Abortion & Gendercide

Tonight I noticed a number that was breath taking. One hundred and sixty-three million. Here, perhaps for the first time, I quote Eleanor Clift:

China's one-child policy was put in place some 30 years ago, before ultrasound technology was widely available and used to determine the sex of a fetus. Three decades later, an imbalance of boys over girls that has been made possible by gender-selection abortion practices is visible not only in China, but in India and other developing countries -- and in ethnic Asian communities in the U.S.

Mara Hvistendahl is the author of Unnatural Selection: Choosing Boys over Girls, and the Consequences of a World Full of Men. She puts the number of missing girls in Asia at 163 million, more than the entire female population in the U.S., and reports on the tens of millions of men in Asia, "surplus males," who without female counterparts may purchase women from poorer countries.

I am vehemently opposed to abortion for the same reason that Abraham Lincoln was opposed to slavery: I believe that all human beings are created equal in the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. My friends and colleagues on the left tend to be equally vehement in their support for abortion rights because they believe that the right to terminate the life of the unborn is essential to the liberty of women. That is a collision of deep principles, especially because it is rooted in one and the same moral idea: that each human being is endowed with inalienable rights.

Arguments about the social consequences of abortion have generally been subordinate to the central moral question. Prochoice partisans have occasionally argued that it were better if a lot of unwanted children were never born. I have argued in various venues that the prochoice regime largely relieves men of responsibility for the children they sire, something that is not good for women or their children. I have also noted that the vast number of African Americans who would be alive today but for abortion is a number that may be subtracted from the pool of voters that Democrats can count on in the next election.

Those arguments are negligible compared to the fundamental moral question. Ms. Hvistendahl's number is not negligible. If she is right, and I think that no one doubts that the accurate number is appalling huge, abortion has been the single greatest disaster in the history of women on earth. Imagine a policy that effectively wiped out all the women in the United States. That is what, Ms. Hvistendahl tells us, has actually happened.

Abortion may be a great asset to an American woman for whom a pregnancy represents lost opportunities. Globally, it means that hundreds of millions of women never happen. Societies not particularly friendly to women's rights are becoming more male and less female. It is hard to imagine a more diabolical device created by the most insane male chauvinist.

Societies with tens of millions of surplus males are not likely to be more stable or otherwise healthier for it. Marriage is the only thing that has ever reliably civilized men. To put it gently, societies sexually unbalanced toward males are not likely to be more considerate of the rights of women.

To be sure, banning abortion in the U.S. wouldn't fix the problem in China and India. South Korea seems to have restored a gender balance by restoring girls to "an honored place." I would note, however, that the greatest moral progress over the last two centuries has been generated by recognizing the natural rights of individual persons. Maybe it's not restoring girls to an honored place that is the key to moral progress. Maybe it's restoring children to an honored place. Not just rich kids or white kids or heterosexual kids, but all kids. Not just kids whose heads have exited the birth canal, but all kids. Maybe the sense of obligation that a parent feels for his or her offspring, the recognition that my life is not all about me, is the real solution to the problem.

Comments

[Miranda]

Welcome back, Dr. Blanchard - and thank you for this excellent post.

[Ken Blanchard]

You're welcome, Miranda. And Thank You for filling in.

[Vic Ulmer]

Let's not be muddled about this. Abortion kills. However, embryos and fetuses, from their very beginnings, are not "children", "kids", or "human beings".

[Bill Fleming]

Seems to me, Mr. Blanchard illustrates his own point quite well here. Any society that can, by law, tell a woman what shee can or cannot do with her reproductive system can as easily MAKE women have abortions as prohibit them from having them. It's none of the government's business what women chose to do, reproductively speaking. Good post, Ken.

