Abortion, Choice and Reason

Abortion, Choice and Reason
by James Belton
(c)2006 James Belton, All Rights Reserved.
http://abortionchoiceandreason.blogspot.com/
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under the condition that this attribution and notice remain intact.

I.

When does life begin? The question seems so simple. And yet we have given it wildly different answers. We offer alternatively that life begins at birth, after the first trimester and at conception. Sometimes we abandon the question of time and embrace the question of function. Some suggest that life begins when the child is separated from the mother, upon whom he or she is biologically dependent. Others suggest that life begins when the child develops brain activity. Still others suggest that life begins when the child's heartbeat is detected.

Sometimes our explanations seem to come out of left field. An anthropologist once suggested that life began some millions of years ago. His argument went something like this: The sperm of ancient men entered the eggs of ancient women, fertilizing the first human egg. Since then, sperm and eggs have been joined by living men and women, forming a chain of life millions of year old.

Whichever way you answer the question, you probably think of yourself as belonging to one of two groups: Pro-Life or Pro-Choice. You might use a different label (right to life, anti-abortion, abortion rights etc.), but you still probably advocate the central idea of one of the two mentioned groups. If you advocate the Pro-life position, you believe that all unborn children should be protected by our nation's government. If you are Pro-Choice, you believe a woman has the right to terminate a pregnancy during all or part of the child's gestation period.

Dividing ourselves into two camps makes it convenient for us. It allows many of us to quickly identify for which political candidate we will vote. And when we meet someone in the other camp, many of us quickly change the content and style of our conversation.

But though this two camp system is a convenient way of identifying our philosophical enemies and allies, it sheds very little light on why we believe what we believe. It does not help us understand the ideas and motivations of our opponents. It does not allow us to go to the heart of the abortion debate. In order that we might go to this heart, I am going to ask that you put yourself into one of three groups. The first group holds that life begins at conception. Any abortion would therefore be the taking of a life. Given this belief, any reasonable person would have to conclude that our government has the responsibility to protect these children. The other option, killing the most helpless among us, would be unthinkable.

The second group holds that life begins at a particular time after conception, though there is disagreement within the group as to when that particular time occurs. Abortions that occur prior to this time or stage of development are simply medical procedures that are morally neutral. Since the fetus has not yet begun its life, it has no rights. On the other hand, its mother clearly has the right to control her own body. Few people can imagine anything more invasive than the federal government dictating what they can do with their own body.

At first glance, we might imagine that everyone would fit into one of the two above groups. After all, a person's life must begin at some point. And we all agree that taking a life, after it has begun, is immoral. Consider a newborn infant. We all agree that its life has begun. We all agree that it would be criminal to kill the child.

Nevertheless, we have yet to mention another large group of people. This group finds that their convictions about when life begins are so much in doubt, they cannot press those convictions on anyone else. They have misgivings about abortion. But they have few misgivings about a woman's right to control her own body. Their certainty about the woman's rights outweighs their inconclusive misgivings regarding abortion. Please note that when I use the words "doubt" and "inconclusive", I am describing this group's views on when life begins, not on the woman's right to have an abortion. Most of the people in this group have little doubt about a woman's right to an abortion.

This group is huge, and represents the bulk of the Pro-Choice movement. You can easily identify these people when they speak. In my discussions on the abortion question, the most prevalent view I have heard could be summarized as follows: "It's (abortion) not for me, but I'd never force anyone to have a child they did not want" or "I couldn't have one (abortion), but I'd never force my views on someone else." Consider also the number of times you have heard Pro-Choice women in conversation, expressing dismay and shock at the number of abortions an acquaintance has had. Consider also Vice President Al Gore's statement that abortions should be "Safe, legal and rare."

All of these people have some doubt about when life begins. If they were certain on that question, there would be no reason for someone to say, "It's not right for me." If someone knew a fetus had not yet begun its life, there would be no reason for them to say, regarding abortion, "I wouldn't have one". If abortion were morally neutral, there would be no reason to abhor the fact that an acquaintance had had four. There would be no compelling reason the procedure should be "rare."

For all practical purposes, everyone subscribes to one of these three views on abortion. Anyone who subscribed to the Pro-life theory must have fundamental differences with someone who subscribed to one of the last two views. Imagine anyone who believed that life begins at conception supporting liberal abortion rights. It is impossible. Likewise, imagine someone who is certain life begins at birth. Any restriction on abortion rights would be an unconscionable violation of the woman's rights. On the other hand, the person who has doubts about when life begins must feel apprehensive about having to make a personal decision about abortion. This is why hundreds of thousands of women have suffered emotionally after having an abortion, racked with doubt, questioning their decision years afterwards.

How we answer our perennial question then, has a dramatic effect (often absolutely determines) whether we are Pro-Life or Pro-Choice. But it has far more effect than that. It renders many of our opponent's arguments completely nonsensical. Take for example the popular Pro-Choice argument that every child should be a wanted child. If you hold that the fetus being aborted is only a collection of the mother's tissues, this argument makes perfect sense. In fact, given those assumptions, who could suggest that a mother be compelled to bare a child she does not want? Who could wish that a child be put into that position?

However, if you hold that the child the woman is carrying has already begun his or her life, that he or she is a human in the very first stages of development, the argument becomes absurd. There are thousands of children living with unloving parents. Indeed, there are countless children who are physically, emotionally and sexually abused. These are deplorable conditions under which no child should have to endure. Nonetheless, no one would suggest that we end the abuse by executing the abused child.

The question of when life begins begs to be answered for yet another reason. Recall those hundreds of thousands of women who suffer from doubt and guilt after having an abortion. No one could be insensitive to their plight. But if we as a society could find the answer to this question, women could make their decisions with certainty. Forget for a moment the question, "Should abortion be legal?" If we could agree with certainty that the child's life begins at conception, should we deny this information to a woman considering abortion? Likewise, if we conclude that life begins in the third trimester, should we not inform that same woman? There is no reason for her to suffer guilt and doubt about her first trimester abortion if we can determine that she did not kill her child, but simply eliminated some of her own cells.

Of course, the most important reason to address this question has thus far only been alluded to. The question concerns death. One of the possibilities is that someone will die.

When I am not writing down my thoughts on abortion, I fix tower bells and clocks. I work in church bell towers and courthouse towers and repair the mechanisms that ring their bells or operate their clocks. Often this work takes me to heights where, if I should fall, barring divine intervention, I would die. When I work at such heights, and conditions permit, I wear a safety harness and line. Every time I use this equipment, I check it. I make sure the line has not been cut. I inspect it for signs of wear. I check that the hooks still lock. I do all of this despite the fact that, in the most fundamental sense, I have never used a safety harness and line. I have never fallen. A safety harness has never broken my fall. Why do I check what I have never used? I do so because if the equipment has a flaw, one of the possible outcomes is that someone will die. A particular someone will die - me.

Let us recall our question, "When does life begin?" For the rest of this book, I will be asking you to check your answer to that question, and what that answer means. What do you believe? More importantly, why do you believe it? What are the logical consequences of those beliefs? Check your answers thoroughly, for the same reason I check my safety harness and lines - one of the possible outcomes is that someone will die.

In asking you to check your beliefs - subject your ideas to your own intellectual scrutiny - I am asking you to do something simultaneously painful and intoxicating. Socrates taught us about this pain when he went into the streets of Athens and solicited people's opinions. Then as now, people freely gave opinions. But they were offended and astonished with the question that followed. "Why do you think that?" With that simple question, Socrates created a beautiful and rational system of thought. With that simple question, Socrates became extraordinarily unpopular.

One way of gauging the popularity of the Socratic method is to view television news. Very often guests are asked to mouth opposing views. Very rarely are these guests asked to explain the rationale behind their beliefs. The fireworks of controversy are achieved, while carefully avoiding the most exquisite of gifts - true thought. The practice of making unsupported statements that convey little true knowledge is so prevalent that we have invented a word to explain the phenomena - the sound bite.

But before we begin to examine our question, I will be rude enough to change it. I ask your forgiveness, but I believe by changing the question very slightly, we can achieve an enormous amount of clarity. The question should not be, "When does life begin," but "When did your life begin?"

Many will object that I am personalizing an already explosive issue. This is precisely what I am doing, but not for the reasons many might think. Do you recall the anthropologist who argued that there was a continuum of life from ancient ancestor, to sperm, into egg, that becomes a child, who continues the process by producing either eggs or sperm etc? This idea suggests that life began thousands of years ago. It would follow then that the question, "When does life begin?" is irrelevant.

The anthropologist's idea is a very interesting historical/anthropological concept. But of course, applying it to the abortion question is absurd. When talking about abortion, we are not concerned with ending all life, or all human life. We are concerned with ending a particular human life. Every individual life begins at some point. The fact that a continuum of life began before your birth and will continue after your death does not enlighten our understanding of abortion.

Put another way, imagine for a moment that I was shot to death and that the person who pulled the trigger was being tried for murder. The gunman's attorney might argue that the shooting was justified because I was threatening his client. It was an act of self defense. He might argue that his client was temporarily insane. He might argue that the gunman was intellectually or socially or economically disadvantaged. But in no case would he argue the anthropologist's thesis. He would never argue that the shooting was acceptable because there was a continuum of life that dates back to ancient man, and that the human race would not perish because of my death. His client is being tried for a particular murder, not the destruction of all human life.

Changing the question clarifies another point. Life is far too general for our purposes. After all, a basil plant is life. For that matter, sperm are alive. Unfertilized eggs are alive. But few people reading this book are deeply concerned that too many sperm are poisoned with spermicide. Likewise, few people are especially concerned about the destruction of unfertilized human eggs. The number of people who refuse to eat those murdered basil plants are very small. We are not concerned about life in general, but each particular human life.

We can all agree on three things. A sperm alone is not a human life. An egg alone is not a human life. An infant, moments after delivery, is a living human being.

We disagree, often dramatically, about when we become human. But for a moment, let us also put that question aside. Before we consider when we become human, let us consider what it means to be a human.

Let us start with the proposition that there are at least three different facets to the human condition - physical, mental and emotional. Most people, including myself, would agree that there is a fourth facet, the spiritual. I would even suggest that the spiritual was the most important dimension of our condition. But the spiritual life is a consensus killer. Some people do not believe it exists. Those who believe it does exist often have radically different views on its nature. Imagine, for example, a Christian and a New Age adherent discussing the nature of the spiritual life. For the purposes of our discussion, we will not discuss the spiritual facet of the human condition.

The mental facet is perhaps the first one we consider when we think of what it means to be human. It clearly distinguishes us from the animals. It enabled us to develop language and writing. Using our mental capacities, we have built complicated, powerful machines like cars, planes and computers. Our government, our universities, our society, our economic system depend upon our mental capacity. Sometimes we use it unwisely, but there can be no doubt that our mental ability dramatically affects our daily life. It is fully integrated into our understanding of what it means to be a human. In fact, without it, we could not even discuss what it means to be a human.

Though we may not esteem it as much as our mental selves, our physical facet is vital to the human condition. It is the physical mouth that allows us to speak the language conceived by our mental selves. It is the physical ear that receives the words of another. The physical hands build and manipulate the complicated and powerful machines, many of which are designed to transport or comfort our physical selves.

Although we like to think of ourselves as logical, mental creatures, we most often describe human life as the change of the physical self. The theme is ancient and venerable: the beauty and frailty and whimsy of childhood, followed by the vigor, restlessness and hope of youth, followed by the challenge and strength of adulthood, followed by the decline of old age. Sometimes old age is pictured as a period of wisdom and clarity, sometimes as a period of bitterness and decay, but always as a time when the destruction of our physical selves is ever present.

Our society is obsessed with our physical facet. Consider the number of articles in a typical magazine rack devoted to diets and cosmetics designed to shape and adorn our physical selves. Consider the number of conversations we have, devoted to the conflict between the desire to have a beautiful physical self and the desire to please our physical taste buds.

Of course, this obsession with our physical facet is not remotely new. Recall the Iliad. Offered power and glory, Paris instead chose Helen, the most beautiful woman in the world. When we retell fairy tales, we take great pains to make the heroine not only beautiful, but talented and intelligent. But the original stories were not as concerned about the latter attributes. In fact, in many of the original tales, all we knew about the heroine was that she was beautiful. The hero was a handsome prince. Among other attributes, it was understood that he commanded the financial resources to make his true love's physical self very comfortable. He also had the physical ability to kill dragons and other powerful monsters.

In some ways I have depicted the physical facet in too negative a light. This is unfair. Consider the art devoted to the celebration of the physical human. Our physical selves are at the core of the arts we call sports. Imagine hiking up a mountain and standing at its peak. The sky is blue, the sun shines vibrantly through the green leaves, your legs are fatigued and your heart is racing with triumph, while a cool breeze blows softly across your hot face. And over you washes the unspoken understanding that your physical self is central to what it means to be human.

If the mental and physical facets are easily defined, the emotional facet is less so. It is not reason, yet it depends upon the mind. It is not essentially physical, yet it is linked to our bodies. It is love, hate, fear, excitement, anticipation, greed, dread, sorrow, joy and regret.

I have already made much of the mental and physical facets of being human. But perhaps the true importance of these facets is only realized when they interact with our emotional selves. If the mental facet allows us to speak, how often do we speak to satisfy our emotional selves? If the mental facet allows us to write novels and paint and sculpt and produce plays and film movies, would any of these things exist without emotion? Would we be obsessed with our physical beauty if it were not for lust and vanity? Do we not climb the mountain peak so that we might be overjoyed by what we see and feel and hear?

To further illustrate how the emotional facet brings the mental and physical together, consider the following poem:

Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sent the sun in flight,
And learn too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Dylan Thomas

I apologize in advance to all English Professors. But perhaps I can use this poem to illustrate my point. Since the poem is written language, it can not be written or read without the mental facet. It is a poem about the death of the physical facet. The poem could be mentally or rationally summarized something like this: "Father, you are dying. Men have died in the past, regardless of their general disposition, whether they are described as wise, good, wild or grave. Historically these men have expressed regret as they near death, for a variety of reasons, usually associated with the way they lived their lives. Since you are my Father I think you should resist death, as other men who have had regrets have historically resisted death."

This summary is accurate, but completely devoid of the essential beauty of the poem. Had Dylan Thomas replaced his words with mine, they would have soon been forgotten. Instead, his poem embodies some of the most essential elements that make human life precious.

One way to understand some of these elements is to take note of how much more physical the poem is than the summary. The poem does not actually mention the mental concept of death, but instead describes a conflict between day and night, light and darkness. The writer does not recommend that the old resist death but that they "burn and rave at close of day". Wise men do not regret death because they said nothing profound but because "their words had forked no lightning." Good men do not regret death because they did not receive the praise of their peers but because they saw "how bright their deeds might have danced in a green bay." Wild men do not indulge in excess but instead "caught and sang the sun in flight". Grave men do not understand clearly but "see with blinding sight". These physical elements distance the poem from a strictly mental or rational level. It takes us to a concrete world, where our emotions are immediate and present.

