When Science Is Not Enough

What does science have to tell us about the abortion debate?  In my view, not much.

I mean, first you have to define life. So even if you begin at fertilization, then you must decide how it becomes sacred. The things we use science to tell us about morality are largely non-existent at this stage. In fact, science tells us they don't exist - thinking, feeling aren't happening. And of course there's no evidence of any kind of soul.

That doesn't mean you can't have feelings about it, or come up with definition that make sense. But it will always be an artificial construct you are inventing. For what it is worth, there is much clearer evidence that killing animals for their meat is immoral. Science shows that thinking, feeling, creatures undergo immense suffering - immensely more than a fetus ever could at any prenatal stage.

So the question becomes where we apply our morality. To value human life/suffering over animal life/suffering is a human, not scientific construct. (And of course, any attempt to invoke Darwin here as a moral guide is preposterous. It quickly leads to what we would agree are immoral conclusions. )

I'm reading The Information right now, and there is a fascinating chapter on Dawkins and the concept of memes and cultural evolution. Again, there is no moral prescription, but an explanation of a process. Not only are we a highly evolved physical organism, we are a highly evolved cultural organism. In our lifespans, we are exposed to such an amazingly rich developmental diet of content, many ideas - memes - of which go back thousands of years.

Of course, the fact that they evolved - survived - has no bearing on their morality! However, it does have a bearing on their existence as human constructs, as they have arisen from the fertile soil of previous generations. Generations! You could say in both senses of the word - our biological ancestors, as well as their ideas which generated our ideas today.

So, here's a question: what does free will have to say about the meme? I've long felt that defenders of contra-causal free will tend to sound very similar to creationists. And in a way, they are making the same argument. The claim that God is the originator of human biology, or evolution, is similar to the claim that the individual is the originator of his own memes.

So as to deny that there is a purely physical process of random mutation of DNA that gives rise to evolved life forms, is similar to denying that there is a random mutation of memes within the individual's neural net. In fact, the notion that the individual is in control of his own mind is about as absurd as the notion that God is in control of mutating DNA. To take this further, one might ask why God would create so many absurdly inefficient mutations. So too, would one ask why humans make such absurdly poor "choices"? Of course, the evolutionary explanation makes perfect sense, as seen in the fossil and DNA record, etc. So too does the determinist explanation, as seen in developmental, sociological and brain science.

At best, science can tells us the mechanics of how life develops, as well as the physical world in which our feelings exist.  It can also tell us about how our thoughts develop.  But can it tell us whether or not an embryo is "sacred"?  At the very least, it would seem to tell us that it is not.  Yet for many, having embraced greatly evolved historical traditions that stretch deep into the unconscious minds, science will not be enough. 

Me, Myself and I

Thinking about abortion....

Heard about this on Radiolab yesterday... very interesting.

Human Chimeras!!!

Basically, twin zygotes are created, but somehow fuse back together, forming into one (like Voltron!), which then has two sets of DNA, with one or the other assuming command duty depending on cell type.  So the liver might have one, blood having the other, etc.

So, if we aborted one zygote before the merge, would that be "taking a life"?

Who Should Fight for What

Rick Santorum recently expressed the somewhat outrageous view that Obama should stand in solidarity with the antiabortion position because he is black.

"The question is -- and this is what Barack Obama didn't want to answer: Is that human life a person under the Constitution? And Barack Obama says no," Santorum says in the interview, which was first picked up by CBN's David Brody. "Well if that person, human life is not a person, then, I find it almost remarkable for a black man to say, 'We are going to decide who are people and who are not people.'"

Ta-Nehisi Coates points to Santorum's Italian ancestry and make this point:

I think it would be deeply wrong of me to say, "As a member of ethnic group that's suffered bigotry, Rick Santorum should be for gay marriage." The wrong would not simply extend to Santorum, it would extend to other Italian-Americans--gay or straight. I regret that I missed that. Whatever the flaws of the actual analogy, it's always wrong to treat individuals as a "collection of others." Full stop. 