[duggersd]

The real issue here is abortion takes the life of an innocent human being, Bill's views of when life begins notwithstanding. A few years ago, I attended a legislative coffee. One of the questions asked was "when do you believe life begins"? Each person, man/woman, Democrat/Republican answered it begins at conception. Regardless of when you believe life begins, any time after that, abortion is killing an innocent human being. This is a slippery slope. I am already reading troubling views of people believing they should end the lives of people "suffering".
The protection of innocent human life is the government's business.

[Bill Fleming]

I don't claim to know for certain when or how life began, duggerSD.
Nor do I claim to know for certain what's human and what's not.

[Michael (Constant Conservative)]

Well said, Dr. Blanchard, well said.

[Cliff Hadley]

Mr. Fleming... Agnosticism about life's beginnings in defense of abortion is a logical, and ultimately moral, dead end. We know we're alive now, this moment. And we know we all had a beginning. Therefore, we know we were alive at that beginning. To argue otherwise would be, well, inconceivable.

Good post, Dr. B.

[larry kurtz]

Sorry, Doc; your crocodile tears are muddling human rights with civil rights. Second trimester: it's not just a good idea; it's the law.

[Ken Blanchard]

Bill: and any government that can tell me what to do with my slaves can enslave White people. I come from the South. I've heard it before.

Larry: I am not surprised that you shed no tears over a hundred and sixty disappeared women.

Vic: calling Jews vermin doesn't change what the Holocaust was. Calling the unborn by a euphemism has no more moral effect than that.

[Mark Anderson]

A couple of observations, South Dakota has actually voted on abortion, twice. This ties in with the personal freedom article below the abortion article. Why has the legislature ignored the vote of the people? You can make abortion illegal, it won't go away, there were just about as many abortions in the country before Roe vs. Wade than after, it's just safer now. Since life, as you say begins at conception, better than two thirds of conceived eggs fail to implant and so get flushed away. Nothing more than that, just an interesting fact.

[caheidelberger]

Sounds like we should ban ultrasound equipment.

[larry kurtz]

Your piece brings more legitimacy to the United States of Earth, Ken. Help me draft an invitation to the people of Mexico to dissolve their constitution and petition for Statehood.

[KB]

Mark: you can make rape illegal. It won't go away. Knocking down prochoice arguments would be like shooting fish in a barrel, if the fish were really big and really slow and old.

[Mike Cooper]

Mark, where do you get your information that there were just as many abortions in the United States before Roe v Wade as after? That is simply not true.

Abortion corrupts. It corrupts people. It has corrupted churches. And it has certainly corrupted liberals. For a time, a long period of time, liberals could proudly and justly claim to be the ones standing up for the powerless. No more. No one has less power than the unborn, yet liberals have turned their collective backs on them. To quote Ramesh Ponnuru, "Liberals' committment to civil rights, it turns out, ends when the constituency in question can offer neither votes nor revenues."

Thanks for a thoughtful post.

[Vic Ulmer]

Ken: I didn't call Jews vermin, and I agree with you that calling them vermin doesn't change what the Holocaust was. Jews are people, "children", "kids", and "human beings". Human embryos and human fetuses are not, although they are alive and they are life. Are human embryos and human fetuses, persons, within the meaning of the Constitution?

You say that "Calling the unborn by a euphemism has no more moral effect than that." I suggest that you are resorting to euphemism. As for "moral effect", I suggest that Hamlet was right when he said that there is nothing good or bad but thinking makes it so. I do not thus suggest that our government can't or shouldn't protect human embryos and human fetuses; but that doesn't make them people, "children", "kids", or "human beings".

[Mike Cooper]

Vic, what does make the unborn "people?" At what point along the line that we all travel, from conception until death, do you think constitutional rights should attach? What is your reasoning for whatever position you adopt?

