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Empowering
Men:
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Sex, Lies &
Feminism by Peter Zohrab
Chapter 11: The Choice/Abortion Myth
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1999 Version
1 Introduction
The Choice/Abortion Myth is a dramatic illustration of how the rights
and power of women in Western societies take precedence over the rights
of men and children, respectively. The Abortion Myth is the first part
of the Choice/Abortion Myth. The Abortion Myth has it that abortion
is not murder, because the people it kills are not people. This de-humanisation
of children is most developed in the case of unborn children, but mothers
who commit infanticide also tend to be treated leniently in the West
-- and so, in Western countries, we may be seeing the gradual extension
of "abortion" to children who have already been born.
The Choice Myth has it that women must have choice as to what to
do with their own fertility, because men have no rights except to pick
up the tab for the choices that women make. If a woman signs an abortion
form, then the father has been robbed of his child -- whose existence
he may not even have been aware of. If she doesn't sign an abortion
form, then he is saddled with a child whom he has to bring up, or whose
upkeep he has to subsidise willy-nilly -- and he may have thought that
she was infertile or protected by contraception.
There are two types of murder that all Western societies permit --
warfare and abortion. Warfare is when people (mainly men) risk their
lives to kill other people (mainly men) for the benefit of the whole
of their Society. Abortion is when women risk very little to get a defenceless
person killed for their own selfish benefit. This illustrates superbly
clearly how modern Western societies are centred around the needs of
women, to the detriment of everyone else. The only time that Feminists
are actively opposed to abortion and infanticide is when it occurs in
Third-World countries and the victims are largely female !
2 Choice for Men
Here is how the "Position Paper on Men's Reproductive Choice" saw
the issue.
"Men are entitled to a reproductive 'choice', and should be
allowed to terminate their parental rights and responsibilities during
a limited period.
It's beyond question that unplanned parenthood can completely
disrupt a man's life. It disrupts his education, it disrupts his mental
health, and it often disrupts his entire family life.... Paternity,
or additional offspring, may force upon the man a distressful life
and future. Psychological harm and heartbreak may result. Mental and
physical health may be taxed. There is also the distress, for all
concerned, associated with the unwanted child. The continuing stigma
of unwed fatherhood may be involved....
One out of four U.S. children are born out of wedlock. While
1.6 million U.S. women abort and decline parenthood each year, half
a million men have their "paternities established" in U.S. courts
and preliminary data indicates that about 33% of U.S. births may be
unintended according to fathers. Men have been treated as an under
class without reproductive rights.... Denying men reproductive rights
is humiliating, oppressive, offensive to the basic principles of human
dignity....
In a sense, the right to relinquish parental responsibilities
is easier to argue for than abortion rights, because it's not pitted
against a potential child's right to life.
We aren't taking a position on abortion. We aren't advocating
that men should terminate their parental rights and responsibilities.
Nor do we even advocate that it's a good idea, or what circumstances
it would be desirable under. We don't argue that the man's right to
terminate is absolute. What we do advocate, is that the decision as
to whether or not a particular man will terminate his parental rights
and responsibilities is a decision that can be made by that man."
3. Abortion
In Western countries1,
I would guess that over 90 % of abortions are authorised in order to
avert some legally defined condition such as "serious damage to the
mental health" of the mother. The word "serious" is generally interpreted
somewhat loosely. What is clear is that cases of rape and physical health
problems of the mother or fetus are not a significant part of the overall
abortion statistics in western countries.
Abortion is a very emotive issue, with strong arguments on both sides.
At first sight, it seems like an issue on its own -- virtually separate
from the overall debate between Feminism and Masculism. In fact, however,
questions of the rights of men and women (as well as the rights of fetuses)
are very much involved here too. And it is not only religious fundamentalists
who see serious problems with the Feminist agenda on abortion.
Thomson (1980) is a tightly reasoned attack on the anti-abortionists'
case. It is highly refreshing to see something really intelligent that
has been written by a Feminist. However, her argument is not entirely
watertight, because it depends on making certain dubious assumptions
at crucial points in the reasoning.
