I was over at the
Political Junkies discussion of
tribe.net (free registration required), where someone
asked, "What is it about the right to an abortion that is such a dividing issue?"
In considering such moral issues, the only principle I look to is the Golden Rule. Since we cherish our own existence, we therefore respect the lives of others. But when we speak of doing unto others... the underlying issue is how we define these "others." Even though we consider an insect to be "life," very few of us hesitate to swat them.
The implicit meaning is that we follow the Golden Rule when relating to others whom we perceive as "like me." We don't know what this "me" is, so we (usually unconsciously) define it with our thinking. Depending on how we define our "self," that determines which "others" fall within our sphere of compassion. If I think of myself as American, my full compassion doesn't extend outside my country. If I think of myself as a human, my full compassion doesn't extend beyond my species. In Buddhism, we cultivate the widest possible compassion, extended to "all beings" (i.e., whomever is subject to suffering).
Though the Buddhist goal provides a direction, in practice, few of us hesitate to squash the mosquito that's landed on our arm. We each draw the line
somewhere; at some point, we consider the other being to be enough like us to merit protection of life.
At the extreme, some would say that the moment that a human egg and sperm unite, it's a life sufficiently like us to be protected by law. Polling and voting patterns show that this is a minority view, so for the US to extend the right to life to a fertilized egg isn't within the realm of political possibility. On the other extreme, we could say that a human receives the right to life some hours or months after birth. This end of the spectrum has even less support.
So we're left to the debate of where to draw the line. Sometime between conception and a newborn, we need to decide as a society the point to view the developing human as like us, as worthy of a right to life. It's like the necessity of determining the age to allow drinking alcohol or driving a car. Philosophically, we know that not everyone is qualified to handle an automobile (or to consume beer, or vote), magically upon the day of their 16th, 18th, or 21st birthday. But as a practical matter, we need to set a date to grant the right.
From this perspective, abortion isn't a moral issue, any more than driving age is. This isn't an issue of whether or not we honor life, but in how we define a life worthy of protection. The consensus majority becomes less and less comfortable with aborting the fetus/baby as it develops more and more into something/someone that we recognize as "like us."
Like driving age etc, the point at which we grant a right to life will necessarily be somewhat arbitrary. As a practical matter, it helps to choose a clearly recognizable event at which to draw the line. The moment of birth is a convenient marker at which to give the developing human this much membership in society. Even then, we must be meticulous, since birth itself doesn't take place in a "moment." This explains why in recent years, the hot-button issue in the debate is "partial-birth abortion." If we draw the line at birth, clearly agreeing that a newborn baby is a life like us, while the fetus in the womb is somewhat less so... then what to do when new being has only
somewhat emerged?
The most interesting point to me is how intimately philosophy and politics are intertwined. How we relate to others is linked to our thoughts about self; considering the abortion debate leads directly back to the great question "What am I?"
(ZM Bon Soeng gives talks and Q&A at Empty Gate each Wednesday night. We've been intending to start video of these sessions to post on YouTube, but are moving slowly with the technical details. I wonder if the teaching of reincarnation makes Buddhists tend towards procrastination.)