[crowepps]

I don't see any recognition of the fact that abortion as presently used to stop unwanted pregnancy is only the latest in a long line of mechanisms to keep populations in balance with resources. Yes, sex-selection abortions happen in China and India and other places where girls and women aren't valued. It's sure a lot better than their 'traditional' methods of drowning newborn girls in a bucket or not giving toddler girls food. Yes, there are abortions in Europe. It's sure a lot better than their 'traditional' methods of sending unwanted infants to 'wet nurses' in the country where they starved, or to 'foundling homes' with a mortality rate of 99%. Abortion certainly involves far less suffering than selling excess girls to brothels, deliberately crippling children so they could be beggars, or abandoning them to the street.

The idea that if women and children are just ABJECTLY MISERABLE ENOUGH then it might inspire men to learn and practice sexual responsibility sounds terrific, but we've been waiting for that to happen for at least 10,000 years and apparently men are biologically incapable of feeling guilty enough to restrain their sex drives. They sure are great, though, at PRETENDING to feel guilty long enough so that people forgive them and they can resume their philandering. Since men can't be improved, seems like the least a compassionate society can do is provide women with effective birth control as a matter of self defense.

[Lynn]

Mike stated, "To quote Ramesh Ponnuru, 'Liberals' committment to civil rights, it turns out, ends when the constituency in question can offer neither votes nor revenues." Thanks for the best quote I've heard in a long time! I plan to remember and use this one - it's so true!

And for the pro-abort people, please read the book "Heaven Is for Real" by Todd Burpo. It should change your mind (however, doubt anything will really) about when life begins and what human life is.

[Vic Ulmer]

Mike: I leave that question to the United States Supreme Court. However, I don't think that it would decide that embryos and fetuses, from their very beginnings, are persons within the meaning of the Constitution. Further, and as I previously said, I do not thus suggest that our government can't or shouldn't protect human embryos and human fetuses.

[Miranda]

Vic: Out of curiousity, how would you define "people," "children" "kids" and "human beings?"
If you declare with certainty that the unborn aren't any of these things, you must have some idea of what they are. Also, are you comfortable with the Supreme Court deciding whether minorities, the disabled and the elderly are human enough to warrant the right to life?

Crowepps: Shooting someone in the head is probably a lot better than putting someone in a shredder. That doesn't make the shooting moral. You seem to be arguing that death is better than prostitution. Would you be comfortable with the idea of executing all prostitutes to save them from their fate?

[Bill Fleming]

Ken, if women are forced to carry and bear children against their will, who then are the slaves, my friend?

[crowepps]

"Would you be comfortable with the idea of executing all prostitutes to save them from their fate?"
I don't think whether individual people are "comfortable" with idea is how either moral or social policies ought to be made. My opinion is based on the fact that cops are "comfortable" letting child sexual abusers walk away without any penalty because the 13-year old they had sex with charged them money, and some doctors let women die from pregnancy complications because the doctor doesn't feel "comfortable" intervening. My POINT was that banning abortion without dealing with the actual PROBLEM of girls/women being considered 'less than' actually exacerbates the problem because now pregnant women are all considered inferior as potential 'murderers'. You can't alleviate stigma by ladling on more stigma. Go moralize at the husbands who insist girls are worthless and their wives MUST produce a boy. After all, it's the HUSBAND who thinks both daughter AND WIFE are worthless and only the potential boy has value.

[Donald Pay]

There's a different perspective from an article in Atlantic. At in vitro fertilization clinics the selection advantage is for girls., and that includes Asian and Asian American women.

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2010/05/the-end-of-men/8135/

A scientist from South Dakota developed the first techniques for separating X chromosome and Y chromosome carrying sperm. He predicted male children would be preferred. The data at in vitro clinics show the opposite.

From the article:

"... In the ’90s, when Ericsson looked into the numbers for the two dozen or so clinics that use his process, he discovered, to his surprise, that couples were requesting more girls than boys, a gap that has persisted, even though Ericsson advertises the method as more effective for producing boys. In some clinics, Ericsson has said, the ratio is now as high as 2 to 1. Polling data on American sex preference is sparse, and does not show a clear preference for girls. But the picture from the doctor’s office unambiguously does. A newer method for sperm selection, called MicroSort, is currently completing Food and Drug Administration clinical trials. The girl requests for that method run at about 75 percent.

