A Socratic Look at “The Sanctity of Life”
The issue of abortion is one that elicits extreme emotional reactions, regardless of what side of the “debate” you stand. People who are pro-choice tend to see the other side as comprised solely of bigoted religious people (mostly men) who want to “control women’s bodies”. Pro-life people tend to see their opponents as “baby killers” and “murderers”. Both sides see the other as evil people who are so fundamentally opposed to their values that they cannot be reasoned with.
Can this division ever be resolved?
As someone who is pro-choice, I see many in my circle claim that being against abortion, or even associating with or being friends with someone who is pro-life displays a Gilead-style contempt for women’s bodily autonomy. The attempted cancellation of Strange Planet cartoonist Nathan W Pyle was an example of this — he was decried as a bigot because his girlfriend went to an anti-abortion rally, and because he personally was pro-life, despite supporting the legalisation of abortion.
While I understand the fear and desperation that pro-choice women have about the attempted rollbacks of abortion rights in America and elsewhere, and thus empathise with their extreme “us vs them” mentality, I also have empathy for the pro-life position, and I believe it’s much more complex than the progressive cause portrays it as.
The issue of abortion is not one that can be boiled down to a soundbite or a 240 character tweet. It’s not enough to say “my body my choice” or “abortion is murder”.
I have loved ones and family members who are pro-life and I know their reasoning for it is not because they want women to suffer, but because they don’t want what they consider to be “babies” to be killed. And in their moral viewpoint, the right to life of a fetus trumps the right to choice of a pregnant woman to abort.
Now I know that there are many people in the pro-life crowd who are motivated by religion, or who are misogynists who believe that pregnancy is a woman’s punishment for having sex, and that the way to decrease abortion is to criminalise it (despite the evidence showing that criminalising abortion merely drives it underground and leads to more deaths).
The way to reduce abortion rates is through comprehensive sex education and affordable access to birth control. Both pro-life and pro-choice people should be on the same side in this effort.
Bible-thumping Republicans are not the only people who are pro-life however. And if a pro-choice person is to ever get a pro-life person to see their perspective or come around to their point of view, they need to engage with the philosophy of being pro-life.
Human Life is Sacred.
This is the cornerstone of the pro-life position. As such, it’s not possible to counter-argue this with “but bodily autonomy” unless you dig deeper, because a pro-life person will typically rank bodily autonomy and freedom below preserving life.
So let’s examine the concept of the “sanctity of life”. I will use a Socratic method to unpack this idea. I invite any pro-life readers to comment below and offer your counter-arguments.
One thing I’ve notice about the “human life is sacred” position, is that people who make that claim tend to not exactly apply it consistently.
I consider it a consistent moral position only if the person claiming to be “pro-life” also:
- Is against the death penalty
- Is against euthanasia/assisted suicide
- Is anti-war
Because if “life is sacred” then that means ALL human life right? Even the lives of people who no longer want to live, and the lives of pedophiles, murderers, soldiers etc?
Now one may claim that fetuses are different because they are “innocent” — OK. What about the fact that a significant proportion of people executed by the death penalty are exonerated after death? The death penalty kills innocent people too. So does war, in terms of civilian casualties. Let alone people who are choosing to kill themselves humanely due to an incurable progressive, painful illness.
Maybe you truly are “all human life is sacred” and don’t have any inconsistent beliefs in regards to that. I respect that consistency if that’s the case.
However I would ask — what about the life of a pregnant woman who will die unless she has an abortion? What about the life of a pregnant woman with cancer, whose only chance for survival is to get chemotherapy, but to do so would kill the fetus? Don’t those lives matter? In tragic situations where you have to trade off one life for another, which one do you choose?
A “pro-life” position is not a simple one and it’s all but impossible to apply to all circumstances.
Maybe you’re of the opinion that there’s a difference in morality between “letting a life die” and “actively killing something” which is a deontological position. (Think, the classic trolley-problem thought experiment). So even if aborting a fetus would save a person’s life, it would still be morally wrong, according to this belief.
Another thought experiment — is it wrong to switch off the life support of a brain-dead but physically alive body? For example, is it wrong to turn off the life support of a body where there is absolutely no brain activity or chance of recovery, but the rest of the body is “alive”? The blood circulates (with assistance), the lungs deliver oxygen to the cells (with assistance) and thus the body remains “alive”.
Most people recognise that despite the body’s “life” — consciousness is a fundamental part of what we consider being “alive” and thus what we consider to be “the sanctity of life”. Thus for most people, it is not wrong to turn off life support for a brain dead body, especially when doing so will free up the life support machine to save someone else.
This thought experiment illustrates the difference between something without consciousness vs something with consciousness. Now consider the fetus — the consciousness of a fetus develops over time from the complete unawareness of a clump of cells no bigger than a bacteria, to the unconsciousness of a small, sleeping animal, to the almost-dreams of a fully formed unborn baby.
For people who think human life is more “sacred” than that of an animal — what is it that makes it so? Perhaps you believe in the existence of a “soul”. If so — given the millions of years of evolution during which we evolved from single celled bacteria, to sea creatures, to land animals, to primates, hominids and now humans — evolution that has reams of scientific evidence to support it — at what point during this evolution did a “soul” develop?
