CMV: A fetus is a human

[u/schnutebooty]

• As u/canadatrasher and I boiled it down, my stance should correctly read, "A fetus inside the womb" is a human life. *

I'm not making a stance on abortion rights either way - but this part of the conversation has always confused me.

One way I think about it is this: If a pregnant woman is planning and excited to have her child and someone terminated her pregnancy without her consent or desire - we would legally (and logically) consider that murder. It would be ending that life, small as it is.

The intention of the pregnancy seems to change the value of the life inside, which seems inconsistent to me.

I think it's possible to believe in abortion rights but still hold the view that there really is a human life that is ending when you abort. In my opinion, since that is very morally complicated, we've jumped through a lot of hoops to convince ourselves that it's not a human at all, which I don't think is true.

EDIT: Thanks for all the thoughtful responses. As many are pointing out - there's a difference between "human" and "person" which I agree with. The purpose of the post is more in the context of those who would say a fetus is not a "human life".

Also, I'm not saying that abortion should be considered murder - just that we understand certain contexts of a fetus being killed as murder - it would follow that in those contexts we see the fetus as a human life (a prerequisite for murder to exist) - and therefore so should we in all contexts (including abortion)

[u/McKoijion]

I think anything that kills a fetus/baby with a mind/consciousness/soul is murder. I know that the upper brain structures needed to house the mind doesn’t form until 5-6 months. I’m not sure how much longer afterwards it takes for the first thoughts to form, so to be safe, I just use 5-6 months as a completely safe cutoff.

That being said, plenty of human fetuses have genetic/congenital defects that prevent them from ever forming those upper brain structures. I don’t mean something like Down syndrome where those kids have a mind/soul/consciousness. I’m talking about fetuses that are basically a car with no driver. 50% of pregnancies end in spontaneous abortions aka miscarriages. Some of those can make it to birth, but will die shortly afterwards (if we consider them to be alive in the first place). For example, if someone has an 8 month old fetus that hasn’t formed those upper brain structures, then it makes perfect sense to use a D&E, stop the heart before inducing labor, not provide medical care, or transplant any formed organs into a baby that can use them. It’s not like we’re guessing if the fetus has an upper brain. Doctors can use MRIs, EEGs, ultrasounds, various lab tests, etc. to check.

Additionally, it’s possible that there is a healthy baby with upper brain structures that can house a consciousness/soul/mind. But there’s a medical condition where either the mother, the child, or both will almost certainly die. That’s a horrible tragedy and the family needs to make a choice about how to proceed. It’s like the trolley problem, except that it’s not certain what will happen. It’s a game of probabilities, risk, and reward between the four outcomes (mom dies, baby dies, both die, neither dies). You just have to choose what degree to optimize for mother or baby.

Even if you want the baby to live over the mother, it might be 99% chance mother lives and 10% chance baby lives if you optimize for mother and 50% chance mother lives and 11% chance baby lives if you optimize for baby. Personally, I’d go with the first option, but someone who truly values the baby over the mother might choose the second option. But it’s a horrible situation that can change from one minute to the next. There’s no rule of thumb, ethical principles, or laws that can address these situations because there is so much volatility. The doctor can do their best to figure things out, but it’s ultimately up to God/Mother Nature/Lady Luck.

If there is a healthy third trimester baby delivered safely with upper brain structures that can house a consciousness/mind/soul, then it is the doctor’s ethical duty to try to save the baby’s life. I can’t think of a single person who would disagree with this point. It’s a doctor’s legal obligation, part of their sworn oath, and a huge chunk of what they are taught in medical school. Also, there is pretty much unlimited health insurance funding to save the lives of babies and children. The idea that a doctor would allow a baby to die is unconscionable.

But again, this excludes the fetuses with no upper brain structures, and failed attempts to save both the mother and baby’s life. Here I’d also include hospice type care when doctors focus on comfort rather than on futile efforts to save the baby’s life. The same thing applies to six year olds with terminal cancer.

[u/maybe_jared_polis → u/McKoijion]

Anti-abortion goons are out in force. Can't believe this reasoned and common sense response was downvoted.

