The Morality of Late Term Abortion
A version of this blog post appeared in the Hamilton College Spectator.
In last week’s Spectator, Toby Taylor objected to my support of late term abortion (“The Pious Politics of George W. Bush,” 2/13/2004). From what I and others can piece together, his argument is as follows. Late term abortion is “medically unnecessary” because it takes just as long to abort as to deliver via a cesarean section; so why not deliver?
First, time is irrelevant here; all that matters is the mother’s choice—however long she needs to make it. To be sure, no one advocates abortion as birth control; we who are pro-abortion rights say that it is a mother’s right to choose how to dispose of her body, of which the fetus is necessarily an appendage.
Second, Dr. Taylor says that a “third trimester child . . . no longer has to be a ‘parasite.’” Yes, it doesn’t “have to be”—but it is. Yes, a fetus in the third trimester can live independently, or is “viable,” in the Supreme Court’s definition. But the fact is, It’s not living independently; its vital functions remain an aspect of its mother’s body. And, as Leonard Peikoff has observed, “That which lives within the body of another can claim no prerogatives against its host.”
Rather, as Dr. Richard Parker notes: The fetus is “within the mother and connected to her via the placenta and umbilical chord. It is directly physically dependent on the mother for all of its life sustaining needs—oxygen, energy and safety from the external environment.” This is a crucial distinction. It is, in Ayn Rand’s formulation, the difference between the potential and the actual. Life is not personhood, as ReligiousTolerance.org notes.
Third, in its Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report from December 8, 2000, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimated that only 1.4% of abortions occur after 20 weeks (the third trimester begins at 24 weeks). Of this 1.4%, almost all abortions occur (1) when continuing the pregnancy threatens or aggravates the mother’s health, inducing malignant hypertension, uncontrollable diabetes, heart failure, serious renal disease, etc.; or (2) upon discovery of serious fetal anomalies, like genetic disorders, thus inducing a short, painful, and/or impaired life if carried to term.
Finally, Dr. Toby alleges that the American Medical Association recently “condemned” “partial-birth” abortion. Really? According to its Web site, as of December 17, 2003, the “A.M.A. recommends that abortions not be performed in the third trimester except in cases of serious fetal anomalies incompatible with life.” Quite a condemnation. On the other hand, the A.M.A. cautions that the phrase “partial birth” “is not a medical term. The A.M.A. will use the term ‘intact dilatation and extraction’ (or intact D&X).” And since we’re calling on arguments from authority, intact D&X is strongly supported by the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, which represents nearly 40,000 physicians who provide health care for women; the American Nurses Association, which represents the nation’s 2.7 million registered nurses, and the American Medical Women’s Association, which represents 10,000 women physicians and medical students.
Addendum (8/18/2005): According to the Guttmacher Institute, a research group that supports abortion rights, of abortions performed in 2000, D&X accounted for less than two-tenths of one percent.
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