Idea: Due to crude intuitions about fetal development, abortion has been framed as an issue about conflicting rights. This has allowed Progressives to indulge in tribal politics. Consequently, there’s been a missed opportunity to consolidate access to abortion using the scientific rationale it's based on.
The US Supreme Court will overturn Roe vs Wade according to a leaked draft opinion. This would remove the constitutional right of women to access abortion. If this happens, I think Progressives have contributed to this outcome. A good point of entry to see what role they’ve played is with this video of Democrat delegate Kathy Tran. In case you don’t watch it, it shows Tran saying a Bill she’s proposing would allow a woman to request an abortion up to the point where she’s giving birth. Here’s a longer version of the video and you can google for more details. But to be clear, this failed Bill was so permissive it would have effectively made abortion legal at any point during pregnancy. How did a situation arise where a politician could propose a Bill that in theory might allow babies to be killed?
I would say it originates from the idea abortion is about a woman’s right to bodily autonomy. Many people will hate to hear this, but in terms of the law this idea is effectively a myth. To my knowledge, there’s a limit on when abortion can be legally performed everywhere it’s legal. Therefore, as soon as the fetus is considered human, its own rights are treated as equally valid (unless the woman’s life is in danger). The inevitable consequence of claiming abortion is about the right of women to bodily autonomy is the position taken by Kathy Tran.
In truth, behind every legal basis for abortion is a scientific argument about when a fetus can be considered human. I’ll leave the details for another post, but this scientific argument can be illustrated using its extremes. Is a fertilised egg a human being? There are people who say yes but as a scientist I would say no. Is a baby about to be born a human being? Again, as a scientist I would say yes. The question is obviously how you define when the transition between not human and human occurs. As I said, I’ll leave the details for another post but for this post I’ll just point out this transition is typically taken to be when the fetus is considered independently viable. That is, it could survive outside the mother’s womb.
I’ll state my position clearly. Before a fetus has sufficiently developed it isn’t a human being. Therefore, over this period there are no conflicting rights. Pregnant women don’t need a right to an abortion any more than people need a right to any medical procedure. I suspect there’ll be many people who’ll be uncomfortable with this position - including people that are pro-abortion, ironically. It’s this latter point I'll explore as I think it helps to understand the psychology for how the US has found itself in the current situation with Roe vs Wade.
I think there’s an irony at the heart of the debate about abortion. The pro- and anti-abortionists often begin at the same basic position. This is due to people relying on crude intuitions about human fetal development. For example, how they feel after seeing a picture of a fetus. Anti-abortionists allow this intuition to say life begins at conception. Pro-abortionists on the other hand often behave as if life gradually emerges from the point of conception, and as a consequence so do the rights of the fetus. The consequence of this shared intuition is that pro-abortionists effectively find themselves arguing on the terms of their opponents. That is, that a fetus is human in some way. This shared intuition has made the abortion debate about a battle of rights, with both sides arguing over whether those rights are equal or not. This fundamental problem with the abortion debate has been there from the beginning, but it is now coinciding with a problem I’ve already written about.
I’ve suggested political activism on the Left has been taken over by a ‘B Team’ of average people now that smart people from previously disadvantaged groups are free to pursue their niche interests. Because they lack intelligence, the B Team are more prone to the kind of crude perceptions that lead to group-think and tribalism. Goals and campaigning become focused around this tribalism with little awareness there may be nuance and complexity about the real world that needs to be considered.
To illustrate how this has played out within the abortion debate, the average women who’ve taken over feminist activism seem more focused on beating men than women’s actual needs and values. And the average people who’ve taken over left-wing activism seem more interested in beating the Right and Christians than women’s access to abortion. The claim that abortion is about a women’s right to bodily autonomy has been weaponised by B Team Progressives for their political tribalism, despite how unpopular this position can become when taken too far.
To complete this post, I'll summarise the various positions on abortion as I see them. The anti-abortionists say life beings at conception. This is at least clear if unscientific, I would say. Another large section of society behave as if fetuses gradually become human from the moment of conception. The first two groups have created an environment where abortion is seen as a battle of rights. This environment has been exploited by too many Progressives to indulge in political tribalism. In contrast, the view of abortion I’ve presented states that a fetus is not human until clearly past some point within its development. Consequently, there’s no conflict of rights and access to abortion should be as routine as other medical procedures.
I think there’s a majority of Americans who could agree with me. The intuition that human life gradually emerges is only slightly removed from understanding a fetus can be too underdeveloped to be considered human. The majority with the capacity to have this scientific view of abortion could have been leveraged to consolidate Roe vs Wade in the nearly half century since this ruling. That it wasn’t is a clear failure of the pro-abortion political establishment in the US. Women across the US may soon have to suffer unnecessary harm due to the stupidity of the Progressive left.