Ectogenesis: Abortion Debate Solved

Indeed, it WAS you who initially brought this up, Dustin. I’ll have to go back and alter the thanks at the end… And I think it was you who sent me that Welin article as well? At any rate, yeah–I’ll seek out that anthology.

I tend to value the natural ordering or design of things. By design, a woman has the ability to naturally terminate a UDH (miscarriage).

You are not arguing that a woman who has a miscarriage has some how been negligent in her duty to society, because she terminated a UDH. However, what if that woman induced a miscarriage, through natural herbs or some other method.

I say it changes very little. I assert that women are designed with the ability to nature or terminate UDHs. It is simply a part of how they are built. The ability of technology to offer another solution is great, but it can not change the natural design. Thus, can not mandate a moral imperative to nurture.

You argue that the moral value of a UDH, trumps her designed ability to terminate. I disagree and believe that your argument asserts your will to power over her natural capabilities.

Which leads to the argument that abortion as a medical practice is not natural. This is true and essentially puts it on the same playing field (in my opinion) as Ectogenesis, which is also unnatural. I think neither can claim a moral high ground, because both are technological extensions of natural processes.

The first question that comes to my mind is, “When is ectogenesis not okay?”

Germinating a human fetus in a pig raises all sorts of weird animal welfare and inter-species issues, so I’ll also opt to focus on synthetic ectogenesis, i.e., the not-gross machines you mentioned.

The first concern you raise is the mother’s authority. Clearly, you were talking about expectant mothers who intend to terminate their pregnancies. But what about planned pregnancies, where the mother simply opts to have her fetus transferred to an incubator, to spare herself nine months of infirmity and the suffering of childbirth? You state:

“Were ectogenesis an option, relieving a potential mother of the burden of pregnancy would no longer require termination. With her interests intact, I see no reason why the genetic mother should be empowered with life and death authority. Authority over her body, yes. But not over the UDH’s life.”

Given that reasoning, would you also support ectogenesis as an option for any mother, and not just mothers intending to abort (Q1)? Particularly if ectogenesis technology could offer fewer risks of neonatal complications, for both the developing fetus and the mother, should we allow any pregnant woman to put their baby in an ectogenesis machine? Any pregnancy involves the risk of complications, so it’s not just about a mother opting for convenience. Assuming the technology advances to a point where it gives better odds than “embodied” childbirth, the mother could be making a choice that’s in the interest of both her and her baby’s health.

Before coming to the second issue of cost, the possibility of non-abortive mothers having access to ectogenesis raises the authority concern in a different way. If we assume that the technology will indeed surpass human biology, we are faced with the scenario of doctors prescribing ectogenesis as a safer alternative to embodied childbirth. Should mothers be allowed to choose embodied pregnancy for personal reasons, even if ectogenesis would be safer for them and their child (Q2)?

Finally, cost. You’ve made the argument that the state should provide ectogenesis for UDHs whose mothers are willing to terminate them. But if ectogenesis becomes safer than natural pregnancy, would the state also have an obligation to provide it for any and all expectant mothers (Q3)? Even if ectogenesis had a success rate comparable to natural pregnancy, we’d still be faced with the absurd scenario of the state only funding ectogenesis on the condition that the mother refuse to raise the child and prefer that it be raised in the foster care system. Once the state makes ectogenesis available to abortive mothers, can it reasonably refuse the same service to mothers who intend to raise the child after the incubation is finished (Q4)?

Thanks for taking this a few steps further with me, Matt.

We’re agreed on the “entitlements” issues in A1 and A3/4, but I’d like to look more into defining clear lines for A2, where state coercion comes into play. I’m reminded of “Beloved” by Toni Morrison, where the main character Sethe kills her infant daughter to keep her “safe” from slave-catchers. Significantly, the owner of the plantation that Sethe has escaped is known as “Schoolteacher.” Somehow, as a mere intuition, infanticide in any form seems less reprehensible to me than an enlightened public institution protecting a UDH from an abortive mother. I see infanticide as a normal part of human societies, going back as far as Abraham–or at least, less problematic than an abstract state preserving life for the sake of life.

For that matter, I’m not crazy about forcing parents to let their child undergo chemotherapy, even if it saves the child from an early natural death and severe pain. On the other hand, I do think the state can legitimately intervene in some situations of domestic abuse, protecting children from their parents. So, somewhere there’s a line to be drawn, where I think the parent’s absolute sovereignty ends and the state’s intervention becomes legitimate. For example, the current president of Chechnya, Ramzan Kadyrov, gave a speech earlier this year that defended a father’s right to murder his daughter without state interference:

“If his daughter has the phone number of the police saved on her mobile phone … Every Chechen is afraid she’s going to make that phone call: try to tell me a single one of them isn’t afraid she’ll call that number. If he says that today he is a man, tomorrow he might no longer be a man, tomorrow he might no longer be able to answer for his child, to say ‘bang’ and shoot into the middle of her forehead with a pistol. If you can’t kill her like that, what is that? And if he doesn’t kill her, what kind of man is he? He brings shame on himself! Today he is a man, and tomorrow he is no longer a man. He cannot sell out his future that way! Don’t sell your future!”

