Academia v Reality

 I can’t do this topic justice in a blog post, but reading part of this interview with Peter Singer I’m struck by how utterly disconnected from reality he is.

Singer’s argument is that there’s no ethical difference between aborting a malformed fetus and ending the life of a malformed infant. His reasoning is that, if the parents can end the pregnancy due to defects (“birth defects” doesn’t really apply to the unborn, does it?), why not after? I’m carefully not designating how long after because Singer doesn’t give a deadline to his idea, just that parents who have this absolute right before birth retain it after birth.

Let me say a couple of things in relation to that. First, parents do have that option, right now, in every country that allows abortion when a prenatal diagnosis has shown that there’s a disability. I don’t draw a big distinction between abortion and infanticide. Those who think that it’s O.K. for women to have an abortion need to show why there’s such an important difference between the fetus before birth and the newborn infant after birth. Second, parents, right now, have the option of withdrawing life support for an infant with a serious disability. I think that both of these cases convey exactly the same attitude to disability that I’m defending. You can say that is ableist. But some have said that I’m simply representative of the ableist society as a whole, which supports both of these things. And I think that’s true.

Of course, withdrawing life support can only be done under specific conditions, conditions applicable to any person on life support, whether or not they suffer any other serious disability. (My brother elected to withdraw his own life support because he was paralyzed and couldn’t digest food, as a result of a spinal tumor. No one would categorize cancer as a “disability.”) Abortion, by Singer’s argument, requires no such conditions (whether that is strictly true, as he claims it to be, is yet another problem with his argument). 

We can accept Singer’s premise to this degree: it is pre-Dobbs, and that has changed the circumstances.

Anachronism aside, the premise of his argument is that birth does not introduce a substantive difference in the situation. But even pre-Dobbs infants were treated differently than fetuses.

The distinction is birth. Singer wants to overlook that demarcation, but we never have before. Arguments about the fetus being a person are for individuals, not societies and governments. I’ll return to that, but let’s look at Singer’s argument first.

Immediately after birth, an infant can be cared for by others. Even premature infants, past a certain gestational age, can be kept alive, and eventually thrive. But prior to that age? Nothing can keep them alive but the mother’s womb. Please note that even premature birth is birth; that’s the legitimate dividing line here. A line Singer completely ignores.

After birth, the parents have an obligation to care for the child: to nurture it, protect it, feed it, educate it. If the parents fail in that duty, the state will find others to fulfill it. Granted, that’s seldom ideal, but we the people, the society, will take that responsibility. We don’t kill the child just because it is an inconvenience to the parents (I speak specifically in Singer’s terms, as I understand them). Or for any reason at all. As I said before, even removing life support requires conditions society (through government) condones. Inconvenience is not one of those reasons.

It’s worth noting that Singer’s argument is not recently made, which makes it a likely (if lost in translation) source for the idea of “post-birth abortion.” It really doesn’t sound any stupider when Sen. Tuberville says it. But if you ignore the line between fetus and infant, stupid is what you sound like.

I remember reading, decades ago now, an essay arguing for the legitimacy of abortion. This was in the wake of Roe, then a sea change in American culture. The argument was presented as a thought problem, not unlike the (entirely spurious, IMHO), “trolley problem,” though I think this one more valid. 

So the problem runs this way: imagine someone is dying, and the only cure is for you to cross the room and touch their forehead. That’s it. And the question is, does that create an obligation on you?

It’s an analogy, which already raises it above the trolley problem. But the fundamental issue is: what obligation do you have to cross the room? Can we force you to? Can the government act to make you do it? (And here consider that common law cannot make you fulfill an employment contract (or any contract, for that matter; but employment is the most analogous here). It cannot, in others words, make you cross that room even if you entered into an agreement to do so). So I’ll ask again: can we enforce your obligation?

Maybe morally, ethically, you should cross that room, because we should all help each other. But can we force you to? And how much less a burden is this than pregnancy?

Terminating a pregnancy is a medical decision, not unlike terminating life support. But life support involves the society. Many people are needed to keep one in such circumstances alive. But the mother alone nurtures the fetus for 9 months. And can we, society, through laws, force her to do that? Why?

That’s the difference between abortion and infanticide. It’s really a very simple one.