Saturday, February 23, 2008

And “What” Do You Want to Be, If You Grow Up?

A greeting, my name is Fetus, and this is my position on the art of the possible.

The following essay is another way to view the “what if” dilemma of abortion. Here, abortion is to be defined as the disturbance of the art of the possible. In ages past this ethical dilemma received much attention, and it continues to raise more questions than answers for moralists and ethicists alike. Is abortion a convenience to society? Is it murder? Is it acceptable, and if so who should make the final decision? These questions will not be answered directly throughout this essay, however the main focus will revolve around the subject matter of value, and prospect ontology, or the possibility of being. Every major crisis must begin with the foundation of meaning, or value. The value we place on objects mirrors the value we place upon ourselves. Valuation, of the human condition for “being,” should always be considered to include the betterment of the masses; i.e., community advancement. Plato believed the fetus is a living being, however the state’s ideals and needs take precedence over the life and rights of the unborn. This is a view generally accepted by many today; however, the focal point now rests on one-the mother, that gracious hostess of potential progeny. Value must be placed on the fetus in order that, humanity as a whole, may benefit from its potential for life, thus making it an ethical concern for human betterment.

The stoic Musonius Rufus agreed that having many children is beautiful and right. Was not the great command to “be fruitful and multiply on the earth” also given as more than a mere guideline? Both arguments point in the direction of healthy procreation. But what happens when some “agent” affects the formula? A person is raped. A relationship goes “sour”, and the option to abort is both attractive and necessary. To elaborate further, consider a mother is lying on the operating table in need of the doctor’s scalpel. The decision to save either the mother or the child, somewhat undeveloped at 5 months, needs to be made. These situations are all tethered to the pinpoint truth that the value placed on humanity must be directed beyond compromising scenarios. The gaze needs to be placed on the potential for being, or in other words focus is to be placed on behalf of the fetus.
Throughout the Greco-Roman world, the law governed culture. Roman law never viewed the fetus as a human being but rather as part of the maternal viscera. This view seems to support a woman’s right to choose. However, “by 3rd century A.D. Roman law considered abortion an offense against the father” not the mother. These laws protected against fatherly injustices; the family name, inheritance rights, and support of the human race for the betterment of the state. The woman, carrier of the furtherance of its species, was not a priority. The fetus was part of the mother, making it ineligible to receive rights of any kind (the fetal hierarchy). During the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd centuries any thought to place value or ascribe rights to the fetus was considered, at best, scandalous.

If Rome and Greece are renowned for their art and literature, then the medium of poetry, that creative barometer of cultural times, was its herald. One such figure, a Pelignian from Sulmo (east of Rome), used his art to speak on behalf of the possible, a sub-altern figure if you will. The poet Ovid, born sometime around 43 B.C. (a year after Caesar’s murder), wrote extensively in his 3-volume collection the Amores. What follows is but a slice of the artist’s rendition of love versus abortment during his times:

The first woman to tear an embryo from the womb
Should have died of that assault herself.
How can you fight this duel on the sands of death
Simply to save your stomach a few wrinkles?
If the mothers of old had followed your vicious example
Mankind would be extinct-
And is it not better for me to die of love
Than be murdered by my mother?
Why rob the vine when the grapes are growing?
Why strip the tree of bitter fruit?
Let it ripen, ready to fall. Let first beginnings be.
New life is worth a little patience.
Why jab the needle in your own flesh
And poison the unborn?
No tigress in wild Armenia does that-
No lioness destroys her own cubs.
But tenderhearted girls do-and pay the penalty:
For the murderess often dies herself,…
May the gods be gracious, overlook a first offence
And give her a second chance.

