Trimesters
This article raises a great many questions.
Campbell wants a rationalisation of the current abortion laws, so that terminations are available on demand in the first trimester, but available only on urgent medical grounds in later stages of pregnancy…His conviction owes much to advanced ultrasound scanning, a field in which Campbell is the acknowledged leader…
Okay, why.
By demonstrating the advanced physiological development of foetuses, his images reignited the abortion debate last year, when the television programme, Life Before Birth, showed footage of Campbell’s scans, with embryos moving in real time at just 12 weeks, and apparently smiling at 20 weeks.
Moving, and apparently smiling. But…but moving doesn’t necessarily equate to conscious, aware, even sentient moving. And ‘apparently smiling’ doesn’t necessarily equate to actual smiling (whatever Jeb Bush may say).
A father-of-four, he admits his reasoning is based on gut instinct, rather than cold logic. “It’s very tenuous, very non-specific, and some people say it’s very sentimental, but given how advanced these babies are in terms of the sophistication of their movements, and their facial expressions, I feel it’s actually offensive to be [carrying out abortions], certainly after 18 weeks.”
But what does ‘advanced’ mean there? What does ‘sophistication’ mean? I know what ‘facial expressions’ means, but I don’t know how one picks out ‘sophisticated’ ones from reflex ones. Is that ‘cold logic’? But if it is – maybe there’s a place for cold logic when discussing these issues? Maybe gut instinct can be misleading?
“At 12 weeks the foetus starts to move around much more vigorously, make complex movements, touch its feet and toes, put its finger in its mouth, take stepping movements. Suddenly that is a big change, and you don’t see it at 11 weeks…”
It’s a change, but what kind of change?
Although annoyed his images have been “hijacked by the anti-abortion lobby”, Campbell doesn’t regret the fact abortion is now a hotly contested issue. “I feel slightly flattered in a way that my images have got people talking about it. The foetus is its own advocate. Before, it was all about care for the mother, and I’m all in favour of that. But that’s balanced with images of the foetus, which is saying, ‘Here I am, this is what I can do, this is my humanity, I’m a sentient human being, do you want to terminate me?’ The foetus now is part of the question.”
Okay – that begins to answer some of those questions. The idea is that the foetus (because it is moving around and apparently smiling) is saying ‘Here I am, this is what I can do, this is my humanity, I’m a sentient human being, do you want to terminate me?’. But is the foetus saying that? Would it be saying that if it could talk? And (another question) what does ‘sentient’ mean there? Are we meant to confuse it with ‘conscious’?
So many people told me they felt very emotional about it. I had thought there was a growing movement towards the recognition of humanity in the womb.
There again. Surely nobody claims that a human foetus is not human – so what does ‘recognition of humanity in the womb’ mean?
What about the charge that emotive images of early foetuses showing apparent emotional responses shouldn’t be taken into account in considering an essentially scientific issue?…“Of course it’s emotive,” counters Campbell. “It’s a natural human response to see something that looks and behaves like a child, and to be emotional and protective towards it, not rip it out of the uterus. It’s good emotion, not bad…The film [Life Before Birth] at least made the foetus look like a potential human being, as nice as a newborn baby. It’s not suddenly there and it’s cute; it was cute before birth. It’s time people began to love the foetus.”
But is it? If so, why? Because it moves in an advanced, sophisticated, complex way? Because it’s apparently smiling? Because it’s sentient? Because it’s as cute and nice as a baby? Because it’s human? Because people feel protective towards it when they see images of it? Are any of those good reasons? Are they good reasons when all added together even if they’re not good reasons taken separately?
I have to say, they don’t seem like good reasons to me. That’s not to say that there may not be good reasons, but these don’t seem to be good ones. Movements can be merely reflexive, as can smiling. Sentience is not the same thing as consciousness. Humanity is not in dispute. Cute and nice – well cute and nice seem to be what’s at issue here. It’s all about images, and emotional reactions to images. But images, like appearances, can be misleading. (Surely Campbell must know that – mustn’t he?) In short, a foetus may look as if it’s aware and conscious without actually being so. Now, maybe that’s not the issue – maybe that isn’t and shouldn’t be the cut-off point for abortion. But it’s not clear why movement or ‘cuteness’ should be either. At least not for the rest of us; not for the law; not as public policy. If the foetus’ own parents want to decide the matter on that basis, that of course is their business. But I don’t see why outsiders should decide it for them on that basis. ‘You can’t abort that foetus; it’s cute now.’ That does not seem to me to be a compelling argument.
