I'm not the first to say it, nor will I be the last, but the fall term of the Court will be contentious, WWF style

What does the court and the World Wildlife Fund have in common? I have never heard of abortion compared to conservation, although I suppose it isn’t a terrible comparison.

No life that is not a human being has the potential of becoming a human being, and no life that has the potential of becoming a human being is not a human being" (emphasis added).

That's just incoherent. Try substituting "A" for human being:

no life that has the potential of becoming "A" is not "A."

If life has the potential to become "A" then, logically, it must be not-A. If it is already "A" it cannot become "A".

Similarly, the first clause makes no sense. If nothing that is not human being can become a human being, then human beings must be eternal and the increase in the human population is inexplicable.

Nick basically beat me to the punch (though I'd add that the position in question could also allow that human beings spring forth from the void, if they are willing to countenance a violation of _nihil ex nihilo fit_).

And this bit is scurrilous: "The principle is now asserted and supported by appeal to law that we are justified in killing human beings who are, for whatever reason, unwanted or deemed to be an excessive burden to others." No such principle plays any role in any serious philosophical or legal arguments on this matter.

Such principles are at the heart of the partial birth abortion cases. Recall Doe v. Bolton, 410 U.S. 179, 192 (1972), where the Court defined "health" as including "physical, emotional, psychological, [and] familial" factors. Under this scheme, an unlimited abortion license is granted, until at least the time the child's head crowns. What's at issue is whether the State has a legitimate interest in preserving innocent life through its police powers - contra the decision of a mother to abort the child becuase the child is unwanted or simply a burden - which we all know may be done.

...Or at which point the state may intervene during the gestational period and not allow the destruction of life. The proposition that Marshall developed in Cohens v. Virginia, 19 U.S. 264, seems reasonable: If the Court can articulate a "new" right under the Fourteenth Amendment, it is well within the providence of the legislature to define the outer limits of that right. Holmes' dissent in Lochner v. New York, 198 U.S. 45, 76, also seems apt: "I think that the word 'liberty,' in the 14th Amendment, is perverted when it si held to prevent the natural outcome of a dominant opinion, unless it can be said that a rational and fair man necessarily would admit that the statute proposed would infringe fundamental principles as they ahve been understood by the traditions of our people and our law." Is the right to kill one's child, up to the moment that the child's head crowns, a fundamental principle?

But you're ignoring others' arguments - does that mean you're conceding the weakness inherent in ECT's statement?

Regardless of what is or isn't (or should or shouldn't) be legal with respect to abortion, ECT's statement is pretty shoddy.

"I know, that as sure as I can possibly persuade you to believe: governments will find it impossible to resist the temptation...to deliver themselves from this burden (unfunded liabilities in entitlements) of looking after the sick and the handicapped by the simple expedient of killing them off". Malcolm Muggeridge. Shoddy, I know but we are already seeing it, are we not?

First of all, you've simply misread that Doe case -- the court was simply requiring that, if and when a state should impose a definition of "health" or "for health reasons", etc., that it be a notion that include a wider range of factors than mere biological health, and in particular that it include mental health factors. That's still miles away from "for whatever reason, unwanted or deemed to be an excessive burden to others".

And, anyway, that's not the problem. The problem with the bit I quoted is the part about being justified in killing human beings for whatever reason. The pro-choice person doesn't construe the fetus as a human being, and the authors of the ECT statement know this (which is why they made that silly little argument that Nick so handily punctured). So, when they attribute a principle like the quoted one to the pro-choice side, they are being exceedingly intellectually dishonest.

Of course some honesty in the debate would be refreshing. Most of the "partial birth abortion bans" have been struck down because they were purposefully written to be broad enough to be a ban on all abortions.

If life has the potential to become "A" then, logically, it must be not-A. If it is already "A" it cannot become "A".

If I may, I don't think the ECT was trying to write philosophical syllogisms or anything. They were simply asserting that the concept of a "potential human being" is absurd. In the same way that the principle of biogenesis says that life only comes from life, the ECT is saying that human beings do not develop from some kind of non-human proto-beings. Human life begins at conception.

