Well written and well reasoned. Thanks for doing the tedious work of spelling it all out.
The problem we have is that it's not a matter of reason, but morality. The fact that the majority wish to obscure is that the meta-question "when do we allow killing, and why?" applies to the negotiation on when cellular excision becomes infanticide.
The entire "bodily autonomy" argument, as currently shrieked across all the public fora, appears to begin only after all accept that procreative activity is involuntary. Were it voluntary, the calculus of consequence would begin with a woman's right to abstain from procreation, full stop. The discussion and negotiation would then proceed with that a priori assumption.
What is retailed to the public does not appear to reflect the troubled reality of the negotiation. The majority seem to want a discussion that excludes open acknowledgement of the a prioi assumption of complete and utter incontinence. The few shout over the voices of the many, thereby abandoning any hope of using logic as one of several praxes with which to create a framework within which a middle path can be trodden.
So yes, it's mere sophistry to attempt a framing of logic or legality within which to negotiate this moral question.
Thanks for the comment, Ted. I generally agree with the direction of your comment, but determining WHEN it becomes a moral issue is a complex issue - more complex than most pro-life/anti-abortion people even understand in my experience.
Consider some facts - I'll provide links at the bottom of this comment:
Egg cells and sperm cells are alive, but we don't consider it immoral for a woman to allow an egg to pass thru her body and die without her making an attempt at causing the egg to be fertilized and we don't consider it immoral for a man to have a nocturnal emission in which 100s of millions of sperm are "wasted"... and, in fact, 100s of millions of living sperm are wasted in every ejaculation.
No no one considers that a moral issue - even though there's actual life and potential new life in every one of those cells. In fact, we encourage very young ladies to allow their eggs to pass thru their bodies and die. No one advocates for 12 year olds getting pregnant - yet many 12 year olds have gone thru or are going thru puberty and thus eggs are passing and dying monthly. Christians encourage unmarried people to avoid sex completely until marriage - which results in living eggs and living sperm cells dying unused.
So the mere fact that cells with the potential to make a life pass thru the body and die does not create a moral issue.
To be clear: It is scientifically/biologically beyond dispute that new life begins at fertilization of the egg. Some take the position that it is immoral to cause the death of that fertilized egg - even seconds/minutes/hours after it's fertilized (see opposition to the morning after pill, etc...). However...
Scientifically speaking, "pregnancy" doesn't occur until implantation of the fertilized egg into the uterus. And, of course, a woman doesn't know she's "pregnant" until well after implantation. Usually weeks.
Here's one of the complexities:
It is a well-studied biologically that 30-60% of fertilized eggs never implant in the uterus (some studies higher/lower, but that seems to be the generally accepted range). And a not-insignificant percentage of those fertilized eggs die/miscarry after implantation - a lot of which happen before the woman even knows she's pregnant.
As such, IF a "human being" starts to exist at the moment of fertilization/conception, then that means that 30-50% of human beings (probably even more than that) who have ever existed have died before the woman even knew that she had a fertilized egg in her body.
If one is a Christian, then one believes that God designed human biology.
Which raises interesting questions:
1: If a human being is created at fertilization/conception, then is God the cause of the "natural" abortion of 30-50% (or more) of humans who ever existed?
2: Or is the 30-50% rate of spontaneous abortion of fertilized eggs the result of the fall of Adam and death entering the world as a result?
3: Or is it possible that a fertilized egg is not, in fact, a human being?
4: If a scientist in a lab uses a microscope to join a sperm and an egg, is a human being created at that moment? The scientist can then freeze that fertilized egg for potential later implantation in a woman's uterus. Is that a human being that is stored in that freezer?
5: Is the moment when God creates a human soul relevant to the abortion issue? If so, when is that moment? Is it the moment when the scientist joins the egg and sperm in the lab? If so, what is happening to that soul while the fertilized egg is stored indefinitely in the freezer?
6: Is the time of "quickening" relevant? Decades before Roe v. Wade, some states had laws allowing abortion prior to quickening/movement of the fetus.
7: What do we do with this Biblical passage?
"... the LORD God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the BREATH OF LIFE, and the man became a living creature."
