What if it Doesn't Look Human?

Until recently, abortions were very seldom done before the sixth week of pregnancy. There have been medical advances since 1996 that have made it possible to abort earlier, usually with a hand-held syringe.(1) However, these abortions are not offered by most clinics. Only twenty-three Planned Parenthood clinics offer abortions before the sixth week. Only ten offer them as early as the third week.(2) Medical abortions (i.e. those done by drugs such as mifepristone or methotrexate) can also be used early in pregnancy. They are generally only effective before 7 weeks gestation. No date is available about how many abortions are done before the 6th week by this method. So we do not know how many of the 37,000 medical abortions a year terminate early pregnancies.(3) Medical abortions are about 4% of all  abortions, or were in 2002.

Since 96% of abortions are surgical, and very few surgical abortions are performed before six weeks, we can assume that the vast majority of abortions are performed on babies who have heartbeats (the heart starts beating between 18-21 days)(4) and brainwaves(5) who are beginning to look human, to the extent that they have faces with eyes, arms, legs, and fingers that can be discerned on each hand.

But what about the handful of abortions that take place on babies who do not yet look human? Is our humanity based on how we look?

The question this breaks down to is this: are we inherently valuable because we are human, or are there certain qualities that make some of us more valuable than others?

When the sperm and the egg join, a new life is created. This is not religion or philosophy. It is scientific fact. A newly conceived human is no longer a part of a whole. It has DNA that is unique from both the mother and the father. It is a growing organism inside the woman's body.  It can even be alive outside the woman's body- as an embryo growing in a lab. Being inside or outside of a womb is a difference in location, not nature. 

Under normal circumstances, this tiny life will grow into an embryo, a fetus, a baby, a toddler, a child, an adolescent, a teenager, and an adult. Each is a stage of life, not the creation of life itself.

We know that a newly conceived human is a unique individual. It is alive, not dead. It is human, not a cat or other animal.

The question than is, does this entity have a right to life? Is it, as a member of the species homo sapiens, have value and worth? Are we worth something because we are individuals, members of the human species?

Or is our worth dependent on some characteristic we have?

This is a loaded question. On one hand, we have an unconditional acceptance of all human beings. On the other, we have acceptance based on external qualities, which are determined by the society we live in.

So...if we do not have inherent worth by being human, if a living human embryo does not have worth simply by being alive and human, what yardstick do we use to calculate worth?

Well, there are many ways we could do it.

We could say, you are not human until you reach a certain age. So what age? A fetus? A baby? A child? Some philosophers like Peter Singer say that it is ethical to kill newborns because they are not 'people' yet. Some societies, like the Spartans, felt that infanticide was perfectly acceptable. And topics like partial-birth abortion and live birth abortions blur the  line between abortion and infanticide already.

Is our worth dependent on what we look like? Human looking or not? Where we are located? In the womb or outside of it? Is it based on what we can do? What degree of awareness we have?

You can impose a set of credentials for a human life to be considered worthy of protection. Give rights based on an external characteristic. Impose guidelines on who is a person and who is not, who is a human being and who is not.

But be very, very careful when you do. Because that way lies madness.

Each society can impose their own yardstick, as can each individual. But ultimately, each yardstick is arbitrary. What will the measure of human worth be, if it not inherent?

Different societies have answered this in different ways.

In America in the 1800s, a slave was not considered a person. Oh yes, intellectually, everyone knew that a slave was a biological member of the human race- but that wasn't enough. Instead of having inherent worth, a slave was denied rights. He could be beaten, owned, put to work, and even killed by his owner. An owner could easily get away with killing his slave, and even with sexually violating her. In the Bill of Rights, the slave was declared three-fifths of a person. This was for calculation of population. Because obviously, a slave couldn't be a person. An entire ideology would collapse. Ultimately, a slave had no inherent worth. Factors of race and skin color prevented him from being considered a person. Were these factors any more legitimate than age and location?

Let's consider another example. In some societies, such as Greek Sparta, handicapped people were not considered fully human. In Hitler's Germany, handicapped people, especially the mentally handicapped, were dubbed 'useless eaters.' Useless, because they were useless to the state. They were unable to make serious contributions to the economy and, in the mind of the Nazis, simply ate up resources. In fact, Hitler exterminated thousands of the mentally and physically 'unfit' before even turning on the Jewish people. Mentally ill or developmentally disabled were not considered human because their brain function did not meet the criteria Hitler established. Sound familiar? An echo of those who claim that a fetus or baby does not have sufficient brain function to be human? Maybe, maybe not. But the point is, Hitler's definition of what makes us human and worthy of rights paved the way for the deaths of millions, including Jews, Gypsies, and the Germany's own disabled war veterans.

What about twins? In the past, in some tribal villages, twins were considered inherently evil. They were abandoned to die at birth. It was an accepted norm.

In our society, we wouldn't deny living humans rights based on their physical and mental abilities, their race, or their birth circumstances.

Instead, we deny living humans rights based on their size, appearance, degree of development, and location inside their mother's womb.

That is our criteria for being a person, for being a human being. Is it any less arbitrary than race, capabilities, or circumstances of birth? When we impose our own cultural measures of who has rights and who doesn't, are we any better than any other society that does the same thing?

We cannot get away from the fundamental question. I ask the reader. Are you a valuable human being? Are you worthy of life and rights? If so, why? Is it because of your age? Your appearance? Your size? Your intelligence? Your success in life? The amount of money you have? Your race? Your gender?  Your capabilities?

Or is it because you are a human being?

If you have inherent worth because simply because you are a living human and not because of external characteristics, then what of an unborn baby? Can you grant him or her the same consideration you grant yourself? Or do you use the yardstick of size, dependency, or location?

How big? Is a 250 pound football player more of a person than a petite 5'1 woman? How developed? Is a teenager more of a person than an adult?  What about location? Does a man become a person by walking two feet? If not, than why does a fetus become a person by traveling a few inches further down the birth canal?

When we look at our arbitrary distinctions that way, they seem illogical. Yet we apply them.

So instead of considering when a human life becomes valuable enough to be allowed the right to live, let's examine when that life begins.

Footnotes

1. Planned Parenthood Federation of America Medical Division and Media Relations Department, 12/97. Can be found at http://www.ppacca.org/site/pp.asp?c=kuJYJeO4F&b=139587

2. Ibid.

3. Alan Guttmacher Institute, quoted at http://www.abort73.com/HTML/II-A-abortion_statistics.html

4. J.M. Tanner, G. R. Taylor, and the Editors of Time-Life Books, Growth, New York: Life Science Library, 1965

5. H. Hamlin, "Life or Death by EEG," JAMA, Oct. 12, 1964, p. 120 and New England Jour. of Med., Aug. 26, 1982, p. 564