Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site bbncca.ARPA Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!cbosgd!ihnp4!bbncca!rrizzo From: rrizzo@bbncca.ARPA (Ron Rizzo) Newsgroups: net.abortion Subject: When does life begin? IT DOESN'T! Message-ID: <1203@bbncca.ARPA> Date: Tue, 11-Dec-84 18:43:24 EST Article-I.D.: bbncca.1203 Posted: Tue Dec 11 18:43:24 1984 Date-Received: Wed, 12-Dec-84 06:11:16 EST Organization: Bolt, Beranek and Newman, Cambridge, Ma. Lines: 63 [The ideas & examples below are from a talk by historian of science Stephen Jay Gould on "Boundaries & Classification in Science" given 12/11/84 at BBN. ] Many people on both sides of the abortion controversy think the point at which life begins can be determined. Many of these probably expect an answer to be forthcoming eventually from science. But the question "When does life begin?" is a bad question, because it has NO ANSWER, or least none that's remotely meaningful for the human issue [no pun intended] of abortion. Science can NEVER provide the kind of answer desired. Life BEGINS biologically at spermatogenesis & ovulation & continues thru fertilization and embryonic development on a continuum that has no biolo- gical breakpoints that correspond to those that any MORAL (or human) idea life either pre- or post-natal requires. If pro-lifers really mean to use a biological criterion (life) for their morality, then "masturbation is murder". To emphasize the gulf between nature & (traditional) human/moral concep- tions of it, consider the following: are Siamese twins two persons or one? What if one two heads share much or all of one body? Or if one head possesses two complete but connected bodies? We want to force an answer: two heads, two persons; one head, one. Yet there is one under- lying embryological process which produces these varying results, and the difference in outcomes isn't significant embryologically: the split- ting merely began at different ends. As products of the same process there's strong biological reason to consider both forms of twinning as the same kind of entity. The answer to the individuality question is probably there's no answer: Siamese twins sharing much of a body are both distinct individuals & the same individual, maybe a "super-individual". Our idea of individual person breaks down in the face of this natural phenomenon and fails to describe or classify it. [What follows is my own opinion.] A morality (ie, traditional human notions) which claims to base itself on nature is doomed to absurdity in the face of phenomena like Siamese twins, colonial sea organisms, the facts of embryology, etc., etc. It seems to me that the political phenomenon which is the anti-abortion movement is due primarily to the preposterous Roman Catholic idea of "natural law", which is really a relic of prescientific thought. Morality is a human matter, external to & imposed on nature (& human experience which is part of nature), & necessarily somewhat arbitrary with respect to it. Appeals to nature actually corrupt ethics. Given that, moral issues, like abortion, ought to be decided on criteria that are the most important & meaningful for human beings & their lives as we know them. Fetuses may be complex organisms & biologically alive, but it doesn't easily follow that, just because of that, they are human. Cheers, Ron Rizzo P.S. I don't mean to attack anyone's faith (though theology is poorly served by the idea of "natural law"). I do want to shake people up & out of the presumption that nature provides corroboration for morality.