That sounds as if man was formed (potential for life), then given life by the "breath of life". Which appears to make breathing the distinguishing feature between potential life and life.
How about this passage?
"... the Lord GOD to these bones: Behold, I will cause breath to enter you, and you shall live. And I will lay sinews upon you, and will cause flesh to come upon you, and cover you with skin, and put BREATH in you, and you shall LIVE...".
Again, the passage seems to making breathing the key to life. I'm not sure what to make of those. There are obviously other passages that talk about God knowing the person in the womb and John the Baptist leaping in his mother's womb when Mary came by pregnant with Jesus (which is certainly a strong argument for not allowing ANY abortion after quickening, AT MINIMUM).
Point being - there are issues here that most pro-life people haven't even thought about and many of whom don't even have the knowledge/understanding to think about.
All that said, my personal view is that it is probably not - morally speaking - a homicide to cause the death of a fertilized egg before implantation. I take that position because approximately 1/3 to 1/2 of fertilized eggs "naturally" die before implantation and some additional ones "naturally" die even after implantation and before the woman even knows she's pregnant. As such, I don't believe the morning after pill to be abortion or immoral - at least certainly not to the same degree as, say, an abortion after quickening or even after implantation.
That said, my wife and I would not personally use the morning after pill because I'm not CERTAIN that it's not immoral (note that I said "probably not immoral"). We used birth control when we didn't want children during the course of our marriage, then we had children, then we decided we didn't want any more children, I had a vasectomy.
The fact remains that almost all unwanted pregnancies can be prevented using birth control. As such, even if abortion is legal, there should be a very small number of them requested.
Prior to the reversal of Roe v. Wade, I had said that if it would stop all of the debate over the issue, I would support a law legalizing abortion in cases of rape, incest, and where the life of the mother is clearly endangered by the pregnancy (i.e. I had a case once where the woman had an incredibly rare blood disease that put her at high risk of death from all sorts of things, including pregnancy... she went and had her tubes tied... and still got pregnant).
I would support such a law - not because I consider such abortions "moral", but because those situations are SO RARE and implicate other moral issues. And because such a law would prevent all other abortions, which - under Roe v. Wade - were 98% or so of abortions. If that resolved the issue once and for all, I could support such a law - in the interest of the greater good, so to speak. Saving 98% of the lives is better than saving none of the lives.
But the point is moot, nationally speaking, because Roe v. Wade was reversed, and because the pro-abortion crowd would never agree to it anyway.
"A recent re-analysis of hCG study data concluded that approximately 40-60% of embryos may be lost between fertilisation and birth, although this will vary substantially between individual women."
"According to both the scientific community and long-standing federal policy, a woman is considered pregnant only when a fertilized egg has implanted in the wall of her uterus... Implantation of the preembryo in the uterine lining begins about five days after fertilization. Implantation can be completed as early as eight days or as late as 18 days after fertilization, but usually takes about 14 days. Between one-third and one-half of all fertilized eggs never fully implant. A pregnancy is considered to be established only after implantation is complete."
"On average, only 30 to 50 percent of embryos make it to the blastocyst stage. The failure of some embryos to not make it to the blastocyst stage is most likely due to a defect in the embryo. If, for example, we have 10 embryos on day 3 and we select two to transfer on day 3, we may not select the right embryos."
Many thanks for responding, Rob. The thoughtful breadth of your response is yet another gift.
I don't ever mean to sneer at cognitive endeavors, but they have limitations.
You raise interesting questions, answerable only according to one's priors.
I'll assert that the answer to question one is "yes." This is my prior, that God's will is absolute.
The answer to question two is "perhaps, and that's an interesting area upon which to speculate. I'll go one step farther and say that all of our human failures are the result of the fall, and that the fall was a manifestation of God's will. My frail and inadequate intellect speculates that the fall had a purpose, one that I WANT to believe was God's manner of leading us to some sort of improvement, but His reason for mandating such a trajectory is unknowable. Interesting to think about, but unknowable.
Three can only be answered with "yes, certainly it's possible." His Creative processes are observable at times, and we should be grateful to Him that he has bestowed this gift upon us.
Four is an example of.... perhaps another gift, and maybe a test.
