The hearts and minds of Americans are changing since it seems that many politicians in the Democratic party seem to be wary about being too far out in support of abortion. There was a post here not too long ago that wrote about Sen. Evan Bayh thinking that he was pro-life — despite his pro-abortion votes.

Unfortunately, all too often Democrats’ pro-life convictions seem to waver when it comes time to get campaign funds. A lot of the formerly pro-life Democrats are now solidly pro-abortion. Even Bill Clinton and Al Gore were pro-life in the past.

The word still hasn’t gotten out to the masses that Barack Obama is more pro-abortion than NARAL.

Since Supreme Court justices could be appointed in the next four to eight years, it is still important to make sure that the right person is elected to the presidency.

It is an unfortunate fact that at times Republican presidents have failed to appoint strict constructionist judges to the Supreme Court. Whether the issue is abortion, religious freedom, interstate commerce, or international law, Republican appointed Supreme Court justices have let us down.

This failure should not be construed as meaning that the Republican party does not have a strongly pro-life record.

Thankfully, President Bush has appointed two strong originalist justices and his appellate court appointees have, on the whole been strong. Of course there was the Harriet Miers debacle but proves that the conservative grassroots of the party are now very interested in who gets appointed to the Supreme Court. Hopefully this increased understanding of the Supreme Court’s importance will continue to lead to strict originalist appointments.

I’ll bite:

“Pro-Life”–In general means that advocating and supporting policies that protect human life from its earliest moments until it ends. I think it is encoded in the fabric of our nation from the beginning–”We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

“human life is a continuum” (?) I don’t particularly buy into reincarnation. I think there is probably more agreement than disagreement. I think we can probably agree that “human life” has a scientific definition that is fairly clear (homo sapiens; heart beating; response to stimulus; etc.) and that it ends just before we put the person in a box and bury it in the ground.

I would argue that the value of life certainly varies by the individual, but from a governing perspective, the founders left it clear that life in an unalienable right.

As to starting, you are right that there is disagreement. Most (but not necessarily Obama) would agree that once you come out of your mother’s womb that you are alive–at least if your heart is beating.

It is interesting to hear people who have seen a sonogram of their child and the realization that at ten gestation weeks (which is only 8 weeks after conception) that the fetus is clearly alive. Heart beats. Movements. Reaction to stimulus.

So, I agree that there is disagreement, but as technology advances I think the gap is narrowing. But as you know, the definition of life has little or nothing to do with the pro-choice position.

You are right that there is a lot of nuance in these definitions and “values”. Technology has made the situation both better and worse. I think that the “value” part of the discussion has been decided for us–at least if we value what our founding fathers and documents lay out. So for me, the discussion is simply on a level of the definition of life.

But the pro-choice argument really has nothing to do with the definition of life. I suppose it may be regarding the “value” of life, but they do not admit that it is a life. And if it is a life, the value is clearly less than that of their dog. Obama even voted against providing care for children that happened to survive an abortion attempt. If the discussion is about “value” of human life, then the value being placed on it by the pro-choice movement is zero.

By the way, Joel, I think you are over-generalizing about people on the pro-choice side, just as I think much is over-generalized about people on the pro-life side.

The majority of Americans seem to favor both limitations on abortion (especially with regard to timeframe) and some right of a woman to decide for herself within those limitations. I interpret that as an ambivalence about when life begins or when it achieves a value that must be protected.

I know many Republican women who describe themselves as pro-life, but then say they mean they could never have an abortion, and that they believe every mother must decided based upon her own conscience. I also know many women both Republican and Democrat who describe themselves as pro-choice, but say they could never ever have an abortion themselves.

My meaning regarding beyond in the question above was: The value of life not just in the womb (the abortion question), but beyond the womb (the other questions relating to life and its value.)

I think that there is a full range of beliefs about the value of life and its beginning underlying every position on this topic. I think you may be as mistaken in believing that “pro-choice” individuals haven’t given the matters thought as others may be in believing “pro-life” individuals don’t care about the autonomy of women. I do believe it is possible to give these matters thought and arrive at positions across the spectrum, which is why I think the disagreement is intractable.

Or to put it differently in two extremes, I think Americans may blanch both at the prospect of the loss of innocent life, especially where consensus has formed that a valuable human life exists, and at the thought of society’s unlimited control over a woman’s body to the degree that she is treated merely as a gestation chamber. (No one I am aware of, for instance, believes a woman should be charged with criminal negligence if some avoidable athletic activity of hers produces a miscarriage, but taking to an extreme an absolute value placed on the human life within would suggest such a policy.) Both positions can be carried to an unsavory extreme, which is why Americans seem to be coming down somewhere in the middle.

I don’t think the lack of support that exists today either for “abortion on demand” or for the outlaw of all abortion reflects a lack of thought by the majority. To the contrary, I think good Americans thinking deeply on these matters are disagreeing strongly. The fact that Americans are coming down somewhere in between reflects not a desire for an agreed upon philosophical consistency, but instead a desire for Americans of strongly different views to continue to coexist peacefully with each other.