Isn’t the question really about one’s personal sacrifice for a cause? What makes one person stand up and fight for something, and another sit quietly – even if they both feel the same? My guess is that they don’t actually feel the same. True solidarity requires the imagination of compassion. If any of us were more mindful of the suffering in the world, and the direct impact we can have on that suffering, we would no doubt feel more solidarity and take more action.

It seems the basic claim is that the traditionally oppressed have more capacity for empathy with the currently oppressed, as the “schema” already exist in them for the mental projection. And thus any inaction on their part must be explained as a sort of psychological disorder, or character flaw. For instance, one can be generally excused for not taking action against suffering in a foreign land, as the suffering is reasonably removed from schematic association. Yet, if one just returned from a trip to that land, and witnessed the suffering first-hand, a lack of action might need to be explained in terms of personal deficit.

Yet simply being black is not the same as returning from a village in Darfur. And what is more, being black (as opposed to white) would, on average, imply a disadvantage in social and/or human capital, in the sense that a legacy of discrimination has created a racial disparity in the area of socio-cultural engagement in American civic life. It would be reasonable that the extent that each of us be held morally accountable for responding to oppression anywhere be tied directly to the proportion of social and human capital we have been privileged to receive. Thus, he who has received very little in life ought not be as accountable for active social remediation as he who has received a great deal; agency ought to be matched with agency.

Yet a paradox develops in which the disadvantaged have the greatest facility for compassionate imagination – as they bore personal witness, while those most privileged have the least capacity, sheltered as they likely were from the manifestations of oppression. I think this is a serious structural problem in society that we must deal with. As one increases in privilege, the further one is removed from the consciousness of that privilege. Here I always think of that final scenes in the film Schindler’s List in which Schindler realizes that, with just a ring on his finger, he could have saved one more – so powerfully was he exposed to the realities of suffering. Yet the crux of the story is how someone in his position should not have had the ability to express such sympathy, and yet in the course of the story he grew this capacity, and thus grew in moral character.

As a liberal Democrat, this has been one of my greatest critiques of conservative Republicans: their worldview seems largely an expression of a privileged class, without the requisite schematics to properly empathize and express solidarity with the oppressed underclass. So when crucial yet abstract social service funding is cut, instead of marginally raising taxes, the suffering will likely happen beyond the purview of the voter and it will be up to the media to bring that reality to their attention. As someone who has worked in social services most of my life, I’m reminded of the saying, “there are no atheists in foxholes”. Well, there are few conservatives at mental health facilities, teen pregnancy centers, poor schools, rehab clinics, etc.

In the end, teasing out just who should and should not be able to express the proper quantity of solidarity is impossible. It seems reasonable that the case be simply made that the oppression must stop, and that all parties involved ought do their part. And to the extent that there are those who lack the schematics, the capacity for empathetic response, we do our part to share with them our moral imagination.

Unending Trauma

Mark Kleiman wonders if there isn't an inconsistency in abortion opponents, having defined their opposition to abortion in terms of "protecting the unborn", allowing exclusions for rape.  Unless of course their opposition involves a secret wish to punish women for sex.

The “rape exception” to anti-abortion laws makes either no sense or the wrong kind of sense. If bans on abortion reflect the inalienable human rights of the fertilized egg, then surely those rights can’t be diminished by the conditions of conception. The “except for rape” rule would be justified only if the point of the law is to punish women for having sex. (That is the point, of course, which is why the “pro-life” lobby is strongly anti-contraception and anti-sex education. But it wouldn’t do to say so.)

I think that's true as far as it goes.  Although I think many are simply operating out of a desire for compromise.  This would explain why

the gross (in both senses of the term) injustice of forcing a woman to bear her rapist’s child means that absolute bans on abortion have very little support among the voters. And the right-to-lifers have generally been satisfied with something that, according to the logic of their own position, shouldn’t satisfy them at all.

I think it's all silly.  A newly fertilized egg becomes in many ways a kind of parasite. It begins sending chemical signals into the mother’s bloodstream that alter her physical and mental state. It then latches on to the wall of her uterus, driving out tiny tendrils deep into her flesh and eventually establishing a permanent mainline into her veins.