You’ll be glad to know I feel like that’s over the line; I just cite this as an example of how infanticide or filicide can be more normalized than humanitarian intervention by the secular state. I can see where Kadyrov is coming from, in the same way that I can see where Morrison is coming from. I don’t necessarily agree with it, but I’m more ambivalent when it comes to child abuse as the denial of modern medical treatment.

I have a tendency to leave be the internal affairs of a relational whole (mother+UDH), rather than involving a state actor that encounters mother and child as “individuals” abstracted from their relational context. Without reference to the consequences for the UDH (so as not to mince words: fetal death), science and the state should defer to the mother’s preferences, as the sole rational arbiter of a relational whole.

I’m aware that this implies some pretty heavy assumptions–denying the transcendent value of the self, not to mention life itself–but I can’t abandon my insistence on relational subsidiarity, without exception for life-and-death situations. In the absence of certainty as to universal moral truths, I have no basis for reaching into the private world of a mother and child and coercing her to conform to my concept of the best course of action. Knowledge of right action comes from the inside out, contingent upon the agent’s subject-position. This may sound relativistic, but I really am hesitant to let go of subsidiarity in this context (even while I’m in favor of the most strident state paternalism in a “future generations” context, if you recall).

My thoughts are still racing on this, but I need to get to bed. Although I’m sure this post is full of holes, I don’t expect you to drop everything and parse my filicidal tendencies.

What I’d like to get at is the epistemology of determining what’s in moral patient’s best interest, and how to weigh that interest against those of other parties. If an abortive mother and the state in loco parentis disagree about how to treat a developing person, what are the grounds for making the right decision?

My mind tends to wonder through a variety of cases in point, from Toni Morrison and President Kadyrov to, say, the raid on the polygamist Yearning for Zion Ranch in Texas last year. But I’ll try to focus on the ectogenesis example, and explicate my intuitive misgivings about that in particular.

Assuming that ectogenesis technology becomes available and legally enforceable on unconsenting mothers, under what circumstances can it be applied? Are there any circumstances under which a UDH should be terminated, foregoing ectogenesis?

From a utilitarian perspective, there may be only so many UDHs that the state can take on before an ectogenesis program becomes cost prohibitive. Say, a certain quota of “rescued” unwanted pregnancies per year. Unfortunately, poorer areas are more likely to see more unwanted pregnancies, so it’s the states and municipalities that are least able to pay for child welfare services that would be most frequently faced with a decision between ectogenesis and abortion. As a matter of course, we can expect the same racial and socioeconomic disparities that structure the current healthcare and child welfare systems to manifest in any future ectogenesis program.

Donations from private religious groups could help, but again, it’s the suburban megachurches in more affluent regions with lower rates of sexual assault and underage pregnancy that have the resources available to fund such programs. In poorer areas, where ectogenesis could probably save the most “unwanted” lives, the technology would paradoxically be less frequently applied.

My mother used to volunteer at a halfway house called “Caring Choices” sponsored by our parish, where women with unplanned pregnancies could find shelter and either access to adoption services or resources for raising the child themselves. But the program’s budget barely covered diapers, much less artificial incubation cells.

Assuming the federal government or a major religious network, on the deontological grounds of a right to life, funded a network of major ectogenesis facilities around the country, there would still be a limit to the number of incubators available. Neither a hypothetical ectogenesis industry nor the existing foster care system are equipped to provide every abortive UDH with a dignified upbringing that will prepare them for adulthood.

In 2005, there where 1.2 million abortions in the United States, or one out of every five pregnancies. Right now, the US foster care system serves nowhere near that many wards of the state, and yet 50% of foster children still become homeless at 18 years of age when they’re no longer protected.

So creating a child welfare system eligible for coercion would require massive public expenditure, through either tax increases or reprioritized health spending, both of which involve their own ethical dilemmas. Using funds from religious groups or other private organizations to sponsor ectogenesis that abortive mothers could be forced to participate in involves another can of worms, using state coercion to place an unwanted child under the auspices of a faith-based institution.