This is precisely where Thomas wants us to experience his poem, for that was where he was when he wrote it. Thomas is using the mental vehicle of language to describe people doing things that are not particularly rational. Wise men and good men and wild men and grave men all know that it is time to die, but they have regrets about their lives, and "Do not go gentle into that good night". The last stanza is the least logical and most powerful of all. The poet asks for mutually contradictory things: that his father curse and bless him. And this is the highlight of the poem; for it is there that we are left with one simple, emotional plea. Thomas does not want his father to die.

The poem touches us because it is enormously human. It is mental and physical and emotional. And if Thomas had written without one of these elements, it would have been a much lesser poem.

While all three of these facets make up what it means to be a human, there exists a broad spectrum of abilities within these human facets. Consider the difference between the mental abilities of Albert Einstein, the average doctor, the average carpenter and the average person with Downs Syndrome. At one extreme you have a scientist so intelligent that he is proposing theories that, when simplified to its most rudimentary parts, most of us cannot understand. On the other extreme you have a mentally impaired person who might have trouble with simple addition. This range of intelligence is very broad. Nonetheless, all of these people enjoy equal protection under our laws. If you were to shoot any of the previously mentioned people (assuming Albert Einstein was still alive) the consequences would be the same. The state would try you for murder.

Consider also the emotional maturity of a grandparent, a parent, a newly-wed couple, a single young adult, a teenager, a ten year old child and a two year old child. Grandparents often make great sacrifices, sometimes making significant life changes to benefit their children or grandchildren. On the opposite end of the spectrum, two year old children will often fight over toys. They will do this even if they have other toys they could play with, and even if they had no previous interest in the toy in question. The range of emotional maturity is very broad. But all of these people enjoy equal protection under the law.

Finally, it will be readily understood that the physical capabilities of humans can vary widely. Michael Jordan can perform physical feats of which most of us can only dream. A paraplegic can not perform many physical feats that most of us take for granted. Nonetheless, both Michael Jordan and the paraplegic enjoy the same protection under the law.

There are three facets to the human condition: mental, physical and emotional. But there are a broad range of abilities within each of these facets.

We have roughly described what it means to be human. You may not find my observations particularly inspired or insightful. But I think you can agree that the three human facets I have described are critical to our understanding of what it means to be a human.

This leaves us with a new understanding of our question. For the remainder of this book, when I ask, "When did your life begin?" I will ask you to understand "When did you become human?" When did something meaningful occur that created the fundamental structure of who you are mentally, physically and emotionally?

Now let us answer the question. "When did your life begin?" One of the most obvious suggestions is that your life began at birth. For your parents, your birth was among the most dramatic events of their lives. It was a time of great physical pain and emotional joy. For you, it was a violent and dramatic event. If you were like most children, you probably decided to exercise your lungs and vocal chords. You were just born, and no amount of fanfare was too great.

It was the time when your physical self became most abruptly evident to your parents. Prior to your birth, they must have imagined what you would look like. They probably thought of themselves and their relatives, and came up with a composite in their mind. Perhaps they had a shadowy image of you produced by an ultrasound. They hoped that you would have features that are standard in humans: two arms, two legs, ten fingers, ten toes, functioning eyes, ears and nose.

When you were born, something dramatic happened. Your physical self became specific to your parents. You had a specific hair color, or no hair at all. Your eyes, nose and head had a specific shape. You cried and screamed with a specific voice. Your fingers and toes were a specific length and thickness. Your skin had a specific texture and color. They could see you, hear you, touch you and smell you in a way they never could before. Your physical self was thrust upon your parents in a dramatic and violent and sweet event.

The emotional impact this has on most parents is tremendous. I can say without hesitation that the birth of my first daughter was the single happiest event of my life. Please understand me. I am not saying that because my child was born, she has brought me great happiness over the years. I am saying that the evening she was delivered I was overwhelmed with joy. At no other time, before or since, have I been so given over to emotion.

Another thing occurred when you were born. You inherited the absolute right to life under our legal system. The first three months you were in your mother's womb, she had a legal right to eliminate you if she wished. For the last six months you were in your mother's womb your life was dramatically subordinated to your mother's health. If her doctor concluded that her mental or physical health was in anyway harmed by your presence, he had great latitude under the law to eliminate you. If it was concluded during your mother's pregnancy that you would be disabled or that there was a high probability that you would be disabled, she could get rid of you.

All of this changed after you left your mother's womb. Almost instantly, eliminating you became one of the highest crimes in the land. Your mother could offer you up for adoption, but she could not eliminate you for any reason. This is the case even if you were suffering from severe disability.

But did your life actually begin at birth? Did any change occur at the time of your birth that transformed you from a human mass of cells into an individual human? Was anything vital and profound created concerning your physical, mental and emotional facets?

Certainly many changes occurred. You were pushed outside of your mother's body. You were exposed to new stimulus. You were bombarded by light, sounds, smells and the feel of the air. When the umbilical chord was cut, you were physically separated from your mother. You used your lungs for the first time. You would soon receive nourishment from your mouth.

All of these were important developments. But we cannot honestly say that our lives began at birth. None of these changes is significant enough to draw a line between a human mass of cells into an individual human. They say almost nothing about your humanity. They changed your mental, emotional and physical self only marginally.

When you were born, we can assume that your mental facet was reacting to the enormous amount of stimulation already mentioned. In some rudimentary way you were learning about the sights, sounds, touch and smell of your new environment. Although you could not understand the words your doctor, nurse and mother spoke, you were exposed to language. This was all dramatic, but it was not the first time your mental self was exposed to stimulation. When you were born you discovered that your skin could be dry and that the air could be cool. Before you were born you discovered that your skin could be wet, and that this liquid could be warm. You had no idea that the former condition was outside your mother's womb and that the latter was inside her womb. You could not articulate what you had learned in any way. But you had learned something inside the womb. You would later contrast this condition, in some rudimentary way, with the condition outside the womb.

When you were born you heard people speak. You did not understand what they were saying, but in a fundamental sense, you were learning language. Think about the process that went into teaching you your first word. This process did not take place all at once, right before you spoke the first magical word. First you heard the sounds. Then you noticed who made the sounds - your mother and father and their friends. Then you noticed where the sounds came from - their mouths. At some point you came to understand that they were trying to communicate with you and others. At another point, you learned that different words meant different things. Later you learned which words meant which things. You learned that the tall woman always talking to you was mommy. Then you learned how to shape your mouth to say mommy. Then you spoke.

It probably took you more than a year to learn this lesson. From the moment you were born - or at least the moment you stopped crying - you were engaged in this process. But we know this is wrong. You began this process before you were born. You could hear the world outside the womb long before you were born. This is why doctors encourage parents to speak to and read to their children in utero. You took your very first steps learning to speak while your mother still carried you. These steps are not insignificant. Recent research has shown that you could recognize your mother's voice before you were born.

When you were born you were subjected to an enormous amount of stimulation. This stimulation was in a fundamental sense educational. But this stimulation was not the event that transformed you from a mass of human cells to a human being. It could not logically do so because you had already been exposed to similar stimulation.

Before you were born you relied on your mother for oxygen and food. Since both oxygen and food are necessary for survival, you were dependent upon your mother for life. Once again, it might be argued that this is an excellent legal reason to deny you life. It is a terrible reason to suggest a change in your status as an individual. The day before you were born, your lungs were capable of breathing. Your body was capable of digesting food. You were not able to perform either of these functions because you were surrounded by amniotic fluid. Once your geographic location changed - you were expelled from the womb and placed in the larger world - you were allowed to perform both of these functions.

Your birth was a dramatic event for yourself and your parents. However, your birth did not create the fundamental structure of who you are mentally, physically and emotionally.

If your life did not begin when you were born, when did it? Many have suggested that this occurred when you were able to survive outside the womb. A child who has reached this stage is described as being viable. Many people have argued that when the fetus achieves viability, it should be aborted only if the mother's life or health is at stake. The idea that you inherited some rights when you achieved viability is very popular.

But let us ask our question, "Did your life begin when you became able to live outside your mother's womb?" We can answer this question by considering what is being asked. First, by its very definition, the question is not concerned with your mental or emotional facets. The question is specifically concerned with whether or not your physical facet is sufficiently developed to perform certain functions that will allow you to live. Are your lungs sufficiently developed to breathe air? Is your digestive tract sufficiently developed to process food?

Certainly these functions are important and eventually necessary. But can we agree that your life began when you could perform these functions? Can we say that you ceased to be a mass of human cells and became an individual human at that point? To do so would be to place the physical in a position of supremacy over the mental and emotional.

There is a second problem with the question of fetal viability. The question does not ask, "Is this baby able to perform the necessary biological functions to live?" Instead it asks, "Is this baby able to perform the necessary biological functions to live using current medical technology?" And current medical technology is moving very quickly. Babies that were not viable ten years ago now are.

This begs an obvious question. Does the rapid improvement in medical technology affect your physical, mental and emotional facets? Does the rapid change in medical technology make you any more human? Does technology alter your fundamental rights? The clear answer is no.

I think a third problem with this reasoning is even more serious. It assumes that physical dependence is somehow outside the realm of human experience. Nothing could be further from the truth. A long period of physical dependence is one phenomenon that separates man from virtually every other animal. Human newborns are more helpless than the young of any other species, and remain in physical dependence for the longest period of time. A two year old dog might survive alone in the wilderness. But when you were two, you would have had almost no chance.

Furthermore, there is nothing in our moral tradition that suggests the weak and powerless are less human. In fact, a very important body of our morality encourages us to protect the weak and powerless. This protection goes beyond caring for our helpless young. If a dog was to be paralyzed in an accident from the neck down, he would be quickly abandoned by his pack. But if a human faced the same accident, he would be cared for. It is also a human practice to care for the needs of those elderly who can no longer survive without assistance, even if such care spans years or even decades. The weak and powerless are not regarded as less human, but are instead cherished and cared for.

Some may argue that there is a distinct difference between the care required by a person before fetal viability and after birth. In the latter case the care could be given by any responsible adult. Before fetal viability, the care must be given by a particular person: the mother. This might be a good reason to allow abortions, and is an issue we will discuss later. But it says nothing about your humanity before you reached fetal viability. If you are dependent on some one to survive, the source of that aid cannot make you more or less human.

There is a final problem with using viability as a gauge for when your life began. We often forget the fact, but the concept of viability is entirely dependent on geography. Before you were born, you were perfectly viable in the geography of your mother's womb. You are now viable in the geography of the room where you are currently sitting.

Now imagine that you have borrowed money from some disreputable people. You cannot repay them. They consequently decide to fashion you a pair of cement shoes and drop you into the Hudson River. Imagine that the men who killed you were apprehended. But the loan sharks claim that they did nothing wrong. You had no right to live, they argue, since you were not viable in the geographical location which is the bottom of the Hudson River. No judge or jury would accept this line of reasoning. But this is exactly the line of reasoning we use when we argue that our lives began when we achieved fetal viability.

Your life did not begin the day you became viable. Your humanity is not dependent on current medical technology or your present geography. There is nothing in our moral tradition to suggest that those who are physically dependent on others are less human. Finally, on the day you became viable, the fundamental structure of who you are mentally, physically and emotionally was not created.

Many people have suggested that your life began in the third trimester. The ten month human gestation period is often divided into three equal periods, referred to as trimesters. It is very popular to assign the unborn child different levels of rights based upon which trimester he is currently in. In fact, this is the stand of the Supreme Court of the United States. When you were in your first trimester, your mother could eliminate you for any reason. Theoretically, as you moved into the second and third trimester, the government had greater power to regulate abortion.

But did your life begin when you entered the third trimester? There is little reason to believe so. First of all, the trimester system is not a particularly accurate determination of your age. That is because it is based primarily on when your mother skipped her last period, not the date you were conceived. Assuming for example that a woman is fertile for 14 days out of each menstrual cycle, there could be a 14 day discrepancy in age between two different babies entering what we call the third trimester. In other words, one child might enter the third trimester at 173 days, while another might enter it at 187 days. This begs the question, "On which day does a child begin its life?" At day 173, at day 180 or at day 187?

If the answer is 173, and if we actually used the trimester system to determine the child's right to life, then we would routinely deny the fundamental right to life to living children who happened to be conceived early in their mother's menstrual cycle. If the answer is 187, then we would routinely deny rights to mothers who are unnecessarily required to continue pregnancies that do not represent real lives. If the answer is 180, then we take turns denying rights in a bizarre and grotesque lottery.

But of course, this quandary simply begs another question. What profound change occurred to you on day 173 or 180 or 187? What change occurred to your physical, mental or emotional self that changed you from a mass of cells into a human whose life had begun? The answer is none. You grew significantly in size during your second trimester. Your organs matured. Otherwise, it was a comparatively uneventful period. All of your major organs, including your heart, brain and nervous system, were created in the first trimester.

If your life did not begin when you entered the third trimester, did it begin when you entered the second? You were at that time incredibly small, but the essential framework of your organs was already present. They only needed time for further growth and development. The creation of your internal organs was a truly dramatic achievement, for in a very short period of time you created the necessary systems that would allow you to breathe, eat and pump blood. But if we are to regard the development of your organs as the time your life began, then we must move the beginning of your life to the second month of your gestation. That was when the bulk of your organs were created.

But while we require our organs to live, are our organs what makes us human? They say something about who we are physically, but do they really speak about who we are mentally and emotionally? Consider an ailing man. His heart is failing. His doctor installs in him an artificial heart. Is he any less human? Later his liver gives out. He must be hooked to a dialysis machine. Does he surrender any of his fundamental rights as a citizen of the United States? His kidneys fail, and his younger brother donates one to him. Is he any less human than before? Is his brother? Has his brother not performed one of the most humane acts possible?

The truth is, we are not the sum of our organs. We require them to live, just as we require blood to live. But imagine for a moment a man who has been injured in a horrible accident. He is taken to a hospital where he undergoes an operation. Because he is bleeding profusely, he is given large quantities of blood. Soon he has bled more blood than he possessed before the accident. No one can say for certain how much of the blood in him is his own. Is he, at that moment, one bit less human than before?

Your life did not begin when you entered your second or third trimester. You grew in size and your organs developed. But while this development was important, it did not constitute the creation of a fundamental structure of who you are mentally, physically and emotionally.

Did your life begin when you first exercised your brain? This is a tempting suggestion. Your brain is required to move your physical self. Your brain is required to experience your emotional self. And the activity of your brain is the essence of your mental self.

