powers@noscvax.UUCP (William J. Powers) (07/20/85)
This note is intended as an accumulation of thoughts having just read the net of the last few days. Question: Is a fetus part of a women's body? If it is, should a women be permitted to do anything to her body that she wants? If she shouldn't, why not? Every society must decide questions like this. It is part of the creation of a system of rights and responsibilities that members of a given society are expected to follow. Contrary to the expression of the American declaration of independence, rights are not inalienable. They are the creations of a societal environment. I say this because some people seem to argue as if there were some Platonic, immutable meaning to the word "rights". We, as a society, can decide (by whatever means) to do anything we please. Why would a society want to decide that a women ( or any person) can't do what they want to their own bodies. One view is that we don't own our own bodies and can therefore not decide on our own what we do with it. Most Americans would claim that they do not share this view. Another view is that we do own our own bodies but that we can't decide to do things to it which would adversely affect others. "Adversely" clearly means here a matter of degree. This is true at least partly because of varying degrees of sensitivity (some people are annoyed at the very existence of others, but I don't think that is a good argument for eliminating others). This point of view is similar to the argument centered around smoking. Everyone seems to agree that a smoker can smoke anywhere that the smoke is not likely to be detected by others. So the question is whether there is any way for an abortion to be performed in this way. Anti-abortionists would most likely argue that there is not. Hence, we must conclude that they argue that either a women does not own her body or that a fetus is not part of her. The point to consider now is what is meant by "part of her". Anti-abortionists seem to argue that a women does not own a fetus in the way that she owns an arm or a cancer. Is it possible to own a fetus? The answer most certainly is yes (People not to long ago in this country owned other adults). Even today people are said to own children, pets, animals, trees. Surely, she owns the fetus after it is born; so there seems to be no contradiction in present day thinking for a person to own a fetus. So, the fetus is owned by the woman, but that does not mean that she can do anything she wants with her property. (e.g., we prohibit cruelty to animals and children). So what can she do with this property and what can't she do? We don't require that she take good care of it, because it means not thaking care of herself. And we have no objection to people not taking care of themselves. In this country, we seem to believe that it is ok for some to live under abject conditions. The fact is that the only thing that anti-abortionists require is that she not kill this property. It doesn't matter how she kills it, or that 99% of Americans depend on others killing their property (i.e., meat). In fact they don't even car how that property (cattle) is killed. This is indeed a strange kind of owning since it is something which she cannot dispose of. If such a heavy responsibility resides with ownership of a fetus, one is led to ask if there is a similar responsibility with regard to our gametes (eggs and sperm). We own them, but can we do what we please with this property? Traditional Christain-Hebrew law says that we cannot. I suspect that anti-abortionists are divided on this issue. The reason for this is that many of them have come to accept sex without children. They do not think of gametes as human life (this was not the case, and is probably still not the case, not too long ago). Most people today do not believe that it is their responsibility to multiply. Why? This is true at least because we no longer are a nomadic tribe of people with extremely high mortality rates. Under such conditions society cannot permit the "wasting of seed". Women must marry and bear children (indeed that is their primary responsibility) and homosexuality is to be forbidden or certainly discouraged. So, today we do not live that way. We may be threatened by many things (imagined and real); but one of them is certainly not extinction due to insufficient births. Women can and have been freed from their exclusive roles as child bearers and mothers. Women are living longer and must view almost half of their lives as not being mothers or child bearers. Surely a redefinition of the place of women in this society must take place. I will stop soon. But I ask, before I do, what is so special about this property of a fetus? Anti-abortionists talk about the advances of science being able to preserve the life of an ever younger fetus. (I think this is irrelevant, but I will persue the issue.) What if science were to advance to the point where pregnancy could be detected when the fetus were but a few days old. What if ALL pregnancies which were aborted were of fetuses that were but a few thousand cells old. Would that matter? The classic anti-abortion argument would have to answer no. Live human cells are to be treated as treasures to be salvaged if at all possible. The dichotomy between this view and the reality which I see manifested daily in the lives of Americans is beginning to verge on the fantastic. If one thousandth of a percent of the effort which went into the preserving of a thousand cells were devoted to the saving of the trillions which are already free of their mother's wombs, I would not be so uneasy. The obvious answer is that there is nothing objectively (whatever that means) about this thousand cells. It is something else. There is some unspoken taboo or prejudice which is really at issue (like the ERA, the real issue is never discussed). What is so special about these one thousand cells. Here, you can have them. What will you do with them? You will create another miracle, a human life. Now what? Why was s/he brought to fruition? For what purpose? God does not give such answers. It does not matter that this life is not prized after birth. That there may already be too many of us here. That every American born shortens the lives of others all over the world because of its voracious appetite. We scream about the preserving of a thousand cells, while gnawing on the bones of dying children. Why? I would like to see ALL life respected. But I also know that as a living creature I must continue to devour other life so that I can continue to create new life. It is with this in mind that Life must be respected. Modern society has lost complete touch with this reality. I can see how one might think that protecting these one thousand cells is vital to preserving not that life, but your life. Many groups of people in the West ( and Muslim countries, etc.) feel that their "way of life" is being threatened. Indeed, it most certainly is. I too feel that way. Shiva will devour us all. What will come, I know not. My only point is that abortion is but a fleck on the eyelid of the giant. Perhaps it is better not described, for I am but a fleck on the fleck. I cannot see the giant, it cannot see me. I cannot really argue for or against abortion. I cannot see where the giant will carry me. History is not moved by reason or logic. Abortion by itself is a neutral issue. Do we need more children? No, then abortion is ok. But nothing stands by itself. It is the rest of the stuff that is really important; and it is the stuff that is hardest to describe for us flecks upon flecks. Bill Powers