It sounds like we agree that the act itself of carrying an unwanted baby to term is virtuous. If the person then acts unvirtuously afterwards, then that is the unvirtuous part. Since there are always other options to deal with unwanted children there is no need for such actions. Unfortunately many people are unaware of such options! Hopefully someone reading this article and comments in the future will learn that such options are available and be willing to consider them.

I’ve heard the concert violinist example before, though I can’t recall where. It’s a cogent analogy, but an analogy is only valid if it is in fact analogous to the situation it describes. In this case it’s not because (except in case of rape as already noted above) in the analogy the violinist was hooked up without consent. To make it analogous, it would need to be modified to say something like “Suppose you woke up one morning after sleeping in a particular place and found that a concert violinist was hooked up to your kidneys. You knew that by sleeping that place that this was a distinct possibility, but chose to do so anyways.” When properly formed in this way, it doesn’t matter whether he asked to be hooked up or not, it would be unethical to remove him. So it is not analogous to the unborn situation.

This does raise an interesting point though. This hypothetical violinist has kidneys that are no longer functioning. Is he less of a human person due to that fact? Or is a human who has leprosy and therefore has lost the sensation of pain less of a human person? Or if a person is in a coma and/or lacks basic motor skills, are they no longer a person? The basic question is, what makes a human un-killable? Their physical abilities, or is it their intrinsic nature? If it’s possible to define a human and not being a person, without any non-arbitrary way to differentiate between them, it seems like a potentially dangerous slippery slope.

Basically what I’m suggesting is that the unborn is not merely a “scrap of human tissue” … if you find a fetus described in that way in any medical textbook, please let me know. It is in fact a human person (complete in itself) at an earlier stage of development.

I will concede that a fetus is human, insofar as it has human DNA and is not any other kind of creature. But the same can be said of any scrap of human tissue. Is a fetus a human person, though? I don’t think it is. During the first trimester it simply doesn’t have the neurological apparatus to be a person, and even beyond that, it doesn’t have the wherewithal of some farm animals, which we have no compunction about killing for our own self-preservation.

I forget the name of the philosopher and the textbook is still packed, but there is also an argument for abortion that does not depend on the ontological status of the fetus in order to work. It goes thusly: suppose you woke up one morning and found that a concert violinist was hooked up to your kidneys, his own having failed. He’ll die if you disconnect him, and concert violinists most certainly are persons, and perhaps he wasn’t the one who asked to be hooked up to you…but then, does a person have the right to invade and use your body against your will?

I was about to say that of course I agree it’s virtuous to voluntarily carry an unwanted baby to term, but upon reflection, I’m not sure that it is. I suppose it depends on what you do next. I have a few friends who were unwanted children, and the very last word I would use to describe their mothers is “virtuous”! Maybe it started out that way, but it turned into something hard and bitter and ugly very soon after. It’s good to hear about the drop-offs, at least, and I’m sure that we have something like it in Ontario.

I would love to flesh this out some more, but this is the only working computer we have at the moment, and my beloved is waiting to get onto it…

It seems like the conversation keeps coming back to the same question: What is this thing being aborted? One philosopher put it this way: “If the unborn is not a human person, no justification for abortion is necessary. However, if the unborn is a human person, no justification for abortion is adequate.”

So in the first example, “that’s even more of a reason to protect a woman’s choice: can you imagine being compelled to carry a stranger around inside you for nine months, against your will?” The thing is, if this “stranger” is a human person who, through no fault of his/her own, is currently developing in the mother’s womb, is it right to kill them? It’s not their fault that they are there. (Now certainly there is the very real problem of rape, which is a serious moral and criminal tragedy, but according to Planned Parenthood’s own numbers about 1% of abortions occur for that reason; so even if we say for the sake of argument that abortion would be allowed in those cases, this still leaves around 99% of abortions.)