Thomson analyses the anti-abortion argument into two components:
1) The notion that a fetus must be a "person" from the very moment
of conception on -- because otherwise it is impossible to draw the line
separating its early existence as a "non-person" from its later existence
as a "person". This argument attempts to refute the traditional notion
that a person's life begins at birth.
2) The notion that the fetus's right to life outweighs the mother's
right to control what goes on inside her body. The point here is that,
in most cases, the mother's actual existence is not threatened by anything
that the fetus may do -- whereas the reverse is not true.
Thomson disagrees with both notions. She characterizes the first
argument as an instance of the "slippery slope" argument, and she pours
scorn upon it by comparing it with the argument that you cannot say
when an acorn ceases to be an acorn and starts to be an oak tree. Her
point is that acorns are not the same as oak trees, so there must be
some sort of dividing-line somewhere -- even though it may be hard to
say where exactly it is.
However, that is a false analogy, to my way of thinking. A "fetus"
is contrasted with an "infant" or "baby" -- and the dividing-line is
purely and simply the time of birth. This is a societal
dividing-line, which marks the time when human society traditionally
got its first glimpse of the person. Ultrasound scans are now blurring
that dividing-line.
An acorn looks very different from an oak tree, but a fetus does
not look very different from a newborn infant. There is nothing about
the physical nature of a fetus which is different from that of a newborn
infant. Acorns are certainly physically different from oak trees --
but "fetuses" and "persons" are not such contrasting concepts in ordinary
language. There is no established linguistic tradition whereby a baby
is a "person" and a fetus is not a person.
Thomson does not develop this argument, as she sees that is would
be hard to draw a line to mark the time that a fetus becomes a person.
What she concentrates on is the second argument -- the relationship
between the rights of the mother and the rights of the fetus.
Ingeniously, she draws up the imaginary scenario of someone waking
up back-to-back in bed with a famous, unconscious violinist. This violinist
needs that person's kidneys to do the work that his malfunctioning kidneys
cannot do, so his circulatory system has been linked to the other person's
-- against their will -- for a period of time which could be nine months
(or forever). There is no one else available whose blood-type is suitable
for this particular role. So the donor was kidnapped, and made unconscious
while the linking of the two bodies took place.
"His right to life outweighs your right to control your own body,"
the doctor tells the donor. Thomson assumes that most readers would
agree that this was an unacceptable state of affairs. If this is unacceptable,
she reasons, surely terminating a pregnancy that was the result of rape
(a similarly involuntary scenario to the one with the violinist) would
have to be considered acceptable and right.
If abortion resulting from rape was acceptable, she continues, then
that must be because:
"persons have a right to life only if they didn't come into
existence because of rape; or ... all persons have a right to life,
but ... some have less of a right to life than others, in particular,
... those who came into existence because of rape have less."
There is a logical flaw in her thinking here: The reason why aborting
a fetus resulting from rape seems more acceptable (to many people) than
other cases of abortion is not that some fetuses have
a greater right to life than others. The reason is that the mother's
right to control her own body has been violated to a degree which, combined
with the fact that the fetus might end up having an unhappy life because
of being unwanted, outweighs (in some people's minds) the right of the
fetus to life.
Even so, provided there is some definite time-limit (such as nine
months), it is possible to argue that both the fictional violinist and
the rape-induced fetus have a right to life that outweighs the temporary
inconvenience to the involuntary host(ess). Thomson writes as if it
is quite common for pregnancies to last an indefinite time -- whereas,
as far as I know, this is not at all true.
Imagine that a stray cat turns up hungry and ill on your doorstep.
