Why I'm Against Abortion

I'm Liberal. I'm a pacifist. I believe in universal health-care... and I'm against abortion.

Abortion is a complex topic, but the reasons why many people are passionate about it is obvious. You have one group that stresses the importance of preserving human life at their early development and not harming or killing that life. You have another group that stresses the importance of a woman's personal liberty, choices, and bodily autonomy: the idea that you have control over who or what uses your body.

The ideals both groups express are very legitimate at face value. Anyone who denies the legitimacy of the other side just to demonize opposing views is a fool. You shouldn't think it's okay to go around destroying life, especially when you consider that this life has the capacity to be like you and me. But, on the other hand, there are many situations in which abortion certainly seems like a merciful, necessary thing to provide for women. To a lot of people, it's cruel to force a woman who's been raped or a woman who's living in poverty to go through pregnancy and not provide them with a timely abortion. But to a lot of other people, it's cruel to prematurely end a human life just because they were conceived from a rape or come from a poor family.

This issue will continue for quite a while, until artificial wombs comes along and eliminates the burden of unwanted pregnancy by growing human fetuses in labs (read Brave New World). But, of course, that too comes with it's own set of issues.

Regardless, here's why I chose to be against abortion and why I think you should be too. I'll be addressing two major arguments for why abortion is ethically justified in today's society. I will also explain why I think abortion is horrible.

Please feel free to comment and debate below on what you think about abortion.

DISCLAIMER: I am specifically talking about elective abortion, which are abortions given to women on-demand, at request, without any medical consideration.

PERSONHOOD ARGUMENT:

This argument goes, "Because the human embryo or fetus has not developed consciousness or self-awareness yet, there's no ethical conundrum in killing them, similar to how there's no ethical conundrum killing other cluster of cells."

This argument can have a lot of weight for people who allow science to be their guide in the question of morality. It's wrong to kill because we're killing someone who knows themselves and doesn't want to be killed. It can be applied to more than just humans, but animals too. An adult gorilla, for example, can have self-awareness and can know themselves in relation to the world. They can want to live in more or less the same way you or I want to live. It would seem wrong, downright speciesist, to say it's okay to kill animals but not humans.

The problem I have with this argument, though, is that infants and newborn babies don't have consciousness or self-awareness either.

It's been well-known by the psychological and scientific community that infants develop these three traits after birth: mobility, self-awareness, and language (not before birth, but after, during the transition from infant to toddler). Therefore, if we say it's okay to kill an unborn child because they're not conscious or self-aware and never were, we also have to lump in infants and newborn babies.

(https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/great-kids-great-parents/201211/self-awareness)

(http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/when-does-consciousness-arise/)

Because of the way both unborn and newborn babies brains function making them humans but not "person's" in the strictest sense, some philosophers of ethics have argued in support of post-natal abortion or infanticide. Philosopher Peter Singer, for example, argues that what makes killing wrong is that the specific being you're killing is a person who knows themselves and doesn't want to be killed. Since babies can't know themselves, they're not persons, and he would think it's okay to kill them.

(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eCNz95E-3Wg)

His and many others' defense of infanticide can be summed be like this: Until a baby is capable of self-awareness, there is no controlling reason not to kill them.

But infanticide is not the only problem I have with the personhood argument.

If what makes killing wrong is that we're killing something conscious or self-aware the moment we killed them, then we could justify doing anything else we want with them when they're not those things. For example, you can justify destroying the developing brain of an embryo or fetus' so that they will never have the capacity to think and be rational like the rest of us. You can remove what will make them a "person" and do what you want with their body, like harvest their organs, if you really believe there's nothing inherently wrong with what your're doing.

We might wake up to a world that uses personhood to justify not only abortion, but infanticide and the genetic manipulation of unborn children too.

BODILY AUTONOMY ARGUMENT

This argument goes, "No one has the right to use parts of your body without your permission, not limited to but including, unborn children."

This is a compelling argument for many people, especially women, and I certainly understand why. If someone needed your blood or kidney to live, it is not their place to take it from you. It would be nice to donate these things to people, sure, but they're not entitled to your body, so you don't have to give these things to them. And, if we're talking about blood or kidneys, something that is biologically only for one person (you), then I agree, no one but you has a right to them.

