Your Life in My Driveway
If, for some reason, somebody bound and gagged you and then laid you across my driveway, would ownership of my own property give me the right to run you over?
A foolish question indeed. Your right to be unbattered supersedes the normal exercise of my rights of ownership. But I could just untie you and then I can be on my way…
What if with some amazing feat of technology, someone made it so you would explode if you were removed from my driveway before a year had expired… how long would I have to put up with the infringement of my rights of ownership? Would I have to allow for further intrusion based on your need for food and care?
More foolish questions! Your right to live would definitely supersede the normal exercise of my rights of ownership. So just make a second driveway to access the garage.
What if instead of being vitally connected to my driveway, you were vitally connected to my body – in 9 months you can be separated, but until then, you will die if you move away or disconnect from my body…. Should my right to move freely and freely associate be more important than your right to live?
This is all silly. The answers are all obvious. It is not your fault you are connected to my driveway or to me. And I should not turn my back on your life because of my various less important rights. Sure, I should let you live, but must I let you be vitally connected to my body?
Then suppose instead that I personally took the steps to make you utterly dependent for your survival upon me and my body. I chose to get you into that position… then am I morally obligated to see it through to the end… and let you survive? What if I made you dependent on me with the help of someone else? Is my right to my body enough to let you die in that circumstance?
The implications to the question of abortion are obvious and immediate.
Fetal Humanity vs. Fetal Personhood
A fetus is every bit as human as you are. In fact, as soon as fertilization is complete, the genetic signature of that embryonic creature declares its humanity. The DNA also clearly demonstrates that the fetus is a different human individual than either of his or her parents – an embryo is a unique human being. (Neither a zygote nor a sloughed off human cell can be said to be a unique human, although each has the potential of becoming – through fertilization or through cloning.)
A fetus is every bit as alive as you are, and killing a fetus is killing a unique human being.
A fetus is every bit as much a person as you are, unless someone decides that it is more convenient to define this particular set of humans as less than a person. Certainly there are numerous examples of this in history, although most who define a fetus as less than a person would prefer not to be associated with Nazis (like Hitler) who dehumanized Jews or other racists (like Margaret Sanger) who selectively targeted humans with darker colored skin as less desirable members of the human race. People are killed for many different reasons, and some of them may even be just and appropriate reasons, but if we dehumanize the target human so that the reason for destruction can be as significant or as insignificant as an individual chooses, and so that a single individual renders verdict on a human’s life or death without hope of appeal, we surely cannot conclude that we are just.
Does a fetus need to have thoughts or emotions to be worthy of human protection? Ask someone who’s been in a coma for 9 months and lived to tell about it. Is someone in a coma a “potential human”?
Does a fetus need to be independently able to survive to deserve human protection? Ask anyone with a medical condition that made him dependent on someone else for 9 months. Is a paraplegic a “potential human”?
If I were temporarily implanted into an obese man’s excess, would I cease being human and become a “potential human”? An obnoxious mental picture, but one that makes the question of location a silly one.
Does the existence of the necessity of triage under certain circumstances dehumanize every person in every situation? Of course not, so neither should the rare necessity of triage requiring the life of the fetus instead of his mother.
The strong, the influential, the rich, and the powerful all have ways to protect themselves. True justice should defend the weakest humans against the strong. The truest injustice is for the powerful judge to protect the right of the influential and strong human to kill the defenseless one.
But What About Choice?
But what about the choice of a woman? Certainly, the scenarios above have their clear judgment. But a woman does have a choice! She can decide whether or not to engage in sex.
By the time a woman is pregnant, she has made her choice.
You see, choices do have consequences. Do we have the right to choose both a choice and the negation of the consequences of that choice?
I know that this concept is lost on many of our day, but choices do and even justly should have consequences.
One of the consequences of engaging in sex is that you might get pregnant. If you don’t want that consequence, then don’t engage in sex. This is simple, but apparently too complicated for the liberals among us. Certainly, many of us make choices that have undesirable consequences, but we all need to begin to take responsibility for our choices and their consequences, intended or otherwise. This includes justly taking responsibility for the decision to be sexually active and its consequences.