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?

[nomad]

The fact that the fetus IS a member of the SENTIENT race called Homo sapiens should be sufficient reason to distinguish it as different from a chicken egg whose "race" is not, however, if one belives in this Nazi like argument about self autonomy determining one`s right to life, then why not kill all people who are dependent on others, including the losers on welfare? This liberal hack would no doubt be against that since her party would lose a major part of their voting base.

The question I would like this and all such liberals to answer is; Why do you have to kill it? Why not just evict the fetus from the woman`s body-induce labor and deliver it as unharmed as possible from her body and let it take it`s chances? How would that somehow detract from her "rights"? If she believes women have the right to go beyond simple eviction she is under the mistaken belief that just because they are women they have the personal right to arbitrarily decide issues of life and death with out a trial. Why then do these same liberal jerks apose the death penalty for heinous crimes that have been adjudicated? Further more, why have these liberals tried to make it illegal for a person to use deadly force in defense of ones self and property? Hell, in some liberal bastions if you kill a criminal home invader you can be charged with murder. Well I`m, not buying it, I know it has more to do with enforcing leftist ideology then any perceived "rights", not to mention the multi-million dollar business built around fetal tissue.

[Hank Kerchief]

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

It certainly is. Essentially says, if an unborn is aborted, but nothing bad happens to the woman, the one who caused th abortion is "off-the-hook." It's only if something bad happens to the woman the "abortion doctor" is in trouble.

Try the verse in context, then look up a good commentary.

(By the way, it is not necessary to shed any blood of the fetus for there to be an abortion. They frequently happen spontaneiously.)

I am not arguing for abortion, only against the bad arguments against it.

Hank

[colorado tanker]

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

A suckling child is certainly not "independent" of mom's body. So does she also think infanticid is OK?

[Hank Kerchief]

When does a fetus become a person?

What is the point of the question? It has nothing to do with either abortion or rights?

Rights pertain to only one thing, the right to do. There is no such thing as a right to have, or a right to what someone else must supply. There is no right to enslave someone else.

No person, born or unborn, has a claim on the life of any other individual. Does every person have a "right to life?" Of course. Does that include an unborn person? Sure.

What is a right to life? Is it a right to demand someone else supply your food, your shelter, your clothing, your health care? Is it a right to demand someone else keep you alive at any price? Of course not?

A right to life means a person has a right to do whatever is necessary to stay alive so long as they do not, by force, interfere in the life of any other individual. Living is something you do, not something that happens to you. The right to life is the right to do whatever is required to live as a human being. This is the right of every person. It is not a guarantee every person will be successful in exercising that right. It is not a guarantee no one will die. It is not a blank check on the the account of other's lives, not even a mother's.

(Those who know me know I am opposed to abortion. Nevertheless, an agency with guns (i.e. government) is not the solution to the abortion problem. So long as that is the one most people choose to support, no real solution is forthcoming.)

Hank

[Hank Kerchief]

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!

Therefore, if I may quote you, "if I asked you, 'Is a sperm cell a LIVING cell?', the only possible answer is yes..." so, contraception "..is clearly the purposeful murder of a LIVING organism."

I think your argument is problematic.

Hank

[Conservinator]

I've said it before and I'll say it again, Leviticus 17:11 says "for the life of a creature is in the blood." A fertilized egg does not have any blood flow until it attaches to the uterine wall. At that moment, blood begins to flow, and we have life. Seems pretty clear to me.

[Sloth]

What is a right to life? Is it a right to demand someone else supply your food, your shelter, your clothing, your health care? Is it a right to demand someone else keep you alive at any price? Of course not?

It would seem, carrying your reasoning to its logical conclusion, that you would personally oppose starving infants to death but would be unwilling to exercise governmental power to stop such neglect. Correct?

[Sloth]

"if I asked you, 'Is a sperm cell a LIVING cell?', the only possible answer is yes..."

I would argue that a sperm & an ovum do *not* meet the biological criteria for life (e.g., they don't grow or reproduce), but that they in a sense "carry" life. But even if we say they are alive, they do not have a complete genetic code, and are consequently not separate organisms.

A zygote, on the other hand, is a complete human organism.

