My Position (Part 2) When Does Life Start?

This is a continuation of a post first made on 3/20/11.  It is part two of a yet to be determined number.

From before:

Purpose:  This paper is intended to put into solid form my position on the Pro-Life, Pro-Choice debate; it outlines my rationale for that position, and articulates my concerns with the current state.  I will attempt to synopsize the history, the decisions and the smoke screens I see on the part of advocates for both sides.

 BLUF:  I think the pro-choice movement is fundamentally flawed in its position, but once a personal choice has been made the choice is no longer part of the public debate and is an issue between the woman and God, or her conscience.  Advocates for both sides, far too often, fail to consider the consequence of their words or actions on the individual.  I don’t believe I have the right to tell someone else how they should or must live their life.

Part II

The real question is then, what is the value of life to you?  Can you be against war and genocide and be for abortion?  Can you argue that it is immoral for car companies to design cars with defects and say once a fetus is created a woman has the right to kill it?  

When does life start?

When does life start?  That is a basic question linked to the decision we individually make on the value of a life.  In the landmark decision, written by Justice Blackmun for Supreme Court docket 70-18, Roe v. Wade, Justice Blackmun notes the court was presented with arguments on whether a fetus was a person and therefore protected under the 14^th Amendment.  This hinged on State of Texas' position life began at conception and therefore it was a compelling right of the State to protect that life.  The court took a pass on the argument, citing a lack of consensus among those disciplines where the Court felt a consensus would be found. 

Texas urges that, apart from the Fourteenth Amendment, life begins at conception and is present throughout pregnancy, and that, therefore, the State has a compelling interest in protecting that life from and after conception. We need not resolve the difficult question of when life begins. When those trained in the respective disciplines of medicine, philosophy, and theology are unable to arrive at any consensus, the judiciary, at this point in the development of man's knowledge, is not in a position to speculate as to the answer.

Justice Blackmun goes on to say,

It should be sufficient to note briefly the wide divergence of thinking on this most sensitive and difficult question. There has always been strong support for the view that life does not begin until live' birth. This was the belief of the Stoics. [n56] It appears to be the predominant, though not the unanimous, attitude of the Jewish faith. [n57] It may be taken to represent also the position of a large segment of the Protestant community, insofar as that can be ascertained; organized groups that have taken a formal position on the abortion issue have generally regarded abortion as a matter for the conscience of the individual and her family.

So the court rejected Texas’ right to impose a singular view on when life began.  Justice Blackmun summarized the courts findings as shown here.

1. A state criminal abortion statute of the current Texas type, that excepts from criminality only a lifesaving procedure on behalf of the mother, without regard to pregnancy stage and without recognition of the other interests involved, is violative of the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.

(a) For the stage prior to approximately the end of the first trimester, the abortion decision and its effectuation must be left to the medical judgment of the pregnant woman's attending physician.

(b) For the stage subsequent to approximately the end of the first trimester, the State, in promoting its interest in the health of the mother, may, if it chooses, regulate the abortion procedure in ways that are reasonably related to maternal health.

(c) For the stage subsequent to viability, the State in promoting its interest in the potentiality of human life [p165] may, if it chooses, regulate, and even proscribe, abortion except where it is necessary, in appropriate medical judgment, for the preservation of the life or health of the mother.

2. The State may define the term "physician," as it has been employed in the preceding paragraphs of this Part XI of this opinion, to mean only a physician currently licensed by the State, and may proscribe any abortion by a person who is not a physician as so defined.

In Doe v. Bolton, post, p. 179, procedural requirements contained in one of the modern abortion statutes are considered. That opinion and this one, of course, are to be read together. [n67]

This holding, we feel, is consistent with the relative weights of the respective interests involved, with the lessons and examples of medical and legal history, with the lenity of the common law, and with the demands of the profound problems of the present day. The decision leaves the State free to place increasing restrictions on abortion as the period of pregnancy lengthens, so long as those restrictions are tailored to the recognized state interests. The decision vindicates the right of the physician to administer medical treatment according to his professional judgment up to the points where important [p166] state interests provide compelling justifications for intervention. Up to those points, the abortion decision in all its aspects is inherently, and primarily, a medical decision, and basic responsibility for it must rest with the physician. If an individual practitioner abuses the privilege of exercising proper medical judgment, the usual remedies, judicial and intra-professional, are available.

What strikes me in this decision was the determination that at/before the end of the first trimester the decision rests with the physician and the woman, but after that point the individual states could place increasing restrictions on abortive procedures.  Somewhere along the way, that is now being argued as a presumptive right up to birth.

So here we are, back at the original question, when does life begin?  As I see it, you have three choices:  a) at conception, b) when it may be sustained after birth, c) whenever you feel it convenient to do so.  I don’t think this is a question the state has the right to decide, and I think in Roe v Wade the justices wisely chose not to.  They did though recognize there is a period after which the viability of a human fetus cannot be questioned and it would be capable of sustaining itself as an independent being.  It appears in choosing not to decide, and then defining a physician’s right to primacy in the decision process to the first trimester they acknowledged the states rights to protect life, but only to a degree.

As I consider this problem I am, like the court, drawn to precedent to form my position.  In so much as medicine is an inexact art, and philosophy goes into arcane discussion I am left with the theology of my upbringing.   This is not an area my church dealt with, birthdays were always the day’s we celebrated the start of a new life.  Since I reject the option of choosing an answer that is convenient for my purposes I have but two choices.  At conception, or when a fetus is able to sustain, or be sustained, outside the womb.  Thanks to medical science those two days are getting closer together each year.  When they become the same we will have a whole new debate about the ethics of pregnancy.  If we consider as our choice when life can be sustained I am not sure we can ever come to a universal (right all the time) answer.  Therefore, I conclude life begins at conception, just as Texas argued in its defense.  But as the court points out different religions see things quite differently and in an open society tolerance of differing religious views is a foundation.