Pain in the Ass

An bill making its way through the Ohio legislature has attracted a lot of attention lately for proposing that abortions be outlawed after a fetal heartbeat can be detected - which occurs about 6 or 7 weeks after conception.  This law - HB 125 - is not only in direct defiance of Roe v. Wade (which mandates that abortion rights not be violated prior to viability, currently defined at 24 weeks of gestation), but was also recently the subject of a court case in which a pregnant woman was given a ultrasound in the courtroom when her 9-week-old fetus was called to "testify."

Similarly, many states require that a pregnant woman have an ultrasound and listen to her fetus' heartbeat prior to obtaining an abortion.  These ridiculous bills are founded on the sappily sweet "Touched by an Angel" sentiment that a beating heart on an ultrasound could never cause anything but joy and reverence.  Naturally, however, lots of organisms have circulatory organs just as complex as the heart tube found in the 7-week fetus:  the cattle and pigs we don't hesitate to slaughter for meat, for example.  Maybe McDonald's patrons should be legally required to listen to a bovine heartbeat before deciding whether to order a McRib.

As does a major myocardial infarction, fatass

What worries those of a slightly more scientific, less sentimental nature is the issue of embryonic brain development and fetal pain.  After all, no brain, no pain.  The fetal pain argument has recently led five US states (Kansas, Nebraska, Indiana, Oklahoma, and Idaho) to ban abortions after 20 weeks of gestation - once again, in direct opposition to Roe v. Wade.  Now, since I just finished writing a paper on fetal cortical development for my Developmental Biology course, I'll try to reproduce the gist of the argument here to dispel any and all concerns for fetal pain in abortion.

The cerebral cortex, the portion of the brain necessary for thought, language, and pain sensation, begins forming around 8 weeks post conception, when the anterior and posterior regions of the dorsal telencephalon start secreting signals to pattern the cortical layout.  From this point, cortical progenitor cells in the subventricular zone begin differentiating into glial cells and neurons, and neurons begin the process of migrating upward to the cortical plate.  Once they have reached their destination, they will undergo myelination and form synapses with other neurons, in a process which will continue throughout development and even after birth.

http://www.humpath.com/spip.php?article5287&id_document=4056

The brain of a 22-week-old human fetus

According to the Guttmacher Institute, 88% of abortions occur prior to 12 weeks of gestation.  At 12 weeks after conception, the regions of the cortex have been specified, but neuronal migration is just beginning, and will not be completed for at least another month.  The neuronal circuits that are needed for sensory perception will not form until much later, 24 weeks at the earliest.

Neurons beginning their migration

Neurobiologists are and have been in agreement that a fetus cannot feel pain prior to 24 weeks of gestation, since the circuits needed for sensation are simply not present before that time (seriously, no brain, no pain).  Less than 2% of abortions occur after 20 weeks of gestation, and abortions are performed after the 24-week mark only in the most dire of situations.  So, an aborted fetus can not and will not feel pain.  Questions answered?  Problems solved?  If only.

"Population," or "The World Is Not Enough"

When the Supreme Court delivered its famous Roe v. Wade ruling in 1973, it upheld a woman's right to choose based on the Constitution's guarantee of a right to privacy.  This makes perfect sense:  the prevention or termination of pregnancy is, and should be, a private matter, and thus the decision to end a pregnancy belongs to the woman alone.  I contend, however, that the opposite does not hold true:  the decision to give birth is not a matter of privacy.  A woman who has an abortion affects only herself; bringing another human being into the world, on the other hand, immediately impacts the mother, the newborn individual, the larger community, and the very fate of the planet.

The concept of a population's carrying capacity is something we all learned about in high school.  The idea is that a population of organisms will increase in size until it reaches a set number, determined by resource availability and competition pressure.  After this point, large scale death will prevent further population growth.  population size will oscillate around the point of the carrying capacity, but increased death rates and reduced reproductive fitness will not allow population size to increase further.

http://www.goldiesroom.org/Note%20Packets/22%20Ecology/00%20Ecology--WHOLE.htm

We usually discuss such concepts of population in relation to yeast cells, mice, deer, etc.:  organisms to which we have no particular emotional attachment.  We have to be a lot more careful, though, when talking about the growth of the human population, since most of what we do is already an effort to deny that we are, by definition, animals, constrained by biological precepts.  The notion that we are somehow different from yeast cells, mice, or deer is enforced by the observation that our population's growth curve currently shows no indication of approaching a carrying capacity limit.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/gcsebitesize/science/aqa/evolution/humansrev1.shtml

The fact that our population's growth curve has so far been uninhibited by starvation or disease seems to be testament to our high level of "success," reproductively speaking.  Nevertheless, though our world population will reach 7 billion this year, hunger, disease, and conflict are still taking their toll, killing millions each year even as new births more than compensate for this loss.  A little less than half of the world's 7 billion people currently live on under 2 USD a day.  And these are the communities whose populations are growing the fastest.

In The Selfish Gene, Richard Dawkins advanced the idea that exercising moderation in reproduction could actually be evolutionarily advantageous.  Producing many more offspring than can survive under certain environmental conditions is, evolutionarily speaking, wasteful.  Likewise, reproducing at an unchecked rate will quickly deplete resources and is also a terrible evolutionary strategy.  For these reasons, the population of a certain organism will stay relatively constant over time, and when population pressure begins to increase, the organism will (unconsciously, of course) curb its rate of reproduction to avoid a dangerous scarcity of resources somewhere down the line.  

