Your points about the film are interesting. I’ll have to check it out.

I’m wondering though — do you have any thoughts on ectogenesis? That’s of course what the article is about, and I’m very, very optimistic that when it becomes technologically possible, we’ll be able to happily bury the entire abortion issue once and for all — ecto is a win-win for everyone!

So yeah — thanks for stopping, and for the tip on the film. Please do read up on ectogenesis when you get a chance — I’d love to discuss it. And in fact, maybe we can discuss it (and the film) in person — as of January, I’m just down the road in Anne Arundel County!

–Matt–

P.S. Why the link to Iona Prep?

It sounds like we’re in agreement on my main line of argument – that ectogenesis will enable us to respect the legitimate interests of both pro-life and pro-choice advocates – to save the life of the potential person, and simultaneously respect the potential mother’s emotional, career, and health interests – as well as her autonomy.

I suppose the only thing I have to add concerns your first sentence. I don’t think it’s the case that a fetus (or “unborn developing human,” as I like to call them) is a full person. Personhood would seem to be a moral category (distinct from being merely alive or biologically human) based on several key capacities – consciousness, the ability to feel pleasure and pain, the ability to engage in relationships, and finally, the ability to engage in higher reason. While normal adult humans can do all of that, normal developing UDHs cannot, although it is true that they take on some of these features over the course of pregnancy, consequently increasing in moral worth as they go. But that’s only a minor point – a matter of terminology. Beyond that, I think we’re in agreement.

However, I will encourage you to address those with whom you disagree more respectfully. Calling people insane, stupid, evil, etc. doesn’t do anything to advance your cause – it actually devalues your otherwise good argument. And it of course alienates people who might have been open to your points.

And hopefully from reading the above in this thread it’s obvious that people who challenge my view aren’t necessarily stupid or evil. That Chris Martin guy is smarter than all of the rest of us put together! And at least as ethical.

So yeah. Sorry to harp on that. Just thought it was a shame that your points were otherwise so good – wanted to make sure I explained why I’m so high on civility and reasoned discussion.

Thanks again for posting! Please do so anytime.
–Matt–

It is quite difficult for sane individuals to relate to the stupidity and inhumanity of the above position, but nevertheless these people still do exist.

I suppose it is only natural for stubborn opposing advocates to exist, even when they are up against rationality.

A fetus is not part of the woman’s body. How even more irrevelant will the argument that it is will become in the face of the technological milestone of artificial wombs.

Currently, abortion is here because a woman has a choice, but it is the nature of this choice which matters. You see, a mother does not have the choice of life or death over the fetus/infant. She only has a right to abortion currently because for some reason she does not want the child. The choice is not of the nature that she simply wants the child to be killed. To make a choice based in tha manner is something which rightfully can be labeled as psychopathic/sadistic/evil.

Thus, when artificial wombs come into being for humans, their presence will sidestep the necessity of abortion for addressing a woman’s desire to terminate the life of her fetus on the basis of she does not want it. Arguments based on the notion that the woman then has a right to terminate the life of the fetus because of the woman’s will are not be considered valid, since that desire is inhumane and violates the right(s) of the fetus.

As a woman and a mother im sure I have a little bias in my argument, but I am going to tell you what I think anyway. I think the idea of completely making abortion obsolete is a grand idea, but there are limitations such as transfering an unborn fetus into a “modified” pig. Although the idea of using a machine to incubate and essentially develop the fetus until birth sounds appealing, I am still not conviced that it is in the best interest of the fetus.
I am no expert, but can’t help but think what kind of a life the child would live. The adoption system we have is not one to be applauded. There are several flaws, and when it comes to the life of an innocent child we should be more extensive in backgrounding the families that we are giving these children to. Sure there are are a handfull of couple to bless with the child they never had, but there are far more that are not in it for the love of the child. In addition to that, think about the phsycological effects this would have on the child. Would the child be made fun of? Probably so. We don’t know. Never knowing of a “real” mother and father. Sorry to bring up the controversial issue but same sex adoptive parents…what kind of impact will that have on the child?

Call me old-fashioned, but I am a firm believer in non abortion unless under extenuating circumstances (such as rape, or right to live). You choose to have unprotected sex then you should reap the consequences. We are all adults or least when it comes to the matter of sex we want to act like adults; therefore, we ought to be “adult” enough to use contraception. Maybe our fight should not be to find a remedy for abortion, maybe we should first pour some money into our child service system to better it, and then consider the long term effects of the child at hand. There always be pros and there will always be cons. Taking proper steps to correct the problems we already face and then weighing those advantages and disadvantages will present us with a uniform and well-round desicion on what is “best”.

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.

Seriously–excellent points and questions. And superb job taking a first stab at answers, Mike. You two should sit down and solve some problems together sometime.

My fault for not better qualifying the argument. Indeed, I made too quick a jump from “if it’s technologically possible” to “it’s morally required” without considering the resource implications. To the degree that such technology is prohibitively expensive, yeah–the case for universally available and even enforced ectogenesis is weakened.

As a gradualist, while I think UDHs have great moral value from conception, their moral stock rises as they take on the features of personhood over the course of the pregnancy. Therefore, a young UDH’s life may be worth less than, say, a thousand adult citizens’ educations. That sounds callous, but shoot–my life–if it required some ridiculously expensive treatment to save–may not be worth the education of a thousand.

The problem is that striking the most reasonable balance amongst our values–in free speech, freedom of religion, defense, education, economic liberty, self-sufficiency, economic justice, autonomy, privacy, sexual equality, human life, etc–often seems ad hoc. And articulating precise cost thresholds and acceptable trade offs is impossible to do in a principled way. But I think that’s a conversation we’d just need to have publicly, should the technology come online.

It’s clear that putting UDHs’ lives above ALL else is simply unreasonable. But I think it’s equally clear that they have great value, and thus warrant serious resource commitments.

Of course, we could always punt the financial burden back to the biological parents… We’d definitely need subsidies for the poor, but hey–to the extent that the costs were burdensome, they would encourage birth control! I like it

(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.