But there are some problems ascertaining when you first exercised your brain. Of all our organs, the brain is the one we understand the least. Using various sensors and devices, scientists have been able to measure brain activity as early as the 45th day of gestation. This is very early in pregnancy. But with as little as we know about the brain, is it not possible that there is brain activity that we do not know how to measure? Your nervous system and brain was the first organ system you developed. By the 28th day of gestation your brain was clearly visible. Is it not possible that you exercised your brain earlier, but that we could not detect this activity with our crude machines?

If you are to regard the first day of your life as the first day you exercised your brain, we must place that first day very early in your gestation period. That is, your life might have begun before your mother realized she was pregnant.

But if we say that your life begins when you first used your brain, are we not placing the mental facet far above the emotional and physical facets? Perhaps your mental self is more important than your emotional or physical selves. Perhaps it is not. But are we not showing extreme prejudice towards the mind when we place its development as the sole indicator of the beginning of your life?

If the exercise of your brain seems a possible time to date the first day of your life, is there another time which seems more accurate? Was a fundamental structure of who you are physically, mentally and emotionally created even earlier? Was there an earlier time when you became, in some essential sense, who you are? Many people in the pro-life movement have suggested that your life began the day you were conceived.

When the sperm fertilized the egg, you received your genetic code. Ralph Reed, a major figure in the pro-life movement, has argued that your genetic code was an exact blueprint of the human you were to become. He claims that your genetic code defines who you will become, down to the last detail. The destruction of an embryo with its own genetic code, would, in essence, be the destruction of a human being.

In one sense, this argument is a great overstatement. Your genetic code is not an "exact blueprint of the person you will become." Mr. Reed is unsuccessfully trying to simplify one of the oldest debates in human history: the role of nature versus nurture in shaping a human being. Centuries before anyone ever heard of the genetic code, people argued that a person's nature - their emotional predisposition, innate intelligence, physical aptitude, the features you brought into this world without training - played the crucial role in your life. Whether you succeeded or failed was determined by the abilities you inherited from your parents.

Centuries before the advent of modern psychology, people argued that the way you were nurtured- the emotional support of your parents, the education you received, the physical training you underwent - played the crucial role in your life. Whether you succeeded or failed was determined by the way you were raised.

Centuries later, there is no clear victor in this debate. One thing that is clear is that neither nature nor nurture enjoys complete domination over the other. Almost no one who favors nature would argue that the environment in which you grew up is irrelevant. Almost no one who favors nurture would suggest that your genetic code did not matter.

To illustrate this point, consider a hypothetical child. His genetic code indicated a highly intelligent, physically strong individual who nonetheless had a propensity towards emotional depression. He was conceived by intelligent parents who took their parental responsibilities very seriously. But in the hospital, the nurse accidentally switches the boy with another baby. Instead of going home with his biological parents, he goes home with someone else's parents. These parents are not intelligent. They keep no books about the house to excite his curiosity. They feed him poorly. They are not emotionally supportive.

The most dedicated advocates of the supremacy of nature would say that this young man will triumph. Some people will succeed in whatever environment they are put. If they are put in a nurturing environment, they will take advantage of it. If they are put in a hostile environment, they will rebel against it. They will find strength in overcoming adversity. A casual review of biographic literature reveals that many of the greatest political leaders, industrial tycoons and artists in history were poorly nurtured.

The most dedicated advocates of the supremacy of nurture would predict almost certain failure for the boy. The boy's innate abilities will not be able to overcome the terrible environment in which he was raised. If he is able to overcome this adversity, it will probably be attributed to someone else helping him: a grandparent, an aunt, a teacher, a friend. An extensive body of statistics has been compiled to demonstrate that people who are raised in a poor environment usually fail.

But both the advocates for nature and nurture would agree that the boy who was raised by the nurturing parents would be different from the boy raised by the negligent parents. If the boy was raised by negligent parents and became a dramatic success, there would still be some adverse affects because of his upbringing. Perhaps he might be emotionally callous or possess an obsessive work ethic or be very rigid in his opinions. In any case, he would be a different person than if he had been raised by the nurturing parents. It therefore could not be said that his genetic code provided an "exact blueprint" of what he would become.

But if Mr. Reed is guilty of overstatement, he is on to an excellent point. For regardless of where you stand on the nature versus nurture debate, you must agree that an enormous number of things were determined the day you were conceived - the day you received your genetic code. First and perhaps most important, on that day it was determined that you would be a man or a woman. On that day was determined the color of your skin. You were given the color of your eyes and the color of your hair. It was determined if you hair was to be thick or thin, straight or curly. If you were a man, it was determined if you would go bald. It was determined if your frame would be stocky or slight, tall or short.

We know less about what was determined emotionally than physically. But distinguished scientists believe that the day you were conceived you did or did not receive a propensity for schizophrenia, clinical depression and other metal illnesses. Distinguished doctors believe you did or did not receive a propensity for alcoholism. And I think we can all agree that something profound was determined about our personality based on our genetic code. What mother of two has not marveled at the dramatic difference between her two children's personalities from the day they were born?

We have even less detailed information about what was determined on that day mentally. We have yet to identify special genes for aptitude in math, science, literature or art. But our inability to identify these genes does not mean they do not exist. Intuitively we sense that something profound was determined regarding your mental facet that day. Consider a family with three girls. All three are well nourished, encouraged and given a good education. The first possesses amazing math skills, but can not comprehend the simplest literary concepts. The second seems to have only meager intellectual gifts. The third is a brilliant painter who cannot balance her own check book. All three were raised by the same parents in the same house, attending the same schools. Were these girls made different simply by environment? How many families do you know who have children with enormously different intellectual gifts?

To understand the tremendous impact of the day you were conceived, consider again the debate waging between nature and nurture. For centuries, no conclusive answer has been given to this question. But after endless debate, the inability of either side to master the other suggests an important truth. Both your nature and your nurture have a major impact on who you are as a human being.

For the sake of argument, and to avoid partiality towards either side, let us assume that 50% of who you are physically, mentally and emotionally was derived from your nature. Let us also assume that 50% of who you are physically, mentally and emotionally was derived from your nurture. Let us rephrase this assumption in another way. You inherited 50% of who you are from your genes and 50% from your environment. The 50% determined by your nurture was developed over a period of years. The 50% determined from your nature was received on one momentous day. It is therefore a gross understatement to say that the day of conception was the most important day of your life. It was far more important than any year of your life.

Curiously enough, this idea is well supported, though inadvertently so, by the research of many feminists. Many feminists have written that gender is the single most important factor in any woman's life. They claim it is more important than class, race, religion or education. Your gender was one of the many things determined the day you were conceived.

On the day you were conceived an egg and a sperm met. The egg was not a human life. The sperm was not a human life. But they met, and were transformed into a human life. For when they met, a profound structure of who you are physically, mentally and emotionally was created.

We noted earlier that in some sense Mr. Reed was making an overstatement when he said that your genetic code was an exact blueprint of who you would become. But in another sense he was greatly understating what occurred the day you were conceived. The root cause of his error is the analogy he was using: the blueprint. The analogy is flawed at its core. What is created with the union of egg and sperm is not an exact blueprint, but something infinitely more profound.

Blueprints are plans used by builders to create a building or machine. They are lifeless. They can do nothing by themselves. What you became the day you were conceived was totally different. On that day you acquired the drive to be.

You sought nourishment from your mother's body. You divided your cells. You implanted yourself onto your mother's uterus. You took nutrients from her. You created your own heart, brain and lungs according to your genetic code. You took food from your mother. You created your own limbs. You took oxygen from your mother. You created your own eyes and ears. You grew until you could be housed in your mother's uterus no longer. You were expelled from her body. You breathed. And you grew.

Mothers and fathers often speak of "making babies." We often talk of mother's "creating life." This is a beautiful and poetic way of describing the vital role of the mother before, during and after gestation. Your mother created the egg from which you were conceived. She supplied you with food and oxygen as you grew in her womb. If she smoked and drank or used drugs she might have harmed you. If she ate well she fed you well. But she did not create your heart, lungs, body and mind. You created them.

Did you know what you were doing? Of course not. You did not know what you were doing and could not have stopped it. But this creation was coming out of you. You had the drive to be. And your drive to be was carrying you forward relentlessly.

Let me phrase the acquisition of the drive to be another way. With modern science it is possible to extract a sperm and to give it an ideal environment. We could feed it an ideal diet. We could give it oxygen and keep it at an ideal temperature. We could read it Shakespeare. But if it does not join with an egg, it can never be anything more than a sperm, and will soon die.

With modern science it is possible to extract an egg and to give it an ideal environment. We could feed it an ideal diet. We could give it oxygen and keep it at an ideal temperature. We could play it Mozart. But if it does not join with an egg it can never be anything more than an egg and will soon die.

But once the egg and sperm are joined together, your life began. You acquired the drive to be. You created yourself. You grew into a person who could read Shakespeare and appreciate Mozart. And the only way we could stop you, was to kill you.

On the day you were conceived, a fundamental structure of who you are mentally, physically and emotionally was created. Moreover, on that day you acquired the drive to be. The only way to extinguish that drive, was to kill you. The day you were conceived was the first day of your life.

II.

I think I have demonstrated that your life began the day you were conceived. That is, I have given rational arguments, and the evidence to support those arguments, so that any reasonable person would conclude that their life began on that day. I have not yet demonstrated that abortion should be illegal. But I have established that the day you were conceived was the first day of your life. I would like to do something unconventional at this time. I would like you to determine in your mind if I am right.

My reason for this is simple. The following chapter of this book assumes that I am correct. If I am correct, most of the stands I will take in this next chapter will seem perfectly logical. If I am wrong, my stands will appear absurd.

The first two chapters of this book are a house. It is built upon the following foundation: "Your life began the day you were conceived." If the foundation is good, the house may stand. If the foundation is bad, no brick, mortar, wood or nails will keep it from falling.

Decide if I am right or wrong. Take an hour or a day or a week or a year. If the answer is yes, then continue reading. If the answer is no, then I have already taken too much of your time. Discard this book. It is worthless to you.

I only ask that you have a reason why I am wrong. Decide yourself when your life began. Choose a time you can embrace with reason. Choose a time you can embrace with moral conviction. Be sure of yourself. Hundreds of thousands of lives are at stake.

If you believe my foundation is good, read on. Perhaps we can build a house of reason and moral justice together.

Now that we have our foundation, let us examine some of the more popular arguments people have given to support the right to have an abortion. We will examine these one at a time. We will ask ourselves, given our foundation, do these arguments make sense. Are they intellectually defensible? Are they morally defensible?

Every child a wanted child

How many times have you heard the above words spoken, or seen them on a bumper sticker? They express at least one sentiment we can all embrace. Clearly, everyone desires that all children have parents that want them. The argument expresses the fear that if abortion is illegal, there will be more unwanted children in this world. These children might have abusive or indifferent parents.

This argument brings up a dark part of human life: many children are abused. If we allow people to have abortions, then more of the children born will be wanted. Theoretically, wanted children would be less likely to be abused.

There are two obvious problems with this argument. First, if it were true, you would expect that the number of abused children would sharply drop after the legalization of abortion. In fact, the opposite is true. After abortion was legalized, the number of reported child abuse cases sharply rose in the United States. In 1972, there were approximately 60,000 reported cases of child abuse. By 1988, that figure had skyrocketed to 2,250,000 (Beckwith 63-64).

These statistics do not vindicate the pro-choice position. If anything, they suggest that an increase in the abortion rates resulted in an increase of child abuse.

Sidney Callahan, a psychologist and pro-life feminist, offers an explanation for this phenomenon. She articulates the corrupting and de-humanizing practice of establishing any human's value based on "wantedness".

It will be readily recognized that we routinely set the value of material goods based in large part on how much or how little they are desired or wanted. That is why an ounce of gold is valuable, while an ounce of common sand is not. Similarly, the newest computer processor chip might sell for hundreds of dollars. Five years later, the same chip in the same condition might be unsaleable. The older chip's intrinsic abilities have not changed one bit. But no one wants the older chip, because they would much rather have a newer and more powerful one.

When we set the value of another human being on how much they are wanted, we are treating them as we would material goods. As Sidney Callahan explains, we exert a callous power over the least powerful of human beings.

The powerful (including parents) cannot be allowed to want and unwant people at will...

It's destructive of family life for parents to even think in these categories of wanted and unwanted children. By using the words you set up parents with too much power, including psychological power, over their children. Somehow the child is being measured by the parent's attitudes and being defined by the parent's feelings. We usually want only objects, and wanting them or not implies that we are superior, or at least engage in a one-way relationship, to them.

In the same way, men have "wanted" women through the ages. Often a woman's position was precarious and rested on being wanted by some man. The unwanted woman could be cast off when she was no longer a desirable object. She did not have an intrinsic dignity beyond wanting (Beckwith 65).

Given the facts, it is almost impossible to believe that legalized abortion actually reduces child abuse. Instead, it appears far more likely that legalized abortion increases abuse.

There is a second, more serious problem with this popular pro-choice argument. It does not help the children it purports to help. We can all agree that the physical, emotional and sexual abuse of children is a serious problem. This problem has caught the attention of a large number of well meaning people. Many solutions have been proposed to resolve this problem.

Some recommend parental training classes in our schools. Some recommend large scale programs that identify abusive families. These families are then to be given extensive counseling. Some advocate more aggressive removal of children from abusive families. But please note that no one advocates the simplest plan. No one advocates the plan that guarantees 100% success.

It is apparent and undeniable that we can eliminate child abuse by simply killing all abused children. This would guarantee success. It would permanently remedy the specific failures of parenting classes. We could stop worrying about the recidivism associated with family counseling. We could avoid the controversy of child removal. We could avoid the problems associated with foster homes.

Taking the lives of all abused children answers every problem except one: It destroys the very people we are trying to protect. And that makes it the most absurd answer possible. It is the answer so abhorrent, no one would suggest it, or want to suggest it.

And yet it is the answer plastered over bumper stickers everywhere. Yes, we all want every child to be a wanted child. But the bumper sticker gives only one unspoken way of achieving this goal: kill the unwanted children. It is the only answer that destroys the very children we are trying to protect.

Once you understand this, you understand the absurdity of all pro-choice arguments that claim to benefit the children they want to abort. They attempt to treat a curable malady with a deadly treatment.

A similar argument is that abortion prevents children from growing up in poverty. No one wants American children to grow up in poverty. But the Pro-choice solution to this problem is to decrease poverty by killing the children of the poor.

I believe in a woman's right to choose.

