Tuesday, 05 April 2011
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Abortion: A Destruction of Body Hierachy
One of the books I have been reading recently among many is Freakonomics by Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner.The book is crazy popular among the peers that I hang with, but I can't say I'm entirely enamored like many people who have recommended it to me. His greatest sin, though there is a sizable chunk of the appendix filled with citations, is probably the use of oversimplification in many of his conclusions which makes reading the book somewhat frustrating to me.
He does make a interesting point in that abortion being linked to the decrease in crime in the 1990's. I would tend to find his line of reasoning as convincing as possible, without doing a repeat experiment would I suspect would not be such a good idea. I could understand the criticism that he received for this proposition. Attracting accusations from conservatives for proposing abortion as a genuine crime fighting tool, as well as shouts from liberal for supporting racial eugenics by removing entire races through abortion.
Morever, he does make some interesting points on abortion, and the value we place in a baby. His argument begins with the Connecticut schedules used for the compensation of pay for work-related injuries:
"8 weeks for the loss of a other toe.
35 weeks for loss of nose.
36 weeks for loss of first finger.
168 weeks for loss of master hand.
155 weeks for loss of other hand.
157 weeks for loss of eye.
520 weeks for loss of heart. (very common in political positions).
35 -104 weeks for the loss of sexual member. (dependant on the size, jk)"
Levitt proposes the question : "What is the relative value between a fetus and a newborn? If faced with the Solomonic task of sacrificing the life of one newborn for an indeterminate number of foetuses, what number might you choose?"
My question in addition, is how many third trimester babies would you sacrifice for a newborn life? How many second trimester babies? How many first? I ask these questions because I suspect people do put prices onto a fetus, going from an ascending price to the first trimester babies. But aren't trimesters a artificial human standard to differentiate between development? With this, aren't we imposing an unfair standard to determine where it is morally correct to abort a fetus? Therefore, we are putting values into human life that is simply not there naturally.
My greatest problem with abortion is the implication of facelessness of fetuses. Where abortion is designed to flush out the fetus out of the womb of a mother, the desacrilisation of the human body through this creates a hierarchy of body parts. A fetus is deemed less important than - for example, an arm. No one would willingly lose an arm, but to lose a fetus renders a more ready attitude - there is a disconnection here.
There is such a great disparity between those who are willing to have a baby, and those who did not plan for one. The unlucky ones who didn't use protection will be stuck paying for the loss of a toe perhaps, but the ones who do, would pay more than 520 weeks because they feel they are missing so much more than a heart.
Either way, it is disparaging to think of so many attitudes that we can pigeonhole such a precious life.
It is ironic, the separation of ideals that occurs with the rise of women's rights of her own body within society coupled with the removal of the distinctive of feminism. The apex of being a woman's power in society is embodied within the medical procedure of abortion. Through the procedure that rids her of her child, there too is removed all there is that makes us human. For what is a woman without reproduction? Is she not merely another man?
Have you read Freakonomics before? Am I going to be stirring controversy or what? Do you think this is an accurate description? Do we tend to try to label a lot of things which leads us ultimately to strife?
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- From: llamalima@xanga
- About Me: Who am I? I am 19 year old university student, prone to stressing over about some assignment due the next day. I sometimes have time to blog mostly about Christian thoughts. In my spare time, I am also a musical connoisseur, ninja, movie junkie, and full-time hypochondriac. I may have lied about one of those, or a few.
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Comments (35)
I think you're going to catch some crazy attention and criticism from this post (if you haven't already on your homepage), but I imagine most of it will miss the complexity of your question.
I have long said that my biggest problem with abortion is not with its being legal (after all, war is legal), but with its normality. To view abortion as a sometimes necessary tragedy is one thing, but too often I get the sense that defenders of "a woman's right to choose" actually end up arguing that abortion is trivial. Whatever one's position on the pro-life/pro-choice divide, I think the points in this article should be taken.
@When_Will_I_Sing_Again@xanga - It's a really old post, and I reworked it a lot from what it was before, which was a general bash on abortion. It didn't garner that much attention on the original because I didn't put "abortion" in the title. =P
In many ways, I wouldn't align myself with either pro-life or pro-choice. I see it as an overblown issue that I have no solution to. It turns more often than not, to be Christians vs Atheists, and all context is lost.
@llamalima@xanga - Yes.
Newborn babies ARE third trimester babies - it just depends on what side of the birth canal they are on. That's an odd question. All the first trimester fetuses in the world aren't worth a single newborn. That's why most developed nations have the cutoff somewhere in the first half of the second trimester.
