Overview - Abortion

By 25-28 weeks it has established nearly all of the neural networks that the fetus will eventually be born with. Studies of evoked responses in preterm babies show that both visual and somatosensory potentials can be elicited from as early as 24 weeks and are well developed by 27 weeks. This suggests that the nociceptive system, which has been associated with various types of conscious experience in adults (including pain) is functional from at least 24-26 weeks development (Hrbek et al., 1973; Klimach & Cook, 1988). In other words, the fetal brain has developed a full and functional neural network by roughly 20-22 weeks, and some if not all of the structures necessary for adult consciousness by 24 weeks.

Harris is correct that the large majority of abortions in the United States are performed prior to a fetus acquiring anything like conscious brain activity. But most are performed at or after the middle of the first trimester when human development is well under way and the fetus is noticeably past being “just a few cells.” In a typical reporting year an estimated 1-1.4% are performed after 19 weeks development (21 weeks gestation). In 2002 an estimated 1.29 million abortions were performed in the United States of which 844,122 were reported to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Between 1973 and 2003 the estimated total is around 43 million (CDC, 2002; Finer & Henshaw, 2006). 1-1.4% of this amounts to around 12,000-18,000 post-19 week abortions. The Guttmacher Institute has estimated that in 1992 4,940 abortions were performed after 23 weeks gestation (21 weeks development), and 1,170 after 25 weeks gestation (Guttmacher, 1997; Coincidently, 1992 trends are very close to the annual average for 1977 to the present, and can be reasonable extrapolated).

In other words, around 1,000 to 5,000 abortions annually—some 30,000-150,000 since 1977—are knocking on the door of aborting a conscious, suffering fetus. That’s an awful lot of late-term abortions to sweep aside with glib remarks about a housefly’s brain!

Even if we grant that a fetus is not human at any point prior to actual birth, we’re still left with the larger question reproductive responsibility. No reasonable person would dispute that a fetus is a human being in formation. At conception a process begins which culminates in a living human soul—the same process that brought each and every one of us into the world. In the very least this ought to concern a prospective mother. It should lead to serious spiritual struggles that give the word prayer a whole new meaning. If she does then decide to abort it’s reasonable to expect that within her own powers of reproductive choice (which in the Developed World at least, are considerable) she would never again allow herself to be in that position. I have to wonder about the motives, and principles of those who demand the right to interrupt this process for reasons other than medical necessity whenever they so please with little or no accountability whatsoever—particularly if they’ve already had at least one abortion.

Many Pro-Choice advocates avoid these struggles by pointing to the damage caused by generations of unwanted children. Abortions, they insist, will alleviate that suffering. Then there are abortions that are necessary for medical reasons. Once again, these are indisputable truths, and in fact most Pro-Life advocates do not dispute abortions that are necessary to save a woman’s life. But those who suffer the curse of being unwanted are no less sacred and loved by God than we are (if anything, they are more so). Nor are their lives beyond redemption. To say the least, it is presumptuous to assume that we can judge whether their lives are worth living or not—or even that we have the right to. The need for medical necessity is of course, on more solid ground. But as abortions go they are rare, particularly in the developed world. On average, three-fourths of all women who have had abortions cite one or more of the following four reasons,

• Concern for or responsibility to other individuals (though who, and on what reasoning isn’t always clear).
• They cannot afford a child.
• Having a baby would interfere with work, school or the ability to care for other dependents.
• That they do not want to be a single parent or are having problems with their husband or partner.

Few of these women aren’t struggling with hardships, nor are they making their decisions flippantly (a point to which I’ll return shortly). But even so, none of this falls within the realm of “medical necessity.” The fact of the matter is that in the developed world at least, the large majority of women having abortions are choosing to have them for reasons that are largely personal. At best, “medical necessity” is a smokescreen.