Most people in Western societies wouldn't take the attitude that they
have absolutely no responsibility for the welfare of this cat just because
they did not themselves deliberately cause this cat to become hungry
and ill. They would probably be inclined to look after it, at least
in the short term. The same applies to responding to appeals for donations
to charity: The person who gives the donation is usually not in the
least responsible for the plight of the people he/she is trying to help
-- but that does not affect any feeling of moral responsibility that
that person may feel. If that is the case for an animal, or a stranger
in miserable circumstances in a far-off land, then it should be so much
more true for a famous violinist or human fetus in one's own society.
Of course, men do not get pregnant, so it is not a choice that men
are directly confronted with. However, the fact that only women ever
have to make this choice is not an argument in favour of allowing women
to act immorally ! Men (particularly in wartime and potential rape scenarios)
are often in situations which virtually no women have ever experienced
-- and no one says that this fact excuses immoral behaviour.
Then Thomson discusses cases where the mother's life would (in the
opinion of doctors) definitely end if she gave birth to the fetus/child
-- including cases where the woman was in this situation as a result
of rape. Commentators such as myself tend to take the point of view
of "Society" with regard to such situations. Thomson, on the other hand,
puts herself in the woman's shoes, as it were, and sees any attempt
by such a woman to commit abortion (or have abortion committed on her
behalf) as a perfectly justifiable act of self-preservation. Put into
the right context, this can be seen for the self-indulgent attitude
that it really is.
Self-preservation is all well and good, from an individual standpoint
-- but Society takes it upon itself to override the individual's right
to self-preservation in certain circumstances. For example, men (never
women) are subject to conscription for frontline duties according to
the vagaries of national and international politics. If I was conscripted
in wartime, for example, and ordered to participate in an attack which
I thought was likely to end in my death, I could not kill my superior
officer(s) and expect a military court to consider my goal of self-preservation
to be a sufficient justification!
Or imagine a man who has the misfortune to marry a "gold-digger"
who is trying to kill him off for his life-insurance and assets, by
feeding him high-chloresterol foods and subjecting him to the stress
of constant nagging, malicious gossip, and so on. Would a court accept
that self-preservation would allow this man to kill his wife and get
off scot-free? I very much doubt it.
Haskell and Yablonsky (1974) is an introductory textbook on Criminology
which could perhaps be characterised as being at the "popular" end of
the academic spectrum: It has a drawing of a revolver on the front cover,
and the authors acknowledge their indebtedness to sociologists, psychologists
and even to journalists, i.e. to the relatively "downmarket" sector
of academia.
It contains a section on the decriminalisation of abortion which
illustrates quite strikingly the dominance that Feminism has achieved
over the intellectual Establishment in Western countries. That book
was written shortly after the United States Supreme Court decision of
1973 on abortion. It ruled that women had the right to abortion in the
first six months of pregnancy, and that in the first three months of
pregnancy the decision as to whether or not an abortion was to be committed
was solely up to the woman and her doctor.
Even before then, however, only fifteen of the fifty states in the
US actually punished a woman who got a doctor to kill "her" fetus. Generally,
only the doctor got the rap. Compare this with the scenario of a contract-murder,
where I am confident that most states and countries have both the instigator
and the actual perpetrator as liable to be punished for the crime.
Nowadays, interestingly,
"medical reasons, rape and incest account for relatively few
abortions. Women seek abortions because they are reluctant to interrupt
career plans, they lack money, they fear losing personal freedom,
or they are doubtful about their relationship with the man involved."
(Haskell and Yablonsky 1974,366)
The particularly striking section of Haskell and Yablonsky's discussion
of abortion, occurs in the following passage:
"As a result of the Supreme Court decision, poor people who
feel the need for abortion can satisfy that need lawfully, cheaply,
and with the use of professional medical skill. Criminality will be
reduced and needs fulfilled. Here we have an example of what happens
to a victimless (my emphasis) crime when a law regulating
morality is abolished. The real victim of abortion laws was the poor
woman who went for an illegal abortion. The law that was intended
to protect her had made her a victim." (ibid, 366)
Considering that the book from which the quotation comes is an actual
textbook for Law students, the authors are remarkably one-eyed. How
someone can get themselves to call an event "victimless", when it results
in the death of someone who, in a few years' time, might themselves
be reading this textbook, is almost beyond comprehension !