Comparing it to losing a limb isn't really valid at all. After all, successful pregnancies are a minority occurrence - a number of pregnancy defects, like the fertilized eggs that don't cellularly divide correctly to the large number of fetuses that fail to correctly attach to the uterus, self-terminate. Most pregnancies naturally end in abortion. If losing a fetus is like losing a limb, any couple that is "trying" will have a woman that is missing quite a few parts ;)
My only question is... what then? What can a would-be mother do? If she can't care for a child, what will happen? I'd worry about her fighting addictions that could be deadly to the baby, or being unable to afford the check-ups and examinations needed throughout the whole pregnancy, or even being able to afford the emergency room visit for delivery at all.
I get that he or she is a life and shouldn't be taken, but I just don't see a solution to the problem at all... The need at all is horrible. I can't imagine going through something that should be as brilliant and hopeful as realizing you're pregnant and having the circumstances surrounding that event turning it into a horror instead. So what's anyone to do about it?
@GettingClosertoFine@xanga - I've blogged about that before...http://llamalima.xanga.com/726864235/i-almost-am-a-baby-lover/
Basically, people - namely Christians - should be the ones that adopt the babies, if the mum cannot take care of the child on her own. There is something wrong if we have enough passion to wave signs, but cannot commit to take care of a child. It is the true mark of commitment to ideals.
As for getting to the point of birth, that's pretty horrible not being able to afford all that. Another argument for public healthcare...jk. Never thought of that aspect. But I guess the government should do something about that? If not, the church should look for what funds it can to bring that child into the world...
Whoa, I think this paragraph deserves a lot more elaboration:
"It is ironic, the separation of ideals that occurs with the rise of women's rights of her own body within society coupled with the removal of the distinctive of feminism. The apex of being a woman's power in society is embodied within the medical procedure of abortion. Through the procedure that rids her of her child, there too is removed all there is that makes us human. For what is a woman without reproduction? Is she not merely another man?"
I'd really like to hear you expand on these questions. I can't imagine that too many women here are going to go along with the idea that minus their reproductive functions they're men. (And I'm curious whether most men, discovering their girlfriend was sterile would suddenly feel like they were dating a man instead.) But hey - maybe...
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Saying that a woman is less significant without reproduction is atrocious. I aborted my pregnancy. Does that make me a man?
What about the women that chose to never have children? Does that make them less significant that woman who choose to have nine children?
This is a major idea that has made me seriously question my Christianity.
But I'd also like to thank you for being the only post in Revelife that doesn't shout "I'M PRO-LIFE!! HEAR ME ROAR!!"
@llamalima@xanga - I would really like a system like that, and it'd be nice if most churches actually behaved that way... But I'm honestly pretty skeptical of that being a widespread ideal in churches across the country... There's a lot of sneering at premarital sex around to cause a pregnant woman to be wary about being open about that in a church.
Or... Maybe if the church couldn't do it, some kind of Christian safe haven/homeless-shelter-esque thing could be put up in major cities that they can stay in for the nine months?
I'm not really pro-life or pro-choice, I'm just upset about the whole situation. (It's why I can't really argue about war, either.) But I really like your idea, and I think I'll adopt it. Loved the post, by the way.
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"For what is a woman without reproduction?'
so i take it you believe that sterile women are not really women?
@too_pretty_to_die@xanga - Was just about to post the same question. Thanks for beating me to it :D
"Therefore, we are putting values into human life that is simply not there naturally."
Only one critisicm, on this sentence:
No values are natural. All meanings are implied by conscious action, so they do not exist without the observer.
If there are external purposes, we are not able to be aware of them and so they can be of no concern to us.
Any value we place - and any judgments we make about those values - are arbitrary and largely subjective. They matter only to us.
And two opinionated perspectives to add:
1.) I can not view abortion as an adjunct of "body hierarchy" because describing a fetus as part of the body is inaccurate in every sense.
It is connected to the body, it feeds from the body and it will die without the body - but it is not a part of the body.
I would say "symbiosis" is the correct word but even that description is inaccurate because the body of the individual gains nothing physically from the fetus. The most correct word is actually "parasitic relationship." But then, people have such a hard time dealing with the word parasite, even when it is accurate.
We were all parasites, once. Maybe we should remember that.
2.) Sex (male/female) is a description of physical structure. Reproduction has nothing to do with a person's sex, whether male or female. Else we would consider the infertile in both sexes to be eunuchs, would we not?
Gender (which is not the same as sex) also has nothing to do with reproduction and in fact, often little to do with physical structure for that matter.