[Hank Kerchief]

It would seem, carrying your reasoning to its logical conclusion, that you would personally oppose starving infants to death but would be unwilling to exercise governmental power to stop such neglect. Correct?

That is correct. Do you think government is the only or best way to deal with this possibiltiy? So far, the government has never prevented such a case. It is only able to come in after the fact and cause lots of trouble. It never brings back the poor victoms. Is that what you favor?

Hank

[mombonn]

I can't bring myself to read the "point-counterpoint", and am sure that others have cited Scripture that describes each of us as "fearfully and wonderfully made".

From the moment I was conceived, I was me.

Thank you, Mom and Dad.

[crude77]

"...that human life is worthless untill it is self supporting."

I have never understood this statement. Does it mean that a human is worthless untill after high school or college graduation. Are they worthless untill they are gainfully employed? Does it mean untill they are outside the woom and breathing on their own?

I just cannot see an infant as self supporting or my 14 year old son for that matter.

Life begins at conception!

[Sloth]

Do you think government is the only or best way to deal with this possibiltiy? So far, the government has never prevented such a case.

I think that's an unwarranted presumption. Even some worthless, amoral people will tend to avoid certain activities if they know an "agency with guns" may come after them for it. So I would not agree that enforcement of laws against child neglect don't act as a deterrent.

In any case, I think you have a stronger case on this issue than abortion. I would disapprove of a woman who acts irresponsibly while pregnant (heavy drinking, etc.), but I would not support prosecuting her for that as her bad treatment of her child is passive and not intentional. BUT abortion is not a passive act that may have incidental consequences for someone -- it is an intentional, active killing. If government cannot do something so basic as protecting a defenseless person against violent, unjustified aggression, then there is no point to its existence. I'm a libertarian, but not an anarchist -- the government DOES have a proper role, and it is the protection of people's inherent rights from violation by others.

Secondly (excepting rape), I would argue that people who have sex have already, by doing so, agreed to provide sustenance for whatever offspring results. They cannot selfishly change their minds once they have placed a child in a situation from which it cannot be extracted.

As for any other way to deal with, say, child neglect, I can't think of anything better than an "agency with guns" except maybe for vigilante justice, which in reality is just another form of local government, an informal "agency with guns."

[optimistically_conservative]

Nicely said ....

In 1772, four years before the Declaration was signed, Samuel Adams wrote a short piece entitled “Rights of the Colonists as Men”. His words included the following:¹

Among the natural rights of the Colonists are these: First, a right to life; Secondly, to liberty; Thirdly, to property; together with the right to support and defend them in the best manner they can. These are evident branches of, rather than deductions from, the duty of self–preservation, commonly called the first law of nature. All men have a right to remain in a state of nature as long as they please; and in case of intolerable oppression, civil or religious, to leave the society they belong to, and enter into another. When men enter into society, it is by voluntary consent.… Every natural right not expressly given up, or, from the nature of a social compact, necessarily ceded, remains. All positive and civil laws should conform, as far as possible, to the law of natural reason and equity. As neither reason requires nor religion permits the contrary, every man living in or out of a state of civil society has a right peaceably and quietly to worship God according to the dictates of his conscience.

[Hank Kerchief]

Isn't "victoms" an interesting word. I thought it was victims, but maybe it means all the "Vickys" and "Toms" that are abused. (I don't think so.)

Good grief!

Hank

[Fun Bob]

Miss Glass (a tasty little cupcake btw) barely asserts her viewpoint. She spends the entire article reconstructing what she sees as the opposing viewpoint, aka, a strawman. That is no way to debate. She even goes so far as to invoke the Nazis in her second paragraph and equate the opposing viewpoint with Nazism. Maybe someone needs to instruct Miss glass on the finer points of Godwin's Law.

[Hank Kerchief]

As for any other way to deal with, say, child neglect, I can't think of anything better than an "agency with guns" except maybe for vigilante justice, which in reality is just another form of local government, an informal "agency with guns."

Here is the problem, I think. The kind of people who would actually be guilty of the kind of child neglect government is supposed to prevent, are not prevented from that neglect by the threat of government. The kind of people who might be concerned about government interference in their lives, are not the kind of people who neglect their children in the first place.