First, I think it's extremely difficult to plausibly argue that "No life that is not a human being has the potential of becoming a human being, and no life that has the potential of becoming a human being is not a human being" isn't intended to be a logical argument. Particularly if they were, as you claim, trying to make a valid point by saying it.

In the same way that the principle of biogenesis says that life only comes from life, the ECT is saying that human beings do not develop from some kind of non-human proto-beings.

And this is also a silly argument that it's easy to poke holes in. Human beings do develop from non-human "proto-beings": sperm and eggs. No one seriously argues that male masturbation is akin to mass murder, sure, but I think the point is clear.

Human life begins at conception

Even if this is conceded, conception begins when a sperm and an egg meet. So: human beings come from conception, which comes from two non-human yet living cells meeting. Any sperm is a potential human being - all it has to do is fertilize an egg.

If we're supposed to ignore the fact that embryos come from sperm and eggs being put together, why? The reason has to be better than "it's devastating to our case," doesn't it?

It's really important not to think of 'human being' as anything like a biological kind. Being made of the right kind of bio stuff is neither necessary nor sufficient for being a human being. Something can be human without being a human being: my liver is an organized cluster of human cells, but it is not a human being. And something can be, for all ethical purposes, a human being even if it is not (biologically) human: we easily extend the relevant notion of (ethical) humanity to such beings as Commander Data or Legolas, even though they have non-human construction. That's why I prefer to use the term "person" rather than "human being", since it more accurately picks out the category at issue: an entity that is a locus of a particular kind of moral obligations.

So there's no difficulty with an entity's being a potential person without yet being a person. It's no more absurd than, say, calling an 11th grader a potential high-school grad, or calling a sleeping person potentially an awake person, or saying of a particular configuration of a chessboard that it has the potential for a back-row mate.

As phil points out, there's a great deal of semantics involved in these arguments. And while I find the "potentially human" description absurd, I find the "potentially a person" label dangerous. Historically, depriving certain groups of people of personhood has led to atrocities.

Furthermore, there is no clear point of development either before or after birth where a "non-person" becomes a person. Infants display very few of the traits we consider to be inherent to personhood...shall we condone infanticide? How about euthanasia of severely brain-damaged individuals?

Nick,

Yes, the ECT was making a logical argument of sorts...they just weren't intending it to be parsed in the manner of a philosophy class. When I first read the statement, I understood perfectly what they meant. I suspect you did as well.

Human beings do develop from non-human "proto-beings": sperm and eggs.

Sperm and eggs are not living beings in and of themselves. They are cells belonging to living beings. They are not capable of self-replication. When the egg is fertilized by the sperm, it becomes a new living entity which begins to grow and develop.

A sperm is a potential human being only in the same way that any tree on this planet is a potential Steinway grand piano. Less so, in fact, because the sperm must fertilize an egg to become part of a new human being, whereas a tree (the right variety anyway) does not need to change its biological makeup to have the right stuff to be made into a piano.

"I find the "potentially a person" label dangerous. Historically, depriving certain groups of people of personhood has led to atrocities." Now you're just being silly. Unless you're prepared to extend personhood to everything in the universe, then you have to draw a line _somewhere_. And, as we've already said, unless you think that persons are eternal and/or pop into existence ex nihilo, then there's going to be stuff that makes for potential persons. Hiding behind the Nazis et al. is just a very crass way of ducking the argument.

"Furthermore, there is no clear point of development either before or after birth where a "non-person" becomes a person. Infants display very few of the traits we consider to be inherent to personhood...shall we condone infanticide? How about euthanasia of severely brain-damaged individuals?" Those are all perfectly reasonable questions to put to the pro-choice person; they have their hard cases to consider, just as the pro-life person does. As I argued on a previous link, I do think that we might want to jettison the presupposition that there's a neat and tidy line to be drawn here, and that anyone who thinks that there are easy answers here is a fool. None of that, however, even begins to undercut the main claim on this comments thread -- that the ECT arguments are daft and/or intellectually dishonest.

