Here we go again, another example of how science -- which cannot solve ethical problems, but ought certainly to contribute to our understanding of the facts relevant to ethical dilemmas -- gets ignored in a cavalier way by partizan ideologues.
I'm referring to the recent study showing that fetuses do not feel pain even as late as 29 weeks (i.e., well into the period covered by the so-called "late term abortions"). This is not because the fetus doens't have the brain apparatus, but simply because the proper neural connections aren't functional yet. This, incidentally, makes perfect sense in terms of evolution: why being capable of feeling pain if one lives in an environment (the womb) in which such information is useless? (Similarly, adult brains don't have pain receptors, presumably because natural selection found out long ago that if you get to the point of having your brain case open, feeling pain isn't going to improve your chances of survival -- remember, there were no brain surgeons in the Pleistocene!)
But the science isn't stopping the rhetoric, of course! According to an article in the New York Times by Denise Grady, the overwhelming evidence of lack of pain capability in the late fetus produced by a large study published recently in the prestigious Journal of the American Medical Association is being met by vague counter-remarks by abortion opponents. For example, Dr. K. S. Anand, a pediatrician at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, said, "There is circumstantial evidence to suggest that pain occurs in the fetus." Pretty much as vague as it gets. What evidence? Published were? How does it square with the JAMA paper?
Anand adds: "I would argue that in the absence of absolute proof we should give the fetus the benefit of the doubt." In the absence of absolute proof? What does this guy think science is, a mathematical theorem? There is no such thing as "absolute proof" in the real world, and with that policy humanity would have been stuck in the stone age (or earlier)!
Politicians, of course, don't fare much better. According to the Times' article, Senator Sam Brownback, Republican of Kansas, in 2004 and again this year proposed the "Unborn Child Pain Awareness Act" (note the rhetorical framing of the issue). The good senator (who has no scientific training) included wording to the effect that "The Congress of the United States has determined that at this stage of development, an unborn child has the physical structures necessary to experience pain." Oh well, if the Congress of the US says that the earth is flat, who the hell are scientists to object, right?
Rationally Speaking: an archived blog about science & philosophy, by Massimo Pigliucci
From a categorically scientific pov, chemical or surgical abortion is not natural. And this spiel about the virtuous advocates of “science” makes it sound as if it somehow were.
ReplyDeleteIn reality, the long term consequences of such actions is not entirely unlike (on a smaller human impact scale) what occurs when a huge section of forest is cleared out, or when chemical waste released into streams and rivers. It has now merely become more feasible (thanks to science) to have widespread and unnatural pregnancy terminations. As such, the “natural” consequence of these artificial acts is that fewer pregnancies and greater hormonal disturbances, as the result of medical procedures, mean an increase in both breast and cervical cancers.
Thusly, the same advocates of some form of a supposedly purest method of science (hmm?) who can simultaneously neglect to take responsibility for the potential to procreate also care minimally about the health of women.
-c
I'm afraid that if one goes with that line of reasoning, then it is "clearly not natural" to use a computer to have a conversation about intellectual or ethical matters, and that so doing makes us much less "virtuous advocates of science," no?
ReplyDeleteWelcome back. Trip was good I take it?
ReplyDeleteThe only correlation I see between these two inventions is that abortion and computers exist mainly because of our laziness. Is the use of one equivalent to the other? No, of course not -- this is not a particularly sound analogy in my mind. Sorry. Someone else has explained the issue of why we rely on false theories of knowledge better than I ever could.
"Take, for example, the argument for sexual experimentation. It goes like this: “In order to make wise choices about sex, you have to experience it.” This isn’t just a “line” a guy might use with a girl; it’s a false theory of knowledge. It says that personal experience is the only way to know anything, and the test of experience is, of course, how you feel.
Now that’s a principle many people rely on when making decisions. Is abortion wrong? “Depends on how it makes you feel,” they say. Is God real? “Well, I’ll try it, and see how He makes me feel.”
But as a theory of knowledge, this principle is clearly inadequate. In fact, in reality experience sometimes limits our ability to make wise choices. Consider drug addiction or suicide. We don’t become drug addicts to find out whether it’s a good idea to be addicted. And we can’t commit suicide to learn more about it. In these cases, experience prevents you from being able to choose wisely. The addict can’t choose wisely because he’s hooked, and the suicide victim certainly can’t choose because he’s dead.
Over the centuries there have been quite a number of cases like these—experiences that make it harder to choose wisely, behavior that subtracts from wisdom rather than adding to it. That’s one reason Scripture identifies some behaviors as sin and warns us not to try them."
http://www.pfm.org/AM/Template.cfm?
