Well, wouldn't you know it, Dennis Prager gets it wrong again. This time, on everyone's favorite subject (not!) abortion.
"Oh, no!" you say. "Anything but another abortion debate!"
But have you considered fetal brain development in your position on abortion? No? Then you haven't really had a debate on abortion! That's how central the fetal brain is to the issue. You'll need to revisit this difficult subject before you can consider yourself even remotely informed on the matter. Sorry, but there it is.
At issue is PragerU's video titled (what else?), "Unborn Babies Are Children, Not A Choice." You can watch the entire video, here.
Interestingly, the video begins, not with Prager's opinion, but with a fairly good sample of what the liberals have to say on the topic, as a woman says, "Hey guys! Do you ever wonder why lawmakers who claim to be pro-life make it so hard to live life? They love the unborn, but once you're past the birth canal, get a job! Okay, let's get something straight: A woman's uterus isn't a potluck, and if it was, then men are the kind of guests that only bring paper plates! [Snip here! Something got edited out.] The day it should be necessary to get consent from the father is the day we invent the male uterus. We'll call it the 'duderus.' Until then, our bodies, our choice!"
I would love to find out just which women's rights video PragerU is clipping here, so that I could provide a link and invite everyone to watch the whole thing, unedited. Unfortunately, PragerU doesn't think it very scholarly to provide links to the loyal opposition, so I'll have to do without the citation as well. (If any of you out there recognize it, please tell me! I'll edit it in!)
After the video, the doleful, somber voice of Dennis Prager comes in and says, "Is ending the life of a human fetus moral?"
Right there, you can guess what's coming. Dennis is going to treat all 9 months of development as one, legal block, unencumbered by things like developmental stages or milestones. Fetal brain development, the crucial point of ANY abortion argument, is going to be completely ignored. Sure enough, that's exactly what Prager does.
"Let's begin with this question," he says. "Does the human fetus have any value and any rights? Now, it's a scientific fact that a human fetus is human life. Those that argue that a human fetus has no rights argue that a fetus is not a person. But even if you believe that, it doesn't mean the fetus has no intrinsic value or no rights."
For once, Prager gets it somewhat right. He does correctly say that we pro-choice advocates argue that a human fetus is not yet a person when aborted early, i.e., ethically. But because Prager cannot fathom treating the 9 month development period as anything other than a single block, with no stages, he is incapable of realizing that fetal brain development provides an exact milestone when a fetus does become a person!
That point is the point in which the cerebrum, the center of thinking, cognition, and experience, undergoes a growth spurt and completes final formation. When is that? About 24 weeks. The growth spurt begins at about 20 weeks, and completes at about 26. This is why preemies, babies born before full term, cannot be saved earlier than 19 weeks. Without a viable brain, the body can't function. That means that the place to draw the line is this point: 24 weeks, or roughly 6 months. At the very earliest, 20 weeks, or 5 months. Prior to that...
Early term abortion can be done ethically. Because the fetus has not crossed the threshold from growing life to growing being.
And just what radical, left-wing organization did I get that from? Why, the National Right To Life Committee! Because it was THEY who pushed for "20-week abortion bans" on the premise that 20 weeks was the earliest a fetus could feel pain! Remember those? 40 states, plus the District of Columbia, and the Federal Government, all passed or tried to pass such bans. They were usually phrased, "Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act." But what they failed to grasp was that these bills admitted, for once and for all, that conception was not the place to draw the line!
Let me go back to something Dennis said in the video. "Now it's a scientific fact that a human fetus is human life." True. But you can bet when a conservative says "scientific fact," there's some bullshit coming. Sure enough, there is. And he rightly clarifies, "Those who argue that a human fetus has no rights argue that a fetus is not a person." True again! But only to a point. The point of personhood is, at the earliest, the mid-way point of a woman's pregnancy. Early term abortion is ethical, and kills no one!