Life is a devilishly ingenious device. But all this hocus pocus about it being some sort of cosmic entity with a “soul” is really quite silly. We’ve evolved to give meaning to our children and love them. There are plenty of practical and prima fascie reasons for doing so. But there is little reason to ascribe such meaning to unborn children. If you want to love your zygote, by all means. But that’s your trip.

The Perils of Rigidity

The recent discovery of Dr. Kermitt Gosnell's malpractice has been fanning flames in the abortion debate.  I think one of the biggest problems in this debate - is a lack of nuance.  This is really tricky ethical/moral stuff.  There is a lot on the line for people, and the issue is in many ways a sort of Rorschach test. 

For instance, I don't believe there is a God or creator, or that any of us has any soul, or "meaning" in the grandest sense.  I believe we are simply a highly evolved set of molecules placed in a specific sequence, that the original "life" was able to assemble a series of amino acids and self-replicate trillions of times over, covering the Earth with all manner of life we now see around us.  In this way my ear cells, when placed in a petri dish are just as "alive" as anything or anyone.  Yet I not only believe but know that life has meaning in a smaller sense - actually quite literally as a manifestation of my ability to sense and "make sense" of the world.  Thus, I feel emotion and am able to empathize with fellow creatures. 

Yet any meaning I assign to life is well, not arbitrary, but relative to my world view, my culture, my reasoning, etc.  This is how I believe, for instance, that it is wrong to cause animals to suffer.  But I realize that this is a meaning that I have created in my mind, at least in so far as it is something I have thought about and come to a conclusion on.  Yet I realize that others may have different, yet reasonable views.  I think they are wrong, but they won't think so, because their meaning is different than mine.  And their views are likely entirely consistent with their worldview.  They don't view animals the same way as I do, and so don't empathize the way that I do. 

When Rick Santorum brought his dead child's fetal body home to sleep with, he had given it a much different meaning than I would have.  When my wife had a miscarriage, I couldn't have cared less.  The baby didn't feel pain, we didn't know it, and I had no reason to empathize with it - no more than I would my sperm or my wife's unfertilized eggs.  There's nothing especially significant to me about the fertilization process.  At a certain point, a the baby begins to feel, or at least develop the capacity to suffer.  Although even then, suffering doesn't come into it so much - I no doubt suffered considerably when I was circumsized. 

In any event, there must come a point at which infanticide is wrong, either within or without the uterus.  We certainly can't have people killing their children.  So how does one find that line?  The sort of strict, black & white approach would be to draw a line in the sand at a definition of "life".  But isn't that a sort of tautological, semantic device?  As I mentioned previously, biologically, I don't believe anyone is really a "life" any more than any cell anywhere is.  This is where we each simply create meaning.  For me, "life", or human life at least, is experiential - in the sense that it is something that emerges from the uterus, and immediately takes on special significance to the immediate relations, and to a lesser extent larger society.  The baby has feelings and needs, and the community has an interest in giving it great significance. 

Do I have a perfect line I can draw that says after this moment the baby takes on enough meaning for its life to be spared?  Certainly not.  "Meaning" is almost unquantifiable by definition.  When do cookies become "good"?  When is a song "beautiful"?  Yet we obviously have to make rules as a society, even if they must in a sense be very arbitrary.  Rules often are.  What should the sentence for theft be?  How do you quantify the wrong that was done?  It seems that if any debate demands nuance, it is abortion.  Yet as is often the case in controversies where one's worldview is at stake, rigidity seems so much the more powerful and "righteous" - one might even say easy, stance. 

Some will think me a murderer.  Some will say my nuance leaves the door open for a slippery slide into the evils of moral relativism.  I see no reason for that to be the case.  Just because I know a 70 mph speed limit is somewhat arbitrary, I know that speeding is dangerous.  So too do I know that killing people is wrong.  I just don't know exactly when one becomes that sort of "human".  In standing up for nuance, and rejecting the safe, firm chains of rigidity, one goes out on a limb.  Yet there is a great faith there.  It is a faith in the reasonableness of humanity.  Sure we can be brutal and inhumane.  But we can also be incredibly wise and reflective.  The irony of nuance may be that the greatest evils have come not from nuance, but rigidity itself.  Because with rigidity comes a closing of the mind.  That may be a good thing if the cause is good.  But what if the cause is bad?  And once rigidity has set in, how would one know?