"When I first read the statement, I understood perfectly what they meant." I have yet to see what possible reading it could have such that it both (i) has the right kind of content to be a relevant premise in a pro-life argument (i.e., something relevant to the abortion debate would follow from it if true), and (ii) isn't patently false.

Eric,

How about gastrulation? A fertilized cell, from a developmental point of view, is quite literally only a potential human being. All of the genetic information is there, but none of the form has come into being. We can agree, unless you are a vitalist who believes in a magical mystical "soul", that the true nature of soul is the form of the body (I think that even Christianity teaches this: the soul is immaterial particular arangement of matter that makes a lump of atoms a living being, therefore the resurrection of the body is necessary for immortality). As a compromise why not agree that the expression of the genetic program (potentiality) into a living form that has only growth of the laid-down foundations ahead of it? Anyone could, in theory, agree that killing a growing fetus is murder - but a ball of cells or a tadpole-like embryo?

I guess I like this compromise because it virtually bans abortion after about 4-5 weeks, making them far rarer, and allows potentially life-saving stem cell research to go forward. With birth control, the morning after pill, and RU-486 now widely available, it is unthinkable that women should need to have abortions after gastrulation.

Unless you're prepared to extend personhood to everything in the universe, then you have to draw a line _somewhere_.

Who's being silly now? I didn't say I don't draw a line between what is a person and what is not. I said that to label any human being as "potentially a person" is dangerous--particularly when connected with discussions of a person's right to life.

So, first of all (fictitious elves and cyborgs notwithstanding), nothing that is not human can be a person. Next, because I believe that life begins at conception and should be protected under the law, I believe the legal definition of a person ought to begin at conception--when an individual with a unique genetic code is created. Various philosophical definitions of personhood can result in other lines being drawn.

I have yet to see what possible reading it could have such that it both (i) has the right kind of content to be a relevant premise in a pro-life argument (i.e., something relevant to the abortion debate would follow from it if true), and (ii) isn't patently false.

Simple. As I said before, the ECT is stating that there is no such thing as "potentially human." I grant you that the second half of their statement, in which they perhaps tried to reinforce the first statement by saying it in reverse, is confusing when read by itself. But the gist of the statement is still clear. In a sense, human beings do "pop into existence ex nihilo"--at the moment of conception a new human being is created from parts of two other human beings.

Chuck,

How about gastrulation?

As a policy compromise, I'd be in favor of using gastrulation as a point after which abortions are not allowed. But from a moral standpoint, I cannot condone abortion even before that point. After conception, there is obviously life, and it is obviously human. Abortion obviously ends that life.

So much confusion... since "human being" and "person" are either synonymous (if we don't build biology conditions into the former term), or the former entails the latter (if we do build biology into it), it is literally nonsense to "label any human being as "potentially a person"." The question is whether anything at all can be described as a potential person. And the answer, as Nick ably demonstrated already, is obviously "yes".

"the ECT is stating that there is no such thing as "potentially human." And they're obviously wrong. Still waiting....

Anyhow, once you accept the "pop into existence" thesis, then it really becomes hard to see why one should privilege conception as that point of popping. Why not say that the miraculous popping happens at, say, quickening? Or at some hard-to-determine time in the second trimester? Etc. To answer with fatuous little pseudo-arguments like this: "After conception, there is obviously life, and it is obviously human" is really just to avoid thinking about this issue in anything like the seriousness it deserves. Note that I _already_ up-thread pointed out that this kind of argument is basically to commit an illicit play-on-words with "human". Living things can be human without having the moral status of human beings; or else every appendectomy is a murder.

A fertilized egg isn't just not obviously a human, it's not obvious at all - even as large as egg cells are, they're effectively microscopic. It's not like you could see one if it were laying on your desk or something.

I also think that it's common not to limit personhood (or "humanity," since there's still no accepted definition of either on this thread) to what are commonly called human beings. Evolution aside, there are plenty of intelligent creatures here on Earth - dolphins, chimps, gorillas, etc. And we have strong moral compunctions (at least in the US) against killing some animals, like dogs, cats, and horses. Dogs and horses aren't people, so why aren't we (morally) allowed to eat them if we want?