My point, in bringing up all these cost restrictions, is to ask why our society should seek to deliver every child to adulthood, regardless of the parent’s wishes. What precisely is the value of a rescued UDH, and how do we set a limit on the amount of rescuing we do? What are the fundamental reasons why infanticide should be prevented? Is there a public interest argument to be made, or are we committed to limitless sacrifice for the absolute value of life?

If the reason why ectogenesis should be forced on abortive mothers is based on the latter, then we’re faced with all the challenges I outlined above. At what point do UDHs no longer become worth rescuing? And what is it about the circumstances of state budget restrictions that make the abortive mother’s preferences suddenly more weighty than the child’s interests? If a liberal state doesn’t help a child reach the age of reason, what exactly is lost or violated, gained or honored?

Chris,
You’ve brought up some really excellent points, here. I certainly see the force of the financial-burden argument that you’re giving here. Assuming that the resources required for ectogenesis are non-trivial, it seems that paying for all of these ectogenesis-instead-of-abortion births would be a huge burden. Even if ectogenesis is very cheap (and it might be, since you don’t have to take care of mothers, you only have to take care of UDHs in vats) you still have to find a place for all of these kids who are, by definition, unwanted.

(I’m actually on the fence about the permissibility of abortion, but I’ll play the part of someone who’s slightly against it.)

“What are the fundamental reasons why infanticide should be prevented?”

As Matt says, we don’t always acquiesce to parental demands, and we shouldn’t. Most folks find infanticide to be morally repugnant. They find the unnecessary killing of the innocent to be morally repugnant. Justice seems to support this claim. If Justice is “getting what one deserves” then it is difficult to see how an innocent proto-person deserves death. They are not in a position to act, but they have been (and are susceptible to being) acted upon. If they haven’t acted, then it is difficult to see why we should kill (or allow to be killed) proto-people based on an inconvenience that they cause.

[The other side of that claim is that it isn't clear why every proto-person (or full-person, perhaps) deserves life at public expense. It might also be the case that people deserve things that we simply can't give them. That is an injustice to them, but when it's tragic and not capricious it is probably a bullet we can bite.]

“Is there a public interest argument to be made, or are we committed to limitless sacrifice for the absolute value of life?”

It’s interesting to me that some folks will argue that life has a limitless value, but that these same people are in favor of military action and death penalties and other things that result in deaths. I think that, if push comes to shove, there are very few people who are willing to claim that the value of life is literally limitless.

I think that we can certainly make a public interest argument. That argument might (probably will) involve a cost/benefit analysis which ends up saying that we can’t save everyone. I’m not sure that this conclusion will mean that abortion is a morally valid option. Perhaps there’s an ectogenesis-lottery of some sort which gives some lucky women the option of ectogenesis and leaves some women responsible for their unwanted pregnancies. After all, Justice seems to require that we not kill folks unnecessarily.

(I figure it’s never too late to come back to a good thread.)

Both of your responses have helped me pinpoint my objections to the idea that justice requires ectogenesis. The first derives from the autonomy of families vis-a-vis the state; the other from the moral status of “UDH” embryos.

As Mike says, a parent’s authority over their child is not absolute, and there are circumstances where the paternalistic state can intervene. When a child is being abused or neglected, welfare agents have a duty to protect them. While group homes in the US may be little better than prisons, insofar as the risk of violence to the child is comparatively less in the foster-care system, the state is justified in separating a child from their abusive parent.

But is violence to a child morally equivalent with violence to an embryo? As Matt pointed out, UDHs “moral stock rises as they take on the features of personhood over the course of the pregnancy.” As this moral gradient declines towards the moment of conception, so too would the state’s duties to its citizens or, conversely, the parent’s authority would rise. Since a developing embryo isn’t endowed with the sentience of a baby or the consciousness of a child, I don’t see why violence to embryos (which do not experience the violence or destruction in any way) has the same repugnance as destroying a baby or child. If the cells of the embryo have yet to even divide into the brain cells necessary to experience pain, then state’s obligations to the potential citizen are not yet enforceable, and the mother’s preference to terminate the embryo does no harm to an innocent person.

So, if both ectogenesis and the foster-care system made adequate advances in cost and quality, the mother’s reproductive rights could be justifiably limited in the later stages of development, once the fetus is demonstrably sentient. But prior to that, the mother’s autonomy is unassailable, because her offspring’s entitlement to the state’s protection has not yet taken effect.

This discussion has helped me refine my views from the brutally unsubtle examples of infanticide I brought up before. If a technology were developed that made abortion unnecessary, I’d now say the state can only enforce it–or that justice only requires it–when the UDH has reached the point of sentience in utero. And in the absence of a liberal state that can enforce these restrictions on the mother and provide these entitlements to the fetus, the prospect of a late-term or live-birth abortion falls from an irresponsible injustice to an unavoidable tragedy.