On Infanticide
Once I thought the abortion argument was about the definition of human life. Here we have an object (a fertilized egg) that some people say is human, other not. Those that say it is human conclude that, since it is wrong to kill humans, aborting it kills it, therefore aborting it is wrong. Those that say it is not human conclude that, since it is not human, aborting destroys a lump of cells that is not human, therefore aborting it is not wrong.
This argument turns on the defining characteristic that makes a human have human rights. A religious man might say, whatever has an immortal soul has human rights. The argument then would turn on whether or not unborn children had souls, and, if they did, at what point in time the soul was bestowed (St. Thomas says boys are ensouled after 30 days from conception, girls at 90 days). A secular humanist might look at some of the characteristics that differentiate humans from animals, and say, whatever reasons is a human, and if it does not reason, or does not feel pain, it is not human.
The reason why I could not decide who was right in this argument is that I defined human nature as a secular humanist; whatever reasons is a man. However, I was mentally alert enough to notice that we do not treat unreasoning humans like livestock. A man in a coma, a mad man, a retarded man, or a child, does not enjoy have an unhindered capacity to reason, and society does place restrictions and limits on the rights of such individuals. Children may be restrained by their parents, mad men may be incarcerated by the state, and so on. However, society does not allow us to slaughter children for bacon, as we do pigs. So, I could not decide the issue because I did not have a category in my mind for those creatures who enjoy human rights but who do not presently enjoy human capacity for reasoning.
All my doubts evaporated when I fathered a child. I saw a sonograph picture of my son inside my wife’s womb. He was a cute little tyke, and he was playing with his toes. I was as thunderstruck as if (taking your example) a Northerner who had never met a black, and who could not decide between abolitionist and anti-abolitionist arguments, met Frederick Douglass. Imagine our Northerner standing there with his mouth open, having a well-crafted speech by this dignified and gifted speaker, saying, “This? This is what a black man really is? How in the world could anyone say he was not human?”
That is what happened to me. I looked at a photo of my beloved son, not yet born, and I said “My boy! This is what an unborn child really looks like? How in the world could anyone say this is not a human being?”
(Actually, my reaction was much more violent and unforgiving. What I really thought was: “Who dares to claim my beloved son is merely a slab of meat, merely because he is not yet born!” It angers me that my son was not protected by the laws of this land.)
Now, you might be saying to yourself, “Ah, but that was a fairly well formed fetus, with a heartbeat and nervous system. There is a big difference between this and a blastula after one division. You are letting your paternal instincts blind you to the scientific reality that a fertilized egg is nigh-indistinguishable from an unfertilized egg.”
Well, now we come to the second argument. The reason why the question of the human nature of the fetus no longer concerns me is that a more fundamental issue, as far as I can tell, decides the question. It is the question raised by the mere existence of paternal or maternal instinct. The question is this: do parents have a moral duty to protect and rear our offspring?
I submit this has nothing to do with the whether or not the child fits a definition of ‘humanity’ and everything to do with whether or not he is my child. If an evil witch in a fairytale turned my son into a pig, I would not carve him up for bacon. If an accident deprived him of the use of his higher reasoning centers, so that he was no smarter than a pig, neither would I carve him up.
Does this duty admit of an exception when the protection and rearing of the offspring is inconvenient? If you condemn a mother who makes her children go hungry so that she can buy a new hat, then you place the maternal duty above the mother’s personal convenience.
Is there an exception when the protecting and rearing the offspring is not only inconvenient, but dangerous? For purposes of illustration, imagine a shepherd standing on the shore watching one of his sheep drowning. We might excuse the shepherd if the waters were dangerous. Compare that with a father standing on the shore watching his daughter drown. Would we excuse the father as readily?
Is there an exception when the child is unwanted? Suppose a family loves and cherished the child up until the Terrible Twos. Mom and Dad then decide, nope, after all, we do not want this kid: he is a burden; he is annoying us. Can they kill him? Suppose the child is cute when he is young, but then is no longer wanted or loved when he turns 12. Can they kill him then?
People who argue that is it better to be dead than to be an unwanted child should explain why it is that their argument only applies to children in the womb, not children out of the womb.
If they argue that, once you start loving a child, you should not stop, you should ask them, when is the proper moment to start loving a child? When he is born, not before? What if he is half-way out of the womb, with only his little feet in the air, but his head still inside? Can we kill him then?
If they say that Mom does not have a duty to love and care for her child before he is born, you should ask, what about a mother who knows, knows beyond question, that if she does not change her diet and smoking habits, the child growing in her will be born deformed. Does she have a moral duty to take care that her child is not born deformed? If you say that she has no duty to care for the unborn child, then, logically, you should applaud the pregnant Mom who smokes nine packs a day and wears a belt made of radioactive waste while bungee-jumping.
While the case of rape and incest is a case of unparalleled horror, I do not see how this necessarily excuses Mom from the duty to care for her unborn child. Would a rape-victim have the right to kill an unwanted son five or nine months after he was born? If not, why does she have the right to kill him five or nine month before he is born? The child did not rape the Mom; I do not see why his life is forfeit.
The final piece of the argument fell into place for me when I realized HOW undeveloped even children who are born are. They cannot focus their eyes, or turn over, or think, or speak. Newborns are not people. They are, however, children, i.e. undeveloped humans.
And what else is a blastula aside from an undeveloped human? It is alive; it has human DNA; and it could grow up to be President some day. It fits the definition of a child. So we should treat it as one.
About John C Wright
John C. Wright is a practicing philosopher, a retired attorney, newspaperman, and newspaper editor, and a published author of science fiction. Once a Houyhnhnm, he was expelled from the august ranks of purely rational beings when he fell in love; but retains an honorary title.