Phil: Eric uses conception as the pop-in point because it's the only way a pro-life person can make a coherent argument. If you accept any time after conception as the pop-in point, then you have no reason not to allow abortion before that point, and if you try and say that the pop=in point is before conception, you'll get laughed off the stage.

This, of course, goes both ways. Pro-choice people can only adhere to their pro-choice beliefs by either 1) disputing when a fertilized egg / embryo / zygote becomes a person or 2) believing in the utility of killing humans who aren't wanted, etc. I doubt many people seriously believe in the latter (because of the obvious Hitlerian applications of such lines of thought), but given that fertilized eggs aren't obviously human at all and that even a eight week old fetus is in the same boat, I bet there are a lot of people who adhere to the former.

I think, also, it should be pointed out that "conception" itself is not an instant moment. Fertilization is a complex process that unfolds in a systematic manner, with no discontinuous "moment" at which a new life begins. First there is contact and recognition of sperm and egg, followed by regulation of sperm entry into egg, followed by fusion of genetic material, followed by activation of egg metabolism. All of these are stepwise processes, and at no 'moment' does 'conception' take place. Fusion of genetic material, which is the step most identifiable with 'conception', is the most complex stage, and it is also the longest and most drawn-out.

From Developmental Biology, Scott Gilbert:

In mammals, the process of pronuclear migration takes about 12 hours, compared with less than 1 hour in the sea urchin. The mammalian sperm enters almost tangentially to the surface of the egg rather than approaching it perpendicularly, and it fuses with numerous microvilli. The mammalian sperm nucleus also breaks down as its chromatin decondenses and is then reconstructed by coalescing vesicles. The DNA of the sperm nucleus is bound by basic proteins called protamines, and these nuclear proteins are tightly compacted through disulfide bonds. In the egg cytoplasm, glutathione reduces these disulfide bonds and allows the uncoiling of the sperm chromatin. The mammalian male pronucleus enlarges while the oocyte nucleus completes its second meiotic division. The centrosome (new centriole) accompanying the male pronucleus produces its asters (largely from proteins stored in the oocyte) and contacts the female pronucleus. Then each pronucleus migrates toward the other, replicating its DNA as it travels. Upon meeting, the two nuclear envelopes break down. However, instead of producing a common zygote nucleus (as happens in sea urchin fertilization), the chromatin condenses into chromosomes that orient themselves on a common mitotic spindle. Thus, a true diploid nucleus in mammals is first seen not in the zygote, but at the 2-cell stage.

So much for the popping-in thesis.

I'm afraid I don't have time to get into a deep philosophical discussion of abortion, but I'll address a few quick points...

I wrote:

"the ECT is stating that there is no such thing as "potentially human."

phil wrote:

And they're obviously wrong. Still waiting....

First, my main contention was not to prove whether the ECT is correct; my point was that their statement is clearly understandable when read in a straightforward manner--rather than analyzed in the manner of a philosophy class. Are you conceding this point, then?

Second, how is this statement "obviously wrong"? As Nick said, pro-choice people can dispute that a developing embryo or fetus is worthy of protection as a person--on that question, neither side is "obviously wrong." But biologically speaking, it is obviously a fact that there is no such thing as "potentially human." A living organism is either human, or not.

phil wrote:

Living things can be human without having the moral status of human beings; or else every appendectomy is a murder.

Now there's a "fatuous pseudo-argument," to use your term. Comparing an embryo to an organ is ridiculous...though a long-used argument by the pro-choice crowd. An appendix is not a living thing unto itself...it is a part of a living thing. An embryo or fetus is a unique living organism, not part of the mother's body--even though it is dependent on the mother's body for nutrition, etc.

Quick responses to Nick and Chuck:

Nick:

Dogs and horses aren't people, so why aren't we (morally) allowed to eat them if we want?

