Tony Blankley makes a point I’ve been making for some time:
It is the very language of Roe that carries the seed of its own possible irrelevance within the next several years. Roe enunciated the more or less unencumbered right of a woman to obtain an abortion prior to fetal viability. After viability, the right of states to regulate or prohibit abortions arise. The court defined legal viability as "potentially able to live outside the mother’s womb, albeit with artificial aid."
But medical science is remorselessly advancing on two fronts along paths that may fairly soon seize and destroy in a scientific pincer movement the viability of Roe’s reasoning.
Today, babies born after only 20 weeks of gestation routinely survive — and thus are viable under the Roe definition (and thus potentially legally safe from the abortionist’s medical weapons).
But radical research may soon reduce that 20 weeks to just a few — or perhaps no weeks.
Blankley then reports on two methods currently under development which might give us the ultimate collapse of the idea of non-viability: the artificial womb. (Interesting stuff. Read it.)
Then he notes:
Once such technologies make it medically possible for a fetus to be "potentially able to live outside the mother’s womb, albeit with artificial aid" the language of Roe v Wade will not have to be overturned. It could stay on the books as legally valid, but factually meaningless.
What may happen next?
WE MIGHT FIND OURSELVES IN A BRAVE NEW WORLD.
This article makes me start thinking more about where technology goes too far more so than Roe v Wade. On what grounds would/do we fight artificial creation and sustainment of life when it is preserving life? Homosexuals can have babies. How do we say that’s immoral?
I think of things from a “naturalist” perspective – that moral medical science exists to restore the health of a person to within some ideal of a healthy, natural human, but never to augment humanity. …but that’s a religous position, a matter of faith, not a “valid societal argument” insofar as secular law goes.
Stop the presses!!! You mean technology is actually impacting pre-natal care?!? WOW I’m gonna need awhile to process that worldview-shattering epiphany that super-genius Tony Blankley just rocked me with.
The much greater technological impact on abortion law is, and will in the future be, the development and distribution of abortifacient pharmaceuticals. These will make abortions as private and easily concealable as taking a multi-vitamin in the privacy of one’s own home. That’s much, much tougher to regulate, police or prevent than current surgical abortions.
But I guess Tony’s too busy slapping himself on the back for his realization that the point of viability has been moving further and further back since, oh, the dawn of mankind.
Is Fetal transplantation possible?
Doesn’t your constitution contain a clause: “right to life, liberty and the pursuit of hapiness”
Couldn’t that be interpreted by a good judge as protecting the right to life from conception given the current science?
…or is that the Declaration of Independence?
Does the Declaration of Independence apply in judicial matters? Couldn’t it be used as a template for interpreting what the founders wrote in the constitution, even if the constitution doesn’t explicitly contain a “right to life”?
Yeah sure, but who’s gonna raise those babies?
Shall we stick them in orphanages in a poverty stricken country and harvest them for body parts when they grow up?
You are ignoring, as most people do, the companion decision to Roe v. Wade, Doe vs. Bolton.
The 1973 Companion case to Roe, Doe vs. Bolton, expanded the right to abortion in the United States up to the moment of birth if her doctor “in his best clinical judgment,” in light of the patient’s age, “physical, emotional, psychological [and] familial” circumstances, finds it “necessary for her physical or mental health.” However, this definition of “health” allowed any doctor willing to perform a late-term abortion the legal option to do so, thereby removing the trimester requirements of Roe, although they were not officially overturned until 1992’s Planned Parenthood vs Casey.
See: Wikipedia on “Abortion in the United States” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abortion_in_the_United_States#Landmark_case_-_Roe_v._Wade)
Changing viability does nothing to affect the legality of abortion. It is only effective in changing the minds of those who support legalized abortion. When presented with Mother A who gives birth at 6 1/2 months to a beautiful preemie baby, and Mother B who is 6 1/2 months pregnant, why can Mother B kill her baby if she doesn’t want it, but Mother A cannot? It’s this type of reasoning that changes minds, but it will do nothing to change the law.
