So, the abortion issue in the US is primarily based on religious lines. It's not a perfect correllation. But generally speaking, you can see one broad group is more consistently against abortion than the others. Those being Christians. Nonchristians, with the exception of Muslims, seem to generally support abortion being legal to the tune of 70-80%. Whereas Christians generally believe in its legality on the order of 15-60%. It's not a perfect correlation, but it is most likely statistically significant. And honestly? I'm fully convinced that if America was not so overtly religious, that the abortion issue would not be anywhere near as controversial. It's not that secular arguments against abortion don't exist, it's that they're not very good or convincing and most people who champion them are just trying to sneak their religion or in some cases their former religion under the radar whether they realize it or not. This is the problem with the so called "secular pro life" position. A secular organization that tries to argue in favor of the pro life position without overtly relying on religion, or divine command theory, or a worldview that espouses religion or religious morality. However, to be perfectly honest, these arguments just aren't that good, and not convincing to most people who have secular political views.
So what is this secular pro life argument? Well, it relies on four major assumptions, which get increasingly controversial as times goes on.
Part 1: The human zygote, embryo, and fetus are all human organisms.
“Life begins at fertilization” is a shorthand way to say that the zygote is the first developmental stage of a human being’s life cycle. This is not a religious premise; it is a biological fact, attested to in countless biology and embryology texts and affirmed by the majority of biologists worldwide.
This is not a controversial position in my opinion. All of those things are, essentially "human organisms." I'm not going to argue that they are not human in some way shape or form. I just do not believe that a fertilized egg is on par with a born human in terms of moral and ethical concerns, on the basis of their viability, and ability to be conscious and feel pain.
Part 2: All human organisms are morally relevant.
Many pro-choice people acknowledge that, biologically, life begins at conception but deny zygotes, embryos, and fetuses are “people,” i.e. morally relevant humans deserving of human rights. They offer a variety of ideas about what additional criteria are necessary. Common suggestions include that the child must have a heartbeat, have brain waves, be viable, or be “conscious”/self-aware.
We find these criteria for “personhood” arbitrary. Many of the proposed criteria would, if applied consistently, deny personhood to already born groups of humans we universally recognize as morally relevant and worthy of protection, such as newborns, people with disabilities, and other vulnerable groups. We believe consistency demands that we protect all humans as morally relevant and members of our species.
This right here is a huge problem I have with the pro life position in general. To believe a fertilized egg or a fetus is equivalent of a born human is INSANE to me. Pro lifers make these weird categorical arguments that I basically describe as "a life is a life and that's all there is to it." No, that's overly simplistic, and very problematic.
Let me ask you this, if you were aborted, would you remember a thing? NO. Because from your own position, you don't exist. You NEVER existed. Now, it's possible souls exist and that there is some level of existence that exists outside of this world and this life, but I don't see that as relevant here from a secular perspective because you can't really prove it to any satisfactory degree worth basing laws on, nor can most people remember such things, if any.
But...let's face it. You don't remember being in the womb, I presume. You were there, but if you had died, you never would have realized it, because you were never "alive" enough to remember anyway.
And you might ask, but outofplatoscave, what about disabled people or people in a coma, etc.?
Okay, so...let me ask you this. Can you forsee, at some point in the future, the POSSIBILITY of being in a coma? Sure. You probably can. And a lot of people develop a lot of advance directives known as "living wills" to discuss what they would like done to them if various, life altering circumstances leaves them in a position of being "incapacitated." And for those that don't, we generally respect their right to live, because we suspect they may be conscious enough to still exist and experience things. But, sometimes, if someone is so medically bad off that they are likely braindead and don't experience much of anything, if anything at all, it's generally acceptable to pull the plug.
Ironically, we had the same debate back in the 2000s over the Terri Schaivo case. The courts decided to let her die, but the fundie Christians were arguing for the right of a brain dead woman to continue living, on the same "pro life" logic they always do. But, more secular people DO see shades of grey here. Yes, some humans ARE more morally relevant than others. Someone who is say, a vegetable and doesn't experience anything but their body is still "alive", like Terri Schaivo, is in the same case as a fetus.