Human reproduction, however, has proceeded at an explosive rate, which Dawkins attributes to modern medicine, the welfare state, and complete failure to look to the future.  We may have been reproductively successful during the last five hundred years, but that is small change in the span of evolutionary time.  Our current reproductive strategy is, to say the least, unsustainable, and may prevent us from seeing another five hundred years.  As Dawkins says, "The one thing animal populations do not do is go on increasing indefinitely."

http://www.coverbrowser.com/covers/ballantine-books/14

Unfortunately, population discussions are not politically correct, and tend to conjure up dystopian images of calculated killings and mass sterilization programs.  Furthermore, the discomfort with the issue belongs to those at every stage along the entire political spectrum.  Regardless of the environmental or societal impact, argue conservatives and liberals alike, the human right of reproduction is too sacrosanct to curtail.  Thus we talk about population growth in positive, rather than normative terms:  "How will we emend farming techniques and colonize other planets to keep up with the human race's inevitable increase?" Yet the human population has the potential to double in less than a hundred years; we can't afford to be so magnanimous forever.  In a stand-off between biology and political correctness, biology will always prevail in the end.

The Utility of Choice

As a matter of reason, good taste, and, well, the entire principle of separation of church and state, Bible verses have no place in political discourse.  However, it's unsurprisingly difficult, if not impossible, to disentangle the abortion debate from religion.  The Bible apparently has a lot to say on the matter, since most pro-life websites are headed with quotes from the Book of Proverbs, images of a pained and sorrowful-looking Virgin Mary, and (the ultimate trump card) the question "What if Jesus had been aborted?"

What you don't hear much of are utilitarian arguments against abortion.  In a nation faced with a growing deficit and heinous unemployment, the far right still doesn't seem interested in forming logical social and economic justifications for its endless effort to overturn Roe v. Wade.  Now, I am fully on board with decreasing the national deficit and bettering overall quality of life, so I think we would do well to transfer the abortion debate from the religious to the practical sphere.  From a small-government, fiscally-responsible standpoint, are there any positive external effects of legally requiring a woman to carry an unwanted pregnancy to term?

http://intenseproductions.blogspot.com/2010/08/practicing-your-scales-effectively.html

Weighing pro-life against pro-quality of life.

The term "utilitarianism" scares us, or at least makes us uncomfortable.  We like to fancy ourselves ethical, to think that we don't "cut our losses" when it comes to issues of morality.  Yet we make a utilitarian bargain every time we eat meat or wage war.  So how do we apply these calculations to issues of reproductive choice?

First, there is the issue of population.  In a matter of months, the world's population will hit 7 billion; by 2030, it will be over 8 billion.  Needless to say, this "population bomb" will have far-reaching implications on the environment, politics, economics, and general quality of life.  Basically, everything.

http://www.blogiseverything.com/general/worlds-population-graphs/

This graph should scare the shit out of you, and if it doesn't, you probably lack basic abilities of projection.  Now add to this stunning rate of growth the fact that even in the United States, where contraception is readily available, half of pregnancies are unintended or unwanted.  This leaves us with a rapidly exploding world population of 7 billion people, at least one half of whom were born to parents who didn't want them, or didn't have the maturity or resources necessary to raise them.  Would illegalizing abortion impact these statistics positively?

Then there are the social effects of abortion.  As we learned from Freakonomics, the legalization of abortion in America corresponded with a decrease in the crime rate.  Similarly, there are indications that abortion lowers the incidence of child abuse.  Correlation doesn't imply causation, of course, and both these claims are surrounded with controversy based on statistical approachs to the questions.  Nevertheless, we can imagine how unwilling parents would be more likely to lash out at an unwanted child, and unwanted children more likely to last out at society.  And then there is the fact that abortion actually saves money:  by conservative estimates, each dollar spent on family planning saves us almost four down the road, in Medicaid and welfare costs.  Would defunding Planned Parenthood or overturning Roe v. Wade better financial stability and quality of life?

Finally, there are the effects of abortion on women themselves.  The pro-life side loves this argument, because it is a perfect opportunity for them to rail against abortion while pretending to care about women's rights and health.  From this ostensible concern has arisen the concept of "Post Abortion Syndrome," a mental-health condition which supposedly causes flashbacks, depression, and suicidal thoughts in 50% of women who have abortions.  

But alas, as much as the pro-life camp wishes that it existed, it turns out that studies which supported "PAS" were fraught with statistical errors, and it's actually just a load of shit.  When compared to women of similar socio-economic backgrounds who decided to carry their pregnancies to term, women who have had abortions actually fare the same, and often better, in terms of mental health.  Not surprisingly, being able to finish an education or further a career, remaining financially stable, and not having to bear and raise an unwanted child actually has positive effects on a woman's well-being.  And this isn't even touching the fact that Roe v. Wade ended the bloody era of coat-hanger abortions.

I haven't said a single thing here that hasn't been regurgitated time and time again.  That doesn't, however, dilute its significance.  Allowing women to take charge of their own reproduction has far-reaching positive implications, and I know not of any non-religious, practical justifications for the other side.

A fetus does not have a fully developed nervous system, lacks self-awareness, and cannot feel pain until at least 24 weeks of gestation.  In these regards, it ranks somewhere between a jellyfish and a salamander.  Thus, any concern felt for a fetus in another person's body can only be for its nebulous "soul," and thus can only be religious.  Naturally, this realization isn't likely to send shockwaves through a country of which 90% self-identifies as religious, and I would have to be fairly naive to pretend that the barrier between church and state is impermeable.  But let's make that barrier a latex barrier, and keep the pro-life separate from the pro-quality of life.