Section=BreakPoint_Commentaries1&
TEMPLATE=/CM/ContentDisplay.cfm&
CONTENTID=16565
I most certainly will not disagree with the contention that pure empiricism is a bad theory of knowledge. On the other hand, empirical information is not only relevant, but crucial to a lot of science.
ReplyDeleteAll of this, however, has little to do with the issue at hand, which was that some people reject the science whenever it doesn't go the way of their a priori moral positions.
The point of my posting is simple: a) Some people want to pass special laws about abortion because they think a fetus feels pain; b) the best science we have, however, tells us that a fetus cannot in fact feel pain until very, very late; c) ergo, the laws in question are useless for the stated purpose. That's it, in this case.
"When our ethical judgments are based on rational and scientific inquiry, they are more apt to express the highest reaches of excellence and nobility and of civilized human conduct."
ReplyDeletePaul Kurtz
I.E. Reproductive Capitalists
ReplyDeleteThis commentary is rather long. If you wish to obliterate it after reading, no problem with me. It makes some concrete scientific points from a medical professional's pov, only laying out on the table what we actually do know opposed to forming an opinion on obscure and ever changing concepts of what the unborn child is.
- c
"Hush, little fetus ..."
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Posted: August 31, 2005
1:00 a.m. Eastern
It's weird how people think of fetuses. Last week, the news was filled with academic debate on whether pulling them apart hurts them. I dissected a dead fetal pig in college, and that gets more reaction from people than talking about dissecting live fetal humans.
My oldest grandson was born at the gestational age of 25 weeks. He weighed two pounds at the time and went down to one pound, 11 ounces. Watching him struggle to live hurt so much. But I couldn't do what came naturally. We weren't allowed to stroke him. We were warned his skin was hypersensitive to touch, and caressing him would only distress him and make matters worse.
That was in 2000. A researcher wrote in Neonatal Network that same year of the "well documented" negative physiological changes in premature babies in response to mere "touch and handling" – never mind approaching them with needles and knives – that were "particularly pronounced in the smaller and sicker infants," identified as those under 28 weeks.
These included changes in blood pressure, heart rate, respiratory rhythm and rate – including breathing stoppage – and neuroendocrine responses.
The "well documented" negative behavior responses of preemies to simple touch and handling included "startle reflex, increased movement, agitation and/or crying, or other observable avoidance responses."
Some of the sources cited for that research were the Journal of Perinatal and Neonatal Nursing, Archives of Disease and Childhood, Communication Nursing Research, Infant Behavior and Development, Pediatrics, Johnson and Johnson, and Dr. T.B. Brazelton.
But that was back in the Stone Age of human-development research. And those were babies under the age of 28 weeks, not fetuses. Fetuses are different, researchers now say, at least abortionist profiteering researchers say, with the pro-abortion American Medical Association and New York Times broadcasting what they say.
Those researchers tell us that in the ensuing five years prenatal babies have evolved into Super Fetuses who are now impervious to pain, proving the new Instant Big Pain Bang theory, that only upon delivery do human nervous systems begin sending "ouch" messages to the brain.
Back in the Ice Age of human-development research, 1987, the New England Journal of Medicine published a paper from Harvard Medical School and Boston Children's Hospital, citing 201 sources, documenting that fetuses as early as 20 weeks feel pain. An accompanying NEJM editorial called this research an "important contribution."
It was considered an "important contribution" because, "[d]espite recommendations to the contrary in textbooks on pediatric anesthesiology, the clinical practice of inducing minimal or no anesthesia in newborns, particularly if they are premature, is widespread."
Torture. Back then, doctors were committing torture on preemies by performing procedures on them without providing pain relief. That meant abortionists were committing torture on fetuses by drawing and quartering them without providing pain relief.
Almost 20 years later, the medical community has come a long way on the one hand. Doctors now routinely provide compassionate pain relief to neonates and preemies before performing procedures.
On the other hand, this so-called enlightened group demonstrates the darkest depravity and what would be laughable stupidity if the topic weren't so critical by their increasingly convoluted attempts to rationalize how they can possibly condone abortion.
All to protect their self-idol worship in a world they've conjured in their minds where they are the gods who create human life in a petri dish, sustain human life in mothers' bodies that wouldn't normally sustain it, and destroy human life that isn't perfect or anticipated to be born into a perfect situation.
Oh, and to keep making scads of money.
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Jill Stanek fought to stop "live-birth abortion" after witnessing one as a registered nurse at Christ Hospital in Oak Lawn, Ill.
