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The personhood of a fetus (long)
The personhood of a fetus. You cannot have it both ways. Either it is a person and it has rights, or it is not one and it is without rights. One or the other.
In the news, every so often, you read of a pregnant woman who is shot or injured in some way due to malicious activity and she dies and so does the fetus. Or, her injuries cause the fetus to die and she survives.
I know last year I read a story of this occurring in which the fetus was treated by the court as a person with rights and the murderer was tried with a double homicide (sorry, I cannot recall the news article).
The key here is that this was a WANTED fetus. It was a WANTED pregancy. So the fetus was given personhood. It was convenient for the grieving family to know their lost family members were getting justice served by the perpetrator being tried with both deaths. It was convenient for the prosecution to try the alleged felon with a double homicide rather than a single.
The fetus could have been ignored in this case. But it wasn't. It was treated as a full-fledged American citizen with legal rights in court. It was a life taken unjustly by an act of violence and the fetus was given the same exact treatment in court as any walking, talking born person is.
But, it seems that when the fetus in unwanted, when it is inconvenient, costly, embarassing or otherwise "not the right time" the fetus has no rights. "Well, I don't want it. I have my rights to say 'no' to this pregnancy. Not a good time. Not enough money. Not the right age. Not the right guy. Not the right job yet. Not the right ____ fill in the blank.
Personhood rights cannot be arbitrarily assigned to a living being when it is convenient to do so or when it fits a lifestyle. We cannot just pick up personhood when we want it and lay it back down when it doesn't "fit" with a worldview. This is highly inconsistent.
If you grant a fetus personhood status to try a case in court, but then revoke this status for other cases in which there were no malicious acts, but the mother just wants the fetus gone, there exists a highly incongruous ideaology.
Ask this question, "If I were/am pregnant, and my baby dies due to a violent act against me, and I want this unborn baby, do I want justice served for him/her/bun/sweet pea/bean/nugget/bear or choose your own prebirth nickname for your child?"
My personal answer is an unequivocal, emphatic, "Yes!" I want justice served for my unborn child if s/he were killed in a malicious act.
But, why would my wanted child's rights for personhood be held up higher than an unwanted child's rights for personhood?
Is a fetus conceived - under no fault of their own, living in the womb - again no control of their own, and then NOT having a violent act committed against them any less deserving of a personhood status?
Re: The personhood of a fetus (long)
No, fetuses should not have personhood. Granting a fetus or embryo personhood necessarily means that the pregnant woman is automatically LESS than a full person. Legally, it cannot be both - either the fetus is a full person or the woman is a full person. I'm going to choose the woman.
But I'm OK with "terminating a pregnancy against a woman's will" being a separate and harshly punished crime.
THIS.
Also, if the main goal is to reduce the number of abortions, making abortions illegal has been proven not to work. Making abortions illegal only leads to dangerous abortions which often lead to the death of the mother.
The only way to reduce the number of abortions is to keep it legal, provide easy access to birth control/vasectomies, and provide sex education to young people.
I agree with you, MommyLiberty, I don't think the rights of an un born baby should be contingent on how other people feel about that baby.
In regards to preventing abortions with sex ed: I haven't looked for any stats, so enlighten me here: Are a large percentage of abortions in the US performed on women who had absolutely no iddea they could get pregnant by having sex?
Also in regards to easy access to affordable birth control: Is it really easier to get an abortion than to get condoms and/or BCP? Again, I don't know the exact numbers, so inform me.
THIS. Over and over, this.
It's why the "pro-life" movement is such a crock of crap. If you're serious about reducing abortions, then do what is EVIDENCE-BASED and PROVEN to reduce abortions. Making them illegal just drives women back to the days of coat hangers and chemicals. Seriously, abortion was around WAY before Roe vs Wade, to think otherwise is naive.
And no, a fetus is not a person. Terminating a pregnancy against a woman's will should remain a heavily punished crime, but it's not "murder".
All of this. In addition, I truly believe that if men could get pregnant we would not even be having this discussion.
1) It's not that cut and dry. It's really not. Somewhere around half of all pregnancies in the US now are unintended (not necessarily unwanted, but unintended). You tell me - do that many American women have absolutely no idea that pregnancy is caused by sex? There's apparently something not working with our current sex education and attitude about it.
2) Again, not that cut and dry. No, it's not super easy and affordable for some women to get an abortion.......but it's not super easy and affordable for some women to get BCP either. And condoms require 100% partner participation, which unfortunately not every woman has.
