New Beginnings, Old Excuses, and Abortions for All!

by Simon Smith

Re-starting this blog is becoming a habit; it’s very nearly an annual event. Apparently, we can’t get through a full 12-month round without dozing off, going on the run, emigrating, being eaten by lions, or getting distracted by shiny things. Nevertheless, it’s time to wake up, wipe the soup from our eyebrows, take the lion off our leg, and settle down to – oh look, a magpie.

Quite a lot has happened of late and, what’s more, we have quite a lot of interesting things to lay before the reader this time around. Before we get to all that, however, I should like to begin the new season by picking up on something from one of the last posts of 2018; the very last, in fact. I planned to do so at the time, but now I’m rather glad I didn’t. Since then, the thought has been percolating, which has led me to consider a possible inconsistency in my basic philosophical position.

The post is James Beauregard’s ‘Human Dignity: Recent Developments’ (12/08/18) and the something in question is Dr B’s reference to ‘Democratic politicians favouring abortion’. At the time, I was simply going to point out the very loaded nature of that phrase, the implied division between those who are for abortion and those who are against it. This, I suspect, is a common mis-characterisation.

Of course, no one, or almost no one, is actually for abortion per se. No one except me and even then, only for specific individuals and always and postnatally.

However, if our intention is to frame the whole thing in intractably antagonistic terms, then this is the way to do. Similarly, we might talk of those who are in favour of institutionalised misogyny and the socio-political oppression of women and those who aren’t. Or Catholics and normal people. In neither case will we do anything to resolve the central problem or even promote sensible, grown-up discussion. We will start a row but, just possibly, that’s the point.

As it happens, I have no real interest in rowing. My view of the whole abortion ‘debate’ – in case any one is interested – is that my half of the species has had far too much to say on the matter as it is. It doesn’t directly affect us, yet we presume to decide. I don’t say that men should be prohibited from having a view on abortion, but I do say that both the discussion and the decision should be handed over to women, for whom, very obviously, it is a more practical and potentially urgent issue. Women deal with the consequences in every possible way; their voices alone should be heard. The role of men, by contrast, is to listen quietly to all that is said, to proffer an opinion if and only if explicitly invited, and then with proper humility.

The main reason for bringing this up now is, as suggested, because it got me thinking about my own philosophical position and whether it’s as consistent and coherent as I like to think it is.

The position in question concerns what I am reasonably certain is the metaphysical bottom-line when it comes to being human; more properly, it’s about what it means to be human, what it means to be a person. That meaning lies in the fundamentally social reality of persons. Essentially, metaphysically, ontologically, logically psychologically, epistemologically, and in every other way conceivable, human beings are connatural with others. We are born into and out of concrete relations, our every conception of ourselves and one another, indeed, of selfhood or personhood at all, is learned from and within these relations. In Buberian and Macmurrian style, the basic unit of human existence is I-Thou and this is so, if I may quote The Sisters of Mercy, First and Last and Always.

Just to clarify, the social self is only metaphysical in that it is basic or primitive. It is anti-metaphysical insofar as it rebuts absolutely the inertia of traditional, solid-state metaphysics and is grounded in empirical, which is to say, experiential evidence.

A crucial element of this anti-metaphysical metaphysics is the role of the other. Others constitute the self: they teach us to be people, to act and to think in all the ways we actually do act and think. In a sense, that is, the self is the other internalised and returned, re-enacted. That’s how we learn about morality: by ‘putting ourselves in one another’s place’ and re-enacting that place, filtered or refracted through our own developing sense of self. To put it slightly differently, human beings are essentially dialectical.

One very common reaction, at this point, is to caricature the whole thing as some form of act or process reductionism: to read it as saying, we are nothing but social relations or actions or processes, or what have you; to insist, in short, that it leaves no room for the individual. That’s a very analytic reaction and, more often than not, a very American one. Friends and colleagues from the US seem particularly wary of any shift away from the primacy of the individual, which is not, perhaps, entirely surprising. It is wrong, however. Understand the logic of intentionality correctly and you will find plenty of room for the individual.

That, however, is beside the point, which for present purposes concerns the emphasis on the role of the other. And yet, when it comes abortion, I am firmly convinced that it is ultimately for the woman to choose or not to choose, thereby privileging the mother over the foetus. It doesn’t follow from this that I don’t regard the foetus as a person or as lacking in all the rights thereof. As it happens, I don’t regard the foetus as a person, at least not in the same sense as the mother, but neither do I think that this is an essential or necessary feature of the argument. Following Judith Jarvis Thomson, I think we can happily grant the foetus the full suite of human rights, without altering the requirement to recognise the mother as primary or undermining the argument in favour of heeding her choice.

And there’s the rub. In privileging the mother over the foetus, am I simply reiterating the very individualism (socio-political and metaphysical) that I’ve been trying to overcome? Does all this just boil down to the same old slogan: The Mother’s Right to Choose! To be honest, I’m not sure. If it is, then the whole debate might be completely irresolvable after all. There just doesn’t seem to be a fair way to resolve competing rights in a situation like this; ‘first come, first served’ isn’t going to cut it when we’re talking about life and death. Also, rights are a social construct, they belong to the societies which legislate to protect them. I which case, we might as well just go with who shouts loudest.

Having said as much, I will also say that I don’t think this is a capitulation to individualism and talk about rights. I think that my reason for privileging the mother over the foetus comes down to something a bit more basic: specifically, whether we treat others as people or objects.

By ignoring the mother’s choice, whether in the particular instance or the wider conversation, whether by legislation or force – and America in particular seems to be keen on using both; though they are in no way alone in this – we are treating her, not as a person in her own right, but as a thing. Or let’s say, potentially treating her as a thing. After all, we might more accurately be said to be treating her as a function of male sexuality, male desire, male understandings of reproduction. Or we might simply be infantilising her, treating her as a potential person (whatever that means) who is not – and according to our gender-definitions never will be – in a position to make her own decisions or stake any claim to self-determination, her own body, etc.. My suspicion, though, is that we’re just treating her as an object: a pot or receptacle for the life-giving baby batter (as well as a lot of emotional stuff like self-hatred, anger, fear, impotence, and so on).

In case anyone happens by who struggles to appreciate why bad things are bad unless they impact on everybody, objectifying 52% of the population really is bad for everyone, because when I objectify you, I objectify myself. If it is true that selfhood is a reflection – more accurately, a refraction – of the other, that my self is constituted by the other, then an other that is an object – even or especially if I determine them as such – can itself only constitute another it-object. To put it a little bit more simply, the projection is reflexive insofar as it reflects back upon me and so constitutes me as projecting-object. Even more simply, part of what it means to be a person is to treat other people as people; fail to do that and we undermine our own ‘personhood’. Perhaps that’s one reason why misogyny and racism are so appalling: they undermine our capacity to be human. In effect, they depopulate the world.

That, in a highly condensed nutshell is why I think my interpersonal, inter-relational, social, anti-metaphysical metaphysic of persons doesn’t simply collapse into old-fashioned and essentialist individualism at the first whiff of a real, practical problem. Still, it’s worth thinking about.

Nota bene: I should like it to be noted – and to get all possible credit for doing so -- that I restricted my choice of euphemisms for semen to ‘baby batter’ when I could, at the very least, have used ‘erectoplasm’, ‘gentleman’s relish’, ‘schnizzle drizzle’ or even ‘love custard’. You are welcome.