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]]]]]]]]] REPLY TO MR GAEDE ON THE SUBJECT OF ABORTION [[[[[[[[[[
by Oleg Panczenko (9/4/1989)
[Brant Gaede's (07656GAED) contributions
appear on floors 22 and 20 of this tower.
-Sysop.]
1. Mr Gaede argues that a fetus is human but not a person and
hence killing it is not murder. (Clearly a fetus is not a
person in the Kantian sense: a person is an agent; he is
autonomous; he has will and reason; he has rights,
obligations, and duties). Scruton (Scruton 1981) gives three
common objections to the `not a person' argument: the
question of the fetus's personhood is undecided; rights may
be possessed by things other than persons; we may have
non-contractual, non-voluntary obligations which extend to
all human life. We can make the killing of certain
non-persons unlawful, just as we make cruelty to non-persons
(animals) unlawful. Lastly, infants, the senile and the
comatose are also not Kantian persons, yet we consider it
impermissible to kill them.
2. One reason why Mr Gaede is ``pro-choice'' is because some
arguments against abortion are based on religious precepts
(e.g. ``God's will'') and he is an atheist. Because an
argument is framed in terms of ``God's will'' is no reason
that it cannot be framed in terms which do not presume the
existence of God. An assertion is not necessarily false if
the line of reasoning leading to it as a conclusion is shown
false. For example, Maxwell's equations were derived
assuming the existence of a luminiferous aether. It is also
``God's will'' that (putting aside the question of abortion)
one not kill, that one not steal, and that one not bear false
witness against one's neighbor. Should atheists then be
allowed to murder, steal and perjure? Every system of morals
needs a `God says so' in one guise or another, for there are
no philosophical truths (even if we use as loose a criterion
of `truth' as that of agreement by a majority of
philosophers). Those who object to `God says so' say
`Natural Rights says so' or `Kant's axiom of nonaggression
says so', or `Ayn Rand says so'.
[On the point of philosophical truths: someone will smugly
say that `A is A' (Aristotle's Law of Identity) is an example
of a truth. An easy objection: Suppose A changes with time:
at time t1, A is A, at time t2, A is no longer A. Neither is
such a formulation useful: ``The `is' of identity and the
`is' of predication are logically distinct. ... Now the
distinction between subject and predicate is basic to
thought. A creature who could not understand it, who spoke
only of identities, would know nothing of his world; he would
know only the arbitrary determinations of his own usage,
whereby he is able to substitute one name for another.''
(Scruton 1981, p. 249)]
3. I view abortion as a manifestation of the left's `will to
death'. (See Igor Shafarevich, The Socialist Phenomenon (NY:
Harper and Row, 1980) on the question of a left death-wish.
The application of his ideas to abortion is my own.)
I also fear that the left is working to take the horror out
of death: fatal soporifics replace beatings, poison gas and
bullets. This coupled with an assault on the will to live
(and the will to procreate is a fundamental part of the will
to live) is a grave danger to mankind. (Note that not all on
the `left' believe that abortion is permissible nor do all
those on the `right' think abortion is impermissible.)
4. I can make no sense Mr. Gaede's assertion that ``[t]he fetus
has no social context, only a biological one''. One does not
posses a context, one exists within a context or one is part
of a context. The fetus exists in both a social and
biological context.
5. In Rhetoric, a `Kiss-of-Death' is the demonstration that an
opponent's views are also held by someone reviled. For
example, `child-pornographers and the ACLU favor freedom of
speech'. Planned Parenthood, in a series of advertisements in
Time magazine, tried to link opposition to abortion with
`fundamentalist zealotry'. Kiss-of-Death is no counter-
argument. Adolph Hitler was very fond of dogs (he had and
Alsatian named `Blondie') and once proposed that strays be
kenneled at government expense. Are dog-lovers Nazis at
heart?
6. We are responsible for the forseeable consequences of our
actions. One of the forseeable consequences of an act of
sexual intercourse in the creation of a being which, by its
nature, is in a state of dependency. Hence we have the duty
to support this dependent creature until is achieves
self-sufficiency. (This is a precis of Doris Gordon's
argument. See Appendix A.)
7. The problem of abortion will not go away with the creation of
an artificial womb. It will always be more expensive to
remove the fetus and keep it alive (the cost of maintaining
it in the chamber) rather than removing it and discarding it.
What if the mother can't pay? What if she won't pay? Suppose
she prefers to have an abortion.
8. I do not know the teaching of the Catholic Church on the
question of artificial wombs and neither does Mr Gaede. He
has not mentioned any Roman Catholic teachings which would
indicate that the Church would forbid the use of artificial
wombs by Catholics. Prefacing unfounded speculation with
``probably'' does not free one of the obligation not to speak
when one does not know.
9. Mr. Gaede suspects most anti-abortionists of having a hidden
agenda but does not tell us what it is.
10. A concern for the unborn does not imply a conjoint concern
for the born, just as a concern that robberies be prevented
does not obligate one to also be concerned with how
ex-robbers are to make their livings.
11. Mothers who do not want children may give them up for
adoption or, perhaps, be allowed to sell them. For arguments
for the allowing the sale of children see Richard A. Posner,
Economic Analysis of Law, 3rd ed. (Boston: Little, Brown and
Company, 1986), pp. 139-143.
12. Mr.Gaede laments the future of little children of Central and
South America. How can he be so certain of their future that
he can say that they have ``no or little chance for
happiness.'' If life is so unbearably unhappy then people
have the choice of self-killing. That a person has little
chance for happiness is hardly rationale for another to kill
him. One notes that there was little chance for happiness in
the Nazi concentration camps yet only a few chose suicide.
(Conditions in Central and South America are not as bad.)
Yes, the people in Central and South America are poor. But
they go on with their lives, they do raise their families and
they do find a few happinesses. They suffer not because of
large families but because of socialist economies.
Appendix
A. For non-religious arguments against abortion write to
Libertarians for Life
13424 Hathaway Drive, #22
Wheaton, MD 20906
(301) 460-4141
Include $3.00 for a packet of printed matter.
The founder of LFL, Doris Gordon, is an atheist and was a
follower of Ayn Rand.
B. For two good complementary overviews of philosophy I can
recommend:
Marias, Julian. 1967, History of Philosophy. New York:
Dover.
Scruton, Roger. 1981, From Descartes to Wittgenstein: A
Short History of Modern Philosophy. London: Routledge &
Kegan Paul.
Intellectual sloppiness and errors in reasoning are common in
the debate on abortion. One familiar with philosophical
analysis will be able to identify the most egregiously foolish
`arguments'. Bear in mind that disagreeable does not mean
fallacious. A college text on philosophical analysis written
by a libertarian is
Hospers, John. 1988, An Introduction to Philosophical
Analysis, Third Edition. Englewood Cliffs, NJ:
Prentice-Hall.
A most useful work which has brief essays on `abortion',
`rights', `right to life', `person', and other concepts
important to the question of abortion is:
Scruton, Roger. A Dictionary of Political Thought. New
York: Hill and Wang, 1982.
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