Imagine decriminalising contract-murders, and making them available
to poor people "lawfully, cheaply, and with the use of professional
... skill" ! Imagine how much criminality would be reduced and how many
needs would then become fulfilled !
In fact, the authors are well aware that abortion is/was not a victimless
crime -- because in their next breath they go on to talk about who the
"real victim" is. Reading between the lines, it seems clear that they
are aware of the argument that the unborn child is the victim of the
crime of abortion -- but they are not fair-minded enough even to state
this well-known argument. They just allude to it indirectly by referring
to the "real" victim.
The criminal law is all about regulating morality. Abortion is an
area where the power of one of the parties involved (women) has grown
to such an extent that the law has retreated from any attempt to regulate
their morality. The anti-abortion laws were never meant to protect women
-- they were meant to protect unborn children from women and doctors.
With the growth of the Animal Rights movement, we may be at, or about
to reach a stage where endangered species and laboratory animals have
more rights than unborn human beings have !
4. Choice for Men in Abortion
Such is the dominance that Woman has over Western society that her
rights override the rights of both the unborn child and of the father
in the abortion scenario. The idea has become widely accepted that it
is "her" body, and so anything that is inside it is hers to do what
she likes with.
This ignores the fact that a fetus is only inside her body because
a man helped put it there. That man has rights over the fetus as well.
After all, there is no widely available alternative for a man who wants
to have children -- he just has to get some woman to bear it for him.
The father may have strong views as to whether he wants the child
to be born or not, and they should be taken into account. After all,
once the child is born, the father may well be obliged to rear it, be
liable for maintenance payments to the mother in cases of separation
or divorce, have some of his estate go to it when he dies, and so on.
It is totally inequitable for the mother alone to have the right
to decide whether the father is going to have these duties and liabilities
thrust on him or not. To paraphrase Thomas (1993), would you let someone
spend your money to buy an expensive car of her choice, and then let
her take it away for her own sole use ?
There is a parallel here with Roman family law. In Ancient Rome,
the father was Head of the Household, and had power of life and death
over his slaves, if any, and also over his other dependents, such as
his children and his wife. Today, this arrangement is widely looked
at with moral outrage. But the parallel with the mother's almost absolute
power of life and death over an unborn child in modern societies is
very striking.
O tempora ! O mores !
2002 Version
CHAPTER 11
THE RIGHT OF CHOICE AND ABORTION
Introduction
Women receive state subsidies to end someone's life (state-funded
abortion), but men get arrested for ending someone's life. When it comes
to reproductive rights, women have all the power; men and unborn children
have none. If, as they say, Feminists really believe in equality, then
they must agree that, to the extent possible given the complexity of
the issues and the ages of the parties involved, the power must be shared
equally among all 3 parties.
This chapter has three sections: Choice For Men, Choice for Men in
Abortion, and Abortion. Choice For Men takes over where Feminism leaves
off, on the assumption that Feminism has won the war on abortion. The
sections on abortion discuss the place of this topic in the context
of the sex war as a whole.
Choice for Men
According to the Position Paper on Men's Reproductive Choice:
One out of four U.S. children are born out of wedlock. While
1.6 million U.S. women abort and decline parenthood each year, half
a million men have their "paternities established" in U.S.
courts and preliminary data indicates that about 33% of U.S. births
may be unintended according to fathers. Men have been treated as an
under class without reproductive rights.... Denying men reproductive
rights is humiliating, oppressive, offensive to the basic principles
of human dignity....
Men are entitled to as much reproductive "choice" as women,
and should be allowed to terminate their paternal rights and responsibilities
under essentially the same conditions governing women's right to terminate
their pregnancies. Unplanned fatherhood can completely disrupt a man's
life. It disrupts his education and mental health – indeed, his
entire family life. Psychological harm and heartbreak may result. His
mental and physical health may suffer. The unwanted child may also suffer
distress. And the man involved may have to carry a social stigma as
a result of being an unmarried father.