And FWIW, a growing number of abortions are performed on women who already have children, who don't have the means to have another child. If our country did more to help women in that situation, maybe there would be less women requesting abortions because they can't afford another mouth to feed. But that isn't anywhere on the "pro-life" agenda either.
Many pro-choice advocates are actually against laws that allow homicide charges to be brought on behalf of fetuses because it's a slippery slope. Similarly, most women's rights advocates are against pregnant women being subject to child endangerment laws if they, say, have a glass of wine, skip prenatal visits or go on roller coasters.
The loss of a fetus due to violent crime is tragic, but unfortunately, I agree that under the eyes of the law, it shouldn't be homicide. That said, it's hard to have this discussion without the news article in question. How many weeks was the fetus? Was it past the point of viability? The question becomes a lot fuzzier when you have a late or full-term fetus, which might be covered under state laws prohibiting abortions after a certain number of weeks.
1) Maybe I need more coffee, but I'm not understanding what you're saying here....I think we are agreeing that most women who have unintended pregnancies knew that they could get pregnant if they had sex, right? So what is your suggestion for how to improve the sex ed program to prevent unintended pregnancies?
2) I've been a sexually active 18 year old girl before, I think my BCP was $10 without insurance, if that. That may have changed since, I don't know. And saying that some women don't have partner participation with a condom is a crock of an excuse. Not that I'm saying it doesn't happen, I know it does, but if a couple is in agreement that they want to prevent pregnancy, they both need to participate in that prevention, especially if BCP is not easy and afforable. Using "some guys don't want to wear condoms" among pro-abortion arguments is IMO a huge disservice to women.
3) "And FWIW, a growing number of abortions are performed on women who already have children, who don't have the means to have another child. If our country did more to help women in that situation, maybe there would be less women requesting abortions because they can't afford another mouth to feed." I agree with you here. I don't know a whole lot about the assistance that's currently availeable, so what do you suggest our country does more?
"3) "And FWIW, a growing number of abortions are performed on women who already have children, who don't have the means to have another child. If our country did more to help women in that situation, maybe there would be less women requesting abortions because they can't afford another mouth to feed." I agree with you here. I don't know a whole lot about the assistance that's currently availeable, so what do you suggest our country does more?"
Hold up: talk about not having it both ways. Republicans can't wring their hands about the budget deficit and then say the solution to unwanted pregnancies is more government assistance to mothers. No, the solution to unwanted pregnancies is 1) better acess to birth control (including the morning-after pill in cases of BC failure or non-consensual sex) and 2) access to abortion that's safe and legal.
If the question of abortion returns to the states, rich women will always have access to it. I live in a state that would quickly ban abortion if Roe v. Wade is overturned but I could easily fly home to NY or even Canada if it came to that. It's poor women -- the ones using all our "feel good" social services as someone said this week -- who will really suffer.
I said nothing about Republicans or the budget deficit. I agreed that a lot of abortions were women who felt they couldn't afford another mouth to feed. I also agree this country should help people who truly need it, I don't think it should be relied on as a safety net, ie: "I don't need to try to prevent pregnancy because the gov't will take care of me if I live beyond my means". I'm not sure what I'm trying to have both ways.
1) Comprehensive sex education starting at puberty. Parents aren't talking to their kids about it the way that we would all like to think that they do (having taught sex ed before, most of the kids told me that their parents never talked to them, and they were afraid to ask them questions for fear of what they'd say). Schools aren't currently allowed to do this much. But it has to come from somewhere.
Pregnancy has to stop being considered something that "just happens" rather than something that is almost completely controllable. Comprehensive sex ed will help a lot with that.
2) How long ago were you 18? And I'm assuming that you were an 18 year old that easily had the funds to pay for that. To assume that every woman can even afford the $10 (especially when she's working a minimum wage job and already has children to feed and take care of) is naive at best. Yeah, $10/month for me is one less lunch at a restaurant a month. But I can admit that I'm priviledged to be able to say that.
And it's not a "crock of an excuse" to say that some women are in abusive relationships in which her partner won't wear a condom. It's the truth. To ignore it and tell the woman "tough cookies if you get pregnant, should have thought of that before you decided that sex was the better option than getting beat" is, at best, heartless.
3) I don't know. ACA is a good first step in providing low-income families and women some sort of help. No, I don't like giving hand-outs to everyone and I think that our current social programs need to be overhauled completely. But if women are aborting because they can't afford a child, making abortion illegal doesn't make them magically be able to afford one. Better pay for blue- and no-collar jobs, better benefits, guarantee at least FMLA for all women, provide better assistance to help these women re-enter the workforce (assistance with childcare), make it possible for them to afford the child.