The more scientific answer for why humans are more important than animals, is that we are “more intelligent and thus more conscious” than other animals. That may be true in most cases — but it’s been shown by science that pigs have the equivalent intelligence to a three year old child. Dogs have the equivalent intelligence to a toddler. And chimpanzees and gorillas are more intelligent than intellectually disabled humans. All of which are more intelligent — more “conscious” if you will, than an undeveloped fetus.
I am not arguing that children, babies or the intellectually disabled should be treated badly because some animals are more intelligent or “conscious” than them. I am a vegetarian who is transitioning to veganism because my ethical philosophy is that of “trying to do least harm” and I believe that because animals can be conscious and can suffer, we should therefore avoid hurting them if possible. Does my opinion mean I believe all animals’ lives are equal? No. I don’t feel guilty about swatting a mosquito for example. That’s because I think life’s importance is on a spectrum, and that the more conscious a life is, the more it is able to feel pain, the more important it is to safeguard.
Does that mean that I think that we should treat children or the intellectually disabled as “lesser” than more intelligent or developed adults? No.
As a human society we do have to draw some boundaries by which we treat all beings with an equal standard of protection. At the moment the distinction we draw as a society is personhood not “humanity”.
This means that whether it’s a baby, a child, a mentally disabled person, someone with Alzheimer’s disease, or a healthy intelligent adult, we affirm their right to life. Perhaps one day we will extend personhood to non-humans — consider if AI ever reaches the singularity and becomes sentient, or if we make contact with advanced non-human aliens.
And so the issue of abortion boils down to personhood.
At what point does a fetus become a person? I don’t think it should be considered one when it is a clump of cells, with no brain, no heart or any consciousness higher than that of an amoeba. The development of consciousness in a fetus, just like the evolution of consciousness from cell to animal to human, is progressive. There’s no one point at which you can say a switch was flipped from “not conscious” to “conscious”.
This is where the issue of “bodily autonomy” becomes a consideration.
In our society, all people are considered to have bodily autonomy. That means that even if doing so would save another person’s life, you can’t force someone to say, donate a kidney. Even if doing so wouldn’t kill them, and would save someone else, you can’t make someone donate an organ to save another person’s life, without their consent.
In fact, our society extends this to the rights of dead bodies who if they didn’t consent to organ donation before death, are granted bodily autonomy, even if donating the organs of a dead body would save one or more lives. (I personally think this goes too far, because I subscribe to the consciousness model of personhood — once you’re dead, you’re not actually a “person” anymore, you’re a dead body, and your rights are superseded by the rights of people, in my opinion. But that’s a debate for another time.).
We can all agree that women are people, right? Therefore, it would be wrong to force a woman to donate a kidney to someone — even if doing so would save another person’s life, even a child’s life, even a baby’s life — it’s still wrong to force that woman to donate that kidney if she doesn’t want to.
Another hypothetical — let’s say there was an old person who needed a kidney, but they would die of old age eventually and the organ could be returned to the young donor. A temporary organ donation if you would. Should you force a person to donate their kidney to that old person? Even if it was temporary?
Why not? Because the person receiving the donation could die and it would be a waste? That’s true of all human life, and is especially true for fetuses. Let alone fetuses with genetic abnormalities “incompatible with life” (which make up almost all “late term abortions”). Perhaps it’s wrong because there’s no guarantee that the organ could be returned in its original state, maybe the donor would get an infection or die, or their returned kidney wouldn’t work properly once it was reimplanted? That’s true of pregnancy, as women can still die due to conditions like preeclampsia or infection after birth, and their uterus and other reproductive organs can be permanently damaged by pregnancy and birth.
Perhaps it’s wrong because it denies someone their bodily autonomy. Even a “temporary” organ donation, done without consent, is an affront to the principle of bodily autonomy which our society recognises.
A uterus is an organ. Pregnancy is temporary organ donation. If a woman doesn’t want to donate her uterus to a fetus , she can withdraw her consent. It’s sad, but it’s in my opinion, ethical.
So at what point should we decide a fetus is a “person”? When it can survive outside the uterus on its own.
That means that even if the woman no longer wants to be pregnant, the fetus can be born alive but prematurely. It also means that late term abortion is ethical in the cases where the fetus couldn’t survive after birth, or would be born “brain dead” or without consciousness. Which is the only reason a late term abortion is carried out.
This is why I am pro-choice. I’ve thought a lot about it. I think my views are ethical and consistent.
As such, I believe abortion should be legal for women up until the point a fetus could survive on its own outside the womb. At the same time I want abortion to become a rare occurrence. To that aim I support comprehensive sex education, funding for organisations like Planned Parenthood (which does a lot to actually reduce rates of unplanned pregnancy, it is not merely or even mostly an abortion organisation) and access to cheap and effective long-lasting birth control (such as implants or IUDs).
Perhaps one day there will be other changes in society that will further reduce abortion — such as the invention of artificial wombs, which an unwanted fetus can be transferred to, or the elimination of rape from our society. But I’m not holding my breath.
In the meantime, abortion should, in my opinion, be safe, legal, and rare.
Because every baby who is born, should be a wanted child.