This is one of the most popular views on abortion. There are many derivatives of this statement, such as "I couldn't have an abortion myself, but I would never interfere with another woman's right to choose" or "A woman must have the right to make such a personal decision on her own."

The right to make our own choices is an idea with which we all have great sympathy. As Americans, we are particularly fortunate to live in the only nation in the world founded on the love of liberty. The love of liberty and repugnance for coercion are the cornerstones of our Constitution. It was at the heart of our revolution. When we severed our ties to the King of England, we wrote down the values of our revolution in the Declaration of Independence. We said that men had certain rights, including life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. These rights were superior to any government. They were inalienable to every human being. They were inalienable to you. You could not be separated from them. They were a part of you. They were a part of the human condition.

But if your liberty is inalienable, it was never absolute. It is restricted by laws that fall into two categories. The first category is the most controversial. It involves laws designed to benefit the general welfare of our nation. For example, our laws allow the Government to collect taxes for the purpose of helping the poor, sick and the aged. This taxation is an infringement on your economic liberty that is intended to benefit the general welfare of the nation. During the early years of our nation, there were comparatively few laws that fell into this category. Many people today feel as if the number of laws designed to promote the general welfare are too numerous and place an inordinate restriction on individual liberty. Others feel that there should be an increase in these laws to better assist the disadvantaged of our nation.

The second category of laws is not so controversial. These are laws that prevent one person from violating the fundamental rights of another. Do not steal. Do not destroy the property of others. Do not kill. Do not physically hurt others. Do not commit fraud. When our nation was founded, a comparatively large number of laws fell into this category. They are the kind of laws that are fundamental to our society and system of government.

Although these laws restrict the liberty of some individuals, they are actually intended to enhance individual liberty. Think about it in these terms. The Bill of Rights was designed to enhance your liberty by restricting the liberty of the state. From time to time the government would surely love to censor the press. The first amendment forbids them the liberty to do so. To allow the government that liberty would permit it to violate one of your fundamental rights. And it is more important that you have the liberty to exercise your fundamental rights than that the government has the liberty to censor the press. Any law that guarantees one man's or entity's liberty must restrict the liberty of another man or entity.

Similarly, laws are created to curb your individual liberty. Only in this way can everyone's fundamental rights be protected. Perhaps you have bought an expensive new car. You believe that driving the expensive car will be fun and make you happier. Perhaps your neighbor likes your car. He might want to walk across the street, shoot you and steal your car. We can all agree that if he does so, he will be violating your fundamental rights. He would be violating your right to pursue happiness. He would also be violating your right to life. To protect your fundamental rights, our government has passed certain laws. These laws restrict your neighbor's liberty. He is not at liberty to shoot you and steal your car.

At the risk of stating the obvious, I will make an observation. The law does not give your neighbor a choice. Perhaps your neighbor's car has broken down. He desperately needs to get to a meeting. If he does not make the meeting he will lose his job. He can not get a cab to come to his house. He does not have the money to rent a car. Your neighbor is still not allowed to choose to steal your car.

Perhaps your neighbor was deprived as a child. Perhaps he has always wanted an expensive car like the one you just bought. He has worked all of his life to get such a car, but he has never been able to afford it. He sits in his living room in the dark, despairing that he will ever be able to afford such a car. He still may not choose to steal your car.

Perhaps you have just gotten the raise he was trying to get. Perhaps he is envious of you because of the college you attended. Perhaps he is envious of your privileged upbringing. Perhaps he lusts after your attractive spouse. He still may not choose to kill you.

The law forbids your neighbor from choosing to steal from you, vandalize your property, physically harm you, defraud you, slander you or kill you. One of the fundamental duties of our government is to prevent people from choosing to violate your fundamental rights. This is the core purpose of the criminal justice system.

Suddenly the argument for choice seems absurd. For once the child is conceived, the choice in question is not, "should I bring another human into being?" but "should I destroy the human that already exists?" The only way to do that is to violate that human's right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness - indeed all of his fundamental rights. When a government permits one human being to choose to violate all of the fundamental rights of another human being, that government violates its central purpose.

A woman has the right to control her own body.

This is one of the most compelling arguments for the pro-choice movement. In order for the government to protect your fundamental rights before you were born, it must forbid your mother from terminating a pregnancy. Your mother was or is a particular individual with fundamental and inalienable human rights. By restricting abortion, it places a burden on her. This burden can not be transferred to another person or group of persons.

People in the pro-choice movement often describe the horrors of a government "Compelling women to bear children." There is a thin thread of truth in this accusation. But in general, the statement is a very misleading representation of the pro-life movement. The purpose of the pro-life movement is to protect your fundamental rights while you are in your mother's womb. In order to protect your fundamental rights, your mother must be prevented from killing you. Biological fact dictates that when you protect the unborn child, you are necessarily preventing the woman from ending her pregnancy.

In fact, there is no large movement whose purpose it is to compel women to bear children. Neither is there a movement to encourage women to bear more children. Throughout history, nations and societies have encouraged high birth rates for political, economic, social and military reasons. No similar American movement exists today of any consequence. Instead, there is a concerted effort to do the opposite. Our teenagers today are instructed on how to have sex without conceiving children. They are similarly encouraged to remain abstinent before marriage. After our young people are married, they are reminded not to have too many children. They are exposed with messages about the overpopulation of the world. Families who have more than four children are sometimes derided as being quaint or ignorant. New contraceptive methods are continuously being developed. Many of these contraceptives are given to the poor free of charge.

In short, neither the pro-life movement, nor any other major movement in our country is trying to create an America with droves of pregnant women. What the pro-life movement is attempting to do is to protect the fundamental rights of unborn children. This can be accomplished only when the government limits the individual liberty of women by preventing them from killing their own children.

As we have seen, this is not an entirely unusual situation. Our laws are full of restrictions on individual liberty in order to protect the fundamental rights of others. Nonetheless, forbidding a woman to kill her unborn child places a serious burden on her. It necessitates that she endure a ten month period, during which time her body experiences dramatic changes. Birth is a painful experience. The convalescent period can be lengthy. The decisions a woman must make after giving birth to an unplanned child are often painful. Nonetheless, none of the difficulties the woman faces are as severe as the alternative for the child: death. When a child is aborted, all of his or her fundamental rights are violated.

A free and democratic government should not protect the individual liberty of one person by violating all of the fundamental rights of another. Nonetheless, this is exactly what we are doing when we allow women to abort children they do not desire. We allow the woman to take from their child the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. In doing so, we violate the central purpose of our government.

Making abortion illegal will make having abortions unsafe.

I recall the day a doctor told me he supported legal abortions. His reason was simple. Early in his career, before abortion was legal, he treated a young woman who had had an illegal abortion. It was a ghastly sight. The pro-choice ranks have been swelled by similar stories. They are moving stories. And I am saddened by each of them. But they are not, in any way, a good argument.

The fact that abortion is currently legal goes a long way to making abortion safe. If abortion was made illegal tomorrow, some women would still seek to have an abortion. Many of these abortions would be significantly more dangerous than those currently available.

None of this even remotely demonstrates that abortion should be legal. At the risk of stating the obvious, it is not the responsibility of any government to make it safe to break the law. If abortion was made illegal, it would be less safe to have an abortion. But a similar statement could be made about armed robbery. Armed robberies are quite dangerous to the thief. One reason is that thieves are frequently injured while trying to elude the police, often in cars. We could protect against this danger by making armed robbery legal. This would incontrovertibly make each and every robbery safer for the thief.

We will, of course, not take such a step. If we were to do so, we would be allowing one person to violate another person's right to property. This would be immoral. For the same reason, we should not permit abortion to be legal. The fact that abortion is legal makes it safer. But in making abortion legal, we have allowed one person to violate all the rights of another person. That is an even greater injustice. After all, the thief steals only property.

If abortions are illegal, it will create an unfair situation for the poor.

When abortion was illegal in the United States, some women were still able to obtain them. They did this by traveling over-seas to countries where abortions were legal. Clearly, the women who obtained these abortions had access to some degree of wealth. The poor could not obtain abortions in this manner. Many people in the pro-choice movement believe that making abortion illegal would not stop abortions; it would simply increase the inequity between the rich and the poor.

This is a fallacious argument. We can all agree that there are economic inequities in our legal system. If you are arrested for murdering your neighbor, you are more likely to escape jail time if you are rich than if you are poor. The reason is that the rich person can hire the best defense attorney in town, while the poor person must rely on a public defender.

These facts make a good argument for reform of our legal system. But of course, no one concludes that murder should be legalized so that the conditions of the poor and rich should be more equal.

Similarly, we must all agree that the rich are better able to hire hit men than the poor. If murder were legal, this would drive down the price of hiring a hit man, since it would be a far safer occupation. But no one would suggest that we make murder legal to resolve this obvious inequity.

III.

Why are so many American's pro-choice? If you sit and listen and read about abortion, you will come to see a collective vision. It is the vision of a young girl. She is pregnant and alone and frightened. She does not know how to raise a child, because she is a child. She has little money, and little way of earning it. She has no education. And she has not heard from the father, since she told him she was having his child.

Today, a girl in this situation has one of three choices. She can have an abortion. She can give the child up for adoption. She can try to raise the child on her meager resources.

The pro-choice dream is to return the girl's previous life. She will have an abortion. She will have a guilt free abortion. She can return to her childhood. But the truth is far from this fiction. The irony of the pro-choice movement is that it fights to preserve a choice that is deadly to children and poisonous to women.

Consider for a moment the book Bitter Fruit, compiled by Rita Townsend and Ann Perkins. The book is primarily a collection of interviews of women who have had unplanned pregnancies. The editors are thoroughly pro-choice. The women interviewed dealt with their pregnancies in different ways. Some of the women chose to have an abortion. Some of them chose to give their child up for adoption. Some of the women chose to keep their child, though they had little resources to do so. But all of the women had one thing in common. None of them particularly liked the choice they made.

The women who had abortions felt profound feelings of guilt and loss. The women who gave their children up for adoption felt deep feelings of guilt and loss. The women who kept their children felt overwhelmed with responsibilities they could not fulfill.

Now advocates of abortion rights have produced studies demonstrating that the adverse emotional effects associated with abortion are less than those of giving the child up for adoption or keeping the child. Advocates for adoption have produced studies that show that the adverse effects associated with giving children up for adoption are less than having an abortion. Advocates for keeping blood relatives intact have produced studies demonstrating that the adverse effects of keeping the child are less than giving the child up for adoption.

The contradictory results demonstrate three things we already know. 1. It is virtually impossible to compare the psychological pain of different people, and to reproduce the results in any meaningful scientific way. 2. If you try hard enough, you can get a study to say virtually anything you want. 3. A significant number of women are generally dissatisfied with the choices available to them when they have an unwanted pregnancy.

For the sake of argument, let us agree that abortion, adoption and keeping an unplanned child all carry a significant amount of emotional baggage. Let us assume that abortion and adoption both contain significant elements of guilt. The mother who keeps the unplanned child will experience a great deal of stress associated with raising a child on meager resources.

All three options share emotional problems. The thing that differentiates the three options is that the emotional problems associated with adoption and keeping the child are resolvable. As I will show, the emotional problems associated with abortion can never properly be resolved.

We have already observed that many women who have had abortions and those that have given up their children for adoption suffer from guilt. Guilt has one of two origins. We experience guilt when we commit an immoral act. We experience guilt when we violate social taboos. Now some taboos restrict us from immoral acts. Some do not.

An example of the first source of guilt can be found in Doestoyevsky's Crime and Punishment. The main character, Raskalnikov, kills a greedy and despicable money lender. He has developed a theory as to why it is acceptable to do this. He considers the money lender to be unimportant, while he considers himself to be a kind of superman, above petty morality. After the murder, he is nonetheless overwhelmed with guilt. After he has been cleared as a suspect, and there is no chance that he will be caught, he confesses the crime to the police. He comes to realize that he is not above morality. He is not above right and wrong, good and evil.

An example of the second source of guilt can be seen in Mark Twain's, Huckleberry Finn. Huckleberry feels guilty about helping Jim, a slave, escape from his master. Huckleberry believes he will go to hell for committing this sin. But his guilt does not originate from the moral reality of his act. It is not immoral to free slaves. Huckleberry's guilt originates from a false morality taught to him by the society in which he lived.

I have already demonstrated that your life began the day you were conceived. When a woman has an abortion, she deprives the child of all of its fundamental rights. Depriving someone of his fundamental rights is an immoral act. The guilt a woman feels when she has an abortion originates in this immorality. The immorality of the act makes it difficult for the woman to resolve her guilt.

The guilt a woman feels when she gives her child up for adoption originates out of a false morality. This false morality vaguely suggests that all children must be raised by their biological mother. It propagates the lie that when a woman gives up a child to a responsible couple, she is abandoning the child. This genetic romanticism is nonsense. It has no moral foundation.

A woman who has given up her child to adoption can better resolve her guilt, because she can come to understand that she has only violated social taboos based on a false morality. With time and emotional support, she can come to understand the virtue of her act.

The woman who elects to keep her unplanned child will undoubtedly have to overcome many obstacles. The challenges before her can hardly be overstated. I would wish them on no young girl.

But these challenges do possess a beneficial character. To understand the good these obstacles can create, we must engage in some deep introspection. Consider for a moment this question: Was your character better shaped by the skills you have learned, the things you have acquired or the adversities you have overcome? For me, there is no question. I have not achieved the greatest degree of happiness by doing certain things well or even surrounding myself with comforts. Instead, I have received the greatest happiness by fulfilling my responsibilities well. If you consider your life, and you are honest with yourself, I believe you will find the same thing.

This might be small comfort to a young and frightened girl. But surely, for her benefit, it is better for her to have the opportunity to overcome these challenges, than to saddle her with the virtually irresolvable guilt of killing her own child.

IV

The most famous pro-choice article ever written is "A defense of Abortion," written by Judith Jarvis Thomson. It is considered something of a classic, and may be the most often cited work on abortion. In the article, Thomson makes a very unusual argument. Her conclusion is that the unborn child does not have a right to life even if he is a human whose life has begun.

To demonstrate her idea, she describes a hypothetical situation. She asks you to imagine you have been kidnapped in your sleep. While you are asleep, a famous violinist has been plugged into you. When you awaken, a doctor apologizes, but explains that you will need to remain attached to the violinist for nine months. The violinist requires the partial use of your kidneys. Your physical connection is the only way to save his life.

Thompson agrees that it would be extraordinarily kind of you to help the violinist. But she asserts that you have no legal or moral obligation to do so. You would be completely justified in unplugging yourself from the violinist and walking away, even as the famous musician dies. Clearly, Thomson concludes, if we have no obligation to allow strange musicians to remain connected to us, we have no obligation to allow the unborn child use of our body.