If you look at countries with very low abortion rates, you'll find all of these things in place (comprehensive sex ed starting at a young age, a more relaxed attitude about it, condoms and BCP available almost like candy, and social progams that ensure a certain quality of living for everyone). Counties in which abortion is illegal continue to have higher rates of it, along with higher maternal morbidity rates.
Pumpkin, if you're interested -
http://m.yahoo.com/w/legobpengine/news/study-free-birth-control-leads-fewer-abortions-210623724.html?orig_host_hdr=news.yahoo.com&.intl=US&.lang=en-US
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/lovejoyfeminism/2012/10/how-i-lost-faith-in-the-pro-life-movement.html
Thanks, I'll look at them later. I have been grossly unproductive at work this week!
The bolded:
Many fetuses attaining a certain point in gestation CAN and DO live on their own outside the womb (when given a chance to come out of the womb).
Under your position, just because the fetus is surrounded by a sac of fluid in an organ, it isn't a person, even if it could live on its own and be alive if it were brought out of the womb? But because of its locale, it isn't a person?
All that separates a fetus from personhood, then, is a few walls of ectodermal tissue?
That's the biggest case of "wrong place, wrong time" I've ever heard of!
Her explanation was actually c&p'd into the post about the woman who was denied an abortion.
Oh.
Basically yes. Because of the locale of the fetus it can not be considered a person in the legal sense. And they can't be granted personhood status or constitutional rights without infringing on or eroding away the rights of the mother.
I posted this in the slippery slope post, but it is legally impossible to have both the mother and the fetus be awarded constitutional rights. Because if it comes to privacy, health, or emergency situations, the rights of one will have to trump the rights of the other. For instance, let's say we granted a fetus rights. And a pregnant woman discovers she has cancer requiring chemotherapy. Chemotherapy that may harm the fetus. Whose rights are honored and who makes that decision? A judge? The doctor?
Or let's say a pregnant woman is in a car accident. The baby can be saved by emergency c section, but then the mom wouldn't make it. Or the mother could be saved with an emergency operation but then the baby would die. Again, whose rights win out? And who decides?
Uh, yes? Legally the answer is yes too. There has to be a cut-off somewhere. I'm not sure exactly what it is in the US, but in Canada it is when the foetus has completely exited its mother. Until then, even if it is capable of surviving outside of the womb in theory it is not living independently of the pregnant woman and therefore is not a person.
The main argument isn't valid where I am either, because killing a pregnant woman will only result in one homicide/manslaughter charge.
No. It's because bringing it out of the womb isn't just a matter of opening a door and letting the fetus through. The very process of getting the fetus out of the womb involves serious medical risk to the woman.
Here's where what you believe meets what actually is. The Constitution recognizes three basic rights: life, liberty, and property. In order to avail yourself of any of these rights, you must be a person. "Person" is not used in it colloquial sense, but in a legal sense. So the issue of whether a fetus is a "life" is irrelevant. The real issue is whether it is a person. If it is a person, then it has a right to life. If it is not a person, it has no constitutional rights at all. The woman is a person. There is no issue with that. It is not a matter of debate. So she has certain liberty interests that are constitutionally protected. One of those is privacy: the right to be left alone. The issues of abortion, pregnancy, and family are private matters which the woman is entitled to control and safeguard against government interference. So what you have right now is a situation where a non-person would have greater rights than a person. At a moral level, this may not bother you. You may be thinking, great, all we have to do is assign fetuses "personhood" status and then they have a right to life and we're good.
Only we're not good. There are major major problems with defining a fetus as a person, specifically because it would entitle a fetus to Constitutional rights. Some of those problems include the government suddenly having the ability to control everything about a pregnant woman's life from her diet to her workout schedule specifically because the fetus now has liberty and life rights. The slippery slope there is too great. Every study that came out saying that mothers who watched TV while pregnant had a higher incidence of miscarriage would potentially result in government intervention in the TV-watching habits of pregnant women - you know, because they have to protect the person that is the fetus.
This is why, regardless of whether you find abortion morally or religiously offensive, you cannot legislate on it. This is where we get back to epphd's initial statement: you don't like abortion, don't have one. Because the minute the government steps in and starts legislating on the thing, the personhood status of women who are already here, already independent human entities, has to be eroded. You cannot have both women and fetuses be considered persons. It is a legal impossibility.
