Controvertial Conclusions: to Abort or not to Abort?

My little brother Kelson has been asked to write an objective analysis of abortion for one of his 10th grade classes, very likely Language Arts, in response to a satirical essay by Somebody Schwigg around 1800 that said no we shouldn't abort them, we should give birth, feed them well for a year, skin them, use the meat to feed the hungry, and turn the skins into wallets and lampshades. Writing an unbiased, unemotional response to that sounded challenging. What follows is the email I wrote him to that end, my logic, and here's my conclusion: if you think the U.S. Legal System's assessment of the environment more closely reflects the Will of God (religion) or more perfectly maximizes the utalitarian benefit of the society in which it occurs (science) than does the assessment of the pregnant mother, then abortion should be illegal in all cases not approved of by the U.S. Legal System. If you think the mother's assessment does a better job, then abortion should be legal in all cases, point blank.

Here's why.
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You said that guy's name was Schwigg? 1798 or something, eating babies?

Have you seen the Southpark where Cartman sells aborted fetuses so Superman can eat them and get Super again? Harvesting stem cells after fertilization is seen by the political right in this country (i.e. my father) as equivalent to skinning babies, eating them since the population needs it, and making (useful) wallets etc. with their skin. Not having read Schwigg's satire, I can't say from your description whether he suggested that stuff with enough sarcasm to put his stand as for or against abortion. My guess would be against -- but actually the first time I wrote that sentence I wrote for, so I'm not exactuly sure.

My personal stand -- which is irrelevant to your essay, but may provide enough food for thought for you to see a perspective sufficiently objective to include -- is that the difference between to Murder and to Kill lies not in the act of ending cellular respiration (though stem cell removal actually MUST preserve cellular 'aliveness' to work) but rather in the human-like or non-human-like nature of the thing whose life is being ended, in conjunction with the societal benefit of ending the life. Does a cat murder a mouse? No; in my opinion, a cat can only kill a mouse. Does a human murder a mouse? No; a mouse can only be killed. Does a human murder a human? Depends, in my opinion, on the intention of the person ending the life of another person. Capitol punishment stands any chance whatsoever of being morally admirable solely on the societal conviction that a person can be so morally fucked up that it is not murder to end their life; it is morally justifiable by the utalitarian benefit to society of the cessation of the criminal's presence. If the criminal is on death row for ending the life of another human (never a dog, a mouse, or a monkey) then some judge decided the ending of life was "manslaughter" or "murder" as opposed to "justifiable self-defense," which is legally known in Colorado as the Make My Day Law (which you can google for facts if you find it appropriate). One of the ten commandments is Do Not Murder; in the old testament God commanded the Israelites to attack a village and kill every man, woman and child; God cannot violate His own commandments. According to my father, Christianity (and Christians who've bothered to think about this) effectively conclude that God disapproves of murder, but condones "killing", at least when He approves (whatever the hell that means, usually defined functionally as agreeing with whatever extremist faction, of whatever religion, race, or political standing, is currently telling themselves they are doing the Will of God).

My personal faith is composed of evidence strong enough to tilt my logical conclusion one direction more than the other (codified as the professional pursuit of science). In the case of abortion, and in most other cases, the strongest piece of evidence for me is utalitarian value: which choice does the most good for the most different people in the most different ways. My understanding is that the joining of monocellular gametes (known as a sperm and an ovum, an egg) do not fit the definition of "human" until they have enough cerebral cortex to reflect neural activation that matches what science has identified as corresponding systematically to our subjective experience of "consciousness", so the harvesting of stem cells is not murder, and given that they can literally cure neurological disorders like Parkinsons, the utalitarian best choice is to harvest them, despite the fact that choosing not to harvest them would lead to the same blob of cellular tissue eventually developing enough brain matter to be conscious and therefore considered a human (a fetus). If the blob of cells has passed that line and has neural activation -- which is around the same time as a detectable heartbeat, I think, some time after the tail and the gills transform into lungs and a spinal cord -- then it falls into the same category as whether it is murder or not to execute a convicted serial murderer on deathrow: which choice most benefits the society in which the choice is being made? Most women who opt for abortions do so not only for their own wellbeing (which the Christian Right would consider selfish enough to qualify abortion as murder) but largely because they deeply believe that their environment or their own personal maturity are such that they would do a "bad job" mothering and the child would suffer. In my opinion, those women are choosing to protect their children by postponing reproduction -- which results in the survival only of those fetuses with a good chance of being emotionally healthy, societally productive, and possibly even loving, generous, and kind adults. Even Christian Right extremists most often agree that cases of rape, incest, and harm to the mother's life justify abortion -- they are also utalitarian, we just disagree about which path leads to the most societal benefit.