William Teach’s most liberal commenter, a strong supporter of prenatal infanticide, asked:

When does a conceptus become a person?

It should be at conception!

We already know that he is alive; we define single cell organisms as alive if they meet certain criteria, including respiration, absorption of nutrients, elimination of wastes and reproduction. There is no question that life exists even at the moment of conception.

Which leaves those favoring prenatal infanticide trying to claim that he is not human or is not a person. He is obviously human, in that his DNA are human, and he continues along the natural growth path through which all humans go. We develop through gestation, and we continue to develop after we are born; development and growth, as well as aging and decline are natural parts of life.

That leaves the question the distinguished Mr Dowd raises: is he a legal person?

The Supreme Court addressed a similar question 166 years ago:

The question is simply this: can a negro whose ancestors were imported into this country and sold as slaves become a member of the political community formed and brought into existence by the Constitution of the United States, and as such become entitled to all the rights, and privileges, and immunities, guarantied by that instrument to the citizen, one of which rights is the privilege of suing in a court of the United States in the cases specified in the Constitution? . . . .

The words “people of the United States” and “citizens” are synonymous terms, and mean the same thing. They both describe the political body who, according to our republican institutions, form the sovereignty and who hold the power and conduct the Government through their representatives. They are what we familiarly call the “sovereign people,” and every citizen is one of this people, and a constituent member of this sovereignty. The question before us is whether the class of persons described in the plea in abatement compose a portion of this people, and are constituent members of this sovereignty? We think they are not, and that they are not included, and were not intended to be included, under the word “citizens” in the Constitution, and can therefore claim none of the rights and privileges which that instrument provides for and secures to citizens of the United States. On the contrary, they were at that time considered as a subordinate and inferior class of beings who had been subjugated by the dominant race, and, whether emancipated or not, yet remained subject to their authority, and had no rights or privileges but such as those who held the power and the Government might choose to grant them.

The case was, of course, Dred Scott v Sandford, 60 U.S. 393 (1856).

Roe v Wade, 410 U.S. 113 (1973), was similarly decided: beings which had no voice of their own were not legal persons, and could simply be killed at the whim of the pregnant women, just as Chief Justice Roger Taney ruled that, not being legal citizens of the United States, Negroes had no right to sue in the federal courts.

It took what President Lincoln called a “great civil war,” and the military defeat of the Confederacy, plus the imposition by the victorious Union of the 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments to replace the decision in Dred Scott.

The appellee and certain amici argue that the fetus is a “person” within the language and meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment. In support of this, they outline at length and in detail the well known facts of fetal development. If this suggestion of personhood is established, the appellant’s case, of course, collapses, for the fetus’ right to life would then be guaranteed specifically by the Amendment. The appellant conceded as much on reargument. On the other hand, the appellee conceded on reargument that no case could be cited that holds that a fetus is a person within the meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment.

The similarities with the Dred Scott decision are stark and obvious.

Mr Dowd also wrote:

Americans never respond well when a right is taken away. For 50 years Roe v. Wade has been the law of the land, with women having the right to an abortion with significant limits after the first 12 weeks of gestation (1st trimester).

Many Americans did not respond well when their rights to own slaves were taken away, but those rights were taken away to grant rights to the people who had been enslaved. If Roe is overturned, it will be to give rights to, to recognize the rights of those living human beings who are still in their mothers’ wombs.

I get it: many pregnant women simply do not want a child, or another child. They have now, and will have in the future, the absolute right to surrender that child for adoption, a right I would not take away even if I could. This could result in a hard life for those children, but a hard life is better than no life. We see this with the handicapped, many of whom about which we have said — though not to their faces — “I could never live like that; I’d rather be dead,” who have an attempted suicide rate roughly four times than of non-disabled people, but still fewer than 10% actually attempt to kill themselves:

As compared to adolescents without physical disabilities, adolescents with physical disabilities were significantly more likely to commit suicide or have suicidal behavior. In a study among 85,765 students in Denmark, Christoffersen, Poulsen, Nielsen found that adolescents who had been hospitalized for severe handicap or chronic disease had an increased rate of attempted suicide as compared to those were not physically disabled (8.7% vs 2.9%). In a cross-sectional study conducted in 13,917 adolescents from the 50 states and the District of Columbia, Epstein and Spirito reported that adolescents with physical disabilities and health problems were significantly more likely to attempt suicide as compared to those without (OR = 3.01, CI: 2.18-4.17). Hence, the limited number of studies that took a look at suicide in physically disabled adolescents, it was found that adolescents with physical disabilities were more likely to attempt suicide as compared to those did not have physical disabilities.

