What would ever change your mind?
The views expressed by the author do not necessarily reflect those of the Abortion Museum. However, we do post content from both sides of the issue in order to foster intelligent discourse.
[Today’s post is by guest blogger Kara B.]
No too long ago, renowned Planet of the Apes cosplayer and animatronics enthusiast Ken Ham catalyzed the most massive synchronized facepalm when he answered a simple question asked by an audience member: “What, if anything, would ever change your mind?” His answer, of course, was long the lines of “Nothing. No one is ever going to convince me that the word of god is untrue.” Somehow, I suppose, he thought this was an intellectually honest answer. Ham even seemed to feel Bill Nye’s response (“We would just need one piece of evidence”) bolstered Ham’s position.
Whether the topic is science, philosophy, politics, or math, there’s value in stepping back, loosening your hold on even your most closely guarded values, and pondering this question: “What would it take to change my mind?” Rather than simply taking a defensive position, you can actively define and set limits to the extent of your beliefs, while remaining open to the possibility that you might very well learn something.
Of course, the abortion debate is not primarily a question of science, but of values. When we’re debating the humanity of the fetus, science can help, but if we are debating the personhood of the fetus, Bill Nye’s answer of “evidence,” won’t suffice. Instead of more scientific facts, we require a change in philosophy. What would change your mind about your philosophical views on abortion? I think it’s alright if we offer answers to this thought experiment that may be highly improbable. As long as the scenarios that would change your mind are possible, you have logically worked out your limitations and left your ideological opposites room to convince you.
I’m going to outline the results of my own experience with this thought experiment, but, before I do, I’m going to qualify my experiences with some background information. Nearly all of my in-person friends hold some type of pro-choice position. This has exposed me to a number of arguments and scenarios I’ve had to judge my own arguments against. Since the arguments have come from friends, they haven’t been filled with vitriol; instead they’ve helped me determine where I agree with them, where I don’t, and what that means for my thought experiment. Whether you’re pro-life or pro-choice, I recommend you talk your views over with some friends who disagree with you 100%, to help you if you get stuck.
There was a point in my life when I nearly did change my mind. In high school I argued against abortion on secular grounds, but a few years later I spent a year abroad in Japan, and that shut me up. At the time, Japanese abortion laws were being revisited by the Diet (Japanese congress). In light of the fact that Japan was, and still is, facing a huge crisis in having an aging population with a shrinking birthrate, the Diet was looking to restrict access even further. Essentially, the Diet was hoping to use restricted abortion access as a way to increase the birthrate, thereby giving credence to the argument I hear these days, that abortion restrictions are designed to turn women into broodmares. I had never considered this perspective before. I saw the destruction of the unborn as a very individual crime with a very individual victim. I had never considered abortion politically. I had never considered the idea that a restriction on abortion was intended specifically to force women into a particular lifestyle, and I wasn’t sure how that worked out logically in my mind. Was potential tyranny of the state enough to override the rights of an individual to life?
It took me many years to process this information, although eventually I came to the conclusion that no, it was not. The fear of turning women into broodmares is a separate question from that of abortion. Besides, during the Japanese baby boom of the 1960s extended access to abortion was similarly used as a tool to manage women’s fertility, because at the time there were too many children for the social system to handle. What needs to change in the present is the Japanese attitude towards women, not the Japanese policy towards increasing abortion access.
So, without any further procrastinating, here are five (perhaps improbable, but possible) ways in which I would change my mind. They aren’t meant to be exclusive. Perhaps there are other arguments there and I just have yet to find them:
1) I would need to find religion:
I’m an atheist. As far as I know, this is the only life I will ever get to live and, as far as I know, the same is true of you, and of everyone. I place a high value on the right to life specifically because there are no other rights without that first one. Abortion is unique in that it revokes the right to life without serious consideration by third parties to reduce bias in the decision. Revoking the right to life when the person in question has done nothing wrong, with the perpetrator receiving no legal or military consequences, is also unique to abortion.