Island Killings

A common point of agreement made across both sides of the abortion debate is that we all agree that reducing the abortion rate is a good thing.

I'd actually go with the opposite.  If anything, there are too many unloved, unwanted, under-cared-for children in the world as it is.   I'm a hopeless utilitarian, but I can't help that, if purely looking at the production of suffering, increased abortions would likely reduce suffering overall.  The world will have been a better place if many people were simply not born to begin with.

I understand that the reaction to this idea will strike many as cold or cruel.  But think of it this way.  Imagine a car is filled to capacity, and an extra passenger would face severe risk.  Should the passenger be asked to wait for the next car?

I'm probably sounding like I believe in reincarnation.  If only. 

I just don't understand why a fetus must be made sacred.  Beyond its ability to feel pain (and we're talking about, if anything, a very brief period of discomfort - certainly no worse than the agony I surely felt when I was circumcised), what is there?  The parent's feelings would be next in line.  Then I suppose there is the squishy idea of social normative behavior.  Do we want people going around aborting fetuses?  I don't have a problem with it.

The last concern is largely designed to deal with the inevitable question of when it is OK to kill a developing human.  Many draw the line at viability.  But that's a slippery term.  When is a fetus viable.  Medicine had been advancing considerably, leading to earlier and earlier viability.  But what would be the argument anyway?  It seems an arbitrary point, designed generally for winning an argument, if not merely for public health and legal reasons - like the driving or drinking age.

No, I think the question that needs to be answered is whether it would be OK to kill a newborn.  Or what about a three month old, etc.?  If done without suffering, there is no cost to the individual.  And what if the mother and father don't mind? Grandparents?  We must draw the line somewhere in concentric rings of possible indirect suffering.  And yet this point could be made about any individual, really?  A thought experiment:

If you were stranded on a desert island with a stranger, with no hope of ever being rescued, would it be morally OK to kill him in his sleep? 

He wouldn't suffer.  No one would mourn his loss.  In fact, the same could be said for many fellow citizens with no apparent social ties.  It appears the only recourse to which we are left is an appeal to moral decency.   Well, Jesus Christ, what the Hell is that?!!!!

It's an excellent question.  But I think we can put one foot in the right direction with this proposition: we ought to do what we think everyone ought to do.  It's not unsimilar from the golden rule: do unto others as you would have them do unto you.  The trick is in the details, of course.  Not everyone is like me.  I might find it perfectly reasonable to kill my newborn child.  A horrible thought, indeed!  But, maybe in some circumstances, after terribly wrenching moral anguish, I determine that the child would be better off dead, then off we go.  But to simply allow for such behavior by law, willy-nilly, seems very untoward.

Why this is might hold the key insight.  Moral anguish.  My wife had a miscarriage.  Zero moral anguish.  Couldn't care less, really.  What was it but a plop of barely activated DNA sequences floating about in a loose organization of cellular membranes?  But fast forward to the moment of birth and a father's heart melts.  This is highly intuitive, mammalian shit right here.  We don't kill babies.  Those of us who do are monsters.  Well, to be accurate, they are deeply dysfunctional individuals whose lack mental faculties make them unfit for civilized society. 

That's not quite how I'd describe myself.  And yet I still can't get worked up over a blastocyst.  I'm sure that when my chromosomes combined with those of my wife, it had made quite an interesting string of DNA.  But just as I wouldn't mourn the lost of a recipe I just printed off the internet in the same way I'd mourn the loss of a triple-decker cake I just spent hours lovingly crafting before it crashed to the floor, a fetus is only slowly moving toward my heart.  It exists as much in the eyes of my wife as I watch her belly grow, or the joy we share as the little feller begins to kick.

Oh, and by the way I wouldn't kill a stranger on a desert island.  But I'm not sure I'd mind if you did.  Although I'm sure I wouldn't think it wrong if you did.  And if we're ever stranded on an island together, just make sure it's quick and painless.

Pro-Life, Animal Rights and Subjective Morality

Often times in ideological debate we make the mistake of trying to strengthen our argument by creating a false narrative for our opponent's character.  This is partially due to emotional frustration with the perceived consequences of their belief.  But it is also a cheap attempt to undermine their position by painting it as based upon character flaws. 