So, the first strike against the "agency with guns" scheme is that it does not work. Want proof it does not work? How man child abuse cases did you hear of thirty years ago? (Maybe you didn't hear of any, since I do not know how old you are, but I can tell you, they were very rare.) The number of laws and agencies and personnel the government has to prevent these 'crimes' has steadily increased in those same thirty years, with a corresponding increase in abuse and neglect cases. It doesn't work!

The second, and much more important fact is, once the government has the kind of power it needs to interfere in the private family lives of individuals, it will use that power both irresponsibly and (since the agencies set up to carry out such policies must be funded) to further its own power. It will definitely end up using that power against innocent people causing more harm to families and children than would ever be caused by the individual incidents or private individuals.

Most people care a great deal about children, all children, not just their own. Not every one does, but many of us do. There is nothing in the world preventing us from taking private measures which offer "no-strings-attached" help to those kinds of people whose desparation or ignorance or just plain irresponsibility might lead them to abuse or neglect their children. If this will not work, what makes you think forcing people at the point of a gun to "help" these people will work?

Hank

[Clinging Bitterly]

Didn't read the whole thing, but this part jumped out:

>> The Bible makes no reference to abortion or infanticide, a common practice in ancient times.

Actually there are references to infanticide, and I don't think it was well regarded. As for these things being common practice, I honestly don't know if any evidence exists of that. But there are lots of things found in archeological records that are examples of things decent people just don't do.

The Bible is the story of the development of a society that believes in the one God, and the learning of what God has said is right and wrong, so it's bound to have examples of those things that are regarded as sinful. This woman just didn't get that part of it, I guess.

Dave in Eugene

[aruanan]

The right to life is the right to do whatever is required to live as a human being. This is the right of every person. It is not a guarantee every person will be successful in exercising that right. It is not a guarantee no one will die. It is not a blank check on the the account of other's lives, not even a mother's.

You're in error here. The problem is that you start to reason a priori and ignore the reality of both social custom and law. If someone's life indisputably depends on the actions of another person (short of his giving his own life up voluntarily) and that other person willfully refuses to give aid whereby that dependent life could be preserved with the result that that life is either lost or sustains damage, then that other person is guilty either of endangerment or of some degree of contributing to a homicide.

Many times this relationship is codified in legally defined terms and encompasses such professions as doctor, fire fighter, police, etc.. But all of these people as caregivers, mothers and fathers included, have a responsibility to protect and defend those in their care whose lives depend on them. Those who find themselves in a dependent relationship, either through nature or through law, both legally and morally have a right to claim the proper discharge of the duties of those caregivers in such a way that will preserve their life or prevent harm. Someone doesn't want to have to put his life on the line in a profession that could bring harm to himself or make unavoidable claims on him in caring for others? Then he shouldn't go into that profession. Someone doesn't want to carry a baby to term (either natural or induced live birth)? Then don't get pregnant. Once the pregnancy occurs, regardless of the cause, that caregiver relationship has started because someone is now completely dependent on that relationship (unless you want to be like the ancient Romans who thought, with respect to an infant, "I can kill it because I can kill it--it's totally dependent on me; so I can do with it as I want, including leaving it on the mountainside for predators to take as they will.").

Only in the case of pregnancy has someone been granted the impunity to let go of the hand of another hanging over the edge of a cliff because, "Hey, I was tired of holding on!"

[Verax]

What is a right to life? Is it a right to demand someone else supply your food, your shelter, your clothing, your health care? Is it a right to demand someone else keep you alive at any price? Of course not?

This is a rediculous statement? First of all, in America, the right to life is "self evident"...it comes from our Creator, not from our Mother. The Constitution protects that right to life (life, liberty and the pursuit...) without any caveat about proximity or age.

You're arguing that it's ok to murder a person who is dependent upon another for any basic need! By your standard many others would be at the disposal of their caretakers.

To say that we have a right to life, but as a society have no obligation to defend it, is to say we have no right at all but only a priveledge subject to the wim of a completely separate individual (our mother).

It's a circular arguement to say that Americans have a right to live except for during the first 9 months because ALL RIGHTS are irrelevant if we DON'T SURVIVE those first 9 months. None of us would be here.

[Verax]

#58 - You made this arguement much better than I did...thank you.