However, people with religion have it differently. I suppose if I were a true Buddhist, a true believer in reincarnation, I would be not only pro-choice, but I’d argue for abortion on demand. After all, if the mother thought she couldn’t offer a decent life to the child, it would make sense to send that child on to its next life, where it might have the opportunity to have a good one. If I were just your run-of-the-mill Christian, I might rationalize that though the opportunity to live might be lost, that child would be in heaven as an innocent.
2) I would have to have a different understanding on what it is that makes up “me” and my consciousness:
This follows closely with the above reason, just in more secular terms. As far as I know, the sum of me is a combination of brain chemicals and outside stimuli. I don’t know why it is “me” who is experiencing what is going on in my brain, but I suspect that when that brain is done, whatever it is that is “me” will be done experiencing. If I am wrong on that (and I don’t think I am, but anyway…), if there are some other levels of consciousness, then I might still not agree with abortion, but I might be more permissive with the idea of other women getting them, since their children would still go on to experience other things, instead of being robbed of the only consciousness they might ever know. Of course, that kind of takes away part of the moral outrage I’d have about murder in general, which brings me to my next point…
3) Convince me that murder isn’t a big deal:
While I do think morality is subjective, I’m not a moral relativist (i.e. a person who accepts the morality of other groups and cultures because it is the morality they have). My moral code may have been developed in the context of a western, American lifestyle, but I think it is a pretty good one. One of the core values included is that, generally, it is not okay to kill someone, and when it is, it is because of extenuating circumstances whereby that person is posing a direct threat to someone else. Some cultures think it is okay to kill a woman because she was raped. I’m not okay with that, and I wouldn’t be okay with that even if I did think sex was wrong. A rape victim hasn’t done anything wrong, and she is paying for the actions of both another individual and a larger family or society that doesn’t know how to deal with her in their cultural and socio-economic context. I think this description also fits the aborted unborn. However, if you can turn me into a moral relativist remove this concept of universal human rights, and convince me that murder is okay when the surrounding culture and society deem it okay, I’m pro-choice.
4) If we lived in a certain dystopia:
Has anyone here watched the rebooted series of Battlestar Gallactica? No? There is one episode about a place called “The Farm,” in which my favorite character, Starbuck, is kidnapped by the Cylons and sent to a place where women are hooked up to machines to breed (Cylons want babies!) That’s a pretty horrifying scenario. If women were in fact being inseminated and forced to breed, and the only way to even fight back from this very desperate scenario was to prevent their oppressors from getting what they wanted and repeating the cycle, I would say abortion would be fully justified. I would mourn the dead, but at that point, humanity is pretty much dead.
Similarly, if we as a species were less like Homo sapiens and more like Pacific salmon, I would have a different opinion on abortion. If the only way to reproduce was to have the parent or parents die, I wouldn’t begrudge a parent making the decision to stop reproduction in its tracks.
5) Evidence against our current understanding of biology:
Lately we’ve heard some pro-choicers say that, due to the Great and Powerful Oz Bodily Autonomy Argument (GAPBAA), the fact that the unborn are human beings doesn’t matter. I disagree. If the unborn were not human beings, we wouldn’t be discussing whether bodily autonomy is sufficient to override their rights to life.
I’m not terribly interested in legalistic personhood at this point. Personhood has historically followed what the society at the time has felt about which human beings are persons. This means that certain groups (including women themselves) have been seen as persons, non-persons, 1/3 persons, etc. I am far more interested in knowing if the unborn are unique, self-automating human beings or not.
Along those lines, I’m more interested in biological humanity than “personhood.” In that case I can’t see when a human being begins if not as a zygote. Convince me that I am in error on this point, provide me positive evidence that human beings begins at some later point, and you will have yourself a pro-choicer up until that later point.
Ok, kids, your turn. Whether you’re pro-life or pro-choice, what would it take to change your mind? If you are undecided, what arguments would convince you one way or another?
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