Nobody wants to abort babies
What we want the right to abort, are foetuses
Ever notice how the overwhelming majority of anti-abortionist rhetoric references ‘babies’?
Ever stopped to think about how that’s, you know, wildly inaccurate?
Like, my dude. Please. Chill.
Absolutely fucking no one is advocating for people’s right to abort babies.
What we are, indeed, advocating for — is people’s right to abort foetuses. Often times, it’s technically even still embryos, as in a cluster of human cells less than 10 weeks in development, since the majority of abortions, around two thirds, are being done before 9 weeks.
This isn’t just arguing semantics. Words matter a great deal in ethical debates, because words carry meaning, and it’s the meaning they carry that will ultimately define our stance on the matter.
The meaning of words
You see, this over here, is a baby.
By contrast, this over here, is an embryo.
Oh no wait pardon me, hold on, oopsie, pause that ‘it’s murder because look at its tiny hands’ comment there for one sec, my bad — that’s a cat embryo.
Now this right here, is a human embryo, all right, there we go.
The first of these three pictures is of a person. The third one, is of a small cluster of non sentient human cells. And that second one, is of a small cluster of non sentient cells that might grow up to pee on your favourite dress in retribution after you’ve switched its regimen from salmon chunks in gravy to vet-mandated renal care diet food.
It’s imperative that we highlight this distinction between foetus and baby. Because the better part of the anti-abortionist argument rests on an assumption that’s doing a lot of heavy lifting for just an assumption: that what people are trying to abort, are people — rather than a mere handful of cells with potential.
The meaning of a person
That cluster of cells isn’t a person any more than an amoeba is a person, because we tend to define a person as something with a consciousness, aka, with the ability to experience things.
A foetus doesn’t develop consciousness until week 24. Pain receptors start developing around week 7, but they won’t be connected to the brain for another 5 to 8 weeks, at around week 13. 93% of abortions are being done at or before 13 weeks — and it’s usually in lower income countries, where access to safe abortions is difficult for people, that we see the 1 in 10 minority of abortions happening between the 13 to 24 weeks window.
It’s funny how humans will go berserks about a puddle of non sentient cells, but don’t bat an eye in the face of the unspeakable, satanic fucking level of cruelty with witch the animals they’re consuming for food are being treated, despite the latter being not just capable of feeling pain, but of experiencing the full extent of despair, terror, and anguish — whilst the former is capable of experiencing absolutely nothing, because it lacks the cerebral cortex to do so.
Humans are funny like that.
Whether this embryo vs person distinction is glossed over intentionally or as a result of a failure to utilise logic is in itself relevant: those who intentionally equate foetuses with babies despite knowing this to be factually incorrect, do so because they believe there’s an argument to be made that negates this difference.
It doesn’t matter that the embryo isn’t a person right now when the abortion is being performed, they will inevitably argue, what matters is that the cluster of cells that’s visually nearly indistinguishable from a cat embryo to the untrained eye, has the potential to become a person. And that potential is enough of an argument for taking to the streets to bravely scream slurs at unfortunate people who are headed towards the entrance to an abortion clinic.
Yes, that handful of cells in the human foetus might turn into a person, eventually. But until it does, it is still just a bunch of non sentient cells. As of right now, looking at that third pic, what that is, is a hypothetical person, hard emphasis on hypothetical.
You haven’t any more right to deny someone who is a person at this very fucking moment bodily autonomy in the name of a hypothetical person, on the basis of future potential alone — than you do to subject every white man living in USA’s state of New York to weekly psychiatric exams in the name of hypothetical victims, on account of serial killers being most likely to fit the white dudes from America, more specifically, from New York demographic.
Demanding that a hypothetical person you’re willing to share no responsibility for be born to an unwilling host in order to conform to your fuzzy feelings about babies is asinine.
Alas, some people go a step further — and demand this be done on account of their religious beliefs.
The meaning of life
Listen. If religion appeals to you and that’s a vital part of your worldview: love that for you — underline you. Religion is a you thing.
But don’t get me wrong. To paraphrase an old adage, I am an atheist who will forever fight for your right to practise religion free of judgement, discrimination, or contempt. I respect anyone’s spiritual beliefs and sometimes partake in respectfully exploring artistic and literary religious motifs, even if I do not engage with the belief system itself. I will defend your freedom to, without restriction, do and live by anything that your religion asks of you.
But this practice extends exclusively to your own person and to other people who are eager to worship with you. It does not extend to me and my body — and I don’t have to ask for your permission to do away with a collection of non sentient cells in my own body any more than I should’ve asked for your permission to have my faulty thyroid removed. The fact that you believe one of them has a soul and the other one doesn’t is, as we’ve discussed, a you thing.