But haven’t you realized that our emotions are the soundest possible basis for all our moral judgments? That’s the story told by Leon “Wisdom of Repugnance” Kass, and we know what a top-flight ethicist he must be if Our God-Appointed President chose him for his bioethics advisory committee.
Sarcasm aside, this is of a piece with a lot of things you’ve been talking about lately, OB. The religiously inclined – and I’ll include the religious right, the religious left, the religious middle, the “spiritual, not religious,” and even those who aren’t particularly religious but cling to some ideology in a dogmatic fashion – frequently prefer emotion to reason. Of course, it’s always *their* emotions – not yours or mine or anyone else’s – which form the basis for their claims about how the world should be. Their personal ethical convictions, like their religious beliefs (and usually these are the same thing), cannot be grounded in reason and evidence and cannot stand against the slightest shred of critical reflection – so they reject reason and critical thinking for emotion, and dress up their emotional preferences with words like “instinct” or “intuition.” In public discourse they usually don’t have the gall to declare these positions articles of faith – but what the hell else can you call a belief or set of beliefs to which one adheres because of some emotional attachment or personal choice in lieu of (and often in spite of) any reason or evidence?
To all of them I say: No! You don’t get to tell me what to feel, and you certainly don’t get to use what YOU feel as a foundation for public policies that tell me what I can and cannot do.
Ah, yes, Kass. I made mock of him a long time ago in the ‘Taboo’ essay.
This Campbell guy at least seems to realize that emotional reasoning could be seen as – questionable, at any rate; yet he goes with it all the same.
But everything he says in that article just strikes me as surprisingly…not good enough.
I suppose what’s going on is that he thinks his feeling really does point to something valid even if he himself can’t articulate it. But the trouble is, it just doesn’t.
Although I love her to bits, I can’t help noticing that my 3 week old daughter can’t touch her toes any more (assuming ‘she’ could after 12 weeks in the womb), nor does she smile in the traditional sense.
I don’t remember if we discussed this before, but when those images were originally shown they very sneakily showed them speeded up – so it looked like the foetus was waving its arms around, rather than very slowly and gradually moving limbs, almost certainly with no purpose.
In what possible sense can reflex muscle twitches represent an emotional response? And an emotional response to what? These foetuses have a barely developed nervous system.
There certainly should be an unlimited right to abortion early on, at the moment it is too difficult in this country to get one quickly (at the point where there should really be no ethical objections to something that is only a step on from emergency contraception).
But what really annoys me is all this talk about how advances in survival for babies born premature mean that the aborton limit should be moved earlier – I mean, how does that work? One day it might be possible to take an embryo from fertilisation to viability outside the body – how will that alter the ethical question about when a child can be aborted?
I think the ethical approaches to abortion are currently far too confused, which is what allows idiots like this bloke to make ridiculous proclamations about abortion based on whether he thinks a foetus looks cute. Its like a generalisation of the stupid British approach to animal welfare (people here really believe that eating a cat would be morally wrong, morons).
The ethics should surely be about whether the foetus is a sentient being or somesuch. The line should be drawn at a point where we’re sure that the foetus’ nervous system is sufficiently underdeveloped not to really be an individual person – to not feel pain, or not be capable of goal directed behaviour. We can argue about where that is (I tend to go for the Singer like argument that it is pretty damn late), but this guy’s argument is mad.
[Sorry if I’m a bit incoherent, listening to latest news about explosions over here, bit worrying]
Quite all right, PM, I’m rather rattled myself (quivering like a struck gong, actually) despite great distance.
The ridiculous smiling business struck me the same way. Are we supposed to think the foetus is really smiling? About what? What’s it got to smile about [even if it were aware enough to have something to smile about, which it isn’t]? It’s floating around in soup with nothing to do and no one to talk to – what’s so pleasing?
I tend to go with Singer too – and at the very least I don’t think that aspect should just be left out.
Well exactly, Chris – and obviously Campbell knows that! I mean the first thing anyone ever hears about a baby is ‘that’s not a real smile yet, that’s just gas’ – it can’t very well be a secret to someone who specializes in the subject. So what’s he playing at?
[Friendly waves to 3-week-old]