The book isn't saying something is right or wrong, just the outcome. A certain race or income level of people aren't more likely to be criminals, only that children who grew up with mothers who didn't want them were more likely. And then the book gave examples of how that stereotype can also be wrong. Ugh.
"For what is a woman without reproduction? Is she not merely another man?"
are you being serious right now?
And then the issue of overpopulation. Is a baby merely for the need to bring life into the world worth the addition of stress on humanity as a whole? In some way, every new born child affects the rest of the human population.
And if you're speaking of consciousness; the formation of neural synapses takes place 4-5 months after conception. When the human brain begins to think, to exist; arguably, acquire a soul.
Really in my opinion, humans should be holding off on creating new life until we can balance the excess vs. deprivation which both cause suffering of those already fully aware of themselves and able to fully suffer.
@llamalima@xanga - "Basically, people - namely Christians -
should be the ones that adopt the babies, if the mum cannot take care
of the child on her own."
THANK YOU. You are the FIRST pro-life/Christian/pro-fetus/pro-baby/anti-abortion/anti-choice person that I have EVER heard say this - and I have been waiting a long time to hear it. Pro-lifers are so very compassionate towards the fetus. Fine. But there are so many kids in need of forever homes. No, not just newborns. 8-14 year olds. Pages and pages of profiles of the unwanted. Yet, the pro-life camp keeps on having children and families of their own! What happened to all that compassion?
I am about as pro-choice as they come. However, I can now respect every word you say because of this one statement. I know that I'd be 110 x more likely to choose adoption if I knew my kid would actually be adopted.
So, while we disagree, kudos to you. In my opinion, you are a model of what a pro-lifer and Christian should be.
@AncoraImparo@xanga - He's telling women that if they don't procreate that they are worthless as women. How is that Christian-like?
@too_pretty_to_die@xanga - @escapist767@xanga - @r1bc4g3k1d@xanga - I was referring to a philosophical conception of a female and male. If you read it within the context of the argument, you would see that. Of course sterile women are still women.
@Kendall@lovelyish - Where did I say that? Quote me.
@AncoraImparo@xanga - I must admit till pro-life people sort out their crap, I am not a pro-life. Would I get in your good books too, if I argued for a holistic sex education that is also needed? It's ridiculous that people should need to make mistakes before they learn.
I'm surprised you haven't heard someone like me before.
@mycontinuity@xanga - I agree, he didn't put his opinion on abortion at all. I think I was trying to add a bit more to what he was saying that illustrates what message I'm trying to say.
I think the first part of your post is interesting, but the last paragraph is so willfully ignorant and out of place I think it must have been pasted from some earlier piece.
1. A woman's power in society does not have anything to do with what she does with her womb. Women have equal rights under the law.
2. A woman does not lose her "humanity" or feminity when she has an abortion. The female body naturally aborts countless fertilized eggs. Elective abortions don't remove any of the woman's reproductive organs. Women that have safe abortions can become pregnant again. Seriously, maybe you should do some more research here.
"For what is a woman without reproduction? Is she not merely another man?"
3. It's the last statement that makes me wonder if you need to have The Talk again with your parents. You see, men also have a part in the reproductive process. In fact, men directly CAUSE pregnancy! Does this mean a man is not a man unless he gets someone pregnant? What about priests, or nuns? Are they not men and women, even though they have chosen not to reproduce?
@llamalima@xanga - This is the problem I have with people who bitch about abortion... not owning up to helping those who they judge and call murderers. Absolutely pathetic.
Side note about the topic of abortion.....
I just have to say that as a woman with a vagina, where do you draw the line... I mean aren't you(anti abortionists) deciding what a person is allowed to do with their bodies by banning abortion and not allowing women to go and get one? Is this not limiting a person? When do I stop asking men and other authorities if it is okay for me to start having sex or when to get married or when to have a child...? I mean if I can't even see and decide that abortion is wrong then how should I know how to make a decision on other things? Clearly as women we are uncapable of knowing what is right and wrong and should definitely have to carry children no matter what. I, afterall, have to live with the consequences(consequences are punishments* meaning whenever anti abortionists say consequences they are saying that babies are punishments...) of having sex.
And a lot of people spend way more time on things like abortion instead of helping those dealing with AIDS or child abuse or world hunger, which is definitely sad. I'd love to see as many christians as I do outside of abortion clinics in soup kitchens or out on the streets giving coats to the homeless.
It's so contradictory to say that one cares about life when one doesn't go and help those who are already in existence.
And that's all that bothers me about the topic ^^ :)