What is it about abortion that so engages and enrages so many on both sides of this controversial issue? Why does a BBC News title proclaim of the head of a major computer game devepoper that “Tripwire boss steps down over support for Texas abortion law” (2021)? How is this latest eruption of a debate that has divided America for at least 50 years, half a century, of such importance that Thailand’s Bangkok Post felt the need to report the angry response to it by Hollywood celebrities? (“Celebrities Lash Out”, 2021) The answers, I think, are that abortion touches on both religion and politics, drawing the two together in an unholy conflict where reason tends to give way to sincere conviction founded on faith, and where respect for others is swamped by obedience to divine dictates. Despite many sincerely believing that they are doing what is right, Texas's recent law that has so far passed Supreme Court scrutiny to fuel the long standing abortion controversy in the United States is morally wrong, being based on dishonest arguments that if taken seriously quickly lead to absurd conclusions that the most avid anti-abortion advocates would themselves reject.
First, it must be admitted that those who oppose abortion truly believe themselves to be doing what is right. When she speaks of “the injustice and inhumanity of abortion,” (Smyth & Kuresi, 2021), there is no reason to doubt that Janet Folger Porter, founder of anti-abortion group Faith 2 Action, means exactly what she says. Nor is there any reason to doubt his true faith when Texas governor Greg Abbot said, as he signed the legislation into law on May 19, that “Our creator endowed us with the right to life and yet millions of children lose their right to life every year because of abortion” (Najmabadi, 2021). The governor plainly believes himself to be doing his god’s will to save unborn children from “from the ravages of abortion,” as he emotiviely describes it.
It is this sincerity of their belief that points us to the dishonesty at the heart of such laws as Texas’s heartbeat law. The language of Senate Bill 8, the formal title of the legislation, reveals what is being done. In the definitions section of Senate Bill 8 (2021), we read that: "(7) 'Unborn child' means a human fetus or embryo in any stage of gestation from fertilization until birth." This definition and others are part of amendments to Texas’s Health and Safety Code; that is, the law that has been enacted to greatly restrict the ability of women in Texas to have a safe, legal abortion is being falsely presented as a health and safety issue to protect unborn children. There are other issues with heartbeat bills being proposed by various American states, such as the scientifically questionable claim that there is in fact a heartbeat or even a clearly formed human heart six weeks into a pregnancy (Smyth & Kuresi, 2021), but these are peripheral to the more serious deceit in presenting a foetus as a human child deserving of the same moral consideration that applies to children aged two or more years who are already being prepared for school and a future as valued persons in their society.
It is certainly true that “a human fetus or embryo in any stage of gestation from fertilization” (Senate Bill 8, 2021) is a human being. But this means only that it is a living entity composed of cells run by human DNA. To claim that merely having cells with human DNA makes something a human person, such as the normal understanding of the word child when applied to a living human being, is like asserting that freshly fertilized hen’s egg is a chicken ready to be turned into KFC nuggets. It is not. The argument of the Texas law makers and their anti-abortion supporters is that a a foetus or even embryo is already a human person, with all the rights that normally come with being a human person: the right to make decisions about your own affairs; the right to vote in a democracy; the right to freely enter into relationships with other persons; the right to form, hold and freely express opinions; and of course the right to life. This brief list of some common rights of human persons shows that they cannot apply to any embryo or foetus at any stage of development in pregnancy. Texas’s government may define words however they want to, so they can legally dictate that any living being with a heartbeat is thereby a full human person, which is what Senate Bill 8 does when it equates a living human embryo at six weeks age with a fully human person such as a child at age five. But this definition of a person who has moral rights renders irrelevant every normal defining characteristic of personhood: there is no need to have any intelligence since a six-week old embryo has none; there is no need to have any human emotion, which no six-week old embryo ever has; nor does being a person require being self aware, having plans, having preferences, or being able to make decisions, none of which an embryo or foetus can ever do. All that is required to be a person is to have a heartbeat.
But humans are not the only animals with hearts that beat. The logical consequence of Texas’s assault on the right of women to decide for themselves whether to have a child or not is that any living living animal with a heartbeat is also a person. There is nothing special about human DNA that makes us magically different to animals built by pig DNA, or chicken DNA, or fish DNA or cattle DNA. This leads logically to holding that those who kill pigs, chickens, fish, cattle, or many of the other animals we like to kill and eat, are in fact killing persons, and that everytime someone orders KFC or a Big Mac, they order others to kill persons at low cost. This logical conclusion sounds absurd. It is absurd. Nor to we see those who make up or support such laws as Senate Bill 8 preaching that we must become vegetarians and stop eating meat, although their own premises entail that meat eaters are every day killing or ordering the killing of millions of persons who deserve exactly the same moral consideration and legal protection as a six-week-old human embryo that has no idea it even exists. The absurdity in the conclusion comes from the dishonest claim that an embryo or foetus is as much a person as an actual human child, which claim is therefore as absurd as it is false, despite being legally dictated.
If the Texas lawmakers truly cared for human persons, they would respect reason and the relevant facts by passing law that made it easier and safer for their citizens to abort children that they have decided they are not ready, willing, or able to raise to be healthy members of the community. Respect for the life of human persons requires treating persons as individuals with liberty to decide things for themselves, not as puppets of ancient gods dictating without reason or justice.
References
Celebrities lash out at Texas abortion law. (2021, September 3). Bangkok Post. https://www.bangkokpost.com/world/2175899/celebrities-lash-out-at-texas-abortion-law
Najmabadi, S. (2021, May 19). Gov. Greg Abbott signs into law one of nation’s strictest abortion measures, banning procedure as early as six weeks into a pregnancy. The Texas Tribune. https://www.texastribune.org/2021/05/18/texas-heartbeat-bill-abortions-law/
Smyth, J. C., & Kruesi, K. (2021, May 15). ‘Fetal heartbeat’ in abortion laws taps emotion, not science. AP News. https://apnews.com/article/abortion-laws-government-and-politics-health-77c9ba98c4f4ab46fdbd5bcc47b5b938
Texas Senate Bill 8. (2021). LegiScan. https://legiscan.com/TX/text/SB8/id/2395961
Tripwire boss steps down over support for Texas abortion law. (2021, September 8). BBC. https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-58476595
When I was planning, there were two more body paragraphs, but I ran out of words before I could explore how the First Amendment to the US Constitution leads to the dishonest approach adopted by anti-abortion proponents, who tend to be Christian.
ReplyDeleteThe short, one-sentence First Amendment absolutely prohibits any religious reason, such as belief in souls, justifying any US law. This is why those oppose abortion for religious reasons must come up with dishonest and, I think, absurd arguments to support their unholy cause, but as the cited language of Texas's governor shows, their religious convictions are at the heart of their opposition to allowing women to decide the uses to which their bodies are put at the will of others than themselves.
The full text of the First Amendment is:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
U.S. Const. amend. I. (1791)
This one short sentence also gives solid legal protection to the right to free speech and to protest.