Unlike Feminists, advocates of choice for men seldom assert a man's
right to terminate is absolute. They just advocate that the decision
as to whether a particular man will terminate his parental rights and
responsibilities is a decision that should be made by that man –
in the same way a woman decides whether she is going to have an abortion.
This position is not without ethical problems – what is a child
going to feel like when it grows up and finds its own father disowned
and rejected it? In the case of abortion, at least the child is dead
and does not know that it has been rejected and killed. On the other
hand, at least the child whose father has exercised his "choice"
is still alive!
Another way that “Choice for Men” could be interpreted
is to provide men with more access to reproductive technology. I am
not necessarily taking a stance in favour of the use of reproductive
technology, such as cloning, but if women get access to it, then men
should have access to it as well. According to the Dominion newspaper
of March 16 2001, an 84-year-old man in Australia, Dr. Frank Hansford-Miller,
has been trying to get someone to agree to clone him. This is an issue
which will need looking at from a Men's Rights perspective, too.
Choice for Men in Abortion
The pro-choice camp favors choice as long as it's for women, only.
When it comes to men, they use the same arguments that the pro life
lobby does. This demonstrates their hypocrisy.
They say women must have choice as to what to do with their own fertility,
but men have no rights except to pay for the choices women make. If
a woman signs an abortion form, then she has robbed the father of his
child – whose existence he may not even have been aware of. If
she doesn't sign an abortion form, then he is saddled with a child whom
he has to bring up, or whose upkeep he has to subsidise willy-nilly
– and he may have thought all along she was infertile or protected
by contraception.
Such is the dominance women have over western society that their rights
override the rights of both unborn children and fathers. The Feminist
slogan "her body, her choice" is so widely accepted that anything
inside her is hers to do with as she likes. (The Feminists' insistence
on this is so extreme that they oppose laws that punish pregnant women
who abuse drugs or alcohol.) This ignores the fact that a fetus is only
inside her body because a man helped put it there. That man has rights
over the fetus as well. After all, there is no widely available alternative
at present for a man who wants to have his own natural children –
he has to persuade a woman to bear it for him.
The father may have strong views as to whether he wants the child
to be born or not, and they should be taken into account. After all,
once the child is born the father may well be obliged to rear it, make
maintenance payments to the mother in cases of separation or divorce,
have some of his estate go to it when he dies, and so on. Simply put,
it is inequitable for the mother to have the unilateral right to decide
whether to thrust these duties and liabilities on the father. To paraphrase
Thomas (1993), would you let someone spend your money to buy an expensive
car of her choice, and then let her take it away for her use alone?
There is a parallel here with Roman family law. In Ancient Rome, the
father was Head of the Household, and had power of life and death over
his slaves, if any, and also over his other dependents, such as his
children and his wife. Today, this arrangement is widely viewed with
moral outrage. But the parallel with the mother's almost absolute power
of life and death over an unborn child in modern societies is very striking.
O tempora! O mores! (What times! What customs!)
Abortion
There are at least two types of killing all western societies permit
– warfare and abortion. Warfare is when people (mainly men) risk
life and limb to kill other people (mainly men) for the benefit of their
entire society. Abortion is when women risk very little to kill a defenceless
person for their own benefit. This clearly illustrates how modern western
societies revolve around the needs of women, even to the extent of decriminalising
murder.
Haskell and Yablonsky's (1974) introductory textbook on Criminology
contains a section on the decriminalisation of abortion which clearly
illustrates the dominance Feminism has achieved over the intellectual
establishment in western countries. They wrote it shortly after the
United States Supreme Court decision of 1973 on abortion. It ruled that
women had the right to abortion in the first six months of pregnancy,
and that in the first three months of pregnancy the decision was solely
up to the woman and her doctor.