Five is "yes." Here, we have one of those cognitive speculations that becomes a matter of faith, unable to be answered without an ability to read the "mind" of God. Each must come to terms with it in direct consultation with God, meaning that this is the utilitarian aspect of prayer.
Six is another "yes," and part of the negotiation between humans, perhaps influenced by the result of prayer.
Seven is answerable only within the context of scripture being our imperfect record of those impressions and conclusions of fallible human beings. Useful and helpful, to be sure, but incomplete. Each of us is well-advised to heed the scriptures, for they are a roadmap to developing our personal relationship with The Lord. They are also a compendium of timeless wisdom.
You and your wife have formed the sacred bond. This provides each of you with an obligation to work together. I would tend to agree with you on most of the questions and laud your hesitation to transgress (better safe than sorry, when God's will is obscure.)
Thing is, even the secular humanists are God's children, but they operate within a framework that doesn't admit of an immortal soul. People of faith must negotiate the time and reason for killing with the secularists, and each party to the negotiation must be able to negotiate in good faith according to their priors.
Having grown up in and near Babylon By The Bay, my priors about "choice" have been affected by constant contact with the animalists. Even so, I've tried to look into the timeless wisdom for guidance as to my own role and "standing," and it seems to me that Solomon got it right. The unworthy choose to kill the child, those who are worthy, will preserve a child's life when that choice means repudiation of their maternal prerogatives.
The work you're doing with these posts is, I am convinced, useful and necessary to providing a basis for compromise and understanding. You make good points about the majority lacking the perspective or ability to understand and consider both secular elements and aspects of faith that lead to the best outcome, so I pray that you continue.
That said, human life is human life, and deciding when it is sacred becomes a purely moral question. I've spent, or more likely wasted, a great deal of time considering the sophistry of the atheistic arguments about the existence of God, keeping an open mind. At the end of the day, I can only conclude that the scientific method cannot possibly do more than inject obscurantism into what is a matter of faith.
Undoubtedly irrelevant, I will compare a common taking of life, one that is not particularly controversial to anyone but the PETA extremists.
A scientist uses rats in experiments. To the scientist, any torment experienced by a rat is unworthy of a second thought. Quickly or with agonizing slowness, the rat's life is extinguished. This is a matter of utility to the scientist.
Rats are everywhere that humans make their home, and people cannot suffer cohabitation with rats. The reasons are obvious, but rats are God's creatures too.
I am not a scientist that experiments on rats, but I kill them. I do not take the suffering of God's creatures lightly, therefore I seek to kill these otherwise inoffensive creatures with as little suffering for them as possible. They do not disgust me, for I have lived in the forest and encountered wild woodland rats going about their god-given lives. They are a necessary part of creation.
In my home, they represent the threat of disease and structural failure, merely by reason of their presence. I trap them alive because I have seen them escape from snap-traps and suffer mightily. Poison is a slow and painful death, and has the potential for them to die in an inaccessible place, spreading disease as the result.
Their trap is baited with a good last meal. When I retrieve the rat in its trap, I look it in the eye, apologize to it, ask forgiveness of God and the rat dies by drowning. It is the best way that I have found. I am no better than the scientist, and no worse; only different. Releasing them in some place away from people is not an act of mercy, because they are territorial and will be killed by the rats within whose territory they are released. Let them go within their own territorial boundaries and they will immediately re-invade the home from which they were removed.
But I speak of rats, not human beings. A scientist has a different purpose and operates within a strictly utilitarian framework within which no life is sacred, only an assignment within a hierarchy of priorities. Morality is entirely subjective in that praxis. A scientist will kill five human beings if they believe that this murder would save six others. You will recognize this as the classic trolley problem.
This is the basis for my reasoning that we approach killing according to our individual nature and according to our relationship with God. Scientists are subject to God's will in equal measure to the rest of creation. It is not for me to judge the scientist for the torture and suffering they cause, even if it is my duty to condemn them for treating human beings with the same callousness as they do rats.
Well written and well reasoned. Thanks for doing the tedious work of spelling it all out.
The problem we have is that it's not a matter of reason, but morality. The fact that the majority wish to obscure is that the meta-question "when do we allow killing, and why?" applies to the negotiation on when cellular excision becomes infanticide.