And, I know that this will be a controversial position that has been met with disgust by pro lifers, but uh, I do view infants as less morally relevant than older adults on the basis of consciousness as well. Infanticide has actually been a common practice in history. And while I won't exactly morally defend it in a modern context, it has generally been seen as acceptable for many reasons. Say you have a famine and there isn't enough food to go around. Well, parents would often kill their infants so there are less mouths to feed. Better to let the infants die than the parents starve and the like, the parents can always try again next year.
Or imagine a moral dilemma in which we're on the titanic and we can either save a 25 year old or an infant? i would actually prefer the 25 year old. Because the 25 year old is more conscious.
Or what about the dilemma pro choicers make about a burning IVF clinic and needing to choose between a vat full of embryos and a 5 year old. Most people would choose the 5 year old. But the pro life position would be to save the embryos because each embryo is morally equivalent to the 5 year old.
The fact is, the idea that all human lives have the same level of moral relevance is insanity. Push comes to shove there are always some more morally relevant than others.
And this isn't new in human society. From a secular position, all ethics are social constructs, and all rules that govern humans are made by humans for their own well being. And there is always an in group bias. Tribe A would value their well being over tribe B. Sometimes Tribe A and B would fight and kill each other over land, resources, ideology, etc.
Modern ideals regarding equality are also constructs that we create. Because we kind of see the horrors of treating some humans as above others. it has led to stuff like racism, sexism, etc. It has led to slavery and subjugation. So, we now live under the ideal that all people are created equal. And that is a fine social construct, mostly. But given the nature of the unborn, I don't really think it's that unrealistic that we carve out an exception there given the murky concept of abortion. Just as, I don't think it's bad that we let Terri Schiavo die. If a being isnt conscious, and isnt capable of conscious, and isn't even capable of contemplating its own future life, from its own perspective, then its moral concerns aren't relevant.
This continues to hold even if the soul is real, because we can't really prove it, it's a spiritual belief that does NOT have solid proof, and government is to be guided by SECULAR philosophy. So even if you have moral views that make you unwilling to get an abortion yourself, you don't get to just force that on others. If you don't want an abortion, don't get one. But don't tell everyone else they can't get one because of YOUR beliefs.
Part 3: It’s generally immoral to kill humans.
In our experience, people may have different ideas about why it’s generally immoral to kill humans, but few if any people sincerely debate whether it’s generally immoral to kill humans. As a matter of policy, we at Secular Pro-Life do not take a stance on the metaphysical questions regarding where morality comes from or why we should care about one another. We simply ask that all people who believe, as a baseline premise, that it’s wrong to kill each other apply that stance consistently and recognize preborn children as part of the human family.
I largely covered this and its implications in part 2, but "generally immoral" means exactly that. "Generally immoral." It's good to have a general prohibition against killing humans. It's a valuable social construct. But again, that doesn't mean that there aren't going to be exceptions and contexts. Most reasonable people would understand that "generally" doesn't mean ALWAYS. It's not immoral to kill in self defense. War can be a very subjective grey area. I would argue some forms of euthanasia are okay as per what I discussed above (and voluntary euthanasia is also okay, despite what the "pro lifers" might think, because they often have an issue with that too). The point is, exceptions exist, nuance exists, context exists. And this is just some vague, overreaching categorical argument that ignores all of that. And that's the problem with the pro life position. "A life is a life is a life." Like that's all it is. This fetus us human. It's a human life. It's immoral to kill it, period. And that's all there is to it. Again, no context, no nuance, no exceptions. Just, this is an immutable moral truth and that's all there is to it. The zygote's rights trumps all.
Also, don't take a stance on metaphysical questions regarding where morality comes from or why we should care. Uh, THOSE ARE ALL RELEVANT QUESTIONS. I believe to truly understand something, you need to understand the ideas that are often behind the ideas. Everyone has a worldview. Everyone has a set of assumptions through which they view the world. And that's what I argue the pro life vs pro choice debate is. A debate between a set of ethics that is primarily religious, and a set of ethics that is primarily secular. And if you adopt secular ethics, you also likely adopt a position that all morality are human concepts that we created for ourselves. And you would, based on that, likely have a much more nuanced perspective than just "a life is a life is a life." You WOULD recognize the roles of moral dilemmas and how despite our moral support for equality in a modern western society, that there's always going to be grey areas, exceptions, and nuance.