Even more unsettling for Ericsson, it has become clear that in choosing the sex of the next generation, he is no longer the boss. “It’s the women who are driving all the decisions,” he says—a change the MicroSort spokespeople I met with also mentioned. At first, Ericsson says, women who called his clinics would apologize and shyly explain that they already had two boys. “Now they just call and [say] outright, ‘I want a girl.’ These mothers look at their lives and think their daughters will have a bright future their mother and grandmother didn’t have, brighter than their sons, even, so why wouldn’t you choose a girl?”

I think the key here is who makes the decision. If a male-dominated elite relying on traditional/religious coercion backed up by government sanction make the decision, you end up with a society that selects against female children, because women have no power and are worth less to that society. If you allow women to make the choice, and affirm their worth, they will feel empowered. When they are allowed to be in control, they select female children preferentially (though this also seems to be true for male-female couples in egalitarian societies).

My own feeling is nature should be in control of the sex ratio, and there should be laws against sex selection (as enacted in China in the early 2000s).

[freetobe]

"For a time, a long period of time, liberals could proudly and justly claim to be the ones standing up for the powerless. No more. No one has less power than the unborn, yet liberals have turned their collective backs on them."

It still boggles my mind that the people who think this way have forgotten that there is a HUMAN WOMAN involved carrying and supplying a life support system to this fetus and that no one in the government really has the right to interfere with her cells that are in the process of supporting that said fetus. It is her buisiness not the Govenments or mens ,especially men because men over time have proven to be incredibly unreliable as fathers and protectors and providers. They have proven to be unreliable and unfaithful. Sorry lot when compared to other animal fathers who would die to protect their young. Shaking head....
Please any real dad out there this is in no way meant for you. I respect and admire REAL FATHERS and DADS just wish the invisible ones had to be FORCED into dadhood like us mothers are forced maybe that would teach them to shut up or put up!

[Ken Blanchard]

Vic: I accused you of nothing. I will do so now. You think that a fetus isn't a kid. This implies some magical point at which the developing organism becomes "human". That is Medieval biology. At quickening, the soul has entered the developing body, much like a tiny Christ on a cross flies through the window and enters Mary's womb.

This kind of thinking was already primitive when Aristotle finished book beta of his Physics. There is no point between conception and birth, or later, that personhood happens. From conception a unique biological individual exists, therefore it is a being. It isn't a canine or a bovine being. It is a human being. I hold that all human beings are created equal. You do not. That is the difference between us. That you have to retreat to Medieval conceptions goes in my favor.

[Ken Blanchard]

Bill: parents are held legally and morally responsible for their children. You are compelled by your argument to regard that as slavery. I hold, by contrast, that compelling fathers to be responsible for their children is the very opposite of slavery. Liberty is inseparable from responsibility. The same goes for mothers.

[Bill Fleming]

Ken, fathers can't be raped and impregnated. Fathers can't die in labor. Give me a break, man.

[Bill Fleming]

Something tells me the good professor must not have read his own post. Let me highlight the nub of it for him:
"China's one-child policy was put in place some 30 years ago..."

In short, you can have ONLY one child.

Any government who would do this to women deserves whatever happens as a result.

Given a choice as to what the gender of the ONE child should be, and having no choice but to abort all the others, why WOULD'NT most families chose to have males? Women wanting the best opportunity for the ONE child she can bear, and knowing full well that her female child will, by law, be considered a second class citizen are exercising the only free choice they have left.

[Bill Fleming]

In other words, abortion is NOT the key point of Blanchard's post here. Governmental oppression is.