The entire "bodily autonomy" argument, as currently shrieked across all the public fora, appears to begin only after all accept that procreative activity is involuntary. Were it voluntary, the calculus of consequence would begin with a woman's right to abstain from procreation, full stop. The discussion and negotiation would then proceed with that a priori assumption.
What is retailed to the public does not appear to reflect the troubled reality of the negotiation. The majority seem to want a discussion that excludes open acknowledgement of the a prioi assumption of complete and utter incontinence. The few shout over the voices of the many, thereby abandoning any hope of using logic as one of several praxes with which to create a framework within which a middle path can be trodden.
So yes, it's mere sophistry to attempt a framing of logic or legality within which to negotiate this moral question.
Thanks for the comment, Ted. I generally agree with the direction of your comment, but determining WHEN it becomes a moral issue is a complex issue - more complex than most pro-life/anti-abortion people even understand in my experience.
Consider some facts - I'll provide links at the bottom of this comment:
Egg cells and sperm cells are alive, but we don't consider it immoral for a woman to allow an egg to pass thru her body and die without her making an attempt at causing the egg to be fertilized and we don't consider it immoral for a man to have a nocturnal emission in which 100s of millions of sperm are "wasted"... and, in fact, 100s of millions of living sperm are wasted in every ejaculation.
No no one considers that a moral issue - even though there's actual life and potential new life in every one of those cells. In fact, we encourage very young ladies to allow their eggs to pass thru their bodies and die. No one advocates for 12 year olds getting pregnant - yet many 12 year olds have gone thru or are going thru puberty and thus eggs are passing and dying monthly. Christians encourage unmarried people to avoid sex completely until marriage - which results in living eggs and living sperm cells dying unused.
So the mere fact that cells with the potential to make a life pass thru the body and die does not create a moral issue.
To be clear: It is scientifically/biologically beyond dispute that new life begins at fertilization of the egg. Some take the position that it is immoral to cause the death of that fertilized egg - even seconds/minutes/hours after it's fertilized (see opposition to the morning after pill, etc...). However...
Scientifically speaking, "pregnancy" doesn't occur until implantation of the fertilized egg into the uterus. And, of course, a woman doesn't know she's "pregnant" until well after implantation. Usually weeks.
Here's one of the complexities:
It is a well-studied biologically that 30-60% of fertilized eggs never implant in the uterus (some studies higher/lower, but that seems to be the generally accepted range). And a not-insignificant percentage of those fertilized eggs die/miscarry after implantation - a lot of which happen before the woman even knows she's pregnant.
As such, IF a "human being" starts to exist at the moment of fertilization/conception, then that means that 30-50% of human beings (probably even more than that) who have ever existed have died before the woman even knew that she had a fertilized egg in her body.
If one is a Christian, then one believes that God designed human biology.
Which raises interesting questions:
1: If a human being is created at fertilization/conception, then is God the cause of the "natural" abortion of 30-50% (or more) of humans who ever existed?
2: Or is the 30-50% rate of spontaneous abortion of fertilized eggs the result of the fall of Adam and death entering the world as a result?
3: Or is it possible that a fertilized egg is not, in fact, a human being?
4: If a scientist in a lab uses a microscope to join a sperm and an egg, is a human being created at that moment? The scientist can then freeze that fertilized egg for potential later implantation in a woman's uterus. Is that a human being that is stored in that freezer?
5: Is the moment when God creates a human soul relevant to the abortion issue? If so, when is that moment? Is it the moment when the scientist joins the egg and sperm in the lab? If so, what is happening to that soul while the fertilized egg is stored indefinitely in the freezer?
6: Is the time of "quickening" relevant? Decades before Roe v. Wade, some states had laws allowing abortion prior to quickening/movement of the fetus.
7: What do we do with this Biblical passage?
"... the LORD God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the BREATH OF LIFE, and the man became a living creature."
That sounds as if man was formed (potential for life), then given life by the "breath of life". Which appears to make breathing the distinguishing feature between potential life and life.
How about this passage?
"... the Lord GOD to these bones: Behold, I will cause breath to enter you, and you shall live. And I will lay sinews upon you, and will cause flesh to come upon you, and cover you with skin, and put BREATH in you, and you shall LIVE...".