A human fetus, is prior to that point, 1) alive, yes, and 2) human, yes, but not 3) a "living being." That crucial third category is missing in the first five months, because the brain has not sufficiently formed yet. There are many other situations where something is alive and human without being a living human being. For example, if a doctor removes someone's appendix, all those cells are 1) alive and 2) human, but definitely not a 3) person or living being. In fact, if you think about it, every single organ in your body can be replaced with a donor organ and/or a mechanical device, and you would still fundamentally be you, with one notable exception: your brain. Why? Because your brain is, essentially, "you." Everything "you" are, is there. And if someone, someday, invents the technology to transplant a brain into a newer, younger body, your name, social security number, and all other aspects of your self-identity will be transferred there, even if that new body has different fingerprints, a different blood type, or (and this is an interesting possibility) a different gender.
The brain defines the being! Five words. And with those five words, Prager's argument dies.
What about after that 6-month threshold point? Well, a fetus is a person after that point, and should have certain protections, but there are many medical situations where the fetus is doomed in the third trimester, where the pregnancy causes significant risk to the mother, or even to another fetus. Twin to twin transfusion syndrome is one, where in such situations, one twin must be aborted or else both are lost. Or severe hydroencephalitis (water on the brain), which kills most of the brain. Or anencephaly, where the brain simply doesn't form. Only a brain stem. Lissencephaly is another one, in which the fetus, if it even survives until birth, will only live 2 to 5 years, and will likely choke to death on its own saliva.
Prager and I can agree that late-term abortion should not be done for contraceptive purposes. But that's simply not done anyway, so the agreement is moot. And holy shit is it necessary as a medical procedure in certain circumstances!
Now, I could end the blog right here. But where's the fun in that?
"There are many living things that are not 'persons,' but have value, and rights," says Praeger. In the video, one sees outlines of dolphins, elephants, and other legally protected animals. He specifically names dogs as an example. Which is true, dogs do have legal protections under the law, as do many other pets. "And that's moral argument #1. A living being doesn't have to be a person in order to have intrinsic moral value and rights."
We cannot seriously equate a fetus without a brain with a grown animal which has a fully formed one! To do so is missing the point. Morally, we must draw the line between human tissues having rights vs. human beings having rights. And Prager said it himself, "A living being..." Yes, but a being requires a brain. Specifically, a brain which has developed past threshold. In the case of early-term abortion, that critical requirement is missing.
"When challenged with this argument, people usually change the subject to the rights of the mother," Prager goes on. (We don't need to change the subject, but we'll humor Prager anyway.) "Meaning, the right of the mother to end her fetus' life under any circumstance, for any reason, and at any time during her pregnancy. Is that moral?"
I love how pro-lifers ALWAYS include "at any time during her pregnancy" as part of the argument, as if somehow we on the left would be so silly as to play into their "partial birth" trap.
"It is [moral] only if we believe that the human fetus has no intrinsic worth. But in most cases, nearly everyone believes that the human fetus has essentially infinite worth, and an almost absolute right to live. When? When a pregnant mother wants to give birth. Then, society and its laws regard the fetus as so valuable that if someone were to kill that fetus, that person could be prosecuted for homicide."
I have to interject something, here. Because as a resident of Milwaukee, WI, I know this better than most. It was here in Milwaukee that Glenndale Black attacked his estranged girlfriend, Tracy Marciniak, who was 8 1/2 months pregnant, punching her twice in the abdomen, then refusing to let Tracy call 911, or call 911 himself. Tracy was hospitalized and survived, her unborn baby did not. When she tried to prosecute Black for manslaughter of her unborn child, she found that she couldn't because Wisconsin law didn't recognize a fetus as a person with rights. This happened in 1994. The incident led to a State Supreme Court Case, and public sentiment regarding it led to the Unborn Victims of Violence Act, which President George W. Bush signed into law in 2004.
Now, Marciniak had a legitimate gripe. Black DID commit murder. But isn't it interesting that, only 16 years after pro-lifers got the law changed, that they are now citing the law as an argument?
