George Tiller, a doctor and abortion provider in Kansas, was shot and killed outside his church on Sunday. The large majority of people on either side of the abortion debate are understandably horrified by an event like this. But it sets up a rhetorical dilemma for anyone who takes seriously the claim that abortion is murder. If George Tiller really was a “baby killer” comparable to Hitler and Stalin, it’s difficult to express unmitigated sadness at his murder. So we get Randall Terry, founder of Operation Rescue, admitting regret — but only that Tiller was a mass murderer who “did not have time to properly prepare his soul to face God.”
On those rare occasions when they attempt to actually talk to each other, people on opposite sides of the abortion debate usually end up talking past each other. Supporters of abortion rights speak in the language of the autonomy of the mother, and her right to control her own body: “If you don’t like abortion, don’t have one.” Opponents of abortion speak in terms of the personhood of the fetus. (Yes, Dr. Seuss’s Horton Hears a Who! — “A person’s a person, no matter how small” — is used to teach this point to Catholic children, over Theodor Geisel’s objections.) Opposition to abortion rights can also be a manifestation of the desire to control women’s sexuality, but let’s concentrate on those whose opposition is grounded in a sincere moral belief that abortion is murder.
If someone believes that abortion really is murder, talk of the reproductive freedom of the mother isn’t going to carry much weight — nobody has the right to murder another person. Supporters of abortion rights don’t say “No, this is one case where murder is completely justified.” Rather, they say “No, the fetus is not a person, so abortion is not murder.” The crucial question (I know, this is not exactly an astonishing new insight) is whether a fetus is really a person.
I have nothing original to add to the debate over when “personhood” begins. But there is something to say about how we decide questions like that. And it takes us directly back to the previous discussion about marriage and fundamental physics. The upshot of which is: how you think about the universe, how you conceptualize the natural world around us, obviously is going to have an enormous impact on how you decide questions like “When does personhood begin?”
In a pre-scientific world, life was — quite understandably — thought of as something intrinsically different from non-life. This view could be taken to different extremes; Plato gave voice to one popular tradition, by claiming that the human soul was a distinct, incorporeal entity that actually occupied a human body. These days we know a lot more than they did back then. Science has taught us that living beings and non-living objects are the same kind of things, deep down; we’re all made of the same chemical elements, and all of our constituents obey the same laws of Nature. Life is complicated, and rich, and fascinating, and not very well understood — but it doesn’t obey separate rules apart from those of the non-living world. Living organisms are just very complicated chemical reactions, not vessels that rely on supernatural essences or mystical élan vital to keep them chugging along. Except “just” is a terribly misleading adverb in this context — living organisms are truly amazing very complicated chemical reactions. Knowing that we are made of the same stuff and obey the same rules as the rest of the universe doesn’t diminish the value or meaning of human life in any way.
There is a temptation in some quarters to forget, or at least ignore, the improved understanding of the world that science has given us when it comes to address moral and ethical questions. Part of that is a healthy impulse — science doesn’t actually tell us how to distinguish right from wrong, nor could it possibly. Science deals with how the world works, not how it should work, and despite centuries of trying it remains impossible to derive “ought” from “is.”
But at the same time, it would be crazy not to take our scientific understanding of the world into consideration when we reflect upon moral questions. If you think of a fetus as part of an ongoing complicated chemical reaction, it should come as no surprise that you might reach very different conclusions from someone who thinks that God breathes the spirit of life into a fertilized ovum at the moment of conception.
That’s why it’s equally crazy to believe that science and religion are two distinct, non-overlapping magisteria that simply never address the same questions. That bizarre perspective was advanced by Stephen Jay Gould in Rocks of Ages, but if you read the book carefully you find that his definition of “religion” is simply “moral philosophy.” Which is not what the word means, or how people use it, or how actual religious people think of their beliefs. Religion makes claims about the real world, and some of those claims — not all — can be very straightforwardly judged by the criteria of science. We do not need to invoke spirits being breathed into fertilized eggs in order to understand life, for example. And the fact that science has taught us so much about the workings of the world has enormous consequences for how we should think about moral and ethical questions, even if it can’t answer such questions all by itself.
For example, science is powerless to tell us when “personhood” begins — but it tell us something very crucial about how to go about answering that question. In particular, it tells us that there is no magical moment at which an incorporeal soul takes up residence in a body. Indeed, the concept of a “person” is not to be found anywhere in the natural world; it’s a category that is convenient to appeal to as we try to make sense of the world. But there is not, as far as science is concerned, any right or wrong answer to the question of when the life of a person begins — from Nature’s point of view, it’s just one chemical reaction after another.