I will leave the posting, since it provides an interesting alternative point of view. However, as poignant as the author's personal testimony is, please note the widespread use of rhetoric (insults to opponents alternating with emotional appeals). It's a tough subject, where reason and emotions ought to be as balanced as possible.
ReplyDeleteHi Massimo,
ReplyDeleteI don't believe you have trackbacks, so I wanted to know that I respond to this post here: http://www.imago-dei.net/imago_dei/2005/08/rationally_spea.html
Take Care,
Serge
"please note the widespread use of rhetoric (insults to opponents alternating with emotional appeals)"
ReplyDeleteTho I may not be so inclined, from a position of pragmatics, who else might use emotional appeals, rhetoric and insults more effectively than a man who frightens his lover into having a (their) pregnancy terminated?
It's all about overwhelming, uncontrollable fear, M.
Firstly, men are plain and simply afraid that women can withhold sex from them. And women, otoh, fear losing the relationship and security that it ought to bring with it.
So I think the writer is entitled to use those tools and means, because it helps to hack through the so called "haze" of what basically just turns out to be emotion filled arguments based on human fears regarding intimate relationships.
c
Even as someone who's had an abortion, I do favor the giving of anesthesia to those fetuses who might possibly feel pain. I wouldn't want an animal to feel unnecessary pain, so I wouldn't want a fetus to either. But this type of consideration should only apply to those situations where there is reliable scientific data to conclude that the possibility of pain exists.
ReplyDeleteBut those very late term abortions where this type of factor might be considered are extremely, extremely rare. Often the fetus is so congentially deformed as to not have a fully functioning brain, even.
But the overwhelming majority of abortions occur when the embryo is 8 wks or less in gestation. So why all this hoo-ha about fetal pain? It's hardly ever even a possibility?
That "scads of money" thing is a below-the-belt remark. Ob-gyns make a heck of a lot less money from an abortion than they do from a live birth! And adoption agencies rake in the bucks too, especially for healthy white male babies.
Average cost of adopting a healthy white male baby in the US: $35,000.
Average cost of adopting a healthy black male baby in the US: $8,000.
Countries that condone infanticide always prefer males to females and lighter skinned females to others. So the US is not exactly enlightened for picking up these dark ages (third-world) practices in my estimation.
ReplyDelete"Below the belt"? Hmmm.
Things that are feasible, are not always constructive. Men throw fuel on the demand for abortion, and women and OBGs go along with it.
Just supply and demand stuff, you know. Mass numbers of pregnancy terminations certainly create revenue.
c
THE EVIDENCE
ReplyDeleteBabies help prevent cancers
From: AAP By Janelle Miles
May 29, 2005
THE more babies a woman has, the less likely it is that she will get breast, colorectal, ovarian and uterine cancers, Australian research suggests.
Scientists at the Queensland Institute of Medical Research (QIMR) found increasing numbers of pregnancies were associated with a significantly reduced risk of certain cancers.
"The more children you have, the more protective it gets," said medical health statistician Steven Darlington.
"It seems that an increase in the hormones produced during pregnancy are protecting against cancer, but we're not quite sure exactly how or why that happens."
He studied more than 1.2 million Swedish women, including about 25,000 who had delivered twins, to determine the effect of reproductive history on a number of different cancers.
The women had all given birth between 1961 and 1996.
Mr Darlington said Swedish, rather than Australian women, were studied because of Sweden's highly-detailed civil birth and cancer registries.
The study was originally designed to test whether giving birth to twins protected women against types of cancers believed to be affected by hormones.
Women who deliver twins are subject to different hormone levels than those with single pregnancies.
Although the study found twin births were associated with a decrease in the risk of breast, colorectal, ovarian and uterine cancers, this was not statistically significant.
"Having twins is protective but not as significant as having more children," Mr Darlington said.
He said colorectal cancer seemed to be particularly related to hormonal influences.
A study in the 1960s found nuns had extremely high levels of colorectal cancer compared to other women.
"Since then a lot of other studies have been done and there's a great amount of evidence now that an increase in children is a significantly protective factor against this cancer," Mr Darlington said.
The study, published in Twin Research and Human Genetics, also found women who started a family later in life were at greater risk of breast cancer than other mothers.
Mr Darlington, who now works for Queensland Health's breast cancer screening program, said such studies helped scientists better identify women at increased susceptibility of developing certain cancers.
"If you know that women who have less children are more likely to contract breast cancer then you can screen them more frequently," he said.
