theatokos: (Default)
theatokos ([personal profile] theatokos) wrote2008-08-20 12:43 pm

At what point is a baby entitled human rights?

I wish I had seen the Saddleback debates. (See this article for my reference.) John McCain immediately answered the above question with "at conception."

Aaaarrggh!

I too am pro-life! Which is why I'm against the death penalty, pro-environmentalism, 100% in favor of sex ed and birth control, and pro-choice.

McCain must know that his answer is nothing but a ploy to rope in conservative voters. How, o how, can we assign human rights at conception? This kind of thinking is so troublesome on many many levels. We cannot even pinpoint conception. Does this mean that every woman having intercourse must assume the possibility that she is carrying another life? How do we apply human rights to a being that is in utero? At what point do those minimal rights that the foetus can participate in override the human rights of the mother? I want to know McCain's answer to that!

Muslim law (in general) says that a baby gets its soul/becomes a person at 120 days. This is approximately 4 months, which is about the time the baby's movements become noticable and about the time the threat of miscarriage has passed. I would advocate that baby rights could start at about this point. This makes more sense. If we ascribe rights to a clump of cells (which is what a foetus is for the first couple of months) merely because it has the potentiality for life then testicles and ovaries need to be guarded as well. Do we then give human rights to sperm and eggs? Uh.... wait a sec. That means that all humans carry the potentiality for life (not counting that humans are already alive) and therefore deserve human rights... which they already have.

To all those people who loved McCain's answer and who go along with the theory that "life begins at conception" I want to know what they'd do if they were faced with crippling poverty, the news that their foetus had severe genetic disorders that would either severely limit the child's development or cause bankruptcy due to being underinsured, the reality of rape, etc. It is all fine and dandy to go on and on about "life beginning at conception" if never faced with a reality other than a wanted and healthy pregnancy and child. I want ALL foetuses to be wanted and healthy, but sadly that's not the reality all of time.

Granting human rights to clumps of cells limits the options for already living and breathing women (and their partners) and places the possibility of "moral failure" where it doesn't need to be. As if women need one more thing to monitored for and feel guilty about.

I hate the "pro-life/pro-choice" debate. It's a false dichotomy, a ruse, a moral distraction for the real issues that we struggle with. I want to a see a politician refuse to even entertain these sorts of ridiculous baited questions.

[identity profile] erinya.livejournal.com 2008-08-20 08:41 pm (UTC)(link)
Great post! I think drawing the line at "quickening" might be acceptable, like you say--although I still think it is a rights-balancing question and therefore shouldn't be completely prohibited, especially since issues do come up after that point. The health exception is very important in late-term abortions (for instance, prohibitions can result in women being forced to carry still-born fetuses to term) as is the ability of doctors to use the least risky method of termination.

I hate the "pro-life/pro-choice" debate. It's a false dichotomy, a ruse, a moral distraction for the real issues that we struggle with. I want to a see a politician refuse to even entertain these sorts of ridiculous baited questions.

I too have concluded that the dichotomy is a huge problem. It cripples both sides' abilities to deal with the question. For instance, many pro-choice activists have trouble even talking about any legitimate human rights interest in a fetus, ever, and about the impact of abortion on women--and those mental blocks hurt our ability to communicate about the issues in a meaningful women.

McCain appears to be something of a non-thinking person...

[identity profile] ewigweibliche.livejournal.com 2008-08-20 09:15 pm (UTC)(link)
The whole issue is tricky. I think rights at some point do need to enter into it, but I'm really not sure when or how. As some one whose child was born at 34 weeks, I can tell you that he was a little person - and seeing babies in the NICU that are only 5 months old gestationally.... well, they are babies too. It's crazy, they sense touch, feel pain, respond. It's creepy-beautiful.

The pro-choice side of things is not without its own issues, for sure. I think the phrasing "reproductive rights/justice" is a better way to discuss these things. The nuance includes so much more than just abortion yea or nay, which the reality of these issues include. (I'm sure there is a more grammatical way to say that, but my brain is half focused on breastfeeding my spawn right now).

[identity profile] erinya.livejournal.com 2008-08-20 09:35 pm (UTC)(link)
(I am laughing at myself because I read my own comment... "in a meaningful women"... hi, I can brain today!)