The pagan poet, who like the stoics of the 1st century, celebrated love and life. Any agent, in this case “poison,” that carried out the act of abortion, was deemed as murder, and those that administered its intent—murderers. Hence, we begin to envision an early position on the side of pro vita, or pro life. This thinking carried over into the Jewish and somewhat Christian approaches to abortion.
Two major schools of thought emerged from the debate between life and death of the fetus (regardless of its stage of development): the Alexandrian School as well as the Majority Palestinian School. We will revisit each school in detail at a later position in this essay. Jewish thought on the subject of “life” could be summarized in three parts:

1. The duty and desire to populate the earth, ensuring Jewish survival and the
Divine presence.

2. A deep sanctity of life in God’s creation.
3. A profound horror of blood and bloodshed.

All share the common sense that “abortion is a condemnable practice and shows disrespect for life as well as senseless bloodshed. The value placed on the fetus is one of Divine sanction and human rights. This is not singularly a “Christian” outcry against abortion, but an outcry from humanity’s history, pagan and non-pagan, alike. The Jewish foundation for reverence for God and respect for life naturally formed a foundation for Christian thinking also.
Intellectually, Christian thinkers throughout the first three centuries held the following views about abortion:

1. The fetus is the creation of God.
2. Abortion is equivocal to murder.
3. God is judge of those culpable in the act, or assistance to an abortion.

Again, the Jewish position of abortion as a condemnable practice is reiterated in the echoes of Christian thinking. The “fetus is not seen as part of its mother, but as a neighbor; abortion is rejected as contrary to other-centered neighbor love”. In other words, the fetus is imputed value on the basis of its created (developmental) human condition. Experience shapes the human condition, but that conceived by human beings can only be all too human, and heir to constituted rights that govern humanity’s potential through its existence. The Christian thought on fetal survival when abortion plagues it is handled both with reverence and with respect. Value and meaning is placed upon “the almost.”

By definition “the feeling of reverence is based on a comparison between something great and our own or someone else’s smallness, provided we do not find this smallness insignificant”. What is it that we value most? For that matter what is it that we revere most? Is it a deity, a person, or both? The answer to these inquiries is irrelevant because the fetus cannot answer them. The question then to be asked is: who and what defends the fetus, and why? In art, the artist “creates” from bare tools of paint and oils and inks the most elaborate and exquisite beauty; a painting to reflect the artist and the cognitive subject of its ocular capture. The beauty is not complete, however, until the gaze of “others,” critics, lovers of art, et cetera behold it. Likewise, one could argue that the fetus, made from human “first-things,” also has the potential for beauty. This beauty is to be fully appreciated through the process of its development, and lends credibility to parental artistry and design. To the Jew and to the Christian this is God, and to the humanist the honor is conveyed to the parents, willing or unwilling, to accept their offspring. These thoughts were shared by Clement of Alexandria, throughout 190-200 A.D., who felt that abortion is the “killing of human life that is under God’s care, design, and providence”. What more could be said of the defenders of pro vita against the “pagan” practice of abortion? Both Tertullian and Augustine, mighty princes of the ethical debate on abortion during their time, would agree that the fetus is God’s design, and should be approached with both reverence and opportunity. After all, the critic may feel inadequate with an artist’s work, but that is for them to think so, and not for them to decide it is so, thereby affecting the artistry for others.

Earlier in the essay the subject of two schools of Jewish thought were presented to establish a stance on the issue of abortion. The Alexandrian school was heavily influenced by Greek philosophy and pagan practices of abortion. However, it was established that abortion is both immoral and punishable. Here the fetus maintains the right to live. In opposition, the Palestinian school of Jewish thought, maintained and supported its beliefs from the Mishnah, the Talmud, and the writings of the Jewish historian Josephus. The fetus here is part of the mother and does not bear the rights (legal status) of a person (human being fully-developed). These two viewpoints dominated the Jewish world and later played a key role in Christian and secular thinking and its ethical praxis.