Nevertheless, he admitted the research had some limitations including an inability to control for factors like miscarriage, abortion, use of the oral contraceptive pill, assisted reproductive technologies, diet and exercise.
http://www.news.com.au/story/0%2C101
17%2C15443868-29277%2C00.html
A couple of comments come immediately to mind in response to the latest by "anonymous" (guys, why don't you sign your posts? Anonymous will soon become the most frequent contributor(s) to this blog!).
ReplyDeleteFirst, if fewer occurrences of breast cancer are caused by hormones released by the body during pregnancy, we don't need pregnancies, just the hormones.
Second, pregnancies have all sorts of other effects that one might want to consider in the balance, like (if encouraged indiscriminately) increasing the world's population beyond the already problematic current levels. Now, we do need babies for the next generation, but using pregnancy as a preventive measure against cancer seems a bit too much.
>..but using pregnancy as a preventive measure against cancer seems a bit too much.<
ReplyDeleteOnly to you. If the findings are factual it proves that when we make decisions about reproduction technology, we usually tend to not have the whole picture.
Didn't sign because it was too late and I was too tired. (apologies) But you're a bright feller, you should be able to guess that it was mine. Who else on your blog ever "cares" about stuff like that?
cal
(now my nephew's blog, he's a Greek Ortho, priest, that's a different story. every one cares about it there)
Cal, while you and anybody else are most welcome to keep posting here, I would really hope you abstain from offensive comments like "Who else on your blog ever 'cares' about stuff like that?"
ReplyDeleteI think lots of people care about "stuff like that," regardless of the fact that they may hold opinions radically different from yours.
"I would really hope you abstain from offensive comments like "Who else on your blog ever 'cares' about stuff like that?"
ReplyDeleteWhy bother to attack my (oft flawed) technique when you could address the substance of the aforementioned evidence? AS per induction, if really you knew my heart on these matters, you'd never waste the energy to take off-handed, unintentional errors like that offensively.
as a rule, men are not usually that sensitive, so where do you get that from?
c
Cal, I just happen to be a sensitive man... :-)
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately, neither I nor anybody else reading this blog can "know your heart," so you'll just have to be careful with your words, since that's all we have to go by.
As for evidence, what evidence, of what?
Prior research indicates that having seven or more children starts to take years off your life. It also weakens your pelvic floor and the ligaments that hold your bladder in place, among other things. Not to mention what I'm sure it does to the skin on your abdomen....
ReplyDeleteMassimo is right, cal, there are other ways to prevent cancer than having kids. And keep in mind that this is also just one study. Other studies may not come to the same conclusions. You have to look at many studies done on the same thing before the real picture starts to emerge.
And why do you think that this information is somehow being withheld from the public? Or that a woman's having an abortion means that she won't go on to have kids later? (usually she does).
And honestly, do you think that a woman who is on the fence about having children would decide to go ahead and have a child just because it might decrease her risk of cancer? I'm sure that this must be true for someone, somewhere, but I can't see it being true for the majority of women. And having a child just to decrease your risk of cancer quite frankly sounds like a pretty selfish reason to get or stay pregnant.
--Adrienne
Cal wrote:
ReplyDelete"(now my nephew's blog, he's a Greek Ortho, priest, that's a different story. every one cares about it there)"
Yeah, because everyone knows that only religious people who also oppose abortion can possibly understand what it is to be good. Or to love children. Or to even care about morality or loving your neighbor or "stuff like that."
:rolls eyes:
Cal, you know, you'd find a lot more kindred spirits at freerepublic.com . Why don't you take your show on that road, and leave us godless misanthropic immoral child-hating heathens to ourselves?
--Adrienne
Since this thread is apparently still alive, I'd like to address this silly old chestnut that cal regurgitated in an earlier comment:
ReplyDelete"It's all about overwhelming, uncontrollable fear, M.
Firstly, men are plain and simply afraid that women can withhold sex from them. And women, otoh, fear losing the relationship and security that it ought to bring with it."
In other words, cal is recapitulating the old "Why buy the cow...?" reasoning, which is both ridiculous and demeaning because it assumes the only reason that male/female love relationships stay together is because of sex. Not to mention that it assumes a woman would never want to have sex unless she wanted to "trap" a man with it.
Cal, this may come as a shocker, but men actually remain in relationships with women for reasons other than sex. I'm sorry if this hasn't been true in your life, but I can assure you that it is true in many others. Mine, for instance.
And especially for men in modern day America, sex is a relatively easy commodity to procure. Prostitutes, escorts, strip shows, exotic dancers...the titillation is out there for the man who really wants to find it and buy it. So your argument that men are only interested in staying with women for the sake of sex just doesn't wash in modern day America.
