Educating Our Moral Intuitions about Abortion

I agree with Dr. Mohler (Jan. 22, 2018 Briefing) that the abortion issue should be about educating our moral intuitions about the unborn, and that science and technology have an important role to play in that endeavor. For Dr. Mohler, as he says, “The most fundamental opposition to abortion doesn't rest upon a scientific argument, but changing the moral intuition of Americans will be greatly aided by ... what we now know about the fetus, what we know and see in the developing fetus.” But is the pro-life intuition aided by all that we know, or only by carefully selected facts and images?

I commend Dr. Mohler for actually using the word “fetus” as opposed to “baby” in this Briefing, contrary to his usual practice. But there is another important word which he omits from his account: “embryo”. He quotes an article approvingly which says,

“The antiabortion cause has been aided by scientific advances that have complicated American attitudes about abortion. Prenatal ultrasound ... has allowed the general public to see fetuses inside the womb and understand that they have a human shape beginning around eight weeks into [a] pregnancy....”

But Dr. Mohler completely ignores the very important implication of this statement, that before eight weeks of pregnancy, the embryo (for that’s what it is – not a fetus and not a baby) does NOT have a recognizable human shape.

At the most extreme, during the first few days after fertilization, the embryo is a microscopic ball of cells, visually indistinguishable from the embryos of many other species. Dr. Mohler opposes use of the morning-after pill (despite the fact that scientific studies show that these medications prevent fertilization, not implantation) because he believes – on no scientific or biblical basis – that these tiny spherical balls of cells are the moral equals of babies. (I believe it is Mohler’s metaphysical assumptions that convince him of this, not any actual bible verses.)

At six weeks gestation (four weeks post-fertilization) – the most common week to have an abortion – the embryo is the size of a lentil, a quarter the diameter of a penny; it doesn’t have a face but does have a tail. Dr. Mohler opposes abortions even at this very early, embryonic stage, before the ultrasounds he speaks of begin to show a baby-like shape. It is important to understand that the majority of abortions – about two thirds – take place in the first eight weeks of pregnancy, three-quarters by week nine, 93% within the first trimester (first 13 weeks of gestation), yet pro-life propaganda tries to bias people’s moral intuitions by focusing their attention on much older fetuses, much later in pregnancy, when only a very small percentage of abortions ever take place, many of these because of medical conditions which are incompatible with life of the mother or the fetus or both, or because “pro-life” obstacles have blocked earlier access to abortion.

If we really want to educate our moral intuitions about the issue of abortion by looking at facts about the unborn revealed to us by science and technology, we need to pay attention to the very great changes that take place during pre-natal development. There is not just one moral question, there are many, because what inhabits the womb – the candidate for our moral concern – is constantly changing. The early embryonic stage called a blastocyst – a tiny hollow ball of about a hundred cells – is a very different kind of being from an 8-week embryo with a beating heart but only a hollow tube for a brain, which is very different from an 18-week fetus with a smooth-surfaced, unconnected brain, which is very different from a 28-week-old fetus, whose brain has begun to resemble ours, and might even achieve consciousness.

What differences, if any, make a moral difference? According to Dr. Mohler, none do. If something is human and alive, that is all that needs to be said, all he needs to know. But the very fact that seeing images of the unborn does affect our moral intuitions implies that people are not absolutists like Mohler, with one simple abstract idea about life in their heads. It is not merely the idea of human life that motivates our judgments, but the sense that there is someone there, not just a living thing, but a being of a kind we can recognize as one of us. I submit that, if you look at a blastocyst, you will not get that intuition, and for good reason. It is not a baby. It is not one of us. It is an organism which, with luck, and if given a nurturing home, will develop into one of us, by undergoing a series of radical changes. Those changes, taken together, make a moral difference.

So when we argue about abortion, we should be clear about what stage of pregnancy we are talking about. Even if an argument can be made against abortion at 20 weeks, on the basis of controversial claims about fetal pain, and with the aid of images of late term fetuses, this argument has nothing to do with the vast majority of abortions which take place at very early stages of development.

Dr. Mohler says “the pro-abortion side” is “forcing themselves into a position where they argue a consistently absolutist position, an absolutist position that is clearly not shared by a majority of Americans.” But of course when Mohler says “Make no mistake, a consistently pro-life position requires opposition not only to some abortions but to all abortions,” he is staking out an absolutist position himself, one also not shared by a majority of Americans. Gallup polling shows a fairly consistent majority of Americans favor some limitations on abortion, but not an absolute ban. Roe v Wade was a compromise which recognized something many Americans agree with, that abortion late in pregnancy is morally worse than early abortion, and the earlier it is, the less objectionable. According to a 2002 Gallup in-depth review, “In general, a majority of Americans are tolerant of abortion in the first trimester (averaging 62% across several polling organizations since 1996), a majority oppose it in the second trimester (67%) and most oppose it in the third trimester (82%).”