Even before then, however, only fifteen of the fifty states in the
US actually punished a woman who got a doctor to kill "her"
fetus. Generally, only the doctor got the rap. Compare this with the
scenario of a contract-murder, where most states and countries hold
both the instigator and the actual perpetrator accountable for the crime.
How things have changed:
"(M)edical reasons, rape and incest account for relatively
few abortions. Women seek abortions because they are reluctant to
interrupt career plans, they lack money, they fear losing personal
freedom, or they are doubtful about their relationship with the man
involved." (Haskell and Yablonsky 1974, 366)
Here we have an example of what happens to a victimless (my emphasis)
crime when a law regulating morality is abolished. The real victim of
abortion laws was the poor woman who went for an illegal abortion. The
law that was intended to protect her had made her a victim. (ibid, 366)
Considering this is from a textbook for Law students, the authors
are remarkably one-sided. How someone can call an event "victimless"
when it kills someone who, in a few years' time, might themselves have
read this textbook is almost beyond comprehension! Imagine decriminalising
contract-murder!
In fact, the authors are well aware that abortion is not a victimless
crime; in their next breath they go on to talk about who the "real
victim" is. Reading between the lines, it seems clear they are
just not fair-minded enough to come right out and say the unborn child
is a victim of the abortion, but allude to it indirectly by referring
to the "real" victim.
Ironically, the only time Feminists actively oppose abortion and infanticide
is when it occurs in Third-World countries and the victims are largely
female, as in India or China! They decry abortions which follow ultrasound
scans of a mother's uterus in such countries, because the unborn children
killed under such circumstances are mainly female babies. In China,
elderly people traditionally lived with their eldest son. There is a
one-child-per-couple population-control policy in China which is rigidly
enforced in the cities. Parents feel they will have no one to support
them in their old age if their only child turns out to be female. So
female fetuses detected by ultrasound scans are frequently aborted or
if the female child is carried to term she is at high risk for infanticide.
Feminists abhor this and, under the banner of "eugenics" (evoking
memories of Nazi programs) lobby against it. But only where the victims
are largely female -- clear evidence of how sexist they are.
The standard Feminist line is that abortion is not murder because
the people it kills are not people. This de-humanisation (objectification?)
of children is most developed in the case of unborn children, but western
courts also tend to act leniently toward mothers who commit infanticide,
hence we may witness the gradual extension of "abortion" to
children who have already been born: postpartum abortion?
It is not only religious fundamentalists who see serious problems
with the Feminist agenda on abortion, though it sometimes seems only
the religious right is willing to actively oppose abortion. Some Libertarians,
such as Doris Gordon are completely opposed to abortion (www.concentric.net/~bwjass/lfl/ac&lp.htm).
Personally, my own objection stems from my abhorrence of murder in principle,
not any particular religious doctrine.
Female fragility?
In New Zealand in 1998 (according to the Report of the Abortion Supervisory
Committee), 14,965 (i.e., 98.4%) of the 15,208 abortions carried out
in that year were authorised to avert "serious damage to the mental
health" of the mother. Who are they trying to fool? Is anyone seriously
claiming all these women (in New Zealand's small population of 3.6 million
people) would have suffered serious mental health problems without an
abortion? In an article to appear in the NZMERA Newsletter (http://www.geocities.com/peterzohrab/299enslt.html),
Paul Clarke suggests the New Zealand government should set up a public
inquiry into the mental health of pregnant women to clarify this serious
issue!
Are New Zealand women really that fragile? Or are the Feminists, who
run the system, abusing the law, interpreting it as a licence to abort
at will? It is a fact in western countries that (male and female) Feminists
predominate in agencies which implement social and medical legislation,
and they often abuse their power and interpret the legislation under
which they operate as they see fit. And they must be interpreting the
word "serious" very loosely. Cases of rape and physical health
problems of the mother or fetus are not a significant part of the overall
abortion statistics in western countries. Most abortions are performed
as nothing more than a post-coital birth control technique. How serious
is that? As serious as a woman's need for sex? As serious as a man's?