In fact, it's pretty damn insulting, to both men and women. But especially to men. I'm beginning to think you don't think very much of men in general, cal. First you cough up this claptrap, then later on you accuse men of being generally insensitive. What gives?
--Adrienne
"do you think that a woman who is on the fence about having children would decide to go ahead and have a child just because it might decrease her risk of cancer?"
ReplyDeleteNo. It speaks profoundly to the design aspect of nature.
>Why don't you take your show on that road, and leave us godless misanthropic immoral child-hating heathens to ourselves?<
I doubt that you hate children. You just do not know your own (or their) true worth.
Frankly, A, don't care if I'm with people who agree with me or not. I don't know about you, but under certain circumstances, I'd get a bit wary of those who agree with others too easily. And I'll be away for quite awhile here soon, so you'll have a lot of peace in the not so distant.
The thing about the greek orthos, was just a basic observation. They can be wrong too. As can I.
My nephew (the priest) and I are the same age and we kind of grew up with a lot of things in common. So of course, I'm his biggest fan no matter what he says or does.
He's a just a good (sometimes even sensitive) man.
"I'm sorry if this hasn't been true in your life, but I can assure you that it is true in many others. Mine, for instance."
ReplyDeleteNo relationship is ideal. Each person male or female ought to ask themselves what can "I" do to make this better. That would be the humble and constructive approach.
If divorce rates were not so pathetically high in the US, I could along with your thing about "this is demeaning to EVERYBODY". But apparently we, as a culture, are so proud that a a bit of demeaning right now might do a whole lot of people some serious and corrective good.
cal
Cal wrote:
ReplyDelete"No. It speaks profoundly to the design aspect of nature. "
Interestingly enough, it's the opposite for cats and dogs. Breeding for them (vs. spaying/neutering) means they are much more likely to develop cancers later on in their lives. This, per my friend who is a veterinarian.
So you have a designer who likes humans but hates cats and dogs?
"Frankly, A, don't care if I'm with people who agree with me or not. I don't know about you, but under certain circumstances, I'd get a bit wary of those who agree with others too easily."
It's not that I have a problem with those who don't agree. What I dislike most about your arguing style is that you keep coughing up sound bytes from the religious right's top 40, and then sticking them in your posts with absolutely nothing to back them up. I'm still scratching my head over the idea that something or someone is supposed to be ultimately responsible for all hardship in the universe, for example.
"a bit of demeaning right now might do a whole lot of people some serious and corrective good."
Thing is, this country (and its precursors) tried demeaning black people for about 250 years or so. You could make a good argument that this country still demeans black people to some extent. I don't think that centuries of being demeaned did black people a lot of good, do you? So why do you think it would work so well for men?
I realize you did say, "a bit of demeaning", but consider how much "good" slavery would have done for black people even had it gone on for only 50 years instead of 250.
--Adrienne
"What I dislike most about your arguing style is that you keep coughing up sound bytes from the religious right's top 40, and then sticking them in your posts with absolutely nothing to back them up."
ReplyDeleteThat's mostly what your feelings on the issue are. It's not that I haven't made an effort, it's just that you don't agree with the conclusion(s).
And I don't think that there is any legit cause to drag slavery into the discussion of what men's and women's responsibility is to each other. Practically no one thinks slavery is a good idea. But if slavery occurs, there might be a problem in the cultural ethics and dynamics of both slaver owner and the slave to have allowed room for such cruelty.
And you think I'm all over men for some reason. I've come to realize tho, as per your personal arguing style, that I can't make comments over the responsibilities of men or women (or people in general) without you thinking it all very unfair.
That makes for no one being able to arrive at a conclusion about anything, A.
cal
"It's not that I haven't made an effort, it's just that you don't agree with the conclusion(s)."
ReplyDeleteWell, you still haven't bothered attempting a rational and logical defense of the proposition that all hardship in the universe has to be somebody's fault. We're waiting, cal.....
--Adrienne
"Well, you still haven't bothered attempting a rational and logical defense of the proposition that all hardship in the universe has to be somebody's fault. We're waiting, cal....."
ReplyDeleteShifting the focus to varied topics isn't a constructive technique, either.
If you want to have a discussion that stays on-topic some day, let me know.
c
"Shifting the focus to varied topics isn't a constructive technique, either."
ReplyDeleteNeither is dodging the question, which you did in the other thread.
--Adrienne
Yay for every argument ending with "you're wrong!", "no, you're wrong!" :)
ReplyDelete