By viewing into the past humanity can look into and perceive the ethical dilemma abortion faces today. We could claim “serious ignorance of Jewish and Pagan culture,” but this would lead to more, elitist ambiguity, and not advancement in proper thinking and practice. The secular realm, or that society which associates itself with non-traditional “Christian” mores, seems to detach itself from the human sense of compassion. Instances of benevolent acts, however, towards pro vita do exist, in spite of the tainted and tolerant celerity of personal and stereotyped judgment. To put it another way, let us examine the subject of choice through the lens of a story. Robertson Davies’s book The Lyre of Orpheus presents a modern dilemma on the subject of abortion. The story begins with the search for truth surrounding the late Francis Cornish, a wealthy statesman. Davies places the Cornish estate into the hands of Arthur Cornish, a banker by trade. Arthur is married to the beautiful, gypsy woman Maria. She is a scholar on Rabelais, the French bard and philosopher, and a trustee to the Cornish Foundation. The Foundation looks for deserving, worthy causes to sponsor. One such cause is the biography of Francis Cornish. Another is the support of the Magnanimous Cuckold, a play regarding Arthur, High King of Camelot, and the Knights of the Round Table. Davies cleverly places Arthur into the role of a cuckold, once in the play, and also when his best friend sleeps with his wife. Though the event happened once, Maria becomes pregnant and Arthur, told the child is not his own, must decide what to do. Arthur, like any “good” husband of the 20th century accepts his situation and chooses to love the child and its mother, proving indeed to be the Magnanimous Cuckold. What strikes the reader is the absence of the “usual” options for a woman under similar situations. No one mentions abortion as an option at all. In fact, the father of the child, a modernized Sir Lancelot, remains great friends with Arthur, the would-be “King” and Maria, the willing Guenevere. Davies’s “strange” fiction parallels somewhat ethical choices amongst sophisticated adults that should be commonplace in our present world. Was Davies a man of tolerance and compassion? His fiction, containing much humor intertwined with scholarship, earned him great renown as Canada’s leading man of letters with degrees from Oxford, Toronto, et cetera. Still, Davies seems to capture that which the pagans of old held onto—abortion is not the option, but life is. The celebration of life resounded from a 20th century author and one can only hope the reverberations may echo, in practice, well into the 21st century.

In the 21st century Paul Ramsey, a moralist philosopher, posed a key question with regards to abortion and legislation: “When does the practice of abortion become fit for legislation”? The option for rights is inherited to all those serving the community. This was supported by even the pagan cultures of the past. Why? Because community prospered and developed.

The Pagan understanding of the fetus pit the unborn “human” as unworthy of rights, but if born must serve the betterment of the state, or in more modern terms—it must adhere to the potential for community advancement. Community is governed by the practice of laws and these laws are enforced towards the greater common good. Good? What could that mean? It could arguably refer to the collective advantage of furthering community intention(s) under the banner of utility. If unchecked, it could justify criminal intent to hinder the advancement for the unborn. In this case, the agent of abortion is the law that governs crime. Legislation then, that exists to protect human beings from murder, unfortunately does not exist for the “art of the possible,” the fetus. The potential for human advancement is “cellular[ly]-packed” within the sphere of fetal development; and, to not allow for this potential seems ethically, if not morally, disturbing. In a sense, one feels that “things” are not the way it should be, and community is affected, possibly one fetus at a time.

The Jewish word for all-encompassing peace is shalom and when disturbed presents entropy in the phases of lost hope. Cornelius Plantinga, Jr. (herein, Plantinga) in his work, “Not the Way It’s Supposed to Be: A Breviary of Sin,” presents shalom “as the way things ought to be”. Plantinga warrants that a transgression of morals has occurred, and this transgression can be labeled as culpabilis, or sin. Throughout the book Plantinga sites example after example of human thinking and practice gone awry. He provides a fresh outlook on the subject of crooked behavior in an equally, but oppositely refracted world. A man should be able to love a woman in marriage and the two carry on the projected image of their Divine design. A woman, caught in scandal, now pregnant-should be presented with options of aid, possibly by the state, without harm to either party-fetus or mother alike. Should not the, as Plato put it, state take notice of the would-be babies and invest in their development? A thoughtful reflection presents itself in the following rhetorical questions: How many presidents have we killed? How many doctors with the potential to solve the world’s disease crisis have been extinguished? How many engineers could have helped build up our communities and assisted in space exploration? In asking such questions it is only fair to play the devil’s advocate with the following, in question form, alternate responses: How many murderers did we kill? How many disease-carrying individuals did we absolve? How many cruel totalitarian dictators, with terrorist intent, did we stop from entering into the world? The questions are more than we have answers for, but recall that the common good is always at stake, and therein lays the cousin to faith, hope.

