Welcome to The Abattoir, the center for forced organ harvesting of pro-lifers!
I was recently nominated to have my organs harvested by force in order to save the lives of other people. I was chosen along with an impressive list of conservative politicians (which is odd in and of itself, since I’m quite lefty in most of my ideologies) including Sarah Palin, George W. Bush, Michele Bachmann, Bill O’Reilly, Ann Coulter, and Rick Santorum, as well as a number of prominent pro-life leaders (and more strangely, Richard Dawkins, though I’m still baffled that he made the list!)
Why will I be strapped down while my organs are removed against my will? Perry Street Palace, a blog produced by writer Iris Vander Pluym explains:
All involuntary donors must meet one very specific criteria: they would eagerly and happily force other people to donate lifesaving organs without their consent. Since they feel so very strongly about this particular principle, it is only right and fair that they live by it!
In other words, if you’re pro-life, your belief that a woman “should continue a pregnancy against her will” is no different than forcing someone to donate a kidney against their will. After all, the Abattoir entry emphasizes, “we’re saving lives!”
The argument isn’t new, of course, but built off of the Famous Violinist bodily autonomy argument crafted by Judith Jarvis Thompson over 40 years ago. Thompson argued that even if the fetus were a human being with the right to life, no one has the right to use someone else’s body against their will, not even if their life is in danger. Pluym extends the analogy by arguing that those who advocate “forced childbirth” should experience the equivalent via forced harvesting of their own organs. Yet while her tongue-in-cheek series of mixed metaphors is creative and somewhat entertaining, it still fails to take into account some of the crucial differences between pregnancy and forced organ harvesting.
For one thing, a stranger has no moral obligation toward another stranger. In fact, that’s one of the many reasons why Thompson’s violinist is not the strongest version of the bodily autonomy argument, and therefore neither is Pluym’s Abattoir. It certainly is tragic that thousands of people die annually from organ failure, while so many others take their healthy organs to the grave or crematorium because they’re not registered organ donors* (even if they think they are). But if I am not morally obligated to feed the homeless man in the park, even though it’s a nice thing to do, I am certainly not morally obligated to provide him my kidney.
I prefer to respond to the stronger version of the bodily autonomy/organ donation argument that is more analogous to pregnancy in that it involves a parent and child. A parent does have an obligation to provide basic care for their children (food, shelter, protection from harm) and doing so is more than just a nice optional thing to do. On the other hand, trips to Disney world, private helicopter rides, and yes: organ donations do not fall under basic care and baseline obligations. So if a parent is under no obligation to donate any part of their body to a born child – not even an organ that is needed to save their child’s life, then isn’t the abortion advocate justified in arguing that even if a fetus had equal rights as a member of our species s/he still would have no more right to his/her mother’s uterus than the born child has to his/her mother’s kidney?
Unfortunately for the abortion advocate, that’s as far in that direction as this comparison will take us. While it is arguably true that a parent is under no obligation to donate a kidney to save their dying born child, neither may a parent directly end that child’s life. They furthermore may not abandon their dependent born child without transferring the care of that dependent onto another caretaker, in the event they find themselves unable or unwilling to continue care. So if we’re arguing for equal treatment of born and pre-born offspring when it comes to access to organs, then a parent of a pre-born dependent would have a similar obligation to continue the care and feeding of that offspring, and to at very least not actively end their life via abortion.
Which analogy is more fitting to pregnancy? Is pregnancy comparable to extreme care like organ donation, or is it more comparable to the basic care of feeding, sheltering and maintaining the overall well-being of one’s offspring? In fact, a child dying of kidney failure may die because her parents were passive and did not donate their kidney, but as with Thompson’s violinist, it is ultimately the illness that will cause the death. On the other hand, in an abortion a child dies not because she is sick and her parent didn’t act to save her life, but rather because her parent actively ended her life. The first child is denied someone else’s organ, which exists in someone else’s body for the functions of their own body, while the second child is denied basic ongoing care and food – which all humans have a right to. That different body parts are involved in feeding a born child than in feeding a pre-born child doesn’t change a parent’s inherent obligation to their offspring.
Sometimes parents need to use their bodies to care for their dependents. Imagine leaving an infant to starve on the floor because he has no right to your arms. Younger human beings require more bodily resources earlier in life than later, because that’s how human beings develop. Human bodies start out small, fragile, and needy; with time they mature and become bigger, stronger and more independent. Just as a parent must wheel or carry an infant everywhere they go, because the infant’s level of development doesn’t allow them to walk independently, so too a fetus will place more demands on his/her parent because of his/her age and developmental stage. It so happens that pregnancy is the only way to feed, shelter, and protect developing members of our species when they are at their very youngest and weakest.