Again, the passage seems to making breathing the key to life. I'm not sure what to make of those. There are obviously other passages that talk about God knowing the person in the womb and John the Baptist leaping in his mother's womb when Mary came by pregnant with Jesus (which is certainly a strong argument for not allowing ANY abortion after quickening, AT MINIMUM).
Point being - there are issues here that most pro-life people haven't even thought about and many of whom don't even have the knowledge/understanding to think about.
All that said, my personal view is that it is probably not - morally speaking - a homicide to cause the death of a fertilized egg before implantation. I take that position because approximately 1/3 to 1/2 of fertilized eggs "naturally" die before implantation and some additional ones "naturally" die even after implantation and before the woman even knows she's pregnant. As such, I don't believe the morning after pill to be abortion or immoral - at least certainly not to the same degree as, say, an abortion after quickening or even after implantation.
That said, my wife and I would not personally use the morning after pill because I'm not CERTAIN that it's not immoral (note that I said "probably not immoral"). We used birth control when we didn't want children during the course of our marriage, then we had children, then we decided we didn't want any more children, I had a vasectomy.
The fact remains that almost all unwanted pregnancies can be prevented using birth control. As such, even if abortion is legal, there should be a very small number of them requested.
Prior to the reversal of Roe v. Wade, I had said that if it would stop all of the debate over the issue, I would support a law legalizing abortion in cases of rape, incest, and where the life of the mother is clearly endangered by the pregnancy (i.e. I had a case once where the woman had an incredibly rare blood disease that put her at high risk of death from all sorts of things, including pregnancy... she went and had her tubes tied... and still got pregnant).
I would support such a law - not because I consider such abortions "moral", but because those situations are SO RARE and implicate other moral issues. And because such a law would prevent all other abortions, which - under Roe v. Wade - were 98% or so of abortions. If that resolved the issue once and for all, I could support such a law - in the interest of the greater good, so to speak. Saving 98% of the lives is better than saving none of the lives.
But the point is moot, nationally speaking, because Roe v. Wade was reversed, and because the pro-abortion crowd would never agree to it anyway.
Embryo Freezing:
https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/treatments/15464-embryo-freezing-cryopreservation
"In nature, 50 percent of all fertilized eggs are lost before a woman's missed menses."
https://www.ucsfhealth.org/education/conception-how-it-works
"A recent re-analysis of hCG study data concluded that approximately 40-60% of embryos may be lost between fertilisation and birth, although this will vary substantially between individual women."
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5443340/
"According to both the scientific community and long-standing federal policy, a woman is considered pregnant only when a fertilized egg has implanted in the wall of her uterus... Implantation of the preembryo in the uterine lining begins about five days after fertilization. Implantation can be completed as early as eight days or as late as 18 days after fertilization, but usually takes about 14 days. Between one-third and one-half of all fertilized eggs never fully implant. A pregnancy is considered to be established only after implantation is complete."
https://www.guttmacher.org/gpr/2005/05/implications-defining-when-woman-pregnant
"Two-thirds of all human embryos fail to develop successfully."
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/10/101003205930.htm
Re: In Vitro:
"On average, only 30 to 50 percent of embryos make it to the blastocyst stage. The failure of some embryos to not make it to the blastocyst stage is most likely due to a defect in the embryo. If, for example, we have 10 embryos on day 3 and we select two to transfer on day 3, we may not select the right embryos."
https://arizonafertility.com/treatment-options/blastocyst-transfer-in-ivf/
Many thanks for responding, Rob. The thoughtful breadth of your response is yet another gift.
I don't ever mean to sneer at cognitive endeavors, but they have limitations.
You raise interesting questions, answerable only according to one's priors.
I'll assert that the answer to question one is "yes." This is my prior, that God's will is absolute.
The answer to question two is "perhaps, and that's an interesting area upon which to speculate. I'll go one step farther and say that all of our human failures are the result of the fall, and that the fall was a manifestation of God's will. My frail and inadequate intellect speculates that the fall had a purpose, one that I WANT to believe was God's manner of leading us to some sort of improvement, but His reason for mandating such a trajectory is unknowable. Interesting to think about, but unknowable.
