When does a fetus become a person?

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution ^ | 8/1/03 | Shaunti Feldhahn, Diane Glass

[optimistically_conservative]

When does a fetus become a person?
Shaunti Feldhahn, a right-leaning columnist, writes the commentary this week and Diane Glass, a left-leaning columnist, responds.

Shaunti's bio Forum SHAUNTI FELDHAHN for ajc.com Asking when a fetus becomes a person is sort of like asking when a bird becomes winged. By definition, a bird is winged. By definition, a fetus is a person. What else would it be -- a horse? But this question, as asked by the pro-choice movement, is not about when a fetus becomes a homo sapiens. It's about when a fetus is enough of an individual to have the rights of any other homo sapiens -- in other words, when it has the right to life. A pro-choice professor at Princeton, Peter Singer, has an interesting answer. He says, with perfect intellectual consistency, that there's nothing special about the demarcation line of birth. If the parents are allowed to abort a baby a few weeks before birth, he argues, they should be allowed to kill the baby a few weeks after birth if that results in greater happiness overall. As he says in Practical Ethics, "A newborn baby, [like a fetus,] is not an autonomous being, capable of making choices, and so to kill a newborn baby cannot violate the principle of respect for autonomy." Being a parent of a new baby myself, that position sickens me -- but it is more honest than the argument that birth brings some fundamental change that suddenly results in 'personhood.' In an earlier column, Diane stated a common liberal position that the qualification for human personhood is free will -- so an unborn baby, dependent on the mother, is not a person. Well why on earth would you think a fetus lacks free will? Free will is about someone's internal desires and ability to make choices (it is not about the ability to carry out that choice -- you would never say that a quadriplegic lacks free will). And a fetus does make free-will choices in its own little environment. It sucks its thumb for comfort. If you press on it, it gets irritated (or interested) and presses back. And if it's asleep or dozing and you press a buzzer to your belly, the fetus thrashes around and practically shrieks "stop that!" Some experts believe that by 14 weeks a fetus can even feel pain - such as the horrific pain that would surely attend an abortion. An unborn baby has free will, and it wills to live just like the rest of us. So when does a fetus become a person? It's not when you can feel that little warm body nuzzling into your shoulder, and it's not when you can feel little legs pushing against the inside of your ribs. It's not when the ultrasound shows a huge head and little waiflike body turning lazy somersaults before the baby is big enough to be felt. It's not even when a lone heartbeat pulses out of its dark ocean. A fetus becomes a person when the spark of life is launched on its miraculous journey. A fetus becomes a person at the beginning. Where all life begins. For more information, I suggest: Abortion and Human Rights Diary of an Unborn Baby More on Peter Singer

Diane's bio Forum DIANE GLASS AJC columnist "Where all life begins." Are we really talking about all life? Or just human life? A fetus is a person when it is independent of a woman's body. Anti-choice advocates stance on fetal rights rests on the assumption we're made in the image of God. All human life is sacred so fetal rights usurp women's rights. To assume human superiority is the height of narcissism and wishful thinking. It's the same kind of mindset of Nazi Germany. We're no more sacred than the ocean or sky. As seductive as it is for anti-choice advocates to mask their arguments with over the top philosophers and overly sentimental descriptions about babies sucking their thumbs, let's talk about what we're really talking about. Granting a fetus rights means a woman's body is the ward of the state. She no longer has rights -- the fetus does. You can't protect fetal rights unless you disregard women's rights. If fetuses are given more rights than adult women other worrisome repercussions are not far along. Pregnant women who smoke, have a glass of wine, do not visit their doctor or do anything deemed inappropriate can be arrested. Their body becomes a weapon and their lives enslaved. A woman's body is not her own. And let's be realistic. Laws affect poor women who have no support network and resources. So while affluent white women are flying to Europe to terminate pregnancies, poor minority women are in the United States having a child they can't afford. This isn't a debate about when life begins. This is a debate about what life we value. If we were so concerned about when life begins our concern would extend to horses, plant life and toads. But it doesn't. This is a debate about "rights," and if we value women's rights over fetal rights. Conservative Christians assume that if we eradicate women's basic rights we'll all be one step closer to heaven where pink-cheeked cherubic angels fly. I think they're headed in the wrong direction. The Bible makes no reference to abortion or infanticide, a common practice in ancient times. Why didn't an omniscient God make His intentions clear? God provided the Ten Commandments as an easy reference guide. 'Thou Shalt Not Kill' is bandied about by anti-choice advocates when defending fetal rights. But perhaps this Cliffs Notes version was too brief. That's kind of vague, don't you think? Why do we kill animals? Doesn't "not kill" mean "not kill?" Otherwise, God would have carved in stone, "Do not kill human beings, born or unborn. But you can kill other animals." Despite their fervent protests for fetal rights these same conservatives eat eggs (chicken embryos) but get out picket signs about their own brood. They rationalize this obvious conflict with Bible school lessons. Human life is better than the rest of the animal world, they argue. We're special. God says so. That doesn't surprise me. When you rule the world, why stop at the female body?

[onedoug]

"We're no more sacred than the ocean or sky."

I didn't ask the water for my latest swim, nor the sky to see it undressed.

[BearArms]

The only time during gestation that we can find such a dramatic moment is at the meeting of the gametes. From that point on there is development and change but the person is already there. The "magic" of life has already happened.

The question I think she is posing, though, is what makes a human embryo different from a chicken embryo in terms of moral status? She's saying that the fact that the human embryo is a member of homo sapiens is not enough to entitle the embryo to rights that would supercede the rights of it's adult human mother.

If the pro-lifer responds that genetic membership in the human race is enough, the question of "why?" must be answered. It is very difficult to answer that question without resorting to arguments founded in religious or spiritual beliefs.