I don't see anything morally wrong with eating dogs or horses. It is accepted in other countries. In this country it is culturally taboo for various reasons, but I don't see an inherent moral argument against it

Eric uses conception as the pop-in point because it's the only way a pro-life person can make a coherent argument.

I don't know whether that's true. I doubt it, actually. Regardless, it's not the reason why I define life as beginning at conception. I use that point because that's when a new living organism is created which is distinct from its parents. Biologically, it seems to be the right answer.

Chuck:

I think, also, it should be pointed out that "conception" itself is not an instant moment.

Nothing that I'm aware of in our physical universe happens in an instant. So conception takes 12 hours or more to complete--fine. That may be relevant to a bunch of philosophers, but it's not relevant to the abortion debate. I don't know of any existing or proposed means of birth control that would interrupt the very process of conception.

Eric,

I wasn't making an argument for or against abortion, I was just trying to "clear the air" of the notion, assumed by pro-lifers and pro-choicers, that "conception" is an instantaneous event. As an aside, a high enough dose of paclitaxel or colchicine might theoretically interrupt fusion of the genetic material, since that process relies on functional microtubules, but obviously no studies have been done (nor should they probably be done) on this.

Any definition of the beginning and end of human life is essentially arbitrary. Using genetic novelty is no less arbitrary than the ability to survive outside the womb, or the beginning of heartbeat, or gastrulation, or the completion of morphological development, or any other parameter. It's inescapably fuzzy, because it is biological. That's why I favor some form of compromise, and think it is wrongheaded, especially from the perspective of policy, to make absolute demands in this debate.

"First, my main contention was not to prove whether the ECT is correct; my point was that their statement is clearly understandable when read in a straightforward manner--rather than analyzed in the manner of a philosophy class. Are you conceding this point, then?" I don't see how you get anything like a concession here. On the only "straightforward" reading that you've offered has obvious counterexamples. So my claim was, remember, that all available construals were either false or of no use in making a pro-life argument. The reading that you offered is impaled directly on the first horn. So, no, no need for any concession here.

(I think you're wrong about the "straightforward" nature of the ECT text, too. Looking at the original text, it's clear that they're trying to invoke some heavy-duty metaphysics, to get a quick pro-life answer to the basic question in play. Nick & I aren't the ones who brought philosophy into it -- they were.)

The point of the embryo-organ comparison is to put pressure on the pro-life side to spell out the conditions for personhood such that it cna include the one but not the other. The "it's alive, and it's human" line clearly fails to do so (which doesn't seem to stop pro-lifers from offering it). You've now ramped up to a stronger condition, in terms of something like there being an independent organism there.

That line is definitely a better contender than the living-human-cells line. But, for starters, Eric, you've just got the biology wrong, if you think of the fertilized egg as now somehow biologically autonomous and just dependent on the woman for sustenance: the early stages of post-conception development are driven by the woman's genes, not the zygote's; moreover, it is not until blastulation that the cells differentiate between those from which the future organism will descend, and those which will form the placenta. So, at best, your "independent organism" rule would say that personhood starts at or soon after blastulation.

But it still needs to be argued that the "independent organism" rule is true. It's just not obvious that even once you've got an independent organism, that what you've also got at that time is a person, i.e., the sort of thing that should get the kind of moral standing that we reserve for persons. (That's why it's important to avoid the illicit argument from "human" to "human being"; it begs this very important question. And why it is so lame of the ECT statement that it makes exactly that error.)

Suppose, for example, that a particular embryo were to cease developing at, say, 4 weeks (when embryos still look like strange little fish), and it was clear that it was never going to develop any further, but would just sit around in the woman's body consuming resources... would you really be inclined to say, nope, sorry, it's a person, gotta leave it alone? Even if it meant all sorts of difficulties for the woman (high blood pressure, say, or the inability to become pregnant again while it is there)? Or, rather, is it not in fact the case that all the intuitions inclining the pro-life person to view a normally-developing embryo as a person depend centrally on the idea that it is indeed a _developing_ embryo, and thus one that has a good chance of later becoming a fully-formed human agent? The latter seems much more likely (and is also what is explicitly invoked in the ECT text); and, at a minimum, the former is what you'd need to argue for, if you wanted to defend the "independent organism" line.