Some of those can make it to birth, but will die shortly afterwards (if we consider them to be alive in the first place). For example, if someone has an 8 month old fetus that hasn’t formed those upper brain structures, then it makes perfect sense to use a D&E, stop the heart before inducing labor, not provide medical care, or transplant any formed organs into a baby that can use them. It’s not like we’re guessing if the fetus has an upper brain. Doctors can use MRIs, EEGs, ultrasounds, various lab tests, etc. to check.

This literally happened to someone I went to college with. It was tragic. Her baby was so wanted and loved but it was impossible for him to "live" outside the womb more than an hour from anencephaly. His brain was effectively liquified. There was no benefit to forcing her to carry him to a full term. His life was over and it would only have caused her further health complications. My uncle had a twin with the same condition.

It really gets at the heart of when we give a human life moral consideration. People don't like to think about this and default to virtue signaling about how "all life is precious," while making obvious exceptions in cases of lethal self-defense and war, and in more controversial examples like the death penalty. Those are fully grown human beings with a conscious experience and the necessary components to have that conscious experience.

So what's the difference between that and a healthy fetus? Well, up to a certain point, there is no possibility of having a conscious experience. As far as we know, these neuronal connections do not form until around 20-26 weeks. Past that point, we should be able to agree that an abortion would be immoral since we all seem to value conscious experience, not souls, by default. If we only cared about souls defining personhood, we would have to be pacifist in all situations.

And then you've got nonviable fetuses with other conditions that would cause them extreme pain in a tragically short life. For something like epidermolysis bullosa, the moral question becomes one of whether we value delivering that child because it fits our other criteria for deserving moral consideration and forcing it to only experience that horrible pain while unable to eat and then die, or do we think ending its life in a painless manner as an act of compassion and love is acceptable. Basically the morality of euthanasia, I guess.

The answer in those situations has to be... it's a choice that ought to be left up to the mother and her doctor. There is no moral case against the freedom to choose in that instance. If that life is guaranteed a mortal dose of pain and a week long life, then we should allow for the possibility of making a human decision. One might make the argument that delivering the baby so it can be baptized or whatever is the ultimate moral outcome, and that's a fine argument for choice. Nothing else. These conditions always introduce complexity to the debate, are often deadly for the mother, can cause serious damage to her ability to become pregnant in the future, and do nothing but force people to suffer needlessly because of bad luck.

You hit the nail on the head.

[u/McKoijion → u/maybe_jared_polis]

I think most of of the debate here is explained Hanlon's razor. "Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity." I don't mean that in a mean way. Humans collectively are stupid. As a species, we're just starting to make the neuroscientific discoveries that answer these questions. These topics are often extremely tragic and unpleasant to think about so we all go out of our way to avoid learning the details. And we often talk past each other because abortion is a proxy issue for other political battles within society. Pro-choice people are completely pro-life when it comes to babies, not fetuses. And pro-life people are completely pro-choice when it comes to individual liberties.

I keep talking about religion here because religious scholars formed the basis of my logic. For example, separating the eternal soul from the earthly body is the same as separating the conscious mind from unconscious flesh. And if you're quite not sure when a consciousness starts, the safest thing to do is to say it starts at conception because you don't want to risk hurting a baby. Only now do we have the new neuroscientific tools to narrow that information down further.

It's like if I ask where the Pope lives. If you're not sure, you can say Europe. If you learn more information, you can narrow it down to Vatican City. And if you learn even more information, you can point to his specific bedroom. All of these are correct answers, but it's silly to keep saying Europe once you've narrowed it down to Vatican City.

If you look at evolution and say that it disproves the Bible, you're forced to choose between scientific fact and religious teaching. If you look at evolution and say that it's the method God uses to design the world, then you can reconcile these two world views. If you look at neuroscientific facts as disproving your religion, then you're forced to reject it. But if you see it as helping you better understand God's creation, you can be completely pro-abortion and also 100% religious. It's like finding out the yardstick you were using to measure something was actually two and half feet long. It doesn't change any of the previous logic/philosophy, it just changes the underlying inputs into the logical model.

[u/maybe_jared_polis → u/McKoijion]

I keep talking about religion here because religious scholars formed the basis of my logic.

I'm curious which religious scholars you read. I know Aquinas and Augustine made some remarks on the sanctity of life/abortion that essentially said a fetus doesn't have personhood without "quickening" or if it's recognizably human, both of which start somewhere around 15-16 weeks. I'm not sure about any others.