I am not certain Thomson's conclusions are so obvious. I do not think that the government could compel you to plug yourself into another person, even if it would save the other person's life. But having already been connected to the man, could you really commit an act that would immediately kill him. Would you have no legal obligations? Would you have no moral obligations?

Complicating the issue is the very nature of the analogy. In an attempt to imitate the special relationship between the unborn child and its mother, Thomson has depicted an analogy fundamentally fictitious and contrived. First, Thomson's story defeats the purpose of having an analogy. An analogy is supposed to illustrate the way in which an unfamiliar situation is like a familiar one. In order for an analogy to work, you must be able to see how both situations are similar. You must be able to conclude with certainty what you would do in the familiar situation. You would know what you would do because you would be able to rely on your experiences, and on your society's moral, philosophical and legal traditions. You would then be able to determine what you would do in the unfamiliar or controversial situation.

Let me illustrate my point. Imagine you work in a store. You make ten dollars an hour. You and your boss have had cross words. One night, you stop working at eight. But you write on your time sheet that you worked until nine. Your co-worker chastises you. She says, "Don't do that. It's just like taking ten dollars out of the cash register."

Now it might be argued that this is a very simple analogy. I would have to agree. But the simpler the analogy, the more powerful. We can see a clear similarity between recording an hour you did not work and taking ten dollars out of the cash register. Furthermore, we have personal experiences associated with stealing money. Our society has moral, philosophical and legal traditions that might inform us as to whether or not we should take the money. That is, we can all remember a father or mother or grandparent or teacher telling us that it is wrong to steal. Numerous books have addressed the evils of stealing. And we have laws that forbid us from stealing.

In Thompson's analogy, the controversial situation is that of the pregnant woman considering an abortion. But her familiar situation is not only unfamiliar, it is hard to imagine. My specific complaint is not simply the science fiction of a man who requires that another person be plugged into him to maintain his life. This is an understandable invention. But how am I to be certain what I should do if faced with Thomson's question? Am I obligated to save the violinist? Where in my experience can I find a similar situation? From what moral, philosophical or legal tradition should I borrow? The analogy attempts to explain an unfamiliar situation with a situation that is even less familiar. It is circular.

The problem with unfamiliar analogies is not simply the lack of clarity. The actual novelty of the story can mislead us. To understand this concept we must ask ourselves, if the events in the analogy were reasonably common, would we still view them the same way? I can not think of any unplugging laws passed by the United States government. I do not recall discussing this issue in philosophy class. When I was a child my mother never told me, "Now if you wake up one morning and someone is plugged into you, you be sure to grin and bear it. It's just the right thing to do." But if we lived in a world where Thomson's hypothetical analogy was both an actual fact and a reasonably common occurrence, the case would be quite different.

To understand just how different things would be, we must first alter Thomson's analogy with a scenario that more closely resembles the actual abortion dilemma. We will continue to assert that the violinist has a condition that will kill him, and that you are the only one who can save him. But we will eliminate the kidnapping. Instead, the violinist's condition causes him to sleep walk into your home and attach himself to you. He will remain in this state and sleep walk behind you for nine months, or until you unplug him. If you unplug him he will die. I think we can all agree that this analogy is more similar to the typical pregnancy than Thomson's story. There are some rare circumstances when a pregnancy was the result of a rape, but most conceptions are devoid of the coercions associated with a kidnapping.

We will further assert that you are not the only person in the country with someone attached to you. In fact, this year several hundred thousand people will have sleep walkers attach themselves to their person. In each case, the person with the horrible illness must remain attached to a particular person or die. 109,000 people will die because the person to whom they were attached was unwilling to support them. Once again, we can all agree that this analogy is more realistic, since approximately 109,000 abortions are committed each year.

It will take some imagination, but try to imagine a world where such a condition exists year after year. The liberty of 109,000 people is at stake. The lives of 109,000 people are at stake. In this world, would Thomson's conclusions be quite so clear?

But there are additional problems with Thompson's thesis. Central to her argument is the idea that our laws and moral tradition do not compel one man to help another. To demonstrate this, she makes several more analogies. Perhaps the best is the story of Kitty Genovese, who was murdered as thirty-eight witnesses stood by. The thirty-eight witnesses did not attempt to stop the murderers. They did not raise their voices in protest. They did not call the police. They did nothing.

This was no more than United States law required. There is no law that requires you to come to the aid of a crime victim, even if their life is in danger. This much is clear. But Thomson asserts that there was no moral obligation to help Kitty Genovese. That is far from clear.

Before her death, Ms. Genovese was unknown, except to her family and friends. After her death, her name was known by virtually every American who owned a television set. She was not well known because her life was remarkable. She was not even well known because her death was heinous. Many people die horrible deaths every day, and we take regrettably little notice. Ms. Genovese became well known because thirty-eight people failed to help her. This failure shocked our nation. There is a term that describes the shock we feel when people do not live up to basic civil expectations. That term is moral outrage.

Apparently Thomson believes she can construct a moral argument that asserts that the thirty-eight witnesses had no moral obligation to help Ms. Genovese, even to call the police. Though in fact, she fails to do so. Perhaps the argument is an academic one. In any case, I hope it gains no popularity in our nation. I do not believe a society where people do not feel obligated to help one another in such circumstances could long exist before declining into anarchy. No man who feels himself free from such a duty could debase himself much further.

Furthermore, it appears that Thomson is attempting to transform a narrow omission in the law into a general and broad principle. She asserts that because there is no law that requires you to help a victim of a crime or accident, there is no legal requirement that we help others at anytime.

I would like to suggest that the law regularly requires that we help others. As you are probably all too aware, we are all required to pay taxes. In my state, even poor working mother's are subjected to the shameful practice of paying taxes on food. It has been determined that the tax burden on the average tax payer consumes all of his wages from the beginning of the year through mid-May. That is to say, if you did not have to pay any taxes, you could begin a vacation on January 1, not return to work until mid-May, continue working regularly through December 31st, and still take home the same amount of money. This is, by any measure, a considerable burden on your economic liberty. It is a restriction on your right to property and the pursuit of happiness.

Taxes support a large number of operations. Taxes support the military, police force and fire services, which are required to maintain public order and safety. Taxes support the building and maintenance of roads, the operation of a post office, the maintenance of a Federal Reserve Bank and the administration of public schools, which are designed to increase the prosperity of the nation. Taxes support social service programs such as free lunch programs, Medicaid and foster care.

For the past several hundred years it has generally been accepted as an historical fact that a civil society can not exist without tax-funded institutions to maintain public order and safety. For the past hundred years it has been accepted as an economic fact that a country can not prosper without tax-funded institutions to regulate commerce and education.

Social Service programs, however, serve a different function. They compel tax payers to help those who are less fortunate. That is, they require taxpayers to do exactly what Thomson says you have no legal requirement to do.

I would like to point out that there is a distinct difference between compelling someone to pay taxes and compelling someone to give birth. There is something fundamentally intrusive about compelling someone to do something with their body. Furthermore, while both sexes pay taxes, only one sex can be compelled to have babies. Nonetheless, a fundamental premise of Thomson's argument is incorrect. You can be compelled to help another person. You are compelled to help others every day you work, for the rest of your life.

Does our government compel people to do things with their body? A brief review of the law indicates that we do not have unlimited control over our bodies. For example, unless you live in particular counties in the state of Nevada, you can not engage in prostitution. Also, the law prohibits you from destroying your body and mind by taking illegal drugs. If you engage in prostitution or take illegal drugs, you will be compelled to endure a highly intrusive experience: jail.

But there is a better example of our government compelling Americans to do highly intrusive things with their bodies for the greater benefit of society. During World War II, millions of American men were drafted into the armed forces. They were compelled to leave their families and travel to distant locations. Their heads were shaved. They were forced to endure rigorous physical training. Then their bodies were compelled into submarines, battleships, beaches, tanks and battle fields. They were compelled to remain there, as large armies, using the most advanced technology available, did everything in their power to destroy their bodies.

And this was by no means a unique experience. Let us consider the legitimate reasons a democratic country goes to war. They include the defense of borders, the protection of trade routes, the defense of allies, the maintenance of a peaceful international order and the maintenance of national legitimacy. Some of these wars are fought by volunteer armies. But in many cases a select group of people are compelled to place themselves in mortal danger for the benefit of a larger group. They are compelled to risk their bodies, their emotions, their minds, indeed, all that they are. They are compelled to do this, despite the fact that they may have very little at stake personally in their nation's war aims. They are compelled to do this despite the fact that others who are not compelled to fight may benefit greatly from the prosecution of the war. Several times in United States history, millions of American men have been compelled to risk their lives to benefit a much larger group of Americans.

What is ironic about this comparison is the disparity between what is sacrificed and what is saved. By any standard, being drafted into dangerous combat is more intrusive than compelling a woman to continue her pregnancy. On the other hand, though there are noble reasons to go to war, is there any reason more noble than the preservation of innocent life? Could each draftee say with confidence that their sacrifice would lead to the direct preservation of another person's life? It seems to me that the woman who sacrifices for her child must give up far less for a far more certain good than the draftee.

Thomson is clearly incorrect when she concludes that we are never required to help others. But I think she is also mistaken when she suggests that helping others is the same thing as leaving the violinist plugged into you. We can all agree that if you leave the violinist plugged into you, you would be helping the violinist. On the other hand, if you unplug the violinist, you are committing a direct act that would kill the violinist. This is very different from failing to call the police during a murder. In one case, you are failing to prevent a death. In the other case, you are killing someone.

You can not be compelled to help the murder victim. But the fact that you might help someone, does not give you license to kill them.

But we have not finished with the serious problems associated with Thomson's argument. This is a fundamental one that involves the very nature of the act being committed. Thomson compares the act of abortion to the act of "unplugging" a violinist. By "unplugging", Thomson clearly means to indicate depriving the violinist of certain life support functions that only you can provide. But is "unplugging" a violinist analogous to having an abortion?

In order to explore this question, we must examine the manner in which abortions are administered. The various abortion methods include Dilation and Curettage (D & C), Suction, Saline, and Dilation and Evacuation (D&E). During the D & C procedure, the child is cut into pieces using a hoe-like instrument. Using the Suction procedure, a small suction cup is used to tear the child into several pieces that are expelled into a jar. In the Saline procedure, a toxic amount of salt is injected into the womb. The poisonous salt level kills the child as it burns off his outer level of skin. During the D & E procedure, the child is cut into pieces using a sharp knife or a pliers-like instrument.

Now we must ask ourselves, is unplugging a violinist analogous to cutting him into pieces with a hoe-like instrument? Is it analogous to tearing him into pieces using a powerful suction cup? Is it analogous to poisoning him with a toxic solution? Is it analogous to cutting him into pieces with a sharp knife or a pliers-like instrument? Unplugging a violinist is clearly not analogous to any of these acts.

Why then has Thomson chosen unplugging a violinist as an analogy for abortion? Could she not have made her analogy more accurate? Let us do it for her. Imagine that while you were asleep, a famous violinist has been attached to you through a tube. When you awaken, a doctor apologizes, but explains that you will need to remain attached to the violinist for nine months. The violinist requires the partial use of your kidneys. Your physical connection is the only way to save his life.

It should be obvious to all of us that you now have the legal right to cut the violinist into pieces using a hoe-like instrument. Oh wait! Maybe that is not obvious to all of us. In fact, the opposite is true. It would be immoral to chop a famous violinist into pieces with a hoe, a sharp knife or a pliers-like instrument, even if he was attached to you. It would be immoral to dismember him using a large suction cup. It would be immoral to poison him. Thomson uses an inaccurate analogy, because the accurate analogy persuades us to adopt the pro-life philosophy.

But we have not exhausted the problems with Thomson's argument. Thomson's choice of an adult violinist introduces another difficulty in her torturous analogy. And the longer you consider the problem, the more startling it becomes.

As a point of fact, if you are pregnant, you are not carrying an adult violinist in your womb. You are carrying your own child. And by every legal and moral standard, your responsibility to your child is far greater than your responsibility to an adult violinist.

If you were to meet an adult violinist in dire straits, your moral and legal responsibility to him would be small. Though he might be hungry, you are not responsible to feed him. Though he might be in rags, you are not responsible to clothe him. Though he might be sick, you are not responsible to take him to the doctor. I would hope that you would help him with all three of these problems, but I do not think you are morally obligated to do so. If he was wounded and bleeding and likely to die, I think you would have the moral responsibility to see that he got to the emergency room, though Thomson believes you would not. In any case, you are not legally required to help this man at all.

The matter is completely different with your child. You are required to feed him. You must clothe and shelter him. When he is a baby, you must change his diapers. When he is older, you must see that he gets to school. You are required to do all of these things morally. You are required to do all of these things legally. For most of us, parenthood will be the greatest responsibility we will ever have.

And now we begin to see just how startling the problem is with Thomson's analogy. For surely your responsibility to your child is far greater than your responsibility to a famous violinist.

There is a final problem with Thomson's use of the violinist. It is dishonest to advocate that someone else commit an act, while obscuring from them that they are in fact doing something they would not normally do. Let us imagine that a government agent has come up with an intellectually defensible argument in favor of infanticide. He feels that this argument is conclusive and can not be denied. He also feels that there are too many children in the United States. He rounds up some infants to kill. But he can not convince any law enforcement agents to kill them. He uses his intellectual arguments with them, but none of them are persuaded. In fact, no one in the country is willing to kill the infants.

To solve the problem of who will kill these children, he comes up with a new game show. In the game show people will be handed a gun. They will be asked to shoot one of three booths. Behind each booth is a screen showing the prize they have one. Behind each screen is an infant. Each time a contestant fires the gun, they win a prize. What the contestant does not know is that each time he shoots the gun, he is killing an infant.

We would all be horrified at this subterfuge. The government agent is advocating people participate in a game show, while obscuring from them the substance of their act: the slaying of infants.

Thomson is doing essentially the same thing. The purpose of her essay is to suggest that abortion is justified, even if it takes another human's life. When she uses the adult violinist in her analogy, she obscures from the mother the identity of that other human. The mother who has an abortion is not killing an adult violinist. She is killing her own child.

I do not know if Thomson was purposefully attempting to deceive her readers. I suspect that the reason for this obvious flaw in her analogy was less sinister. She wanted to support abortion for emotional reasons, but could not bear to admit to herself the impossibility of her position. She might be able to persuade some women that it is acceptable to kill an adult violinist. But I am not certain that she could convince one woman to kill her own child.

V

When I set out to write this book, I had already heard most of the common pro-choice arguments for abortion. These I have already discussed. But I wanted to understand, as much as possible, the entirety of the pro-choice argument. I began to search for articles written by pro-choice intellectuals. I wanted to read a carefully considered argument for abortion.