At this point, a lot of impatient people declare that morality and ethics are simply impossible in such a world, and storm out in frustration. But this is the world in which we actually live, so storming out is not a productive response. Morality and ethics are possible, but they’re not to be found in Natural Law — they are the creation of human beings, reasoning together on the basis of their shared feelings and experiences. Human beings are not blank slates, nor are they immutable tablets; we are born into the world with certain wants and desires and natural reactions to events, and those feelings can adapt and change over time in response to learning and reasoning. So we get together, communicate, understand that not everyone necessarily agrees on how the social world should be organized, and try to negotiate some sort of mutual compromise. (Or, alternatively, try to impose our will by force. But I like the mutual compromise approach better.) That’s how the world actually works.
“The moment when a fetus begins to accrue the rights we bestow on post-birth persons” is something that we, as a society, have to decide; the answer is not to be found in revelation, or in faith, or in philosophical contemplation of the nature of the soul, or for that matter in the natural world. This starting point is not necessarily prejudicial to what the final answer may be; I can certainly imagine a group of people coming together and agreeing that newly-conceived fetuses should be granted all the rights of any person. I would argue against them, on the basis that the interests of an autonomous and fully conscious mother should weigh much more heavily than those of the proto-person they carry. But I can’t say that they are unambiguously wrong in the same way that an erroneous claim about logic or even the empirical world can be said to be “wrong.”
If the social and political arrangement of a group puts stress on the autonomy of its individual responsible members (which ours does, and I like it that way), deciding what the criteria are for being judged an “individual responsible member” is of primary importance. Who gets to vote? Who gets to drive a car? Who decides when to unplug the respirator? Who is of “sound mind”? Who is a person? These are all hard questions with no cut-and-dried answers. But we can be fooled into thinking that some of the answers are pretty straightforward, if we believe in outdated notions of spirits being breathed into us by God.
There are many reasons why it’s incoherent to think of science and religion as simply separate and non-overlapping. They are different, but certainly overlapping. The greatest intellectual accomplishment of the last millennium is the naturalistic worldview: everything is constructed of the same basic building blocks, obeying the same rules, without any recourse to the supernatural. Appreciating that view doesn’t tell us how we should behave, but failing to appreciate it can very easily lead people to behave badly.
I absolutely agree with your sentiments bored.
I maintain that science is an analytical practice and its “principals” are only valid in application to that practice. While my own epistemology only recognizes value in things learned through those principals of science, I can only defend that epistemology on philosophical grounds. The appeal that it is “unscientific” to employ a scientific methodology for examining certain questions and to employ a non-scientific methodology for examining other questions is rather like an appeal that it is “unprofessional” to play board games. In the sense that one doesn’t legitimately play them while at work, it is trivially true. In the sense that one must be “unprofessional” to play them – even when not at work – is false on its face.
Doug:
– A religious worldview has validity even based solely on the fact that a very substantial percentage of people hold such a view – probably many more than hold a scientific worldview. Look at the numbers of people who can’t credit global warming, for example.
– But the point was not the comparative validity of these two worldviews, but the fact that the primary issue concerning abortion is invariant to which one someone assumes. Either way, it boils down to social consensus on conflicting rights of persons.
boreds:
– If the mother’s life is forfeit anyway (for reasons of medical problems that have arisen in childbirth, or whatever), an ethical decision can be made to favor the survival of the baby. I’m not sure how often the issue comes up in practice, but it features in many novels.
Thales, two things.
First, no pain will have been prevented because the people who need late-term abortions will now go somewhere else.
Second, your post apologizes for terrorism.
What is a person?
Socrates said, “Know yourself.” I recommend that also.
In solidarity with Miss Prism, I think the onus is on those who accuse Dr. Tiller of killing babies for money to do some research, and come back when they can tell us, for example, what percentage of late-term fetuses aborted by Dr. Tiller were given a reasonable chance of living to maturity, without risking the life of the mother. I have been reading accounts from his patients on Andrew Sullivan’s blog, and they paint a different picture.
After a reasonable term of years, I have found no evidence, either externally or internally, of this soul which the religious would have me take into account. How can you measure a soul, they ask. You can’t. That’s precisely the point. (I do have a rather nice, rainbow-colored aura, however.)
This has been another edition of Sean Carroll saying what I would say if I had the talent.
I don’t have the energy at 3am to read through all the comments, but here’s what might be a different way of looking at it:
Why is it illegal to kill a human being?
