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Conception not synonymous with personhood
Dear Editor,
In his argument that abortion is morally wrong, Fr. Ronald Wasowski, C.S.C., asserts that the premise that embryos and fetuses are human beings is a simple biological fact, and thus an uncontroversial starting point for further discussion. Whatever one's position on the abortion issue, such an assertion would seem to oversimplify the case.
While no one doubts that a genetically unique cell comes into existence at conception, in order for that fact to function as part of Wasowki's argument, we must further assume that it is a person - a subject of rights. The fact that conception yields a unique cell with 46 chromosomes that, under a set of specified conditions, will develop into a recognizable human being does not, by itself, imply the zygote is a human being (i.e., a moral or legal person).
To show this requires an argument for why the marker for personhood should be the existence of 46 chromosomes as opposed to something else, an argument that will go beyond the biological facts.
This in no way decides the moral or legal controversies surrounding abortion. It does, however, point to why the claim that embryos and fetuses in utero are human beings cannot simply be taken as a factual starting point for resolving those controversies.
As Don Marquis, in the most widely discussed anti-abortion argument in ethics observes, "The claim that the fetus is a human being cannot be taken to be a premise in the anti-abortion argument, for it is precisely what needs to be established."
Jeff Gauthier,
Philosophy professor
Focus on the causes of unplanned pregnancies
Dear Editor,
First and foremost, I would like to thank you all on publishing the abortion columns that you have (the back and forth pro-life and pro-choice ones). The editorials on such a sensitive issue have been a large help in confirming for me where I stand on it.
The editorials (and the follow up reading that Fr. Ronald Wasowski's, C.S.C., required) helped confirm my belief that it is never right to vest the sins of the parent(s) on to the child, but given all the sins that could be vested onto any family living through an unplanned pregnancy - especially if said family is already suffering poverty - (rape, posttraumatic stress, fistulas, abusive parents, abusive spouses, abandonment, infanticide) the choice to have an abortion (save post natal) must always be readily available as a last resort option to dealing with an unplanned pregnancy.
If we really want to prevent abortions (and I certainly do), we ought to put more effort and money to provide people with easier access to better information, classes and tools, for planning parenthood or better yet being abstinent, as oppose to funneling so much into making abortions so difficult to have, especially if you are poor.
I hope that you will continue to provide opinion columns that can lead to insights like these in the future.
Matthew Abely, freshman,
Environmental ethics and policy