[Vic Ulmer]

Ken: You continue to muddle. We have different words for different meanings. A human fetus is life, but it isn’t a kid. A human embryo is life, but it isn’t a kid. I agree with you that there is no point between conception and birth, that doesn’t involve life. However, such life, however unique, isn’t necessarily personhood.

[Bill Fleming]

It's easy to see how a sentimental person would consider a zygote a "person." It's not nearly as easy to see how a rational person would. And it's probably impossible for anyone to say what a "soul" is — and whether or not a zygote has one (which is, bottom line what I suspect Dr. Blanchard is ultimately getting at, Mr. Ulmer.)

[Bill Fleming]

Missed this post from Mr. Hadley: "Mr. Fleming... Agnosticism about life's beginnings in defense of abortion is a logical, and ultimately moral, dead end. We know we're alive now, this moment. And we know we all had a beginning. Therefore, we know we were alive at that beginning. To argue otherwise would be, well, inconceivable."

Your non-sequitur aside, Cliff, I assure you that I am neither agnostic, nor am I trying to defend abortion.

I simply stated that I don't presume to know when or how life began or what it means when someone says "human." There are entire fields of scientific study devoted to the examination of these questions and thus far there are no definitive answers. If anything our advanced science has made all the "presumed" definitive answers less clear, not more.

[MST]

If a human fetus is not a "human being," please tell me what it is. A cow? A chicken? A ham sandwich???

Great article.

[larry kurtz]

Exactly, Mr. Fleming. While human rights likely begin at conception, civil rights do not exist until the beginning of the third trimester.

[larry kurtz]

Get real, redstaters: boycott those countries' products, introduce legislation that prohibits WalMart from buying from them. Boycott corporations that do business with these countries.

[larry kurtz]

Here's some sobering news for american women. Note red state trends: http://feministing.com/2011/06/23/new-study-life-expectancy-for-women-has-decreased-in-parts-of-u-s/

[Jimi]

I don't see abortion as a faith or religous issue. We have aborted some 45 Million legally and our birth/death rate cannot sustain our economy. We have brought in Illegal Labor to begin to compensate, which has a better birth/death rate than the supporting culture, so that culture will eventually dominate.

I believe in the right to choose, but I believe in the advocation of adoption as a solution. Most people who need to adopt have to leave the country to find childern.

[duggersd]

"Any government who would do this to women deserves whatever happens as a result. " I do not believe the point is about what the government deserves. I believe the point is about what is happening to women/girls. A gender is being obliterated. This is done through gender based abortions. Yes, a government law is the result of an unintended consequence, but the fact remains that a gender is being killed. What child deserves this?

[larry kurtz]

It's called red state failure, Barnes: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2011/05/110531-female-fish-sex-testes-gulf-dead-zone-freshwater-environment/

Your grandkids will be hermaphrodites and will be able to reproduce asexually.

[William]

BF

"If anything our advanced science has made all the "presumed" definitive answers less clear, not more."

While that statement may be true, it's misleading, as our advanced science is consistently expanding the viability of life, as we are now able to successfully sustain and improve the life of infants born earlier in gestation (to the point surgery can be performed to treat birth defects PRIOR to actual birth) and our aging population is more healthy and vibrant than previous generations (60 is the new 40).

We've come a long way from when life was defined by the "quickening" in a mother's womb. The SCOTUS of January 22, 1973 tried to legislate "science", by declaring a previously unknown "right" the law of the land, in essence denying future "evidence" from being considered in the case, on appeal.

We give far too much deference to the SCOTUS when, in essence, they declare the Earth the Center of the Universe, Galileo notwithstanding... Presumed definitive answers, for moral questions, will seldom be settled by science, or the Supreme Court of the United States.