Joel, what is your definition of life?

By the way, Joel, I think that for some, the question of life and the value of life includes parameters of quality of life, and that many who adhere to a pro-choice position are uncertain what life is of sufficient quality to call it life, while many who adhere to a pro-life position incorporate a certainty about the value of life no matter its quality.

Josh and Joel, it is not at all a question of semantics. The question of the nature and value of life can be addressed religiously, metaphysically, and perhaps through other means as well. The deep division on the topic of abortion reflects different approaches to the valuation of life itself by the parties to the question. For some there is religious or metaphysical certainty, for others there is doubt.

Joel, you quote the Declaration of Independence, for which we all have reverence, though one must observe that for the author(s), the definition of life included in the concept appears to have been in the eye of the beholder. The accusation against the King was that he was fomenting domestic insurrection? That was a reference to England’s encouragement of slaves to believe that liberty might be theirs. Meanwhile, the authors themselves did not include slaves in the definition, and attempts to do so were met with the southern indignation.

As Lincoln put it about Stephen Douglas’ responses on the topic of slavery, “It takes a better argument than a sneer.”

Joel, you can express outrage when a pro-choice adherent suggests that life at an early stage in the womb does not warrant protection from the judgment, desires, or wishes of the mother to end it; they are ending a life that in their judgment doesn’t warrant continuation or would be better served by termination.

The Catholic Church expresses outrage when others suggest that sex is an enjoyable and expressive activity in its own right, and that the cost of sperm and egg lost to contraception is a couple’s business only, and not that of the sperm (animated with human life, though incomplete), the egg (animated with human life, though incomplete) let alone anybody else.

In seeking to criminalize abortion (if that is what you seek), then it would be helpful to those who fear undue social control of private life to ask why you draw a line in protecting developing human life after sperm and egg have met, but not before (that should be fairly easy, I would think), why you consider human life at conception to be definitive, but not later when the additional formative influences of the womb have had their necessary and distinguishing effects, why if the value of this life is absolute you would resist more stringent controls upon women to ensure that undeveloped human life proceeds to life without endangerment, whether you would demand that parents submit their children to proven vaccinations and medical procedures (and pay for them) even against their religious reservations, whether you advocate for lower speed limits and ever greater mandatory auto safety controls and devices, the outlaw of scuba diving, hang gliding, autoracing, private piloting and mountain climbing, all of which have rates of mortality associated with them.

These are not silly questions, for to some an emphasis on stopping women from terminating pregnancy in the name of preserving life, while expressing no similar outrage at the loss of life occurring otherwise, seems philosophically incomplete if there is an absolute value to human life which must be preserved above all other considerations.

I have a friend who is adopted and strongly pro-life, opposing abortion in the case of incest or threat to life of mother. Generalizing, he argues that the pro-life movement is not truly animated by a concern for life, for the concern for life appears so seldom elsewhere in their advocacy. He argues that the pro-life movement is driven overwhelmingly by people who are motivated simply to impose their views of morality on others, while lacking any genuine commitment to human life. He argues that if a genuine concern for human life undergirded their moral views, then their moral views would encompass a lot more regarding the protection and promotion of human life than just stopping abortion or assisted suicide.

Millions of deaths occur all over the world daily, among young and old alike. Some in the pro-life movement are active in seeking to alleviate the heartache and grief attendant to the tides of human death that take place in our world outside the womb, and they lend credibility to their views of the value of human life.

But I think the population is generally in favor of limits on abortion but continued legality because they sense in society a lack of compassion not only for the mother in difficulty, but for the child and youth in difficulty as well; that perhaps the mother in difficult circumstances may have a compassion and a concern about the child’s future that society lacks; and that given what appears too often to be a general lack of compassion and sense of mutual responsibility for humanity, society has come to sense that judgment is better entrusted to the mother than to society in considering what is best for the life within before it achieves viability.

(When you say that the original argument for abortion was that the fetus was just tissue, that is not an argument I have heard. Instead, I think that many mothers who contemplate abortion do not consider the fetus to be mere tissue, but to be a life for which they bear responsibility as they bring bring it into the world. Some may think selfishly; others may see a world of difficulty to which they fear to introduce that life, and that refusing to introduce that life is not a termination of a child’s future joy, but of a child’s future sorrow. They may assign it significant value, but view it as their prerogative and theirs alone to determine whether or not that valuable life should be introduced to the world.)

“But there are no viable arguments that can argue that a fetus as early as two weeks after conception (see images at http://www.wpclinic.org/parenting/fetal-development/first-trimester/) is a distinct human life. ”

Is this what you meant to say, or is there a typo here?

If I understand your criteria (and I may not) why is genetic (chromosomal completion?)distinction your criteria for human life?

You misunderstand the reason for my question. As I have said, I believe it correct to observe that life does not begin, but proceeds upon a continuum, and that life animates the sperm and the egg. The question is when does that life achieve a status of such humanity that morality demands its preservation and the protection of its rights.