What I found was a paradox. If you were to ask the average person in the pro-choice movement when their lives began, they would most likely name sometime between the second trimester and birth. But after reading the articles of countless pro-choice intellectuals, I have found none that would place the beginning of your life at that time.

The ideas of the pro-choice intellectuals I read were so out of keeping with those of the pro-choice people I met, that I hesitated to even address the intellectual's articles. I was concerned, because I regarded the common pro-choice arguments as superior, intellectually and morally, to the arguments of the intellectuals. In particular, I did not wish to create straw men of common individuals in the pro-choice movement by associating them too closely with the intellectuals of their own movement. I originally planned not to include any mention of the pro-choice intellectuals, out of deference to the many intelligent people I know in the pro-choice movement.

I came to realize, however, that I could not write an essay that argues against abortion, without addressing the intellectual work of the pro-choice movement. To do so would justifiably invite the criticism of the intellectual press. They would recognize that I was avoiding certain pro-choice arguments, without understanding my reason for doing so. And so I feel compelled to write this chapter.

The pro-choice writers I will be discussing are not concerned with when you as a human being began your life. In fact, their arguments admit either implicitly or explicitly that your life began the day you were conceived. What they argue is that though you were a human when you were a fetus, you were not a person. They further argue that until you became a person, you had no fundamental rights. These authors give varying definitions of what makes up a person.

Michael Tooley argues that someone is a person if they have "a serious moral right to life." He then goes on to explain that, "An organism possesses a serious right to life only if it possesses the concept of a self as a continuing subject of experiences and other mental states, and believes it is itself such a continuing entity." Important in Tooley's argument is the idea that no one has a right to something unless they have a desire for that thing. No one has a desire for something unless they can form a concept of that thing. Since the unborn child has no concept of life, Tooley concludes he cannot desire it and therefore has no right to it.

Another pro-choice author, Mary Anne Warren, suggests we can establish criteria for defining personhood by imagining how we would behave towards a space alien. If you met a space alien, should you treat him like a cow, that is, a source of food? Or should you treat him like a tiger and place him in a kind of zoo? Or should you treat him as if he were a person with moral rights?

To answer this question, Warren suggests a checklist of five criteria in determining who is and is not a person.

1. Consciousness (of objects and events external and/or internal to the being), and in particular the capacity to feel pain

2. Reasoning

3. Self motivated activity

4. The capacity to communicate

5. The presence of self-concepts

Warren is uncertain of how many capabilities in this list one would have to have to be considered a person. She thinks that items one and two might be sufficient, but concedes that you might require one through three, unless, of course you have to possess all five. In any case, Warren is satisfied that the unborn child possesses none of these things and is therefore not a person and has no right to life. Other pro-choice authors who rely on the concept of personhood to justify abortion are Charles Hartshorne, Joan C. Callahan and Roger Payntner.

In addressing myself to these thinkers, I will begin with Warren's arguments. I suggest, first of all, that there is a serious problem in basing moral arguments, particularly those involving human life, on little green men. In this country, we are very careful about the taking of human life. During times of peace, the government condones the taking of human life in only two circumstances. First, you can take another persons life in self defense. Second, the government puts some murderers to death.

In only one situation is one person allowed to make the decision to kill another person. We allow one person to take another person's life in self defense. But there are several peculiar circumstances associated with self defense. The person defending himself does not have the time to make a rational decision. By the very nature of the act, it is not premeditated. It is always provoked. There is an enormous amount of chaos associated with any self defense situation. While the person attacked has no time to consider the situation clearly, he knows that the attacker is willing to break at least one law. If he is willing to commit an assault or robbery or rape, we fear he might be willing to commit murder. It is because of the unusual peculiarities associated with self-defense that we allow one person to take another person's life.

In only one situation is the government allowed to make the decision to kill another person. We allow the government to execute some murderers. When this is done, the initial decision must be made by a group of people - a jury. And a great number of other people will evaluate that group's decision, to insure that it is fair. The person being executed must have committed a horrible crime. He must have taken another person's life. And the state will take great pains to insure that his trial is fair. He must be provided with legal counsel. A judge, who has no interest in the case, is appointed to insure that the man is given a fair trial. The defendant's counsel will take pains to insure that no one who is prejudiced to his client will serve on the jury. The law is designed to insure that during the trial, none of the jurors become prejudiced against the accused.

How great is the law's commitment to the unbiased juror? Consider this fact. If the defendant was previously convicted of molesting a child, this information would be available to a great number of people in a host of circumstances. An employer has access to this information. He has a legal right to deny employment using this information. A neighbor can gain access to this information, so that he might keep his child away from the felon. The neighbor has the right to inform everyone in the neighborhood of the felon's crime. But no one is allowed to tell the juror of the man's crime, in case this information prejudices the jury.

The defendant has no responsibility to prove he is innocent. The prosecution must prove that he is guilty. The jurors are instructed not to convict the man simply because they think he is guilty. They can convict him only if they are certain he committed the crime, beyond a reasonable doubt. And all twelve jurors must unanimously agree on the verdict.

Some juries who acquitted indicted murderers are interviewed by the press. Some of the juries were unanimous in their belief that the defendant committed the crime. They acquitted the man because they were not convinced beyond a reasonable doubt.

Even if the man is convicted and sentenced to death, it does not mean that the man will be killed. His case will be appealed countless times. The purpose of these appeals is to insure that the defendant received a fair trial. If any one of the judges who review the case determines that his trial was unfair, they can order a new trial. Finally, in most states, after all of the appeals have been exhausted, the governor can still commute the convicted man's sentence.

I am, of course, not suggesting that our death penalty system could not be improved to further protect the innocent. Instead, I am pointing out the extraordinary precautions that are taken to insure that no is executed, until we are certain that that person intentionally killed another human being. The difference between the caution exercised by the judicial system, and the caution exercised by Warren could not be more striking. She does not argue that we kill humans based on facts of which we have little or no doubt, but on facts of which we have great doubt. She asserts that what is precious is not human life, but the life of persons. And she asks us to define personhood based on how we would treat space aliens we have yet to meet.

Of course, it is quite possible that the universe is teeming with space aliens who would qualify as persons using Warren's definition. It is also very possible that there are no space aliens at all. If there are no space alien persons, then Warren's entire definition is based on an imaginary race. This is rather shaky evidence to justify killing a human being.

But this is not the only problem with Warren's argument. I would suggest that it is quite possible that a space alien could have all five of Warren's personhood attributes and still not have a right to live. Conversely, a space alien might not possess the five attributes and still have a right to life.

We have all seen Steven Spielberg films where extraordinarily intelligent and benevolent aliens befriend human beings for altruistic reasons. But imagine for a moment that space aliens are nothing like Spielberg's imagination of them. Imagine that malevolent space aliens resembling H. G. Well's Martians visit the Earth. These creatures are conscious beings with the ability to reason. They are self-motivated, able to communicate with one another and have a concept of the self. They also like to go from planet to planet looting and pillaging. They arrive on earth and proceed to rape all the women, sadistically torture the men and sauté the children. Would these aliens have a right to life?

Now imagine an alien race that is not individualistic like ourselves. They are more like super intelligent ants or bees. Imagine that this race does not simply build hives but great cities that would make New York look primitive. Imagine that each member of the colony has no free will of its own, but that the entire colony uses each member differently. Three members write the poetry of the community while four members design the buildings while twenty perform the maintenance. None of the member could act on its own or think on its own, but all of them can feel all of the emotions we can feel and more. Perhaps the twenty maintenance workers begin to cry in unison when one of the poets writes a particularly beautiful poem. The maintenance workers then proceed back to work. Imagine that by themselves none of the colony members could be considered conscious or to be able to reason. They would not be self motivated and would not even think of themselves as separate persons. But they would all cry when one of them dies. Would each of these space aliens have a right to life? Would they kill older members of the colony as they got old and feeble, or would they care for these members until they died of natural causes?

Now these scenarios are quite fantastic, and I do not claim to know the answers to the questions I have posed. My point is that Warren does not know the answers either. It is quite silly to make serious moral decisions based on musings about space aliens that may not exist, and on whose character and nature we can only guess.

I think another question begs to be asked. Warren has established criteria as to how we should judge space aliens. What background information is she using? How many space aliens did she interview to establish her criteria? How many books did she read written by space aliens? At the risk of going out on a limb, my guess is that no Martians were available for interviews and no Venusian books could be found. If my assumption is incorrect, I would earnestly like to speak to Warren, so that we might arrange a meeting with her space aliens. I think it would be an exciting experience. But if my assumption is correct, then I must ask how Warren created her criteria. Who did she use for a model?

There is only one creature I know of who could be used as a model for Warren's criteria. There is only one creature that I am aware of that is conscious and can reason, is self-motivated, has the ability to communicate and has a concept of self. That is an adult human. Warren has confused herself and her readers with musings about space aliens. She has tried to create a universal definition of personhood. But all she has really said is that the unborn child has different capabilities as more mature humans.

There are further problems with Warren's ideas on personhood. She lists five criteria that would make a human a person, but she is unsure of how many of these characteristics a being would have to possess. This does not appear to be important to her, since the unborn child has none of these characteristics. But of course, the problem is monumental.

Since Warren is uncertain as to which of her criteria are required of personhood, it is unclear how her criteria would apply to all other humans. Many humans who are already born would not satisfy all five of Warren's criteria. First, newborns possess none of the capabilities that are so precious to Warren. Second, many mentally handicapped individuals would not fit Warren's definition of persons. I suggest that our treatment of these two groups pose a serious problem to Warren's argument.

A central tenant of our legal system is that we apply laws to everyone equally. For example, a business owner cannot allow white people to stay at his motel, while preventing black people from frequenting his establishment. We cannot create laws that allow men to vote but prevent women from voting. You cannot discriminate against one group, in favor of the latter. But Warren is asking us to do precisely this. She asks that we deny the unborn child the right to life because he does not meet certain criteria. But she does not insist that we apply these same criteria to the newborn. And she does not bother to clarify how these criteria will effect the mentally disabled.

If Warren desires her argument to possess any moral credibility, she must insist and she must clarify. Otherwise, she is simply grasping for convenient arguments, to dispose of unwanted humans. And that is the worst discrimination of all.

Tooley does not refer us to a pick and choose potpourri of criteria. All people who can conceptualize the desire to live, have a right to live. A key component of Tooley's argument is the idea that a person has no right to what he does not desire. On the face of it, this seems like a perfectly logical argument. If I throw out an old mattress, I cannot complain when someone takes if from the side of the street. It is hard to imagine that the fetus has a desire to live. He therefore has no right to want he does not desire. Nonetheless, Tooley concedes he has a problem. There are certain people who are temporarily emotionally disturbed, unconscious or brainwashed, who do not desire to live either. Tooley does not want to kill these people, so he modifies his argument: someone has a right to life if they have the conceptual capability to desire life. Tooley believes this modification of the argument disposes of his problem. The clinically depressed, suicidal man has a right to life because he can conceptualize a desire to live, even if he does not at this time desire to live.

I would suggest that the problem is more serious than Tooley thinks, and that it indeed nullifies his argument. Clearly, Tooley wants us to believe that only beings that are self-conscious have a right to life. To support this belief, he argues that you can only have a right to what you desire. But Tooley modifies his argument to include people who do not presently desire life because of temporary emotional problems. In making this modification, he has made his argument circular. In order to have a right to life, you must be self-conscious, because unless you are self-conscious you cannot have a desire for something, and you cannot have a right to something unless you desire something, unless, of course, you are self-conscious, in which case you can have a right to something that you do not desire. In other words, you have no right to the mattress you have thrown out, unless Tooley wants you to have a right to it.

If the circularity of Tooley's argument does not cause you to dismiss it entirely, there are other problems with his thesis. Can it really be said that you have a right to only what you desire? Imagine a husband and wife die in a car accident. They left no will, but a judge awards their one million dollar estate to their only surviving relative, their one year old child. We can all agree that the one year old does not desire one million dollars and can not conceptualize the desire for one million dollars. By Tooley's criteria, the child has no right to the money. The executer of the estate might embezzle the money with impunity, since he would be violating no one's rights.

Thank goodness we do not decide such matters on Tooley's criteria. If a one year old orphan was to inherit one million dollars, a judge would place the money in a trust. Some of the money might be needed to pay the child's living expenses, but the judge would take special precautions to insure that it be kept to a minimum. Special care would be taken so that the child's care giver did not use the money for his own gain. The judge would conservatively invest the money, so that the child might have an even larger estate when he turns eighteen. If someone did embezzle the child's money, another judge would do all he could to protect or recover the estate. In short, the judges would do all they could to protect the one year old orphan's right to money for which he has no desire.

Imagine a three year old girl. I would suggest that she has no desire to avoid sexual molestation. One of the reasons that some children are molested for years is that they have little conception of what is happening to them. But I think it would be completely erroneous to suggest that the girl does not have a right to be free of sexual molestation.

Finally, imagine an unborn child in its fourth month of gestation. His mother decides to have the child, but is in financial straits. She volunteers to have scientific experiments done on the child in utero for which she will be compensated. The experiment would most likely leave the child permanently blind. We can all agree that the unborn child has no specific desire to avoid blindness. But I think only the insane would conclude that the child does not have a right against mutilation.

Tooley's argument relies on the idea that you have no right to what you can not desire. But many people have a right to things they cannot desire.

I believe we have dispensed with Tooley's arguments. What we are finally left with is his conviction that no one has a right to life unless they are a person. You are not a person, unless you possess self-consciousness. This is an interesting statement. But it is not an argument. It is an unsupported belief.

Charles Hartshorne argues that the unborn child is not a person, only a potential person. He believes that the unborn child's "origin is human as well as his possible destiny" (emphasis Hartshorne's), but that the same is true of "every unfertilized egg in the body of a nun." He goes on to state that the "egg cell has none of the qualities we have in mind when we proclaim our superior worth to the chimpanzees and dolphins." Hartshorne is offended by pro-life writers who argue that the genetic code determines absolutely what a person shall become. He argues that we are heavily influenced by our environment and free will.

There are several problems with Hartshorne's ideas. The first deals with his use of the word potential. In the semantic sense, Hartshorne is correct that the unborn child and the unfertilized egg have something in common. They are both human in origin, and they both have the potential to become adult humans. But to suggest that they possess the same character, and that this character speaks to the unborn child's right to life is patently wrong.

There are two reasons for this, only the first of which I will argue now. To do so, I will remind the reader of an observation I made earlier. We could place a human egg in an ideal environment. We could provide it with the ideal temperature, give it the ideal amount of light and feed it the ideal diet. What will happen? It will live a short life and die. It will never produce any of the traits so precious to Tooley or Warren or Hartshorne.