This raises the issue of the "morning-after" pill RU486,
which produces a sort of abortion. Anyone who is against abortion would
have to be against the use of this pill, too. According to a Boston
Globe article archived at the RU486 Files website (www.ru486.org/ru9.htm),
Feminists are divided over use of this pill. Some have denounced it
as a "dangerous and cumbersome medication that should not be permitted
to replace conventional surgical abortions in the United States or elsewhere."
This underscores the fact that abortion is indeed regarded by Feminists
as a contraceptive measure, and not as a mental health procedure!
Abortion is a very emotional issue, with strong arguments on both
sides. At first blush it seems like an issue on its own – virtually
separate from the overall debate between Feminism and Masculism. In
fact, however, questions of the rights of men and women (as well as
the rights of unborn children) are very much involved.
Do many Feminists, deep down, feel very guilty about the abortion
issue? Surely, many of those women who have had an abortion themselves
must. Could this be why Feminists try so hard to make all men feel guilty
about sex abuse, rape and domestic violence? To divert attention away
from their own sense of guilt and shame? Someone could perhaps research
the psychohistory of Feminism, and look at abortion in this context.
Let's examine some of the arguments involved. I will limit myself
to one pro-abortionist's arguments, because hers are among the most
cogently argued. Thomson (1980) is a tightly reasoned attack on the
anti-abortionists' case. However, her argument depends on making certain
dubious assumptions. She analyses the antiabortion argument into two
components:
-
The notion that a fetus must be a "person" from the very
moment of conception on – because otherwise it is impossible
to draw the line separating its early existence as a "non-person"
from its later existence as a "person." This argument attempts
to refute the traditional notion that a person's life begins at birth.
-
The notion that the fetus's right to life outweighs the mother's
right to control what goes on inside her body. The point here is that,
in most cases, the mother's actual existence is not threatened by
anything that the fetus may do – whereas the reverse is not
true.
Thomson disagrees with both notions. She characterizes the first as
an instance of the "slippery slope", on which she pours scorn,
by comparing it with the argument that you cannot say when an acorn
ceases to be an acorn and starts to be an oak tree. Her point is that
acorns are not the same as oak trees, so there must be some sort of
dividing line somewhere even though it may be hard to say exactly where
it is.
That, however, is a false analogy. A fetus is contrasted with an infant
or baby and the dividing line is purely and simply the time of birth.
This is a social construct rather than a biological condition which
marks the moment when human society traditionally got its first glimpse
of the person. Ultrasound scans are now blurring that line.
An acorn is and looks very different from an oak tree, but a fetus
does not look very different from a newborn and very early on shares
many of the same characteristics. Indeed, there is little about the
physical nature of a fetus that differs from that of a newborn. Acorns
are certainly physically different from oak trees, but fetuses and persons
are not such contrasting concepts in ordinary language.
Moreover, there is no established linguistic tradition whereby a baby
is a "person" but a fetus is not.
Some suggest one could say an acorn ceases to be an acorn once it
sprouts and, likewise, a zygote ceases to be a zygote (and starts to
be a fetus) once the cells begin to differentiate, head and neck, nose
and toes, a beating heart and hands to hold. This would get around the
problem of trying to draw a line between sperm and ova, and tissues
such as fingernail-clippings that might be used to clone a new human
being, on the one hand, and a fetus, on the other. I don't myself mark
such a boundary between the zygote and the fetus, though some people
might see that as a defensible position to take.
Regardless, Thomson does not develop this argument, because she believes
it would be hard to mark the moment when a fetus becomes a person. My
own view is that a fingernail, sperm, or ovum will not spontaneously
develop alone into a human being, and so is clearly not a person. Of
course, even a fertilised egg needs an (artificial or natural) womb
to develop into a human being, but a fingernail, sperm or ovum needs
more than that!
Moreover, it is hard to state exactly when an acorn starts sprouting
or a zygote develops appendages, because these are gradual processes
which don't care about things like providing the sharp boundary we need
for the purpose of defining "murder."