Yeah sure, but who’s gonna raise those babies?
The millions of American couples desperately seeking to adopt one or more newborns come to mind.
The millions of American couples desperately seeking to adopt one or more newborns come to mind.
People are still making these naive statements? That’s like saying that because 12 year old Johnny Texas didn’t finish his spinach, people in Ethiopia will starve.
Women who are forced to have babies will not necessarily give them up for adoption. Let’s consider what would happen were abortion to be illegal again:
1. Women die from trying to self-abort or through illegal abortions
2. Women harm the fetus while trying to self abort, and therefore give birth to deformed / unattractive to the “millions of American couples desperate to adopt PERFECT, NEWBORN babies” (vs not so perfect, more than newborn babies / children
3. Irresponsible women who go through pregnancies they would have aborted continue irresponsible habits while pregnant (drug / alcohol abuse etc), giving birth to babies with alcohol fetal syndrome. Not so adoptable, eh?
4. Women give birth to babies they don’t want or cannot afford, but do not feel able to give the baby up for adoption. So you get a larger number of kids being raised in underpriveledged / abusive / neglectful households.
Just because a woman opted for abortion does not mean that if she was forced to go full term she would give the baby up for adoption
1. Women die from trying to self-abort or through illegal abortions
False. Even before Roe v. Wade, almost all abortions were performed by licensed doctors, albeit illegally. There is no evidence to suggest that this would change.
2. Women harm the fetus while trying to self abort, and therefore give birth to deformed / unattractive to the “millions of American couples desperate to adopt PERFECT, NEWBORN babies” (vs not so perfect, more than newborn babies / children
Again, women did not and will not do this. Women are smarter than that. Find me information about women doing this. You won’t find much.
3. Irresponsible women who go through pregnancies they would have aborted continue irresponsible habits while pregnant (drug / alcohol abuse etc), giving birth to babies with alcohol fetal syndrome. Not so adoptable, eh?
Are you serious? Out of over a million abortions in the U.S. alone every year, how many do you seriously think would turn out this way? This is just a scare tactic, and you know it. Besides, there are many couples willing to adopt special needs children, and even if there were not enough, you think any person is better off dead than disabled?
4. Women give birth to babies they don’t want or cannot afford, but do not feel able to give the baby up for adoption. So you get a larger number of kids being raised in underpriveledged / abusive / neglectful households.
Do you think a child is better off dead than poor? Do you think a child is better off dead than neglected? Besides the fact the most children born to mothers who would otherwise have aborted would NOT be born into such a situation, that still does not make DEATH a viable alternative! The solution is to work on social justice, to bring an end to child abuse and poverty, not to kill of our children! What a backwards way to deal with the problem.
Women who are forced to have babies will not necessarily give them up for adoption.
If a woman keeps her child rather than placing it for adoption, then she (possibly including her boyfriend/husband, extended family, and/or friends) will be the person raising the child. Either way, “who’s gonna raise those babies?” is answered.
deformed / unattractive [babies] to the ‘millions of American couples desperate to adopt PERFECT, NEWBORN babies’ (vs not so perfect, more than newborn babies / children
Most of the couples I know who are on adoption waiting lists don’t care whether the child is unattractive, deformed, disabled, or has other special needs. And that experience represents a larger reality. The National Down Syndrome Adoption Exchange, for example, has a waiting list of couples hoping to bring children with Down syndrome into their families. There are similar waiting lists for children with problems like spina bifida, and children with terminal illnesses like AIDS.
It is true that the overwhelming majority of couples waiting to adopt want newborns rather than older children whose families fell apart (90% of children in foster care aren’t available for adoption regardless), but not true that they would be unwilling to accept “unattractive” newborns.