Quite fittingly given the nature of this debate, as the joke goes, when it comes to ethical and social norms surrounding it, it’s useful to think of religion as being much like a penis — mean no disrespect — as in you have a right to share it with other willing adults only. You haven’t a right to shove it down anyone’s throat, unless they’re into that and they consent to the act. You can’t force another human being to submit to its command, without first finding an eager adult and establishing a safeword/hand signal beforehand. It’s also a super cringy faux pas to go around sending pics of it to strangers online.
You have no moral ground to stand on in asking me to live by something that requires faith in order to exist, because you have no right to force me to have that faith, similarly to how I neither can nor should be able to force you to stop having it and join the socialist atheist community in a Carl Sagan-esque intellectual circle jerk.
I get that it might feel unsettling to witness other people blatantly disregard your dearest moral precepts. But that still doesn’t mean you can force other people to live by your values, any more than I can force everyone who is privileged enough to afford not to, to stop exploiting and tormenting animals for food.
Upon learning more about the miserable existence we subject them to, I, being fortunate enough to find myself in a position to do so, have chosen to live by a set of principles in response to this knowledge and to my own moral compass. It is therefore my belief that one’s culinary whims are not worth the monstrous, unhinged level of suffering we inflict upon other sentient, emotionally complex beings with intricate social lives, simply because our ability to chase each other around a football field in organised groups or to use an iPhone gives us a sense of superiority over our animal counterparts who cannot perform these tasks. Conversely, I doubt they’re missing out on as much as we’d like to think that they are.
The ability to feel emotions is not defined by our intelligence. Despair feels exactly the same to both the pig we condemn to a life of round the clock torture and to me, because it’s the exact same combination of neurotransmitters that’s working to send signals around the brain in order for both the pig and myself to experience this emotion.
I’m pretty sure you don’t need opposable thumbs to experience the anguish of being forcibly removed from your mother, only to then live out your entire life separated from others of your kind in perpetual solitary confinement inside a cage that’s too small for you to turn around or lie down in, to finally be delivered into the merciful release of death via a truck so crammed with the first members of your species you’ve ever seen in your life that your intestines threaten to burst through your anus.
According to the secular belief system I happen to support, these animals are individuals whose rights are being violated. Humans have been hunting since the dawn of time; modern humans are torturing and exploiting other species. These two are not the same — and I cannot in good conscience continue to support this industry, seeing as I am in a privileged position where I can afford to make different choices.
In effect, while you might believe that a 9 week embryo has a soul while I believe no one at all does, I believe that animals have the secular equivalent of one while you believe that they do not. We each believe that what the other one is doing is morally wrong.
Continuing the analogy, I can inspire people I know to explore more vegan food by cooking and sharing amazing vegan food within my community, without succumbing to patronising, alienating judgement towards differing world views. I can recommend a good Noah Harari book to willing readers and let a historian with unparalleled writing talent tell them about our biography as a species. If I were a scientist, I could join one of the teams attempting to create meat in a petri dish in order to provide and guide towards the use of a viable alternative. But I cannot, nor should I be able to, force all people who can afford to, to be vegans.
It pains me to think of all those animals living in agony a million times beyond what the natural environment could, at its worst, ever provide. If I think too much about it, I will literally start tearing up — I don’t believe anything makes my suffering as a human inherently superior to theirs, and what little could be argued to the contrary pales in the light of our complete disregard for their immense emotional and physical anguish.
And still, I will fight for your right to choose for yourself. Not because I believe in your choice, but because I believe in your right to choose, even as it pains me to watch you exercise it.
Though an increasing number of people share similar views, vegans cannot enforce this belief set upon the world — and I fail to see how that’s any different from religious people attempting to superimpose theirs over another’s right to choose.
Similarly, no matter how many people believe in astrology, the state has no right to allow hospitals to perform triage based on the position of indifferent celestial bodies at the time of patients’ birth. Also, if one more fucking person asks for my star sign in an attempt to explain my neurodivergent quirks away using their set of 12 pre-generated D&D characters, I will not be held accountable for the length of my unscheduled TED Talk.
Things that require faith in order to be a thing are deeply personal and beyond enforcement.
Let’s create a world where we can each choose for ourselves, as it pertains to our own bodies and our own bodies only. A world where the things imposed upon us by the state do not require faith in order to make sense. It’s the only way to save ourselves from the nightmares that Orwell, who by the way was a democratic socialist despite what Jordan Peterson appears to have been led to believe, fucking warned us about.
Okay, so I know this was divisive in more ways than one, and I know it’s hard to venture respectfully into these debates. I want us to be able to share both humour and difficult conversations comfortably, yet without being assholes. I hope I have managed to walk that fine line, but I strive to do better every day, so feel free to share your thoughts and feedback.
And, until we meet again, stay safe, fellow nerds.
