Tuesday, July 12, 2016

So let’s talk abortion (6/27/16)

In light of the Supreme Court ruling on abortion, I figured it would be time to discuss my thoughts on abortion. I’m not gonna go into the case as much, since I don’t know all the ins and outs of the legality there and reading a huge decision like that isn’t something I particularly feel like doing, although I do have a simplistic general opinion on it.

Essentially, I’m pro choice. This is one of those things where my epistemology on the world really shines though. When I was a Christian, I believed God had a plan for people, I believed in souls, I believed that abortion was murder. That doesn’t make sense to me any more as an atheist. So I’m more or less pro choice. The way I see it, the whole abortion debate is a debate over two conflicting “rights”, the right to life on the part of the fetus, and the woman’s right to choose what to do with her body, or even whether she wants to be a parent in general. I base my views on utilitarianism, in which I try to minimize pain and maximize well being. It might be good to say, intuitively, based on this, I should be pro life, but this is more complicated and overlooks one important factor. That factor is the stage of development of the fetus.
You see, for me, there is no stage at which life “begins”, it’s just an ongoing process. Living beings use cells to make other living beings. To me, a fertilized egg isn’t any more worthy of protection than the cells they came from. Meanwhile, a fully formed baby should not be murdered. The real question to me is at what point this thing should be legally designated as a person, and has rights. You see, when you have a fertilized egg, you have this thing that can’t see, feel, hear, or think. It’s not even aware its alive. It’s like the cells on your hand. Scratch your hand. You murderer. You just killed millions of skin cells. Is this a big deal? No. Likewise, to ask a sentient being that can think, feel pain, has feelings, has desires, to give up their life for a being that does not have any of these things, seems to clearly go against the principles of my worldview. I don’t care how much potential a fetus or fertilized egg has, its concerns don’t matter compared to the parents. The will of sentient independent beings is infinitely more important than those with no ability to be sentient or dependent or feel pain to me.

As such, I think rudimentary consciousness and the ability to feel pain are central to whether a fetus should be protected. I also think viability is a concern, because let’s face it, if it can exist outside of the womb, it’s a baby enough to literally be a baby. But if it’s dependent on the mother, doesn’t have consciousness, and doesn’t feel pain, we’re good.  That being said, let’s look at these three things.

With fetal viability, you generally don’t get even a glimpse of it until week 22, and honestly, you don’t even reach 50% until week 24. Starting in week 22, you get some, like 0-10%, and then it just gets more likely after that. This seems to be a good place to start. Most abortion laws in the US ban around 20-30 weeks, and this is in part because of viability.

Consciousness is harder to pin down as it’s harder to define. I looked up consciousness in fetuses and got articles saying babies, not fetuses, but babies, are not conscious until around 5 months. This seems a bit….late. After all, babies, even newborns, can still do some things and show at least some signs of awareness of their environment. It turns out the thalamo-cortical complex, which is responsible for consciousness, develops around 24-28 weeks. I’m going to use that as a guide to go by, starting at 24-28 weeks, fetuses gain the ability to become conscious. Then after that, consciousness slowly develops in late pregnancy and even after birth, but that’s where the ground work is laid.

As for pain, pain is another thing that’s difficult to define, but this study suggests that the necessary systems to actually feel pain are not in place until week 26.

Considering these are the three factors I’ve chosen to differentiate between a clump of cells and a human worthy of legal protections, we have a pretty tight cluster of ranges to consider. The viability metric suggests 22-24 weeks. The consciousness metric suggests around 24-28 weeks. The pain metric suggests about 26 weeks. As such, we see a cluster of different metrics coming together all at once around 22-28 weeks. Let’s just say the end of the second trimester is when abortion becomes unacceptable to me. It’s definitely permissible to me before 22 weeks. It’s definitely immoral, outside of rare circumstances, after 28. 22-28 is kind of a grey area to me, but I’ll have to say I’m particularly uncomfortable with anything after 24-26 weeks. At 24 weeks, viability is 50%, and the systems that form consciousness and the ability to feel pain are well on their way to being developed. At 26 weeks, viability is 80-90%, the system required to feel pain is complete, and there might be some level of rudimentary consciousness going on there. Abortion, to me, is immoral after this point. So, that being said, that is the point at which a fetus’ concerns become more valuable than the mother’s in most cases. There are exceptions, like the mother’s health, or severe birth defects, etc. However, this is the point we should consider having legislation against it if we go this route.
For the record though, I’m not sure I’d even want regulation on this issue though. Abortion after 20 weeks is fairly rare. There may be concerns with laws being too strict and all too, making it difficult for people to get abortions who should get one. This is actually why I turned against abortion laws in 2011. I didn’t even get to the epistemology of being pro choice until 2012, but in 2011, the republicans won a bunch of states and tried passing these crazy laws that forced people with stillborn fetuses to wait until birth and stuff. I find abortion laws ridiculous and can’t help but feel like they’re overly restrictive and intended to needlessly obstruct people. It’s not really about a good scientific look at the evidence and making the best decisions for everyone involved. It’s about an ideological opposition to all abortion and the desire to make it as difficult and as degrading as possible to get one. As such, I tend to be even more pro choice legally than my own morality would suggest.

Speaking of which, that brings me to my general opinion toward this supreme court case. Again, I didn’t read it, I don’t know the ins and outs of it, but a brief look causes me to be in favor of it. A lot of abortion laws are put in place intentionally to obstruct. We have laws that force women to get ultra sounds. We’re closing down clinics that cause people to travel hundreds of miles to get one, which is expensive and difficult because of other commitments. States like Texas can’t make abortion illegal, but they can add so many legal hurdles it makes it effectively impossible to get one for many. Considering how this case makes it easier for people to get abortions, and gets rid of a lot of that obstruction, I’m for it. I hear some people claiming it makes women less safe, but I’m not really convinced of this, considering the power plays the GOP have done in the last few years. I ultimately think a 5-3 decision suggests that the court sees it the same way too. Essentially, the court saw no good reason for these laws, and struck them down as needlessly obstructive. To that, I say bravo.

That being said, to conclude. I’m largely pro choice. I don’t believe abortion is really immoral until around, say, 24-26 weeks or so, and I also largely oppose abortion laws, which are more often than not written by ideological pro lifers who hate all abortion and want to make it as difficult as possible to get one in general. That being said, I also support the recent supreme court case that cites that the laws it struck down provided no benefits to the mother, despite them being framed in ways that favor the mother’s health.

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