Dr. Jekyl and Mr Snide

The TV is on, but I'm not really paying attention. There was some crappy commercials on - which I am very good at not paying attention to (Seth sent me an email about a funny commercial that I would have completely forgotten if not for the youtube link he sent me...I push such things to the periphery of my consciousness). One line from a commercial, however, I did listen to - it was something about how an acorn contains the potential of an entire tree, and this was supposed to be some metaphor for some shitty product/service. In any case, being who I am, this naturally got me thinking about abortion.

An acorn does not contain all of the energy of a full grown tree, as the commercial said. It is not as if all of that life energy necessary to sustain an life is somehow compacted into a super potent seed...that energy is gained by absorption of nutrients, and photosynthesis, etc. But people allow their linguistic tendencies to project upon their assumptions about the world, and thus tend to view the acorn-to-tree process as just a transfiguration of one thing. A thing might have changes, but we wend to assume that all of its essential characteristics are somehow present in all of its stages.

This explains why pro-life people point to conception as the moment that life "begins". Something I have always wondered: why conception, and not sperm cells or ova? Don't those both contain the genetic blueprint for a person? Of course, this would be inconceivable, because then it would be murder to have your period...or one is a murderer a billion times over for each sperm cell that dies without producing a child (men are far less saintly than women).



To prove that "life begins at conception," one must show that there is something essentially different about it from the prior moment. What makes it more life than before?

The problem is that the process of becoming a human being is a gradual one that does not lend itself to our desire for hard and fast distinctions. Obviously in the 3rd trimester it would be wrong to abort, but a baby could be medically kept alive outside of a uterus by that stage easily, and there is advanced sensation. To make use of an absolutely ridiculous example: there have been tons and tons of comedies that have the "fetus thinking/talking" joke, but Danny Devito's voice never starts until the fetus is relatively baby-shaped. Even when imagining we don't conceive of dividing cells as possessing those most unique human traits in that way.



The point is that we always forget how philosophical category mistakes are at the core of some of the deepest (and most frivolous) issues that we deal with on a day to day basis. People want a hard and fast moment to point to the commencement of "life," and since we ascribe thingliness with unity, some act as if conception is a sufficient condition for life, not merely one of many necessary ones. Complication requires thought, context, and deliberation...and deliberation has become to be widely regarded as "inaction". And it gets in the way of imposing ethics upon another; the democracy of self-decision making and the traditional interpretation of power are at odds. Presenting the "right to choose" as just about the particular choice of particular women is excessively limiting; this is not just an issue "for" potentially pregnant women. Instead, it is about the right to choose in general; to throw off the conveniences of viewing language as a utilitarian microscope through which the world dances for us. Language is a memory of an echo. Every word can expand itself onto a symphony of meaning if we let it, but the instant it becomes a confining force...it can have deadly ramifications. Even when trying to save lives.