That's why I like the reproductive justice model, too. And what you're saying about Ben...of course he was a person then. I have heard this from many mothers of premies, who were previously more unequivocally pro-choice. It took awhile for the meaning to sink in for me, but it's beginning to.

So what do we do, then? I remained inclined to throw the moral decision back to the individual...to say that the law should not/cannot properly intervene in the relationship between mother and child. Which begs the question, I'm aware. But is it ever a woman's duty to be pregnant against her will? Legally, I believe there's a consent issue at work, but I'm not going to claim it's not debatable.

Just my take...

[identity profile] snowcalla.livejournal.com 2008-08-20 09:11 pm (UTC)(link)
I don't see how a person can say anything other than "life begins at conception". It does...that is the starting point of a new and distinct life. When else would you say that life begins? Or is the fetus/embryo dead until some point since "life" hasn't started yet?

This is a seperate issue from when do we, as a culture, grant basic civil rights to said fetus/embryo.

I'm pro-choice as well but I'm mature enough to face reality. I don't try to make the bullshit arguement that when a woman gets an abortion she isn't killing a baby, she's just getting rid of tissue. It is a baby, a developing human being, that can feel pain, etc. But she has the power to decide that (for whatever reason) it is worth it to her to kill the baby. And I can think of and support many, many reasons for doing so.

If she feels guilt for that...it is because she chooses to feel that guilt. Don't take me wrong, I'm not saying that harshly...just pointing out that if you want the responsibilty to make those kinds of decisions you need to take the responsibilty to make sure you are ready to deal with how those decisions affect you.

btw....McCain's been really consistant on this issue. However, he also doesn't think it is the Federal government's place to get involved in this one way or another. If you think he hasn't thought this out and doesn't see it as a complex issue...you aren't paying attention.
Edited 2008-08-20 21:13 (UTC)

Re: Just my take...

[identity profile] ewigweibliche.livejournal.com 2008-08-20 09:25 pm (UTC)(link)
My beef, in the end, is that dragging this issue into politics is fruitless to begin with. Did McCain continue to say that he didn't think the gov't should get involved in that choice? No. I do respect his consistency. Very much so.

You are right, life does begin at conception. But biology is not what is being debated. It becomes a morality and theological issue. While life might begin at conception, for the first two months that being is nothing but a lump of cells turning into a little squid. It is not a human. Yet. Which is why I raise this point of potentiality. If the cells at conception count as human life because they have the potential for being human, then can't we say that sperm and eggs are similarly "morally weighted"? And if abortion is murder, then what of miscarriages? There are a lot of subtleties that come into play. Unfortunately, women are then to "blame" or "at fault" once we (as a society) start putting the moral weight of murder on these things.

Re: Just my take...

[identity profile] snowcalla.livejournal.com 2008-08-21 12:57 am (UTC)(link)
I do NOT want this to be a theological issue re: creating laws about abortion. Man o man would that get ugly. I prefer to stick with science on this one, and base our laws off of knowledge balanced with cultural ethics.

If you test the DNA of a 1 day old embryo...it is a human. No way around it. If you test the DNA of sperm and eggs...they are sperm and eggs. Very different and very clear cut. Genetically, a human being exists the moment of conception.

What of miscarriages? well...people die everyday for all sorts of medical reasons. That's what a miscarriage is - a death. So I don't see that there is any confusion possible there. Unless a person tried to miscarry...that could muddy the waters.

All I'm looking for is some intellectual honesty in this debate that we are having as a nation. Call a spade a spade. When you elect to get an abortion, you are ending a life. There are reasons that I can support that happening. If you can't face it and take responsibilty for that...don't do it. (I'm also pro-death penalty, for the same reason...sometimes there are sound reasons to kill a person. And I'm cool with defensive killings, as well. See...I'm consistant, too. *grin*)

Again, I'm not being harsh or placing blame. I've had friends who decided to have abortions for both good reasons and shitty reasons. The ones who owned up to what they were doing and were clear about why, didn't have many problems or regrets later. They had thought it all through before hand. The ones who were saying it was just a lump of tissue to be thrown away...sooner or later had serious problems once they couldn't lie to themselves anymore. Which seemed to hit them during and after the birth of a child they wanted.

