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. 

"Life," and other such loaded words

Does life begin at conception?

It's a ridiculous question.  It is impossible to deny that a newly-fertilized zygote is alive, simply because it is not the clear alternative.  Cellular metabolism occurs from the beginning, and replication, the classic hallmark of life, soon follows.  Similarly, one must acknowledge that an unfertilized egg is also alive.  In fact, each one of a human female's 1 to 2-odd million ova has existed in a state of "suspended animation," somewhere between Meiosis I and II, since sometime early on in her own development.  Furthermore, since every living cell is the product of a mitotic division which produces two (usually) identical daughter cells, every ovum, sperm, or neuron, for that matter, is a sister of the very first primordial cell, traceable back through an unbroken and living line, bringing the "lifetime" of that single ovum to approximately 4 billion years.  Yes, a zygote is alive.

But this is not the true debate.  A bacterium is also undeniably alive, as is a cancerous tissue (as well as the chicken to be slaughtered and served for the church potluck), yet this biological definition of life is irrelevant.  The true question under consideration is whether "human-ness" begins with the fusion of a sperm and an ovum.  This is the question currently (and perpetually) at the heart of the debate on abortion, emergency contraception, and stem cell research.  An extreme version of this debate recently waged in Colorado, where lawmakers tried to pass a piece of legislation known as the "Fetal Personhood Amendment" (Amendment 62), a measure which would confer full legal standing on a human zygote, with understandably wide-reaching implications.  Yet this bill failed, perhaps because many of us, no matter how conscientious, no matter how religious, have an inherent difficulty equating a fetus with a person endowed with all the honors of human-ness.


To many, this human-ness is nothing other than a soul, a mystical essence of being which forms (or is in some way imparted by God Himself) precisely at the moment of fertilization, and persists in the individual until a car wreck or cancer forces it out of the lungs and up into Heaven.  Fortunately, most souls do not have to wait too long to make this escape - of all fertilized embryos, 50% do not implant in the uterus, and another 30% or so abort spontaneously because of congenital defects.  Most of these miscarriages occur even before the mother knows she is pregnant.  Thus, for every one child born, there are four zygotic or embryonic souls in Heaven.

http://docinthemachine.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2006/11/embryo-brochure.jpg

This is an 8-celled human embryo.  In which cell does the soul live?

Human-ness necessitates a capacity for feeling, for thought, and most importantly, for self-awareness - all functions which require a developed central nervous system (and more than 8 cells).  This is a quality that arises gradually, through the development of sensation and cognition and the acquisition of personal experience.  One might recall Aristotle's three-fold soul (vegetative, sensitive, and intellectual), whose layers each give rise to the next, and of which only the intellectual confers humanity.

I don't eat meat, but for those who do (and those who care to validate this practice), a plausible justification for the killing of beings fully capable of sensing pain is that animals - with some notable exceptions - do not possess the self-awareness necessary to fear death.  But then how much more so is this true for the fetus?