Your ignorance extends beyond the question of adoption, of course. You imply, for example, that it is “unwanted” children who are most often abused. Studies show that the opposite is true, and that child abuse has skyrocketed since Roe (so much that the government was led to conclude that increased reporting cannot account for the difference). C.f. “Child Abuse: Abortion and the Battered Child” by Karen Gordon (The American Feminist, Winter 1999-2000).
I see Joy. So according to you, we live in this perfect world where women are all smart, intelligent, rational at all times and responsible? Where women are never desperate, emotional and damaged?
Wish you would tell me where this is so I could migrate there.
Women give birth to children with alcohol fetal syndrome and drug addictions every day. Women who resent the children they had screw with them emotionally and physically every day. This is not a scare tactic – it’s a fact of life. People are capable of giving birth, not necessarily being parents.
Besides which you obviously believe a child is a child from the second the sperm meets the egg whereas I do not. If I did, I would also try and be pregnant continuously (in order not to loose precious eggs as they are also “children”).
And yes. I do believe a child is better off being born somewhere else than to a situation where they are starved, beaten, raped and sold off into child prostitution.
Furthermore, kill off half our children? I’m sorry, does wherever you come from have a 1 for 1 rate of birth to abortion?
child abuse has skyrocketed since Roe
Just because the 2 happened at the same time does not mean that one happened because of the other. There are a whole myriad of social issues that account for child abuse.
I also think it’s rather silly to assume that children will automatically be looked after by the extended family / network. This might be true 100 years ago, but the extended family / network is hardly what it used to be. A lot of women who have abortions have them specifically because of a lack of a support network, not necessarily because they didn’t want the child.
I concede you the point on the Down Syndrome waiting lists (as I’m not American, I’d hardly follow these stats and am basing my comments on what I’ve seen in Australia as well as here in South East Asia), but I still maintain that making abortions illegal will not necessarily mean a significantly higher rate of successful adoptions. I feel that it’s simplistic to assume so. From what I’ve seen on after abortion boards and in discussions with other women, more women are able to recover successfully after an abortion than an adoption. Personally, i could never go through with an adoption, although i’ve had 1 abortion.
In short, I’d rather concentrate on helping the children / adults who are already born instead of making sure every single possible human is born and then forgetting they exist. Abortion should remain legal.
May I suggest that folks read IB’s post here.
She mentions a number of things that a compassionate person would want to know when interacting on this subject.
There are a whole myriad of social issues that account for child abuse.
Yes. And, as studies show, being “unwanted” is almost never one of them.
Abortion supporters have engaged in a colossal self-deception in allowing themselves to believe that abortion is now (thanks to technology) a tidy and safe procedure, like having a tooth pulled. This is why they can’t abide photos of the victims, or statistics on infections, complications or lifelong infertility – let alone the long-term emotional and psychological effects.
These doctors may use sterile instruments, but it is their hearts they must sterilize first.
Fertilized egg = human
Non-fertilized egg = gamete, can’t do much in itself. Letting a gamete die is NOT the same thing as letting an embryo die – the gamete could never, ever by itself turn into a child. Being pro-life does not mean frantically trying to catch every egg (or sperm – how would you manage that?) that comes down the pike because otherwise you’ll be “killing” it, though it’s odd how often that belief gets attributed to us.
Studies have shown that women who have had abortions are more like to abuse their future children.
Once you have made the ultimate decision that what’s “best” for you completely trumps what is best for your child, it is hard to put a child’s needs first.
One woman talked about how since her justification for her abortion was that she wouldn’t be a good mother at that time, once she became a mother she put immense pressur on herself to be the perfect mother of perfect children. This caused all kinds of problems until she found herself attempting suicide.
I just hope that concerns about the possible abuses of this technology don’t lead to its development being banned altogether, so that it’s not available for compassionate uses. While I don’t want to see artificial wombs becoming the first resort of the “too posh to push” crowd, I’d really like to see an end to the awful situations where women literally have to choose between their own life and their unborn child’s. If by artificial-womb technology we can safely bring the child to term without the lifelong disabilities often associated with ultra-preemies, and allow the mother to also be alive and healthy to nurture and raise the child to adulthood, can we really say we’re not doing good? I’d far rather see policies to prevent abuse, and deal with abusers on an individual basis, rather than a drive to ban the technology altogether on the grounds that there will be abuses.