But it's a theological argument whether we like it or not

[identity profile] ewigweibliche.livejournal.com 2008-08-21 02:11 pm (UTC)(link)
If only we could leave it to science and ethics. Instead, it is treated as a moral and theological issue. The miscarriage issue is very important. Because if that foetus has the same rights as born humans then any miscarriage is a death. Is it murder? And if so, is the woman to blame in all cases? Might it be involuntary manslaughter?

These debates DO come up and women lose in all of them. Debating the finer ethical points of these issues would be interesting were they not used political ploys and championed by people whose thinking is essentialist and diminishes the lives of actual living woman in favor of hypothetical babies.
elf: Rainbow sparkly fairy (Default)

Re: Just my take...

[personal profile] elf 2008-08-22 03:01 pm (UTC)(link)
Cancer cells are human as well. A 1-day old embryo is not "a human"--it is a cell cluster with the potential to grow into a human. It has no heart, eyes, lungs, skin, brain, or reproductive organs.

I'll grant that there's a difference between an embryonic cluster and a cancerous cluster, and the laws should acknowledge that. But the difference is not "these cells contain a complete set of human DNA."

If the issue is "ending a life is wrong"--then we should have no armed forces, and hospitals should never "pull the plug" on anyone. (And that's before we get into the issue of executions.) Obviously, we as a nation don't believe that all ending-of-human-life is forbidden. The issue is (1) has this life lost its right to live and (2) who gets to make that choice?

Lives that endanger others are allowed to be ended in some circumstances. How about the medical danger to the mother? Pregnancy is a not-insubstantial drain on the body; it puts permanent damage on her. How about the drain on society, of an unwanted, possibly soon-to-be-neglected child? Then there's the issue of birth defects. A parent or legal guardian could "pull the plug" on an infant living in an ICU setting; why not before then?

That's what a miscarriage is - a death.

We require certificates to verify death. And disposal of human remains, rather than lumps of tissue, is governed by strict laws. Not allowed to flush a baby down the toilet if it dies, which would mean one is supposed to miscarry only in a hospital setting, if an embryo is a "person." The legal issues of giving legal rights to "the unborn" are monumental.

[identity profile] temperingchaos.livejournal.com 2008-08-20 10:28 pm (UTC)(link)
Okay.. I found your LJ through the goodmamas friends page.

You just summed up my beliefs.. a hell of a lot more eloquently than I could have. Mind if I add you?

[identity profile] ewigweibliche.livejournal.com 2008-08-20 10:42 pm (UTC)(link)
Please! And I shall friend you back!

[identity profile] ewigweibliche.livejournal.com 2008-08-21 01:01 am (UTC)(link)
Also, I would so trade you Circus for your extra Lime...

[identity profile] ewigweibliche.livejournal.com 2008-08-21 03:31 pm (UTC)(link)
Got the other comment. Rats!
ext_20979: (Keira scarf)

[identity profile] bravenewcentury.livejournal.com 2008-08-20 11:21 pm (UTC)(link)
I want ALL foetuses to be wanted and healthy, but sadly that's not the reality all of time.

Yes. This.

Although the abortion debate isn't half such a hot-button issue over here as in the US, moving in Christian circles means I still hear a lot about it, and I'm sick to the back teeth of people who seem to think all we need to do is ban it and everything will be hunky-dory. I would call myself pro-life, but to me that means that you carry on caring about what happens to the baby after it's born, and that you care about the life of the mother too.

Plus this issue often seems to combine underlying desires to control womens' bodies and the near-fetishisation of the child, which is just seriously creepy- I had a conversation once where I got the distinct impression that the other person basically felt that women who are 'dirty' enough to get pregnant deserved to be subject to the pure and innocent baby. Nasty.

I've been hearing a lot about the Saddleback debates on various blogs today and to be honest the whole thing sounds like a set up for McCain. And Rick Warren gives me the heebie-jeebies...

[identity profile] ewigweibliche.livejournal.com 2008-08-21 02:20 pm (UTC)(link)
"near-fetishisation of the child,"

Yes! And at all costs too. Your whole comment is well-said.

I don't know a whole lot about Rick Warren. I do respect that he has encouraged his congregation to do some serious work globally on issues such as poverty, AIDS, etc. My in-laws have his book, "The Purpose Driven Life," and I'm hoping to borrow it and read it so I can learn a little more. This week's Economist is calling him Billy Graham's successor!