There are three reasons that I can think of:
1) Because we are sentient. This is why it’s okay to kill cows and ants and not to kill humans.
2) Because we provide thoughts and work that improve life for other humans. Again, this is why it is okay to kill animals and not humans.
3) Because it somehow feels wrong to hurt someone.
If killing is illegal for the first reason, then abortion should be legal until a child reaches a certain level of self-awareness, which certainly doesn’t happen immediately upon being thrust from the womb, and no one is killing any 3 month old babies.
If it’s illegal for the second reason, then abortion should be completely illegal unless it is likely to threaten the life of the mother who is likely to still contribute interesting thoughts and work.
If it’s illegal for the third reason, then the line gets drawn when fetuses look like babies. This happens around the 2nd trimester, and that’s why the 3rd-trimester-abortions are so much more hated than the others.
I assume murder is illegal for all of these reasons and probably others that my tired brain isn’t coming up with. And I understand that killing humans is wrong because we have “souls,” but I’m pretty sure that those of us who don’t believe in souls have similar feelings based on 1 and 3, and we can approximate understanding those arguments thusly.
I can’t offer any thoughts on this, as my own feelings towards abortion are too confused, but I hope considering it this way is interesting or even illuminating to someone.
@MissPrism wow those deformities were horrific yet strangely fascinating!!
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Sean,
I read all the way ’til the end expecting you to have THE ANSWER at the end.
A lot of good discussion here. There’s no way to get anyone to agree on this issue though because it deals with questions we can’t answer and extreme moral viewpoints on each side. I simply think that in regards to an issue such as this, there is more of a burden of proof on those that would wish to use the state to enforce their views on others. In other words, the state should err on the side of legality and leaving the decision up to the individual person.
Sven:
“I assume murder is illegal for all of these reasons and probably others that my tired brain isn’t coming up with. ”
I agree. In fact, by your criteria 1-3, it would be okay for me to give you a painless lethal injection the moment you become unconscious, for whatever reason.
Sean,
Your posts are an oasis of thought I find extremely hard to find in my life. As an impresionable young university student I find you an inspiration.
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@Scott: Exactly.
Sean, very well written.
Sven, I would add:
4)Because having rules that prohibit murder is necessary for a well-functioning society. If murder were legel I would be at greater risk of being murdered. Being in my tweens, I don’t think I’m at risk of being aborted.
ree ree, responding to Sven: “I agree. In fact, by your criteria 1-3, it would be okay for me to give you a painless lethal injection the moment you become unconscious, for whatever reason.”
Maybe, if you assumed you existed in a vacuum, without friends, family and society to object.
1. Correct that one should counter the opponent’s arguments, not present one’s own.
2. IIRC part of the mechanism of the IUD is preventing fertilised eggs from nesting. If one believes that life begins at conception and doesn’t oppose the IUD, then one is either ignorant or hypocritical. (Some, like the Pope, oppose both, but at least in his case it’s more a side-effect of opposing contraception in general.)
3. Many, but not all, “pro-life” people (especially in the USA) are opposed to sex education and availability of contraception, especially for unmarried teenagers. In many cases, they are opposed to abortion because they are opposed to sex. They need the fear of pregnancy to make sex dangerous. Of course, this stance leads to more teen pregnancies and thus more potential (and probably actual) abortions, but, see point 1., that’s OK from their point of view: they just didn’t get the message across. The USA has a huge amount of teen pregnancies, while teens there have less sex than elsewhere (especially if one asks “how often have you had sex” and not just “have you ever had sex”). See http://www.stern.de/lifestyle/liebesleben/:Sexualaufkl%E4rung-USA-Dr.-Sommer-%FCbers-Handy/702155.html
for some numbers. Isaac Asimov remarked in an essay in the late 60s or early 70s that most people opposed to long hair on men are also opposed to beards, since otherwise the argument “long hair on a man makes him look like a woman” no longer works, just as those opposed to abortion and teen pregnancies must also be opposed to sex education, since otherwise their argument (sex has bad consequences) no longer works. (Of course, short hair as a sign of masculinity is just a custom, and I would never mistake a long-haired man for a woman!)
4. Most people don’t feel they’ve lost a child when they have a spontaneous abortion in the first couple of months of pregnancy (some didn’t even know they were pregnant). Thus, one could argue that abortion during this time is OK. (To be sure, most spontaneous abortions are because something was wrong with the fetus, so point 2. might make this argument better. On the other hand, one could argue that abortion because the fetus is seriously ill should be OK during this time.)