In terms of where to draw the line, I can’t see how being a human person could be a “spectrum”. It seems like it’s one of those things that you either are, or aren’t. It seems dangerous to say “This human [being, entity, thing?] doesn’t count as a human person.” And if we aren’t sure if it is a human person or not, then we should err on the side of caution and not kill it. If I have a gun and am about to shoot at a box, if there’s even a slight chance that there’s a person in that box, you would stop me from shooting at it. So even if there is a possibility that this thing is a human person or not, I would say we should not kill it.

That said, I can’t imagine how difficult it must be to carry a baby to term (I’m not even going feign trying); especially one that a woman doesn’t want! But if this really is a human person, it seems like doing so would be the kind of commitment that would be virtuous to make. And there are options after birth. A friend of mine created babydropoff.com to let people know that “All 50 states now have laws allowing parents to abandon unwanted babies safely and without fear of prosecution.” (“Abandon” in the sense of leaving them with competent caregivers at a hospital or other such location.) It lists what to do in each state. I don’t know what the law is in Ontario but I hope that there is something similar set up. There are many organizations that can help too.

With regard to the anxiety surrounding late-term abortions, I know where I put my lines, but culturally speaking, the first trimester seems to be the closest we can manage to reaching a consensus. I guess it can be likened to a spectrum. It’s hard to fix the point at which one colour becomes another in a way that’s going to please everyone, and there’s a sense in which any decision carries a certain amount of arbitrariness, but that doesn’t mean that there aren’t clear examples of each colour. The first trimester seems like a pretty clear example; much later, and people want there to be a good reason. I can respect that.

It sounds like you’re saying that it is at birth (when the baby leaves the mother’s body) that it becomes a human being. Hence, it is only a potential human being because when it is still physically part of the mother it shares her personhood and has not yet become an individual person.

I wonder though how a change in location (from womb to outside world) results in a change in ontological status. From the beginning, the baby’s DNA is unique from its mother’s, so physically at least it is a unique individual. How does passing through the birth canal change its status as a person? Yes, the unborn is entirely dependent on the mother for sustenance during pregnancy, but it remains entirely dependent for sustenance after birth. And its development continues after birth as well, both physical and mental.

As you’ve rightly noted, abortions after the first trimester are rare. But if the unborn does not become a human being until after birth, why bother protecting a non-human being by placing conditions on late-term abortions? If these restrictions are due to the fact that at some point late-term the status of the unborn changes, we need to define an observable and non-arbitrary point which this changes, since if at any point we’re not sure whether this thing is a human being, we should err on the side of caution and not kill it. That’s why I find it difficult to call the fetus a “potential” or developing human being. That process of development begins at the earliest stages of pregnancy and continues in an unbroken stream of development through pregnancy and after pregnancy.

I think, though, that the spectre of the fetus that is technically viable outside of the womb is raised in abortion debates far more often than it occurs in real life. Viability starts late in the second trimester. The vast majority of abortions are performed in the first trimester, when the fetus doesn’t have the nervous system of a vole. And virtually all late-term abortions are performed only when the mother’s life or health is at risk. Even prior to American legislation (which left out the exception for health), physicians’ professional organizations placed that condition on the procedure. So, I’m comfortable with birth being the point at which a fetus becomes a human being.

Where we differ, then, seems to be what constitutes a “kid”. If what is aborted is a kid, then it seems that it would be wrong to do so. However, if what is aborted is not, then it seems perfectly alright to do so. The reason I am focusing on this issue is because the topic of abortion can be quite emotionally charged, so it can help to focus on what seems to be the main question: What is the unborn?

So it seems you’re suggesting that at some point, the unborn becomes a child (kid) and therefore should be protected. I was wondering when would you say this change (not a kid & can be killed -> to -> kid & can’t be killed) occurs, and why?

There is another life involved, the life of that baby and it isn’t just about the woman and her body. But as I said, let’s agree to disagree on this one since I don’t want to get into a heated debate.

I have cried with women who have lost babies after feeling them kick and holding them in their arms and seeing how perfect they are while at the same place in their pregnancy another woman had an abortion. There are two lives to be considered.In the case of the second woman she thought it was just her decision but now is going through exactly what this author describes.