What obligates a parent to the basic care of their own offspring is not that they had sex (the writer of The Abattoir seem confused about that – “Had sex? Organ donor!“). It just so happens that humans are creatures that reproduce sexually. Our offspring don’t force themselves into our uteri and demand to be fed, but rather come into dependence upon their parents by their parents’ actions. Still, what obligates a parent to their offspring is that they have created and brought into existence a dependent and wholly vulnerable member of our species. And while we may quibble about the duties parents have toward their offspring and whether or not a parent should ever be obligated to donate their kidney (perhaps if they’d been the one who’d damaged or sold their child’s kidney in the first place?) one thing is certain: no parent has the right to dismember or poison to death their dependent child just to maintain their own independence.
Therefore I’m sorry Ms Pluym, but I won’t be joining your forced organ harvesting program since your analogy falls apart and bears no true resemblance to pregnancy and the dependent relationship between parent and child. Continuing a pregnancy is not about “saving a life”. Rather it’s about not ending a life that barring illness or violence will continue to grow and develop toward human adult maturity the way we all do. The dying can be saved, but the living should be allowed to keep living. So strap me down and cut me up if you must, I maintain that parents should be “forced” to not intentionally kill their dependents.
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* Please do ensure that you are registered in your state or province as an organ donor upon your death – Pluym raises a good point there. In many provinces/states one must do more than sign a donor card, so please look into the rules for your local area. And even though talking about your inevitable death may be unpleasant, make sure your family/next of kin know your wishes (you won’t be around after you die to ask them to please not cremate everything and to go ahead and help someone else live with the organs you no longer need.)
It's amazing the arguments people are presenting in favor of abortion these days. So glad my wife Carrie's mom had a change of heart after the attempted abortion on her life failed 46 years ago, and they are now best friends. Carrie Holland Fischer will be sharing her amazing surviving and thriving story on Andrew Wommack's "Gospel Truth" show, which will air on the TBN network on January 22, 2015…the 42nd anniversary of the Roe vs. Wade decision that regrettably legalized abortion in the U.S.
Offspring implies an end product. A fetus isn't an end product, it can go many different directions. Trying to force an emotional connection through implying otherwise is slightly dishonest. The donating organs isn't as far fetched as you imply. Women donate all sorts of body parts to give birth, our teeth, our pelvis, our bladder, our sphincter muscles, our bones, our liver, our thyroid, sometimes our heart and lungs. All of these things are effected by pregnancy and not just cosmetically. My youngest child is 8 years old and my organs still shift occasionally. If you have fibro like I do, your condition worsens with each birth. I see women on the support page constantly weigh the pros and cons for having a child. Can I handle the increase in pain I will have? Will I be able to raise it while on pain meds? Will it disable me to the point I can't work anymore? When you are pregnant you aren't just donating an organ, you are donating your body for 10 months and crossing your fingers it comes back in one piece. Some women don't want to take that risk.
Another interesting thing to point out is that donation of an organ such as a kidney is a modern medical thing that people have learned to do. It takes training and conscious effort by a doctor. Pregnancy is not comparable to this at all since it is an entirely natural unconscious process that is certainly not exclusive to humans. I don't think pregnancy is comparable to other forms of organ donation. That being said, organ donation is certainly a good thing and I really think that the organs of anyone should be taken and used after their death. There is no reason that people should need to consent to what is done with their body after they are dead.
Trying to imply that offspring implies an "end product" is slightly dishonest in itself. The dictionary defines offspring as "children or young of a particular parent or progenitor." The unborn are offspring because they are the biological progeny of the parents. The fetus isn't an "end product" any more than an infant is an "end product." Both are stages of development of the same human being.
While I agree with you regarding pregnancy being natural and people should agree to be organ donors, the problem is that consent, in and of itself, doesn't make an act moral. I've heard horror stories of doctors who allow patients to die so that they can harvest their organs rather than trying to save them. If we allowed doctors carte blanche to harvest organs like this, it may happen a lot more often.
Clinton Wilcox
Okay, this is a long response, but I think I said some good stuff :).
Determining whether the unborn counts as a human is more complex than I think either side really wants to admit. On one extreme, women should be able to abort the unborn 8 months into the pregnancy because, as the pro-choice argument goes, the unborn are not people and therefore have no rights. On the other extreme, sperm cells are alive, contain the DNA of the male, and, under the right conditions, develop into a human being (or rather, constitute half of a human). Thus, as the pro-life argument goes, masturbation is murder because the potential for human life was wasted.
Most people are somewhere in the middle (e.g.: pro-life, pro-masturbation, and okay with abortion only when pregnancy poses a considerable threat to the woman's life), but I think most people get wishy-washy when you want to talk details about what constitutes human life. Sperm is living and constitutes 1/2 of what you need to make a person, though it may not ultimately develop into a person. Is 1/2 the ingredients good enough? A zygote has all of the ingredients but is still a single cell and thus not an organism – is that good enough? What about an embryo? A fetus?