[nickcarraway]

ping

[tkathy]

Don't all these religious arguments belong in the church and NOT in politics or the legal system?

[MEGoody]

"To assume human superiority is the height of narcissism and wishful thinking."

This idiot doesn't realize she just blasted her own argument out of the water. If all of nature is equal, then whether she considers the 'fetus' to be human or not, she shouldn't be destroying it.

[optimistically_conservative]

The Bible makes no reference to abortion or infanticide, a common practice in ancient times. Why didn't an omniscient God make His intentions clear? God provided the Ten Commandments as an easy reference guide. 'Thou Shalt Not Kill' is bandied about by anti-choice advocates when defending fetal rights. But perhaps this Cliffs Notes version was too brief. That's kind of vague, don't you think? Why do we kill animals? Doesn't "not kill" mean "not kill?" Otherwise, God would have carved in stone, "Do not kill human beings, born or unborn. But you can kill other animals."

"You shall not murder." (Exodus 20:13). Although the sixth commandment is often mistranslated as "You shall not kill," the use of the Hebrew verb ratzach identifies it specifically with murder.

"Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed, for He made man in the image of God" (Gen. 9:6).

[MEGoody]

"Can a woman claim a fetus as a dependent?"

Insurance companies currently pay for in utero surgery performed on the unborn. Seems logical to me that the unborn child is a dependent.

[nightdriver]

"A fetus is a person when it is independent of a woman's body."

WRONG-GUH!!

Notice that with both feet firmly planted in the air, Ms. Glass goes through the gyrations of trying to re-define God, life and the natural order.

Typical of the flailing about of the liberal mind when honestly confronted with absolutes.

[GraniteStateConservative]

Yeah, you start asking them if it's a life 1 second after birth, then at birth, then 1 second before birth and backward until they realize how goofy their argument is.

[Wordsmith]

These are not "religious arguments". They are arguments to which one can bring a religious perspective. There's a big difference. We're not debating who can be a Christian, we're debating who is a person.

[GraniteStateConservative]

You can believe that human life should be protected from a purely utilitarian point of view. We need more people to propogate the species.

You can assign superiority to humanity without religion by saying that man is undeniably at the top of the food chain and that the world is our dominion-- even if by force.

[onedoug]

Don't all these religious arguments belong in the church and NOT in politics or the legal system?

Does what you believe in, and why, not effect how you do or don't vote?

[Sloth]

We far too often fall for the trick of portraying the abortion question as one of personal religious belief rather than hard science. I'm a Christian, but if I were an atheist, I could recognize abortion as murder just as surely as I do now.

[MEGoody]

"If you assume that abortion is a right because a woman has a right to control her own body, then you must also assert that prostitution should also be legal on the same basis."

And all those girls who cut themselves or have anorexia or bulimia are just controlling their bodies as well, yet somehow, the lefties of this world would say those young ladies need help.

[MEGoody]

Exodus 21:23 is a pretty telling verse as well as regards abortion.

[MEGoody]

"Don't all these religious arguments belong in the church and NOT in politics or the legal system?"

Abortion is more of a political argument than a religious argument. There are any number of atheists who are also intelligent enough to know that killing off one's own species in droves is not a smart thing to do.

[optimistically_conservative]

Only in that it was repudiated by Christ in the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5:38-48)

[optimistically_conservative]

Exodus

21:22
If men strive, and hurt a woman with child, so that her fruit depart from her, and yet no mischief follow: he shall be surely punished, according as the woman's husband will lay upon him; and he shall pay as the judges determine.

21:23
And if any mischief follow, then thou shalt give life for life,

21:24
Eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot,

21:25
Burning for burning, wound for wound, stripe for stripe.

[aruanan]

Poor Diane just doesn't think things through. She judges that a fetus becomes a person when it is "independent of a woman's body." Yet she ignores the fact that it is relative dependence upon a caregiver that makes penalties for abandonment more or less severe.

For instance, a parent finally telling an indolent 18-year-old to get out of the house because he's not going to continue to clothe and feed him if he won't fit in with the program will not cause many eyebrows to be raised. Why? Because someone who is 18 years old is generally able to care for himself. After all, the age of majority (except for smoking and drinking) is 18. A parent who throws out progressively younger children for the same reason is looked upon with progressively greater derision. Someone who leaves a newborn in a garbage dumpster because she is unwilling to care for it is deemed a criminal (unless she tries to flush it down a toilet upon birth, in which case she is looked upon by some to be a poor little victim).

At least in the above cases someone else can step it and care for the child, though with greater effort and sacrifice required the earlier she steps in to do it. Also greater praise from society for being willing to take on a responsibility not of her own creation. In the case of an unborn child--at least one that cannot be delivered by Caesarian--the responsibility for the child's welfare is totally in the hands of one woman. That child is totally dependent on that single individual.

It's more than just bizarre to say that the abandonment of the child with its sure death as a result isn't worthy of the same censure as that described above for the mom who drops her progeny into a dumpster or a toilet. It's nonsense to claim that that abdication of responsibility for no other reason than not wanting to continue the responsibility is a constitutionally protected right. The claim that the child isn't a person until "independent of" the mother's body is just a way of salving a woman's conscience over killing it. Besides, if the fetus is a person after becoming independent of the mother's body, then the mother's act of aborting it is the act of producing a dead person. That's at least homicide.

[Doc Savage]

If I asked you, "Is a sperm cell a LIVING cell?", the only possible answer is yes. If I asked you, "Is an egg cell (ovum) a LIVING cell?", the only possible answer is yes. Therefor, a zygote is also a LIVING cell. If you abort a fertilized ovum you are there for killing a living cell or cells. Abortion is clearly the purposeful murder of a LIVING orgamism which in it's early stages derives it's nourishment from the mother's body.

Choice my ASS! It's murder!