So what Thomson concentrates on is the second argument – the
relationship between the rights of the mother and the rights of the
fetus. Ingeniously, she draws up the imaginary scenario of someone waking
up back-to-back in bed with a famous, unconscious violinist. This violinist
needs that person's kidneys to do the work his malfunctioning kidneys
cannot do, so his circulatory system has been linked to the other person's
– against their will – for a period of time which could
be nine months (or forever). There is no one else available whose blood-type
is suitable for this particular role. So the donor was kidnapped and
rendered unconscious while doctors linked their two bodies.
"His right to life outweighs your right to control your own
body," the doctor tells the donor.
Thomson assumes most readers would agree this was an unacceptable
state of affairs. If this is unacceptable, she reasons, surely terminating
a pregnancy that was the result of rape (a similarly involuntary scenario
to the one with the violinist) would have to be considered acceptable
and right. And if the pregnancy is involuntary, resulting from rape,
Thomson asks, is an abortion okay then? If so, why?
There is a logical flaw in her reasoning: aborting a fetus resulting
from rape seems more acceptable (to many people) than other cases of
abortion -- not because some fetuses have a greater right to life than
others, but that the mother's right to control her own body has been
violated and a heavy responsibility foisted upon her to a degree which
outweighs (in some people's minds) the right of the fetus to life. Of
course, men do not get pregnant, so it is not a choice men are directly
confronted with. However, the fact that only women ever have to make
this choice is not an argument in favour of allowing women to act immorally!
Men (particularly in wartime and potential rape scenarios) are often
in situations which virtually no women have ever experienced –
and no one says this fact excuses immoral behaviour, such as war crimes.
Then Thomson discusses cases where the mother's life would (in the
opinion of doctors) definitely end if she gave birth to the fetus/child
– including cases where the woman was in this situation as a result
of rape. I take the view of "society" with regard to such
situations. Thomson, on the other hand, puts herself in the woman's
shoes, as it were, and sees abortion as a perfectly justifiable act
of self-preservation.
Put into the right context, this can be seen for the self-indulgent
attitude it really is. Self-preservation is all well and good, from
an individual standpoint – but society takes it upon itself to
override the individual's right to self-preservation in certain circumstances.
For example, men (never women) are subject to conscription for front-line
duties, according to the vagaries of national and international politics.
If men are subject to conscription in the public interest, why not subject
women to "conscription by conception"?
Were I conscripted in wartime and ordered to participate in an attack
which I felt certain would end in my death, I could not kill my superior
officer(s) and expect a military court to consider my goal of self-preservation
to be a sufficient justification!
Or imagine a wealthy man who has the misfortune to marry a gold-digger
who is trying to kill him off by feeding him high-cholesterol foods
and subjecting him to the stress of constant nagging, malicious gossip,
and so on. Would a court allow this man to kill his wife as an act of
self-preservation? Not likely!
Abortion For Men
One recent variation on the theme of choice for men is the notion
of "abortion for men," formerly publicized at the website for the Rick
Emerson Show:
The Male Abortion...is a simple release form, which is read and signed
by both parties at any time before sexual intercourse...be it moments
before, or months in advance. The Male Abortion stipulates that the
man wishes to remain childless, and that should a pregnancy result from
his sexual relation with the female, he is freed from all parental liability
and responsibility, and that the decision to be a parent is his, and
his alone.
Were Feminists truly pro-choice, we would expect them to embrace this.
Were they truly pro-choice.
Conclusion
Criminal law is all about regulating morality. Abortion is an area
where the power of one of the parties involved (women) has grown to
such an extent that the law has retreated from any attempt to regulate
their morality. The anti-abortion laws were meant to protect unborn
children from women and doctors. With the growth of the Animal Rights
movement, we may be at, or about to reach, a stage where endangered
species and laboratory animals will have more rights than unborn human
beings! It is time to say, "Let's protect the rights of men and
unborn humans first, and worry about the rights of animals second!"
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Latest Update |
24 March 2018 |
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