Women’s reproductive rights and control over their own bodies and their own lives are about to be brutally assaulted in the United States. I therefore, on this blog, wish to make the following statement, which is based upon the humanist message of care, compassion, support, love, consideration for others, and wish for all human beings to have full and happy lives, a message that resonates down the ages from the days of Epicurus, who espoused these simple, decent, civilised principles:
“It is a grievous and shameful sin to bring into the world a child that is not wanted by its mother, and cannot be loved, cared for and brought up like other well-loved children.
Making a mother carry a child to term by law or by societal or religious custom is cruel and intolerable, more cruel than terminating a foetus that might be technically alive but cannot yet comprehend or cope with a probable life of no love, poverty, inadequate diet, little schooling and no prospects – and to live that life until what age? 80 years old? More likely, 35 in many countries of the world. That is the way of adding more messed-up, angry, unloved, unhappy people to an already unhappy world.
The exponents of banning abortion, very often the same people who inflict homelessness and sudden death on the innocent in foreign wars in the name of liberty, ignore the misery they cause others. A woman, brutally raped, is expected to love and cherish the unwanted offspring of some man she barely knows? In a failing marriage and amid much unhappiness the announcement of a birth is unlikely to mend the marriage; rather, it breaks it up, leaving a single, resentful mother to cope singlehandedly, often projecting her resentment for lost opportunity onto her child. A 14 or 15 year old teenager, not yet a woman, has to suddenly undertake to rear a human child in the face of a blighted future?
But whether it is rape, teenage unpreparedness for motherhood, marital misharmony, lack of education and earning prospects, threat of illness or incapacity, the body of a woman and the brain encompassed within it are the sole property of that woman. No busibody has to right to tell her what to do with it. It is for her, not some preacher or politician to decree how she should live her life; or if they do do insist on bully tactics, they should themselves be prepared to support that woman and her unwanted child emotionally and financially, or keep their views to themselves. Of course they have no intention of doing anything to help the agonised and wretched women who, for their own personal reasons find themselves in the position of unwanted motherhood. These advocates of making abortion, even family planning, illegal, are from an Epicurean perspective immoral”.
This is a matter of principle, Epicurean principle.
For all of those reasons, and more, I agree with you on this issue. I’m agnostic as to whether an unborn foetus is a human being. I certainly don’t consider a fertilised egg to be a human. So I couldn’t possibly say for sure when ‘personhood’ comes into being, nor can anyone else.
The only argument in favour of the pro life position is the certain belief that life begins at conception. Now from a biological perspective this is wrong, as clearly the egg and sperm are alive in some capacity; but apart from a few extreme Catholics, no one seriously considers those to be living.
But let’s assume for a moment that the pro life position is right, and that life really does begin at conception. You would still have to consider the practical consequences of abortion restrictions. The truth is, unwanted pregnancies happen all the time, and women will always seek ways of having an abortion. In a similar vein to the abstinence-only sex education movement, which believes it realistic to assume that people will choose not to have sex, the pro life movement believes that a dramatic reduction in the number of women who desire an abortion is an obtainable goal. Barring a dramatic culture change, this simply won’t happen.
So if women still want abortions, but can’t get them, what will happen? The wealthier ones will travel to more liberal states, or abroad to obtain one. Some poorer women will resign to giving birth, only to perhaps put the child up for adoption or raise them themselves. As you quite rightly point out, such children will probably have very unhappy lives. It is reckoned that Roe v Wade contributed to the dramatic fall in crime in the 1990s, because many would-be criminals never came to being. (Of course the ‘tough on crime’ policies also contributed to this.)
The real danger is that women will seek illegal abortions, or may attempt one themselves. This is incredibly dangerous. The woman may die, or be seriously injured. If the foetus survives, it may have severe disabilities. Illegal abortions occur all the time in societies that ban legal abortion, the US will be no exception.
In summary, I don’t think its possible to know when life begins. But even if you’re certain it begins at conception, the case for pro choice public policy is overwhelming. Very often in life, we cannot allow our convictions alone to determine what constitutes good governance. I personally don’t believe prostitution is moral, but I fear outright criminalisation exposes vulnerable women to criminal gangs. A similar argument can be made for a woman’s right to choose- granting it results in the greatest happiness for society as a whole, and so ought to be upheld.