Three can only be answered with "yes, certainly it's possible." His Creative processes are observable at times, and we should be grateful to Him that he has bestowed this gift upon us.
Four is an example of.... perhaps another gift, and maybe a test.
Five is "yes." Here, we have one of those cognitive speculations that becomes a matter of faith, unable to be answered without an ability to read the "mind" of God. Each must come to terms with it in direct consultation with God, meaning that this is the utilitarian aspect of prayer.
Six is another "yes," and part of the negotiation between humans, perhaps influenced by the result of prayer.
Seven is answerable only within the context of scripture being our imperfect record of those impressions and conclusions of fallible human beings. Useful and helpful, to be sure, but incomplete. Each of us is well-advised to heed the scriptures, for they are a roadmap to developing our personal relationship with The Lord. They are also a compendium of timeless wisdom.
You and your wife have formed the sacred bond. This provides each of you with an obligation to work together. I would tend to agree with you on most of the questions and laud your hesitation to transgress (better safe than sorry, when God's will is obscure.)
Thing is, even the secular humanists are God's children, but they operate within a framework that doesn't admit of an immortal soul. People of faith must negotiate the time and reason for killing with the secularists, and each party to the negotiation must be able to negotiate in good faith according to their priors.
Having grown up in and near Babylon By The Bay, my priors about "choice" have been affected by constant contact with the animalists. Even so, I've tried to look into the timeless wisdom for guidance as to my own role and "standing," and it seems to me that Solomon got it right. The unworthy choose to kill the child, those who are worthy, will preserve a child's life when that choice means repudiation of their maternal prerogatives.
The work you're doing with these posts is, I am convinced, useful and necessary to providing a basis for compromise and understanding. You make good points about the majority lacking the perspective or ability to understand and consider both secular elements and aspects of faith that lead to the best outcome, so I pray that you continue.
That said, human life is human life, and deciding when it is sacred becomes a purely moral question. I've spent, or more likely wasted, a great deal of time considering the sophistry of the atheistic arguments about the existence of God, keeping an open mind. At the end of the day, I can only conclude that the scientific method cannot possibly do more than inject obscurantism into what is a matter of faith.
Undoubtedly irrelevant, I will compare a common taking of life, one that is not particularly controversial to anyone but the PETA extremists.
A scientist uses rats in experiments. To the scientist, any torment experienced by a rat is unworthy of a second thought. Quickly or with agonizing slowness, the rat's life is extinguished. This is a matter of utility to the scientist.
Rats are everywhere that humans make their home, and people cannot suffer cohabitation with rats. The reasons are obvious, but rats are God's creatures too.
I am not a scientist that experiments on rats, but I kill them. I do not take the suffering of God's creatures lightly, therefore I seek to kill these otherwise inoffensive creatures with as little suffering for them as possible. They do not disgust me, for I have lived in the forest and encountered wild woodland rats going about their god-given lives. They are a necessary part of creation.
In my home, they represent the threat of disease and structural failure, merely by reason of their presence. I trap them alive because I have seen them escape from snap-traps and suffer mightily. Poison is a slow and painful death, and has the potential for them to die in an inaccessible place, spreading disease as the result.
Their trap is baited with a good last meal. When I retrieve the rat in its trap, I look it in the eye, apologize to it, ask forgiveness of God and the rat dies by drowning. It is the best way that I have found. I am no better than the scientist, and no worse; only different. Releasing them in some place away from people is not an act of mercy, because they are territorial and will be killed by the rats within whose territory they are released. Let them go within their own territorial boundaries and they will immediately re-invade the home from which they were removed.
But I speak of rats, not human beings. A scientist has a different purpose and operates within a strictly utilitarian framework within which no life is sacred, only an assignment within a hierarchy of priorities. Morality is entirely subjective in that praxis. A scientist will kill five human beings if they believe that this murder would save six others. You will recognize this as the classic trolley problem.
This is the basis for my reasoning that we approach killing according to our individual nature and according to our relationship with God. Scientists are subject to God's will in equal measure to the rest of creation. It is not for me to judge the scientist for the torture and suffering they cause, even if it is my duty to condemn them for treating human beings with the same callousness as they do rats.
As you say; it's complicated.