5. A variant of point 1.: Many, but not all, “pro-choice” people, especially, women, are anti-pornography. Interestingly, they then no longer believe the argument “a woman should be able to do what she wants with her body”. Of course, they will argue that no woman voluntarily does pornography, but then they use the same sort of arguments that many anti-abortion folks use to argue that no woman really wants an abortion.
6. Stephen Jay Gould is one of my heroes, but Rock of Ages is one of the few of his books I haven’t read, and probably the only one I might never read. A major intellectual goof, up there with the suggestion that atheists market themselves as “brights”.
7. Some might deem it hypocritical that many “pro-life” folks, especially in the USA, favour the death penalty, but back to point 1., one has to counter their arguments, not present one’s own. (Their distinction is between innocent and guilty life). From their point of view, there is no conflict, and the position is not hypocritical.
smijer:
“Empirical questions can be answered by observation and experiment. What do you observe in order to test the notion that a supernatural soul exists within a person?”
Not an observation, simply the principle of parsimony. Your question should be addressed to those who believe in a soul. Because until they make that observation of a soul, the default position is that it does not exist.
The question of ‘soul’ isn’t any different than the question of ‘leprechaun’ just because more people take it seriously…
It’s unfortunate that late-term abortion plays such a large role in the discussion of abortion’s legality. Only about 100 abortions annually are performed after week 24, and, generally, these are only legally permitted when the mother’s or fetus’ health is at stake.
Edge of the American West has a good post on the matter.
Gustav:
“Maybe, if you assumed you existed in a vacuum, without friends, family and society to object.”
So what? The issue is empathy. The vast majority of people would not want that to happen them. So it shouldn’t be done whether we are in a society or in outer space away from everyone else.
Thank you, a thoughtful piece by a modern, reasonable person about this very difficult issue. I appreciate it.
–mac
The post states a truism but ignores the fact that the fight over abortion is not primarily about abortion but political power.
An anthropologist in the jungle listening to the stories of men with animal bones stuck through their noses will be looking for signs and structure behind the narrative. But when we talk amongst ourselves we want to imagine something more direct. That’s not how it works. Nobody says what they believe, they just describe what they want to believe, and how they define themselves in relation to others. That holds to to doctors, scientists and engineers as much as to backwoods preachers and born again housewives. People defend the structures they know and to which they see themselves as belonging, against what they see as the incursion of powers which they see as threatening that relation.
“The greatest intellectual accomplishment of the last millennium is the naturalistic worldview”
The naturalism of the ethnographer is not the naturalism of the logician. They are in fact fundamentally opposed.
seth:
blah blah blah. my personal belief is that you have your structuralist head stuck up your levi-straussian butt.
just because we construct beliefs out of personal narratives doesn’t mean beliefs as such don’t exist. and i know you’d be hard-pressed to argue otherwise without contradicting your own presuppositions all over the place.
what we definitely do NOT need is not more arguments minus evidence.
On a slightly different tack, Hilzoy at Obsidian Wings has what I’ve find a very compelling argument that part of the essence of democracy is that one doesn’t take the law into one’s own hands, even if one believes the law is allowing murderers to go free.
http://obsidianwings.blogs.com/obsidian_wings/2009/06/in-which-i-disagree-with-megan-mcardle-some-more.html
Sorry brook, numbers don’t have subtexts, but words do, at least when we use them. Most people who say abortion is murder don’t think abortion is murder, but they won’t admit it unless pressed. Ronald Dworkin has been making that argument for years. But that still won’t change their vote; and that’s the point, right?
The argument that abortion is murder serves a purpose for some people. You want to think people are rational in the sense of knowing what they say, but their arguments follow a logic -in the sense that a pattern is a logic- and that’s not the same thing. To understand people who have to listen to what they say as well as what they think they mean. Scientists are not trained politicians and we experience life in a political world not a Platonic one. Successful politicians are realists and realism is a form of naturalism. Con men are realists.
By the way I think also that it’s logical to assume that a number of the leaders of the anti-abortion movement are more interested in protecting their power base than in the issue of abortion itself. So it’s useless to argue with them as if they believe what they say. But what form of logic am I using when I make that assessment?
There’s plenty of data on the history of demagogues and hypocrisy but you won’t find that data in the arguments of demagogues unless you refuse to take them at face value.
If you want me to give you a list of scientists acting irrationally, acting through a mythification of their relation to the world of facts, (as people tend to do regardless of their profession) I’ll give you one.