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August 20, 2004

Viable

I could probably never win elective office; many of my views would never fit into a seven-second sound bite. For many of them, I'd be insulted if anyone asked me to.

Abortion is one of them.

For a Conservative and a Christian, abortion is still basically a side-issue to me. I'm pro-life, of course, but I'm small-l libertarian enough to think it is basically a person's choice within limits - and big-CC Conservative Christian enough to think those limits should err far on the side of life, and to believe I should use whatever bully pulpit I have to proselytize for life, morality and sexual responsibility.

I figure that if nations like France and Germany - as sundered by dehumanizing socialism on the one hand and two millenia of Catholicism on the other - can reach a compromise that leaves them short of civil war, we certainly can; in Germany, abortions are legal until the 9th week, in France the 7th.

That said, the most repugnant concept in the whole debate is "viability". Fundamenalists insist life is vital at conception. Those who regard abortion as a sacrament believe life is not viable until it's born - and in some cases, later.

As a parent, of course, I know better; a fetus is ot viable until it can pay rent.

But I digress.

Morally, in a perfect world, people would know that a conceived fetus, even without medical care, would have a 3/4 chance of being carried until birth; even before modern obstetrics, infants stood a 2/3 chance of surviving childbirth. So - in that mythical perfect world, before a couple devolved into the throes of passion, they'd realize that they were running some risk, birth control aside, of creating something that nature had equipped us to bring into life, as long as nothing conspired against it.

But the notion of "viability" lingers on, and its onset is debated with "how many angels fit on the head of this pin"-level fervor.

But I wonder how anyone, even the most myopic pro-infanticide zealot, can take the debate seriously with stories like this in plain view?

Of course I know how they can; it's not about the life of the "fetus". To the abortion sacramentalist, the mother - her convenience, lifestyle and, occasionally, health - trumps right and wrong. Ideology trumps nine-ounce miracles.

Posted by Mitch at August 20, 2004 07:23 AM | TrackBack
Comments

"As a parent, of course, I know better; a fetus is not viable until it can pay rent."

Reminds me of the Bill Hicks line: "You're not a human until you're in my phone book." Go figure, he lived in New York at the time...

Posted by: Steve Gigl at August 20, 2004 09:02 AM

I consider myself pro-choice, but a moderate; there most certainly is a point at which a fetus is not just viable, but tangibly human. The phenomenally difficult question is when that happens.

There's pretty significant agreement that a blastocyst is not yet human; there's pretty significant agreement that a fetus at eight months is. (Yes, crazies on the right say that it's human at the instant of conception; yes, crazies on the left say it's not human until it's born. They're both wrong.)

The question, then, is what is the dividing line? Actually, there's a good argument for where it is--right around the end of the second trimester.

I advise everyone on both sides to go seek out Gregg Easterbrook's "Abortion and Brain Waves" from The New Republic. (Sadly, it's not on line. It should be.) In the article, Easterbrook (who is best described as a cranky moderate) makes a powerful argument: we know the brain gets organized into thought patterns right around six months. We treat death as the cessation of thought; why not treat life as the onset of thought?

Easterbrook's article led me to my belief today: abortion should be flatly legal for the first twenty weeks, flatly illegal for the last twenty (with possible exceptions for the life or health of the mother, for hypoencephalic fetuses, etc.) This would split the difference nicely, and while the crazies on both sides would hate it, it would be acceptable to, say, 60-65% of Americans, which is enough to enshrine it forever.

Posted by: Jeff Fecke at August 20, 2004 11:57 AM

Could someone please check the weather forecast in Hell? I have just found myself in (general) agreement with Fecke.

Posted by: Kris at August 20, 2004 12:43 PM

Yikes. Did I just experience a Fecke-ian moment wherein I agreed with Jeff Fecke? Can't be. *re-reading* Wow. Yeah, there it is again. . . I agree with Jeff Fecke. I must now sit in dumbfounded amazement while I try to fit this uncomfortable realization into my established world view.

Then again, it could just be a "broken-clock-being-right-twice-a-day" kind of thing.

At any rate, well put, Jeff.

Posted by: Ryan at August 20, 2004 01:27 PM

Actually, I draw the line further towards conception: 12 weeks, or the end of the first trimester. I believe that somewhere in that second trimester the fetus becomes a person, but I cannot (and don't think anyone can) determine precisely when. So err on the conservative side.

For me it is a question of individual rights: When is the fetus a person with individual rights of its own? Rights that can conflict with the rights of the woman carrying it?

Sooner or later we'll develop a fully functional artificial uterus, and human eggs will be fertilized, implanted, and brought to term all outside a human body. The question will, again, be: When is it a PERSON?

Posted by: Kevin Baker at August 20, 2004 09:20 PM

Arrgh. Jeff, I owe you a blog post (not today) dedicated to this topic. Because your position is as in tune with the popular comfort level as it is in disconnect with anything philisophically defensible to serious challenge. But I give you great credit for breaking party lines to think seriously about a taboo subject.

Posted by: Doug at August 20, 2004 10:35 PM

Jeff Fecke's point is very well taken, as is Kevin Baker's; put a rational definition to the start of "humaneness" and err on the cautious side (avoid the word "conservative" although I certainly understand the sense it which Kevin used it), caution meaning lessening the chance of killing a human as defined in the first part. Kind of works for me.

I recall a few weeks back the article by some woman who, upon discovering she was the mother of triplets, conveniently got rid of two of them early on. The notion was sickening to me (in a very literal sense, and when I pointed it out to my wife, she quit reading immediately as she couldn't stomach it either) and I doubt such a person would support these ideas. Recalling the story makes me doubt the neat solution we have come up with; the issue is more than a neat technical set of guide lines.

Posted by: terry at August 20, 2004 10:47 PM
hi