I (as do most Americans and perhaps you) reject a moral imperative that the life of the sperm or the egg prior to their unity have achieved that status, although the Catholic Church seems to embrace it. You on the other hand (if I understand correctly) argue that when life in each assumes unity with the other and produces a genetic distinction, it becomes human life with inherent rights and a moral imperative for preservation. Some do not consider a status of human life to exist at that point, but argue that only upon viability are moral imperatives and rights conferred.

Some traditional human societies argue that only upon actual birth do such imperatives and rights appear. In fact, if I’m not mistaken, because infant mortality was so outrageously high, the Chinese traditionally considered that a life only becomes fully vested at the 1-year mark, which is why by their traditional standards what we would have considered to be infanticide in exposing infants after birth, they considered to be within the realm of morality because infants weren’t yet fully vested. (Much less, therefore, do they consider infants within the womb to be vested with inherent rights and moral imperatives.)

Clearly in America, our consensus is willing to commit to viability at the latest. Unless you just want to rail against the majority without any truly persuasive attempt, it seems to me that you have to be able to justify why at the genetic union life achieves inherent rights, when the majority seems presently to accept that it is only later, when life has its other essential ingredients previously lacking.

Hence my question why it is at the point of genetic distinction, not earlier and not later, that you argue the criteria for human life is satisfied and it is vested with inherent rights and a moral imperative for protection.

When you say it is definitively human, what does human mean to you?

Joel, these aren’t technicalities. They are essential, and it appears to me the root source of disagreement. I welcome you to define your terms rather than attempting to define them for you, as I would not define them for others. Still, some randomly seized definitions:

n.
1.. A member of the genus Homo and especially of the species H. sapiens.
2. A person: the extraordinary humans who explored Antarctica.
adj.
1. Of, relating to, or characteristic of humans: the course of human events; the human race.
2. Having or showing those positive aspects of nature and character regarded as distinguishing humans from other animals: an act of human kindness.
3. Subject to or indicative of the weaknesses, imperfections, and fragility associated with humans: a mistake that shows he’s only human; human frailty.
4. Having the form of a human.
5. Made up of humans: formed a human bridge across the ice.

Depending on their definition (again this is no technicality, but essential, in my opinion) people differ on whether or not the sperm and egg united into one genetically distinct entity yet qualifies as a human life with inherent rights. The same applies at later stages: The permanently brain dead to some is human life, for instance, while to others has none of the positive characteristics that separate us as distinct from animals.

People seem to differ, and I assume you disagree with definitions that would produce conclusions different from your own. So I it is that I am interested in what it is that human means to you.

Actually, Joel, I don’t think you’ve achieved your objective with regard to the dizzying logic part. There is no more reason to say that pro-choice adherents have reached their position first and arguments developed second than to say the same of pro-life adherents. I’ve tried to elicit from you the basis for a position with which the majority of Americans seem to disagree… frankly, I don’t necessarily disagree with you, but you haven’t been any more persuasive than any other point of view I’ve heard, stated with equal conviction.

I have many friends on both sides of this divide, all of whom I consider to be good people. I think of one example who has re-arranged an entire financial life to live with simplicity and frugality that others would benefit, and that person believes that life at the stage you describe does not have the character wherein rights are inherent. That person is a good person and will never personally derive any benefit, selfish or otherwise, from this topic. He will never accidentally conceive a child nor choose to abort one.

If you wish to see a pro-life position prevail, it seems to me that you have got to be better not only at defending it, but at persuading others that their views are incorrect. The vast majority who disagree with you will never abort and have no interest in exercising that current legal prerogative. That they are unwilling to criminalize it is due to their not being persuaded. You have stated only a position of firm conviction with which others can and do disagree, and said nothing (that I can detect) that would persuade them otherwise or even reveal that intent.

Joel, the pro-choice point of view would be that the pro-life concept of human life is shallow and uni-dimensional… that the brain-dead human no longer exhibits any uniquely human qualities that separate it from lower order animals, and that the same is true of the fetus.

Regarding exposure to images of a fetus, if there is a special nature that elevates human life above animal life (and I believe there is), then that special nature is not apparently present for weeks, as the fetus passes through stages that could be mistaken for the life of virtually any animal, then any mammal. At the latest, it is at 21st week that we can be distinquished from a chimpanzee. So while your observation is interesting, it doesn’t seem to me to get to a core substantive argument. Imagery alone cannot provide an answer, for as advertisers demonstrate every day, it can manipulate emotion. (For instance, show to those same individuals contemplating abortion referenced in your article images of fetuses of other animals and ask whether the abortion of any should be allowed to proceed, or whether the killing of all animals should be outlawed, and I suspect you would get statistically significant shifts.)

While I don’t subscribe to it, I do happen to believe that vegetarian buddhists have the purest and least conflicted grasp of the value of life. All others, whether pro-choice or pro-life, so far to me seem to be highly conflicted and reliant on the argument shutting down before any form of core truth is uncovered. From your perspective, however, that should be problematic. For if it proves rare and perhaps impossible to arrive at a core truth on the topic, that in itself suggests that it is on the conscience of each individual to discern, an implicitly pro-choice outcome.