If 8.7% of physically disabled adolescents attempt suicide, then 91.3% do not. Somehow, some way, 91.3% of handicapped adolescents, the people about whom we have so often mused that “I’d rather be dead than to live like that,” have decided that they’d rather live than die.

After my father left, while I was in the second grade, I grew up poor. My mother, who had no education beyond high school, was responsible for caring for three children — I was the oldest — as my father found child support to be more of an option than an obligation. In the 1960s, men could get away with that! While not as poor as some, we did go a couple of months without running water, when a pipe froze and burst, and my mother did not have the money to get a plumber to fix it. Yet, despite that, I never contemplated suicide.

We see it in prisoners on death row, the vast majority of whom continue their appeals to the last extremis, preferring to stay alive in a cage than to die. Life may be hard for the orphan, but it is still life.^[1]Regular readers of The First Street Journal know that I am opposed to capital punishment.

Abortion in almost every case is a choice of the convenience of the pregnant woman over the life of her unborn child.

On November 24, 2008, Patterico posed a question based on a comment from one of his readers:

Suppose the technology existed to safely remove a fetus from a womb at any gestational stage for incubation elsewhere until birth. If such “no-death abortion” was available to any woman who wanted it, would most abortion rights supporters stand down?

I’m especially interested in what abortion rights supporters have to say, because I’ve always thought that their position is based on opposition to forced pregnancy (”Keep your laws off my body”).

I especially love this hypothetical because I too have been thinking about the same issue for years. Indeed, I asked a modified version of it in this post. But Not Rhetorical’s articulation is less inflammatory and more conducive to good discussion.

I’m especially fond of the hypothetical because I explicitly discussed it recently with two women: the first night with one who was pro-choice, and the next night, with one who was pro-life. (To my surprise, the pro-choice woman would most assuredly not accept the sort of “no death abortion” that Not Rhetorical posits.)

I have told people since (and said to the pro-life woman) that I wish I could have had a camera over my shoulder taking footage when I was talking to these women. I respect both of the women very much, even though I violently disagreed with the pro-choice woman on this issue. But I found the contrast between their points of view — and the reasons for them — to be transcendent and profound in a way I’m not sure I could ever adequately express.

I don’t feel comfortable saying more, even without naming the women, because the conversations were private. But the conversation solidified my view that this particular hypothetical cuts right to the heart of the debate in a way that few others do.

I also very much liked Not Rhetorical’s suggestion for commenters: “I’d appreciate it if you could keep the usual stuff about murder and evil and so forth to a minimum. Like zero. I’m more interested in a dispassionate discussion.” Indeed. Every discussion about abortion devolves into one side screaming Abortion Evil! and the other side screaming Abortion Is a Right! That can get tiresome, and I’m looking for something that addresses the concerns raised by the specific hypothetical.

Patterico added the following to his hypothetical, assuming that the law absolutely assures mothers who choose this that they will never bear any legal responsibility for the child, whether financial or otherwise.

There are 153 reader comments, and they run the gamut, but there are clearly some who don’t think that such a solution would be a good thing, talking about the burdens on the adoption and foster care systems, and on welfare. One commenter, styling himself TC, wrote:

Anybody ever stop to think that not ALL conceived homo sapiens should be brought to life? I suppose I’m a bit tainted by a grandmother that was an OB nurse for 43 years and hearing some of her tales. . . . .

One more time here, IT IS JUST NOT YOUR BUSINESS AT ALL!!! YOU DO NOT HAVE A RIGHT or even a NEED TO KNOW!!! ever!!!

So very many people are just as concerned about getting rid of the child as they are about the woman who does not want to be pregnant. So many people seem to believe that children ought to be disposable, because they are just so much of a burden.

Actress Nana Visitor, who played Major Kira Nerys on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, was pregnant during the filming of Season 4, and the writers found an interesting way to work it into the series. In the episode “Body Parts,” Keiko O’Brien was critically injured in an accident aboard a runabout. In order to save her baby, Dr Julian Bashir transferred it to the only available undamaged womb, Major Kira’s. Several episodes into Season 5 involved Major Kira and her interaction with the O’Brien family, and of course the Major was simply helping them out, and was going to give the baby, eventually named Kirayoshi, to the O’Briens after delivery.

That she did, but after Kirayoshi was born, Major Kira wistfully, almost tearfully said that she just wished she could hold him. How many of the women who favor prenatal infanticide are worried that once they go through pregnancy, fully intending to give up their child, wouldn’t be able to do so due to the natural bonding that takes place between human mothers and children? It’s just so much more important to kill him before that can happen!

In the end, those favoring abortion seem just as interested in making sure the child is dead than just relieving the pregnant woman of her burden. Those favoring prebirth infanticide are the ones siding with Chief Justice Taney.