This perspective is as categorical as those of the religious perspective. It's just pushing this set of assumptions that sounds intuitive at face value, and just keeps hammering them home, and it doesn't work.
I'm not saying you cant be secular and hold this perspective. But, I will say that I would expect much better out of people who are largely secular in their moral outlook. You should grapple with moral dilemmas, and what makes us human, and what morality and ethics are. Secular pro life doesn't do that. And given most people who seem to push it are christians who likely are trying to sneak their religious views into the debate under the guise of secular ethics, I'm going to call that as I see it. I do not believe this perspective is very compelling. It reeks of a very unnuanced absolutism that is scary and reminiscient of what the religious right believes.
Part 4: Bodily rights aren’t enough to justify elective abortion.
Some pro-choice people argue that it doesn’t matter whether the fetus is morally valuable “person,” because no person can use another’s body against her will. We believe this bodily rights argument is one of the strongest pro-choice arguments, and we encourage all people interested in the abortion debate to lean into this conversation. Still, we find that the bodily rights argument is not enough to justify elective abortion. Examples involving organ donation, car crashes, and other illustrations of bodily rights are disanalogous to pregnancy and abortion in one or more major ways
Well, you could argue in a weird violinist perspective that if you were dealing with two perfectly conscious humans with one relying on another to survive, that the one has a moral duty to care for the other. However, I feel like that's fairly subjective, and I really don't take a solid stance either way about that. The thing about moral dilemmas is they're just that, a dilemma. A trolley problem of sorts. You could argue one way, you could argue the other way, and what side you're ultimately going to come down on is going to be a matter of one's personal ethics.
The pro life and pro choice position are the same way. And while I will generally sacrifice some level of freedom in order to allow people to preserve a longer, better quality of life, pregnancy is not without risks to one's bodily autonomy in and of itself, and that risk alone is enough for me to be pro choice (hence my late term abortion position). I would rather have people be able to abort fetuses and not need it than to not be able to and to need it. Also, considering ALL that i've talked about above, with the consciousness of the fetus, and the health risks of the mother, and such factors, honestly, I would say I more highly value the will of the mother, than the fetus, in an almost categorical sense. Like really, I just don't view the concerns of the fetus as very legitimate or compelling, while the will of born, conscious beings who are actual moral agents are FAR more compelling to me.
I view aborting for the most selfish and morally unacceptable reasons possible, as more morally legitimate, than any concern the fetus may have.
It's not JUST the bodily rights in and of itself, it's the entire context of the debate, including the discussions I have had in previous points in this article, as well as entire previous articles, that help me formulate my decision. It's everything. I just don't believe the moral concerns of the fetus are legitimate from a secular perspective. I far more highly value ANY and ALL moral concerns the mother, or even the father while we're at it have. I view abortion as difficult to properly legislate legally, especially given the radicalness of the religious fundies these days have on the subject. Seriously, just to soap box on that for a second, but even at my most pro life, I understood that exceptions existed, like rape, incest, and the life and health of the mother. Nowadays the pro lifers are defending banning abortion for raped 10 year olds with incest babies. Freaking literally, that's like the trifecta and the most morally acceptable case of abortion to my former pro life self ever, and these pro lifers are like, nah, let's force the 10 year old to have the kid. Terrifying.
But yeah, the point is, for me, I am categorically pro choice. If you have a personal moral qualm with abortion, DON'T GET ONE. I mean, I can respect that. But I DON'T respect people who wanna force their views on others, on the basis of simplistic logic that ignores any and all nuance on the subject.
But, that's all the pro life position is. Extremely simplistic and unnuanced logic that exists in a vacuum and falls apart in the real world. No one should take the secular pro life position seriously. At least the religious people have a worldview. Secular pro life reads like a bunch of religious people who want to reframe their arguments from a secular perspective in this cringey hello fellow kids kind of way, and it just doesn't work for me.
Anyway, that's my views on this. I debunked this in private with someone before, but I just felt like given the fall of roe that this was worth discussing on here.
No comments:
Post a Comment