Here's something else I think people are factoring into their decision, whether they realize it or not: the existence/non-existence of souls.
If you DO believe souls exist, when do you intuitively think we receive one? (As far as I know, none of the holy texts go into the specifics of this – and even if they did, they wouldn't have used clear-cut terms, like "zygote", that we are familiar with in modern times. Instead, they would use some vague word like "seed" or "fruit" that is open to interpretation in the context of our modern understanding of biology). If you were to discover/determine that souls do not exist, would this affect your views on when life begins and the rights of the unborn?
If you DON'T believe souls exist, do you then think that we are essentially our brains – and if so, do you think pro-lifers are being dumb jerks when they talk about a fetus having fingernails at week 10, but get all nauseous when you realize a fetus also has a developing brain by week 10?
Sorry it took so long to approve your post. First time posts get bumped into moderation and the switch to allow FB comments is mucking things up. Thanks for sharing your thoughts! Here’s a post that addresses why sperm and ovum and other cells, including our toenails aren’t human beings but human parts. It’s an important distinction as there is a marked difference between human beings (wholes) and human cells (parts). http://www.prolifehumanists.org/toenails-parts-and-wholes/
aallison0155 It's not complex at all. It's simple biology, and Clinton said it well. An unborn child is biologically the offspring of his or her parents from the moment he or she comes into existence. And a zygote IS an human organism. There are plenty of single-celled organisms, of which a zygote is one (for all of five minutes, until cell division begins).
Exactly, JoAnna. It’s not a question of how big something is, how many cells they have, or how developed they are, but the key question rather is: what is it? Living things develop, they aren’t constructed. An unfinished table isn’t a table if it’s missing legs or a surface, but an unfinished human is anything younger than a fully developed adult. Embryos and zygotes are complete within themselves. Nothing more is added to their essential substance. They will develop and grow but their substance remains male/female and continue to develop according to their pattern of DNA.
The organ donation argument is easily dismissed in one sentence: organs aren't donated in a pregnancy. You get to keep your uterus during the whole process. You don't lose your uterus from pregnancy any more than you lose your house because you have to house a baby.
Great point, Suzanne! Thanks for your comment 🙂
Dani I'm sorry you have fibromyalgia. My housemate suffers with fibro and I know it's awful. I agree that women with challenging health conditions do have to seriously consider whether or not they could handle a pregnancy. Options like tripling up on birth control, sterilization, and learning to read their fertility signs (cervical mucus etc) are just some ways to deal with the added risk before she becomes responsible for a pre-born dependent.
Because while I certainly sympathize with the toll a pregnancy can have on a woman's body and don't deny that it can muck stuff up for her, the alternative is subjecting a second party – your dependent preborn who exists by no fault of his/her own – to abortion. While a pregnant woman can "cross her fingers her body comes back to her in one piece", the one dismembered in an abortion is at a far greater loss to his/her body.
then get your womb removed and problem solved, you don't "remove" child when it is already in the womb
Jeremy Wakawicz Where is the sign up to have your womb removed? I'll take it! Oh right they won't do that unless it's medically necessary. Also Kristine because of my long, long list of medical issues I'm down to one form of birth control. I can't even get sterilized because of them. And the meds I have to take mess with my cycle. Also, the fetus in my abortion wasn't dismembered at all.
aallison0155 Good thing I aborted at week 9 then.
oh then if it was not dismembered then it just vanished into thin air dani bock? the "fetus" was your own child that you paid to kill, if you live in the river on The Nile and it was not abortion because it was not a baby I suggest Dani, get your facts straight. Your own child could be living and breathing and if you are that incapable to raise a child then adoption would be the loving option
Clinton Wilcox Totally agree with you that something is not moral just because someone consents to it. Also, people are forced to unwillingly consent to things all the time because of threats. So there are times when consent is not really consent at all.
No it came out whole. Looked a lot like a blood clot actually. Maybe you shouldn't give an opinion on something you aren't well versed in. I also have two children living, breathing and doing fine. Incidentally I'd also have a mole removed, which is also my flesh and blood. Yes if I had chosen to given birth it might be alive now. I most likely wouldn't be, but you really don't care do you?
Dani Bock Of course at such a distance and with such little information, none of us can know the extent of the need for the abortion, but let me state my uneducated impression just to make a point. The impression I get is that you should have had the option to abort, and may have made a good decision in doing so.
But my point would be that I doubt that you and the abortionist were the only persons in human society capable of understanding all that. So I would not conclude from the fact that some abortions are justified, that human society should abdicate the responsibility it has for its innocent little sisters and brothers, and let the pregnant woman and the abortionist alone decide in all cases — including cases where they might make a decision to abort that is a wrong one.
There are many who argue that society should do just that (even if you are not arguing in that way). Many abortions are necessary, but they can be done after the unborn has had representation and a fair hearing.