So if the "right to life" movement wants to end abortion, they're going to have to focus on alternative ways, which, incidentally, makes more sense given that prohibitions on abortion are notoriously ineffective in reducing the incidence of terminated pregnancy.
That's it, that's the abortion issue in a nutshell. All this other crap about people accepting responsibility for their actions, taking advantage of the abortion "faucet", respecting life, or whatever your emotional argument is, that's all completely irrelevant. It gets you nowhere. Unless your purpose is to blame women for pregnancy in an effort to imply they are not really entitled to personhood status.
The cheapest I had was $30, the most was $50ish. I didn't have a whole lot of sex in college. lol
It's even more expensive if you don't respond to the cheaper types, or need a special kind of birth control. I can't take anything with estrogen in it, which basically eliminates most kinds of hormonal bc that aren't implants. My Implanon implant (which needs to be replaced before the end of this year) is $900. Sure, that's $900 that will cover you for 3 years, making it about $25 a month, but dude... who has $900 to spend on birth control?!
Ok, just got through both of those and as many of the links, trackbacks, responses, and comments as I could before my eyes started swimming...much more I'd like to keep reading about, but I'm done for now!
Here's some raw, unedited thoughts...
1) Both very well written, good reads, thank you.
2) It's not a surprise to me that free birth control = less unwanted pregnancies = less abortions. I think we can all agree, that's kind of a 'duh' moment.
3) Here's what both articles/posts failed to mention in their writing which was in the back of my mind as I read them. Free birth control does not exist. Unless someone has birth control pill trees or fields of IUDs that I don't know about, there is no such thing. Who paid for the birth control in this study? And who would pay for it if we wanted to offer as free to all? These are not snarky or rhetorical questions, I'm really asking.
4) I'd like to look into more about why insurance companies don't cover longer term more effective methods of BC like IUDs and implants when they cover BCP. As the first article stated, the cost over time would likely be less.
5) As for the other points in the blog post about legalizing abortion reducing the rate, and illegalizing abortion making it unsafe, I'm still researching those. It seems like for every study you can find supporting those claims, you can find one that supports the opposite. So I'm not ready to comment on that yet.
6) Most of what that blog post said about the pro life movement was news to me. I've been to Right to Life banquets and get their emails. I've never heard mention of an opposition to birth control. I've also never heard the term "breakthrough ovulation", or "abortifacient". I don't even know how to say that last one. So I think it's important to note that not all pro-lifers hold these beliefs.
7) Which brings me to a misconception that I believe I may have put out there. I the below post about the women in Ireland who died, I made the claim "I am as pro-life as a person can be" and I agreed with everyone else in the post about the horrible senselessness of this woman's death. Then I had to defend myself against people trying to tell me that I am not as pro-life as one can be. Which is kind of what started this whole thing. Let me clarify, when I stated I was "as pro-life as a person can be" I was not saying that I have the Pro-Life movement's mission statement posted on my wall, nor do I go to bed every night reciting their tenants. I don't even know if those things exist - never looked into it. What I mean when I say that "I am as pro-life as a person can be" is that I believe that all life is precious. Every single one. I am not interested in reducing the abortion rate. If the rate was reduced to 1 (not 1 in 1000, not one in 1,000,000, but 1), I would not consider that a victory. 1 baby's life being taken away is too many. So, sure, go ahead and hand out free birth control if you can fund it, that's wonderful. I'm still going to be pro-life.
8) This one just came to me: So the abortion rate was lower of those who had free BC, so I'm curious to know what the reasoning was behind those in that group who did have abortions. I don't remember if it said, and I can't click on it from here. So I will check it our after I post.
That surpises me. I just went to the local health dept, so I just figured it would be similar all around. I know I didn't use insurance, because it would have been my parents' and they couldn't know!
I don't know about what the article said, but even birth control taken perfectly is not 100% effective, and there are many ways it can fail... whether the woman taking it is not an ideal weight, or has to take antibiotics, or takes a vitamin that interferes with it, or just has a freak accident... it can fail. When I got pregnant, I was on NuvaRing, which worked excellently. Until I got pregnant. I had just started a new job, and was around a large group of women all day, every day, in the same room, for 6 weeks. My cycle changed. The week I took my ring out, I should have had my period. Instead, I ovulated. 2 months later....voila! Pregnancy.
These things happen, and when a woman is not in a position to have a baby, she has to have the option to not have a baby.
I'm aware it's not 100%. They did teach us that in sex ed! I was just curious if there were reasons given for those abortions, which upon further review there were not.