So the conservative is greedy and uncaring, so he opposes redistribution.  The environmentalist hates business, so wants more regulation.  The corporation doesn't care about anything but profit, and thus acts without moral consideration.  While there may be some truth to each of these claims, they have no direct bearing on a particular position's merits.  So a conservative may be charitable and compassionate, and still oppose progressive taxation.  An environmentalist may love business, and still want to regulate a particular business.  Etcetera.  While looking at an opponent's character may be useful in a sociological sense, it can be quite misleading and lead to irrational and unfair arguments.

One of the strongest cases of this is on the issue of abortion, specifically on the pro-life side. Understandably, because they believe that the fetus has all the special meaning of a birthed baby, abortion is in many ways no different than murder.  The more radical pro-life position is to indeed equate abortion with murder.  Yet it is not, necessarily murder at all.  If you do not attach the same meaning to the life of a fetus as you do the life of a birthed baby, then killing it is a very different act.  If one is not religious, and doesn't think there's anything wrong with killing a fetus because they don't consider it a meaningful life, then they are being entirely principled in supporting a woman's right to choose. It is perfectly congruent with leading a moral, compassionate and righteous life. So while your moral disagreement is perfectly legitimate, your narrative is false.

I think an illustrative example of this is the subject of animal rights. If you believe that animals are meaningful lives, in the sense that we ought not kill them for our own pleasure, then "murder" is being committed on a horrendous scale daily. But hunters and meat-eaters are not bad people - or even immoral. They simply have a different belief about the meaning of animal life - one that is perfectly reasonable within the bounds of modern attitudes. The "pro-choice" attitude among vegetarians would be that people ought to be allowed to make that determination for themselves, considering that the question of meaning and animal-rights, just like the question of meaning and fetuses, is reasonably debatable; There are very good reasons on both sides for making different, subjective decisions.

Drill, Baby, Drill!

My morals on death are determined by reasonable social cost, and pain and suffering of the individual. Until a baby is birthed, into our society as an individual with a birth certificate, I see no real social cost in killing it. As long as its suffering is not too terrible, I see no problem killing it. A baby in the 8th month of gestation having its skull drilled in and crushed is fine with me.

The above may seem cruel and unsavory - but only in the context of a society in which many view the fetus (even the zygote, often) as a complete human being. I find the hunting of large mammals as cruel and unsavory - especially the part where they are stuffed and hung on the wall. But I recognize that my feelings are relative to my own moral compass, its bearings aligned with my religious, political, and cultural views. There is no overwhelming rational clarity that places either abortion or hunting into a clear moral category.

Unlike, say, the murder of a ten year old, the gutting of a family pet, or incest. Those fall into specific moral domains defined by broadly agreed upon - universal among humans - moral and social codes. These codes may someday change, and individuals may develop personal convictions contrary to norm, but until they achieve politically viable status, they will remain subject to democratically achieved laws. This has no bearing however, upon whether any of them are morally correct - that will be up to the individual to determine for him or herself.

But governing laws are not passed on the moral compass of individuals, but on that of the state, representative of the will of the people. Thus, while I personally feel hunting as despicable, not only do I respect my fellow citizens' moral trajectories, more importantly I respect the will of the people and all laws it passes within that context. Were my convictions strong enough, I would be well within my ethical rights to break the law in order to do what I felt was right. Legal rights, of course not, but ethically speaking, yes. If a ten year old boy was going to be murdered legally before me, I would be ethically obligated to stop the act, as long as I felt sufficient conviction (I would!).

So while it would be ethical to oppose abortion (or hunting), one would have to be sufficiently confident enough in their convictions to oppose its legal practice, much less otherwise illegal personal actions to stop it. And yet while I am confident in my ability to evoke powerful logical and rational arguments against murdering ten year old children and having most reasonable people accept them, I am not nearly as confident in my ability to persuade foes of abortion or hunting enthusiasts. Thus I cannot expect fellow citizens to consider banning either. Until abortion or hunting become as morally compelling to the will of society as murdering young boys, we cannot expect others to go along with our personal convictions on the matter.