"Only if a pregnant woman doesn't want to give birth do many people regard the fetus as worthless," Prager goes on. "Now, does that make sense? It doesn't seem to. Either a human fetus has worth, or it doesn't. And this is moral argument #2: On what moral grounds does the mother alone decide a fetus' worth? We certainly don't do that with regard to a newborn child. It is society, not the mother or the father, that determines whether a newborn child has worth and a right to live. So the question is, why should that be any different before the human being is born? Why does one person, a mother, get to determine whether that being has any right to live?"
I don't even need to debate this point, because it isn't "the mother alone" who decides this. It is the FETAL BRAIN and its development which decides this. Others on the Left may say differently, but I'd argue with them as well.
"People respond by saying that a woman has the right to control her body. Now that is entirely correct. The problem here, however, is that the fetus is not her body. It is IN her body. It is a separate body. And that's moral argument #3. No one ever asks a pregnant woman, 'How's your body?' when asking about the fetus. People ask, 'How's the baby?'"
Sure they do. Because by the time most people find out a woman is pregnant, the pregnancy is already fairly well along. When a woman is visually showing, threshold has typically passed for fetal brain development. And so, the question, "How's the baby?" is entirely appropriate, and scientifically accurate.
Okay, the fetus is a separate body. True. But until that fetus has a sufficiently developed brain, it's the woman's call, and no one else's!
And it goes without saying that if a woman hasn't aborted by 20 weeks, she's having the baby, barring something medically unforeseen.
"Moral argument #4: Virtually everyone agrees, that the moment the baby comes out of the womb, killing the baby is murder. But deliberately killing it a few months before birth is considered no more morally problematic than extracting a tooth. How does that make sense?"
It makes sense based on the arguments I've described above. Prager, who cannot see the 9 month gestation period as anything but a one-step process, is incapable of grasping this.
"And finally, moral argument #5: Aren't there instances in which just about everyone, even among those who are pro-choice, would acknowledge that an abortion might not be moral? For example, would it be moral to abort a female fetus, solely because the mother prefers boys to girls, as has happened millions of times in China and elsewhere? And one more example, let's say science develops a method of determining whether a child in the womb is gay or straight. Would it be moral to kill a gay fetus because the mother didn't want a gay child?"
Give Prager some credit: he's not afraid to take the argument in at least one direction that isn't really friendly to his own position. After all, aborting a child because it's gay would be something a conservative Christian or a Muslim mother might do. Or would they? It brings Christians face-to-face with the possibility that their own child might be gay, for one. And this also comes dangerously close to Prager admitting that there is such a thing as a "gay gene," which most other conservatives deny, in spite of much scientific evidence to the contrary.
No, it isn't moral to abort a fetus based on gender. (Of course, we are one technological generation away from being able to determine a baby's gender before conception, so the entire argument might become moot very soon!) It is also not moral to abort a fetus because it might be predisposed to homosexuality. But it might be moral to abort a fetus if it is revealed to have tetrasomy-21 (Down's syndrome). Or trisomy-19 (Edward's disorder). Or XXY and XXX disorders. If these things are caught early, parents should be given the choice before the fetal brain crosses threshold.
"People may offer practical reasons not to criminalize all abortions. People may differ about when personhood begins, and the morality of abortion after rape or incest. But with regard to the vast majority of abortions, those of healthy women aborting a healthy fetus, let's be clear: most of these abortions, just aren't moral."
Prager would think so. Because he cannot distinguish the difference between an early-term abortion prior to the fetal brain's formation, and a frivolous late-term abortion done for contraceptive purposes (which, by the way, simply doesn't happen). Most abortions are done early. That makes them moral, because they happen before the six-month mark, which is where our laws should draw the line.
And what of the measly 1.3% of abortions done after that point? They are done for damned good medical reasons. The potential parents who go endure the terrifying news and undergo the heart-breaking procedure are devastated enough without you politicizing their situations for political gain.
"Good societies can survive people doing immoral things. But a good society cannot survive if it calls immoral things moral."
I could not agree more with that closing statement. Of course, what Prager considers "moral" could use a little work.
Eric
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