I agree with Dr. Mohler that “Americans have a troubled conscience on abortion and an unsettled mind.” People who, like Dr. Mohler, see the world in categories of black and white by ignoring or dismissing all the complexities of the world, are not so troubled. They have settled minds, and are eager to settle ours on what they are certain is the simple truth. But the world is a complicated place. We are complicated beings. Our origins are complicated as well. Maybe, in such a world, it is appropriate to have a troubled conscience and an unsettled mind.

My first entry in this blog, almost a year ago, was also on this subject. You can find it here: http://thecounterbriefing.blogspot.com/2017/01/babies-ultrasounds-and-worldviews_32.html

Mohler's Alienation from Two Secular Moral Campaigns

Dr. Mohler is uncharacteristically clueless in today's (Jan. 9, 2018) Briefing.

In discussing television programming's "staggering growth", largely coming from "the seemingly endless budget lines that help produce new shows for streaming services” like HBO and Netflix, Mohler says that "we always need to remind ourselves that programming is not really to entertain us, it is to entertain us in order to send advertising to us. That's what pays the bills." Does Dr. Mohler know what a streaming service is? Has he ever subscribed to Netflix? These are generally services that provide programming for a fee with no ads. That is how they manage to raise the big bucks -- from millions of paying subscribers.

As for the NY Times ad about truth (“The truth is hard. The truth is hard to know. The truth is more important than ever.”) Dr. Mohler gives barely a hint that he comprehends what the ad is really about. Standing up for truth has a special meaning now, when the very concept of truth is under attack by our own president, who lies constantly with careless abandon while attacking responsible reporting as "fake news", and the mainstream media as "the enemy of the American people", while Fox News and a large faction of the Republican party play along, undermining trust in the press and in the very idea that there is really a difference between truth and falsehood -- that it is not all just a matter of opinion and partisanship and who speaks the loudest or with the most confidence, or what we want the truth to be. Add to all this an actual Russian campaign to pollute our public discourse with lies, and reputable media like the NY Times find themselves in a fight to defend not only their traditional role as purveyors of truth, but to defend the very idea of truth itself.

And what did Dr. Mohler have to say about the Times "He said. She said." ad?

He said. She said.
He said. She said.
He said. She said.
He said. She said. She said. She said. She said. She said. She said. She said. She said. She said. She said. She said. She said. She said. She said. She said. She said. She said. She said. She said. She said. She said. She said. She said. She said. She said. She said. 

I don't know about you, but I found that inspiring. Life-affirming. Truth-affirming. But once again Mohler described it, as he had the speeches at the Golden Globes about the #metoo movement , as "virtue signalling". That is snide and cynical. When Mohler speaks with admiration of a moral exemplar, is he also just virtue signalling -- showing that he's a good guy because he takes the side of the right? I suspect he wouldn't admit that, and I wouldn't accuse him of it. What we've witnessed in the last few months -- a moral campaign against sexual assault and harassment and for the recognition of the inviolable dignity of women, in which formerly silent victims have found their voice -- is, I would think, not only a heartening development for secular people, but for all decent people, including Christians. But I don't recall Dr. Mohler having a single positive thing to say about it.

Perhaps he hasn't because the #metoo movement is, in a way, part of what Mohler calls "the sexual revolution" or "the moral revolution". He is committed to the proposition that sexual morality based on personal freedom and autonomy can't work. Whatever the new development in this ongoing revolution is, he says it is impossible, it is self-contradictory, it will only lead to chaos. The new morality, he has claimed, is not "resilient". But here we are. We have men and women who determine for themselves the relationships, sexual or otherwise, they wish to enter, and now abusers of this freedom, usually men exploiting their positions of power, are being punished and stigmatized. Moral rules are being made clearer and stronger. Secular society is showing how it's done, how a moral order is shaped and reinforced, not by quoting scripture, but by brave people standing up and saying, "I was wronged. I stand in solidarity with my sisters and we will no longer stand for this." Meanwhile evangelicals, having supported Roy Moore or mumbled their reservations into their beards at the last moment, sit on the sidelines and have nothing to say except snide comments about "virtue signalling".