Anyway, even if the "independent organism" line can be defended at length (and I don't pretend to have even minimally argued here that it can't), it doesn't serve at all to help save the originally crappy argument in the ECT text, which makes no use of that line. That one can switch from an earlier crappy argument to a later perhaps-somewhat-less-crappy one does not show that the initial argument was not, in fact, crappy.

Chuck,

I wasn't making an argument for or against abortion, I was just trying to "clear the air" of the notion ... that "conception" is an instantaneous event.

That's fine, and it's an interesting fact. I just don't think it is actually relevant to any discussions of abortion.

I ... think it is wrongheaded, especially from the perspective of policy, to make absolute demands in this debate.

I agree from the perspective of making policy. As I said, I'd be very much in favor of a compromise which bans abortion post-gastrulation. And even in the case of a complete abortion ban, I'd make exceptions for rape and incest, because although I don't think those crimes justify the even greater moral wrong of ending another human life, I would not force that decision on a traumatized woman.

phil,

As I said before, I just don't have the time to get into a detailed discussion of abortion. But I'm still waiting for you to explain how exactly the statement "there is no such thing as 'potentially human'" is "obviously wrong" or "impaled on the first horn." You've asserted that twice, but you haven't explained it. So, at what point during the conception and development of a human child is a non-human entity involved?

"So, at what point during the conception and development of a human child is a non-human entity involved?" Look, you have just _got_ to start being more careful about this. "Human entity" in the sense of "thing that is biologically Homo sapiens" isn't the same as "human being", in the sense of having the moral rights and privileges of being a person. The one just completely fails to entail the other, and that is why the appendix case is relevant to the discussion (as it shows immediately that there is a gap here that the pro-life person needs somehow to bridge). Yes, indeed, at all stages human _entities_ are involved. What remains to be seen is, precisely, at what point a human _being_, in the relevant sense, comes into play. Again, this is exactly why I prefer to frame this with the word "person", since it helps us all to avoid committing this instance of the fallacy of equivocation.

Just about everything in the universe (except, I think, abstract objects; and, of course, God) comes into being. And just about everything that comes into being (except, I think, some stuff at the level of fundamental physics) comes into being _from something else_. And it is the way that the word "potential" is used in completely ordinary English that when you've got some stuff that is about to/is ready to/is designed to/can with appropriate nudging become some thing X, we call that stuff "potential X". I listed a bunch of examples earlier, but one could just sit around and extend that list indefinitely -- one might also consider an IKEA desk still in its boxes as a "potential desk", or a seed as a "potential tree", or Michelangelo's famous case of confronting a block of marble and seeing it as a potential statue of Zeus, or... and so on. This is a very general fact about the English language. Regarding "potential person", Nick pointed out, quite sensibly, that we may speak in exactly this way of the sperm (I would prefer to do so in terms of both the sperm and the egg, but nothing turns on this). This is an entirely natural application of that English rule for "potential". If there's some special exception to this rule of usage when we're dealing with persons/human beings, I have yet to see even the slightest glimmer of an argument why this might be so. This is why it is only by waxing spuriously metaphysical can the authors of the ECT statement even begin to make their point, by dressing their statements in stentorian declaratives that have an ultimately hollow philosophical resonance; and, why under slight pressure, their argument crumbles. It is because they are trying to force words to work against their ordinary usage, when at the same time they cannot acknowledge that that is what they are doing, since if they were merely offering a special stipulative meaning for "potential", they would no longer have something of even the right form to be a response to pro-choice positions.

(Also, note that if you grant Chuck's earlier point about conception, then even on the kind of extremist metaphysics of the ECT statement, at the point in which the egg and sperm first meet one only has a potential person but not yet a person (because conception hasn't completed yet, but is only underway). If you think that Chuck's point was coherent, then you should acknowledge the falsity of the claim about no-potential-human-beings.)