[Donald Pay]

I asked my daughter about this subject. She has lived and worked in rural Yunnan province and in large cities. She said that the sex preference for boys is mainly a rural phenomenon, and is rapidly going away. The one-child policy probably caused some sex selection abortion, but that is now outlawed. In remote rural areas, it is far more likely that infanticide occurs. She said the one-child policy has also caused underreporting of female births to officials. A family with one or two girls will not have those births recorded, so that they can try for a boy, and not run afoul of the one-child policy. This may skew the official statistics, and make it appear that there are far more boys than girls. One of my daughters professors is an expert on Chinese demography. He thinks the one-child policy will soon be modified.

[Mike Cooper]

Abortion is wrong. It takes a human life. It is never an act of love. It is not justifiable. How do you trust the moral compass of someone who thinks it should be a constitutional right to kill unborn babies?

[Vic Ulmer]

Mike: Abortion kills. Contraception prevents. From your perspective, is contraception any more justifiable than abortion; and if it is, why is it? Do you suppose that human ova and sperm might be any happier about being prevented, than about being aborted?

[Jimi]

"Abortion is wrong."

What about in cases of Rape and the Mother's health?

[Mike Cooper]

Depending on how you define "contraception", Vic. If by "contraception" you mean preventing the egg and sperm from coming together, then no problem. If you include a device or process that kills the baby in your definition of "contraception, then there is a huge moral issue.

Jimi, rape is a difficult issue. We would both agree that the rapist should be punished. Where we differ is whether or not the resulting baby should be killed.

The question I have for both of you is when is it no longer aprropriate to kill the innocent baby. Not what the Supreme Court says, but when do you think that baby should possess the same right to live that you and I have. And why not move your date a day earlier or later? I am able to answer that question with specificity. Are you?

[Jimi]

Mike,

If your daughter was violently raped would you expect her to carry his seed for 9 months? What if she didn't want to?

[Vic Ulmer]

Mike: You asked, “when is it no longer aprropriate [sic] to kill the innocent baby”? As I previously said, a human fetus is life, but it isn’t a kid; and a human embryo is life, but it isn’t a kid. I suggest that the important question is, who should be permitted to decide about whether to kill a human fetus or a human embryo?

[Mike Cooper]

Jimi and Vic, I will answer your questions, why won't you answer mine?

Jimi, I would want to kill the SOB who did it, but the baby did nothing wrong and is not deserving of death.

Vic, you are playing with words. My answer is that the same people should be permitted to decide whether to kill a "human fetus" or a "human embryo" as are permitted to decide whether to kill you or me.

Now here is my question again:

The question I have for both of you is when is it no longer aprropriate to kill the innocent baby. Not what the Supreme Court says, but when do you think that baby should possess the same right to live that you and I have. And why not move your date a day earlier or later? I am able to answer that question with specificity. Are you?

Have a good night.

[Bill Fleming]

Vic, it's even more basic than that. The mother doesn't need permission, she has that fundamental human right. Anything the courts do either limits or secures that right. The Constitution secures rights already presumed to be "self evident" including, but not limited to, life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

[Bill Fleming]

I should have said "anything the legislature and/or the court..." above. Sorry.

[Ken Blanchard]

Vic: you acknowledge that "life" begins at conception but say that "personhood" begins later. Great. So it's not life that magically flies in the window at some time after a unique organism is conceived, but personhood. When does this happen? At quickening? After a Christian baptism? Again, if you want to make his argument, you have to adopt a Medieval biology. There is in fact no point at which the unborn suddenly becomes human. He or she is human from the outset.

To illustrate the point: when was it logically possible to kill Abraham Lincoln? At the theater, to be sure. When he was sixteen? Yes. When he was a baby? Yes. Before that? Yes. This is not a difficult logical point.

Bill thinks that its tyranny to interfere. Of course, Bill is a liberal who probably thinks that the government can use its awesome power to force all of us to buy the right kind of light bulbs. If the unborn is human, then it deserves the same protection Bill does.

Agnosticism hardly helps. If the motion in the shrubs might be a man, you can't shoot.

Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness includes "life".

