Questions & Answers
Does twinning demonstrate that life doesn’t begin at conception?
Cloning advocates sometimes claim that because an early embryo may split into twins (up until 14 days after conception), there is no reason to suppose that it’s an individual human being prior to that time. Hence, early embryo research (prior to day 14) is morally permissible. The flaws in this argument are easy to spot. First, how does it follow that because an entity may split (or even recombine) that it was not a whole living organism prior to the split? As Patrick Lee and Robert George point out, if we cut a flatworm in half we get two flatworms. Would advocates of destructive embryo research argue that prior to the split, there was no distinct flatworm? I agree that twinning is a mystery. We don’t know if the original entity dies and gives rise to two new organisms or if the original survives and simply engages in some kind of asexual reproduction. Either way, this does nothing to call into question the existence of a distinct human organism prior to splitting.
Does the high number of miscarriages devalue unborn human life?
Cloning advocates cite the high number of miscarriages as proof that a) embryos are not individual human organisms, and b) destructive research is morally permissible. Suppose miscarriages are common: How does this fact refute the claim that embryos are human beings? Many Third-World countries have high infant mortality rates. Are we to conclude that those infants who die early were never whole human beings? Moreover, how does it follow that because nature may spontaneously abort an embryo that I may deliberately kill one? Admittedly, these miscarriages are tragic events. But as journalist Andrew Sullivan points out, just because earthquakes happen doesn’t mean massacres are justified.
If brain death is the end of a person, then does it logically follow that brain function is the beginning of a person?
A variation of that same question states: "If the embryo (who doesn’t even have a brain yet) is so valuable it cannot be killed by abortion, how do you justify pulling the plug on brain-dead individuals? Neither one has a functioning brain."
I deal with so-called personhood arguments above (the main problem being they're ad-hoc, arbitrary, and prove too much) but for starters, "pulling the plug" can mean a couple of different things, one moral, one immoral. First, it can mean disconnecting life support from a brain-dead individual. To be clear, a brain-dead person is in fact dead, meaning he’s suffered (and this is key) an irreversible loss of all coordinated bodily function, including brain function. His bodily systems no longer work together in an integrated manner the way they do in living organisms. In this case, all so-called life-support is doing is preventing the body from decomposing. There may, in fact, be good reasons for doing this--as, for example, when organs can be recovered for transplantation (with, of course, the patient's prior consent) or when a pregnant woman has an otherwise survivable fetus that will die if she is "unplugged." However, barring those types of cases, I see no moral requirement for using life-support to delay the decomposing process. After all, the person is already dead. Second, "pulling the plug" can mean (erroneously) active euthanasia on a person who is not brain dead but merely brain damaged—such as a mentally disabled person or perhaps someone in a persistent vegetative state. While both these states are lamentable, we are not dealing here with a corpse, but a damaged human being. Damaged humans are not non-humans, nor should they be killed for their injuries.
Here's the key point: The embryo is nothing like the brain-dead person because the embryo, unlike you and I, does not need a brain to live. For the embryo, something else coordinates the bodily systems so that it functions as a coordinated whole. In short, embryos function as living organisms; brain-dead people do not. Hence, there is no parallel between the brain-dead person and the embryonic human beings you and I once were. As Stephen Schwarz points out, the embryo is in the category of "not yet" while the brain-dead person is in the category of "no more." The latter has an irreversible loss of brain function resulting in death; the former does not yet need a brain to live.
If we thought the brain-dead person would (or even might) awaken several months later, we couldn’t justify taking his organs. And that is exactly the condition of the embryo: it’s a living organism, developing, fully human, though not yet fully mature. "We don't treat brain-dead people as dead because they are living human organisms who happen no longer to be persons," writes Ramesh Ponnuru. "We treat them as dead because they are no longer organisms, no longer capable of directing their own internal functioning." (Ponnuru posted this on the National Review website, The Corner, on 8-9-05.)
Since there is no agreement on abortion, should the individual woman be allowed to decide for herself?
Individual relativism asserts that right and wrong begin with each human being. What’s wrong for one person may be fine for another. Morality is reduced to personal preferences and tastes, meaning we shouldn’t push our morality on others or pass judgment on individual choices. But if morals are relative to culture or the individual, there is no ethical difference between Adolph Hitler and Mother Theresa; they just had different preferences: The latter liked to help people while the former liked to kill them. Who are we to judge? But such a view is counterintuitive. Even if people do in fact differ, it does not follow that nobody is correct. We shouldn’t assume there are no right answers. People once disagreed on slavery and equal rights for women, but that didn’t mean moral truth was out of reach.
