Is Abortion Murder
It is apparent that the debate on the right of the mother to abort her fetus is polarized. It must be due to the way the discussion is framed. One narrative leaves the woman open to capital murder charges for aborting the fetus whereas the other implies babies have no value and are as disposable as fingernails. In this essay we suggest neither side has grasped the issue in a logical way.
So lets look at the problem as a logical argument with a logical conclusion.
Logically, the fetus is human, or the fetus is not human.
If the fetus is human, its human life is protected against undue harm and death.
Killing a human without due cause, is a capital offense.
Those who commit murder are murderers.
Murder results in a charge of a capital murder.
A murder might be decreed to be a justified homicide or homicide.
Justified homicide means there are extenuating circumstances.
Is killing a fetus justified homicide?
Is the fetus an invader akin to a viral infection?
Is the fetus a parasite to be expelled at will?
If the fetus is not human, what is it?
Is the fetus a clump of cells until some moment during their gestation?
Is the fetus undifferentiated regarding their identity, until the moment of birth?
Does life begin at birth or conception?
If life begins at conception, is it the moment the egg is fertilized or implanted in the womb?
If life begins when the egg is fertilized is stopping the passage of the fertilized egg into the womb tantamount to murder?
If we are permitted to kill an attacker who threatens our life, may the mother kill a fetus whose life threatens her own survival?
Is a mother permitted to choose which life to save, her own or the unborn child’s when both cannot be saved?
If the mother consents to getting pregnant, if her actions would lead a reasonable person to assume she was consenting to be impregnated, is it not also reason able to assume she has consented to fulfilling the contractual obligation she has to the unborn fetus?
If the father enters into a consensual agreement with the mother to care for the child up until adulthood, does this contract not also obligate the mother to carry the child to term?
If the father’s obligation tends towards financial and physical support, can we not assume the maternal obligation tends towards mothering and motherhood, that is towards maternal care including birthing the child?
When all of our attention is focused on the life of the child and the life of the mother, we end up pitting the life of the child against the life of the mother, as if they were not compatible and mutually exclusive.
To complicate the matter many commentators, introduce quality of life as a concern. According to this line of thinking, mothers have a right to career and social life. This argument can be compared to other issues where there are competing ends.
Marriage is a consensual relationship in which each partner brings something to the table, but neither demands more from the other, than they can give. With the fetus the arrangement is one sided. The mother must give everything, but the child appears to provide little or nothing. Therefore, the mother must decide if she is going to shoulder the burden or not.
According to the wisdom of the world, as the choice is fully hers it is only the mothers will that is relevant, when deciding to carry the baby to full term, or not. Technically, this is true. The baby is fully dependent on the mother. There is no contractual agreement between them, as the child has no conditionality to mediate the mother’s rejection. When looked at solely from the position of biology, the mothers’ arguments carry a lot of weight.
From a biological standpoint, the fetus has no defence and puts up no defence.
Even given that the fetus is human, and that abortion kills the life of a human, the life biologically remains within the mother’s jurisdiction. The abortionist does not terminate a life that is solely owned by the victim. The mother is merely reducing or altering her own biological condition.
Thus, from a purely biological standpoint, it is difficult to mount an assault against the abortionist arguments. Even the claim that abortion is murder falls short of a biological understanding of murder. Despite terminating a human life, abortion cannot be equated with capital murder of an autonomous human being.
However, the right to terminate the life of a fetus is not based on claims that the fetus is not alive, not human and has no rights. The fact that a killer of the fetus can be charged with homicide, unless the killer is the mother or an agent acting on her behalf, is not consistent with these positions.
But the right of the women to kill her fetus, when to all intents and purposes, the fetus is another human life requires an explanation, if one is possible. It is a dilemma mankind has struggled with since time immemorial.
The paradox is that if the fetus is human, its life ought to be sacred. If its life can be terminated at will, then it ought not be considered human. But the fact is that it is both considered human and disposable. It is like a dog that is considered part of the family yet can be killed for the most mundane of reasons.
Biology gives the mother the ability to kill but it does not give her the right. Biology gives mankind the power but does not explain this power within the context of natural law.