[identity profile] miss-malloreee.livejournal.com 2008-08-21 04:41 pm (UTC)(link)
I am pro-life, more so than I am pro-choice, but I do strongly feel that it is the womans right to choose. I just wish no one chose abortion. I'm not sure that this issue should even be drug into politics... I like McCain by default but I most likely won't even vote this go around because neither of them really do it for me.

I think the world should focus more on sex ed & birth control. I don't think parents should rely on their children to learn these things from school & friends. Young girls need to know that there life isn't over if they get pregnant, many people raise babies & go to college/work. I also think they should be taught that if they feel responsible enough to have sex then they are responsible to accept the many consequences. Also that sex doesn't equal love & love doesn't equal sex. Look at Jamie Lynn Spears (pathetic example, I know) she chose to do the right thing & have her baby but the tabloids ridicule her everyday for it.

Maybe our country needs a big lesson on morals? Whatever happened to saving sex for marriage or atleast someone you love? Maybe then there wouldn't be so many abortions, couples would actually want the baby who doesn't have the choice to live or die.

[identity profile] ewigweibliche.livejournal.com 2008-08-21 05:34 pm (UTC)(link)
Sadly, the "save it until marriage (or other committed relationship)/abstinence" stuff just isn't proven to work. Studies have shown that teens whether in abstinence programs or not tend to have sex at about equal rates. But those in abstinence only ed use birth control at lower rates. So, yes, sex ed is very important.

The Jamie Lynn Spears case is very interesting to me. In fact, young women in media is interesting in general (by that I mean, depressing and sickening). Jamie Lynn keeps her kid and that choice is derrided. Were she to have had an abortion, she would've been strung up. She really can't win either way. Young women's reproductive choices are judged and vilified no matter what. And it's still almost always the woman who is judged or criticized. Men still get the "benefits" of the double standard and women still suffer from it.

I also think Jamie Lynn choice to "do the right thing" is far easier than the vast majority of teens or young women who get pregnant. She has the resources to deal with this, stay healthy and keep going with her career - or the choice to never work another day in her life. She has health insurance, close family, the ability to hire nannies and house cleaners, a big ol' savings account, etc etc. For the average 16 yr old, I actually think Jamie Lynn's example is a bit misleading. It's totally possible to have a fine and healthy life with a child, but it's much harder. Especially if that woman doesn't start out with supportive family, health insurance, a good education/job prospects, a safe environment, partner involved in the child's life, etc.

I think morals are far less important in discussing this issue (even though, idealistically, I'd love for there to never be abortions!) than are resources and realities. The moral debate tends to assign blame and judgement, whereas resources has nuances of problem solving and acknowledgement that we all don't have the same resources.
elf: Rainbow sparkly fairy (Default)

[personal profile] elf 2008-08-22 03:06 am (UTC)(link)
One of the problems with "wait until marriage" is that, in 48 states, it means "if you're gay, you don't need to learn anything about sex because you'll never participate in it." Which is what the abstinence-only programs push. Bleh.

And of course, no funded program is ever going to say "it's okay to have sex if you really really love each other." Especially not to teenagers, who can fall in and out of love five times in a school year.

[identity profile] miss-malloreee.livejournal.com 2008-08-22 12:07 pm (UTC)(link)
I wasn't really talking about programs that teach these things, I think that parents need to be more involved in teaching their own children everything they need to know about sex, birth control & pregnancy.

[identity profile] ewigweibliche.livejournal.com 2008-08-22 02:37 pm (UTC)(link)
I agree. And parents need to be informed in the facts too.!
elf: Rainbow sparkly fairy (Default)

[personal profile] elf 2008-08-22 03:04 pm (UTC)(link)
One of the larger issues is that many parents are not informed. We can't make major changes by saying, "people should learn Factoids XYZ from their parents"--who were never told factoids XYZ.

Teaching teens about sex & the consequences thereof has to be done by the people who know, and it's a lot easier to install one of those in each school than have one of those inform every set of parents.

