Imo, the "a fetus is a human being with rights" argument is a specious one because it implies (by conscious omission) that a fetus has the SAME rights as another viable, already born human being.
Animals are more conscious than are previability fetuses, and yet we don't hold hearings to determine if their rights are being violated when the choice to euthanize them is made. Who knows, maybe that dog would have been the Lassie of all Lassies and saved hundreds of people from burning buildings and found lost children in the forest...we'll never know now though, because we MURDERED it.
It's a specious argument predicated with an inflammatory, kneejerk intent. Moreover, it's a tad disingenuous because it implies society has some overarching interest in the potential of the unborn fetus, and yet somehow once the fetus is actually born society abdicates almost all responsibility for nurturing that potential to the mother. If society's interest in the potential of the fetus in utero were that paramount, then by logical extension the mother's parenting role even after birth should be secondary to that of the State.
*pauses for a second to allow requisite screaming bloody murder at the top of their lungs by resident Randians to die down*
If anything, I think the animal analogy is more appropriate here. Animals can't voice their subjective states of mind to defend their "rights". Neither can fetuses. Animals CAN provide their own means of sustenance and protection. Fetuses can't.
And almost certainly a fetus in the early stages of development would have no consciousness of its own being, the brain having not developed sufficiently at that stage...moreover, certainly the fetus is no more conscious of its own existence than an animal in almost any but the very last stages of fetal development, and I would imagine even that's debatable.
So if we had a "fetal impoundment shelter" system in which any pregnant mother could register her fetus for a period of, say, 7 days in which pre-approved prospective adoptees wanting to adopt could contractually bind themselves to adopt the child and pay for the childbirth costs, and then failing any takers within that 7 day period, the mother could choose to euthanize the fetus (assuming the fetus were still pre-viability stage of course), I'd be all for it.
Such a system could be set up to ensure the privacy rights of the mother. It would also address for the most part the minor parental consent concerns, although there would still be the nagging issue of the minor being able to void the adoption contract upon the child's birth. I'd simply say caveat emptor in that instance though.
Of course there are also utilitarian arguments already pointed out by others militating in favor of maintaining abortion as an option, e.g., the fact that the population is presently well beyond the earth's natural carrying capacity in the first place. There's also the argument that legalized abortion lowers the violent crime rate, an argument advanced by Steven Leavitt in his book "Freakonomics".
My view is that up until the fetus reaches the point of viability, fetal rights are clearly subsidiary to the carrying female's rights, with the caveat that if some system on the lines of above were enacted I would endorse it. The argument that a previability fetus is on the same level rights-wise with the mother is simply specious though.
L O V E L I F E said:
The concept of "freedom" that we have fought for was meant to free us from being controlled by others.
It was NOT meant to give us the right to impose on others.
Sure it does in some instances. I wanted that last available parking spot that we both pulled up to roughly simultaneously, you got it instead, you imposed your right to secure it over mine without asking or bargaining with me for it first. I don't have any right to sue you based on tortious interference with my right to license that parking space to myself. Noise, zoning and pollution ordinances also set bright-line demarcations below which impositions upon others are presumed to be acceptable.
Obviously those are de minimis examples, but while "freedom of competition", "pursuit of happiness" and the reality of our society dictate that some de minimis impositions are tolerated, it does underscore that there are a number of elements missing from the abortion issue that would otherwise be present in a typical pure "freedom" setting.
The weakness in your "freedom" analogy here is that this just isn't, strictly speaking, a pure "freedom" situation. For your analogy to apply on all fours, the fetus would have to have some means of independently exercising its right to be "free" of the inherently "enslaving" aspects of the prenatal womb. The fetus isn't "free" to choose another host womb if it's dissatisfied with its current host womb or even petition for redress of grievances against it, say, e.g., that it didn't "consent" to the mother's nicotine or caffeine consumption. Nor is the mother "free" to unburden herself of all the decisions that she has to make on the fetus' behalf, or even consider the full range of reproductive options if abortion is significantly restricted.
*pauses for a second to ponder the possibility of movie sequel...BRAD PITT: WOMB RAIDER*
It's simply not a pure "freedom" situation, and to imply that this issue is controlled by a pure "freedom" analysis militating in favor of the fetus is a dangerous implication, for it could (I'm envisioning the following scenario in an amplified version of the present political climate, of course) very easily lead to such slippery slope results intruding even more micromanagerially into the female's life, i.e., the creation of new, even more intrusive State-based "fetal protection" enforcement rights against the putative mother...perversely enough, engendering the very state of control you militate against and endangering the very freedom you ostensibly support.
She had a glass of wine? HAUL HER INTO REPRODUCTIVE COURT! She smoked a cigarette? HAUL HER INTO REPRODUCTIVE COURT! She had particularly vigorous sex during the early pregnancy stages? HAUL HER INTO REPRODUCTIVE COURT!
Sure, those examples are stretched to the extreme, but with the underpinnings of the constitutional right of privacy presently under fire (particularly with respect to reproductive rights) and some on the far right of the political spectrum bemoaning declining American birthrates, it's not hard to imagine some such diluted version of those scenarios in the future ala the Nazi Lebensborn programs.
Given the degree of contentiousness on the issue, until the day comes that we develop technology to process and interpret early fetal brainwaves it's far more desirable imo, and indeed arguably even more protective of the "freedom" you espouse, to maintain the present "viability" bright-line demarcation so that such slippery slope temptations are minimized on either side of the coin.
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While I freely admit that this is merely my own speculation, I suspect that the driving forces in the upper tiers of the anti-abortion movement harbor motives not unlike that of the eugenics movement of the 1930's, namely, that of promoting the birth of more "fit" children while discouraging the birth of "unfit" children. Oddly enough though, the eugenics baby has now been dropped squarely upon its head...once harbored amongst the "liberal elite", the eugenicists are now firmly entrenched in the far right elite camp (think Pat Robertson and Pat Buchanan).
In the early 1900's when birth rates among all classes were still fairly high, the eugenicists SUPPORTED birth control and abortion as a means of lowering birth rates of the poor classes. Now however, given that the more "fit" in our society often employ birth control and abortion as a means of controlling when they reproduce in order to maximize their own economic competitiveness, and further given that the poor still tend to produce roughly as many offspring as they ever did (or at least more than the upper classes), the eugenics advocates OPPOSE abortion because it's had precisely the opposite effect of what they had always sought, namely, engineering and controlling society in the manner they intended.
Of course the eugenics advocates now couch their opposition to abortion in the most "moral" of terms, i.e., "abortion is murder and murder is wrong", to gain the support of the lower tier (primarily religious) anti-abortion advocates, but again, I suspect the real motive is ulterior. That's why they screamed bloody murder and immediately moved to denounce and smear Leavitt when he published his thesis supporting the view that legalized abortion lowers violent crime rates. Naturally it just wouldn't do to allow evidence of abortion imparting a benefit to society to go unsmeared.
![:\](https://bluelight.org/xf/BL_Images/Orig_Emoji/wrygrin.gif "wry grin :\")