Hope can be defined “as wide and richly-textured as life itself…something to be worn, like Joseph’s coat of many colors”. The reason a community can overcome improper practices are because there exists a hope as to when these disturbances will cease. As Glenn Tinder poignantly mentions-“The deficiencies of modern hope point toward the characteristics of authentic hope”. Unfortunately, no clear, sagacious responses towards abortion exist on the level of the all-time, all-inclusive, all-scenario application. By striving towards the end in view, however, we sometimes find better methods to begin, advancing accordingly. The fuel for advancement being the vehicle of hope. Hope dominates thinking and practice, thereby allowing a chain reaction for good. This good dominates community and does not limit responsibility to rest upon one person, the mother. Both hope and good are not as recondite as they may seem in today’s society, but together lend mainstream credibility to applications towards procuring fetal rights. The community that hopes together believes together, and ultimately advances together in that vehicle of hope.

The nascent human life is valuable because of its potential to advance community, and also because it sustains the existence of our race as complex, and worthy of best-informed decision making. Further, humanity must behave like itself-human. We cannot escape ourselves “for man, unlike other creatures, is gifted and cursed with an imagination which extends his appetites beyond the requirements of subsistence”. Reinhold Niebuhr captured the essence of man attached to society. In this essay the word choice has been community as a precursor towards a given society. In other words, community makes society and “each century originates a new complexity and each new generation faces a new vexation”. This vexation spills over the chalice of un-social utopia, giving rise to the domino effect that has infected moral viewing. The alignment of such moral saving demands balance. This balance could quite arguably be constitutional in scope and family building in practice. This is not an easy task, as we shall note.

Constitutional balance finds its root in the soil of family building. The family, comprised of both parent(s) and child, must be willing to want each other. A breakdown in this formula disturbs its outcome. If a fetus is a developing person, and that person maintains rights awarded to it at full development, then it is without excuse that any “agent” that disrupts development, with exceptions to its survival or the mother’s life, remains unconstitutional. Is it then possible that abortion is justified via the common good of the individual and not the common good of society? Arguably, the constitution does protect the rights of men and women and possibly the developing child. A revisit to the ethical applications to what “human” and “rights” mean may be in order under our present-day “understanding” of the Constitution of the United States of America. After all, it is the only, balanced and lawful thing to do for the art of the possible.

The “what if” possibility is a struggle to the thinking person. Why? Because there is always the possibility of the “not-yet,” or the potential of the “it-could-have- been.” Imagine a fetus's response to the upcoming world. What would it sound like? Perhaps like this:

I know my destiny. Someday my name will be associated with
the memory of something tremendous, a crisis like no other on
earth, the profoundest collision of conscience, a decision conjured
up against everything that had been believed, required, and held
sacred up to that time. I am not a man; I am dynamite.

What a voice of confidence crying out with man-lungs, shouting to the on-lookers wishing to shake off their rags of curiosity! The “voice” belongs to the German prodigy Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche. He held this view at the early age of twelve! Imagine him aborted? It can be argued that Nietzsche was given every conducive pro-agent towards becoming an asset to community. Apart from his philosophical contributions he has left a legacy of political scholarship to German universities, as well as our own. This example, though somewhat extreme, defends the earlier points of potential to advance community, and as it were increase society; where Nietzsche failed then, the “others” could succeed; likewise, where he succeeded-the “others” could build upon and surpass. The “others” are the fetuses of potential.

An ethic towards the unborn can be found in Psalm 139:

O Lord, you have searched me and you know me.
You know when I sit and when I rise; you perceive my
Thoughts afar.
You discern my going out and my lying down; you are
Familiar with all of my ways.
Before a word is on my tongue you
Know it completely, O Lord.
Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, too lofty
For me to attain.
For you created my inmost being;
You knit me together in my mother’s womb.

The standard of treatment towards the value of humanity is beyond religion and it engrosses all of community. The Psalm depicts a tone that seems absent in community. The tone suggests a sense of reverence for human life as well as a sense of thankfulness for that human existence. These senses are the inheritance for, in terms of the “art of the possible,” the fetus based on the developmental potential each carries.

In ages past, Christian, Jewish, and Pagan cultures, agreed abortion was immoral, punishable, and generally unacceptable, yet the fetus maintained no rights of consideration- for it was not a person. Today, we face a similar struggle except abortion is accepted. In the advancement for community, and later society- the way of shalom perhaps has been lost. The ethical steps taken have been backwards, with an unsound view toward a healthy future. Humanity must answer the “what if” dilemma if proper thinking and praxis are to exist. This would address: the art of the possible. The demand is now set, who then will take up the charge, one fetus at a time?

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