It’ll be interesting to see how Pope Benedict responds to the development of such technology. He so clearly values women as people, not just wombs on feet, and he’s clearly not against technology per se, just the use of technology to devalue and commoditize human life and substitute for God, so unless someone does something really stupid that forces his hand, I’d like to hope that he will say yes to compassionate use of artificial-womb technology, and encourage the development of policies that will prevent abuse of the technology by the selfish, rather than urging a total ban on the basis of possible abuse.
Since nobody’s mentioned Lois McMaster Bujold’s Vorkosigan series and its extensive speculation on the uses and effects of artificial wombs…I will.
The main character, Miles Vorkosigan, is only alive because he was placed in an artificial womb after his mother was attacked. For his mother, carrying Miles in her own womb originally was a sort of back-to-nature luxury, like choosing to give birth without drugs. (_Barrayar_) However, after the attack, she decided that carrying children in one’s own womb was irresponsible behavior. Miles and his wife turn out to be busy and endangered, so they have their first children conceived in testtubes and stuck in an artificial womb right away. (_Diplomatic Immunity_)
The first generation of aristocratic artificial womb babies on Miles’ rather old-fashioned home planet are almost all boys, so those families who chose to have girls can take their pick of the marriage market. (_A Civil Campaign_)
There’s also an entire planet of gay male religious separatists (_Ethan of Athos_) which relies on artificial wombs to reproduce their people. The main character of this book, Ethan, is an obstetrician, a really nice guy who routinely has to kill babies with ‘irregularities’.
There are also a slew of genetic engineering and cloning consequences (_Falling Free_, _Memory_, and others), but that’s a good start on the lady’s work.
The fight against abortion will never be won by debating secondary issues, such as what percentage of children would have been abused, but rather on ontological grounds, i.e. what the fetus actually IS, which is the genetic equivalent of the being that conceived it and carries it in her womb.
That’s not enough. While ontological argument is necessary, it will not be sufficient in itself to end abortion. We must also radically change the structures of society to make them more accomodating to pregnant women and parents.
As Pope John Paul II said in Evangelium Vitae, we have a responsibility “to serve [the Gospel of Life] with the various programmes and structures which support and promote life.”
Why do we have to change not just individual hearts and minds but the very structures of society? “It is a question, above all, of the individual conscience, as it stands before God in its singleness and uniqueness,” Pope JP2 agrees, “But it is also a question, in a certain sense, of the ‘moral conscience’ of society: in a way it too is responsible, not only because it tolerates or fosters behaviour contrary to life, but also because it encourages the ‘culture of death,’ creating and consolidating actual ‘structures of sin’ which go against life…. [A]bortion goes beyond the responsibility of individuals and beyond the harm done to them, and takes on a distinctly social dimension…. We are facing what can be called a ‘structure of sin‘ which opposes human life not yet born.”
So there is more than one task before us. Yes, we must change the hearts and minds of individual persons, and good ontology is crucial to that. But we must also uproot the structures of sin in our society that make pregnancy and parenting so difficult, and replace them with structures that easily accomodate pregnant women and parents. We need, in Pope JP2’s words, “the establishment of economic and political structures ever more worthy of humanity.”
For more information, check out the “Feminism & Abortion” article on Dr. William E. May’s “Christendom Awake!” website.
Actually, abortion, like all other evils, will end at the Second Coming.
For now, we have to wrestle with the ill-formed consciences, and with what we can do to make pregnancy easier, and what we can do to encourage people not to conceive children under ill-advised circumstances (which are frequently temptations to abortion, and what we can do to change views about parenthood as a burden.