Messy Conversations: Human Rights

By Brian Holdsworth

The following is part of a series we're calling messy conversations. They're messy because they're topics that people don't want to talk about and are incredibly emotionally charged and divisive. It's unfortunate that dialogue on these issues is so difficult and as long as it is, the divisions will only increase. Our hope is to create an opportunity for authentic sharing of ideas without fear of reprisal. This conversation is based on actual conversation(s).

NT: I’m just saying, I think you need to be more compassionate for women in that situation.

CH: I agree that compassion is needed, but I don’t believe that compassion comes at the edge of a scalpel. I think taxes could be better spent providing adoption, daycare, and support services for women in that situation instead of the means to simply kill the life in their womb.

NT: Yea well, most people don’t have those options, so they’re faced with no other choice. That’s why I’m saying that you should be more compassionate.

CH: (How ironic, I thought it was all about choice.) Do you think that murder should be decriminalized for the sake of compassion for those who are faced with having to commit it?

NT: Dude, it’s not murder. It’s totally different.

CH: I didn’t make that claim yet; I’m just asking if you think murderers should be shown more compassion in their situations?

NT: Obviously, no.

CH: Well, that’s where the major difference of opinion is for us. For me, murder is the killing of an innocent human life and it is wrong in every situation. I see abortion as the killing of an innocent life. Since you think that there are circumstances that justify allowing abortions to take place, then you must not consider it murder. Of course, there are no circumstances that justify the killing of an innocent human life.

NT: No, I don’t believe it’s murder and I don’t believe there are instances that justify murder.

CH: Right, so my question is, if it’s not the killing of an innocent human life, what is it?

NT: It’s not the same because it’s not a person with a will of their own and what if the mother’s life is in danger; is her life less valuable than the fetus?

CH: So that’s an important distinction. You think that someone only becomes a person when they have a will of their own and up until that point, they don’t really have human rights?

NT: Well, not just that.

CH: Ok, well, I feel like that’s really at the heart of the matter. I think we both can agree that abortion involves the killing of a life. That sorta goes without saying. The question becomes, is it a human life or not. You would say that it’s not?

NT: I don’t know how I would define it but I wouldn’t say it’s the same as you or I, especially because for the first little while, it’s just a bunch of cells. You can’t really say it’s on the same level.

CH: Well, first off, that’s not really true. By 7 weeks the brain’s already starting to work, internal organs are present, and muscles are intact. Most people don’t even know they’re pregnant at that point. So at no point is the decision really made over whether or not to kill “a bunch of cells”. It’s a creature, and in my opinion, it’s a human creature.

NT: Well, whatever, it’s still not the same.

CH: Right, so my question is what makes it different from you and me?

NT: Well, like I said, it doesn’t have a will of its own. It’s not intelligent. It can’t make decisions.

CH: So, for you, those are the criteria for human rights.

NT: I wouldn’t put it that way.

CH: Well, isn’t that the question we’re trying to ask? What gives a creature human rights?

NT: Ok, I guess.

CH: Ok, so the question I would ask is what gives newborns human rights? They don’t have wills of their own in the sense that you’re suggesting. They can’t make decisions and they haven’t developed their intelligence yet. The same can be said for people with mental illness or someone who’s in a coma. Do their families have the right to kill them because they lack those things?

NT: Ok, it’s not just those things. A newborn is biologically way more complex than a fetus. Also, it’s part of the mother. She has a right to decide what she does with her body.

CH: Saying that it’s more complex is a weird argument for me because at what point of complexity do we say that it’s complex enough to deserve human rights? Isn’t that entirely arbitrary?

NT: Maybe so, but it’s not about that anyways, it’s about the woman’s right to decide what she does with her body.

CH: So you think that the core issue that decides the moral justification is whether or not a woman should be able to do whatever she wants with her body as opposed to whether or not the fetus is a human being?

NT: I’d say that’s the main part.

CH: I have to say I disagree with that for several reasons. First off, nobody is legally allowed to do whatever they want with their body. That’s not a legal right that exists in our society. You can’t consume certain drugs. You can’t sell your body for sex. You have to wear a seatbelt. The list goes on.

NT: Well, I don’t agree with a lot of those laws anyways.

CH: Fair enough, but I also strongly disagree with the notion that the fundamental issue is about the woman’s right to choose even if the pregnancy was life threatening. The fact is, a new life has been created, regardless of whether or not you think it’s human. That can’t be taken back. If a mother’s life is in danger from a disease and she needs an organ transplant, she couldn’t just take one of those organs from her kids, even if it meant saving her life. The reason is, they have equal human rights and their right to live is more important than what the mother does with her body. Even if you could harvest organs from a newborn, that would still be unacceptable in today’s society. So we first have to answer the question of whether or not it’s a human life. Without the answer to that question we cannot say whether the mother’s rights are more important than the fetus’. If the fetus is not a human, then her right to life is probably more pressing, but if the fetus is a human, then they have equal rights and one cannot be given priority over the other.

NT: Yea, but if the mother dies than the baby probably will too. It’s senseless in that situation.

CH: That still doesn’t justify killing one person. What if two people were terminally ill? It’s pretty certain they’re both going to die but like anything in life, there’s no guarantee. One of them needs an organ donor. Is it morally justifiable to kill one of them to take the organs to give to the other so that at least one of them lives even if it’s against the will of the one that would die?

NT: No, but that doesn’t matter because it’s not a human anyways.

CH: But again, how do you know that. That question shouldn’t rest on opinion. If it’s a matter of life and death for the life in the womb, we’d better know FOR SURE whether it’s a human deserving of the same rights you and I have or not if we’re considering killing it.

NT: Well we can know. That’s why it’s legal. I’m sure there’s some way to figure it out.

CH: But an objective criteria doesn’t exist to determine at what point the life becomes a human being. The examples you’ve given so far don’t add up or they’re arbitrary. Imagine, for argument’s sake, that an animal has been caught in a hunter’s trap. The hunter needs whatever he caught to feed his family, otherwise they might starve. But that trap is such a nature that he can’t tell what it is; like it’s in a box or something. It could be a predator, it could be a herbivore, and it could be a human (because human’s take a stroll through the woods this guy hunts in every now and then). The only way he can safely get the animal out of the box is by shooting the box (otherwise he might get attacked when he opens the door). Again, this is totally hypothetical. So do the circumstances justify him taking the chance that he might shoot a human inside the box?

NT: Why wouldn’t he just ask it if it’s a human being? Problem solved...

CH: Clever. That’s not the point though; like I said it’s hypothetical. Let’s say the nature of the trap is that it’s sound proof so that the animal can’t call out to its buddies to come and rescue it. It’s a serious question though. If he doesn’t know for sure whether it’s just an animal or if it’s a human, he can’t take that risk. If he does take the risk and ends up killing a human, he’s morally accountable for doing so.

You can’t decide whether or not it’s ok to kill a life until you know for sure that it doesn’t have the same inherent rights as you do. If it does, it’s not justifiable under any circumstances.

What do you think? Add your voice to this dialogue.

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