Consider the unborn child in the womb. It will grow. It will live a long life. It will come to possess all of the traits so precious to Tooley and Warren and Hartshorne - provided you do not kill it. The difference between the character of the unfertilized egg and the unborn child then, is monumental. And Hartshorne's blindness to this fact is odd.

Hartshorne compares the fertilized human egg to chimpanzees and dolphins and finds the former in no way superior to the latter. In one sense he is absolutely correct. The adult chimpanzee and dolphin are capable of many things that the fertilized egg is not. Tooley also speaks to this idea. He believes that dogs, cats and polar bears have a concept of self, something he claims unborn children do not possess. I am uncertain about this vague idea, but for the sake of argument, let us assume that adult dogs, cats, polar bears, chimpanzees and dolphins have a rudimentary concept of self. Let us also assume that they have some of Warren's personhood characteristics in some form: a rudimentary concept of self, some simple reasoning ability, self-motivated activity and a simple capacity to communicate. I think we can all agree that the fertilized egg has none of these capabilities. Warren and Hartshorne seem to suggest that the adult animals in question have a greater right to life than the conceived human. Tooley states this idea explicitly.

I would like to suggest that Warren, Hartshorne and Tooley have made a significant flaw in their relative valuation of the unborn child and certain adult animals. To explain this flaw, I would like to narrow the definition of some words that have various meanings. For the sake of my argument, the word capable will have one and only one meaning: the ability to perform a task, think of an idea or develop a concept at this moment. For the sake of my argument, the word aptitude will have one and only one meaning: the innate ability to learn to perform a task, think an idea or develop a concept.

The fertilized egg is capable of performing almost no tasks. The unborn child is much less capable than an adult cat, dog, polar bear, chimpanzee or dolphin. But what Hartshorne, Warren and Tooley ignore is that the fertilized egg has much more aptitude than the adult cat, dog, polar bear, chimpanzee or dolphin. It has the aptitude to read, write, speak, solve complex problems, build buildings, operate a computer, love and make love. It has the aptitude to have a concept of self and to achieve consciousness. It has the aptitude to reason. It has the aptitude for self motivation. It has the aptitude to communicate in English and French and German. It has the aptitude to perform all of the tasks, think all of the ideas and develop all of the concepts so precious to Tooley, Warren and Hartshorne.

Consider this: Hartshorne had the same aptitude the day he was conceived, and the day he penned his article endorsing abortion.

At this point I have criticized the arguments used by Tooley, Warren and Hartshorne to support abortion. I believe I have successfully demonstrated that their arguments do not support their theses. But I have yet to demonstrate that their theses are wrong. Each of the authors incorporates various nuances to their works, but I believe all of them share a common idea that I will state now: "You do not have a right to life because you are human. You have a right to life if you are capable of performing certain tasks, thinking certain ideas or developing certain concepts". I imagine that Tooley, Warren and Hartshorne could phrase this assertion more eloquently. But all of them must agree that they have argued this assertion.

I argue that in order to embrace this assertion, you must accept three assumptions. 1. We protect those who are capable of many things, but do not protect those who are capable of few things or nothing. 2. We value those who are capable of many things but do not value those who have great aptitude. 3. It is acceptable to deny a specific group of humans a fundamental right because they lack certain capabilities. I will argue that all three assumptions are incompatible with how we live our lives. Instead, they are purposefully prejudicial towards a helpless group of humans.

Let us examine the first assumption. When do we decline to protect a group of people because of their meager or nonexistent capabilities? The answer to that question is clear. Except in the case of abortion: never.

This begs another question. What is the most capable group in our society? The most capable group in our society is the healthy individuals ranging in age between twenty and sixty-five. This is the time when people are at the height of their economic, physical, mental and emotional strength. Few laws, and few social mechanisms, are written to protect these individuals in particular. Instead, people in this broad age category are generally expected to raise children, care for aging parents and finance those governmental and private institutions that protect the less capable members of our society.

As people age, they generally become less physically, mentally and economically capable. Using the reasoning of Tooley, Warren and Hartshorne, you might think that we would become less protective of these individuals. But the opposite is the case. Often we adopt the tradition of inviting our aged parents into our homes. Some times we place older people into nursing homes. That is, we place them in generally elaborate facilities where expensive medical care is provided.

We pass special laws to protect the elderly. If you are healthy and thirty-five and your landlord is violating your rights, you are assumed to be fairly self sufficient. It is assumed that you are capable of informing the authorities. If you are old and in a nursing home, there are laws that provide for special inspectors. It is their job to ensure that your rights are not violated. If your rights are violated, it is their job to bring legal action against your antagonist.

If you are old and poor and incapable of making money, there are various charities whose specific purpose it is to help you. You can receive benefits from Social Security and Medicare. Social Security and Medicare are the two most expensive federal programs in today's government budget. Some economists predict that these two programs will bankrupt the country. But there is no serious drive to eliminate or even curtail these programs.

In fact, Social Security and Medicare behave in direct contradiction to the first assumption upon which Tooley, Warren and Hartshorne depend. They do not remove protection for those who have become less capable through age. Instead, they are programs wherein individuals at the height of their economic capabilities subsidize the livelihood and medical expenses of individuals who are less capable of making money.

When someone reaches the age where they are less capable, we do not become less protective of them. On the contrary, we become more protective of them. The same is true for those who are young and less capable. Our long traditions dictate that parents, who have many capabilities, care for their children, who have little or no capabilities. Parents are responsible for their children's food, shelter and clothing. By tradition, they are responsible for the child's protection against predators and accidents. If the child should get sick, his parents are responsible to see that he gets proper medical care.

These responsibilities are not simply traditional. There are special laws that require parents to feed, clothe, shelter and provide medical attention to their children. We have codified in law this principle: the parents, who are capable of much, are required to protect the children, who are capable of little.

This responsibility is not limited to the parents. There are special government programs designed to protect children. Medicaid is designed to provide medical care to children whose parents can not afford it. The essential principle of Medicaid is this: taxpayers, who are deemed to have significant economic capability, are compelled to pay the medical bills of children, who have little economic capability.

Food stamps are designed to provide food for children whose parents can not afford it. The essential principle of the food stamp program is this: taxpayers, who are deemed to have significant economic capability, are compelled to buy food for children, who have little economic capability.

I believe that I have demonstrated that Tooley, Warren and Hartshorne's first assumption is entirely inconsistent with our values. We do not abandon the incapable. We do the exact opposite. We take special precautions to protect them. The negation of this first assumption is sufficient to invalidate their common thesis.

But it may be instructive to examine the second assumption. "We value those who have great capabilities, but do not value those with great aptitude." Let us consider a person when he is a day old, a year old, five years old, ten years old, twenty years old and thirty years old. At each of these times you had very different capabilities. The disparity between the capabilities you had when you were one day old and when you were thirty years old were great. But at each of these times, your aptitude was the same. And at each of these times, you had the same right to life. If you were to be murdered, the prosecutor would charge your murderer with the same crime, regardless of your age. If the murderer was convicted, he would be given the same sentence.

A cursory review of the law shows that you have a right to life as long as you have mental aptitude. This mental aptitude need not be great. Both the atomic physicist and the downs' syndrome child have the same right to life.

From time to time, people with great capabilities might go into a coma. Some of these people revive with little consequence. Some experience brain damage. Sometimes the brain damage is so severe that they remember little or nothing of their previous life. They may have to be taught how to do basic things like read, write and even speak. Some people remain alive but have suffered such severe brain damage that we are unable to revive them.

These three groups can be alternately described. The first group possesses both capabilities and aptitude. The second group possesses little or no capabilities, but some aptitude. The third group possesses no capabilities and no aptitude. Please note that those in group one and group two are afforded the same right to life as you and me.

Imagine that a brilliant Harvard physicist is involved in an automobile accident. He goes into a coma. We hope he will receive early medical attention. If so, he might be lecturing again in a month. But we may not be so fortunate. Instead, he might be learning how to speak in a month. Note that the Harvard physicist has the same right to life before the accident, after the accident wherein he received little or no brain damage and after the accident wherein he received serious brain damage. We will only consider killing him if the brain damage is so severe that he has lost all capabilities and all aptitude.

It is not surprising that our laws protect human aptitude. Our laws protect what we value. What is surprising is the ignorance Tooley, Warren, and Hartshorne seem to have of how important aptitude is to our society and culture. New parents are not casual with their newborn children. They do not treat them like cats or dogs, who are much more capable. Instead, new parents protect and treasure their newborns. They admire and dote over them. They are a source of endless pride. This is not simply because they are cute. Nor can it be fully explained by the hereditary bond. New parents sense the potential, the aptitude, of their children. And it fills them with awe. In their arms is a child who has the aptitude to do great things. He might be a doctor or lawyer or scientist. He might paint or write a great novel or compose a symphony. He might play for the NBA or the NFL or the PGA. Here is a child who could do anything. Here is a child who could do something wonderful.

Here is a child who could do something terrible. That act does not deter us. It would be possible to statistically evaluate all children based on their parents' economic status, education level, criminal record and drug use. Using this data we could identify certain groups. Members of some groups would be more likely to become productive members of society. Members of another group would be more likely to become criminals. We could use this data to determine which infants ought to live and which should die. In this way we might create a society with less crime.

There is no chance we will do this. We will not do it because we revere every child's aptitude. We will not do this because we revere the free will of every child. Some children are born into deplorable conditions. Yet we cherish their ability to rise above them.

Think for a moment. What is your favorite story? Put down this essay until you know what it is. Do you have it in your head now? Is it a story about someone with great capabilities, or is it the story of someone with great aptitude, who learns to become capable? Do you value only the Michael Jordans of this world? Or do you value the young boy playing on the rag tag high school team? Do you value only the Paul Simons of this world? Or do you value the struggling young song writer? Do you value only the Yoyo Mas of this world? Or do you value the third grade cellist in the inner city school? Do you not only value their aptitude, but cherish it?

Clearly the second assumption is incorrect. We marvel at the great capabilities of our geniuses. But we also value, even cherish the aptitude of those who may become great.

And what of the third assumption? Is it acceptable to deny a particular group of people a fundamental right because they lack certain capabilities? Is there any precedence for this in our history? I can think of only two examples. At one time black people were enslaved. It was widely argued that they were not capable of living productive lives while free. At one time women were prevented from voting. It was argued that they were not capable of making informed political decisions. In both examples it was found that the denial of the fundamental right was an immoral, unacceptable affront to our values. Before we give credence to their third assumption, it occurs to me that Tooley, Warren and Hartshorne should be able to indicate one case wherein a fundamental right is denied one group of humans, because they lack certain capabilities. But they offer no such example.

I would like to make two final points regarding Tooley, Warren and Hartshorne's thesis. First, when I was reading their articles, I began to feel uneasy about something I could not define. What they were arguing is that the unborn child belongs to a special class of humans that has little or no rights because he lacks certain capabilities. They therefore concluded that it was acceptable to treat them with a different moral standard when it suits our interest.

As I read Tooley and Warren, I felt that I had heard these same arguments before, but in a different form. They sounded very familiar, but I did not know why. The day I read Hartshorne was an epiphany. He had the courage to state explicitly what Tooley and Warren argued implicitly. He asserted that abortion was acceptable because the unborn child was "subhuman, animal life."

In the past, many people have argued that Africans, Native Americans, Women, Gypsies and Jews were sub-human. In books and speeches these groups were accused of being incapable of certain lofty human abilities. And they were denied the rights their persecutors claimed for themselves. These "sub-human" people were treated with a special moral standard because it suited the interests of people who possessed greater power. History teaches us clear and simple lessons about this kind of thinking. Nothing good has ever come of such an argument. Terrible evil has come from every such argument.

To make my second point, I ask you to consider the young men in their twenties in a typical prison. Many of these men are not in jail for physically harming anyone. They were arrested for burglary, distribution of drugs, automobile theft, armed robbery etc. Many of these men have a significant number of prison arrests dating back to their teens. And a large number of these men have held jobs only for brief periods.

With some study, we could assemble an inventory of characteristics. We could conclude that people who had these characteristics would be determined to be significantly likely to commit crimes in the future. It is quite likely that while committing these crimes, they might hurt someone. It is possible they might kill someone. While committing their crimes, they will most likely steal or destroy property. If they are arrested, their incarceration will be very costly to the taxpayers.

It is further likely that these people will not make a significant economic or social contribution to society. In short, it would be possible to determine with some degree of statistical certainty, that individuals with certain characteristics would be much more likely to be a burden on society than an asset.

We might conclude that we could further the interests of our society by killing these people before they committed future crimes. A secondary benefit would be a decrease in the surplus population. What could be wrong with this thoroughly logical proposition?

I hope you are recoiling in horror. We do not and should not kill adult humans because they are more likely to be a burden on our society rather than an asset. This is one point on which Tooley, Warren, Hartshorne, and virtually every American can agree. But why? We can ascertain with some probability if some people are going to be a greater asset or deficit to the community. What is wrong with killing those who are more likely to harm than help our society?

The answer is that we believe men have a right to live. All men have a right to live. We are generous with this right. We extend it even to those who are unlikely to live their lives well. We extend it to those found guilty of burglary and the distribution of drugs and automobile theft and armed robbery.

What Tooley, Warren and Hartshorne are asking is that we be generous with the right to life with everyone, except the unborn. With the unborn, we are to be stingy. They consider the day one sperm and one egg were transformed into one human, and they are skeptical of its value. They consider the nature inherited on that day, and its enormous implications, and they are unimpressed. They consider the aptitude the child possesses to do wondrous things, but scorn his temporary lack of capabilities. They unwittingly, poignantly explain what it means to be pro-life.

To be pro-life is to embrace the dignity of human life. To be pro-life is to look for the value of life, where others discard the weak. To be pro-life is to value individualism, rather than sacrificing others to vague ideas about "the common good". To be pro-life is to embrace every child's aptitude for the treasure it is.

VI.

The fourteenth Amendment of the constitution defines anyone born in the country as well as anyone naturalized as citizens of the United States. Many pro-choice individuals point to this definition as support for abortion rights. The child in the fetal stage of development is surely not a naturalized citizen. And since he has yet to be born, he can not be a citizen of the United States. Thus, pro-choice writers find in the words of the constitution, justification for depriving our youngest children of their fundamental rights.

We can accept this argument only if we shut our eyes and cover our ears. I do not contend that children in their mother's wombs are citizens of the United States. I do not dispute the fact that citizenship confers on a person certain rights that the non-citizen does not possess. For example, the non-citizen can not vote. And we can all agree that the child must leave the womb before he votes.

