidence that they have a future of adventure and fulfillment, not a future in which they may starve or be beaten cruelly or be unable to extricate themselves from some ghetto or other.
An important ingredient in the rage that people may experience when considering abortion is the idea of the suffering of an innocent child. The phrase "baby killer" immediately calls to mind pain and brutality. But this phrase is an extreme of prolexis. An embryo is certainly not a baby yet. Here we run into semantic problems. Let me suggest that suffering and pain are two important ideas. No one wants any child to suffer or be in pain. What is required for pain and suffering? Consciousness is required. (That is why we use anesthesia for surgery.) Without consciousness there can be no pain or suffering. So when is the developing human conscious? I would like to suggest that consciousness does not appear until the cells of the brain begin to interact. There have been many misleading statements about when organized brain function first appears. A good discussion of this is to be found here. I doubt that anyone can present convincing evidence that such activity happens much earlier than the eleventh week of gestation. New research using the fMRI technique (functional magnetic resonance imaging) may help to clarify this question.
And then there is the concept of murder. The Ten Commandments say, "Thou shalt not kill." We manage to justify exceptions for warfare, self defense, capital punishment, and euthanasia. Recall that joy and fulfillment have been two of the leading concepts here. Why is it wrong to murder? Because it stops not only the joy and fulfillment of the victim but the joy and fulfillment he represented for others. For the victim, his own joy and fulfillment may have peaked after a certain age, but the extent to which he contributes to the joy and fulfillment of others may remain high even into old age. One thing I notice as I write this is the fact that people are not accustomed to actually evaluating the worth of a person. We have been taught that a person's life is "priceless" and we don't like to have to actually think about its worth. An interesting moral exercise is to ask what you would do if you had to choose between killing several hundred prominent scientists or several hundred fishermen. This choice might arise in the case of an atomic bomb which can't be stopped but which can be deflected to one of two targets. The teaching that human life is "priceless" reminds me of the problems in quantum physics where certain terms in the equations inconveniently become infinite and have to be "renormalized." The decision to abort or not should depend on a sober assessment of the likely course of events and the likely joy and fulfillment resulting for the unborn, the parent(s), the immediate family, the society and even the world at large when considering population pressures.
All arguments about "when life begins" are completely irrelevant because there is no such moment. Life never ends. The sperm is alive. The ovum is alive. The zygote is alive.
Some arguments are based on the notion that the "soul" enters the zygote at the moment of conception. But the "soul" is a religious idea which, because it is so ill defined, cannot play a constructive role in any serious discussion. Because of its emotional connotations, it can be used effectively in poetry, but trying to use it in making a rational analysis of an important issue is simply inappropriate.
There is an argument based on the question of just exactly when the embryo becomes "human". There is no such moment, and the argument is misleading. It is naïvely based on the notion that words have absolute meanings and that if we can only discover their "true" meaning we can improve our decision making. A germinal stage embryo, for example, has human genes, but it doesn't have a human language or human relationships. Acting as if a determination of whether the embryo is human will make any kind of argument is quite absurd.
Finally, before anyone says that The Truth Tree is in favor of abortion, let me declare
here that The Truth Tree is opposed to abortion. The world would be a better place if we could somehow avoid situations in which
abortion is an option. In every case where abortion is considered as an option, it would have been better had abstinence or birth
control been used to prevent conception. In the same sense, The Truth Tree is opposed to poverty. In every case of poverty, it
would have been better if the poverty-stricken had behaved in a manner to prevent the poverty, assuming that there was something that could
have prevented it. But poverty occurs and will occur. Abortion occurs and will occur. What The Truth Tree opposes is
passing laws which force abortion to be practiced in secret by unqualified people or which force women to give birth to unwanted children,
or children who can't be supported by their parents, or children with genetic defects. If everyone in the world suddenly became
responsible in the sense suggested by the letter quoted at the opening of this position statement, the world would suddenly become a much better
place. In the meantime, we must bite the bullet of hard reality and behave responsibly with a responsibility that does not hide from
reality and which takes into account all the factors, not just the ones we like to think about. We are over-populated and must take
measures which actually work to save our planet. We may not like what we have to do to achieve this end, but we have no choice!
A site that provides useful information regarding the laws of different states and the history of the Supreme Court's rulings on those
laws is to be found here.
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