[identity profile] ewigweibliche.livejournal.com 2008-08-22 03:23 pm (UTC)(link)
Oh I am unequivocally in favor of sex ed in schools. It's like science (and other subjects). I think parents should be involved in their children's education, but I still think science teachers should teach science.
elf: Rainbow sparkly fairy (Default)

[personal profile] elf 2008-08-22 03:20 am (UTC)(link)
The bigger question for "life begins at conception" is "does that mean she can declare the unborn on her taxes 9 months earlier? Can she collect child support payments? Is she exempt from imprisonment, because the 'baby' hasn't been convicted of a crime?"

Claiming when life begins is irrelevant--the problem is when the legal status of "human being" or more specifically "U.S. Citizen" begins. In order to place that point before birth, we'd have to rewrite a whole lot of laws, because right now, it's assumed that all human beings can breathe... that you can move them around and separate them from other people (can the mother prosecute the baby for assault, for kicking her? Force it to be injected with morphine to keep it calm?), that they can either be held accountable for their actions, or be removed from a situation where accountability is relevant.

(And the pro-life/pro-choice thing is indeed ridiculous. Nobody is "pro" abortion; nobody wants more of them. No woman wants one, except in the way one might "want" an amputation to prevent gangrene.)

[identity profile] ewigweibliche.livejournal.com 2008-08-22 02:40 pm (UTC)(link)
I hadn't thought about those aspects of legality: taxes, etc. If a being is granted human rights, then is does make sense that it is considered an individual, but foetus isn't really, is it?
elf: Rainbow sparkly fairy (Default)

[personal profile] elf 2008-08-22 03:10 pm (UTC)(link)
When the "pro-life" crowd talks about "unborn rights," they're never talking about financial rights or educational rights or anything like that. It's only the "right to be born" that they mean (and sometimes, "the right to be born healthy," by which they mean "a pregnant woman's quality of life is secondary to that of the person inside her.")

We don't have any way of legally addressing "this person has rights, but instituting those rights automatically causes restrictions on this other person."

We could make some. We could declare fetuses humans-with-limited-rights, and delineate what those rights are, based on age of the fetus. Start with "right not to be killed," but declare that accidental deaths, unlike those of other humans, don't need to be recorded, and their remains don't need to be held to the same disposal standards as other cadavers. Declare they don't have the right to avoid unlawful incarceration, but on the flip side, can't be prosecuted for assault. And so on. (Gotta get ready for work, or I'd continue to ramble.)

But that would take a MAJOR change in some laws, and very careful writing... and the pro-birth crowd doesn't want to think that much.

[identity profile] ewigweibliche.livejournal.com 2008-08-22 03:27 pm (UTC)(link)
Hey! You are in Oakland... Any chance I might see you in the flesh at Lilli's one of these days?

Also, what's insane journal about. I notice you have an account and I've heard some other people mention it.
elf: Rainbow sparkly fairy (Default)

[personal profile] elf 2008-08-22 05:37 pm (UTC)(link)
I do not think Lilli wants me in her home, her claims of community meaning "open to all" notwithstanding.

InsaneJournal is a "livejournal clone," another site run on Danga software, like DeadJournal, Blurty, GreatestJournal, Journalfen.net, Inksome, CommieJournal, and so on. A great many fans moved there after Strikethrough last June, when LJ deleted several hundred accounts based on their interest lists. (They put most of them back, and went through a psychotic episode when they tried to define "acceptable content" as "stuff that doesn't squick our staff.") Because of the combination of their inconsistent polices and the growing number of ads on LJ, I've mostly moved to IJ.

IJ offers 100 userpics for free accounts, and some ridiculous number for paid accounts. (I have a perm account; I think I get 400 or something like that. I can't remember; I don't use anywhere near that many.)

IJ's biggest disad: no picture storage.
Biggest advantage: they don't patrol user content; if it's legal, it's okay on IJ. LiveJournal has decided it needs some kind of "family-friendly" standards, but refuses to explain them; apparently, we're all supposed to agree on what content is inappropriate for teenagers to see. Sigh.

[identity profile] ewigweibliche.livejournal.com 2008-08-22 06:09 pm (UTC)(link)
I had some friends who were effected by that stupid censorship nonsense.

Hm. Like I said in Lilli's post, I am out of the Feri gossip loop. All for the best, me thinks! Perhaps we shall cross paths at some other Feri gathering (pie in the park or Pantheacon, perhaps, or some other gathering starting with P).