However, there's a difference between a mother donating her blood to her child in order to live and a mother donating her uterus to her child in order to live.

Let me explain.

If there was a mother in the woods with no food around and she was with her newborn baby, "Is that mother morally obligated to breast feed her child, if the child will die without her breast milk?"

My answer to that is, "yes," not only because I value the child's life more than the labour of breast feeding, but also because I recognize that breast milk is developed in a woman's body for her baby, not for her. Although breast milk is inside the mother's body and is being controlled by the mother, this is something that is biologically for her baby. To say that a mother's baby doesn't have any natural or biological rights to their own mother's breast milk or uterus, is denying the reality of reproduction and why woman's bodies are beautifully the way they are.

Although I don't think a mother is morally obligated to donate her blood or kidney to her child to live, I do think the mother is morally obligated to "donate" her uterus and breast milk for her child in order to live. Why? Because it is clear that these things are just as much for the mother's children as it is for the mother, biologically speaking.

Furthermore, and perhaps more importantly, when you say, "My body, my choice," you deny the child's agency, their right to life (a right not to be killed) to justify abortion. It's like saying, "My body, at the cost of my child's life."

Where's the child's choice? Where's their choice to live, and to not be killed?

A lot of people think it's okay for a woman to have an abortion because the unborn child is connected to the mother and is inside them. In any other circumstance, though, no one would think it's okay to kill someone just because they're inside or connected to someone else. If we knew one conjoined twin will die as a result of a separation, for example, most doctors wouldn't separate them because they value the twin's right to life more than the other twin's right of bodily autonomy.

If we were going to separate a conjoined twin because one twin was connected to the twin's body and dependent on their body to live, the twin would scream and shout, pleading not to be killed just to uphold the bodily rights of one twin. We'd feel less inclined to do the separation because of it. But a fetus is voiceless. And we uphold a woman's bodily rights at the expense of the child's entire life because of it.

When two rights come into conflict, like they naturally do with pregnancy, I believe we should uphold the right we value more, not the one that's more convenient.

THAT BEING SAID

The women who have had abortion have nothing but my love and sympathy. I couldn't imagine going through what some women go through. But the truth is the truth. Abortion ends a human's life, a child's life, and this is something backed by science and reason. It has been a scientific fact recognized since the 19th century.

(http://www.evolutionnews.org/2015/08/science_deniers098481.html)

(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fKyljukBE70)

*Ted Talk on Pictures From Conception to Birth*

I didn't grow up in a rich family, and, perhaps, my own mother would have been richer and more happier if she didn't have kids or a family in the first place. But that's the thing about abortion and infanticide. It affects all of us. If you were born in a country that has legal abortion, there was a time in your life where you could have been legally harmed or killed and there's absolutely nothing you could do about it.

In my own home country of Canada, there is zero laws on abortion, so an abortionist and my own mother could have legally harmed or killed me and there's nothing that would have happened. What legal grounds does anyone have in a country that doesn't consider you human because you're too young to exit your mother's womb?

I've seen what abortion does to an unborn child and it's not something worth supporting. As writer and philosopher Peter Hitcens once said, "If people really knew what abortion looked like, it would destroy the pretense that this is a civilized way to deal with unwanted babies."

People say a fetus is a woman's body, but it's not. People say this is a woman's choice, but where's the child's choice? HER child. A boy or girl who is completely innocent in the matter. Of course it's horrible that mothers can't find the resources and outlets to help their children before and after birth. That's why I support things like having a good welfare state; free and equitable healthcare for all. Even if we didn't have those things, though, the solution to unwanted and impoverished children is never giving mothers the right to kill them, even in-utero.

We have a generation of lost people because of these disgusting ways we deal with needy mothers and unborn children, and I'm glad it's starting to change.

Every human is valuable and deserves not to be killed. We all deserve life.

Those are my views on the topic of abortion.

If you disagree with me, I understand, but thanks for reading.