During the last couple of days, I have had a discussion on Facebook with a "friend" regarding abortion issues. The friend wants to use some rather new high-tech visions of egg-fertilization as arguments for his (I think) extreme view that personhood begins at fertilization of the female ovum. He holds to this view so strongly that he is willing to condemn abortions in even cases of incest or rape. While he hasn't mentioned it, I am sure that he would also condemn the so-called "morning-after pill."
What I want to discuss here is the assertion that the biology of egg fertilization is even relevant to the social issues of abortion. Since this particular anti-abortion argument rests on claiming that a "person" is present in the womb immediately after fertilization of an ovum is successful, my assertion is equivalent to saying that biology is not relevant to determining that a person is present in the womb. The abortion argument is still more complicated, of course, because it also requires us to believe that a "person" in any stage of development has the right to protection of its life. Even if one were to admit that the fertilized ovum is a person, it would not be true necessarily, in our society, that such a person is granted the right to protection of its life. The 14th Amendment to our Constitution defines the rights of citizenship in the following way: "1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws" (my emphasis). The right to protection of life does not follow the word 'person' wherever we want to carry it; indeed, only persons who are "born" fall within this protection. Framers of the Constitution and their heirs obviously never foresaw the possibility that fetal development would be protected under the 14th Amendment.
However, let's get back to the issue of whether biology informs us of anything relevant to this debate. There are different levels of discourse within the field of biology. Microbiology works with various chemicals (mainly macromolecules) and rises to the identification of genes. Taxonomy, on the other hand, observes and classifies the objects in our world that we understand to fall within the domain of biology, namely, living organisms. Biology assumes no differences between humans (homo sapiens sapiens) and other animal species. Indeed, biology sees humans as evolving over a long period of time out of more primitive animal species. Nor is there any inherent reason why microbiology would distinguish anything different in the human division of animal life. In biology, we can talk about an individual human (homo sapiens sapiens) but there is no word 'person' in the biology vocabulary. Up to the time of birth (or artificial separation) the developing fertilized ovum is simply called a 'fetus'.
What is going on here is what the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein called playing language games. One of the big errors that people frequently make is that of believing that all language is somehow continuous and inter-connected. But Wittgenstein observed that language is actually divided up into many independent systems of definitions. Thus, if I choose to play the "biology language game," I am constrained to use the vocabulary and systematic relationships of meaning in that game. I cannot meaningfully carry other words into a discussion of biology.
Thus, if I want to use words like 'person' and 'rights', I must begin by determining the language game in which these are meaningful. Discussion of the abortion issue seems to occur mainly in what we might call the "legal language game." In that game, various rights have been attributed to persons and persons have traditionally been understood as human members of the society in which laws and rights are defined. At the time of the framing of our Constitution, the word 'person' was attributed to white male adults. If female adults were viewed as persons, they were not persons with the robust collection of rights possessed by men. African slaves were not viewed as whole persons, nor were children of any color. While I am no expert on this, my impression is that both the meaning of 'person' and the availability of rights began to change in various ways throughout the 19th Century. While children would not possess all rights and would be looked upon as subordinate persons until "coming of age," they were increasingly seen as having the right of protection by society. Hence, in the movement toward wide-ranging public education in the early 19th Century, a child's right to mental development was protected. In the child labor laws of the late 19th Century, a child's health, safety, and education were protected. Still, children today do not possess all the rights possessed by adults of our society.
Pro-life advocates are really arguing within the legal language game of our particular society and are actually arguing two separate points. First, they are arguing that we should extend the meaning of the word 'person' to include what biologists call the human fetus. A woman who has become pregnant should really be referred to as being "with person." Second, they are arguing that certain rights possessed by persons should follow this extension of meaning into the woman's body. As seen in the previous discussion, not all rights apply to every person. But the argument here is that the right of certain protections should apply. In particular, the protection of life should apply. But, if this is the case, we should note that the protection of the person's development toward a happy normal life might also be insisted upon. In other words, if we view a fetus as a person, then we might be obligating our society to assure that the fetus will be well cared for in all respects. Women who smoke or drink alcohol or take drugs during pregnancy might be liable for arrest and punishment. Indeed, since the woman's body is now the living quarter of an official person, society may have made itself responsible for the health, nutrition, and safety of those "quarters."
What interests me --- and I will end here --- is that pro-lifers are so desperate to save the life of the fetus they want to call a person, but they really have no concern about protecting the well-being of the life they have saved. I say that because most of the people who are pro-life are also very antagonistic toward government intrusion into our lives and are largely opposed to social services such as welfare.
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