my view on embryonic rights, and my ideal house

[serenissima]

[reposted from DiaryLand]

One of the AP national news headlines today is that Bush has decided not to send some $34 million that was supposed to go toward the U.N. Population Fund. The reason is pressure from conservative groups, who claim that the U.N.'s fund "tolerates abortions and forced sterilizations in China." Never mind that a U.S. study and a separate British study found no evidence this claim is true.

This is stupid. There are already too many people in many parts of the world, people who cut down trees, fertilize fields, and burn gasoline in their understandable efforts to support themselves and their families. It is ultimately self-interest for the human race to control its own birth rate. The U.S. would probably find trade more profitable with countries whose people can afford to send their kids to school instead of feeding another sibling.

Supposing that part of what the U.N. fund did was to make abortions available to women who wanted them in developing countries. Would I support such a fund? I lean towards "no," but it's complicated.

The issues of both abortion and stem cell research hinge on the status of the embryo: is an embryo a human being? My answer is unequivocally yes. A pair of gametes is just a couple of cells, but from the moment of conception what you have there is an individual. Yes, it's a person in becoming, but I believe that it is a person. From a religious angle, I believe that a soul is connected to that microscopic body at that moment.

Years ago, I was discussing this with an old friend. Her viewpoint was that a person gains personhood at birth, because its viability as an independent existance is then proven. I asked her to compare a baby born prematurely at, say, seven months, in an incubator, versus another seven month old baby still in its mother's womb. She held that the baby in an incubator is a separate person while the baby yet unborn is not. I think this is ridiculous. And yet, people who hold that infants go from being an extension of the mother to being independant persons have to draw the line somewhere. Physical removal from the mother's body is as reasonable a point as any -- because such a distinction is completely arbitrary. Would you say at six months into pregnancy? At three? At gastrulation, perhaps, when separate layers of tissue in the embryo begin to distinguish themselves? I make no such distinction, pushing the line all the way back to the beginning, back to where it disappears.

Having established the personhood of the embryo, I am squeamish about placing a higher value on that person's life than on the health, and perhaps lives, of millions of other people with congenital diseases. That, for me, is the question of stem cell research. Can you weigh the life of the one against the life of the many? I still say no, but it is a painful question. What about all the embryos in cold storage, leftover from infertile couples' attempts at IVF? By my standards, they are people too. The only right thing I can think of to do with them would be to let other couples bring them to term and bear them -- and that's unlikely to happen. This is why I would never go for in vitro fertilization myself.

What about abortion? In the U.S., where facilities exist to give up babies, I simply cannot see abortion as an option. If a woman finds herself with an unwanted pregnancy, despite whatever measures she may have taken to prevent it, she should endure the nine months of nausea and bloating and whatever else and give the baby up for adoption. The child's existance is not something to prevent, it already exists and she would be terminating it. Abortion is murder, and while there are many circumstances that can drive a person to murder, it is still wrong, just as wrong as bringing the infant to term and then killing it. I include rape and incest. Yes, a horrible wrong is inflicted upon a raped woman, but to kill an innocent third party is another horrible wrong. Give the child away if you can't raise it yourself. There are plenty of childless couples who want healthy newborns.

There was an article about abortion a few years ago in TIME magazine -- I think it was when abortion-inducing pills became more widely available -- and it featured the story of a young couple with a toddler who were in the middle of remodeling their home when the wife discovered she was pregnant. They decided to abort because they were concerned about fumes from paint etc. affecting the health of the baby and they weren't ready for another child at the time. That, in my opinion, is the most inexcusable situation. If they had the funds to remodel, they had the funds to support a second child. They could have halted remodeling for a while, had the child, and if they still didn't want it, give it up then.

Other situations I find more understandable. There are still places in the world where mothers smother their newborns because the children cannot be supported for whatever reason. Maybe there is no doorstep on which to leave the swaddled infant. In such places I can envision an abortion clinic as an alternative to infanticide, but it simply moves the killing backward in time, making it perhaps more convenient. However, I am all for programs that distribute contraceptives and prophylactics. I have no problem whatever with contraception: that is not ending a life, it is preventing a life. To reiterate a point I made at the beginning, it all comes down to the embryo's status as a human being.

As for the U.N.'s fund and population control in general, I think that is a necessary measure the human race has to take. Here I weigh human lives against inhuman lives, ecosystems, the environment -- the future. What will the world be like in 300 years? Will there still be black rhinos, red wolves, white tigers, green tree frogs living wild? Would you be willing to sacrifice a livelihood to save a species?

Still I, like everyone else, have an urge to control and tame my world. On a lighter subject, here are some characteristics of my dream house.

• at least three stories: a basement and at least two stories above ground, plus an attic
• a small lawn, a garden, a patio, a deck, and maybe a glassed-in porch
• a courtyard or glass-roofed conservatory in the center
• well sealed to keep bugs out
• lots of windows for sunshine, but not so that it gets too hot in the afternoons
• ground floor would be wheelchair-accessible, and have one guest room
• kitchen should be near the carport for ease of unloading groceries, and a half-bathroom should be nearby too
• maybe the washer/dryer should be upstairs, near most of the bedrooms
• mudrooms by the doors where people can put on slippers and barefoot people can wash their feet
• drains in the floors of all rooms with a source of water, to avoid floods
• gas fireplace
• everything energy efficient, and use enviromentally sound materials throughout. Maybe solar panels on the roof?
• areas in the walls to snake cable through for a home network etc.