Aren't pro-lifers relying on speculative metaphysics to sustain their views?
Both positions--pro-life and pro-abortion choice--are attempting to answer the exact same question: What makes humans valuable in the first place? Science cannot answer that question, only metaphysics can. So why is only the pro-life position disqualified from the public square (for its alleged ties to the metaphysics of religion) while the abortion-choice view gets a free pass?
As Francis J. Beckwith explains, the nature of the abortion debate is such that all positions presuppose a metaphysical view of human value, and for this reason, the abortion-choice position is not entitled to win by default. At issue is not which view has metaphysical underpinnings and which does not, but which metaphysical view of human value does a better job of accounting for human rights and human dignity, pro-life or abortion-choice?
The pro-life view is that humans are intrinsically valuable in virtue of the kind of thing they are. True, they differ immensely with respect to talents, accomplishments, and degrees of development, but they are nonetheless equal because they share a common human nature. Their right to life comes to be when they come to be, either at conception or at the completion of a cloning process. The abortion-choice view is that humans have value (and hence, rights) not in virtue of the kind of thing they are, members of a natural kind, but only because of an acquired property that comes to be later in the life of the human organism. Because the early embryo does not appear (to them) as a human being with rights, destroying embryos or fetuses through abortion or medical research is perfectly fine.
Notice that the abortion-choicer is doing the abstract work of metaphysics. That is, he is using philosophical reflection to defend a disputed view of human value in his quest to defend elective abortion. In short, the attempt to disqualify the pro-life view from public policy based on its alleged metaphysical underpinnings works equally well to disqualify his own view.
Does the Bible’s silence justify abortion?
The case for elective abortion based on the alleged silence of Scripture is weak. First, the Bible’s silence on abortion does not mean that its authors condoned the practice, but that prohibitions against it were largely unnecessary. The Hebrews of the Old Testament and Christians of the New were not likely to kill their offspring before birth. Second, we don’t need Scripture to expressly say elective abortion is wrong before we can know that it’s wrong. The Bible affirms that all humans have value because they bear God’s image. The facts of science make clear that from the earliest stages of development, the unborn are unquestionably human. Hence, Biblical commands against the unjust taking of human life apply to the unborn as they do other human beings.
Click here for more on the Bible and abortion.
Is embryonic stem cell research morally complex?
When advocates of embryonic stem cell research say that we have a moral obligation to save lives and promote cures, what they often mean is that human embryos should be cloned and killed for medical research. But you would never know it listening to their rhetoric. Now I’m all for saving lives. I’m also for stem-cell research. But I’m opposed to one kind of stem-cell research that requires killing defenseless human beings so that others may (allegedly) benefit. That’s immoral.
Click here for more on embryonic stem cell research.
Are moral concerns about embryonic stem cell research (ESCR) anti-science?
Regrettably, moral concerns with embryonic stem cell research are often dismissed (rather than refuted) as anti-science and anti-progress. “Our conviction about what is natural or right should not inhibit the role of science in discovering the truth,” Prime Minister Tony Blair told critics of Britain’s plan to clone human embryos for research. Echoing these same sentiments, U.S. Senator Orin Hatch remarked, “It would be terrible to say because of an ethical concept, we can’t do anything for you.” Ron Reagan, son of the late pro-life President Ronald Wilson Reagan, told the 2004 Democratic National Convention that many opponents of ESCR are "well-meaning and sincere." However, "their belief is just that, an article of faith, and they are entitled to it. But it does not follow that the theology of a few should be allowed to forestall the health and well-being of the many."
Consider: If Blair, Hatch, and Reagan are correct that scientific progress trumps morality, one can hardly condemn Hitler for grisly medical experiments on Jews. Nor can one criticize the Tuskegee experiments of the 1920s in which black men suffering from syphilis were promised treatment, only to have it denied so scientists could study the disease.
Ramesh Ponnuru writes that pro-cloning polemics frequently frame the debate in terms that obscure the point at issue. “A cloning ban is said to be an attempt to ban research, its supporters are said to fear knowledge, and it is opposed on that basis. It is, of course, true that a ban would bar certain types of research and could prevent certain knowledge from being discovered—but because the research to get the knowledge involves homicide, not because it is research.”
What about women dying from “back-alley” abortions?
The argument goes like this: If laws are passed to protect the unborn, women will once again be forced to procure dangerous illegal abortions. Besides, we are told, the law can’t stop all abortions, so why not keep the practice legal? Although the argument has strong emotional appeal, it fails logically for several reasons.