[Vic Ulmer]

Ken: Similarly, if Charles Darwin was right about evolution, when did humans become humans? Were all of our ancestors "human from the outset"?

[Miranda]

Those who oppose abortion are not forcing pregnancy on women. In fact, the woman is already pregnant. In rare cases, this is because she has been raped. In most cases, the pregnancy is due to her sacred choice. Choice, then, is often what "forces" pregnancy on women. I reject and resent two ideas that seem to keep popping up here. One is the idea that when women are pregnant, what we carry isn't truly a human. This is tremendously degrading. It's no big feat to carry around a mass of cells. But it is something wondrous to carry a living child, who kicks, sucks his thumb and reacts to his father's voice and his mother's singing long before he is born.

The other is that pregnancy constitutes "punishment." I can think of dozens of things women often find themselves required to do that are more trying. Participating in high school gym class, doing the dishes, paying taxes, and interviewing for jobs all fit the bill. What a pity our right to choose only seems to involve one choice. The choice whether or not to kill our own children.

[Bill Fleming]

"If the unborn is human, then it deserves the same protection Bill does."

Pretty hollow rebuttal, Mr. Blanchard.

Protection from who? Their mothers?

Are you saying you want to make all fertilized ova wards of the State?

Ken seems to be implying that without his proposed laws, society in general, but especially the mothers, are out to kill their young.

That's ridiculous.

He should have his head examined.

[Bill Fleming]

(KB seems to have a problem accepting the natural fact that there was a time when his mother owned him.)

[Vic Ulmer]

Miranda: If, "when women are pregnant, what" they "carry" is "truly a human", why isn't that "what", included in censuses required by the Constitution?

[larry kurtz]

"Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness" is quoted from a document intentionally written as propaganda and was deliberately excluded from the legal language of the Constitution. GMAFB, Ken.

[Miranda]

Vic: Probably for the same reason that it's still legal to kill them - the government doesn't recognize them as full people. Remember, though, the three-fifths compromise. The fact that someone lacks legal standing doesn't mean that they don't deserve it.

[Ken Blanchard]

Bill says: "KB seems to have a problem accepting the natural fact that there was a time when his mother owned him". That would be the disagreement. Bill thinks that some people own other people. He has good company with some of my southern ancestors. I think that nobody owns anybody. Glad we cleared that up.

[Ken Blanchard]

Vic asks: "if Charles Darwin was right about evolution, when did humans become humans? Were all of our ancestors "human from the outset"?" I reply: species evolve. Individual human beings do not evolve. A chimpanzee doesn't become a chimpanzee. That would be logical contradiction. Even if Bill's mother owned him, he didn't become human. He was created human.

[Bill Fleming]

Ken, the way you have it framed, the fetus (and the government) owns the mother.
But you're right, that is the nub of the issue. Who owns who?

[Vic Ulmer]

Ken: Context matters, and I suggest that you ducked my question. So, do deal with your ducking, I ask; if Charles Darwin was right about evolution, when did the species known as human, become that species? For persons with Darwinian perspectives, is the question about when "personhood" begins, any easier to answer than the question about when the human species began?

[Bill Fleming]

Interesting point, Vic. Sort of a chicken and egg thing. I suppose you could say that an organism "speciates" as it evolves in the womb and the various genes activate. Afterall the DNA is just the blueprint. A house becomes a house one construction phase at a time. You can't keep warm in a blizzard with just a set of house plans. You gotta actually build the house.

[Ken Blanchard]

Vic: I didn't duck your question. I answered it. The human species emerged in the process of evolution, sometime in the last six million years. Individual human beings do not become human, nor do chimpanzees become chimpanzees.

[Vic Ulmer]

Ken: I suggest that you are ducking my point. Definitions of “species”, “humans”, “life”, “human embryos”, and “human fetuses”, don’t determine the realities of what they are. I agree with you that human fetuses and human embryos, are life. However, whether they are humans or persons, depends on how we define them.