The institution of slavery provides the best explanation of the position of the fetus. The fetus under law is the property of the mother. The fetus is considered human not a pet or an inanimate object but a legal slave that is manumitted at birth. The fetus as slave exists at the pleasure of the mother.
If society does not confer the status of slave on the fetus; the fetus must assume the full rights of a sovereign human being with full rights of citizenship. To be consistent, the drunk driver and the abortionist ought to be charged with murder for ending the life of a fetus, or neither unless the status of slave is conferred on the fetus.
Is the fetus a slave or a citizen with full rights or a thing without identity?
Can the mother abort it willfully but protected from being killed wantonly, is its life fully protected as a human life, or is there a third possibility beyond denying it has identity?
Is there a way we can legally find the life of a fetus to be fully human but not fully protected without declaring it a legally designated slave?
That this question can be asked is at least partly due to our corrupted sense of what it means to be a citizen. Citizenship does not come with life under natural law. The rights of a citizen, often confused with the rights of humanity, is not attained by being born into a commonwealth. Because the commonwealth is not a reality. A commonwealth is an invention of natural law and exists by virtue of natural law. It is not a biological or physical reality. A natural event such as birth does not alter one’s status within the commonwealth.
The child is a human but not a citizen of the commonwealth with all rights of a citizen. This does not mean its life is not protected but it is not protected to the degree that the life of a citizen is protected. The citizen has full rights, aliens do not.
Under natural law the child is analogous to the migrant. Of course, the analogy is not perfect. The migrant choses to break the law and invade the space of a foreign (to him) community. Not only does the migrant have no right as regards to the political jurisdiction he enters, he has no expectation of rights or of legal protections being conferred upon him, though these can be offered. The migrant makes a wilful choice and as a legal adult can be held accountable for the choices he makes.
The fetus is not in the position of the migrant, yet, to some degree he has the status of an interloper.
The fetus is a dependent of the mother, but this does not mean that the fetus is without rights, under natural law. The mother is the sole provider of life for the child, but this does not give the mother unlimited rights over the child. The child is the sole beneficiary of the mothers’ care, but this does not mean the child is without expectations or that the mother is under no contractual obligations to provide succor.
When we create a tenancy agreement, or a service contract or enter into a relationship, certain assumptions are made by both parties, specific to that relationship and incumbent upon the parties to the relationship. In other words, a relationship is an incipient contract.
Becoming a mother is not a meaningless event and motherhood not an attribute without attachments or expectations. To be a mother to a child has meaning relationally. A relationship assumes a contractual obligation, which is why relationships when broken create trauma.
To be a mother is not the same as being an owner or a neighbor or an observer. The mother by virtue of her pregnancy moves into a relationship status with the new life, as does the father. As said, this relationship is not without meaning. The status of mother is not the same as the status of virgin, for example. The condition of mother is not the condition of a pilot flying a plane. Motherhood means the mother has a relationship with a child. This relationship as with all relationships comes with expectations and obligations that cannot be terminated at will or without recourse.
Killing the fetus terminates the relationship but the death is not tantamount to capital murder. The fetus by becoming citizen has expectations of biological security. Until then these expectations do not exist and cannot be contractually claimed. Therefore the fetus is not a protected human life under natural law as the fetus is not yet a citizen under natural law.
The mother incurs an obligation to the child upon conception. So does the father. So does society. Citizenship creates obligations on the citizen contractually owed to the community. But what those obligations are must be clarified.
A life does not exist without rights and rights are not possible outside of a relationship. The rights of a citizen are due to the relationship the citizen has with his or her community. The rights of the fetus are integral to its relationship with its mother, its father and its community.
The rights are not the same in each instance because the relationship is not the same. The mother is obliged to carry the child and protect it. If she fails in this regard, she is guilty of terminating a contractual obligation without cause and possibly without merit, but this does not make the act tantamount to capital murder.
The formation of a relationship comes with obligations called contractual rights and these rights form the expectations the beneficiary of those rights can expect with prejudice. When those expectations fall short the victim has a right to seek redress or to have his or her claims adjudicated on her or his behalf should the victim be unable to seek redress. The accused must be held accountable for falling short of their contractual obligations and society has the right and duty to hold those who fail to fulfill their contractual obligations to account.