First, it begs the question. That is, unless you begin with the assumption that the unborn are not human, you are making the highly questionable claim that because some people will die attempting to kill others, the state should make it safe and legal for them to do so. As abortion advocate Mary Anne Warren points out, “The fact that restricting access to abortion has tragic side effects does not, in itself, show that the restrictions are unjustified, since murder is wrong regardless of the consequences of prohibiting it.” (Mary Anne Warren, "On the Moral and Legal Status of Abortion," in The Problem of Abortion, Joel Feinberg, ed., Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, 1984, p.103.)
Second, the objection that the law cannot stop all abortions is silly. Laws cannot stop all cases of rape—should we legalize rape? The fact is that laws against abortion, like laws against rape, drastically reduce its occurrence. A sophisticated analysis by Syska, Hilgers, and O’Hare indicates that prior to Roe v. Wade (pre-1973), there were at most 210,000 illegal abortions per year while more conservative estimates suggest a mean of 98,000 per year. ("An Objective Model for Estimating Criminal Abortions and Its Implications for Public Policy," in New Perspectives on Human Abortion, ed. Thomas Hilgers, M.D., Dennis J. Horan, and David Mall, Frederick, MD: University Publications of America, 1981, 78.)
Here's the key point to consider: Within eight years of legalization, abortion totals jumped to over 1.3 million annually!
Third, women aren’t forced to have illegal abortions; they choose to have them. Yes, pro-lifers mourn the loss of any woman who dies needlessly, but I refuse to accept the premise that women MUST seek illegal abortions. Greg Koul writes, “A woman is no more forced into the back alley when abortion is outlawed than a young man is forced to rob banks because the state won’t put him on welfare. Both have other options.”
Finally, the claim thousands died annually from back-alley abortions prior to 1973—when Roe. v. Wade legalized abortion in the U.S.—is just plain false. Dr. Mary Calderone, former medical director for Planned Parenthood, wrote in 1960 that illegal abortions were performed safely by physicians in good standing in their communities. True, this doesn’t prove no woman will ever die from an illegal abortion, but it does put to rest the claim of high mortality rates for the years prior to legalization. Here’s Calderone’s quote in its full context:
“Fact No. 3—Abortion is no longer a dangerous procedure. This applies not just to therapeutic abortions as performed in hospitals but also to so-called illegal abortions as done by physicians. In 1957 there were only 260 deaths in the whole country attributed to abortions of any kind. In New York City in 1921 there were 144 abortion deaths, in 1951 there were only 15; and, while the abortion death rate was going down so strikingly in that 30 year period, we know what happened to the population and the birth rate. Two corollary factors must be mentioned here: first, chemotherapy and antibiotics have come in, benefiting all surgical procedures as well as abortion. Second, and even more important, the conference estimated that 90 per cent of all illegal abortions are presently being done by physicians. Call them what you will, abortionists or anything else, they are still physicians, trained as such; and many of them are in good standing in their communities. They must do a pretty good job if the death rate is as low as it is. Whatever trouble arises usually comes after self-induced abortions, which comprise approximately 8 percent, or with the very small percentage that go to some kind of non-medical abortionist. Another corollary fact: physicians of impeccable standing are referring their patients for these illegal abortions to the colleagues whom they know are willing to perform them, or they are sending their patients to certain sources outside of this country where abortion is performed under excellent medical conditions. The acceptance of these facts was such that one outstanding gynecologist at the conference declared: “From the ethical standpoint, I see no difference between recommending an abortion and performing it. The moral responsibility is equal.” So remember fact number three; abortion, whether therapeutic or illegal, is in the main no longer dangerous, because it is being done well by physicians.” (Mary S. Calderone, “Illegal Abortion as a Public Health Problem,” American Journal of Public Health, July 1960.)
Meanwhile, The Centers for Disease Control report that 39 women died from illegal abortion in 1972, the year prior to legalization. (Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, Centers for Disease Control Surveillance Summaries, 9/4/92, p. 33.) Admittedly, this number is understated, but as abortion-choice ethicist Daniel Callahan points out, the claim of 5,000 to 10,000 deaths per year is out of the question. Callahan’s own survey of available data suggests a more reasonable figure of 500 deaths annually. (Abortion: Law, Choice, and Morality, New York: Macmillan, 1970, pp. 132-136.)
But again, the argument from illegal abortions only has force if abortion-choice critics assume that the unborn are not human beings. Remember: If you think a particular argument begs the question regarding the status of the unborn, simply ask if this justification for abortion also works as a justification for killing toddlers or other humans. If not, the argument assumes the unborn are not fully human. Again, it may be the case that the unborn are not fully human and abortion is therefore justified. But this must be argued with evidence, not merely assumed by one’s rhetoric.