But to say that a citizen has rights that a non-citizen does not possess, is entirely different from saying that a non-citizen has no rights. It is instructive to note that the Declaration of Independence does not recognize the rights of all citizens to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. It recognizes that all men possess these rights. When it declared these rights as inalienable, it made clear that all men possessed these rights by virtue of being men. Fundamental rights were not granted by a government, as are the rights of citizenship.

Over the past two and one quarter centuries it has been the sincere aspiration of countless Americans to help people all over the world exercise their inalienable rights. Much of our foreign policy over the last half century has revolved around extending human rights to people who are not citizens of the United States.

Our commitment to the fundamental rights of all men is reflected in our government's treatment of foreign visitors. It does not look away as the Japanese man is robbed and deprived of his property. It moves to stop sweat shops from exploiting Chinese immigrants as slave labor, depriving them of their liberty. It does not sit idly by as men kill visitors from France. We do not deprive people who are not citizens of the United States of their fundamental rights. On the contrary we regularly imprison citizens of the United States for violating the rights of non-citizens. Any United States citizen convicted of robbing the Japanese, enslaving the Chinese or killing the Frenchman would be placed in jail.

I believe we have removed all credibility from this pro-choice argument. However, this argument is so often made, I feel it necessary to make some additional comments.

First, using the citizenship portion of the fourteenth amendment to deprive children in the womb of their fundamental rights is completely out of keeping with the original purpose of the clause. The Fourteenth Amendment was passed in 1868, and its purpose was to protect the civil liberties of the recently freed slaves. The amendments definition of citizenship included anyone born in the United States. It was designed to include all of the freed slaves. This was done to assure the protection of their rights. Today this definition is employed for a corollary purpose. It is used to generously extend the rights of citizenship to all children born in the United States. This generous definition includes children of foreign parents, even if their parents are here illegally.

The pro-choice argument attempts to use the same words to accomplish the opposite purpose. It attempts to use the words that generously granted some rights to many people, to deny all the rights of other people.

When you interpret the Constitution according to the intentions of its framers, you are called a strict constructionist. When you interpret the constitution according to our contemporary needs as a nation, you are called a loose constructionist. But I confess I do not know how to categorize someone who interprets the constitution to mean approximately the opposite of its purpose.

Finally, it makes no sense to interpret the definition of citizen as a pro-choice argument, since an avowedly pro-life definition would have to be the same. The rights of citizenship are not the same as your fundamental rights. The rights of citizenship include important rights such as your right to reside in the country, work in the country and to vote. These rights are bestowed upon you by your government, and are normally granted for life.

Because U. S. Citizenship is normally permanent, it would be absurd to grant it to the child in the mother's womb. Consider for a moment the absurdity of a constitutional amendment that granted citizenship to a child conceived in the United States. Imagine a German couple that has vacationed in New York. A month after the trip the German woman discovers she is pregnant. Imagine the mother trying to prove that the child was conceived in the United States and entitled to American citizenship. Imagine an illegal immigrant from Mexico has had a child in California. Imagine that she is asked to prove that the child was conceived in the United States.

The constitution generously grants citizenship to all children born in the United States. It uses a verifiable time (birth) and a verifiable place (the borders of the United States) to establish citizenship. A legislature full of pro-life delegates, vitally concerned with every child conceived, would never extend citizenship at the time of conception. It would be completely impractical. It would also invade the privacy of the mother, something pro-choice advocates claim to dearly prize.

Many people have embraced the citizenship clause as a constitutional justification for the right to abortion. But it is impossible to interpret this clause as depriving the fetal child of his fundamental rights without embracing absurdity.

VII.

Modern Science has made remarkable progress in the area of fertility therapy. Some of this progress has come in the area of in vitro fertilization. In vitro fertilization is the combining of human eggs and sperm in a glass or plastic container under laboratory conditions. Fertilized eggs are then placed in the mother's womb for gestation and birth.

As you might imagine, harvesting the father's sperm is a simple task. Harvesting the eggs, however, is an involved and expensive medical procedure. For that reason, the doctor's harvest more eggs than they expect they will require. The eggs are then combined with the sperm in the laboratory. Only some of the eggs will be successfully fertilized. These are inspected. Several of the most promising embryos will be implanted in the womb. The remaining embryos are frozen.

There are several possible outcomes for the frozen embryos. It is possible that none of the embryos implanted in the womb will survive. In this event, the doctors can make another attempt. They can retrieve the frozen embryos and implant them in the mother's womb. It is also possible that the original pregnancy will be successful, but that the mother will simply desire to have more children. Once again, the doctors can retrieve the embryos and implant them in the mother.

It is of course possible that the initial pregnancy will be successful and that the couple will have no desire for additional children. Some of the remaining embryos are discarded. Some couples have expressed a willingness to donate these embryos to scientific research. On very rare occasions, couples are willing to give their embryos up for adoption. When this happens, the embryos are implanted in another woman who carries the child or children to term and raises them.

In vitro fertilization has been controversial from the outset. Many critics of the procedure have been religious leaders. For that reason, among others, the controversy has often been described as a conflict between science and religion. Many commentators liken the Christian opposition to inquisitors, tormenting the modern Galileos who run our fertilization clinics.

This is an imperfect analogy. Much of the concern surrounding in vitro fertilization can better be described as what I will call the Frankenstein theory. This theory was most famously articulated by Mary Shelley in her novel, Frankenstein. In the novel, a brilliant scientist, Baron von Frankenstein, reanimates a dead human corpse. Frankenstein's motives are good. He desires to further science and medicine, and possibly conquer death itself. Instead, he creates a monster. Shelley's point is that there are certain moral spaces that are closely intertwined with life and death, and that science should not tread in those spaces.

Many religious people have subscribed to this theory. But it is not a particularly religious argument. Shelley's book contains no more religious language than customary in a nineteenth century European novel. And many of the twentieth century applications of the theory have been decidedly secular. Recently, a group of environmental activists have applied the Frankenstein theory to genetically engineered crops. They have even called the food created from these crops Frankenfood. Their contention is that altering the genetic code of the crops is tinkering with the fundamental nature of the crops. They fear that their will be catastrophic, unintended consequences. At the risk of stating the obvious, the movement against genetically altered crops is not a religious one.

The Frankenstein theory has been applied by some scientists. One example is the protest against the use of the atomic bomb in 1945. Many scientists argued that the bomb should not be used, since we were tinkering with the death of the entire human race. There was some fear that the initial blast would cause a chain reaction that might destroy the entire planet. Others feared that the bomb would dramatically alter the fundamental structure of human society. The first fear was never realized, but the bomb did dramatically alter our society. For the first time in human history, a generation of people grew up knowing that their leaders could destroy the human race.

In vitro fertilization has caused some unintended consequences, though the extent and nature of the consequences is a matter of great debate. I am not here arguing that we should not practice in vitro fertilization because of the Frankenstein theory. I am pointing out that much of the opposition to in vitro fertilization can not be easily explained as a conflict between religion and science. In addition, I do not think we can easily dispose of the concerns of those holding the Frankenstein theory. At the very least we should proceed with great caution. And caution does not always typify our approach to scientific research.

But I equivocate. And perhaps I should proceed to an issue that does not permit equivocation. At the time of this writing, there are more than 100,000 unwanted embryos in storage. Many of these are slated for destruction. Many have already been destroyed. We must ask the question: What is the moral nature of killing an embryo, created during in vitro fertilization. Throughout this book, I have argued that your life began the day you were conceived. Essentially, the same thing that occurred to you on the day of conception, occurred to the in vitro fertilized embryo the day he was conceived. Inherent in both of you was a fundamental structure of who you are physically, mentally and emotionally. Both of you possessed all the aptitude you would ever possess. Both of you possessed the aptitude to appreciate Mozart and read Shakespeare. And the only way any human could stop the growth of either of you into adulthood, would be to kill you.

Some people have asserted that the embryo that originated during in vitro fertilization is not a human because life begins in the mother's womb. Unfortunately, many of the people who have made this assertion otherwise espouse the pro-life philosophy. They include prominent senators such as Orrin Hatch.

The idea is patently false, and hardly requires rebuttal. As a matter of definition, human rights reside in each individual human. They can not be affected by your geography. You possess the human right to life. If someone desires to kill you, they can not remove your right to life by relocating you to another geographic location. A murderer is equally guilty, whether he kills his victim in California or Michigan.

The embryo conceived through in vitro fertilization is a human being whose life has begun. The fact that we have orchestrated the circumstances of his conception for our own interests can in no way affect his right to life. On the contrary, the fact that we have purposefully orchestrated his conception makes us all the more responsible for his safety.

We can now perceive a glaring, unspoken irony. When abortion was made legal, some in the pro-life camp claimed that we were proceeding down a slippery moral slope. If we allowed abortions, they argued, we would descend into a slippery moral slope that drew us inevitably downward. Pro-choice advocates derided the slippery slope theory as vague.

I am normally unenthusiastic about slippery slope theories. They are, by their own nature, vague. Most of them have spotty track records. One organization or another is forever proclaiming that a liberal bill in congress will inevitably lead to communism, while another organization claims that a conservative bill will lead to fascism.

But the pro-life slippery slope contains an element of logic not found in similar theories. The right to life resides in the human individual. The human individual is the sole source of its legitimacy. If you allow that one innocent human's right to life is alienable, you have undermined the right's sole source of legitimacy.

It is interesting to consider many of the oldest pro-choice arguments. They said that abortion must be legal to prevent women from resorting to dangerous, illegal abortions. Or that women must be able to control their reproduction in order to achieve equality. Or that women must have control over their bodies.

All of these arguments ground the right of a woman to choose an abortion in the burden associated with child bearing. Judith Jarvis Thomson's essay, easily the most famous pro-choice work ever written, makes a similar argument. She believes it is acceptable to unplug the violinist because supporting the violinist is a great burden that no woman should be forced to endure.

We must recognize that we now allow the destruction of countless children who represent an undue burden to no one. This is not simply immoral. It is unconscionable. But it is not surprising. It was predicted. When abortion was made legal, we undermined the right to life. We undermined its legitimacy. We began by taking lives when they represented a burden to the mother. We now take lives that represent a burden to no one. We are not in danger of starting down a slippery slope. We are half way down it. And there is space left before we hit bottom.

We have a moral imperative to stop the killing of humans in the embryonic stage of life, whose only crime is the fact that they were conceived in the laboratory. We have the moral responsibility to pass legislation to that affect. The only legitimate reason not to pass such a law is that it is redundant. It is already illegal for one human to kill another. It is past time that the judiciary recognize the grave injustice done in this country when children are killed simply because they are very small and very young.

In vitro fertilization has profoundly influenced another debate. Scientists now believe they can cure many diseases such as Alzheimer's, Parkinson's and Diabetes using fetal stem cell therapy. Fetal stem cells hold out great promise because they can become any kind of cell in the human body. Scientists hope they can manipulate these cells to create whatever kinds of cells that were damaged by a disease. They hope to be able to create heart cells for the heart patient, nerve cells for the quadriplegic, liver cells for the diabetic etc. There is only one way to get fetal stem cells. They are extracted from human children in the embryonic stage of development. The child is killed in the procedure.

It should be pointed out that fetal stem cell research has cured no one of any disease. There is no guarantee that it will ever cure anyone of any disease. Scientists are uncertain if they will be able to manipulate the stem cells to become the kind of cells patients require. They are also uncertain that they can successfully implant these cells in patients that require them. The patient's bodies may reject the foreign cells. Some proponents of fetal stem cell research believe that even if implantation is possible, it will be necessary to find a close genetic match between the genetic make-up of the patient and the stem cell. In order to achieve this genetic diversity, these scientists believe thousands of stem cell lines will have to be created. Each stem cell line is created through the killing of one child in the embryonic stage of development. We have been able to reproduce stem cells in the laboratory. But some fetal research proponents believe that each subsequent reproduction may possess less therapeutic abilities. It is possible that in order to cure one adult patient, several embryonic children will have to die.

These are all serious objections to fetal stem cell research. But they do not go to the heart of the problem. The simple and self-evident truth is this: It is immoral to take an innocent person's life, so that another person's life might be bettered or prolonged. The right to life resides in the person, not in societies use for that person.

Incredibly, some people have argued against what is self-evident. They hope that the number of children killed developing fetal stem cell research will be small and that the number of people saved will be large. They rationalize that it is acceptable to sacrifice a few innocent lives for the possibility that millions of lives might be prolonged or bettered.

But this is an attack on the fundamental precepts of our Constitution. The core purpose of our Constitution was to devise a government that would recognize and protect the fundamental, inalienable rights of individuals. It is nonsense to say that all men have the inalienable right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, and then to deny some people that right, when it suits our purposes. The notion that innocent people must give up their fundamental rights because it will benefit the remainder of our society is antithetical to our Constitution and the principles on which this nation was founded. On the contrary, it is the principle which is at the heart of Communism, Collectivism and Fascism. It is the principle which caused each of these philosophies to rot from within. It is the hand maiden of racism. It is the idea that caused the greatest amount of death, violence, destruction and poverty in the twentieth century.

VIII

Two hundred and twenty-five years ago our founding fathers brought forth a nation based on the principle that all men are created equal, that they are endowed with certain inalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Now we are engaged in a struggle, as is every generation, to see if any nation so conceived, can so live. Will we be a nation that protects the fundamental rights of all it people? Or only its powerful and capable? Will we embrace as equals all who are created? Or cast away those we do not desire? Will we speak for the voiceless? Will we carry our young? Will we defend the helpless among us? Or will we destroy them.

Before you were conceived your father created many thousands of sperm. By themselves, they could never become anything. We might place them in an ideal environment at an ideal temperature and provide it with ideal nutrients. We could play Mozart for it. It would never be more than a sperm and soon die.

Before you were conceived, your mother had created many eggs. By themselves, these eggs could never become anything. We might place them in an ideal environment at an ideal temperature and feed it with ideal nutrients. We could read it Shakespeare. It would never be more than an egg and soon die.

The day you were conceived, something monumental occurred. Where there was once a sperm and an egg, there was a new creation. There was someone to call you. I do not know if your mother provided you with an ideal environment at an ideal temperature with ideal nutrients. But she did not kill you. And for that reason you grew, and became capable of learning to play Mozart and able to read Shakespeare.

On the day you were conceived something profound was decided about who you were physically, emotionally and intellectually. How you would be nurtured was yet to be determined, but your nature was determined in full. You were capable of little or nothing, but your aptitude was wonderful and great.

Now among us are many who sleep in the wombs of their mothers. They are the children of their mothers. They are the children of their fathers. They are our children.

They are small and they are beautiful. They are weak and they are great. They are foolish and close to wisdom. They spring from us. They are of us.

And so I ask you. And so I beg you. Explore your thoughts. Open your hearts. And embrace our children.

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